Seattle: America's Garden Apartment

So as know, or maybe you don't, I've been here in Seattle just over 4 months now. Four months fthat sometimes feel like four years, but often feel like four minutes. Marking this milestone, I'd like to comment on some things I've observed since living out here in la la land.

Seattle: America's Garden Apartment, is the perfect description for this town. Chicagoans know that the term "Garden Apartment" is the glossed over terminology for basement apartment. I was at a party last Friday, and came across a garden apartment dweller, who had never heard of the term before but though it sounded nice. Dark, dingy and moist are probably the words used most frequently to describe the basement apartment. Lisa, a good friend of mine came to visit for two weeks in April and had a strong reaction to all of the mold festering in this city.

Seattle could also be called a grocery store becuase of the way it's laid out. Many of the ethnic resteraunts seemed to be concentrated in an area called "the International District", similar to that of the ethnic aisle of the grocery store.

Don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful place to live. People are so conscious here, that when a glass bottle is shatter on a street corner, people turn their attention in dismay to the rude person who dropped it. A yelling is the most you'll get out of a Seattelite. Most of the time it is indirect passive aggressiveness. Speaking of this, driving is a passive aggressive activity in this city. I have never felt like an aggressive driver until I moved to this city. On many Seattle streets there is no specifically marked left turn lane. This concludes in up to a dozen cars sitting behind one car that has is turn signal on and is turning left. They just wait till he turns and often miss the light. Luckily I have been fast enough to move into the right lane and go around them just in time to make the light. People are still shocked that my license plate is from Montana.

Seattle is the only place I know where there are severe weather alerts when the temperatures get below 35 and above 75. Chicago is the only place I can think of where people die from the heat in the summer and freeze to death from the cold winters, the severe weather warnings there mostly concern themselves with tornadoes and storms that have already hit the surrounding areas. Although we are on the coast and in the mountains, the weather here is predictable; 55 and partly cloudy is what I could say about 90% of the days I've spent here. The amount of times I have heard thunder can be counted on one hand, and I specifically remember what I was doing when it thundered.

On another note, a more domestic one perhaps, I must tell you about the new amenities I have living in Seattle. Recycling is a big part of life here in Seattle, and it's so easy. In addition to our regular garbage can, we have a recyclable can for paper, plastic, tin and aluminum, a bin for glass and a bin for yard waste. All are clearly labeled and all get picked up by the city(or a company the city has hired) and taken away. So, in other words, you cannot just toss a 2 liter Coke bottle in the normal trash, that would greatly frowned upon, plus you'd be liable to receive a ticket from the city. No joke! Supposedly there are fines for throwing away too many recyclable materials in the normal trash. Although I have never met anyone who has been fined, I believe it because they give out tickets for all kinds of things here. A cyclist I know received a $125 fine for not wearing a helmet, jaywalking fines do exist and as you all know I was accused of breaking the law by sporting the wrong colored light on my bicycle during the critical mass ride.

Garbage disposal is the word they use out here for yet another new contraption, the in-the-sink-food-grinder. It seems more like a food processor to me. So I've gotten into so much trouble with my roommates on this note. I did not grow up with such luxuries and therefore did not know the proper etiquette of this machine. You have to flip a light switch to get it grinding, but the water must be running at the same time to act as lube for the grinder. Since when did water lube metal?? Anyways, in addition to obvious items; silverware, bones, and fingers, there is a plethora of other items that are not suppose to go down the food grinder. I was beginning to compile a list of these things; no apple cores, no orange peels, no whole pieces of fruit, no eggshells, no banana peels, the list goes on and on. I know this is not a food processor, because I would never actually shove a whole bunch of veggies down there and then try to fish the mixture out with a spoon. It seems strange to me, that it is not suppose to be used for grinding peels or cores up, but it is called a garbage disposal. It seems to me as if the only thing it can handle is crumbs and liquids. Why even have such a thing? As a kid I would've had so much fun with one of these garbage eating monsters.

Seattle really is a nice place. It is such a beautiful city that to escape from the beauty people delve into the rusted cartoonish ruins of Gas works Park. Sometimes I just have this urge to see junk and garbage. In Chicago, people try there hardest to get escape from the garbage and cracked sidewalks, by spending the day at Millennium park, a beautifully manicured park downtown.

So if you think you see garbage blowing by you, don't be fooled, it's probably just a balloon, saying: "this is not your lucky day, this is just another day in la la land".

