Back to Facebook unfortunately

I'm having technical difficulties with this app. I can't add pictures from my photo gallery on the phone which is just ridiculous so FB it is.

Not sure if anyone is still reading this and doesn't have access to FB but if so I'm sorry! 

Ushuaia (2/2)

Having technical difficulties with this stupid blogger app. Unable to attach pictures for some reason. Will try again after the trip. 

Ushuaia day 3

Today we do an all day 4wd tour that goes into Tierra del Fuego and checks out a couple of lakes (Lake Escondido and Lake Fagnano).

First stop was some hotel with a field of peat moss out the back. Interesting experience to walk upon. Very spongy but supportive at the same time... almost like a good pair of underwear.

I remember them digging out peat for fire in Scotland... wonder if they do the same here? 

Then a few stops to look at pretty things and a bunch of driving (in mud, in lakes, on rocky beaches etc...) before lunch. Beautiful scenery... forests and lakes. 

Really nice bbq lunch with a choripan, plenty of steak and red wine. 

We were joined by a couple from the UK (Laura and Andy) who were really nice people. Interesting, intelligent and well travelled. Andy actually works with Bupa UK as a vendor and has applied for a role there. Small world! 

Overall a pretty good tour but just not active enough for me. Beautiful scenery but ultimately just a day driving around in a car.  It was really meeting the other people that made the day for me.

Gail needed to do some shopping so I went along to provide expert fashion advice and to kill time until we met up with Deb and Kerry for dinner. We met them on our sea kayaking training course a couple of months ago and figured out we'd be in ushuaia at the same time. Dinner was at La Estancia Parrilla which is basically a coal fired bbq place. Pretty average and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Ushuaia day 4

Mum and I headed off on a hike to Laguna Esmeralda today. Gail unwell so rested in the room again. Feel bad for her and hope she doesn't feel abandoned but I'm still going!

Got a shuttle bus to the trailhead with what felt like 100 other people for a really nice walk.

There was a lot of mud and a bog to walk through (just enough to make it fun) but it wasn't a difficult walk.  Very scenic with a nice variety of terrain. Forest, meadow, more forest, bog then paydirt. Took us about 1.5 hours to reach the lake and it was beautiful. 

In the evening Gail and I did a quad biking tour. Idea was to go quad biking, get a bit of history about something then have dinner. 

The quad biking was great! Gail and I shared a UTV and took turns driving. The track was muddy and sloppy and full of water and it was great. There just was not enough time behind the wheel. It felt like we really only got like 30 minutes of driving. It might have been more but it just felt short. 

Dinner was ok. Pretty basic but tasty enough. 

The guy who runs the bike place tells a pretty good story so overall I quite enjoyed it. More than the 4wd thing the previous day.

Here we go again! Ushuaia (part 1/2)

Here we go again! Holiday time!

After about a 40 hour transit (Mel to Auckland to Buenos Aires to Ushuaia) we have made it! Flights are flights and airports are airports but it's over for now. 

Welcome to Ushuaia!

At the bottom of Argentina, this is where most antarctic cruises leave from.

We landed about 8.30am on Sat 14 Dec looking and feeling like zombies. I envy people who can get restful sleep on a plane... I just can't do it. 

Arrived far too early to check in to the hotel so dumped bags and went wandering around town. About what I expected. Run down but charming in its own way. The outdoor gear stores and steakhouses seem to be doing the best.

Big antarctic boats! 

Got some breakfast at a cafe, did some browsing and got some sim cards sorted for data. I feel lost without an Internet connection. 

This first day has shown me how poor my Spanish really is. I mean I knew it was bad but the people here might as well have been speaking Klingon most of the time.

Back to the hotel for a nap then mum and I headed out to the shops and another wander. 

We find a nice looking place for dinner and had a couple of drinks at a bar nearby while we waited for Gail to join us.

Christopher steakhouse. OMG. The meat was amazing. Best steak I can remember having. Far now enjoyable than that wagyu I spent a shit load on a few years ago. 

Back home for a bottle of wine and a few laughs after dinner and we called it a night. 

Day 2 Mum and I went for a hike at the nearby Martial Glacier. Gail is nursing an injury so it was just the two of us. 

A cab up to the start of the Glacier hike, about 90 minutes up and an hour back. Not the most scenic walk but the views were very nice and it was great to stretch the legs after all the sitting time the previous day. 

