Rhode Island Clam Chowder

Chris and I met up in Hartford for his brother Nicholas’s wedding a few weeks ago. As I haven’t been back to Seattle yet, I’m calling this all part of “my” trip. And since I’m still traveling I can cook up ridiculous ideas like, “Let’s drive to the Rhode Island coast to try clear clam chowder.”

Apparently the idea didn’t seem too ridiculous, and that is how we found ourselves stuck in traffic at a dead standstill on State Hiway 4 joining what appeared to be all of Rhode Island and possibly part of Massachusetts in trying to get to any piece of land that touched the Atlantic Ocean. Our goal had been to drive to Point Judith, have a look around and then enjoy lunch at Champlins, a seafood restaurant on the water I had heard about on The Splendid Table. Now we were wondering if we were going to get Nicholas back to Quidnessett in time to get married. Note to self: don’t take groom on excursions on his wedding day, especially when Friday afternoon traffic and a beach could be involved.

Traffic cleared up enough that we figured we could have lunch at Champlins. It was one of those rough-around-the-edges-but-with-a-sweet-deck-overlooking-the-water joint a la Ivars of Seattle. All this effort was to try their clear clam chowder. Think the ocean, only tasty, in a clear broth chock full of clams and potatoes. They also had scallops, gigantic and perfectly cooked (rare and still sticky in the middle) and fried clam strips, served on a hoagie. This was something new to me-the " roll". Like a hotdog, only waaaay better. The best roll I had was a lobster roll at the Lobster Landing near Nicholas's house in Clinton, CT. Oh 1/4 lb of lemony, buttery peeled lobstery goodness.

Chris grew up in storybook New England – dense green forest, quaint main streets with a town green, old colonial houses and lots of streams and hollows and mountains that people will plan their year’s vacation to visit – and it was all in his backyard. Chris and Nicholas took an afternoon to drive me and a friend from California around to all their old childhood haunts. I think having out of towners marvel at all this gave them a real sense what a magical place the two of them grew up in. Still being in travel mode has me marveling at the diversity of cultures, language, climates, geography and cuisines all within the borders of the US. Our New England trip again reinforced my belief that there are so many diverse cultures and landscapes to experience without having to leave the US. I'm really looking forward to seeing what this new perspective opens up in Washington state. I'm also looking forward my road trip back to Seattle taking me through the South, Southwest and the Rockies. I'll keep ya'll posted on food, sights and experiences all the way back to Seattle.

Omaha

One of the things Chris and I frequently remarked on while we were travelling, especially when in New Zealand, is that we wondered how many of these cool funky little towns and off-the-beaten-path parks and hikes were in our own backyard. How many of them do we miss because we were so busy travelling around to "bigger and better" places in the US and around the world? The oft repeated question made us soon resolve to take our "traveller's eyes" back to Washington and try to experience our own home turf the way tourists like us experience the Puget Sound. And by like us I do no mean the ones who flock to the Space Needle and buy T-shirts with the skyline emblazoned on it down at the shops on the waterfront. We've even toyed with the idea of limiting ourselves to Washington and perhaps southern B.C. for a year. A move in part necessitated by our now decimated pocketbook and perhaps a desire to balance our monstrous flying footprint this year. But it is also a challenge to really discover the gems of Washington, many of which we are well aware of but never make the time to experience.

So I'm trying out my new "traveller's eyes" on Omaha, Nebraska. My hometown was another casualty of my desire to always go someplace "bigger and better." I came home my first summer after college, but after that I was always going someplace else. Even holidays succumbed. More than once I had a Thanksgiving meal in Omaha and then would drive overnight for a weekend sailing regatta in Chicago. Now distance and the cost of a flight means I see Omaha once, maybe twice a year. And now, every time I go home, I find myself thinking, "This is a pretty cool place." So driven by a desire to spend more time with my parents and to reacquaint myself with my hometown, I've chosen to spend a month here before I work my way back to Seattle.

