OR-CA-WA Road Trip!

2009.12.27

Snow drift danced along the quiet streets of a quaint American town. Illuminated by the orange glow of the street lights and holiday lights under the cover of night, we meandered, traversed, and aimlessly explored our new surrounding environment.

Welcome to Bend, Oregon. A town known for its craft beer from the taps of Deschutes Brewery, but nothing much else. Imelda, Sam, Serge and I made a pit stop here after a long drive from Vancouver in a Honda Civic. Bend looked different under daylight after emerging from our hotel room. A walking tour of the Old Bend Neighbourhood revealed a lot of history about this place and opportunities for scenic winterscape. Turn of the century heritage homes, Bend High School, and the Bend Public Library were just some of the tell-tele signs of the early days here.









2009.12.28

Crater Lake was our next destination, and quite frankly, the highlight of Oregon. After coming across a spectacular picture of Crater Lake while browsing the webbernet, I was really looking forward to seeing this place with my own eyes. I had high expectations going in, and my expectations were met. As history goes, this crater was formed as a result of a volcanic eruption. When all the magma spewed out of the mountain, it left a hollow void underneath causing the tip of the mountain to collapse under its own weight. But as it did so, it formed a perfect bowl and over time, rain water and snow melt filled the crater forming a lake that is now 8 by 10km in area and 594m deep.

Following our feast for eyes at Crater Lake National Park, we motored down Highway 97 heading straight for San Francisco through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. After coming across a strange and out of place fruit checkpoint at the Oregon/California State Border which was nothing more than a run down shanty with a dude sitting on a folding lawn chair, we made it to a place called Weed. We stopped in to the Hi-Lo Motel Cafe & RV Park on Weed Boulevard for a very late dinner. On the back of the menu, I learned about the mystery surrounding Mt. Shasta and the Lemurians who are said to live deep inside the mountain. The lenticular clouds that commonly form around the peak is said to mask a UFO for which the mountain is used as a landing spot. This small town sure knew how to market and brand itself, playing on its namesake with all things Weed. I should have picked up an “I <3 WEED” pin along with the “I DID WEED” mug.











2009.12.29

We were dead tired by the time we arrived in San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning. We couldn’t check into our hotel until 11 in the morning so we killed the hours at a Denny’s. I stayed in the back seat of the Honda Civic to catch some much needed snoozing before watching the sunrise from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. To see the sunset rise over the bay was worth the wait and endurance in the cold. We had breakfast in Sausalito, we checked into our hotel at the Holiday Inn on Van Ness Avenue.

Since making plans to go on a road-trip to SF and back, I was looking forward to meeting up with Elle again, a friend I hadn’t seen since leaving Beijing. She studies and lives in the Bay Area with her boyfriend and when we met up at her place, I just had to give her my warmest hug!

















2009.12.30

The next day after getting sufficient sleep, we went for a drive to Monterey Bay and Carmel-By-The-Sea. These were areas we didn’t get around to seeing when we were in SF just ten months earlier. We made a pit-stop at an IN-N-OUT burger stand before continuing on through the rolling hills of California.

Prior to arriving in Monterey Bay, I had little to no idea about the history of the area, so it came as a pleasant surprise when I learned that John Steinbeck grew up here. The streets were lined with banners with quotes and passages from Steinbeck’s literary works, most notably from Cannery Row.

Among others, Custom House Plaza was of historical interest in the area that defined the State of California. The Mexican styled building in the plaza built by the Mexican government was once occupied by the Mexicans as a Custom House where taxes were collected on foreign merchants until an American flag was raised on July 7th, 1846, declaring California as part of the United States of America. It’s California’s first historic landmark and its oldest public building.

We had just enough day-light to see Carmel-By-The-Sea after spending the majority of our time in lovely Monterey. We went straight to the beach after driving past a boutique of local restaurants, cafes, bookstores, and art galleries of Carmel. We had spent a lot of time down at the beach long after the sun went down getting creative with long-exposure shots of us posing and painting with light. The results turned out beautifully and we kept taking shot after shot. People started to notice what we were doing and had approached us to observe closely and make small talk. Soon enough, we got to use their children to pose for us to everyone’s delight!





