Stopped for a beer at a cafe at the bottom of the trail then walked about 90 min down a lovely forest trail back to town. 

Another nap, a quick trek into town to pay for a tour and a bottle of wine filled the afternoon before dinner. 

Dinner was pizza at Doña Lupita, about 10 min walk from the hotel. Cool place, nice pizza. Good choice by Gail. 

And that's it for the first post of my new trip. I'm trying not to go into as much detail as last time because it just took too long.  I'll do a couple of days at a time. And keep it fairly high level with pictures. 

Chau for now! 

Itchy feet and upcoming travels

It's been nearly 18 months since I got back from my big trip and I haven't had a holiday since.  I've been embracing the Melbourne lifestyle of drinking, eating, drinking, eating and drinking without really leaving the city except for a couple of domestic trips.

I'm starting to get pretty itchy feet.

But it's all been to a purpose!

I'm taking another couple of trips this year so I've been saving up my annual leave from work to make a decent holiday out of it.

Trip 1:

Tasmania for a week in October.  I feel like Mum and I had been casually talking about going to Tas together for a couple of years to go visit Cradle Mountain but we hadn't actually organised anything.  #procrastination

Anyway.  Mum booked a bus tour via Intrepid and I've decided to tag along like the mummy's boy I am.  I'm not a huge fan of the lack of control I have on an organised itinerary but I'm sure it'll be fun.  I'll do a day or two either side of the bus trip.

So that's my first trip this year.  A nice little break.

Trip 2:

I'm taking 3 months off in December and doing a little trip to ANTARCTICA (plus Argentina, Colombia and Cuba).

I'm super duper looking forward to this!  Antarctica has been a bit of a dream destination for ages and I'm finally doing it!  I'm going with my friend Gail.  Should be amazing!

Following up Antarctica with a week or two in Argentina, a month or so in Colombia and maybe a week in Cuba.

Should be pretty epic, so look for some updates coming soon!

Thoughts and reflections on 5 1/2 months of travel

I’ve been back in Australia for about 4 months now and thought I might pull together a bit of a summary of the trip for myself and maybe some reflections or favourite moments before I forget everything.

Already a lot of the details are fading and while it was a lot of effort at the time, I enjoyed writing the blog and I’ve enjoyed going back and reading bits of it here and there.

So.

Overall the list of countries I visited (in order) and estimated time was:

1. China - 5 days (Beijing only)
2. Mongolia - 3 1/2 weeks on a tour
3. South Korea - 8 days
4. Japan - 4 weeks
5. Russia - 4 weeks
6. Estonia - 3 days
7. Finland - 3 days
8. Sweden - 3 days
9. Denmark - 3 weeks
10. Poland - 3 weeks
11. Norway - 8 days
12. Iceland - 10 days
13. USA - 8 days
14. Taiwan - 1 day

What would I do differently next time?

I moved around too much.  I was rarely in the same spot for more than 2 nights and I don’t think I stayed anywhere more than 5 nights.  I look at the countries I was in for only a couple of days and I would have been better off spending more time in one place I think.

I did enjoy the moving around thing as well but if I do it again I will spend more time in fewer places I think.

What did I learn about myself?

I don’t think I learnt anything new.

Probably just reinforced a few things.

• I’m not a brave person and I care too much about looking like a dickhead - even in a country I’ll probably never be in again.
• I can be pretty lazy and I’m not very adventurous.  I hate planning so I generally played it pretty safe and didn’t venture too far out of major cities for the most part.
• I enjoy long distance train travel!
• I prefer cities though they all tend to look the same after a while.
• I enjoy the finer things in life.  I wouldn’t have done well on a strict budget.  I liked to eat out at nice places and have a variety of good food and drink good beer.
• Conversely - my standards for accommodation aren’t as high as I thought!  I’m happy to sleep in a hostel!  

On Hostels / Guesthouses

I intentionally chose to stay in Hostels / Guesthouses most of the time for the social side of things.  But this didn’t really happen as much as I thought it would.  I expected them to be a lot more social with people meeting and going out doing things together but that wasn’t really the case in most places.  Maybe I chose the wrong places but a lot of the time it was people staring at their phone or laptop and chatting to people at home or figuring out what they were doing the next day.  I was guilty of that as well at times but they certainly weren’t the social hubs I expected.

