2021 in Review

January 30, 2022 by Nicole Harrison in United States

In 2021, we tried to balance a lot of outdoor time with finally getting to see people in person. We moved out of our downtown apartment and bought a townhouse, and we spent a lot of time exploring our new neighborhood as well. We miss the view from our apartment, but I’m really enjoying having a private door to the outside. The pandemic has continued to be rough in many ways, but we’ve been very lucky to keep having new experiences in our adopted PNW home.

Something I have really learned to appreciate in Seattle is sunlight in January. It’s rare, but when it does happen, the low angle of the light is always beautiful, no matter what time of day. It’s almost special enough to make all of the gray days worth it.

Sunlight through the Boulder River canyon

Nicole at Boulder River Falls

More light through the canyon

In the spring, we spent some time playing in the snow, which I still miss from living in Colorado. Seattle stays pretty snow-free in the winter, but the snowy mountains are just a couple of hours away.

Dramatic clouds around the Mt. Baker ski area

The start of an ill-fated snowshoe trip

Hikers taking a picture on top of frozen Lake Twentytwo

Spring also brought a lot of beautiful flowers.

Spring blossoms

A flowering bush

A striking water lily flower

Jason found many small creatures to take pictures of.

On one of our hikes, Jason spent a long time trying to take the right picture of a dragonfly (I think this one succeeded)

A bee and a flower

Jason has been getting into taking photos of birds, which is concerning for his lens collection

A smaller bee with a bigger flower

A small lizard friend

A coho salmon swimming upstream

Our first camping trip of the year was at the end of a washed out forest service road, and it had an amazing view. The Jeep has opened up a lot of dispersed camping options for us, and we love it.

Photo of a tent next to a Jeep next to a grove of trees, with mountains in the background. — One of my favorite campsites

The summer was full of beautiful landscapes.

The view at Packwood Lake

The view from Dog Mountain

A beautiful autumn stream

Sunset near Mt. Ellinor

The view over the North Fork Nooksack River

A set of small waterfalls

For my birthday weekend we met friends at a cabin near Mt. Adams, where we stared at the views of the mountain at every single time of day.

I woke up at random, saw this sunrise, and made Jason get up to photograph it

Midday

Sunset

Dusk

A selection of water pictures from the summer - waterfalls, streams, and rivers.

Nicole and Martin behind a waterfall

Martin, waterfall model

From the inside of a waterfall

A stream and a sunbeam on my birthday

A picturesque lunch spot on a backpacking trip

The view from one of our campsites

Nooksack Falls

In the fall, Jason had a short work trip to New York. It was wonderful to be able to walk around the city and eat all the amazing food.

Jason had a weekend trip with friends to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree, where he took a lot of pictures of spiky plants.

A cactus in Joshua Tree National Park

Abstracted leaves

The world of Joshua trees

The view at Joshua Tree National Park

Washington is, as always, full of tiny, fascinating plants and animals.

Tiny mushrooms

A spiderweb contrasting with the human-made signage

Cold autumn leaves

Tiny tiny organisms

Since we live four blocks from the zoo, we decided we had to go see the animals.

Happy penguins

Some zebras pass by a giraffe

A resting warthog

I believe this is a Steller’s sea eagle

A passing gorilla

This is a somewhat random collection of photos from around town over the year.

Caprica on our new roof deck

One of the final sunrise views before we moved out of our downtown apartment.

Nicole with the Fremont Troll in our new neighborhood

Floating lanterns at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony at Green Lake

The adventurous Pika at St. Edward State Park.

Pike and the sunset

And then some random photos from day and weekend trips.

The mouth of the Columbia River from Astoria

Nicole points out…something

Nicole and Megan at a beautiful lunch spot

The life of Portland Party Puppy, Instagram star

Albus…sniffing the water

The sun through the trees from our cabin porch on a weekend trip

We ended the year in Astoria with this view of a tree and a cat.

Waves and Mountains

December 14, 2021 by Nicole Harrison in United States

Halfway through our trip, we moved to a resort in Wailea, on the southern coast. It was much flatter and drier on that side of the island, but the feral chickens remained (they seem to be everywhere, and I don’t hate it).

A rooster slowly circles us at Maui Brewing (photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the handsome feral colony cats (photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunsets on the beach (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of two naked people made of sand on the beach — A magnificent art piece we found on the beach (photo/Jason Rafal)

We went on a snorkeling and scuba trip to Molokini Crater, which is one of the classic snorkeling spots off the coast. We also opted to try Snuba as a less-intense intro to see whether we’d ever be interested in scuba diving.

I’m a nose breather and get paranoid about running out of air, so it was difficult for me to adjust to the basic breathing mechanics of Snuba. Our instructor, who was exceedingly patient, finally told me to just stop thinking and stay underwater. I still wasn’t extremely comfortable after that, but I was able to enjoy the beautiful fish and have some fun. After a few minutes of Snuba, we did some normal snorkeling and saw a rare Hawaiian monk seal, which you’ll have to take my word for because we didn’t have a camera with that range underwater.

Photo of Nicole in the water with Snuba equipment on — I was still trying to figure out what I was doing (photo/Jason Rafal)

Underwater photo of fish and the legs of swimming people — Honestly the iPhone-in-a-bag thing worked better than expected (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of Nicole under the water in Snuba equipment — Learning the ropes (photo/Jason Rafal)

Beautifully patterned fish (photo/Jason Rafal)

When it started to look like the weather might get less favorable in the next couple of days, we decided to go up to Haleakala National Park for sunset. The classic trip is going up for sunrise, but that required either obtaining a rare permit or joining a group tour bus, and we didn’t feel like we wanted it that bad. We thought we had more time, but there was a long line to get into the park, so we got to the visitor center right before sunset and had to jog up to the summit. Jogging at 10,000 feet is no joke. We made it up to the top the minute the sun started to touch the horizon and watched with a few dozen people while it went down and the entire sky began to glow with bands of color. We both agreed that it was worth the drive, and also that we’d come up during the day and hike around next time. I’d also love to go up for stargazing - the incredibly clear 360 degree views would be incredible.

Photo of the Haleakala Observatory in front of a sunset — The Haleakala Observatory on our run up to the summit (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of the Haleakala Crater covered in clouds at sunset — The cloud-covered Haleakala crater with the shadow of the summit behind (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of the Haleakala sunset — Instagram version - all alone at the top (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of people taking pictures of the Haleakala sunset — Reality - jostling for space at the summit (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a man standing on the roof of a car watching the Haleakala sunset — A man watches the sunset fade from the roof of his car (photo/Jason Rafal)

After a full day of relaxing (kind of crazy for us), we checked out on Monday and went on a drive around West Maui before our red eye flight. We started out by driving to Lahaina, which is a very pretty and very touristy beach town that was the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom in the early 1800s. Apparently the town was a center of prostitution as the sailors came into port until the newly converted queen made it illegal.

Our next stop was Honolua Bay, which is amazing in a few ways. To get there, you have to walk through a forest of huge trees that’s apparently also full of unmarked graves. The path itself is on private land, but all beaches in Hawaii are public so there has to be some sort of access. The beach is rocky but fairly protected, and there were several people snorkeling. The beach also provides a good view of the surfers at the edge of the bay, so we watched them for a while.

Photo of tree branches covered in vines — Massive trees covered in vines (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a rooster — A very handsome rooster (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a heron flying over the ocean — A heron flies over the ocean (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of surfers in the water — Watching surfers from Honolua Bay (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next stop was Nakalele Blowhole, which we had seen from above on our helicopter tour. It’s a blowhole on the coast surrounded by volcanic rock, and it reminds me of the geysers in Yellowstone. It’s surprisingly large at times, and the spray kept creating rainbows as it dissipated. My favorite part was actually the coral-like volcanic rocks, which were often smooth on one side and sharp and spiky on the other.

Photo of the Nakalele Blowhole — The Nakalele Blowhole, which we also saw from the helicopter (photo/Jason Rafal)

After the blowhole, our audio guide firmly recommended that we turn around and drive back the way we came, and I made the call to keep going around the north shore of the island. This turned out to be a highly questionable decision, as it took us on an often one-lane mountain pass. Trying to pass other people was dangerous at the best of times and impossible at the worst. At one point we had to inch past a rental mustang that had tried to get around someone and had gotten stuck halfway off the side of the cliff (we saw the driver down the road on the phone, and then a tow truck with a very grumpy driver coming up the road a few minutes later). I was continuously thankful that Jason is such a good driver as we inched around blind corners and I scouted for oncoming cars as we drove along the hillside. You can tell we were stressed because we have zero pictures. For what it’s worth, it was incredibly remote and gorgeous, but I don’t think Jason would want to drive it again.

Once we got down to Kahului, we went to a beach and spent an hour sitting, drinking a beer, and watched the kite surfers as the sun dropped low in the sky. It was an excellent way to end the trip.

Photo of wind surfers with west Maui in the background — Sitting and watching the kitesurfers (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a man jumping above the water while kitesurfing — Things I would never be able to do (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a beach at sunset with kites in the air and on the ground — The last sunset of the trip (photo/Jason Rafal)

If you’ve read this far, here are some restaurant recommendations from our trip:

Paia Fish Market: there are a few locations, but we went to the one in Paia. It features customizable entrees and quality fish.
Mama’s Fish House: this is definitely a more upscale choice, but the ambience, drinks, and food were all very enjoyable, and the restaurant has a beautiful location on the beach.
Baked on Maui: this is a great breakfast and lunch place near the start of the Road to Hana.
Monkeypod Kitchen: there are a couple of locations. The food is really solid and the drinks are amazing - it’s always on the top of the list for best Mai Tai in Hawaii.
Kihei Caffe: another good breakfast and lunch place with a great loco moco
Cuatro: a BYOB latin fusion restaurant with two seatings per day. The food is excellent and it has an unassuming vibe.
Drift Coffee: the best coffee we had on the island.
Star Noodle: a picturesque restaurant on the water with a variety of soup and dry noodle dishes.

Basically, go to Maui. It’s amazing.

Far Above Jurassic Park

December 08, 2021 by Nicole Harrison in United States

During our trip to Maui we took a helicopter ride, and this beautiful collection of photos seemed to deserve their own blog post.

It was a struggle to find a company that would have doors off and also allow Jason to bring a real camera, and we ended up booking a private tour with Go Fly Maui, a small company that’s mostly a helicopter pilot training school but also does some private photography flights. The co-owner and our pilot, Nick, recommended a flight path and then we set off over western Maui.

Photo of an aerial map of the Hawaiian islands — The map Nick used to suggest routes (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of ocean waves from above — Waves from above (photo/Jason Rafal)

Doors-off helicopter flights aren’t for everyone - I think I would have been pretty nervous if I hadn’t been up in both a helicopter and an open-cockpit biplane before. It helped knowing that our pilot was good enough to both teach other people and put up with crazy professional photographers. Nick was also fun to hang out with and pointed out all the points of interest.

Photo of the Maui coast — Flying along the west Maui coast (photo/Jason Rafal)

We started off by flying along the northern coast of Maui, where we saw jagged cliffs, surfers, and beautiful beaches.

The Nakalele blowhole from above (photo/Jason Rafal)

After we hit the northernmost edge of the island, we headed up into the mountains. The mountains of west Maui are largely inaccessible except by helicopter or backcountry expedition, and I was excited to get to see the area. It’s a ton of absurdly lush jungle with absurdly tall waterfalls and, predictably, looks a lot like Jurassic Park. There’s a drought right now, but the majority of the waterfalls still had water tumbling down hundreds of feet of cliffs. The scale was impossible for my mind to comprehend - I kept trying to look at trees to figure out relative sizing, but it only got me so far. I have rarely felt so small.

Photo of Honokohau Falls — The awe-inspiring, 1,100-foot Honokohau Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo looking down a waterfall — Looking down (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a helicopter cockpit — I tried to just let Nick worry about what all of these meant (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of the Wall of Tears — The Wall of Tears (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of the Needle — The Needle (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a mountain ridge with the ocean in the background — Looking south (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of mountains with the ocean in the background — West Maui Forest Reserve with Pacific Ocean behind (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of mountains — Looking east (photo/Jason Rafal)

After the mountains we headed back toward the airport, over ground that looked very flat and brown by comparison. Maui had sugar cane processing until 2016, and Nick pointed out the old equipment as we flew overhead.

Photo of sugar processing equipment — Old sugar processing equipment (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of Nicole on the helicopter — Back on the ground; obviously had a terrible time (photo/Jason Rafal)

If you can’t tell from the above photos, the helicopter ride was amazing. If you’re not afraid of heights and are okay with the expense (it was the most we spent on an activity on the island by far), we would definitely recommend it. When we drove around the west side of Maui later in the trip, it was really cool to see some of the coastal places we had flown by at ground level as well.

