August 2007 - Posts
Part 2 has us leaving Chicago heading toward South Dakota...
After departing Chicago we drove across Illinois into northeastern Iowa and then up the Mississippi River into Wisconsin, where we stayed the night. From there, we drove across Minnesota and into South Dakota and then (after another one night layover) into the Badlands National Park. The Badlands are an eerie region of South Dakota where the plains give way to some stunning and colorful topology. We just drove through the road that winds through the northern half of the park, stopping at the many viewpoints and overlooks to take in the scenery.
From the Badlands we continued west. The Badland scenery quickly gives way to mountain scenery. About an hours drive from the Badlands is the Mt. Rushmore National Monument, where four United States Presidents heads are carved into the side of a granite mountain. The carving process started in 1927 and was last worked on in 1941. The lengthy duration was due to gaps in funding. When first visiting Mt. Rushmore it is surprising how small the monument looks. I'm sure it's quite large up close, but it is viewed from several hundred feet below and several hundred feet back. Pictures of the monument usually are tight on the Presidents' faces, but in person the faces are framed by the rest of the mountain and the full sky, making them appear much smaller and less grandiose. After Mt. Rushmore, we drove down through the Nebraska panhandle and across to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where we stayed for the night.
From Cheyenne, we drove south into Colorado and through the Rocky Mountain National Park. The park provides some breathtaking scenery of the Rocky Mountains; its Trail Ridge Road winds up mountain sides and, at its high point, reaches 12,183 feet, making it the world's highest continually paved road. We entered the park at Estes Park and soaked in the views along Trail Ridge Road. We then took mountain highways back to Denver rather than returning to the Interstate. I have a lot of relatives in Denver so we stayed there for three days with relatives, visiting family and exploring the surrounding area. On one day we went to Boulder and hiked the Flatirons. Another day we went to downtown Denver for some sightseeing and microbrewery tours.
Following our stay in Denver, we took a couple of days to drive up through the Rocky Mountains into western Wyoming and then up to the Grand Tetons National Park and Yellowstone National Park. The Grand Tetons are a scenic mountain range that abruptly rise from a valley floor. The vast and stretching valley floor has an elevation of around 7,000 feet (if I'm remembering correctly) along with many lakes. And then, out of nowhere, ka-blamo, here comes a mountain range with peaks exceeding 13,000 feet. The park includes a bevy of trails and back country to explore, but we just drove through the park on our way up to Yellowstone.
Yellowstone National Park is the nation's oldest national park. It covers a large swath of northwestern Wyoming and is best known for the Old Faithful geyser. Much of the parkland is on top of geologically interesting land, which is the cause for the multitude of geysers (Old Faithful is just one of more than 300 geysers in the park). In addition to geysers, there are more than 10,000 other hydrothermal features. This was my first time to Yellowstone and the features were, to put it mildly, odd. There were areas where there would be a hole in the ground about the size of a basketball rim with steam and a high pitch hissing noise emanating from the hole. Or there would be a circular area with what looked like muddy water and it would be bubbling. Or pools of water that were amazing colors of blue, yellow, and orange. And most memorable, the stench of sulfur in the air. While Yellowstone does attract millions of visitors each year, and therefore is crowded and congested, it definitely is worth checking out just to experience some of these natural oddities.
After Yellowstone we spent another couple of days driving to Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. While Yellowstone held a certain amount of wonder due to its geological features, Glacier's attraction was its stunning scenery and natural beauty. While the park is well-known for its spectacular hiking (and Grizzly bear population!), we were unable to enjoy the hiking because (as in most National Parks) dogs are not allowed on the trails. However, Glacier is very car-accessible as there's the Going to the Sun road that bisects the park and crosses through many awe-inspiring cols affording numerous views. My wife and I agreed that Glacier National Park was the most beautiful place we had ever been to in our lives. Ranging from seven to eight thousand feet, it's not nearly as high as the Rocky Mountain National Park, and it will never be as special to us as the High Sierras here in California, but from a purely aesthetic standpoint, Glacier's vistas are unparalleled.