More Big Island Wonders

29 March 2008-

My last day on the Big Island was awesome. I started out early and spent a few of the morning hours browsing and shopping at the outdoor farmers market in the center of Hilo. It was amazing how cheap the fresh produce was. Huge heads of organic romaine lettuce for $1. If I were staying longer I would've done my grocery shopping there.

There were also vendors selling jewelry, I bought a few things, mostly earrings. All of the stuff was handmade and gorgeous.

Around noon I met with Brendan's friend Archie, he is from the Big Island. He picked me up near the hostel and brought me back to meet his house to meet his parents. The front yard had a giant above ground swimming pool, and there was also one in the backyard. I found out later from his dad, that they were in fact water treatment tanks. They use only rainwater for showering, cooking, sewage and drinking! With 142 inches per year, this makes sense. They collect it in the swimming pools and treat it themselves, self sustainable.

So Archie took me to the Volcanoes National Park. We went to the Volcano House for lunch and got to see the steaming lava from the window while we ate. The above sign greeted us as we entered the park.

As Archie is not a big hiker, we did part of the Crater Rim trail, enough to view this beautiful phenomena. I can't believe that I was lucky enough to be on the Big Island when the gasses were being emitted from the volcano. Usually these pictures above would be just large valleys looking over the craters, no smoke.

The lava tubes were something we went to have staring at the smoking volcano for awhile. Archie did not seem to be as impressed with all of this as I was. He grew up taking his field trips to lava flows, craters and volcanoes, I took my field trips to museums with little particles of rock behind glass saying "do not touch". For me this was a mind-blowing experience. The lava tubes were kind of like caves formed by hot lava. We didn't venture too far back into them because I am a bit claustrophobic in caverns and tunnels. At one point we got to a point that when we turned off the flashlight, it was COMPLETELY black.

This is a shot I got coming out of the lava tube.

Above was the last sunset, an overcast one on Hawaii. It was still beautiful. The Big Island is the most spectacular place, where nature is a living being.

Hilo, "The Big Island" Hawaii

27 March 08


The airport in Hilo is actually very small and quaint. There was no evident place when I stepped outdoors to hail a taxi. Luckily after about 15 minutes of me looking completely confused, some tourists from the UK pointed me in the right direction; a small parking lot off to the side where a bunch of minivan taxis were parked. The driver and his boss, I think he was doing a training drive, expected me to have multiple suitcases. All I had was on my back. About 14 bucks got me into downtown Hilo, where the weather was overcast and drizzly. I almost had the feeling that I was back in Seattle. It was about 25 degrees warmer than a typical Seattle day though.




Hilo is quite the opposite of Honolulu, not very touristy and very quiet. The drivers tried to talk me into a sightseeing tour for 75$ from the taxi windows. No thanks. I was determined to explore the Big Island by foot, as much as possible. So, this hostel I stayed at was THE MOST BEAUTIFUL hostel I have ever been in. Stained glass windows and carved wooden ceiling fans were in the dorm room. It was so much prettier than the hotel on Waikiki and only $25 per night! I haven't even mentioned the characters I met while staying there. Hostels are great.



Not long after I dropped some things at the hostel, I started exploring Hilo in flip flops...bad idea. It was not long before I was climbing over molten hardened lava rock, slipping and sliding on the rocks near the water. Note to myself, always wear boots here, even if it's warm.




Hilo is a really laid back town on the eastern side of the island. It receives around 142 inches of rainfall per year. As one might guess, it's not the sunny, beachy Hawaii that people think of. That's on the Kona side, where it is dry and sunny most of the time. Hilo reminded me a bit of the North Shore of Oahu, except more country.





After exploring the Rainbow falls at Wailuku River State Park and the Boiling Pots, which were not really boiling pots of water as I expected, I trudged back to town. It was about 4miles each way, most of the time I was walking in the grass on the side of the road. Hungry was how I felt when I got back into town. I ate at this AMAZING Thai restaurant "Nuang Mai Thai Kitchen". I ordered Pad Thai medium w/shrimp that was so tasty and perfectly spicy. I also ordered my favorite spring rolls that were gigantic salads in a roll! The best part of the meal was desert; homemade(in Hilo) ginger ice cream, topped with warm tapioca pudding and frozen strawberries. YUMYUMYUM. It made my mouth happy.



It began to drizzle while I was eating, but by the time I had finished, the rain ceased. As I was walking back to the hostel, I stopped at this store called "All Things Beautiful" where the owner had a love for peacocks. I found this awesome wooden peacock mask for Kelly there.