Still - I did meet a few people through them so the potential exists … just need to be a bit more aggressive about it next time.

Favourite countries (though this does change from time to time as I think back on different things):

#1 - Japan.  This was the place I spent the most time so it’s perhaps not surprising it was my favourite.  The country is just fantastic.  It has a great mix of the modern and traditional, it’s clean, efficient, has a great spread of things to see and do, amazing food and friendly people.

#2 - Iceland.  The natural beauty here is just absolutely spectacular.  I will be back one day in summer to drive myself around the northern part of the country because I just didn’t see enough.

#3 - Russia.  The scale of this place is just huge.  They don’t do anything small except maybe those townships in the middle of Siberia.  I think I expected Russia to be this very militaristic anti-Western place with border checkpoints everywhere.  Naive I know.  What I definitely didn’t expect was how everyone I spoke to seemed to have a dream to go to America.  Which shouldn’t be unexpected I guess but it was.  

Most unexpected place?

Poland.

Poland was not on my list to begin with.  I ended up there through some last minute plan changes and I thought it was great.  Such a rich and interesting (and traumatic) past, I kind of expected Poland to be this run-down post communist shithole but it wasn’t.  Sure - there were parts of that - but overall it was a beautiful place to visit and I’d love to go back.

Anywhere I didn’t enjoy?

Stockholm.

I probably didn’t really give it much of a chance but I didn’t really think that much of Stockholm.  I think I was a bit scared off by my first real brush with Scandinavian prices so I tried to skimp and I don’t think I did myself any favours.  It just felt extremely touristy and overpriced.

Also - camping in Mongolia.  I’m just not into camping.  The gher’s were fine but tents really aren’t my thing and I don’t like having to dig a hole to go to the toilet.

Worst drivers?

Mongolia.

The traffic in Ulaanbator was crazy and the drivers were just ridiculous.  I suppose you’d have to be to survive there but I don’t know that I’d brave the roads.  And of course once you get out of the city there’s hardly any roads to speak of which may explain why they don’t really understand how to use them.

Favourite experiences (in no particular order):

1. Sumo Grand Tournament in Tokyo - this was fantastic!  I was there the whole day from the earliest bouts to the grand final and I was not bored.  It was a fascinating experience and I’d happily go back and see it again.  The ceremonial aspects were really interesting, the athleticism of the wrestlers was excellent and the speed of the matches was amazing!  Recommend to anyone!
2. Trans-Siberian Express - 8 days train ride from Vladivostok to St Petersburg (with a few stops along the way).  Russia is just so HUGE.  I would have thought that sitting on the train staring out the window would get boring but it did not.  You just get into the swing of it, watch awesome scenery along the way and have fun chatting to your bunkmates (if you can!).  I’d totally recommend doing part of the trip in third class before it gets decommissioned but do pay for a bottom bunk!  You can’t sit upright on the top bunks so you’re at the mercy of the person on the bottom bunk wanting to be awake when you are.
3. Trans-Mongolian train - changing the wheels on the whole train between China and Mongolia.  This was a fascinating experience!  Because they have different track sizes in Mongolia and China they have to lift up every carriage and change to different sized wheels.  All while the Chinese military has taken your passport and locked you in the train.  A bit scary but totally worth it!  Make sure you go to the toilet before they do it though as they lock them during the 3 hour process!
4. Dog-sledding on Svalbard - what a cool experience!  Harnessing up the dogs, having to kick through the snow, falling off and being dragged along until the dogs stopped, then playing with the puppies at the end.  Do it!
5. Eating whale.  I had whale 3 times while I was away and I enjoyed it each time.  Would do again.  #beefofthesea
6. Great Wall of China.  I went to one of the closer restored sections and it was damned hard work (#fatnotfit) but it was a spectacular day and I’m really glad I did it.
7. The Vasa Museum in Stockholm - despite not really liking Stockholm the Vasa museum was awesome.  They basically found a 300 year old ship buried in the silt in the Stockholm harbour and brought the whole thing up in nearly one piece.  They’ve built a museum around it.  Awesome.

How much money did I spend?

I have no idea.  I don’t want to know.  I’m scared.

What’s next?

My next big trip is going to be South America and Antarctica.

I expect I’ll probably do a month in Columbia, Chile and Argentina then some sort of Antarctica cruise.

Taipei - one day only!

Taipei - one day only!