After Glacier National Park, we drove across Idaho and into Washington. From there, we cut across the state toward Mount Rainier National Park. Mt. Rainier is Washington's highest peak at 14,410 feet, and is home to several glaciers. We entered the park from the west entrance and camped in the White River campground. Due to the weather being cloudy and very cool, we were comfortable leaving Sam in the car and were able to get in some light hiking. We drove up to the Sunrise Day Lodge Visitor Center (altitude 9,000 ft.) and did a 1.5 mile trail along Sourdough Ridge. The atmosphere was ethereal. Many of the surrounding mountains were shrouded in wispy clouds (as were we, on our jaunt). There was a chilling breeze, occasional drizzle, and patches of snow on the trail. Best of all, the scenery was fantastic. Mt. Rainier's peaks were hiding behind clouds most of the time, but every now and then would peak out from underneath its cover. The subalpine meadows were a radiant, neon green, sharply contrasting with the black mountains in the background. And the ridge trail we hiked was on a precipice overlooking an idyllic valley far below.
Following our stay in Mt. Rainier, we drove up to Seattle. I have been up in the Seattle area many times, including living in Redmond for a summer back in 1999 when interning for Microsoft, so I was able to show my wife around town. I showed her the Microsoft campus and where I lived. We ate a Kidd Valley, which was like my second home when I lived in Redmond that summer. We stayed the night in downtown Seattle and did the typical tourist gamut: Pike Street Market, Pioneer Square, and so on. We also went to the flagship REI store in downtown Seattle, which has three stories of shopping and an indoor rock climbing wall! REI is my wife's favorite store, so this was like Mecca for her.
After Seattle we drove through the Olympic National Park, which receives so much rainfall each year that it is classified as a rain forest. The flora was interesting: large, old growth trees dominated the skyline. But instead of dirt and shrubs and grasses on the forest floor, which is what I am accustomed to seeing since we primarily visit alpine environments, there were a bounty of ferns and moss, giving it an almost jungle-like feeling. Olympic National Park also includes five beaches on the Pacific Ocean, which boast scores of driftwood and monumental rock formations.
After Olympic National Park, we continued down the Washington coast and then along the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon. My wife had been to Portland a number of times. A a good friend of hers had lived there for many years, so we had the scoop on some local attractions to hit up. One of the tastiest ones was Voodoo Doughnut, where they fresh bake some very interesting donuts. We also hit up the main store of every bibliophile's dream, Powell's Used & New Books, and picked up some reading material for the remainder of our trip. We stayed in a hotel in downtown Portland and spent a few days exploring the eclectic neighborhoods. One driver had a bumper sticker that seemed to sum up the city pretty succinctly. It read: "Keep Portland Weird."
From Portland we drove back west to the coast and then south, following the twists and turns of Highway 101. Eventually we turned back inland and drove to Oregon's sole National Park: Crater Lake National Park. Crater Lake was formed when Mt. Mazama collapsed more than 7,700 years ago. Over the millennia the gaping crater left by the collapsed mountain filled with water from rains. It is, today, over 1,900 feet deep and the deepest lake in the United States; there are no streams or rivers coming into or out of the lake, making it totally self-contained. There is a road around the immense lake, which we took, stopping at many of the overlooks.
Following Crater Lake we drove southwest, reentering California. By this point it had been more than two months since we had left our home state. Entering California we drove through the Redwood National Forest, home of some of the world's oldest and largest trees. We continued south on Highway 101, and then along Highway 1, which hugs the scenic California coast. We made our way down to San Francisco and stayed a night downtown. Both my wife and I had been to San Francisco many times, so we didn't do many touristy things. We visited our favorite eatery there (the House of Nanking) and walked to Chinatown, then to Fisherman's Wharf, up Nob Hill, and then to Union Square. A lot of up and down! The weather was chilly, reminding me of that Mark Twain quote: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." After our one-night sojourn in San Francisco, we took the Interstate back to San Diego!
Overall, we had a blast on this trip. We were able to see a lot of the country and visit sites that we might otherwise have never seen. Such a long trip can be tiring, but we did a good job keeping our energy and spirits up throughout the trip, although near the end we were more than ready to get back home, back to our comfy bed, and out of the car. (We live in a very walkable community and work from home; consequently, we only drive a few times a week. So being in a car non-stop for more than two months was, to put it mildly, a break from the ordinary.) We both agreed that New York City was our favorite stop on the trip. Yes, it was hot; and the city was a bit dirtier than other metropolitan areas we visited; it lacked the history of Seoul, the sculptures found throughout Chicago, and the scenery of San Francisco and Seattle. But what it did have was a level of energy and hustle and bustle that was unmatched. With its diversity it felt like a truly international city, much more so than London or Paris or Los Angeles. I don't know if I would want to live there permanently, but I imagine it would be a worthwhile experience to live there for a year or two, live through all four seasons, see the sites, soak in the culture.
