August 2016 – Upcoming Destination

U.S. National Parks Centennial

August 23, 2016 Ngilee Comments 0 Comment

Did you know the U.S. National Parks Service turns 100 years old this year? National Park is U.S.’s best idea offered to the world. It helps with environmental education and conservation and makes nature accessible to the general public. Jamie and I took two weeks this summer to visit a few national parks, and here are some pictures to share!

Yosemite (photo credits to Anna)

The road trip began with meeting up with Anna, Steve, Jenn, and Jordan in Yosemite. We all looked very happy before we started the 17-mile Half Dome hike. That would change when we reached sub-dome which was basically a long stretch of stairs.

It was a cloudless day, and the view from the top was amazing. We took naps and photos on the summit 🙂 The last 3-4 miles felt like forever. My toenails were not very happy coming down hill, one more reason to love my hiking sticks.

Moab

From Yosemite, we headed east to Moab crossing Ely in Nevada. Ely was a very small town with a handful of casinos, we went to the Lehman caves to check out the stalactities, people used to host meetings and dance parties in the caves.

Passing through Nevada, we reached Utah to visit the Deadhorse State Park and the Arches National Park. In the photos, you can see Moab’s signature landscape- redrocks, arches, and canyons. Since the afternoon temperature were in the high 90’s, we hiked during dawn or dusk.

Boulder

After Moab, we stopped by Colorado to visit one of Jamie’s best friends from high school. May and Slate graciously hosted us and we spent some time in Boulder brunching in the Dushanbe Teahouse, enjoying street performances, watching people float down the Boulder creek, and looking at maps in the map shop.

Grand Teton

We drove north after departing Colorado and camped one night in Wyoming before heading to Grand Teton. Grand Teton was busy but not overwhelming, the Jenny Lake to Cascade Canyon hike was one of the best hikes I’ve done.

We took a boat from near our campsite to the start of the trail head, most elevation gain in this hike was gradual except the first and last part. Animals were very active in the area, we saw a moose, a bear, a lot of pikas, some marmots, a snake, birds, and more during our 12 mile hike.

Once we got above treeline, the view opened up with mountains, streams, and wild flowers. We were rewarded with a glacier lake as we climbed up to 9,000 ft. We both swam in the Solitude Lake, the freezing water was rejuvenating.

Yellowstone

Just north of Grand Teton sits Yellowstone National Park which was our last national park destination. It felt a bit like Disneyland in Yellowstone as there were a lot to see and do, but there were numerous tourists as well. My favorite part was watching the geysers go off and Bisons roam around.

The geothermal features were breathtaking and looked like something from outer space. Besides the Old Faithful (first picture), the most impressive geyser was the Beehive (second picture). The beehive went off every 10 hours to five days. Before the main explosion happened, water would start gushing from the indicator vent. We waited over 3 hours for the Beehive to go off, and it was worth it. Water thrust up the air by sheer force and the water column gained a height of 200 feet.

There were quite a number of geothermal features with interesting colors, smells, and activities. Here are some of the pools that we saw.

Though we didn’t see bears, we saw a lot of other animals including a pack of wolves dashing across the field. Bisons were very frequent in some park areas and they liked crossing the road. The rangers had to constantly herd the Bisons back to the field.

Another cool feature in Yellowstone were the waterfalls, the Grand Canyon area had great views of the upper and lower falls. Occasionally, you could see rainbows with the waterfalls.

We passed by Idaho and Reno as we drove back to the Bay Area. We put 4,000+ miles to the rental car within 2 weeks! I felt very privileged to be living in a country that had such a great system of national parks, I would recommend the trip to anyone who is up for outdoors adventures.

Wind Mills and Hand Made Chocolates

August 10, 2016 Ngilee Comments 0 Comment

It has been a few busy weeks with the last leg of my Europe trip and U.S. National Parks tour. Here’s a make up post for Netherlands and Belgium.

I went from Munich to Rotterdam overnight on six different trains, it seemed more interesting when I booked the train tickets, the actual travel was a mix of battling sleepiness and hurrying across platforms to catch the next train. I wasn’t the only person doing the complicated transfers, I met a Chinese student who was studying art in Austria, she made the same train schedule twice within three days as she wanted to see Amsterdam over the weekend!

Rotterdam was nearby multiple cities, I went to Amsterdam, Delft, Utretch, the Hague, and Kinderdijk which were all within a couple of hours from Rotterdam. My airbnb host took me on a bike tour to Kinderdkijk to see lots and lots of wind mills. One our way home, we had some traditional dutch food and beers.

Next day, I went to a fashion trade show with my friend Lin Jie. She was studying the fashion industry trade between Netherlands and China and it happened that there was a trade show going on while I was visiting. There were hundreds and hundreds of brands in the convention and it was cool to see the newest European fashion all at once.

Amsterdam was lively and everyone seemed to be busy exploring water channels, art scenes, and coffee shops, I enjoyed Amsterdam, but I preferred the more quite and old fashioned Delft. The famous painter Vermeer was inspired by the streets of Delft and you could quickly see why. The streets were composed of flowers and plants next to water channels with occasional boats passing by. It was a perfect location for some quiet time.

Rotterdam expressed its character through architectures, there were many buildings with unorthodox structures. It was fun seeing these colorful and oddly shaped buildings next to each other. My favorite was the cube houses:

After a few days in Netherlands, I took a train to Antwerp, Belgium. Antwerp was the most diverse city I visited on this trip, it was a melting pot for people coming from all over the world. Besides being diverse, Antwerp was famous for hand made chocolates and being a fashion capital. They also had comic walls sprinkled all over the city, people here loved comics and board games.

One of the highlights of my trip was meeting up with Brendan in Ghent. Con Brio was playing in the Gent Jazz Festival, unfortunately, I had to catch the last train home so I couldn’t stay for the set.

I made my way out to the sculpture garden on my last day in Belgium. There were over 200 pieces of sculptures in the park. It was fun strolling around and spotting random art pieces. Some of them provoked my imagination, but some of them were way to abstract for me to comprehend.