I have to say I have been blown away by what I have experienced so far. I beginning to gain an appreciation for the sense of place I have here. And for just how much this flat, hot and at times oppressively humid bit of prairie is such an engrained part of me. I think no matter how long I live in the Northwest, there is always going to be a part of me that sees an open expanse of cornfield, and the slow green undulation of the land along the Missouri and will breathe a long sigh of, "I'm home." It's the part that has an endless fascination with grass. The part that prefers grasslands and deciduous trees (especially cottonwoods), small towns and grain elevators, to dense evergreen forests and clear mountain streams. Don't get me wrong, there is another vocal part of me that is pretty ticked I haven't been skiing for 368 days, but for now that part will just have to let the Nebraska part have her due.

I have lots of "travel thoughts" I would like to post, but for now, in interest of keeping this post a reasonable length, I will save them for another time. Omaha, a travel destination. Who knew?

Back in Korea

It was a strange feeling saying goodbye to Chris in the Bangkok airport. After nine months of being together everyday 24/7, we thought we would be be ready for a break from each other. But I had gotten used to having someone there to turn to comment on whatever strange sight or amazing view I happened to see that day. Now I would be travelling around with my mom and two of her sisters. And while Korea is starting to feel like a second home, everything here is still strange enough that I miss having someone to turn to and say, "Seriously is every stranger here going to ask me why I'm not married?!?"

I had a great time hiking in Korea and people we met in other places frequently commented on that portion of our trip saying that is sounded like a lot of fun but daunting, or that they had never considered going to Korea but were really intrigued by the hiking possibilities. In response to that interest, I've decided to start a trekking company that will lead a two-week hiking trip in Korea in the fall of each year. I chose to end my trip by spending three weeks in Korea in order to do some research and take care of logistics. So my mom, two of her older sisters and I set off on a tour or Korea revisiting many of the places we hiked through last fall.

In some ways ending the trip in Korea is a good slow easing back into the "regular" world. The hyper-consumer capital Seoul feels just foreign enough that I still feel like I'm travelling, but at the same time eases me (well throws me off the deep end) back into a world of modern conveniences and capitalism.

So here is my three week trip in Korea, summed up in pictures - because that's more fun than reading through a long blog post!

Kongbiji: Oddly I had been daydreaming about eating this for almost two months while hiking in Nepal. It is a stew made from ground soybeans. You add a healthy dose of soy sauce usually mixed with chili pepper, sesame seeds and green scallions and enjoy this bubbly boiling dish. All the other dishes on the table are panchan, or side dishes. They are lovely and fresh in June when there are lots of random vegetables - my mom vaguely calls them edible vegetables, the only way she can think to translate the word namul - that have come into season

Incheon emo (so named because she lives in Incheon) has a garden on the edge of the city. We went one day to help her weed and pick some greens. She thanked us by cooking up a storm of bacon to eat with the fresh greens we picked.

Mom demonstrates how to put a lettuce wrap together: lettuce, sukkat (a chrysanthemum relative), sauce and the bacon. To eat: shove it all in your mouth.

Recycling in Seoul is done indirectly. Someone pays enough for cardboard, so this old woman pushes her cart around picking it up off the street where people leave it outside their house or business. She will then take it to the recycling center in effect to receive her pay for picking up trash.

My aunt runs a pojang macha - basically a food stand . Each day she goes to a distributor where she picks up all the food she will sell - corn, dumplings, steamed bread and pigs feet. Really until travelling this much I didn't realize so many parts of an animal could be eaten, let alone taste, well, good. We didn't hang around for the finished product, but after the meat cooks for several hours it practically falls off the bone, which is a good thing as I'm not sure anyone would eat it other wise. It's long day of hard work. We left the house at 8 am and returned around 11:30 that night.

The Incheon Port fish market. This was the start of our road trip. We bought several pounds of fish and miscellaneous seafood for a special dinner at another aunt's house that night and to take with us. That fish would make up a spicy seafood soup that was breakfast, lunch and dinner for about the next four days. Wonderful.

All the fish are kept in tanks here, so it's the freshest place to enjoy hwoe-Korean sushi (basically chopped up raw fish). These three guys are enjoying a Sunday afternoon with some fish and soju.