I'll close with some statistics. Both being the nerdy engineering types, my wife and I enjoy metrics and statistics and forecasts and empirical data about as much as most Americans enjoy television. Needless to say, we recorded many details along our trip. Here are some of interest:
- Trip Duration: 71 days
- Total Mileage: 14,071
- Total Gallons: 555.6
- Average Cost/Gallon: $3.096
- Average Spent on Gas/Day: $24.13
- Average Fuel Efficiency: 25.33 mpg
- Cheapest Gas: $2.69 per gallon; June 18, Jonesboro, Arkansas
- Most Expensive Gas: $3.57 per gallon; May 24, Williams, Arizona
- Average Spent on Food/Day: $33.02
- Average Spent on Lodging/Day: $86.58
- Roadkill Count: 1 (a bird in northeastern Iowa)
I leave you with an extreme closeup of Sam.
Part 1 left off with us heading out of Missouri and toward Memphis, Tennessee...
We drove from mid-Missouri to Memphis in one day. That night we went out to Beale Street, which is like Bourbon Street in New Orleans in a lot of ways: they shut down car traffic at night; there are a plethora of bars and nightclubs and live music; and drinking is allowed out on the street. While New Orleans is the home of jazz, the birthplace of greats like Louis Armstrong, Memphis is the birthplace of the blues. Greats like B.B. King, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison got their starts in Memphis, and Memphis was where Elvis Presley lived in his gaudy Graceland mansion and accompanying private airport.
We walked down the length of Beale Street and then hopped into the Blues Hall Juke Joint to listen to Memphis mainstay Dr. Feelgood Potts and his band play tunes from Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, and other well-known blues artists. The doctor was an entertaining individual. When the band was playing songs where his vocals or harmonica weren't needed, the good doctor was out on the street, inviting passer byers to come on in and have a sit down.
After one night in Memphis we drove across the state of Tennessee and camped in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. This was our first visit to an eastern national park; all of our stops at parks on this trip and in the past have been to ones in the western half of the country, where there is more space and more focus on nature and keeping the park wild, in a sense. And the Great Smokey Mountains park itself held true to this philosophy, but the area right outside the northern entrance of the park was dominated by tactless tourist destinations: AS SEEN ON TV! shops; mini-golf; Dollywood. These attractions also greatly congested the traffic. In retrospect, we should have entered the park from the south, coming up from Georgia.
After staying a night in the park, we started our drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is a National Park that extends 469 miles from the southern entrance of the Great Smokey Mountains to the southern entrance of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and winds through classic Appalachia scenery. We spent two days traversing this road (as well as driving through Shenandoah), spending one night at a campground in North Carolina.
After Shenandoah, we drove to Baltimore and stayed with a relative for a few days. We explored the city of Baltimore one day and then went down to Washington, D.C. the next. We happened to go to D.C. on a Sunday and, thinking that there would be a lot of foot traffic and long lines, we arrived at the city early in the morning. Problem is, most of the Federal museums and buildings (like the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and so on) are shut down on Sunday. And those that are open usually don't open their doors until 10:00 or 11:00 AM. Live and learn. Since we had both been to D.C. before and done the gauntlet of museums, we spent this visit walking to some of the monuments we had not yet seen and exploring parts of town outside of the mall, like Chinatown and Union Station.
From Baltimore we drove up to New York City where we stayed for three nights and four days at a hotel in the heart of Manhattan. Since our drive up to the Big Apple took us by Philadelphia, we stopped in south Philly for cheese steaks at Geno's Steaks (we got one with Cheez Whiz, which was surprisingly good, and one with provolone). Before we arrived in New York City I was worrying about driving to the hotel in the minivan, but my worries turned out to be unfounded. The only difference between driving in NYC and any other major city is that in NYC there is a much, much greater volume of pedestrian traffic. This can make turning right or left on a green difficult as you have to wait for the throngs of people crossing to clear the intersection, but other than that it was no more stressful than driving back here in downtown San Diego (although, obviously, there were many more cars on the road).