2009.12.31

All refreshed from the beautiful cinderella night before, we left our hotel and took the trolley to Telegraph Hill. We met up with Elle again and did some shopping in Chinatown for fish balls, beef balls, enoki mushrooms, and vegetables in preparation for one of my favourite dishes: spicy hot pot! I was salivating until the time I got to put these tasty morsels into my mouth and taste the flavourful juices that burst inside. It triggered a memory of our time in Beijing.

We visited the remains of the Sutro Baths on the west coast later in the day and eventually found ourselves in the Castro district to ring in the new year by bar-hopping. While on the bus to Castro, Serge got hit on by a flamboyant African American man in his mid 30s who locked eyes with him as he said “Hello” in that unmistakable tone of flirtation. Sam, Mel, and I thought it was funny but Serge didn’t want to entertain.

We all started off with a martini at the first establishment we walked into and after downing that drink, we moved on to the next for more drinks. After visiting a number of different establishments along the main strip ordering up different drinks each time, I was over my limit. That realisation came a bit too late for me, however, when it really started to set in. I couldn’t even finish my beer. Elle and her bf Justin joined us for dinner at a sushi restaurant as I was craving for sushi earlier, but my memory from this point on gets a little fuzzy. I do remember having to politely excuse myself several times from the table to make my way to the loo to purge. Staring down the porcelain bowl was not the way I wanted to end the night and ring in the new year.

Fortunately, I made it out of the restaurant on my own two feet, but not without leaving a bad first impression on Justin to whom I have yet to formally introduce myself in the un-inebreated state. I vow never to mix drinks in quick succession. I also left the sushi place still hungry and craving for sushi.

Under the cover of night and through the illuminated streets of SF, we walked towards The Embarcadero to celebrate with hoardes of others with the same idea. We’re all suckers for beautiful displays of fireworks. The countdown. The text messages. The fireworks. The cheers. HAPPY NEW YEAR!



















2010.01.01

Lombard Street had Mel all excited as a new driver. This photogenic zig-zag down a steep hill draws a great number of tourists every year and this was the last thing we did before saying good-bye to San Francisco.

Highway 101 hugged the coastline of the Pacific and offered spectacular scenic spots along the way to Portland. We pulled over after a long drive north to admire the long pebble beach and watch the waves crashing in. We loved playing tag with the ebb and flow of the cascading tides, chasing it when it recedes and running away from it when we see a wave coming in. Surge got tagged really bad as he was taking a photo and didn’t notice what was coming for him. We laughed for a moment but he later showed the ocean that he didn’t care anymore as he went right in - shoes, socks, trousers - with the water level knee high! Now here’s a dedicated photographer.


2010.01.02

Checking into the Hotel Fifty turned out to be a good pick when I used Hotwire.com. It was chic, ultra-modern, and dare-I-say sexy. Recently renovated only months ago, the small attention to detail caught my eyes. In tradition of Keeping Portland Weird, we stumbled upon a doughnut shop called Voodoo Doughnuts. This hole in a wall establishment served all sorts of funky doughnuts with interesting names. I myself went for the signature Voodoo Doll which was a raspberry jelly filled doughnut shaped as a voodoo doll with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake right through the heart. For giggles, I also went for the Gay Bar which was more-or-less like a cream frosted long-john but stuffed with cream and all the colours of a Fruit Loop cereal on top. Other weird things we found in Portland was the 24-hour coin operated art gallery on street level and a ginormous squid trying to break free from a corner of a building. I like weird.

Much to our delight, we went over to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum to see the Spruce Goose, a heavy transport aircraft built almost entirely of birch wood. With the largest wingspan and height of any aircraft in history, the Spruce Goose took up the entire hanger. From helicopters to DCs and other flying machines in between, there was much to see and learn at this museum that we didn’t even have time to set foot inside the Space Museum!



























2010.01.03

Homeward bound. We checked out of the hotel and made our way to Seattle to see one last thing. I’m not even sure if it was on our list of things to see, but I’m glad we saw the troll under the north end of the Aurora Avenue Bridge. Keep Seattle Weird, too!

New York, NY

“Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city / Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty / How can you lose?” - Petula Clark

Arriving back to NYC via Coach USA, I made visiting the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) my first priority of the day. After alighting at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I walked down to 11 West 53rd St with my baggage in tow and walked through the glassy entrance doors of the MoMA. There was an exhibit on the first floor on Claude Monet’s Water Lilies where I had casually strolled through on my way up to the upper floors for the Modern Art collection. I was awe-inspired by a collection of bold and innovative design of common household items from kitchen appliances to home furnishings in the “What Was Good Design? MoMA’s Message 1944 - 56” collection.