On a stop for lunch we met the woman who helped us get a cab from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere. She remembered us from last fall, so we hung out at her rest area and made lunch for her.

My mom, her oldest sister (Seoul Emo) and her third oldest sister (Incheon Emo) in front of a waterfall made famous by being in a popular television drama. Chris, Jeff and I remember it as being a place we came upon after the sun had set. We gave up trying to find a good place to camp and just camped in the stream bed and cooked eggplant parmesan (well a camp approximation of it).

It's garlic harvest time, we found it in every market and on many street corners through out our trip. Korean food uses A LOT of garlic. A household would probably go through at least two, possibly three of these bunches in a year.

This cat was yelling at everyone on the street to buy his ddok (Korean glutenous rice cake) and come try free samples. If after trying his "free" sample, you didn't buy any, he would run after you and grab you buy the arm back to his bowl asking, "Why don't you buy any, didn't it taste good?" and pretty much hound you until you bought some. Pushers come from all walks of like. Luckily the stuff was tasty and we bought a bunch for our hike.

The real ajuma. You may have had to been to Korea to fully appreciate this picture. Yes I am actually related to these women, god help me when I buy a visor and start perming my hair.

Maeshil. A sour plum, I think it's the same as as the Japanese Ume plum. It was in season while we were travelling around. Incheon emo, in addition to the 5 kilos she bought right before we left, bought another 5 kilos (for you Americans, that's 22 pounds of nearly inedible plums). She will turn them into some kind of potent alcohol drink and soak a lot of them in salt and sugar to become some type of long lasting panchan (side dish). Buying and preparing too much food obviously comes from my moms side of the family.

Scenes from a folk village in southern Korea. Typical Korean style houses (hanok), are making a come back as Korean nationalism grows and Koreans take an interest in traditional Korean arts.

Grains drying on a wall, a bird shares in the harvest.

Wouldn't be a post about Korea without some pictures of flowers!

Suncheon Bay. When I lived in Suncheon there was this picture of the Bay that I could never find where it was taken from. Every time I went looking for it, all I found was an inaccessible muddy wetland. Seven years later, after Suncheon Bay became a "wetland of international importance" under the Ramsar Convention (it's like the Kyoto protocol for wetlands), the town of Suncheon created a boardwalk trail through the wetland to connect to another trail up a mountain that yields the famous view of the Bay I had spent so much time looking for. The boardwalk is great, giving you up close views and sounds of frogs, crabs, salamanders, and so many birds. Wetlands are like the liver of our planet and highly under appreciated. If you ever get the opportunity go spend some time in one.

My "second" mother (I lived with her and her family for a year when in Korea), Seoul Emo, my mom and Incheon emo.

After eating far too many large restaurant meals (which was still a nice change from nine straight meals of spicy seafood soup), we protested saying we just wanted to eat in, something simple and small. So my host mother "just" whipped up this amazing broiled duck concoction, served lettuce wrap style. It was absolutely amazing.

Fishing boats at Maryeong, a port in the southwestern part of the country, on our whirlwind day tour or the islands of the southwest province.

Taking a ferry out to Pyeong-il island. Kind of felt like home.

My mom and aunts enjoying the cool sea breezes on the ferry.

Note that I finally have hair again.

Buoys as far as the eye can see (top). They're all seaweed "farms." The lines are hauled in once the seaweed is the desired size and then laid out all over the island under fishing nets (bottomw) to dry in the sun.

A family spends their Sunday afternoon digging for crabs. It's amazing how connected Koreans are to their food. You always see people gathering wild food while hiking, or old ladies collecting ginkgo nuts in the city. Equally amazing is how fast that knowledge is disappearing - in less than two generations.

Signs of fishing livelihood all over the island.

Back in Incheon, this is a large cemetery near my aunt's house. Cemeteries like this are not common. Usually graves are up on a hillside, each hill belonging to a certain clan. I thought the cross of Korean tomb styles and Arlington National Cemetery was interesting.