I’ve been pretty slack!  I’m making this post about 4 1/2 months after I got back to Australia so I wonder how many details I’m going to remember!  I also didn’t have internet access while in Taipei so I won’t have my google location history to help me out.  Here we go.

Since I couldn’t get a direct flight to Australia from Seattle I decided to try and extend my holiday by one more day and do a decent stopover on the way home.  So I ended up with an 18 hour stopover in Taipei.  Woo!  Back to Asia!

I wasn’t planning anything too ambitious for the day.  Mostly just an opportunity to hit some of the major tourist sights and walk around a bit between flights.

I only managed a couple of short naps on the plane but I was feeling pretty good and ready to do some walking.  Stashed my bag in a locker at the airport (not an interesting airport) then found a train into the city.  

The Taipei airport has these free tours you can do if you have a stopover over 6 or 7 hours I think.  You sign up, they stick you on a bus with a tour guide and drive you around to a few of the major tourist sites before bringing you back to the airport.  I had originally considered doing one of these but I would have had to hang around the airport for 3 hours to jump on the earliest tour and it would have only lasted half the day anyway.  Pretty cool idea though.

The flight arrived so early that nothing was open by the time I got into the city so I just started wandering aimlessly around embracing the sights and smells of a populous Asian city.  It was interesting being back in a part of the world where I didn’t look like everyone else.  Travelling through Russia, Poland, Scandinavia and the USA I got used to being just another white dude but I stuck out like a sore thumb here.

I ended up wandering through some random parks and stumbled across a few random temples.  Was a nice change!  I’d been templed out after the first half of my trip (between China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan) but I was now suffering church fatigue after going through northern Europe and a few temples were a nice change.  There is something about the temple style of architecture that I generally find more interesting than a church or cathedral.  Pokemon Go is still alive and well in Taipei and I saw heaps of people loitering around some pretty cool buildings and artworks and ferociously fighting over gyms.

One area I walked around near the river had this huge concrete wall with giant steel doors scattered around and labelled an evacuation gate.  I’m not entirely sure what they were supposed to be evacuating from but it was cool and imposing at the same time.

Jumped a bus out to the National Palace Museum which was pretty good.  Absolutely packed with Chinese tour groups which made it difficult to see some of the really awesome pieces but they had some great examples of scrollwork which I really love.  I reckon if I ever buy my own place I’ll be investing in some Japanese or Chinese scrollwork (copies of course!) as artwork.  I’ll need to find something that looks good but also has meaningful words.  Or maybe I’ll commission something that looks good and is actually a dirty joke or grievous insult to the person looking at it.  That could be amusing.

Went and checked out Taipei 101 which was the tallest building in the world at one point I think.  Awesome looking building that is supposed to be reminiscent of bamboo I believe.  I did not end up going to the top because the viewing level was covered in clouds for the entire time I was in the area.

There was some sort of free concert happening a couple of blocks over but the terrible Asian pop music scared me off before long.  Do you suppose Taiwanese pop music is called T-Pop?  The Koreans have K-Pop and Japanese J-Pop.  Stands to reason right?

In a shocking twist I managed to stumble across a small craft beer bar in some back street I was wandering around.  Score!  15 taps or so and I was the only Customer so I steadily worked my way through some Taiwanese breweries which were pretty good.  It’s the same beer the world over!  With the huge variety in craft beer you still mostly see pale ales and IPAs and toasty stouts pretty well everywhere.  There will be a revelation one day that all the craft breweries are owned by the Illuminati and they’ve been running a grand progress to homogenise yet another industry by giving us the illusion of choice!

I was getting a bit footsore by this point and I wasn’t hungry enough to eat so I decided to head back to the airport about an hour earlier than planned, found a pretty good noodle soup full of offal at the airport food court and then wandered around the airport for a couple of hours and tried not to fall asleep.  

I forgot to take a photo but Eva Air has this Hello Kitty themed thing going on in Taiwan.  They have a Hello Kitty plane, with a matching checkin area and gate lounge.  Weird.  But apparently quite successful.

Alas I got no sleep on the plane on the way home either!

Arrived in Brisbane on New Years Eve running on about 40 hours of no sleep and it was great to be home!  Amy picked me up from the airport and drove me over to mum's place and just like that my trip was over!

Seattle - all of it!