I watched an archival video about the story behind “Cadillac Ranch” in another section of the MoMA before moving on to “In Situ: Architecture and Landscape” which had scale architectural models of structures blending in with its surrounding environment. None was more apparent in this concept than Frank Lloyd Wright’s well known “Fallingwater”.

Tim Burton’s exhibit would have been interesting to see but it was still under construction when I was there. I was only able to get a sneak peak of it from the “mouth” leading into Burton’s world.

I met up with Kyle at the lobby of the MoMA just as I was exiting the building and went over to his abode in Brooklyn to unpack my belongings. His girlfriend, Becca, appeared moments later all distraught and stressed from something that happened to her at work earlier in the day, but quickly brushed those feelings aside to focus on the fun adventure that awaits in India in mere hours. I thought I had packed light with just my camera backpack and another bag for my MacBook Pro, but seeing that all she had was a single backpack for the weeklong trip to India with her mom to attend her friend’s wedding made me think twice about my packing essentials.

I had a short list of things I wanted to see and do around the city which I had quickly compiled with the help of Kyle and Becca while at JFK, but when Saturday morning rolled around, I got sidetracked when Marion came online on Skype. Kyle came into the scene and the three of us were reunited! We spoke at length and Marion was jealous of the fact that I was in NYC. Thanks to the power of wireless technology, we took Marion on a tour of NYC by bringing my MacBook Pro to the rooftop and gave her a 360º view of the neighbourhood and took a “group photo” of all three of us together, cradling her in my MacBook Pro in my arms. Geek Chic!

Our video chat continued until the sun went down. We were on the couch watching YouTube videos together using the screen-sharing feature new to Skype until she got really really tired and went horizontal.

Though Kyle and I didn’t leave the apartment until late in the evening, I thought we were still making good use of the day as I felt I was really with two wonderful friends in one room. Obligatory when in the Big Apple, I had to visit Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue, but as it turned out, there was a grand opening at an Apple Store on 1981 Broadway, just walking distance from the Fifth Avenue store on the other side of Central Park, so we went there first. This store is HUGE with two levels of retail space with the massive glass exterior entrance. It shone like sparkling diamonds at night. We moved onto the Fifth Avenue Apple Store with it’s iconic glass cube entrance with a glass staircase leading down to the retail floor. I seem to be overly fascinated with glassworks. While much smaller than the Apple Store on 1981 Broadway, it’s been estimated that this store brings in more $$ per square footage than Tiffany’s.

The highlight on Sunday was my walk-about to the Brooklyn Promenade where I was able to capture Manhattan’s skyline splashed with a colourful array of light in the sky just before the sun disappeared under the horizon through the lens. I took some beautiful long exposure shots here of the Brooklyn Bridge and then moved onto a small park between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges for more nightscapes. I crossed northbound over the Manhattan bridge towards Chinatown then walked back to Brooklyn.

Monday rolled around and I had spent my last day in NYC on another walk-about, starting off at Battery Park. I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. People were playing frisbee on the greens while others were tanning, reading a book, exercising, and jogging around the perimeter of the park. It was very picturesque. I kept walking south to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and then to Wall Street where I took my lunch. After devouring my kobe beef, I walked north along Wall Street to Liberty Street, then made my way to Ground Zero. I made full circle back to Battery Park before heading to BMCC to meet up with Kyle for the last time before heading back to JFK.

Sigh... good times never last long enough.

An odd thing happened to me on my flight home. Just after having my in-flight dinner with a glass of not-so-good red wine to finish, I woke from my sleep with an upset stomach. As I got up and excused myself to the passenger sitting on the isle seat, I felt really nauseous and just before reaching what I thought was the door to the loo, I blacked out and collapsed onto the floor. Moments later, I woke from my unconscious state with several flight attendants worried about my condition. They were asking me about any allergies I may have and medical history/condition. I couldn’t explain it myself. Whatever it was that caused my black out was now out of me and colour returned to my skin. I was able to walk to the loo myself but a few attendants wanted to accompany me just in case.