Cats aren't very common in Korea - even stray ones. I think there's some superstition around them. My mom, besides being very allergic to them, claims "they can't be trusted." This cat earns it's keep by catching mice around this food stand.

Last night in Korea: Jogye Gui (grilled clams). Clams fresh from a tank are grilled over a charcoal fire. You eat them straight out of the shell with a generous dash of hot pepper sauce, washed down with soju or in this case Cheongha, soju's less potent, smoother cousin.

Walk to the bottom of the world's highest peak

The 2009 IMG Sherpa Trek team above Namche. Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse are in the background, a bit washed out.

Our trek to Everest Base Camp is complete, and we've left Nepal. The trek was an incredible experience, and quite different from what we had been doing traveling simply as a couple. The Sherpa Trek to Everest Base Camp with IMG had a decidedly different flavor than our circuit around Annapurna for many reasons, and it made a great compliment to our time in the Annapurna region.

The goal of the Khumbu trek: views of Mt. Everest

First, we were traveling in a group of 15: 10 trekkers including Liz and me, and 5 Sherpa guides. Several porters and yaks carried our stuff (it makes a big difference when you're not carrying 15 kilos at altitude), but we rarely saw them. During the rest of our trip when it was just the two of us, we had the freedom to decide what to do as the days came. In our professional lives, we're both detailed planners and organizers. You make a plan and execute it -- its what makes us decent engineers. But traveling lends itself to a more open agenda, throwing designs to the wind, keeping options in mind and following your nose wherever it takes you. Sometimes, simply the act of not planning was the best plan of action, and we fell into some of our most memorable experiences this way. I hadn't realized how much we'd actually let go of our controlling minds until I jumped into executing the Sherpa Trek itinerary in early May. It went smoothly, but certainly demanded efforts I hadn't been required to put forth for months.

The largest "city in the Khumbu: Everest Base Camp

IMG's basecamp puja, a place where Bhuddist Sherpa make morning offerings, with the Khumbu Icefall in the background

The number of people in the group meant that something was always going on, with many personal highs and lows as people grappelled with the challenges of the trip and supported one another. I'd like to do some justice to the group's efforts given their experience levels coming into this trip. Half had never even hiked before, let alone for 18 days at altitude. Its not just a hike. Its not even just a hike to the bottom of the world's highest peak, which is a strenuous undertaking in itself. Its a whole experience, a journey of the senses and the mind, as well as the body. Many factors in the environment contribute to a trekker's experience, and someone who might have no problems hiking 12 miles a day at home can find themselves unexpectedly drained and depleted on a trip in Nepal. Sleeping in rustic accommodations and trying to find something appealing to a finicky stomach from the limited lodge menus, along with the inevitability of gastrointestinal illness and the potential for altitude sickness conspire against the body. The mind is often caught off guard by the cultural differences -- some strange, fascinating, and thought-provoking, others confusing and heart wrenching -- presented in the plights of Nepalis one sees on the trail at every turn, and in every village. These are people living lives very different in many ways from our own, and their situations are often written clearly on their face. By day's end, the trekker may have been pondering (consciously or unconsciously) one such face for hours, and feel complete mental fatigue in addition to the physical exhaustion.

View of Everest and Nuptse at dawn from Kala Pathar

These folks performed admirably, and were duly rewarded for their efforts with a genuine experience, accompanied by the satisfaction of having achieved something big. It was a life goal for some.

Second, the Khumbu valley and its prominence in mountaineering history is well known, as are its native Sherpa people. The Annapurna region is home to as many Himalayan giants, but Mt Everest gets most of the press.

Our Sirdar (head guide) Phu Tashi Sherpa with Chris and Liz at Basecamp

While Liz is still out of the country, we've come to the end of our travels together. Liz is in Korea revisiting some of our Baekdu Daegan travels for a to-be-announced future purpose, road tripping with her mother, and visiting family. I am home in Seattle trying to get life going again, absorbing our Nepal experiences and settling as gently as possible back into American life. It won't be a simple process, and I hope we can bring our experiences back into our everyday lives.

Annapurna Circuit Complete, Leaving for Everest Base Camp

The view from Thorung La pass (5416 m / 17800 ft), the high point on the Annapurna Circuit.