Over the next few days we walked much of Manhattan Island. We'd start our day by taking the subway to a far end of the island and then walk back to our hotel, exploring the various neighborhoods. On the first full day there we took the subway to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan then walked through the Financial District, across the Brooklyn Bridge and back, over to the World Trade Center site, into Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Times Square, and so on. On the following day we took the subway north to Harlem and then walked back through Harlem, the West Side, through parts of Central Park, over to the Lower East Side, down to the U.N., and so on. The only real non-walking tourist thing we did was go to the top of the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, the day was a bit hazy so the view wasn't as impressive as it usually was (or so we were told).
Following our stay in New York City, we drove up to Providence, Rhode Island to visit a friend of my wife's. She and her boyfriend gave us the Providence tour one day and then took us up to Boston on another. In Boston we did much of the Freedom Trail, a self-guided walking tour that takes you through the heart of Boston past many historic sites, including Boston Commons and Bunker Hill. We met some friends of theirs and enjoyed dinner in Chinatown before returning to Providence.
From Providence we drove up to Maine and along the Maine coastline to the very scenic Acadia National Park. By this time we both came down with a cold so we spent two nights there in a hotel in Bar Harbor: the first day was spent pretty much in bed, resting; on the second we got out and hiked some trails on Acadia. What was nice about Acadia National Park is that it is one of the few National Parks that allows dogs on its trails. Virtually all of the National Parks allow dogs, but only on roads, campground, and picnic sites, and not on trails. So it was nice to finally visit a park where Sam was welcome on the trails!
After leaving Acadia, we drove west from Bangor, through New Hampshire, and to St. Johnsbury, Vermont. St Johnsbury is home of the Dog Chapel, a church set in the rolling Vermont mountainside as a spiritual place for canines that was created by artist Stephen Huneck. The sign on the front of the chapel reads: "All Creeds, all Breeds... No Dogma!" In addition to the chapel there's a pond for dogs to swim in and several miles of trails. Covering the walls of the inner chapel are touching pictures and heartfelt messages from owners whose dogs have since gone to doggy heaven.
From St. Johnsbury we drove to Waterbury, Vermont and stopped by the Ben & Jerry's factory, a popular summertime tourist destination. The factory is composed of one building, and the majority of the square footage seems dedicated to tour- and gift shop-related activities. We took the 20 minute tour, which involves a video on the company's history, views into the factory floor with accompanying description, and - the best part - FREE SAMPLES! 
Interestingly, all Ben & Jerry's pints of ice cream are produced in this one factory, which only had two rather small production lines (therefore they only produce two unique flavors in a given day). Regardless, they output 250,000 pints of ice cream per day. Ben & Jerry's employees may take home up to three complimentary pints of ice cream per day.
We continued cutting west across Vermont and into upstate New York and into the immense Adirondack State Park. Over the next couple of days we made our way to Buffalo, New York, where we stopped for a couple of days to visit Niagara Falls. The Niagara Falls are a series of giant waterfalls between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and serve as a border between the United States and Canada. We walked through much of the areas alongside the falls in both the U.S. and Canada (there's a footbridge to cross from one side to the other; one thing that stuck out to me was that while the United States let you cross the bridge free of charge, Canada charges 50 cents Canadian (or American) per person to leave Canada and cross back over to the U.S.
After our visit to Niagara Falls we drove through Ohio and Indiana into Chicago and stayed three days with a friend of mine who lives in the city. I spent part of my childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, so growing up my folks had taken my brother and I to many of the museums and tourist sites, but this was my wife's first time to the Windy City so we hit up the tourist spots. We went up to the sky deck of the Sears Tower, rode the ferris wheel on Navy Pier, went to Millennium and Grant Parks, and so on. We also got a nice tour of Wrigleyville from my friend, who has been a die hard Cub fan since he was old enough to throw a baseball. The Cubs were not playing as it was All Star week, but they had the gates of the park open and we talked to an outgoing employee from the security staff who had been working at the ballpark for years. He had some neat anecdotes and stories to share.