28 March 2008


As I said earlier, I met some interesting people at the hostel. I met this one girl who was living in Seattle, and had moved there from Chicago about three years ago. Since she had nothing going on, we decided to spend the day together, driving around and looking for the lava flows. YES! There was lava flowing while I was there! It's not everyday that this happens. The volcano erupted about 25 years ago and every so often it spews lava out and the smoke from the lava and volcanic ash can be seen from miles away. If you are close enough to it, you can smell the sulfur in the air.


The site for viewing the lava coming from Kilauea did not open till 2pm so we took a detour and went to Kalapana black sand beach. Hiking over molten black hardened lava rock was one of the greatest things I have ever done. It felt like I had landed on Mars and was in a movie, so surreal. It blew my mind, I can't even believe how alive the ecosystem was there. As we were hiking towards the water, I felt as if we were two miniature persons inside of this giant volcanic diorama. This was probably the most awesome thing I have ever seen.



The black sand is something so incredible, I cannot describe the beauty of the contrast in nature itself, the white foamy water against the black sand was truly amazing.

PS. I had "Loco Moco" for lunch today. I know it might sound disgusting, but it was DELISCIOUS. Loco Moco=two scoops of rice, hamburger patty, fried egg plus gravy. YOu can also garnish it with mustard and ketchup. It's a local delicacy.

This picture was me getting as close as I could to the lava flowing into the ocean, I was about 600 feet away. Sulfur could be smelled in the air and even though it was overcast, the sun was strong.

Mahalo Honolulu

I went running around Kapiolani park before surfing with the kids at Waikiki. I used the shorter board. I caught three waves, the last of them on my own. Peter and I rode this AWESOME wave in. I can't believe he road it all the way in on a body board. Hurrying, I went back to the hotel, packed my stuff and got ready. Mom and Maggie drove me to the airport, so I could catch my midday flight to The Big Island. Wearing minimal clothing and carrying everything in a backpack, I said goodbye to my family. We had such a wonderful time together, and one of the best vacations that I can remember.

26 March 2008

Diamond Head Crater

Maria came over to hotel in the morning with Tony on their bikes. Tony decided to take the kids surfing. Maria and I left on the bikes to ride to the trail head at Diamond Head Crater. The sun was already high in the sky as we started out, and extremely hot. But it was great to ride a bike on somewhat flat roads again. It's been since Chicago that I've ridden on flat land. The distances seem longer when everything is flat.

So there was this Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike guy at the top of Diamond head. He was the park ranger I believe and every 5 minutes he would repeat, like a machine, a brief introduction to the landscape before our eyes. He offered to answer any questions we have. Maria asked him what that strange teal spot in the ocean was. His half-ass answer was that some dye must've spilled into the water. If it were dye, I think it would spread. Mysterious.


It was so great to hike with Maria. We spoke in German the entire time. German is so great for the fact that nearly no one understands us, so we could talk about weird people we encountered on the hike. Climbing all those steps through the tunnels reminded me of being in Europe and climbing to the bell tower of the cathedrals and castles.

This picture was taken from the top of the steps, before I descended. Monkeys would have fun coming down, they wouldn't use the stairs, but instead swing from bar to bar all the way down. As a child I could never get the monkey bars.

After riding back from Diamond Head, I headed into town on my bike in the 90 degree heat. It felt as if I were in Chicago in the summertime, humid and hot. I was in search of the perfect Ukulele. Eventually I found it at the "Good Guys Music" on Kapahulu. Made entirely of Koa wood, with peach colored pegs and a beautiful finish, the ukulele I chose had a perfect soft Hawaiian sound. I spent 4 times as much as I had planned. The reason for this splurge was simple, I didn't want to buy a Ukulele that had been made in China. Being in Hawaii maybe for the only time in my life, I wanted a genuine Hawaiian ukulele. Sorry I don't have any pics of me with my new instrument yet. But you can see what it looks like here http://www.koaloha.com/KoAloha_Products/SopranoStd.html It's so fun to play.

My last night with Mom, Peter and I was Wednesday night, they head back to Chicago on Thursday. We decided to go watch the beautiful sunset on Waikiki. Being the tourists that we were, we took tons of pictures of the sunset, us with the sunset behind us, etc. Some of my favorite I've posted below.

After the sunset and watching this parade of tourists on the main strip, we went to a fancy hotel to watch some hula dancers. Their body movement is so relaxing to watch. Oh yeah, we had fruity cocktails with umbrellas too!