After 23 days of trekking, we completed our walk around the Annapurna massif and up to Annapurna Base Camp. It was an incredible adventure and one that neither of us has the energy to translate into words at the current moment. I think our minds are still absorbing the whole experience. The mountain scenery is astonishing, and the experience of the people and life in the villages in the lowland valleys and the changes higher up were fascinating.

We spent a day in Pokhara after completing the trek, then headed back to Kathmandu to prepare for our next trip to Everest Base Camp. All of the IMG Sherpa Trek team has now arrived in Kathmandu, and we're taking off for Lukla--the start of the trek for us--on a small airplane tomorrow morning. It looks to be a good group ready for a great experience. We'll be accompanied by 4 Sherpa guides, all natives of the famous Khumbu valley and 5 porters (No carrying our heavy packs on this trip--what a treat!). The trek to base camp takes about 10 days, and we'll be arriving just around the time the Everest climbing teams are starting to make summit bids. It will be an exciting time to be there.

IMG is keeping a blog of the 2009 Everest expedition. It obviously follows more of the progress of the climbers, but I think there will be some information on our progress up to Base Camp. In addition, the Discovery Channel is filming with IMG for this season's installment of their Everest show, so there's probably a lot of interesting photos, video and postings up there. You can also sign up for e-mail updates:

http://www.mountainguides.com/everest-south09.shtml

We'll have intermittent access to email during that time if you want to say hello. We'll be back to Kathmandu around May 21st.

Kathmandu

Three flights, three time changes, one industrial action (labour strike), a ten hour overnight layover on a very cold airport floor and six in-flight movies later (oh the joy!!!) we arrived in Kathmandu - GMT+5:45 - yep somehow 15 minutes off from the rest of the world. Our bags unfortunately got a free trip to London on our Sydney to Bangkok flight that continued on to London. We hope to receive them tomorrow.

Kathmandu is a warren of dirt roads, cows in the middle of the street, construction materials lying around like we're in a war zone and cars, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles and pedestrians all sharing the narrow lanes without much regard to any traffic rules including which side of the road to drive on (the drivers side is on the right of the car). But everyone is smiling and amazingly has all of their limbs intact. And even though everyone seems to be trying to selling us something, everyone feels very sincere and friendly.

A nice Australian befriended us while waiting for bags and offered to share his taxi. He had a really lovely hotel outside of all the fray, so we are somewhat comfortably easing into Nepal. We hope to get our bags tomorrow and then leave for the start of the Annapurna Circuit Trek the next day. We aren't expecting there to be internet access (although who knows, millions of travelers visiting a place brings surprising amenities) so we will next be posting and responding to e-mail when we return to Kathmandu at the end of April. So for Liz's friends, there shouldn't be a change in frequency of response! But for Chris's friends and family you may hear a little less from him.

Last Days in New Zealand

Its hard to look back and think that almost three months have passed since we landed in New Zealand, but its true. Our last month here has been somewhat of a blur, not just because its gone quickly, but because its been far more disjointed than February, where all we did was cruise from one overnight hike to another.

After an epic 6 day circuit covering two grand river valleys in Nelson Lakes National Park, we left the South Island with a bit of saddness in early March. We spent a couple evenings in Wellington again with Baekdu Daegan guidebook author Roger Shepard, and had a look around New Zealand's capital city. The cultural highlight was the magnificent Te Papa museum, but we also found culinary delights in a small bagel shop run by a New York native, trained in the art of bagelry by an old Jewish baker. For a soul deprived of crusty hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside bagels for 7 months, this was indeed a welcome treat.

All but too soon we headed north out of Wellington, making our way to Tongiraro National Park. The park consists of 3 volcanoes which we intended to walk around in 3 days, but the weather gods of Tongiraro decided that this wasn't the time, and we decided to move on rather than wait for a clear spell.