Bugs, Beaches, Banana Bread

December 04, 2021 by Nicole Harrison in United States

Maui was our first trip out of the continental US in two years, and after having to cancel two planned trips due to covid, neither of us was actually able to get excited about being on a trip until we actually got to the island. After about 24 hours, I started to feel like I could relax and believe that I was on vacation. It helps that Maui is gorgeous and easy to get around, and the food is wonderful.

For the first half of our trip we stayed in an Airbnb in Upcountry Maui near Makawao. The listing warned that we’d need to be alright with jungle sounds, which I was excited about. We got to the cabin after dark and the surrounding forest was full of the sounds of bugs, wind through leaves, and the occasional feral chicken cluck. In the morning we were woken by roosters (several times) and treated to an expansive view of forest, mountains, and a bit of ocean. Our host gave us a tour of her property, which is a garbage-dump-turned-coffee-farm that is dotted with fruit trees, ancient burial sites, and some amazing rock drawings along the river. We also each got approximately 30 bug bites on the tour, which we treated with calamine lotion from the cabin while being overwhelmed by nostalgia.

Phot of the view from the cabin over a jungle with mountains in the distance — The view from our cabin in Upcountry Maui (photo/Jason Rafal)

The spiders were equal parts harmless and alarming (photo/Jason Rafal)

Learning about the pictographs and petroglyphs

Riding around with Sydney

An incredibly old mango tree

Trees on the property

Coffee plants with coffee berries

The mesmerizing banyan tree, with new roots dropping toward the ground

A lifebuoy at one of the swimming holes

On our first afternoon we decided to drive a little bit up the road to Hana to see a couple of attractions and get some food at a roadside stand. The stand was closed, either from covid or it being Thanksgiving week, so we pressed on to the next stand and ate banana bread for lunch before doing a little exploring. First lesson learned: never count on availability of food on the road to Hana. Once we had at least some food, our first visit was to the Keanae peninsula, where we ate bread and watched the waves crash against the dark volcanic rocks. The banana bread (Aunty Sandy’s) and the coast are both worth a stop in their own right, but together they are really excellent.

Delicious banana bread after a long drive

The view at Keanae Lookout

After the peninsula we went back toward town and stopped at the Garden of Eden arboretum, which is one of many stops on the road to Hana that is privately owned. Land rights for these areas are very interesting - some of them are private and you pay to go onto the land, some are private and you will be trespassing if you go onto the land, and some (though not a lot) are public land (state, regional, or national parks). The Garden of Eden charges admission but is definitely worth a visit to see a beautiful variety of tropical plants.

Photo of an older black dog with a lei and a ribbon that says "Hawaii" — The garden’s guard dog, a sweetheart named Dan D Lion (photo/Jason Rafal)

I’m still trying to figure out what kind of tree this is, but it was amazing to stand under (photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent sunset on a local beach, hanging out with sea turtles. They’re awesome and calming all at the same time.

On Wednesday we set out early to do the full road to Hana. It’s a wonderful experience, but it’s an incredibly long day trip. We made 8 stops with some short hikes and didn’t swim at all, and it took almost 12 hours round trip. I’ve heard that some people stay overnight in Hana, which is definitely a good idea if you want to see more. It’s also a good idea to get an audio guide that you can play in your car. We bought one from the (somewhat problematically named) GyPSy Guides, but once we got back I heard there’s a local version as well. The guides are downloadable and tell you information when you hit certain GPS points, which is really helpful in areas without service, and they also share a lot of interesting history and culture.

Since we got an early start, we were able to get parking at the very popular Twin Falls, which includes a short hike to a couple of lovely waterfalls. Some of the non-volcanic rock walls here have a beautiful honeycomb pattern, which makes the waterfalls even more interesting to me. We didn’t swim because it was 8 am and 65 degrees out, but it would have been a nice place to swim.

The waterfall at the end of the Twin Falls trail - if you look closely, you can see two annoying drones

I love the honeycomb rocks at this waterfall

Stupid invasive fire ants

A tiny friend

A collection of businesses on the road to Hana

Our next stop was the Hana Lava Tube, where we explored the large cavern with flashlights while reading informative signs. The cave was relatively untouched and completely unlit, which was a nice alternative to some other caves we’ve been to, and we saw a lot of stalactites and stalagmites.

Reading the signs in the lava tube

A very bold plant trying to grow in the darkness

My favorite part was the view up to the entrance

Our next stop was Wai'ānapanapa State Park, which was one of my favorite areas of the day. They recently switched to a reservation system, so you have to book a time slot in advance and be in and out within that 2.5 hour window. There’s a black sand beach, which was quite crowded but still awesome, and a hiking trail that winds through black rocks and neon green vegetation along the coast. It was pretty amazing.

The somewhat crowded black sand beach

Tell me you spent 3 days in the jungle without telling me

We ate lunch in Hana, which is tiny and adorable and has several food trucks (though most of them were closed). After lunch we pressed on.

Since there was parking available and we had to take advantage of that, we stopped quickly at Waioka pond, which would be an amazing place to jump off rocks and swim if you’re not in a hurry, and then Wailua falls, which is another beautiful and quite tall waterfall.

The Hana Highway from an overlook

Insane water colors at Waioka pond

An adorable cat at one of the parks

The lovely Wailua Falls

Our last top was just inside Haleakalā National Park, where we took the Pīpīwai Trail. This was my other favorite part of the day. We hiked through a bamboo forest, where the wind made the bamboo stalks clink together, and I felt like I was surrounded by a giant wooden wind chime. The end of the trail is a valley with a huge waterfall, which was beautiful as well. The bamboo forest alone makes it worth the trip, but it is half an hour past Hana and takes some extra time. The park also has smaller waterfalls, pools, and a beautiful rugged coastline.

An amazing Banyan tree on the trail

A moment of peace in the bamboo forest

Waimoku Falls

Photo of a stone bridge over two waterfalls against the backdrop of a forest — The view looking up ‘Ohe’o Gulch (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of Nicole sitting on a rock with the ocean on the background — Nicole on the coast next to ‘Ohe’o Gulch (photo/Jason Rafal)

Since the road to Hana is busy tourist destination with complicated property laws and access rules, these are the general tourist guidelines that should always be followed:

Pull over to let locals pass
Don’t go on private property unless explicitly invited to do so
Don’t stop or park on the road
Respect No Parking signs
Don’t use drones
Generally, just be respectful and kind and ready to change plans when needed

After our long driving day, we spent Thanksgiving cooking and relaxing in the cabin before we migrated to the other side of the island for the rest of our trip.

Photo of Nicole sitting on the porch of a cabin with a rainbow over the jungle in the background — We got a rainbow for Thanksgiving on our last morning at the cabin (photo/Jason Rafal)

Off to the Islands

July 11, 2021 by Nicole Harrison in United States

At the start of the year, when we weren’t sure what covid would look like by mid-year and whether we’d be vaccinated, we booked a 4th of July trip to Orcas Island as an excursion that would be fairly local but also pretty different from our normal lives. Even when we were able to get vaccinated in April and May, we were excited to spend some time in the islands.

Orcas Island is the largest of the San Juan islands, which are near the Canadian border and are just as close to Vancouver Island as the Washington mainland. The trip from Seattle involves an hour and a half drive and then an hour ferry ride, so it feels like a fairly significant trip. Orcas is known for its beauty and plethora of outdoor recreation opportunities. We stayed in the little town of Eastsound, where we could walk to restaurants and also enjoy water views.

A ridiculously beautiful potato dish (photo/Jason Rafal)

Dinner on a beautiful patio (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our first non-food activity was the one I was most unsure whether I wanted to do - a biplane ride. A husband and wife team run a small business taking people on flights in a 1927 biplane, and when Jason said he wanted to go, I decided I would probably be able to get through it without throwing up.

Our plane (which was a whole 5 years newer than the stamp claimed) (photo/Jason Rafal)

After receiving our safety briefing, life jackets, ear plugs, caps, and goggles, we climbed into the plane. We just barely fit in the side by side seat in the front (it was made for much smaller people), and our pilot sat in the seat behind us. Climbing into the plane did not raise my confidence - at first glance, it looks flimsy at best and hazardous at worst. It’s all delicate wings and small sticks tied together. As soon as we took off, though, I felt immediately better. The plane is loud, since it’s not a closed cockpit, but it’s so light that ascending felt effortless.

The view from the air (photo/Jason Rafal)

We saw dozens of sailboats hanging out in coves (photo/Jason Rafal)

A view of the terrifying plane wings in the evening light (photo/Jason Rafal)

For an hour, we flew around the islands, flying to the top of Mount Constitution at 2400 feet elevation before dropping down to almost skim the water. It was exceptionally fun, even as I kept turning sideways to give Jason a little more room to take pictures.

A peek of the Mount Constitution tower (photo/Jason Rafal)

Mount Constitution with the San Juan Islands in the distance (photo/Jason Rafal)

Flying low around an island (photo/Jason Rafal)

Circling while waiting for our turn to land (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next day, we drove to the top of Mount Constitution to take in the sights. The mountain is in Moran State Park, which has lovely forests, lakes, and views of the islands. The top of the mountain has a weird medieval-style tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 30s, which is visually confusing but gets you up a little higher to see the views. We could see Mount Baker in the distance on the mainland, as well as some of the Cascades and a tiny bit of Mount Rainier.

In my happy place: on top of a mountain (photo/Jason Rafal)

Mount Baker on the mainland (photo/Jason Rafal)

A rather flustered bird (photo/Jason Rafal)

From the top of the mountain, we took a hike before heading to Buck Bay Shellfish Farm for lunch. This restaurant came highly recommended, and for good reason - it’s casual, has lovely outdoor seating, and the food is great.

After lunch we headed back to the park to paddle board on one of the lakes, where we alternated between laying in the sun and doing some strenuous paddling against the wind.

Jason floats in the sun (photo/Nicole Harrison)

On Sunday we hiked in Turtleback Mountain Preserve on the other side of the island, which had similarly great views of San Juan Island and Canada, and then spent the rest of the day hanging out and browsing the shops in Eastsound.

Some very green marsh scum (photo/Jason Rafal)

We joined the handful of people at Orcas Knob (photo/Jason Rafal)

Foxgloves on the trail (photo/Jason Rafal)

The north beaches of Orcas have exceptional sunsets, so we headed over there at about 9:00 each night to take in the views. There’s no large public beach, but there are a couple of small chunks of coast where we could sit with our fellow sunset seekers and take in the view.

Taking in the colors (photo/Jason Rafal)

The sun touches the horizon on a clear evening (photo/Jason Rafal)

The waves created by boats made a lovely texture contrast (photo/Jason Rafal)

It was a wonderful long weekend, only slightly soured by the cancelation of a ferry that resulted in us waiting for about 4 hours to board the next one. I suppose that’s island life.

2020 in Review

January 01, 2021 by Nicole Harrison in United States

I already wrote a little about 2020 in a previous post, As Far West As We Could Go, but it’s been quite a sobering ride. Looking back through photos, it’s bizarre but really nice to see pictures that feel like forever ago when it’s felt like time has been frozen for so long. I’ve been learning to appreciate how lucky we were in 2020, and these photos really back that up.

Right before everything shut down, we had two friends come out to visit us a week apart. Sage and I got tattoos; we went exploring on an island with Martin; we all spent time with Loki before losing him about six weeks later. In the first part of the year, we also spent time at social events without masks, which just looks wrong now.

Family picture with Sage

The initial outline of my tattoo

A man and his stick

A dragon sneaks up during a Chinese New Year celebration

And then, suddenly, none of those things were happening anymore.

A deserted scene in Pike Place Market (photo/Jason Rafal)

We went to Astoria, Oregon and the nearby coast to spend some socially distant time with friends and family a couple times over the year.

We saw a lot of fun and crazy looking plants and animals on our hikes.

We had some wonderful times at lakes.

Paddleboarding on Baker Lake

A sunny morning on Fish Lake

The beautiful view at Picture Lake

Lily Lake in the snow

We also spend some beautiful times at the coast (and sound).

A sunset at Cape Disappointment

Dramatic mountain views from the Dungeness Spit

Riding the ferry back to Seattle from Bainbridge at sunset

Looking out over Samish Bay

A paraglider at the Samish Overlook

I am running out of categories, so here are some random photos from hikes in 2020.

Of course, I have to include some photos of our amazing view of Seattle, especially since we will be leaving this apartment soon. Please enjoy a sunrise, a few pictures of the moon (one with a bonus firework), and a picture of the awful air quality during the late summer fires.