Seattle, USA

20 -> 28 December 2017

I’m sitting down writing this weeks after I have left Seattle so hopefully I’ll get everything straight.  I may end up sticking to events rather than days but let’s see how we go!

Arrived about 5pm and the whole customs process was absolutely painless.  I did not expect this in Trump’s America!  In the 5 months leading up to this visit I’d been to China, Korea and Russia.  I thought for sure I’d be up for a body cavity search or at least a passive aggressive conversation with a customs agent but they barely gave me a second glance!  

Luke kindly picked me up from the airport in his blue muscle car thing (a Dodge Charger maybe?) and we headed off into the wild blue ‘murican yonder.  They live about 30 minutes from the airport so it was a leisurely drive down the freeway with a wealth of fast food restaurants on either side.  It’s been 7 or 8 years since I was in the states and from what I can see it hasn’t really changed that much.

Luke and Mel live in a nice big house in the god damn boonies.  It’s a beautiful forested area in a fairly affluent suburb but it’s build for people to have cars.  I didn’t quite expect it to be that far out so my thoughts of getting public transport everywhere kind of died in the arse.  To get to the Seattle city it was going to be a 30-40 minute walk to the bus stop then about an hour on a bus.  Too much effort yo.

They also have children.  Yeah.  I’ve never been interested in breeding and these ones didn’t change my mind.

Wednesday I didn’t do much.  I went shopping with Mel and Liam, picked up some local beer (referencing a list of good beers some of their local friends made for me!) and just chilled out.  It’s so nice to have such a great selection of beer in the supermarket and while they do heavily favour big hoppy IPAs in this area there was a decent variety of styles.  We went to the Redhook brewery for lunch which was nice.

Thursday Mel offered to drop me into town so I could go for a wander which was nice of her.  She hung around with the eldest child while I went and visited MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture) then played a little Ingress.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from MoPop but it was a pretty well reviewed museum so I thought I’d give it a crack.  I certainly didn’t expect the $35 entry fee ($50 AUD) and I really don’t think it was worth that price.  Don’t get me wrong - it’s a cool museum that’s very interactive and lives up to its name but I wouldn’t pay that price again.

I really enjoyed the Sci Fi and Horror exhibits.  They had a bunch of cool costumes and props from various films and tv shows which was a real trip down memory lane.  Real iconic stuff like Blade Runner, Star Wars, Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre … that sort of thing.  I have to admit to having a huge thing for Lelu (Milla Jovovich’s character) from the Fifth Element and they had her costume on display there.  /swoon

There was a big exhibit examining Star Trek as a pop icon, a special exhibit on Jim Henson and his various puppet shows (Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock) and a few smaller things I wasn’t really interested in.  There was also some really cool interactive stuff like the music room (learn to play guitar, drums, be a dj, sing) and a video game exhibit.  The video game exhibit looked at mostly indie games and the people who make them and it would have been really good if more than half the games were actually working.

And they had a pretty cool little “hall of fame” section for pop culture icons.  It was amusing to see the Tron costume in there … all I could think about was the Tron Guy.  Google it if you’re not familiar.

Overall it was a fun museum and very nostalgic for me but definitely overpriced.

Wandered around for a bit before meeting up with Mel and Liam.  I had the worst wrapped burrito in the world for lunch … one would think that wrapping a burrito would be something America could manage but apparently not.  They instead went for the “let’s overfill it so it can’t possibly stay together” method which I guess is consistent for the rest of their approach to food portions.

Friday I went skiing!  Hooray!  Mel dropped me off at the shuttle pickup point and I spent the day up at Steven’s Pass.  The shuttle driver was a nice local woman who was previously working as a tour guide in Alaska but has just moved home and started driving the bus.  We chatted all the way about our travels and whatnot which was fun.  Went through the tedious process of getting gear (I’d forgotten how uncomfortable hire ski boots are!) then hit the slopes.  It was a cloudy day with plenty of light snow which was awesome.  There’s nothing quite like skiing while it’s actually snowing … it’s such a cool experience and it keeps the slopes from getting too slushy or icy.  The cloud lifted later in the day there were some beautiful views of the mountain.  Unfortunately my bruised shin from Svalbard was being problematic towards the end of the day so I had to call it quits a little earlier than I expected but I was quite happy drinking a beer outside and staring at the mountains.  I fucking love snow.