Rotorua was our next stop, and it proved a nice change from the continual and almost overwhelming immersion in incredible scenery that characterized our travels around the south island. Stunning natural settings is certainly what I dreamed of when planning our trip, but after a solid month of it, we both felt we couldn't absorb much more without just sitting in one place for a long while. Rotorua was still natural scenery, but different enough to break the streak.

Rotorua is an area of extreme and pervasive thermal activity, just another manifestation of the huge natural forces at work that have created and are still shaping New Zealand. There are hot springs, geysers, and boiling mud holes boasting colors so rich, so bright and magnificent that the mind can't quite grasp that the visual information its receiving is natural. We went for a relaxing dip in Kerosene Creek, so named for its slight smell. The entire stream was the temperature of a typical hot tub, and the sandy bottom got warmer the deeper you dug your feet. A little waterfall into a large bathing pool nestled in the trees provided a massage and the final touch on this unique little gem. Later that evening, we experimented with the Maori method of cooking using the steam vents of the area, slow-cooking our dinner using the "Hangi" at our camp ground.

With time winding down for us in mid March, we reluctantly returned to Auckland and spent a somewhat hectic five days selling our beloved Toyota campervan. Its an oldie, and a car that's older than many of its potential buyers looking for a sound vehicle to carry them around New Zealand can be a bit of a scare. We had the same sentiments before we bought it. As fate would have it, a mechanic bought the van on the spot without even getting inside it. His wife had wanted one for years and he knew he could work with this classic. It felt like a fitting exchange, since we knew the buyer would take care of it, keep it touring NZ. It served us very well and, now that I don't have to worry about selling it anymore, I can look back on it fondly for all the comfort and memories it provided us.

For the last 10 days, we chose to explore Northland, north of Auckland. Quaint towns, dramatic coastal views and remote beaches was what Northland was about for us. We camped on beaches almost every night, falling asleep to the waves and waking to sunrises with our feet in the sands. Further north, we kayaked in the iconic subtropical Bay of Islands in perfect late summer weather. One afternoon, we hiked up and across massive sand dunes, and boarded down them, cruising at high speeds and covering ourselves in sand. It was everywhere. Beyond civilization and at the tip of the north island, the experience of sitting in silence with the land and the seas at sacred Cape Reinga was something the pictures won't show.

Finally, we settled into the cosy Endless Summer Lodge, our first sense of home in many months. Spending a few nights in an actual house instead of the van, our tent, or a dorm-style hostel was restorative, and brought a glimpse of home just a few months away now. From the comfort of the Endless Summer Lodge, we explored our blooming surfing interests in Ahipara Bay. Well, to be honest we mostly got pounded by waves, but we did catch and ride a few! The beaches of New Zealand, and particularly those of the north island, were an unexpected surprise that filled out our final leg here, and once again demonstrated NZ's wide variety of landscapes. Northland was a spectacular way to go out.

On our last full day in Auckland, we walked to the top of Mt Eden, a small hill overlooking the city. From this vantage, the maze of suburban streets we'd been navigating seemed to make a bit more sense, helping me wrap my head around Auckland a bit before departing. But the prize of the afternoon was realizing that the whole city is dotted with small, dormant volcanoes, including the one on which we were standing. They're everywhere, and looking out across the land their shapes were unmistakeable. We had a picnic lunch and reflected on 3 months--a whole summer's worth--of traveling around this small little island nation of natural beauty. Liz commented on how strange it is that the gateway to a country where you've come to see the natural world is usually a city, thereby making up your first and last impressions of the place. I sat back and imagined the landscape we were looking out upon without all the buildings. In my mind's eye, it was no less stunning than the rest of what we'd experienced. I think this was New Zealand's spirit, shining through in the landscape and bidding us farewell.

Here are a couple photo sets from the last couple weeks. Click on the slideshow to see them in full size.

Nelson Lakes National Park


Rotorua and Northland


On Monday, March 30th, we fly to Bangkok, spend an undesireable night in the airport, and then fly on to Kathmandu, Nepal. We'll spend April trekking around Annapurna, and during May we'll join IMG's Sherpa Trek to Everest Base Camp. Nepal was a must for both of us, and we're looking forward to it, even it means we have to leave New Zealand.