Thanks for following along with this year’s adventures in the Pacific Northwest. It’s been a really rough year in a lot of ways, but we’re grateful to have spent it together in this beautiful place. Hopefully we’ll get to see some of you in person in 2021.

Mount Rainier, This Time in Winter

December 30, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in United States

Between Christmas and New Year’s, we spent a couple of days in a cabin near Mount Rainier. We got incredibly lucky with weather, as we were there between snow storms, and we were able to do a lot of beautiful hiking and snowshoeing.

Some mushrooms that look like potato chips (photo/Jason Rafal)

The lower elevations in the park were incredibly green (photo/Jason Rafal)

A log providing a home for other plants (photo/Jason Rafal)

A somewhat rare photo of both of us (photo/Jason Rafal)

We got lucky with weather for the entire trip, but the day we went snowshoeing was amazing - we had a completely clear, bright blue sky above the snow-covered mountain. It was visually overwhelming, but very beautiful.

Jason is enjoying sunstars on his new camera (photo/Jason Rafal)

Following tracks down the slope (photo/Jason Rafal)

Windswept snow against a saturated sky (photo/Jason Rafal)

I insisted on sitting in the snow, but I almost took us both down trying to get back up (photo/Jason Rafal)

A classic winter scene (photo/Jason Rafal)

After a day of snowshoeing, we went to Alder Lake, down the valley from Rainier, and spent some time exploring the otherworldly land of mud and stumps.

A wholly different planet than earlier in the day (photo/Jason Rafal)

In addition to sunstars, he’s also leaning into black and white (photo/Jason Rafal)

On our way home, we decided to hike to a set of waterfalls. The hike was a bit harder than anticipated on tired legs, but the waterfalls were all wonderful.

It had a very Jurassic Park feel (photo/Jason Rafal)

Slightly frozen mud everywhere (photo/Jason Rafal)

A tiny, very bright fungus (photo/Jason Rafal)

It was a very fun trip to finish off an exceptionally rough year, and I find myself very grateful to be in Washington right now.

Moody Weather in Glacier National Park

October 17, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in United States

In early October, following a crazy couple of months of work, we drove to northern Montana for a few days at Glacier National Park. Glacier had been on my list for a while, and I was especially excited to be able to get out there in 2020. In a somewhat unfortunate turn of events, the Going to the Sun road through the park closed due to snow and never opened up again while we were there, but it actually made it a little easier to just focus on the western side of the park.

The weather was definitely challenging, with a lot of rain and moody clouds. There were also more people than usual in the western area of the park; this was partially due to an increase in covid-driven visitation, and partially because only a third of the park was open. We ended up getting creative with which area we visited at which time, which was essential to handle both the weather and the unexpected crowds.

A dim sunrise over Lake McDonald on our first morning at the park (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were there at a great time for fall colors. Many of the aspens were a bright yellow, and the larches were beginning to turn too.

Contrasting trees and dramatic clouds (photo/Jason Rafal)

Birds flying away from a colorful aspen tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

When the main road was too busy for our comfort level, we went out to Bowman Lake, which ended up being an amazing choice. The weather cleared somewhat while we were there, and the sun rays were beautiful against the mountains.

Quickly moving clouds at Bowman Lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

More beautiful scenery at Bowman Lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

I know, it’s the same mountains, but they are just so beautiful (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were also able to spend some time at the Avalanche area, which is a top destination in the park for a reason. It’s incredibly beautiful, and Avalanche Creek, which runs along the trail to Avalanche Lake, has amazing carved red rocks that contrast with the green moss and clear blue-green water.

Looking down into the creek (photo/Jason Rafal)

The view up the creek (photo/Jason Rafal)

Avalanche Lake is much smaller than Bowman Lake, but incredibly dramatic - it reminded me of some of the lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The view from the other side of Avalanche Lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

I can’t remember what Jason was saying, but he was being funny (photo/Jason Rafal)

More mountain views from the lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

Going to Glacier for a few days was wonderful, and we will definitely be going back to see the rest of the park (slightly earlier in the year). For now, I’ll leave you with this adorable donkey that lived next to our Airbnb.

Hundreds of Views of Mount Rainier

September 09, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in United States

For Labor Day weekend, we got a campsite near Mount Rainier National Park and had an amazing weekend exploring. It was definitely one of my favorite weekends of 2020.

In our experience, the secret to visiting a national park on a holiday weekend and not going insane is to get up early to see the parts of the park you really want to see, and then spend the afternoon relaxing while everyone is is crowding them. For us, relaxing happened at our large, very forested campsite.

One of my very favorite campsites (photo/Nicole Harrison)

A small lake against the backdrop of shorter mountains in the park (photo/Jason Rafal)

Any trip to Mount Rainier National Park, when it’s clear out at least, involves a lot of staring at the weirdly captivating and gigantic mountain. I was used to 14ers in Colorado, but they fit in there; in an area that’s generally much closer to sea level, a peak over 14,000 feet looks very out of place.

The mountain, with the moon above (photo/Jason Rafal)

More views of Mount Rainier (photo/Jason Rafal)

A watchtower perched high above the clouds (photo/Jason Rafal)

We saw a lot of wildlife at the park, even more than we had expected.

A herd of mountain goats (photo/Jason Rafal)

If you squint, you can see a bear in the field (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next day, we went to another area of the park to see some other angles of the same mountain (you’d think it would get old, but it somehow doesn’t).

A waterfall on our hike (photo/Jason Rafal)

Taking a break after a hike up (photo/Jason Rafal)

Mount Rainier in the aptly-named Reflection Lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

Another view in Reflection Lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

A path to Mount Rainier (photo/Jason Rafal)

A classic view of Myrtle Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

As Far West As We Could Go

August 03, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in United States

I’m not even sure how to talk about 2020. It was a brutal year for so many reasons, and not being able to travel internationally seems very far down on the list, especially since we are privileged in so many ways. We were incredibly lucky to be able to take some time to explore some of the beautiful places a little closer to home this year, and while I don’t usually blog weekend trips, these ones felt extra special this year. On a logistical note, I’m writing this in December, but backdating the trips to when we took them for my future sanity.

We had never really spent time in the southwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula before, so in July we took a Friday off and drove to one of the campgrounds. Driving around the Olympic peninsula always takes longer than I’d expect - it’s not that big, but there isn’t really a way to drive through it - so it ended up being a driving-heavy weekend, but a beautiful one.

On our first afternoon, we saw some of the area near our campsite (near, in this case, meaning within an hour). I got to hang out with a giant tree, which I always love, and we found a beautiful waterfall just off the road.

Self portrait in sunglasses (photo/Jason Rafal)

Approaching the largest Sitka spruce tree in the world (photo/Jason Rafal)

Wide angle makes both me and the tree look much longer (photo/Jason Rafal)

A waterfall with a Jurassic Park feel (photo/Jason Rafal)

On our full day, we drove out to Ruby Beach. It’s a popular destination, but since it’s a pretty long beach, it didn’t feel too crowded. We were there on a misty, somewhat sunny day, and it was really beautiful. Beaches in the Pacific Northwest seem to be characterized by small rock islands close to the shore, which is an excellent feature.

Emerging onto Ruby Beach in the mist (photo/Jason Rafal)

Enjoying the lunchtime views (photo/Jason Rafal)

Watching waves through caves (photo/Jason Rafal)

A shiny shell among the rocks (photo/Jason Rafal)

Misty rocks on the beach (photo/Jason Rafal)

Windswept trees through the mist (photo/Jason Rafal)

After the beach, we ventured into the Hoh Rainforest. Since it was mid-summer, the rainforest was fairly dry, but we got to spend some time among mossy trees and waterfalls along the river. There are so many shades of green in the Pacific Northwest forests, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.

So many shades of green (photo/Jason Rafal)

Crossing a creek in the rainforest (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our campsite was walk-in, had no road noise, and was next to a lake. It was lovely.

Views from the lake where our campsite was (photo/Jason Rafal)

Pretty light at our campsite while Jason cooks (photo/Nicole Harrison)

The view when I took the paddle board out on our final morning (photo/Nicole Harrison)

2019 in Review

January 26, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in United States

2019 was a crazy year for us. We sold our house, moved across the country, got new jobs, missed a vacation due to some awful travel luck, explored a new state, took a surprise trip to Paris a week before our planned Asia vacation, managed to make it back to Colorado for the grand opening of our friends’ distillery, spent Thanksgiving with Jason’s family on the East Coast, and ended the year with a family trip to Morocco and Lisbon. Eight states, eight countries, four continents. An absurd number of travel issues and wonderful new experiences.

We blogged our trips to Canada, Paris, Asia, and Morocco separately, but we also did a ton of exploring in Oregon and Washington, and we wanted to share some of what we experienced outside of our big international trips.

There are a lot of pictures in this blog, so I decided to really push the limit of our new CMS and just create more carousels than should ever be on one page. Please enjoy a snapshot of our first year in the Pacific Northwest.

I’ll start with some photos from our apartment. We love our apartment view, which looks out over Capitol Hill and First Hill. It’s beautiful at all times of day and all times of year. I’ve also included a few pictures from our apartment building’s 41st story rooftop, which has a lovely view of the Space Needle and sound.

The Center for Wooden Boats is a very cool society that gives free boat rides on Lake Union on Sunday mornings. If you’re willing to wait in line to sign up, it’s a great way to get out on the water. We got to hang out on a sailboat with a volunteer who told us about the radioactive tomatoes that grew in Gas Works Park when he was a kid.

In April, we decided to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which is north of Seattle. In order to avoid the rather intense crowds and traffic, we got up absurdly early and got there for sunrise, where we hung out in the fields and took pictures with a handful of other photographers.

In early June, we started out a month of family visits by heading to Astoria to see Nicole’s family. We hung out with friendly cats, hiked through the woods, and took in the views from the Astoria Column.

A few days after we got back from Astoria, Jason’s parents came to visit us in Seattle. While they were here, we did a day trip out on the water to look for whales. We learned a lot about Orcas, transient and resident, and saw a lot of other birds and wildlife as well.

For Pride weekend, our friend Sage came to visit us. Along with partying way too hard, we also went to Whidbey Island and visited some of Sage’s favorite places from when his grandparents lived there.

Seattle has some wonderful parks. These pictures are from Gas Works Park and the Japanese Garden.

At one point during the summer, we spent a weekend on Whidbey Island. We stayed in a cabin in the woods, hiked along the shore, and hung out with some very old trees. It was a good weekend.

I know this may be hard to believe, but I am running out of categorizations. So, here we have A Brief Study in Seattle Architecture.

Emilie and Ally came to visit us in August, and we went to Olympic National Park for a couple of days. It was incredibly stunning - it was a gorgeous weekend, and we had a pretty crazy cloud inversion when we were on Hurricane Ridge. We also did a short but exceptionally difficult hike overlooking Lake Crescent. On our way home, we stopped at a beach to enjoy the sun. The Olympic Peninsula is a pretty incredible place.

We went on quite a few hikes over the summer. They ranged from incredibly rainy to sunny and clear, but they were all incredibly green and beautiful. Goat Lake was one of my favorites.

In October, we met a few friends out by Levenworth, WA for a weekend. Levenworth is a very odd place - it’s a Bavarian themed village, a concept thought up by the University of Washington as a response to the town’s concern about staying financially afloat. Oktoberfest in Levenworth is, of course, a huge thing, and the weekended ended up being a fun combination of outdoor adventuring and tipsy people watching.

We spent a lot of time walking around Seattle with friends, going to parades, drinking coffee, reviewing local art, and everything in between. This collection is an assortment of photos from those random outings.

In November, we went to Astoria to see Nicole’s sister and dad, and our friend Megan met us out there as well. We went to Youngs River Falls, which still had some beautiful fall colors.

In December, we visited Cannon Beach for the first time with Megan and her incredibly fluffy dog, Albus. The Oregon coast is amazingly beautiful, and we had a lovely sunny, misty day on the beach. We also hung out in Astoria again, where we visited the Maritime Museum (this attraction comes highly recommended, and we agree completely).

To finish the 2019 set, here are some of the adorable dogs around Seattle that we were able to see and spend time with. Seattle has some great dog parks and dog events, and we were able to be brief, vicarious dog owners with friends and strangers.

Slightly Younger Tiles

January 12, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco, Portugal

On Saturday, we ventured out to visit a tannery. The tanneries of Fes are famous for their age and methods — the oldest dates to the 11th century, and they still operate essentially the same as they did then. The tanneries are on everyone’s must-do lists for Fes — they are smelly, but visually fascinating. Men pre-treat goat, sheep, and dromedary leather before moving the pieces into large vats of dye. When the leather has been sufficiently treated, it is taken up to the hillside to dry for a day. When the pieces are dry, they are brought back into the Medina to be cut and sewn into belts, bags, jackets, pillows, and shoes.