Following Chicago, we continued heading west, on our way to western South Dakota to see the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore... I'll continue with that leg of the journey in a future posting...
UPDATE: Read Part 3...
This summer has involved a lot of travel.
It started with a two-week trip to Korea followed by a 71-day road
trip. We're back home now for a short break before the final leg of
this summer's journey: a 23 day, 220 mile backpacking trip along the John Muir Trail that takes us from the floor of the Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States at 14,494 feet.
After returning from Korea we got some affairs in order, packed up, and then embarked on our road trip. Our goal was to leave San Diego, spend two months or so on the road, and then return. We had a couple friends and family members we wanted to see along the way and there were some particular sites we longed to visit, and we wanted to stay off the Interstates as much as possible and enjoy the road less traveled. Other than that the trip was to be an exercise in spontaneity. (And, yes, I am aware of the irony in planning to be spontaneous.)
Joining my wife and me on this road trip was our faithful dog Sam.
To maximize our packing space and to ensure comfort on those nights when we weren't staying with friends or family and were either out in the middle of nowhere or couldn't find a vacant motel, we build a bed with a false bottom for the minivan. This was constructed by buying three suitably sized coffee tables from IKEA, bolting them together, and then adding some 2x4s lengthwise as braces to support the tabletop and a few 4x4 columns to further support our weight on the bed. We added hinges on the two coffee tabletops at the front and back to ease loading and unloading from the back of the car and front seat.
We decided at the start of our trip that our first destination would be the Grand Canyon. While my wife has been there on more than one occasion, I had only seen it from 30,000 feet while flying from San Diego to points eastward. We took a couple of leisurely days to get there and then spent two days there hiking around the South Rim and taking in the sights. It was the week leading up to Memorial Day Weekend, so it was a little busier than I would have liked, but despite the crowd we were able to secure a campsite in the park and try out the bed for the first time. The bed mattress was two exercise mats with an egg carton foam on
top of those. It was virtually as comfortable as a real bed. We did not
feel the hard coffee table surface underneath the mattress and this
custom bed was about the size of a full size bed. The only problem was that it got down into the 40s at night and we had only brought a flimsy blanket!
After the Grand Canyon we drove down to Phoenix to visit some family, see the city, and do some hiking. We picked up a thicker blanket and got to enjoy our last bites of In-N-Out burgers until August. We then decided to check out the Santa Fe National Forest. This took a couple of days to get there and included a stop by the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park in eastern Arizona.
We hiked a short trail in Santa Fe National Forest and camped there for the night. It was another cold night, dipping down into the 50s, but the extra blanket we picked up made our second night of camping much more enjoyable. The least enjoyable part about camping or backpacking, for me, is the lack of a shower in the morning. I don't mind sleeping in the car or in a tent. Pit toilets smell, but those are no big deal for me. Having to dig my own holes is a little less enjoyable, but those all pale in comparison to having to go through an entire day (or several days when backpacking) without having a refreshing shower.
After Santa Fe we spent a few days getting to San Antonio, Texas. We passed through Rosewell, New Mexico, the capital for UFO theorists and explored Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Carlsbad Caverns are a cave that include a series of extremely large caverns that are fairly level and unobstructed with interesting stalactite and stalagmite formations. The cave is also home to a very numerous bat population, which presents a very, very foul smell for the first quarter mile into the cave, or so (assuming you're taking the natural entrance rather than using the elevator that leads directly to the caverns). On the plus side, each night around dusk the park holds a Ranger talk at the cave entrance where you can watch the 400,000 bats emerging for their nightly feeding.
We spent a few days in San Antonio doing what any first time tourist would: visiting the Alamo and San Antonio's River Walk. I was surprised at how small the Alamo was. Having only seen it on TV, the shots always make it look larger than life. But the famous front of the Alamo is really a small church that is about the size houses built in California back in the 1950s and 60s. Also, the area around the Alamo is where all of the cheesy tourist stops are located. The "get your photo with Davey Crockett!" type places. And while the River Walk was certainly catering to tourists, it was more in the form of restaurants that blended in with the environment. We actually happened to be in town on Friday night and got to enjoy the lively nighttime weekend scene on River Walk.