Mahwah, NJ

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

As I can easily fall asleep while on transit, I thought that it might be a great idea to take the red-eye from YVR to JFK, but with dinner being served at 2300h and a movie starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Williams to entertain me post-dinner, I got just enough minutes of sleep as it takes to develop a roll of film at a drugstore.

Flying into JFK at 0600h, I disembarked, found my way onto the AirTrain (Bombardier!), transferred onto the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) at Jamaica Station, took it to the terminus at Penn Station, meandered through the streets of NYC to the Port Authority Bus Station, boarded the CoachUSA to Mahwah, NJ, an hour away, and then took a 5 minute taxi ride to the Sheraton. It was 0930h when I checked into my suite where I had promptly dumped my baggage on the floor and face planted onto the bed where I remained for many hours.

When I woke up, I looked outside my south facing window from the twentieth floor and was surprised to see that I was in a hilly area bounded by freeways and highways. I ventured outside for a walkabout but I didn’t get very far at all. I couldn’t! I quickly realised that Mahwah was not built for pedestrians so the only way to get ANYWHERE is by motor vehicle. Absent were sidewalks, crosswalks, and skywalks. I popped into a convenience store at a gas bar and asked an attendant there if there was any way to cross Route 17 and sarcastically (or not) he responded by asking me if I could cross the road to the median, hop onto the cement barrier, and climb the fence on top of it.

“What kind of place is this?” I wondered. A butt-fuck of a place employing village hicks sans-high school diploma at the city engineering and urban planning division.

Walking back towards the hotel cutting across the large garden with a fountain, I saw a large flock of Canadian geese eating grass. They looked just as out of place as I did.

For dinner, I had my driver, Marie, take me to a Japanese restaurant called Mt. Fuji, as was recommended by the hotel concierge. It turned out to be a teppanyaki restaurant which was marginally palatable but didn’t have the authenticity. I had the chicken teriyaki with mushrooms stirred in with mozzarella cheese.


Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

I woke at 0630h and got out of bed at 0700h to be down at the lobby by 0745h to wait for the Sheraton shuttle to take me to Nobel Biocare’s Training Centre.

We covered how to scan in and design single unit and three-unit bridges using CAD and Anatomic functions for each. We also had a tour of the production facility which was smaller than I had envisioned. It was really neat to see the milling machines in operation though. The robotic arm that filled the order into the tubes was also cool to see.

There were several others in our training group from Canada as well including a party of three from a lab in Saskatoon of all places. Gary, his dad, and his assistant Crystal were very nice folks and we all went out to dinner to a seafood restaurant called Virka’s. I had ordered the Chilean Sea Bass in onion and tomato soup which was to my satisfaction.


Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Today was another full day of training. This time, we were being trained on how to design implants and bar-over dentures. My brain shut-itself off after lunch and retaining anything on a full stomach was impossible. I sure hope that the supplementary training materials and help menus will guide me along adequately when it comes time to actually doing some work back at the lab. I’ll need to do a practice case at least a few more times to get into the flow of things.

I didn’t feel like leaving my hotel room for dinner so I ordered pizza from Pizza Masters and had it delivered right to my suite. As I waited, I was channel surfing and found myself hooked on a cheeky quiz show called CA$H CAB. Ben Bailey, the host of this show, is also the cab driver, and the unsuspecting passengers in NYC who enter into his CA$H CAB are the contestants. The first $50 questions start off easy and after a certain distance covered, the questions become harder at $100 for each correct answer. If you manage to arrive at your destination without striking out on three, you get the “video bonus question” where you can double your winnings or LOOSE IT ALL. I was hooked to this mobile game show instantly.

On one episode, Bailey picked up two blonde woman caught by surprise when they realised that they were on CA$H CAB. The women turned to each other and said something to the effect of “Ohmigawd! I make fun of people who can’t answer the easy questions! They’re so dumb!” This comment came to haunt them in the end when neither one could answer which Canadian city two hours north of Seattle will host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Even if you don’t live in Vancouver, give a rats ass about the Olympics, and think that it’s just a silly sporting event like I do, you would have got the answer.

The pizza guy came a-knockin’ and handed me a huge box. I only had the appetite to eat a quarter of it that night and another quarter the morning after for breakfast. I’d obviously had a brain lapse and forgot upon ordering that I’m in America.