Ally walks through our riad (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The tanneries are surrounded by shops, and in order to see one, you essentially have to look like a tourist until someone offers to take you through a shop to see the tannery. We were picked up by someone who belonged to a cooperative, and they started us out at the leather shop.

It was a clear, cool morning, and the smell was surprisingly mild from the terrace at the top of the leather shop. The man who was showing us around handed us all mint to hold under our noses and then explained the details of the tannery to us as we took pictures.

A man works in the dye vats (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Afterward, we were taken through the shop and encouraged to purchase a variety of products. There’s a tension between the tourists who want to see the tanneries without paying anything and the cooperatives who want to make money, but we had already decided to look for some belts. Jason also found a jacket that fit shocking well, so we more than paid for our pictures.

After the tannery, we were swiftly guided to an argan oil shop, where we re-learned about creating argan oil (I hadn’t realized last time that the seeds are toasted to make edible oil and left untoasted for cosmetics). This shop had a few additional scents and products that the last one didn’t, and it also had Moroccan spice mixes and saffron, which we stocked up on. Saffron is expensive anywhere, but it’s much cheaper in Morocco.

Our third stop (I was starting to worry how many stops there would be, as it’s especially difficult to un-entangle yourself once you’re in the co-op circuit) was a weaving shop where men wove blankets, scarves, bags, and pillows from a combination of cactus threads and sheep’s wool. The man who owned the shop called himself Mohammad Couscous, and he was very excited to show us around the shop and tell us about the different products they made. He also taught us how to put on scarves for trips into the desert — we had a lot of people tell us that coming back to Morocco for a few days in the Sahara was essential.

Emilie learns proper headscarf use (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the weaving shop, we were guided to an embroidery shop, where women were doing some insane double sided embroidery onto table cloths, runners, napkins, and pillows. If you’ve never embroidered, I’m not quite sure how to explain to you how crazy double-sided embroidery is. Usually, you have a pretty side, and an ugly side, and that’s just how it is. The women in the shop in Fes were using a crazy double thread technique that allowed the pretty side to be both sides, so everything they made is reversible. Along with the addition of multiple colors, it was very impressive.

Crazy double-sided embroidery (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the afternoon, we headed up to the Marinid Tombs, which was supposed to have the best view of the city. It’s the place to go for sunset, but we went up a couple of hours before sunset, which was actually really nice because it wasn’t crowded.

To walk up to the tombs, we exited an outer bab and headed up the hill through the cemetery. The remains of the tombs are at the top of the hill, and they create great frames for the views of the city. Apparently not much is known about the tombs because there hasn’t been a thorough archaeological dig in the area, which is kind of crazy since it is believed to date from the 14th century. It’s a really cool area, and a great way to get a panoramic view of the city.

Hiking up through the cemetery (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Fes, with the Atlas Mountains in the distance

More views of Fes through ancient walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Arriving at the tombs at the top of the hill (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Some of the more adventurous climbers (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset from a teahouse in the city (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One thing that’s difficult in the old medinas, and especially in Fes, is that only half of the streets/alleys are on any map, even a downloaded Google map, so it’s difficult to figure out how everything connects. This creates some wonderful quiet wandering, but it also leaves obvious tourists susceptible to local teenagers, who will tell you that you’re going toward a dead end, guide you in a different direction, and ask for payment. At one point this happened when we were actually lost and unable to just brush the kid off, and he started yelling at us for not paying him enough. It’s uncomfortable, and difficult to always avoid.

For dinner, we went to a place that served both traditional Moroccan food and what I would call interpretations of other foods. We were constantly amused that the depictions of tacos were clearly pressed burritos. Ally and I both got pastillas, a traditional Moroccan dish consisting of meat and nuts wrapped in phyllo dough and covered with cinnamon and icing. It’s weirdly sweet for a savory dish, but sweet-savory combos seem to be a favorite in Moroccan cuisine.

A pastilla (yes, that’s sugar) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Sunday, we explored some more of the central medinas of Fes before catching our flight to Lisbon.

We first visited Al Attarine Madrasa, which is a 14th-century center of religious learning. The courtyard is incredibly intricate and beautiful, and the student’s quarters above are much more plain, but also provide beautiful views of the surrounding city. The tile work at this madrasa is really insane — there’s a bunch of Arabic calligraphy tiles, which are incredibly beautiful.

Another incredibly ornate room (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Emilie and Ally with some of the calligraphy tile (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Views through a window (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also walked by the nearby Kairaouine Mosque and University, which is considered the oldest university in the world. We were not allowed to go in, but there were a couple of spots where we could look through open doors onto the beautiful courtyards within.

We also wandered to the river, took pictures of one more bab, and had some tea before finding lunch.

The river through Fes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For lunch, we ended up at the restaurant of one of the bigger riads near ours. It had a really large, beautiful inner courtyard, and it was a lovely, quiet, green escape from the surrounding medina. I immediately made a cat friend, who jumped on my lap, purred, and snuggled before the riad owner came and picked him up, saying that he usually puts the cat in his room for meal times so he won’t harass the patrons.

Nicole’s new cat friend (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunlight through a big tree in the courtyard (have you noticed Jason’s trip-long sunstar obsession?) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The lunch was a perfect goodbye to Fes, and we headed to Portugal full and happy.

Monday was our full day in Lisbon, and we all immediately knew that we wanted more time there. It’s just a very appealing city. The buildings are colorful and interesting to look at, the hills keep things interesting and beautiful, and the food is great.

Nighttime streets in Lisbon (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One thing that we had really missed in Morocco was good coffee, so we visited two coffee shops on Monday morning. Both were delicious. We also dropped by Bertrand, which is the oldest operating bookstore in the world — it dates to 1732.

Emilie in front of Bertrand (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In order to get a feel for the city without stressing ourselves out trying to see all the sights in one day, we signed up for a free walking tour. This was a lot of fun and made us realize how little we knew about Portugese history. The 1755 earthquake, which was one of the most defining events in Lisbon’s history, was the most frequent topic as we walked through some of the central neighborhoods of the city.

Narrow original streets in Lisbon (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The 1755 earthquake happened on November 1 (All Saints Day), which meant that most of the Christians in Lisbon had lit candles in their houses and gone to church for the morning. When the earthquake, which was an estimated 8.5-9.0 in magnitude, hit in Lisbon, the churches and other large buildings collapsed, the candles set the city on fire, and the tsunami killed an enormous number of survivors of the first two catastrophes. While there were more surviving humans and buildings in the Jewish and Muslim communities on the hillsides, the center of the city had to be completely rebuilt. It’s really interesting to see the differences between the old surviving architecture and the much newer template of the rest of the city — the buildings are all colorful, and have similar architecture, but the grid, including streets and buildings, is much wider in the rebuilt part of the city.

One of the churches that lost its roof in the earthquake (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also learned about the 1974 revolution, which felt surprisingly recent. A military coup marched into Lisbon to overthrow the authoritarian regime, and an unexpected civil resistance joined in. Impressively, the government stepped down with almost no violence, and when the public took to the streets to celebrate, someone put a red carnation into a soldier’s gun. The symbol spread through the streets, and became the namesake of the peaceful Carnation Revolution.

Our guide also walked us through Alfama, one of the original remaining neighborhoods in Lisbon. It features tiny, narrow apartments inhabited by mostly older residents, and it feels like stepping back in time.

A view over the Praça do Comércio (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking up toward the Alfama neighborhood (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The residents of Alfama still use by-hand communal laundry (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A resident of Alfama looks out over the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After our walking tour, we went to the Time Out Market, which is a very cool (and quite crowded) indoor market with a bunch of shops and places to eat.

Tasting an egg tart in Time Out Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A Santa driving a streetcar (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we went to a wine tasting shop, where we could use a pre-loaded card to purchase small pours of different Portugese wines. Green wines, or wines created with young grapes, were one of our focuses — we think they might become trendy after rose.

After sampling a considerable amount of wine, we got a ride down to LX Factory, which Emilie aptly described as “Hipster Disneyland, in the best possible way.” It’s a collection of shops and restaurants in old factories and containers, and there are different kinds of visual art everywhere. We walked through some shops and had a craft beer at some tiny old school tables, which were cute but problematically small for Jason and I.

An adorable plant shop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A combination bookshop and artist workshop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For dinner we went to A Valenciana, which was written up in an Eater guide we found. It was a really nice example of a traditional Portuguese restaurant — the other people in the restaurant were mostly locals, and the dishes were simple and delicious. We ordered a lot of Piri Piri chicken, which we learned was from Portugal, which came with rice and French fries. They actually forgot Emilie’s vegetarian dish (we never actually figured out what it was), but she was a very good sport and ate carbs instead. It felt like a very Portuguese way to end the trip.

That evening, we walked back to our hotel, wandering the streets nearby for a while. Everything was all lit up for the holidays, and we even found a Feliz 2020 sign. We’ve all decided that we’ll try to come back to Portugal soon.

New Year’s lights around the Praça do Marquês de Pombal (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Color-changing lights above a busy street filled with smoke from street food (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In The Land of Derbs and Babs

January 08, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco

On Thursday, we visited El Badii Palace, which was commissioned and built in the late 16th century. We went in the morning, and it was vast and fairly empty (visiting top attractions before 11:00 am is always a good idea). Visitors are still allowed to climb on a lot of the stone ruins, which was unexpected and fun for us. I also made a pregnant cat friend.

Emilie in front of one of the palace pools (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole with her cat friend (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A cat eyes one of the nesting pigeons (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Walking across one of the empty pools (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the terrace (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The palace walls are lined with massive stork nests, and we spent some time watching the big, gangly birds walk along the walls. They are very odd looking birds, and it’s especially cool to watch them take off and soar around the walls.

A large and precarious-looking stork nest (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We made a joke that this stork was delivering a baby (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we had some mint tea and then went to Cyber Park, which is a large and very well-kept park near the medina walls. It had a ton of olive trees, locals studying, and cats. It was a very enjoyable experience overall.

Ally, our resident expert mint tea pourer (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Waiting to cross the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Thursday evening, we joined a food tour to learn more about the local food culture. We started out at one of the shops in the Jemaa el-Fnaa market. The market itself is somewhat of an assault to the senses — there are bright colors everywhere, many strong smells, stalls selling everything from goat heads to 90s TV remotes, and lots of people yelling (at each other, at tourists to buy things, at the crowd to get out of the way). The heckling at tourists has varying levels of creativity — many men just yelled at us to come look at their wares, but one yelled “I want to be on your basketball team!” at me as we walked past.

Most of the buildings around the city are three or four stories, and when people enter them, they usually try to go up as much as possible to get a vantage point off of the street.

This first shop had a simple menu: lamb, beans, and bread. We were warned not to fill up on the bread, which was something we struggled with for the next three hours. The lamb was cooked in a large underground oven, where the whole lambs were hung for several hours to roast. Once the roasting was complete, the lamb was served plain with sides of cumin and salt (it can’t be seasoned before cooking because the oven is too hot). They also served the lamb as tanjia, which is a stew cooked in an urn-shaped clay pot.

One of the men in our group, who felt the need to assert himself as an adventurous eater, asked if he could eat the eyeball. Our guide obligingly brought him half a lamb’s head and taught him how to extract the eyeball, and to his credit, he did not have a strong reaction — he said it mostly tasted very intensely of lamb. I was also impressed that none of the other 8 people on the food tour freaked out.

The market from the shop rooftop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We had a few snack stops over the next hour, including delicious filled flatbread, soup, olives, snails, and very large and delicious doughnuts that were dipped in honey. We also sat down to try some meatballs made with sardines, which are a local favorite.

Our guide explains different colors of olives in front of an olive shop (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Making delicious filled crepes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Doughnuts in progress (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our last savory stop, when we were all feeling quite full already, was at a woman’s cooperative that made couscous. The kitchen was tucked away behind a traditional women’s market, which had closed for the day, and it was a welcome respite from the busy medina streets. Our guide talked us through the proper way to prepare couscous (it’s far more intensive than the brief steaming that we’re used to in the United States), and we enjoyed some fresh couscous with vegetables that the cooperative made. It was served with buttermilk, which was an interesting touch. If you get a chance, ask Emilie what she thought of the couscous-buttermilk experience.

We finished out the food tour at a shop that served pastries and smoothies. Smoothies aren’t traditional in Morocco, but they’ve become popular over the past couple of decades. The general method of ordering is to pick a base, either orange juice or milk, and then add a couple of fruits and nuts, if desired. We got an assortment of pastries, which was great because it allowed us to try things we probably wouldn’t have. Morocco is big into a few flavors, including rose, orange blossom, and almond. Marzipan is a very common flavor in cookies, which I’m not a big fan of, but sometimes the other elements balanced it out well for me. Some of the cookies were deep fried, which is always delicious, and honey never hurts either.