After our visit in San Antonio we drove east to Houston, where family friends awaited. They showed us around Houston and Kemah and then suggested some sites to visit. We went to NASA's Johnson Space Center and did the touristy stuff: explored the exhibits in the museum, took the tram ride around the facility, went to the Mission Control viewing room, and ate the God awful food in their cafeteria.
From Houston we drove to New Orleans along the Gulf of Mexico in southern Louisiana. It was interesting seeing the houses on the beach there. Some were on the ground level but most were built atop steel or wood stilts. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason why some houses were on stilts and others not. I imagine those on stilts were more recently built or had been rebuilt since hurricane damage, but what was odd was that there were plenty of new, expensive looking homes sitting on the ground. And to top it off, the home that was one of the highest built and built atop steel stilts rather than wood, was an old, not well cared for mobile home that probably cost less than the support system installed.
In any event, we spent a couple of days getting to the Big Easy. It was my wife's first trip there and my first one since Katrina. I had been to New Orleans once before in April 2001 for the ASP.NET Connections conference and remembered the large crowds in the French Quarter rollicking well past 3:00 AM. On the last full day of the conference we (the attendees) were met by a high school marching band which led us into the French Quarter and to the House of Blues, where there was food and live music.
This visit I didn't know what to expect. We ended up staying in a hotel downtown, a block away from the French Quarter and a few blocks south of Bourbon Street. There were still some boarded up shops, and many of the locals on the streets looked tired, hot, and downtrodden. The French Quarter was pretty tame (although it being early June might have had more to do with that than the drop in tourism due to Katrina and the ensuing problems). During the day it was pretty quiet, most places were closed. At night it livened up a bit, but nowhere near the crowd level or energy I remembered. Although we did happen to see a marching band leading yet a throng of conference attendees!
Despite the lower energy level on Bourbon Street, we still had a fun time. We walked around a bit and scoped out the various spots before settling on a little bar where a band was playing some lively upbeat jazz and dixie land-type music. By 11:00 PM things started to die down at the bar and on Bourbon Street, at which point we headed back to the hotel.
After New Orleans, we headed north up to Missouri where my folks live. On the way we spent a few days in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is home to the Hot Springs National Park. The mountains in the park serve as natural hot springs, emitting mineral rich water that, at one time, was prescribed as a therapy for arthritic patients. Consequently, many large and ornate bathhouses were built in this area, piping in the hot water directly from the spring. Today only one of these remain open, the rest shut down as medical technology advanced and drugs were used to treat such symptoms.
As luck would have it, Hot Springs was home to a Harley Davidson motorcycle convention that weekend, so it was noisy and we were only able to get a hotel for one night. The other night we spent camping in the park, which was brutal since Arkansas in the summer is hot, humid, and sticky. Virtually all of the bikers were men and women in their 50s and 60s. Much more gray and thinning hair than not.
From Hot Springs we drove up the scenic Highway 7 in northern Arkansas up into Missouri and to my folks place at the Lake of the Ozarks, where we stayed for a week and boated and fished and spent time with family.
As we prepared to leave Missouri, we had, by this time, spent four weeks on the road. Our next destination was Memphis so as to soak in the blues... I'll chronicle that leg of our trip in a future posting...
UPDATE: Read Part 2....
This summer has involved a lot of travel. It started with a two-week trip to Korea followed by a 71-day road trip. We're back home now for a short break before the final leg of this summer's journey: a 23 day, 220 mile backpacking trip along the John Muir Trail that takes us from the floor of the Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States at 14,494 feet.
Our trip to Korea was a blast. It was my first time to any Asian country and the first time my wife had been back since she was a toddler. We went with my mother-in-law who grew up in Seoul and still has most of her family there. Going with my mother-in-law was a great experience for a variety of reasons. The most helpful day-to-day one was that she spoke the language, whereas my Korean is limited to foods I like. My wife is the first to admit that she speaks and understands very little Korean, but as the trip progressed her understanding of it greatly improved to the point where she could translate conversations for me. Unfortunately, her speaking abilities did not improve during the trip so we were pretty reliant on her mom for communicating with others. In addition to serving as a translator, my mother-in-law also introduced us to many aunts, uncles, and cousins I had never met before. Also, while exploring Seoul it was neat to have my mother-in-law's perspectives. Since she grew up in the city she was able to share anecdotes and personal stories and history that we would have otherwise missed out on.
