Tag Archives: photography

From the Frontlines of Snowmageddon 2014

Portland shuts down during a snow storm – which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Thankfully, this year’s snowstorm hit over the weekend, but the boys have another snow day today which means I’ll be juggling work and children’s entertainment. If we’re lucky we may venture out to the grocery store. I’ve just about reached the bottom of the freezer and the back of the cupboards.

Don’t get me wrong though, we had a fun weekend. The boys spent a lot of time outside in the neighborhood with their friends and we went sledding on Saturday before the freezing rain set in and covered everything in a layer of ice. I’ll probably need to break this post into two parts just to share a small portion of the photos I took.

So, I declare Snowmaggedon 2014 fun for a weekend and a great source of inspiration for this photographer – but now we’re ready to move on. If you could just warm up a little more, Portland, I’d be grateful.

Most of the following photos were taken Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, before the worst of it hit.

I have no idea what Thomas is doing here.

Dry snow makes for extra slippery slides. Thankfully, snow gear provides additional padding.

“My legs hurt! I. can’t. walk. any. further.” We’re one block from our house.

Coming soon: More snow! And Sledding!

Postcard From Beijing: The Great Wall of China

Here’s what went through my head while walking along the Great Wall of China:

“I can’t believe I’m walking the Great Wall of China”

“It looks just like I’ve seen in photographs, but bigger”

“It’s so beautiful I have to take a picture”

“Oh, look at that view, I have to take another picture”

“And now it’s even more beautiful. I need another picture…”

“Wow, I really AM walking on the Great Wall of China”.

…You get the idea.

So, behold, just a small sampling of the approximately 500 photographs I took of every little nook and cranny of the Mutianyu section of The Great Wall of China, including the souvenir selling mania that followed.

We took a wrong turn and accidentally started walking up the Great Wall instead of meeting our friend at the gondola. After we realized our mistake, we started walking down and saw this sign. I think it means “Come back again”.

No, we did not walk up to the top – don’t judge. Although we did walk down.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I traveled to Beijing with two colleagues – Kara and Allyson. Kara had a connection in Beijing through her parents and so we were incredibly blessed that Lee (pictured with us below) and her friend were available to take us to the Great Wall. Lee and her husband live part of the year in Beijing and part of the year in Washington state. She was so incredibly sweet and so generous with her time. I doubt we would have made it to the Great Wall if Lee had not been there to take us.

After hiking about 1.5 miles along the top of the wall, we walked back down through souvenir central to get some lunch. Now, I am not comfortable with bartering but apparently that’s what you have to do here. I’m even less comfortable bartering in Chinese so, thankfully, I had Lee there to help me out. While I avoided the fake Columbia gloves, I did walk away with a couple of small dragon figurines for the boys and panda stacking dolls which I gave to a friend’s daughter in Tokyo. I feel comfortable that I managed to get a bargain price on all of my items but, honestly, it’s hard for me to calculate Dollars into Yuan so who really knows.

Finally, we stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant at the base of the wall. You know your food is fresh when you see this as you walk in the door.

10 minutes later…

What a wonderful day. We were blessed with blue (pollution-free) skies, great company and the kind of leg pain that reminds you of your experience  through the following day. Truly once in a lifetime.

Postcard From Beijing: Hutong Tour, Dr. Tea and The Silk Museum

Amidst the pre-Christmas insanity and the general craziness of getting back to real life, my trip to Beijing now feels like a lifetime ago. It’s times like this when I find myself feeling incredibly grateful for the fact that I take a lot of photographs – and a little sad about the trips I took before I discovered my passion for photography that are not so well documented.

My work trip to Beijing included a weekend so my colleagues, Kara and Allyson, and I had some time to check out the city. Beijing is a BIG city and, given that none of speak Chinese, we decided the best approach on Saturday morning was to take a guided tour of the historical Hutong neighborhood. The tour included travel by mini bus to Hutong, a rickshaw ride around the neighborhood and a home visit with one of the residents, a tea tasting at a government-owned teahouse and a quick stop at the Silk Museum. We also managed to sneak in a quick view of the Olympic bird nest stadium. (warning: photo overload).

Our tour of Hutong started at the Drum Tower. I would have loved to have seen more of the Drum Tower and it’s Bell Tower cousin but the down side of the tour is that you find yourself at the mercy of the tour guide schedule.

Still, the ride around Hutong was fascinating.

Our Rickshaw driver.

Hutong is an historical part of the city where families live in houses (a increasingly rare occurrence in Beijing). These houses are most typically made up of a series of rooms that surround a courtyard which means that the residents walk outside from their living room to their kitchen and then to their bedroom. I imagine it can get pretty chilly in winter.  Many of the houses also don’t have their own bathrooms so we saw signs for shared facilities around every other corner.

The tour gave us an opportunity to visit with one of the Hutong residents inside her house. We visited with a young mother who lives in one of these houses with her husband and small child. (Unfortunately I didn’t write down her name). Her parents lived with them until recently, when they decided that they would be more comfortable living in an apartment.

The family has a tradition of creating cut paper art and we were treated to a demonstration during our visit. Her work was amazing and I purchased a couple to take home.

After the paper cutting demonstration, we were invited to take a look around.

We soon left Hutong and rode in the mini bus to “Dr. Tea”, a government-owned tea house located near the Olympic stadium. Here, we were treated to a tea demonstration and sampling (which was lovely and relaxing) followed by a very strong sales pitch. I escaped by the skin of my teeth with just a tea cup and a box of Jasmine tea.