On Friday, we had to get up far too early to catch the first flight to Fes. I asked our riad to arrange a car for us at 4:00 am, and they went back and forth with us a few times to confirm that the time wasn’t getting lost in translation. I think I finally managed to convince them that I knew which time I was conveying by apologizing that they’d have to be up so early. This made them laugh.

Fes has the oldest medinas in the country, and they are surrounded by a wall and often ornate gates, or Babs. The narrow medina streets and derbs (roughly, alleys in neighborhoods) are often not on any maps, which makes it difficult to know when you’re going to hit a dead end.

Fes also quite hilly, unlike Marrakech. The difficulties of the hills ensure that there are fewer mopeds and motorcycles on the narrow interior streets, which makes the air quality much more enjoyable. We had all been struggling with breathing in the exhaust from the two-stroke engines in Marrakech.

After dropping off our bags at the riad, we went to visit the Royal Palace. Tourists cannot actually go into the palace, but the main attraction is the incredibly ornate and massive set of gates. The gates are huge — the smallest set was probably close to 10 feet tall. It’s a quick stop, but definitely impressive.

Sunlight through one of the old walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Some unique architecture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The other side of the famous Blue Gate, which we think might be even prettier (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Lounging cats (if you thought the communal cats were unique to Marrakech, you were wrong) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the beautiful gardens we found (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The absurdly large palace gates (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another beautiful bab (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We next walked through a large park before visiting the huge Cimetière Israélite. With the stark white tombs and deep blue painted accents, it reminded me of all the pictures I’ve seen of Santorini.

In the afternoon, we took a baking class at Cafe Clock, which has a few locations across Morocco. Our teacher, who knew French and Arabic but not much English, took us up five sets of twisting tiled stairs to the baking room, where she started teaching us how to make dough.

Morocco has a lot of traditional breads, but the one most often served with meals is made with wheat and semolina flour and allowed one short rise, so when it’s baked it rises an inch or two. It’s then cut into quarters for serving, so it can be torn up to pick up food or used as a pocket to make a sandwich. We made this one first, then moved on to a stretchier dough that we used to make stuffed flatbread, which we filled with sauteed vegetables and baked.

We also made several sweet cookies — fekkas, which are very similar to biscotti; ghriba, which are a kind of macaroon that tastes like a scone rolled in powdered sugar; and Moroccan snowball cookies, which are dipped in a fruit glaze and rolled in shredded coconut. Our teacher showed us how to form each one, invited us to take over, and then often fixed what we had done to make it closer to the actual thing. She was very sweet about it, though we all dissolved into giggles several times when someone thought they had been doing well and their bread had to be fixed a lot.

Looking down the stairwell from our kitchen (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The fekkas and snowball cookies were baked in the small wall oven in our kitchen, but the other items were taken to the communal bread oven to bake. And thus began our completely unexpected adventure across the medina.

Because it was Friday, the holy day, the closest bread oven was closed, so we took the breads to the next oven over. I have no idea how far it was, but we carried the breads through the medina for several minutes, much to the amusement of the locals, who called out to our teacher and laughed at us in our aprons. We later decided that we were glad it was Friday, because the medina was so much less busy — on a normal day, the crowd of people trying to get through the narrower areas of the alleys can be pretty intense, and we were all trying very hard not to drop any cookies or breads on the ground.

When we arrived at the oven, our teacher explained that many people brought their breads and cookies here to bake. The oven is huge, and the men who work there are constantly putting breads in, rotating them into the cooler areas of the oven, and taking them out. They gave our teacher a time to return, and we headed back to finish up some other cookies.

Crossing the medina (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Half an hour later, we ventured back across the medina to get our bread and cookies, which were impressively perfectly baked. When we got back, we did some final preparations before sitting down to our feast. Everything was really delicious, even some of the cookies that we weren’t sure we’d like. We did well, and/or we had a good teacher who fixed everything for us.

Our delicious filled breads (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Real Tajine

January 06, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco

Tuesday was our day trip into the Atlas Mountains. One other couple was supposed to go with us, but one of them got sick, so it ended up just being the four of us in a small van with our 22-year-old guide, Abdullah.

Abdullah first drove us to the Ourika Valley, where we stopped at an argan oil cooperative so that we could learn about the process of making the oil. There’s a seed that’s removed from the fruit of the argan tree, cracked open, ground to make a paste, and then squeezed to create oil. They walked us through all of the uses of argan oil, from putting it on food and in sauces to hair and skin treatments. It tastes a little like olive oil, but with a nutty undertone.

Ally learning to make argan oil (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The different stages of argan oil production (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From the argan oil cooperative we headed to Setti Fadma, which is a riverside town that caters to tourists looking to escape the heat and bustle of Marrakech. Setti Fadma is named after the ubiquitous female hand symbol that defends against the evil eye, also known as a hamsa. On the way, we stopped to take pictures on one of the many bridges that crosses the Ourika river. They were all rather rickety, and Emilie was not feeling it, but it was a pretty good view.

Emilie walking out to the bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our group on the bridge (Photo/Abdullah)

Abdullah explained that there are some issues with flash flooding in Ourika valley — Japan gifted the valley an alarm system, which has severely cut down on the number of deaths. As we went up the river, it became clear why it was an issue — there were a lot of restaurants and shops built in the riverbed, instead of higher up on the hill.

When we got to Setti Fadma, Abdullah handed us off to a local, who took us on a short hike up to one of the area’s waterfalls. We walked through some of the town first, where we saw shops, cats, and a couple of families of monkeys. We were the first group up there, which made it quiet and quite peaceful. We also saw some goats perched on the rocks nearby, which made me happy.

Walking through the riverside restaurants to get to the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Monkeys on the way to the waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The waterfall at the top (Photo/Jason Rafal)

How many goats can you spot? (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We took some pictures at the waterfall, then headed back down the rocks to enjoy some mint tea at the river. The Ourika river has a ton of restaurants along and even in the river — chairs and mats are set up along the water and on rocky outcroppings in the river, and everything is bright and contrasting colors. Sitting there and watching the locals prepare for the afternoon tours, I realized that even with all my time in mountain towns, this was a wholly unique experience for me. It was a wonderful place to enjoy a glass of hot mint tea.

After enjoying our tea, we drove through the other three valleys while Abdullah taught us about the area. The valleys are primarily agricultural, and we saw a lot of orchards and terraced wheat and vegetable farming. Originally, the towns were built on hillsides to make them more defensible against warring clans, and now the combination of villages and farmed terraces makes for an incredibly photogenic area. The terraces are also still farmed manually, with donkeys and wooden plows. When we stopped to take pictures on one hillside, a farmer joked with Abdullah that we could come help out. It’s always uncomfortable being part of such an enormous and obvious wealth disparity, but everyone we interacted with was very kind to us.

One of the hillside Berber villages (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A beautiful view of the Atlas mountains (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Layers of houses and farmed terraces (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another hillside village (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the last valley, we stopped in one of the Berber villages for lunch. We later found out from Abdullah that the three-person company that he worked for had gone door to door, asking if families in the village would be willing to cook for small groups of tourists. It’s a lot of work, but I imagine the financial benefit for the family must be huge. For us, it created a really special lunch experience that we were incredibly grateful for.

When we arrived at the house, we were greeted by the family, which included the farmer, his wife, their children, and his brother’s wife and her child. It’s pretty normal in Morocco for an entire extended family to live together. The children, who were between one and three years old, were adorable and came up to us for high fives. After the family showed us the tajine cooking and the bread oven next to their shed, the kids helped us wash our hands, then led us down into the orchard to have a seat. We were then served one of the most delicious meals we had in Morocco while we enjoyed the sun and fresh air. There was soup with argan oil, a salad similar to pico de gallo (but differently spiced), fresh bread, couscous, tajine, and fruit. The family was incredibly gracious and kind, and Abdullah stopped by occasionally to tell us about the food, but otherwise left us to soak everything in. While he was sitting with us at the end of the meal, we spent an amusing several minutes trying to explain to him what a manatee looked like, which is surprisingly challenging without a frame of reference.

The tajines finishing the cooking process (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Ally’s new friend helps her down the hill in the orchard (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our very attentive dog friend (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the way out of the mountains, we stopped at a part of the winding road where a motorcycle chase from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was filmed. Abdullah explained that the road was in great shape because they had re-paved for the movie. I have to agree with whoever scoped out that location, it’s a good place for a chase scene.

More farming and mountains (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our last stop before heading back into Marrakech was a traditional market outside of town, which is open twice a week. There were as many donkeys and mules in the parking area as there were cars, which was pretty typical for our experiences in Morocco.

In the market in Marrakech, the shopkeepers were so used to western tourists that we were constantly yelled at to buy things. In this market outside of town, there were very few tourists, and we were seen as more novel than as a potential form of income. Many people just stared, and some practiced random strings of English words on us. We also walked through the butcher section of the market, which I regretted as soon as I realized how many whole goat heads were on display. It was generally a bit uncomfortable, but walking through open air markets is always a great way to contextualize things.

The view approaching the market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Christmas, we ended up having a very European-feeling day. We went outside the medina to the newer part of town (newer here meaning very old, but not as old as the medina). We started the day at the Bacha museum, which was a beautiful museum that housed some important fashion and a photography collection. In Marrakech, I’ve found that I’m consistently more captivated by the museum buildings than the art inside of them — everything is so ornate, and the colors are fantastic.

Pomegranates in the courtyard (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole in one of the courtyards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We sought out the museum in the first place because we wanted to stop at Bacha Coffee, which is one of the famous coffee spots in the city. We missed it the first time because we didn’t expect it to be actually in the museum, so we spent a few minutes wandering around alleys that weren’t on the map of the medina before completing a full circle and entering the museum. Bacha is incredibly ornate and European feeling — it reminded us strongly of the famous old coffee houses in Italy and France, as well as Cafe Tortoni in Buenos Aires. They had a huge coffee selection, and we enjoyed a couple of desserts as well.

Side note: we almost didn’t get seated at Bacha Coffee because we didn’t have reservations. This happened to us several times in Morocco, which we were really not expecting at random restaurants during the low season. So generally, if you want to eat at specific places, it’s a good idea to make reservations.

After coffee, we headed toward the Jardin Majorelle, which was nearer to the newer part of the city. We made the mistake of arriving in the early afternoon, which is the busiest part of the day. The garden is stunning, but I’d recommend visiting as early as possible, just so you won’t have to wade through tourists. It has a huge variety of plants, from a large selection of cacti to a bamboo forest. There’s also a Berber museum on one side, which is a brilliant blue building. The juxtaposition and the colors are all pretty remarkable.

The welcoming cat (you knew there would be one) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Cactus spines in the light (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the garden we headed to the Gueliz area, where we found a Thai restaurant for lunch. We really didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty good, and we still needed a break from tajine.

After lunch we spent some time at a wine bar, which was an interesting experience. Moroccans are not allowed to drink alcohol publicly in Morocco, so this bar had sheets hanging between the terrace and the sidewalk to obscure the drinkers from the street. The bar had a nice selection of Moroccan, French, and Italian wines. Interestingly, tourists are allowed to drink in public, but for the most part we were drinking on upper terraces while at other restaurants.

For dinner we headed to a hip Australian-style restaurant that is a joint effort by three restaurateurs. It was a very classy, delicious, and surprisingly affordable Christmas dinner.

The Intricacies of the Old World

January 04, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in Morocco

Predictably, everyone was exhausted when we arrived in Morocco.

Jason and I met up with Emilie and Ally in the Lisbon airport for our flight to Marrakech. When we got to Marrakech, we had several challenges and misunderstandings, which were made more difficult by our exhaustion. First, we were staying in the medina, where cars couldn’t actually drive. So, our driver hired a porter to take our luggage and bring it into the medina, while he led us through on foot. When explained, this makes perfect sense, but none of it was conveyed in English, and we spent an alarmed couple of seconds trying to figure out if we would ever see our stuff again. Then, there was a booking error with our riad, and as they spoke very little English, we had a lot of translation difficulties in resolving everything. Finally, we tried about five ATMs before we found one that worked. It was all a bit stressful.

Silhouette of a Moroccan sunset (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I go into this detail because I think it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes travel is challenging or downright unpleasant. It’s usually temporary, and doesn’t usually detract from the overall amazing experience of getting out of your comfort zone, but it can suck. Once everything was all resolved, we treated ourselves to a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine, which helped everyone feel better.

