Halloween

It is almost Halloween time.

I don't usually do Halloween that much - no costume or decoration, but the company I am working for does a great job decorating their office.

Not all the office - one department does a better job than others.

I have worked for many companies, but I have never seen they decorate their office this seriously. I heard that tomorrow all the employees are wearing some sort of consume. I am not sure I can take pictures, but if so, I will share that next time.

Happy Halloween Day!!

Sunday in Seattle

I started the day with a jog again, but a different route - needed to go to a bank. A bit colder than yesterday maybe because there was no sun out. Picture during a run.

Now I don't feel guilty to eat something not too good for me - Donut I meant. I went to my favorite donut shop again. I sat on the 2nd floor this time. This place was originally a library and you can see interesting architecture. TWO donuts - old fashion and grazed donuts with soy milk latte, very nice... For your information, they were my lunch so I did not need to feel that much guilty about it. Do you see a bag in this picture? Yes, I bought one more - chocolate grazed donut for tomorrow's breakfast.

I had a hair cut at one of Japanese salons in international district. She convinced me that I should live in Seattle... It sounded like the rain during the winter is not too bad. Freezing sunny day in NYC vs. light rainy day in Seattle. Not sure which I like more.

Saturday in Seattle

It was my 2nd weekend in Seattle. I needed to stay here this weekend, since I worked here on Friday, which makes it impossible to go home in NYC and come back for Monday morning.

It turned out a good day. Started off with a jog for 15 minutes. The street I ran is right next to the Microsoft buildings (campus) and there are a lot of apartments building next to it. The leaves started falling off but they were still beautiful.

I drove to the city (Seattle) and hit traffic close to U of Washington where a football game was about start - U of W lost this week. I ended up going to Green Lake - had a Japanese lunch (Bento Box) on the way. It was beautiful and many people were running or walking to enjoy this cool but not cold weather. I could image myself living that neighborhood someday. There were a lot of attractive houses, hopefully $500,000 range not a million dollar.

I needed afternoon snack and found an old fashion ice cream store. I asked a guy serving me the flavor and he said pumpkin, so I followed his advice. It was one scoop but felt like three scoops or so. Look at how bit it was. It was in middle of nowhere are you can see. It reminded me the one at Penn State, but not as good as the one I remember, but pretty good.

Some Pictures

It has been a long time since my last entry... My life is a bit crazy right now - every week or two round trip between New York and Seattle (6 hours flight and 3 hours of time difference kill me), and my current work is very demanding.

First two pictures are the ones took in New York eating English breakfast and lunch. If I don't say this is in New York, you could believe that it is in London. It is located only a few blocks away from my apartment and we have never tried this before. My fish and fries were very crunchy, light and juicy inside.

Next picture (fried chicken) was taken in Seattle on the day I was going back home. I found this Vietnamese restaurant and ordered a typical soup noodle (forgot the name) and the owner of the restaurant recommended this fried chicken which was no on the menu. Very close to Japanese one. Again crunchy outside and juicy inside. I will go back there for sure, but not sure I would order the chicken again, since it was big.

Finally I just took this last picture yesterday at the office currently I am working at. The trees have started to change their colors several weeks ago, but it is peak this week - Red, Orange and Yellow... So beautiful. I think Seattle is one month ahead of New York or Japan.

Weekend in Vancouver 4/3

As I suspected, I needed more than three entries. Vancouver was that good.

Sunday was another perfect weather day. Vancouver is famous for sea plane. Ocean/River becomes a small airport - there was a small waiting room where multiple airlines had their desks. There was $99 tour but we did not have time to do so. On the way back to Seattle, we went to one of neighborhood across the bridge. We got this famous diner place in this area (felt like a college town), and ordered their famous chocolate milk shake - it is almost double size of glasses, and it was REALLY good. To not feel guilty, we had both vegetarian dishes - burger and omlette. They are yummy right?

Weekend in Vancouver 3/3

Where did I leave last entry?

I will start from Saturday afternoon anyway. After coming back from the market, we rented a bicycle to ride the park just NW of our hotel. I have not ridden a bicycle for more than 10 years, but it was fun and had totally different views we had in the city. The air was cool but the sunshine was so warm, and at the end of close to one hour ride, we felt a bit hot even it was in mid 50s.

After great exercises - a lot of walk and bicycle ride, we went for an Italian dinner in the downtown - again 10 minutes walk. On the way, it started getting dark and the sky was amazing.

Nothing special to Vancouver, but we got great pasta dishes to conclude another fantastic day in Vancouver.

I guess I have to make another or two entries to cover entire trip, so stay tuned.

Weekend in Vancouver 2/3

Let me start from the dinner on the 2nd day.

Per our concierge's recommendation, we went to a famous seafood restaurant on the main street. It was a classic high-end seafood restaurant like the one we went in San Francisco a couple of years ago. we started our dinner with drinks and had great seafood dishes.

Saturday was one of the best days I have had - weather wise. Around 55 degree but with strong sunshine, so as long as you were under the sun, it was very warm. Took a walk to another island for a famous market. On the way there, we crossed the bridge, and stopped by at some stores on the 2nd avenue, where we found a very interesting cooking book store which has a kitchen. Turkey was in the oven, so we could have had turkey sample if we have waited for hours. Speaking of turkey, Canadian Thanksgiving is next Monday...

There were tons of shops in the market and we got bugget, smoked salmon and French pate for lunch, which was great. If we had wine with them, we could have felt like we were in Paris.

On the way back, we got a little ferry for 45 seconds or so.

To Be Continued...

Weekend in Vancouver 1/3

Vancouver has been one of the destinations we wanted to go. Lucky me, my current work is in Seattle and we decided to go to Vancouver over the weekend. After the work on Thursday, we drove a car for 3 hours to Vancouver by passing the border line to Canada. No visual difference between the U.S. and Canada except some traffic signs are in meters not in miles.

I have been still living in the east coast time zone, so woke up early like 6:30 and opened the window - AMAZING view from the hotel room (Westin...) It was rain over night but the rain cleared out by the morning and the air was so crisp and clean. You can really see the green, red and yellow in the trees.

I needed to work on Friday, but we went to lunch close to the hotel, and found this beautiful tree on the way back.

After full day of working, on the way to the dinner, we found TWO rainbows and interesting building facing the ocean (I am not sure it is ocean or not but it is open water to ocean so it has to be) - all the buildings look like build last 5 years by the same architect - floor to ceiling glass type building.

It was just a beginning of our fantastic trip to Vancouver.