Pee pee boy made quite an impression. Thankfully they gave us one as a souvenir.

The poster advertisements outside the building were quite beautiful.

Our final stop on the tour was the Silk Museum where, I am pleased to say, I learned a thing or two.

This was first time I ever really contemplated where silk comes from. I knew it came from worms but had no idea that they collected the silk from the cocoons and that the poor little creatures sacrificed their lives  as part of the process.

Fascinating.

Finally, we did a quick drive by of the Olympic stadium. And when I say “drive by” I mean we stopped at a viewpoint about a mile away just so I could take this photo. Still, I can say I’ve been there, right?

The Hutong part of the tour was a great way to see a part of the city that is not readily available to tourists (unless you take the tour, of course). While the rest of the tour was also interesting, there was a feeling that we were being given the hard sell at every stop. I gather the city makes a lot of money from tour groups who are willing to spend money on everything from Jasmine tea to (fake) silk purses. Our small group of three limited our spending but I wonder how many silk duvets went home with the large Russian group who toured the silk museum at the same time.

Overall though, I would highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting the city with just a day or two to see the sights. Just keep a close eye on how you spend your Yuan.

Wordless Wednesday: Bittersweet

Sun shining on Crater Lake.

It’s beautiful but you’ll have have to take my word for it. The park is closed today thanks to a few grown men who are throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get their way. If they were my kids then they’d all be sent to their rooms until they can learn to get along.

 

Great Oregon Road Trip: Crater Lake, Day 1

Read all Great Oregon Road Trip posts here.

We spent three nights in Sunriver before embarking on the next part of our adventure.

For years, Kei dreamed about a visit to Crater Lake but I didn’t share his enthusiasm. Here’s what I knew about Crater Lake before we went: It’s a long way away and fairly remote, closed for 6 months out of the year due to snow (snow equals cold) and has limited (and expensive) accommodation options.

And here’s what I learned: It’s really not that far from Portland and even closer if you’re coming from Bend, if you’re lucky then you’ll enjoy the lake on a sunny 80 degree day in the middle of Summer and the accommodation is not fancy but worth the convenience of staying close to the lake.

It’s also an incredible place and quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

We headed out from Sunriver early in the morning, stopping along the way to pick up some sandwiches from the grocery store and stop for a photogenic train.

Google (or maybe I) miscalculated the distance so, what we thought was going to be a 4 hour trip, turned out to be just a 2 and a half drive to the north park entrance.

Then we drove just a few more miles to our first view of the lake and it was, well, underwhelming. It turned out that fires burning in the western part of Oregon had filled the lake with smoke so, instead of the deep blue waters that we had expected, our view looked something like this…

Beautiful, sure, but as impressive as I’d hoped. Still, we made the most of our first stop by walking alongside some poorly constructed fences. I mean,  would they really stop, say, a five year old from plummeting over the edge? I spent a lot of time saying “stay back from the edge” and “don’t run!” (Between photographs, of course)

The kids soon found some tree stumps to climb (I was happy as long they weren’t climbing fences).

And then we jumped back in the car to drive 20 minutes to Rim Village… where the smoke parted and I began to understand why people make such a big deal about this lake.

That teeny tiny white thing in the middle is a tour boat.

After lunch, we went for a walk to check out the Crater Lake Lodge, a beautiful old building that perches on the edge of the cliff. And I found myself wishing that I had booked our trip earlier so we could have stayed in this wonderful place.

Alas, it was not meant to be so we made do with taking in the view from the rocking chairs that sit out front.

After using the facilities we walked back to the Ranger Station and gift shop (*there’s always a gift shop). It was here that we made easily the very best purchase of the entire trip – a Junior Ranger vest for Samuel. I mean, this thing has pockets and loops and zippers galore. It was the uniform of choice for the remainder of the trip and was, literally, filled with rocks by the time we got home.

Thomas bought himself a book about birds of North America which he used as a guide to complete one of the Junior Ranger activities.

Let me just pause and say that the Junior Ranger program is fantastic. Kei and I had been to National Parks before but, without kids, you really don’t appreciate how much these rangers do to share their knowledge with the next generation. And they take their jobs as educators very seriously. My boys loved the chance to earn badges and were generally interested to hear about how the crater was formed and the wildlife that surrounded them. I’m now motivated to take them to as many National Parks as I can before they become surly teenagers.

After we finished the Junior Ranger activities (it took a while), we spent some more time taking in the view.

At this point a couple of the adult members of our group began to fade. It turns out that Kei had come down with a flu-type illness so we headed to our cabins at Mazama Village where he could take a nap and I could try and keep the kids entertained. I booked the cabins back in January which was lucky as it turned out because they fill up fairly quickly. The rooms were simple, but clean and comfortable and even came with complimentary wireless internet. Dinner at Annie Creek Restaurant wasn’t the best meal in the world but our choices were limited.

After dinner, Dad and I took the kids for a walk through the adjoining campsite to listen to the Ranger talk. Unfortunately a combination of my poor map-reading skills and the pitch black darkness meant that we weren’t able to find the amphitheater and spent a good 45 minutes wandering aimlessly through the campground until we gave up and headed back to the cabin for an early night. The boys were disappointed but I secretly thankful for an excuse to get them to bed knowing we had an early start the next day.

Coming soon – you haven’t really seen the lake until you walk more than a mile down a 700 foot descent…