Walking through the narrow streets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

This was our first introduction to tajine, which is a traditional dish in which meat and vegetables are cooked for about three hours in a covered clay pot over a fire. It’s very good, and when it’s done well, incredibly delicious. We ordered a Moroccan wine as well — we’ve heard alcohol is pushed on tourists, but we didn’t need any encouragement. The wine was very drinkable, but not overly complex, which was our experience throughout the trip.

Moroccan riads are primarily old houses with beautiful interior courtyards that have been transformed into bed and breakfasts. They vary in size, and since Moroccans often don’t eat out for dinner, they tend to be where meals are available to tourists in the older parts of town. The restaurants are often in the courtyards or the roof terraces of the riads, so that diners can experience some respite from the hustle and engine smell of the medina.

The riads all serve breakfast, which is a feast of breads, dips, and fruits, in the beautiful inner courtyards. Depending on the riad, there was also bird chatter and/or music. At our second riad, the man serving breakfast told us that he loves listening to Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, and Louis Armstrong. Much to our amusement, this riad also had a track of American pop songs played on pan flutes, including Evanescence and Avril Lavigne.

The stairway of our first riad (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Circular staircases were very common (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A typical breakfast spread (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Monday was our first full day in Marrakech, and we set out to do some exploring.

The 19th-century Bahia Palace was our first introduction to the insane amount of detailed extravagance featured in Moroccan palaces and tombs. The name “Bahia” means “brilliance,” and it’s not an exaggeration. The palace features beautiful gardens and courtyards with colorful tile work, detailed carvings, and gleaming stained glass. Maybe it’s just because we went there first, but Bahia Palace was my favorite.

Along the medina wall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Group self portrait in a very old mirror (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shadows against the carvings in the Bahia Palace (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Emilie in one of the extraordinary rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Stained glass on a light fixture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole, Emilie, and Ally through some of the carved doorways (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Carvings under a doorway arch (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the courtyards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The ceiling in one of the rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Irrigation in one of the courtyard gardens (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Views through the courtyard rooms (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we went to Saadien’s Tombs, which are considerably older (16th century). The tombs were apparently abandoned for centuries and then rediscovered in the early 1900s. The compound, which houses around 60 members of the royal family, consists of a courtyard and three large rooms. The most famous room, which is usually simply referred to as “the room with the twelve columns,” is a beautiful combination of tile, stucco, and cedar work. You can’t actually go into this room, and the viewing area only holds about 4 people, so there’s usually a line to look in. We stood in line for 20 minutes without actually knowing what we were waiting for, but the view was worth it. That being said, as with all of the sites we visited in Morocco, morning is usually better if you don’t want to wait in line for a long time.

One of the city’s mosques (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the tomb cats (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Inside the room with twelve columns (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the tomb walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we headed over to Le Jardin Secret, which is actually two gardens in the heart of the medina. The gardens are wonderfully lush and beautiful, and there’s a cafe that overlooks them. We stopped there for mint tea before heading back to our riad.

The roads were full of vans, cars, motorcycles, mopeds, horse-drawn carriages, and hand carts. I’ve never been somewhere that had such an equal distribution of several centuries of transportation. Unfortunately, because the city walls are so high and the inner roads are so narrow, the two-stroke engine exhaust gets trapped, making fresh air hard to come by. This makes the inner courtyards of the gardens, palaces, and riads even more welcoming.

Horses and carriages on the street (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Flowers in the garden (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view over Le Jardin Secret (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A subtle self portrait in a pot of mint tea (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the beautiful walkways in Le Jardin Secret (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The calls to prayer were something that I both expected and didn’t fully understand before we heard them. There are five each day, and you’ll hear each one at multiple times — there’s an initial call to come and pray, and then another when the prayer actually starts a few minutes later. The initial call blasts through mosque speakers, sounding almost like an upset sheep or a single human yell. Then, the other speakers crackle and catch up, producing a somewhat tinny melding of voices for the next few minutes. It’s loud, and different, and mesmerizing. For the first few days, I woke up for the pre-dawn call to prayer, which soothed my frustration at jet lag.

Another thing I didn’t fully expect about Morocco were the communal cats everywhere. I started seeing cats on the street immediately, but was surprised that most of them weren’t actually feral. We saw a lot of eye infections, but most of the cats were a healthy weight and had fur that was in great shape. As we continued our trip, we started seeing a lot of shopkeepers feeding and interacting with the cats, and one of our guides later said that they were the bosses of the medina. Some of them were kind of obnoxiously friendly, especially when you had food.

An adorable kitten lounging (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A fluffy kitten next to one of the walls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Rugs hanging out to dry (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset at the Koutoubia Mosque (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunset at a park near the Koutoubia Mosque (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Appetizers at dinner (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Exploring Macau and Saying Goodbye to Hong Kong

October 16, 2019 by Nicole Harrison in Hong Kong, China

On Friday, we went to Macau. We had gone back and forth on whether to go, but in the end decided that we wanted to complete our trifecta of Not China while we were in the area. Macau is…very odd. It was a Portugese colony starting in the 1500s, and now it’s the gambling capital of Asia, with an annual gaming revenue seven times larger than Vegas. Many of the Vegas casinos were also there - we took a shuttle from the ferry to the Venetian, just to see what it was like. It was exactly the same as Vegas, just…more. We spent a very surreal hour finding a place to sell us egg tarts and eating them along the canal, and then took several more minutes to find a way out of the casino.

The Grand Canal in the Venetian (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A quick note about egg tarts - they are traditionally Portugese, and Macau and Hong Kong adopted them from the Portugese settlers. They are absolutely wonderful - eggy custard inside a flaky, buttery pie dough. I determined during our time there that even a bad egg tart was good, but the good ones are really amazing. I am excited to keep trying them in Portugal.

Egg Tarts from Lord Stow’s (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Portugese colonization of of Macau created a city with a curious combination of traditionally Chinese and Portugese architecture and religious buildings. There are a lot of temples, and a lot of churches. There are a lot of colorful European buildings with ornate balconies, and a lot of narrow streets with Chinese neon signs. This melding created some of the first recognized fusion food, as well as some interesting fusion architecture. Parts of the city are very charming. Then, when you get near the casinos, it just all gets very weird.

Covered escalators taking visitors between a foodie neighborhood and the casinos (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Colorful buildings (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A canopy-covered set of stairs that I absolutely loved (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A moderately creepy metal man on the porch of an old house (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We next went to Senado Square, which was decorated for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We also got some free beer for World Tourism Day, which was pretty great.

Decorations for the 70th anniversary of the PRC (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Large chunks of Macau are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There’s an entire historical walk of buildings from Macau’s past, and one of them is the Ruins of St. Paul’s, which is the facade of a 17th century Portugese church. The church was destroyed twice between the 1600s and 1800s, and eventually they stopped rebuilding it. There are giant colorful bunnies out front, and I have no idea why. Macau seems to have a thing for rabbits?

Approaching the Ruins of St. Paul’s (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Yes, the bunnies were as weird and surreal as this picture appears (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking down on (and through) the Ruins of St. Paul’s (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A piano in a clear glass box that was drawing all kinds of musically talented tourists (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Grand Lisboa from the 17th century Fortaleza do Monte (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Walking under decorations for the 70th anniversary (Photo/Jason Rafal)

If you go to Macau, I highly recommend walking around and getting a feel of each distinct, yet somewhat blended area - the casinos, the historical sites, and the “normal” streets where people live.

Views of Macau (Photo/Jason Rafal)

More views of Macau (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking up at the Grand Lisboa casino (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After we got back from Macau, we spent some more time wandering the city and waterfront in Hong Kong.

Heading to the metro in Hong Kong (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We’ve decided to start taking self portraits on trips (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking out at the waterfront (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Saturday was our last day in Hong Kong, and we spent it eating, walking around, and generally appreciating the city.

A majestic heron (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For breakfast we went to Australia Dairy Company, which has very little to do with Australia except that the founder may have started it when he got back from traveling there. It’s a traditional cha chaan teng, which is a type of restaurant in Hong Kong that’s focused on efficiency - they get you in, seat you at a table with strangers, give you a menu, take your order (in our case, look at which things we pointed to), bring you food, bring you a check, and expect you to leave basically immediately. The entire process takes about 15 minutes, and is rather overwhelming for westerners who don’t know what’s going on. My general advice, if you don’t want to get yelled at in a language you probably don’t know, is to not ask questions or impede the process at all. Just order something, and it will be delicious.

Australia Dairy Company is famous for their scrambled eggs (because apparently Hong Kong is really into fluffy scrambled eggs for some reason). We walked in and were immediately handed English menus, because we’re giant white people, and sat down. The normal crowd orders off of Chinese menus that are under the table glass, and that menu is a lot larger, but we were happy to get the #1 and see what we got (we expected the scrambled eggs and toast, and got that but also macaroni).

After we were seated, five friends who had worked together in Hong Kong and were having a reunion were sat at our table. They were great - they asked to take pictures of our English menus, which had a cover they had never seen, and when we got the macaroni we weren’t expecting, they told us that it was indeed part of what we had ordered. They also asked how we heard about the restaurant, which I consider to be a good sign from locals, and took a picture of us under the disapproving glare of an employee.

Our breakfast (and a disapproving waiter) (Photo/Random Guy at Australia Dairy Company)

The scrambled eggs and thick white bread toast were delicious, and although I wasn’t expecting macaroni soup with ham for breakfast, that was delicious as well. Add in the milk tea at the end of the meal, and we walked away impressed, happy, and very full of liquid.

After breakfast, we took a walk to see the flamingos who apparently lived in the park next to our hotel. They were there, along with some turtles.

Flamingos doing those super weird things they do with their legs (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunbathing turtles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We decided to risk taking the train to the airport, since the protest activity had so far matched what Ed had told us. Hong Kong and Taipei both have a great feature where you can check into your flight and check your bags from the downtown train station, but we decided to keep our bags with us in case. In a somewhat amusing turn of events, this made things somewhat more difficult - we didn’t have our real tickets yet, and the airport security was tightly controlling who got off the train and was allowed into the airport terminal. I only had a flight confirmation on my phone, and was getting worried that it wouldn’t be enough, but eventually they decided we were clearly just Americans going home and let us through.

I think I have to close by saying that we feel incredibly lucky to have been able to visit Hong Kong when we did. The protests started again the day after we left, and the first protester was shot with live ammunition as the clashes with police escalated. From a logical point of view, it will be very interesting to see what happens to the region, but from an emotional place, we’re heartbroken to see the violence that’s tearing the city apart.

The Calm Between Storms in Hong Kong

October 11, 2019 by Nicole Harrison in Hong Kong

We picked a difficult time to visit Hong Kong.

We had booked this trip several months ago, before protests picked up in June, and as the trip grew closer we watched the news carefully and with increasing alarm, especially when the western news stopped covering the protests and it became increasingly difficult to find accurate information about what was going on in the city. But, the entire reason we had wanted to go to Hong Kong in 2019 was to experience the city before it just became the same as the rest of China, which was now threatening an escalated timeline. We decided to go, and we were very glad that we did.

Similarly to all of the places we visited, Hong Kong’s politics are very complicated. The city was a British colony from 1842 to 1997, when it was transferred to the People’s Republic of China. Part of the transfer was the promise of a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong, as well as leaving the current social and economic systems of the city intact until 2047. Early in 2019, the Hong Kong government introduced a bill that would allow certain fugitives caught in Hong Kong to be extradited to China, and the protests kicked off as a reaction. Since the protest movement grew, it has increased its message to five demands of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments that center around maintaining the Hong Kong Basic Law, which grants the city’s autonomy. Regardless of how you feel about Hong Kong’s protest movement, it’s incredibly important for establishing how China will treat its territories as it moves forward with the One China policy.

In the end, we got incredibly lucky with our timing of visiting Hong Kong. Our entire time in the city was between protests, which were generally slowing in preparation for a “big one” for China’s 70th anniversary, which was three days after we left. When we arrived in the city and met up with a local, he let us know that we didn’t have to worry about working around protests, so we were able to visit whatever areas of the city we wanted.

Okay, history lesson over for a minute so that I can talk about what makes Hong Kong special.

Hong Kong is a paradox of a city. It’s a world finance capital, with all the money, glitz, and glamor that comes along with that. It’s a former British colony, and it has the UK’s street signs and buses, as well as a lot of residents with British accents. It has areas where residents live in 100 square foot apartments and shop for everything at their local night markets. It has a younger generation who considers themselves Hong Kongers, and an aging generation who just wants the stability of being Chinese. It has Michelin-rated meals under $2, or over $50.

