Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
After our red-eye flight, we landed in Halifax and spent our first day getting our room and walking around the waterfront. We also made it to the Halifax Public Garden.
Since we had an early evening flight from Seattle, we took our time finishing things at the house before heading to the airport. After we arrived, our first flight to Vancouver was delayed several times. It ended up leaving almost two hours late, but fortunately, that still left us with a layover of about an hour, so we weren’t too worried.
Many things come to mind when I think about Aunt Aiko. Like many people, one of them is food. Almost 30 years ago, she contributed a couple of her prized sushi recipes to a family cookbook. I'm glad she did because both my dad and I have made her chirashi zushi several times. It may seem simple, but it's always popular. I always think of Auntie when making it. In broad strokes, this is how you make it, and why each step reminds me of her.
After Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the second half of our trip was to Los Angeles. Melody was at a conference for the American Translators Association, so I did a combination of playing tourist and seeing family.
Since Melody had a conference in Los Angeles in the middle of October, and we decided to leave a few days early to have some time in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. I hadn't been there since elementary school, and this would be Melody's first time. We did quite a bit of hiking, as well as many of the tourist favorites.
Our spring and summer hiking went in spurts, then we did several during a week-long road trip. We even made it to Idaho for the last hike.
Melody’s sister Celeste was in town for about a week, and we took the opportunity to do a bit of travel. It was a whirlwind week, and we got a lot done. We started with a couple of nights in Packwood, WA so we could hike in Mt. Rainier National Park, then went to Yakima to visit Melody and Celeste’s mom, then to Spokane to visit their uncle.
My mom’s memorial service was this weekend. I have another page which contains parts of the service (a life history, a slideshow, my memories of my mom through letters, me playing her favorite piano piece, and images of the program), but I’ve included the slide show below. While I have a lot memories I could write about, there are certainly too many for here; I think the ones I shared during the service cover a good cross-section.
Our last full day in Toronto was quiet, with me catching up on things and Melody going to her last conference day. Our travel day back to Seattle was pretty non-eventful, too.
I ventured further away from our room than on previous days to look at bluffs on the lakeshore. Melody didn't have any extracurricular activities at her conference this day, but she did join people for dinner.
Another split day. Melody went to her conference and went on an art walk near the University of Toronto, while I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was still hot.
Another full conference day for Melody, and I went to a castle. We both avoided the rain but not the heat.
Melody's first conference day, so I walked around a bit. Since she didn't have anything in the afternoon, we went down to the Financial District to do a walking tour.
This was the first of our "split" days, where Melody and I do different things. At least for part of the day. I went to a Blue Jays game while Melody walked around a bit and had dinner with some people at the conference.
We often try to do a day trip when traveling, and that’s what we did this day. The last time I was at Niagara Falls was almost 50 years ago, and Melody had never been, so we figured it would be a good thing to do. We were prepared for crowds (a weekend day during the peak summer season) and were able to get plenty of time looking at the falls from two countries.
Our first full day in Toronto included going through the Royal Ontario Museum and doing a walking tour of Chinatown and Kensington Market.
Melody wanted to go to a week-long book group event in Toronto, so I tagged along so we could make a vacation of it. The last time we were there was almost a quarter century ago, so it seemed like an opportunity to revisit the city.
I was in Southern California last month for my cousin Charlie's memorial service, who passed away in April. He was married to Sherry (the oldest of us first cousins), and next year would have been their 60th wedding anniversary. They have three children (and spouses) and eight grandchildren (with three spouses).
It’s that time of year for me to record a piano piece for my mom’s birthday. This one is a Chopin Etude, Op. 28, No. 9 in E.
This installment covers hikes from the past several months. We were in Arizona for a week in November and did a couple of hikes in Saguaro National Forest. In late January/early February, we went on a short road trip to the Leavenworth area and did some snowshoeing. The last couple of snowshoe hikes were in the Seattle area.