Our two weeks in Korea were divided evenly between a cross-country bus tour and exploring Seoul, the world's most populous city with 10.2 million people. The bus tour circumnavigated the peninsula and included a plane trip and two-night stay at the extraordinarily scenic Jeju Island. Outside of Seoul and Pusan, Korea's two largest urban centers, Korea is largely rural. The eastern and northern portions of the country are very "mountainous" while the western portion contains more lowlands ideal for farming. I use the word "mountainous" in quotes because the mountains are really more like hills: none rise more than 7,000 feet. Even in these rugged areas, though, there are crops growing wherever possible. Every little patch of ground where the mountains relent - even if it is just a few square meters - will contain rows of rice, ginseng, spinach, cabbage, or other crops.
The most scenic stretch of the tour was on Jeju Island, a volcanically-formed island off the south coast of Korea. Due to its scenery and tropical climate and flora, Jeju is a popular honeymoon destination.
I also enjoyed the western coast. While it was not as scenic as the eastern coast or Jeju, it was where my father-in-law grew up and also home to the types of Korean food I was more accustomed. The cuisine on the eastern coast was very seafood heavy. The main dish in virtually every meal there (and on Jeju) was some kind of fish. Back on the western side we dined on some of my favorite dishes: japchae, bibimbop, and bulgogi, among others.
For those that have never enjoyed Korean cuisine, let me explain how it's served. The Korean meal is one that is rich is variety. Rather than serving just a single dish or two for a meal, the Korean meal includes banchan, which are a plethora of side dishes. These are usually small and simple items with a single main ingredient and can include things like: kimchi (typically cabbage, but can include radish and cucumber varieties), soy bean sprouts, plain soy beans (the bean, no sprout), tofu, seaweed, sardines, and so forth. Sometimes these include a small fish or small crabs or other small meat portions. Each diner also is served a bowl of rice and a bowl of seaweed soup (which is probably my favorite Korean soup). Then there's the main dish. This could be a fish or beef or pork or one of the above in a soup. It's usually a meat of some kind.
Here is a picture of one of our meals, which includes cabbage kimchi, tofu, soy beans, a variety of seaweed, and a salad as banchan, a bowl of rice, and a fish-based soup for the main dish.
A lot of people also wondered if I like the food, or if it left me
longing for food from back home. I already get a fair helping of Korean
food here in the states. There are a couple of really good Korean
restaurants in San Diego as well as some well-stocked Asian
supermarkets (99 Ranch and Zion Market, to name a couple). And my
mother-in-law is a very skilled cook. The constant seafood through the
first five days or so was the only complaint I have. But seeing as I
like rice and the seaweed soup, I was content to just eat that and pick
at the banchan dishes I liked when I didn't feel up to having seafood
for dinner.
The last week of our trip was spent in Seoul, which is an interesting city. There's a lot of history in Seoul, as you might imagine, and the city has several old parts as well as many new parts. The only old residences left are the palaces and other royal properties, which today function for tourist and historical purposes. In the old sections there are still some of the old streets - narrow, winding, and lined with small shops. Several of these have been closed off to motorized traffic and offer a bustling street market scene. The new parts are more modern and less interesting. In some parts there are rows upon rows of identical high-rise apartment buildings. Here's a view of one of the new sections, taken from the observation deck of Seoul's tallest skyscraper.
One of the most interesting parts of this trip was observing Korean society up close. My impression is that it is a culture that puts much more emphasis on the group and on conforming so as not to step out of line of societal norms. Everyone pretty much looked alike. Sure, there were different ages and classes and physical appearances, but I don't think I saw a single tattoo, outrageous body piercing, or distasteful article of clothing in our entire visit there. And these are things you'd see within minutes of visiting any American urban center. There's also very little ethnic diversity in Korea. More than 98% of Seoul's population is made up of people born and raised in Korean, so you see very few Caucasians, Africans, Latinos, or Middle Easterners. And in the countryside, I'd wager that 99.99% or more of the population were natural born Koreans. In short, as a goofy looking white guy I really stood out.
I don't know if we'll ever go back to Korea. I liked the country and had a great time visiting, but there are many more countries that we've yet to visit that I'd like to visit first before returning to Korea. But it was definitely worth visiting!
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