Our first morning in Hong Kong, we hiked up to Lion Rock. This was a bold move at 11 am - it was about 85 degrees and sunny with high humidity. Like the Elephant Mountain hike we did, and really all the hikes we did in Not China, it was basically just stairs the whole way up. Taiwan had been humid and rainy but not hot, so we were completely unacclimated and struggling. No one else seemed to be sweating on our way up, which just seems ridiculous considering the amount of water we were losing.

Signs to Lion Rock (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Part way up we saw some people who had brought hammocks and were laying down for a nap in the shade, which seemed rather appealing at the time. Finally, though, we made it to the top, and the view was really really stunning. Lion Rock is on the mainland side of Hong Kong, and you look out over the city, Hong Kong Island, and the water. I would highly recommend the hike, but maybe don’t do it during the middle of the day in September. Lots of people hike it in the evening, and there are some great pictures online of the night that the protesters lit up the entire hike.

Hammocks in the shade beside the Lion Rock trail (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason got this cool picture with butterflies and dragonflies that I didn’t even notice (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the top of Lion Rock (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A school scene on our walk back from the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Hong Kong also has some good coffee culture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our local guide took us on a tour to experience the different sides of Hong Kong that afternoon. We started in Sham Shui Po, where the original men’s market was (this appeared to mean that it was full of electronics, from tables selling all colors of light strips, to someone selling every remote you’ve ever seen). We walked around for a few minutes before Ed, our guide, stopped us to eat some cheung fun (steamed rice noodle rolls) from a cart. They’re made by steaming a very thin rice batter with toppings, rolling it up, and putting it on a plate with some sauce. We tried BBQ pork and minced beef with cilantro, and both were delicious.

The traditional men’s market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Making cheung fun (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A shop filled with various types of noodles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Ed and Nicole walk through the streets of Sham Shui Po (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After finishing our food, we took the metro to the Central area, where all the banks are headquartered. The metro in Hong Kong is famous for being so good, and after spending a fair amount of time on it, I have to agree.

Also, Hong Kong escalators are very fast - getting on and off them is tricky. I kept wondering why they wanted people to hold onto the handrail until I tried it a few times, and then it made sense.

One of the many escalators we rode down to the metro (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the HSBC headquarters, Ed introduced us to Stitt and Stephen, the bronze lions at the entrance who were named after two of the bank’s early leaders. They’re sculpted in a fairly western style, and are massive - slightly larger than actual male lions. They were commissioned in 1923 and then taken by Japan for scrap metal during the 1940s, when the island occupied Hong Kong. When the war ended before they had been melted down, some random American sailor somehow recognized the lions from pictures and alerted HSBC that their lions were in Japan, safe except for some bullet holes (there is some debate about when the bullet holes were from). Now, they sit in front of the HSBC building again, watching the world go by.

Stitt stands guard (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also rode on a double decker narrow trolley, nicknamed a ding ding for its distinctive and rather British sound, to the other side of the Central district. I would definitely recommend riding one, on the second story if you can - they are adorable and hilariously narrow and going around corners is an adventure.

A ding ding in the Central district (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We wandered through the trendy expat area for a bit, trying food and talking about Hong Kong. The area is a charming mix of fancy and homey. There are a lot of shops selling paper versions of everything - houses, clothes, food - that can be burned for the dead to provide them with what they need in the afterlife. We also tried some more food, including fish balls, sugar cane juice, and a new kind of soup dumpling. We had to wait for fresh soup dumplings, which put us behind on time, so we took a taxi to the waterfront to get on the ferry back to the mainland side of Hong Kong before the light show.

Colorful apartment buildings (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Residents heading home in the dusk (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A mural along one of the many staircases between streets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

PMQ, which is an old police building turned into a mixed-use art and design space (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A pedestrian street lit up at night (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Some less traditional lucky cat statues (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Hong Kong waterfront has a nightly light show. I was a little confused about what to expect, and kind of anticipated fireworks, but it turns out that many of the buildings along the waterfront have screens, colored lights, and lasers, and every night there is a city-managed light show over the water. If you’re on a ferry, it will slow down to let you watch from the boat for longer, and if you’re on the mainland side of the city, you can watch from the dock. It’s quite a pretty show.

The waterfront light show (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Protest art in a metro station (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The next day we got up and took the tram to Victoria Peak. It’s a cable car up an incredibly steep hill, and it’s pretty fun to look at the crazy angle of the tram in comparison to the nearby buildings. At the top, we struggled for several minutes to get out of the weird mall building (it’s difficult to find exits), and then I led Jason on a bit of a wild goose chase up to the top of the mountain (he was not pleased). It’s a beautiful view, despite the slightly hazy day.

Riding up in the tram (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A tram approaching the station (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the Victoria Peak station (Photo/Jason Rafal)

When we got back down to the city, we went to the Central-Mid-Levels escalator (Hong Kong loves escalators). It’s a covered elevated walkway, with one side as an upward escalator and one side as stairs, that goes above several streets. It’s weird and awesome. We also got some dim sum in the basement of a mall (surprising amounts of good food in mall basements on our trip).

The Central-Mid-Levels escalator (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Thursday evening was our fancy evening - we went to a classic restaurant to eat roast goose and suckling pig, and then we went to Quinary, which is on someone’s The World’s 50 Best Bars list. The roast goose was excellent - crispy skin, flavorful, great dipping sauce. We immediately wondered why people don’t eat geese in the US, which led us down an entire rabbit hole.

Suckling pig, with roast goose in the background (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Quinary was a funny experience because everything was in English - the menu was English, the people sitting around us spoke English, and our waiter had an Australian accent. The drinks were really delicious - we tried several. One of mine was supposed to be like drinking a pie, and they nailed it.

A very fancy drink at Quinary (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Adventures in Northern Taiwan

October 07, 2019 by Nicole Harrison in Taiwan

On Sunday, we had an entire day on our own to explore the city. We started with coffee, of course, before heading to the weekend jade and flower markets. The jade market was a set of stalls selling wood, jade, and other stone jewelry and sculptures. The flower market had a lot of flowers, but also tea sets and trinkets and lawn ornaments. There was also an animal rescue represented, and we got to pet some adorable dogs.

A wall covered with motherboards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shopping at the jade market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The flower market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole made some new friends at the humane society adoption area (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the markets we took the metro to the Maokong Gondola, where we had heard that you could ride a glass-bottomed gondola up the mountain. Every five or six gondolas is a glass-bottomed one, so the wait is a little longer, but I highly recommend getting one of the glassy ones if you won’t be too freaked out. It’s such a unique viewpoint to see the jungle from above, and it’s really fun to take pictures around your feet.

The animal(?) mascots at the gondola (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The canopy from the gondola (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the gondola (Jason was tall enough to take pictures through the top windows) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Maokong, at the top of the gondola, is a cute little village with a beautiful view of Taipei. There are a few main roads lined with restaurants and tea houses, and we stopped at a random one to have a delicious lunch. After lunch we walked to a city viewpoint at a temple, then decided that we had walked far enough from the gondola that we could just walk back to the city. We then proceeded to walk down stairs for at least an hour. If you’re going to walk one of the ways to and from Maokong, I’d recommend taking the gondola up and walking down. There were far too many stairs, and I was very glad we weren’t walking up.

Fancy lunch drinks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For sunset, we joined the crowd in the hike up Elephant Mountain, which has a couple of platforms and rocks that have a great view of the city and Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world until 2010 , when it was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa. The hike was rather humid, and we were incredibly sweaty, and I kept being amazed that there were so many people at the top who weren’t sweating through their clothes.

We walked by a puppet show on the way to the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There was quite a line to take pictures on the rocks part way up Elephant Mountain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I’m not sure words can express how sweaty we were when this picture was taken (Photo/Some Random American Dude)

The view of Taipei 101 from the third platform (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The crazy Times Square-like area of Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Monday, we hired someone to take us to the old mining towns to the east of Taipei. We started in Jiufen, which was a gold mining town from the 1400s to the mid 1900s. The town is built into the hillside next to the coast, and it’s an incredibly picturesque area with ocean, jungle, tea houses, and temples. We took a walk through the adorable old street before stopping to have tea at the famous A Mei Tea House, which locals all claim inspired the bathhouse in Spirited Away (there’s a rumor that Miyazaki visited Jiufen and liked it so much that he put it into the movie, but he has claimed this is incorrect). It’s a beautiful tea house that’s still owned by the same family, and they have a nice outside deck for sitting down to have tea and snacks with a view of the ocean.

The coast from a temple in Jiufen (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Much like all of the cats we met in Taiwan, this one did not care about us at all (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The beautiful A Mei Tea House (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Tea at the A Mei Tea House (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After tea, we visited the first movie theater in New Taipei, which is right across the street. The theater was started as a form of entertainment for the miners, and was rebuilt and restored over time. It had a very cool old projector, as well as some old movie memorabilia.

The old film projector at the Shengping Theater (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From Jiufen we went to Shifen, home to the annual lantern festival and the biggest waterfall in Taiwan. The parking area was a bit of a mess, so I was a little concerned about the crowds, but there were several places to view the waterfall, so it didn’t feel too crazy. The waterfall was beautiful, and the sun even came out for the first time during our trip.

The bridge to the waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Shifen waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There was also an area between the parking and the waterfall that had food, Taoist religious symbols, and places to hang out. We some had sausage, I got a large container of mango slices, and we hung out for a bit.

In which Nicole finds a completely appropriately sized horse (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From the top of the falls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A ridiculously tasty sausage (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The lantern festival had originally begun in Pingxi, which was our next stop, but the town was too small to support the crowds, so the festival was relocated to nearby Shifen. The lanterns were originally released for safety, to let everyone know that the bombing had ended during WWII. Now, a giant lantern festival occurs after the Chinese New Year, but people still visit Shifen and Pingxi to write their dreams and hopes on a large paper lantern and then watch it float up to the heavens (or however close the wind will let it get on that particular day).

Repainting a mural in Pingxi (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our day trip included a lantern, but we were not expecting quite the scale of the project when the shopkeeper produced a four-foot-tall, four-sided sky lantern and invited us to write and draw on all four sides. Our guide mocked us gently for not immediately knowing our hopes and dreams.

Drawing on the lantern (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After several minutes discussing and painting on the lantern, the shopkeeper put the paper “money” at the bottom of the lantern, brought us outside to the old railroad tracks, and lit the bottom of the lantern. After taking some pictures, we released the lantern into the sky and watched it rise. I have to admit, since I have no cultural connection to paper lanterns, I wasn’t expecting it to mean much to me. But…there’s something about writing and drawing well wishes on a big piece of paper and sending it up into the air that’s pretty cathartic.

Adding the “money” to burn (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also stopped for a traditional snack of shaved ice cream, peanut candy shavings, and cilantro in a rice wrap. It was weirdly delicious, even as someone who’s not a huge fan of peanuts.

A man shaving a block of peanut candy for the ice cream (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Three guesses as to how much this cat cared about our existence (Photo/Jason Rafal)

When we got back to Taipei, we headed over to Pier 5 to see dusk settle over the river. There are a few container restaurants along the river, and it’s a nice place to sit and watch the sunset. As it got dark, we headed to one last Taiwanese night market for dinner.

Jason insists that this is the last cool camera trick that the robots can’t do (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A lovely scene at Pier 5 (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Huaxi Street Night Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Tuesday, we had some more coffee, tried another fantastic beef noodle soup establishment, and got on a plane for Hong Kong.

We stayed on camera street in Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our Not China Trip Begins

October 03, 2019 by Nicole Harrison in Taiwan

A quick disclaimer about this collection of blogs - during this trip we visited three regions that, while China considers them to be part of China, consider themselves varying degrees of…not China. Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions of China, and Taiwan doesn’t have an official status because no one can agree on what it should be. The politics of these regions are all very complex, and while we tried to fact check everything in this blog, I can’t guarantee that we got everything right. If you want to learn more about these fascinating areas, there’s a ton of great information out there.

Taiwan has a pretty bizarre status at the moment. Originally Taiwan had been a part of China, but when the Qing dynasty needed an offering while losing a conflict with Japan, they offered up Taiwan in 1895. For fifty years, Japan occupied the island, which already had some European influences due to Dutch and Spanish mining. In 1945, Japan gave up the island during its post-WWII retreat. Then, in 1949, the Republic of China government fled to Taiwan when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) took took control of mainland China. For decades, the two governments, each considering themselves the true Chinese government, existed in an uneasy status quo. Now, under the One China campaign, the PRC wants Taiwan to be officially part of China. Taiwan, which feels like it hasn’t been part of China for 125 years, generally does not agree. Taiwan has some support from the western world, but China is a force to be reckoned with. It’ll be an interesting next few decades for the island.