The drive up the mountain was fairly cloudy so I didn’t get to see much but since it had cleared up a bit in the afternoon I saw the ride back.  Holy shit it was a spectacular drive.  Snow covered pine trees, huge icicles hanging off cliffs and crossing a bunch of beautiful rivers.  I need to live in an alpine region one day.  They are just so beautiful.

Saturday Mel and I went and toured the Boeing aeroplane factory!  That was fascinating and well worth it.  The facility is HUGE.  The factory is about 600 metres long (whatever 6 American football fields is) and each section of the factory builds different planes.  You get a real sense of the size of the planes when they are in the factory.  At an airport you’re always looking at them front on or from a weird angle … the big ones are bloody enormous!  No photos allowed in the factory unfortunately but at the end we got to stand in front of a green screen and choose from various backgrounds for a photo.

We went for lunch at a local brewery nearby which was pretty good and then back to the animal farm.  I’m sure it was nice for Mel to have some time away from the kids and I’ve enjoyed spending time with her 1on1.  Never really did that when they were back in Aus.

Sunday was Christmas Eve.  I went for a walk into the local town to check it out and I did a little shopping.  Surprisingly I ended up at a craft beer bar.  Unfortunately this place reminded me of the things I don’t like about the American service culture.  Tipping is stupid.  Let’s get that straight.  The argument of course is that having people rely on tips to give them a decent wage encourages them to work hard and pay attention to their customers but it all feels so insincere.  The bartender was acting like he was my best friend and it was just fucking irritating and slightly offensive.  I don’t want to make small talk with you, I don’t want you to talk to me about every beer I order and I certainly don’t want you to ask me every 2 minutes if I’m doing alright over here.  Just shut up and do your job.

My über driver on the other hand was actually friendly and seemed interested in having a chat.  He was surprised when I wanted to sit in the front seat of the car but appreciated it I think.  I’m not quite sure how tipping is supposed to work with uber and uber eats but as a tourist I can get away with all sorts of shit.

Monday … Christmas Day.  IT SNOWED BITCHES.  WHITE CHRISTMAS.  “Santa” got me this fabulous Christmas sweater as a gift for being so good all year.

Tuesday we built a snowman, made snow angels, had a snowball fight and did some tobogganing in the backyard.  What a fun morning.  Finally something kids are useful for!  Luke, Liam and I also went and saw the latest Star Wars movie.  Last Jedi I think.  It was OK but there was a lot of pointless shit in there.  I know it’s a guaranteed money spinner for George Lucas but there’s no way these movies will ever live up to the hype they get these days.

Wednesday Mel, the kids and I went for a light hike in some park in the city.  At least it was supposed to be a light hike.  The first half was pretty fun.  A nice easy walk, some snowballs being thrown around, a few photos and a walk along the beach to a lighthouse.  Then the kinds decided they didn’t want to walk anymore and we had to carry the little bastards.  I’ll be honest … Mel did most of the carrying.  I helped though!  I felt a little bit bad about it but they are her kids so she basically signed up for it.  We were going to go to a boardgame cafe after for lunch after the hike but it was packed and they wouldn’t commit to a wait time (games can last a long time!) so we ended up at some quite fun diner/pub and had burgers.  

Thursday was my last day though my flight wasn’t til after midnight that night.  Pretty relaxing day.  We went out for pizza for lunch (Luke as well - working from home) which was really good.  And guess what!  My epiphany beer was on tap at the pizza place!  My epiphany beer is the beer that really got me into craft beer and showed me how awesome it could be.  It was so different to anything I had tried previously and so delicious.  And after so many years so disappointing.  It’s not that it’s a bad beer it’s just that I remember it so differently!  It’s probably been 12 or 13 years since I’ve had it (hard to get in Aus) and I’ve had a lot of awesome beers since then and this just wasn’t what I expected it to be.  The beer was the Milk Stout from Left Hand Brewing.  I remember it being this sweet stout that tasted like chocolate milk … a chocolate breaka with bubbles!  But now it just wasn’t the same.  Ah well - we all move on.

The Seattle Tacoma airport is not a particularly nice place.  It’s rather dreary and very dated.  Mel drove me there and I said farewell and waited patiently for my flight to Taiwan.

I really enjoyed the 8 or so days I spent with Luke and Mel - huge thanks for letting me stay!  It was nice to spend time with people I knew and just relax in a home environment after being on the road for so long.  Hope I wasn’t too big an imposition.  And I don’t want kids.