After an insanely busy six months of moving across the country, starting new jobs, and missing a European vacation due to a freak blizzard, Taipei felt like a gift. It’s different from the U.S., so it fed my need for new experiences, but it’s also just amazingly easy. The food is amazing, the people are wonderful, and the scenery is spectacular. The city is safe and clean, and the public transit is cheap and useful. To our surprise, there’s even a ton of great coffee available from adorable local shops. Many people speak at least some English, and everyone else was happy to interact with us and figure it out.

Our first day was spent being jet lagged, wandering the city, and eating Din Tai Fung. I had been skeptical that we should visit the original, since we have one in Seattle, but I’m glad Jason convinced me to go. Din Tai Fung is amazing everywhere, but in Taipei the menu is bigger and all the flavors are just a bit better. It’s also just a very fun experience.

One of Taiwan’s fantastic birds (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A temple in the 2/28 Peace Park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Taipei 101 through the fog (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A white fluffy bird (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another fun bird in the rain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

An ornate cup at a wonderful coffee shop with a wonderful cat (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We stopped by the Huashan Creative Park, which is a great collection of shops and exhibits.

A Pocky…exhibit? At the Huashan 1914 Creative Park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Overgrown apartment decks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Waiting in the crowd at Din Tai Fung (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A sign-filled street near our hotel (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We went back to the hotel for a bit, then rallied for a rainy (but warm) walk in the dark through some of the city. We headed to a nearby Taoist temple, then to the Ningxia Night Market. The Taoist temples have really incredible carvings on the roof, and they are very brightly colored.

Nighttime street wandering in the rain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Night at the Dalongdong Baoan Temple (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Everyone in Taiwan uses umbrellas instead of raincoats, so we got a lot of stares for wearing our Seattle second skins. Or, you know, maybe they were just staring because we’re giant white people.

Nicole follows the lines and orders a scallion pancake (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The heavy umbrella use is very challenging at crowded night markets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Saturday we took a tour to learn a bit more about Taiwan and tea. We realized while on the tour that for all our coffee tours, we had never done a tea tour, and it was time. We only had two other people on our tour, a young couple from Manila, so it ended up being a small group. It was very rainy, with occasional gusting winds.

Our first stop was a view of Thousand Island Lakes, which is a beautiful area to the southeast of Taipei. The lakes are a water source for the city, and all of the land around them are protected with the exception of families who have been there for generations. We stopped at one such family’s farm to take a look at the lakes. It was incredibly beautiful in the rain and fog.

The beautiful view at Thousand Island Lakes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From there we went to another view and tea plantation area, where we learned some more about tea. Taiwan only grows small amounts of tea, which is mostly oolong - they have a lot of regulations about quality and everything has to be organic, so they end up importing a lot as well. Taiwanese tea is considered pretty special.

Our next stop was a traditional tea shop in Pinglin, where a tea master made three types of tea for us and our guide translated. The first was green tea that had 10-12% fermentation, the second was a black tea with 100% fermentation, and the third was a green tea with 25% fermentation. Green tea is delicate, while black tea doesn’t care how long you steep it or at what temperature.

We were taught to use the sniffer glass to smell the tea and warm our hands (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our guide explained that the honey black tea that we were drinking had become popular because of a bug, the green cicada. Every late summer, the green cicada would bite the tea leaves and ruin them - the flavor of those leaves, when made into green tea, was apparently not appealing to anyone. At some point, though, some tea farmer thought to make them into black tea, and there the cicada saliva (?), or oxidation of the leaves, or something, could really shine. It created a smooth, slightly sweet flavor that added a lovely complexity. We promptly bought some after trying it.

Our instructional tea ceremony (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A cat who didn’t care about us at all (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Finally, we went to a tea museum, where we learned about all of the steps in tea processing. Tea processing takes quite a while, and requires either a few different machines or a lot of manual labor. The tea has to be dried, fermented to the desired amount, and kneaded. The type of kneading depends on what type of tea is desired - kneading back and forth results in long strings of tea leaves, while kneading in a circle produces round beads. We also learned a bit about the different tea roads - not just the traditional European one I learned about in school, but also the Russian tea road and the common practice of trading horses for tea.

An old circular tea kneading machine (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Teas with their relevant details (we had to put them on a sensor to see the translation) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

…I have no explanation for this bowl of bubbles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After our tour, we wandered around in the rain in Taipei and ate a ton of great food. We started with one of the popular places for beef noodle soup, which was the type of hole in the wall that had a 20-person line at minimum (but you only had to wait about 20 minutes to get cycled in). Taiwanese beef noodle soup, when done right, is incredibly delicious - rich brown broth, thick homemade noodles, and tender chunks of beef. The traditional toppings include a sort of pickled vegetable mix, vinegar, soy sauce, and hot oil. It’s amazing.

Waiting in line for beef noodle soup (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch we wandered across the city to try a coffee shop that was on our list (we never quite figured out who had recommended it). Taipei is very walkable, and also has an outstanding metro system - cheap, clean, convenient, well-used.

Let’s get into coffee for a minute - as I mentioned before, we were a bit shocked at the amount of quality coffee in Taipei. Much of Asia is not especially into coffee, and when we were in Vietnam, when there was no Vietnamese coffee available, there was often only instant coffee. From what we can glean from people we talked to and the internet, Starbucks brought reasonably good coffee to Taiwan, and then Taiwan attached to coffee and took it from there. Every specialty coffee shop we tried was between somewhat and incredibly good.

A lot of the coffee shops are also hang out spots that serve beer, snacks, and even full meals. I tried a craft beer, which was really solid. All of the desserts were amazing, as expected.

The delightful trilogy of coffee, dessert, and beer (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After some more walking through the rain we stopped by Raohe Night Market, which I highly recommend. Taiwanese night markets are evening markets that feature street stalls selling all sorts of things, depending on which market you’re at. My favorite night markets have a lot of street food to try, but it’s also pretty common to see clothes, toys, and gadgets. We tried some pork pepper buns from a stall - ground pork is mixed with spices and a whole lot of pepper, then wrapped with a lot of scallions in a thin dough bun, then stuck on the side of an oven (very similar to a tandoori oven) to cook. When it’s golden brown, it’s scraped off of the side of the oven and handed to you in a paper bag. It’s as mouth scalding and delicious as it sounds.

The Rainbow Bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Making the pork pepper bun (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Buns in the oven (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Owls guarding the Raohe Night Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There were a ton of mopeds in Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A Few Days in Paris

September 17, 2019 by Nicole Harrison in France

We were in Paris a little over two years ago for our honeymoon, so we weren’t planning to come back this soon. Jason had a conference, though, and when one gets a chance to tack on a trip to Paris, one should do so.

We landed at 8:00 am local, which is never fun, but we dropped off our bags and headed out to drink a lot of coffee and get some food. We also walked over to Notre Dame, which we were curious to see since the fire. It was…a bit heart breaking. There’s a metal and razor wire fence around the cathedral and surrounding grounds, right in front of the rows of cafes that previously had prime real estate. Notre Dame is such an amazing center point of the city, and it’s hard to see it barricaded. They are working hard to restore it, though, and it’s clear that it will be back.

Notre Dame under construction (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also went to Shakespeare and Company to say hi to the books and the cat, and headed to the Louvre to do some people watching. We didn’t go in - we’re still pretty intimidated by the crowds and the pure size of the building, and we were exhausted - but it’s a fun area to wander.

Philosophical decisions at Shakespeare and Company (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Wedding pictures at the pyramid (Photo/Jason Rafal)

People watching near the Louvre (Photo/Jason Rafal)

While Jason was napping, I found one of my new favorite parks in the city - Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. There’s a pavillion on top of an island in the lake, and it’s quite beautiful. There’s also a lot of sloping lawn where I got to sit and read with the Parisians.

A multi-layered park view (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

On Sunday we took a bike tour of Versailles. I’d highly recommend doing a bike tour, since you’re able to see so much more of the grounds that way. It’s also far less crowded than the palace and garden area.

After we took the train out to Versailles in the morning, our guide took us to an indoor/outdoor market to buy picnic food. It’s probably one of my favorite markets that I’ve been to - it’s very picturesque and has a variety of food and wine to purchase (that being said, Jason didn’t get any pictures of it that he liked, so you’ll just have to go yourselves). We picked up the five essentials of a French picnic: bread, cheese, salami, fruit, and wine (we found a Marsannay, one of my favorite white wines, that I was very excited about). From there, we headed into the grounds.

Starting our bike ride in the town of Versailles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A very classy classic car (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The grounds of Versailles are used for several things right now - Gordon Ramsey has a restaurant that looks out over the grounds, and there’s a farm to grow the food, as well as sheep and goats. It’s also classically pastoral and quite beautiful. We had a picnic lunch on the west side of the Grand Canal, and it was lovely and peaceful, with only a few other groups nearby.

The Palace of Versailles across the Grand Canal (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Biking through the grounds (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A few hedgehogs climbed out of the hedges at Versailles, juch to everyone’s delight (and the confusion of the Australians in our group, who wanted to know how big they get) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our guide told us a lot of French history as we made our way through the grounds. Most of what we learned was about Louis XIV, since he was the one who did most of the work on Versailles during his impressive 76 years of life, but we also heard about Louis XIII, XV, and XVI, making it a little difficult to keep everything straight. We learned about Marie Antionette, who was both very harshly judged and misunderstood (the quote about cake was not from her at all). But, she also made some rather lavish choices, like creating a sort of Bavarian working farm theme park where she and her children could pretend they were in Austria. It was both adorable and very weird.

Several generations of construction on a Bavarian village building (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another quite out of place village building (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After touring the grounds we went into Versailles, which is a place of excessive opulence. It’s very impressive, but the experience was hindered somewhat by the crazy crowds of people trying to see the most famous rooms. My favorite part (I’m not super into gilding, though it’s cool) was the painted ceilings - the attention to detail from the artists was truly incredible. It was also pretty crazy to imagine living in a place like that. We were only allowed in certain corridors, and we still felt lost a couple of times.

The courtyard of Versailles through the golden fence (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A really incredible map built into a table (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Hall of Mirrors (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The gardens outside the palace are also amazing and ridiculous. There are double hedges everywhere so that servants could get around without the nobility seeing them. There are also a ton of fountains - I was blown away by the number of fountains that we happened upon while wandering. The fountains were originally gravity fed (which was one reason so many servants had to run around in the second layer of hedges), and they were still having some issues keeping them all running.

Looking out over the gardens and the Grand Canal (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Paris is amazing. It’s always been amazing, and it always will be amazing. We moved over one arrondissement and stayed in the 10th this time, right next to the metro, which was lovely after we walked 31 miles in the first 3 days and were in considerable discomfort. We revisited some of our favorite places and also explored some more of the inner neighborhoods.

An incredibly colorful fountain area in the city (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Layers of murals (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A scene of Paris (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Late afternoon light (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A blue heron in a city park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Arc de Triomphe at night (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Monday we went to the Eiffel Tower (twice, actually - once in the morning and once at night, when it was lit up) and did some general wandering and relaxing. Our feet were in a considerable amount of pain by this point, so we were trying to take it easy (though I still ended up walking over 14 miles, according to my watch). Night walking in Paris is wonderful, and the Eiffel Tower at night is amazing. I have no idea how they light it up so completely, but it’s breathtaking, even when you’re been staring at it for a while.

The Eiffel Tower, all lit up (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Since we had already been to Paris and Jason had a conference and some work to do, we did less touristy things and had some more downtime planned in. I spent hours reading - mostly in parks, but on one occasion in a wine bar while locals chatted enthusiastically around me and kids played soccer outside of the school nearby. Being an introvert in a country where I don’t speak the language is a combination that can be somewhat isolating, but it’s always nice to see the similarities in human interaction around the world. We’re very consistent creatures, and it’s comforting to see such familiar joy and frustration.

On Wednesday we went to the Musée d’Orsay, which is a wonderful art museum in an old train station. They have a pretty amazing collection, including a bunch from Monet, Manet, Picasso, and Rodin, which are some of our favorites. There’s also a light-filled indoor courtyard of sculptures, which I’m always a huge fan of.

Looking down the Musée d’Orsay (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view of the city through one of the giant clocks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Pompon’s Polar Bear (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We had a variety of food while in the city - French food, of course, but also some fusions and imports, including Italian, Lebanese, and BBQ that was a mix between North and South American. We also had a ridiculous amount of wine, because how can you not.

Overall, Paris was amazing, as expected. The food, the parks, the views, the absurdly convenient metro system - it’s just a very good city. We’ll be back again.

Also, museums are closed on Mondays. Keep that in mind.

Views from drinks on the Seine (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Views of Paris at night (Photo/Jason Rafal)

An incredibly decorated bench area off of the Promenade Plantée (Photo/Jason Rafal)