China 2012: The Great Wall

One of the highlights of our Beijing trip (besides the great food) was visiting the Great Wall. At almost 4000 miles long and snaking up and down steep mountains, it is an engineering marvel.

I was amazed at how steep some of the sections were....this part had stairs, but some sections were steep ramps that required good traction...I would not want to climb some of these when it is wet.

China 2012_Part II: Modern Buildings

The great part about Beijing is that it houses some amazing architecture, both old and new. This blogpost features my favorite modern buildings of the city:

the IBM building

here we are with Mike and Amanda at the National Stadium, aka "The Bird's Nest", built for the 2008 Olympic games

the National Aquatics Center, aka "the Water Cube", also built for the 2008 Olympics

the 250 X 30 meter LED screen ceiling outside of The Place (hotel and shopping center) is pretty impressive and definitely worth a visit

In my quest to see the best sights the world has to offer (which is what it's all about, right?), I had to revisit the Olympic buildings at night to see them in their full glory. They are much more beautiful at night:

the Bird's Nest at night

the Water Cube at night (my favorite)

China 2012_Part I

Back in February (I know, I am really behind with blogging), we went on a trip to China with our friends Mike and Amanda (Amanda was Emily's college roommate). We spent the entire trip in Beijing, discovering all that the city and surrounding areas had to offer. We had a really great trip, made even better by getting to spend it with such good friends.

my favorite building happened to be next door to our hotel!

Emily and Amanda

Emily and I at The Great Hall of the People (where the National People's Congress meets)

as the best Mandarin speaker in our group, Emily took over as tour guide :)

Tienanmen Square

inside the Forbidden City

We had a nice sunny day while visiting the Ming Dynasty Tombs, which included a long walk amongst the many sculptures of mythical animals and statues.

the gate at the sacred walk

(...many more China pics to follow)

Mt. Bachelor Snowboarding 2012

The recent storms brought some record snowfall (35 inches in 24 hours) to the mountains, so my co-worker, Sean, and I decided this warranted a day off work. I also called my H.S. friend, Chad Staker, to join us....he caught a last minute flight up from Denver. We took Friday off and drove 3.5 hrs down to Bend, Oregon to ride the slopes at Mt. Bachelor. Since Sean's wife, Adrienne, is a freelance writer, it was not hard for her to convince her boss (herself) that it is OK to take a powder day.

on the drive from Portland to Bend, we saw the sunrise over Mt. Jefferson

the snowbank was taller than the truck...I'm glad I splurged for new 31" Toyo M/T tires last year (the deeper the snow, the better they grab, due to lugs on the outer sidewalls)

Mt. Bachelor Resort

Sean and Adrienne's dog, Porter takes a nap after a long day of playing in the snow

Our accommodations for the weekend were at the McMenamins Old St. Francis School. It is an actual school from the 1930's that has been restored and transformed into a hotel, restaurant, movie theatre, and brewery. They did a great job at preserving the charm while incorporating modern amenities.

our rental cottage for the weekend

Adrienne is surprised at how awesome this place is!

the kitchen still harbors the original icebox

the courtyard outside our rental house....the fire pits are clutch after a day in the snow

the soaking pool (warm saltwater) is instrumental in loosening up legs made stiff from snowboarding all day

original water fountain in the hallway of the school....brings me back to memories of grade school

Of course, no trip is complete without finding the best food....we found an amazing brunch spot called "Chow":

banana french toast with almonds

I'm still amazed that we have lived in Portland for over 3 years, and we are just now checking out nearby Bend. This just goes to show you how much Oregon has to offer. We had passed through the town before, but never spent the time to truly discover the charm it holds. This town is a front runner for places I would like to retire....but, until then, I guess I will just have to come visit more often on the weekends. :)

Phoenix 2012

We went down to Phoenix to visit the Kerseys for a long weekend in mid January. Their recent addition, Aiden, was the prime reason for the trip....however, we didn't mind also getting some nice sunny weather in the middle of winter. It was a little too cold (60-70 degrees) to enjoy their backyard pool, so I guess we will have to visit them again when it gets warmer. :)

a proud new father and his son (Paul and Aiden)

Leeanna with her two favs, Aiden and Miley

On Saturday afternoon, Leeanna watched Aiden while Paul took us for some sight seeing around the Phoenix area.

Superstition Mountain

Goldfield: an old gold mining town

the chapel at Goldfield

no trip to the desert is complete without seeing some cacti

Canyon Lake

On Saturday night, we drove up South Mountain and took the tripod to get some night shots of the city skyline. Here are some slow shutter speed pics:

South Mountain light towers
(photo taken in complete darkness...I'm still amazed at how much light this lens can capture without a flash)

Phoenix (with a couple of planes coming in)

downtown Phoenix (I finally got to use the full 250mm zoom!)

And like it was no big deal, Emily ran yet another half marathon (13.1 miles) while we were in town. She looked online before the trip and noticed that the Phoenix marathon and half marathon were scheduled for the same weekend of our visit. I guess she couldn't pass up the chance to run in nice sunny weather. After Emily's half marathon on Sunday, we met up with her old friend, Sebastien, from Northwestern. It was nice to get caught up, and we even bought a few of his T-shirts (he's an artist).

Well, it was a jam packed weekend, but that is just how we roll. It was great visiting the Kerseys, meeting Aiden for the first time, and catching up with old friends. We will definitely be back to visit them many more times.

NYE 2012 in Utah

For New Years Eve, I decided to take a roadtrip with a few friends to Utah to do some snowboarding. Unfortunately, Emily's new job required that she work during NYE so she was not able to join us on the trip. Along for the ride in my old 4runner were Sean (a friend from work) and his wife Adrienne. Chad Staker drove out from Denver to meet us there. We left Thursday evening and drove through the night, stopping for only 2.5 hrs sleep, to arrive in Park City, Utah on Friday afternoon. Thanks to Facebook, I learned that cousin Greg Tung was also in town snowboarding that same week, so we got to meet up and ride together for a day at Snowbird.
On NYE night, we were treated to some unexpected excitement. Since we were all tired from the drive and snowboarding, we crashed kind of early in our rental condo. Around 2:30AM we were awoken to a disturbance: there was a random stranger in our living room and he had fallen into a wall!! He was obviously quite intoxicated and not really aware of where he was. From what we could piece together, he knew the person who owned our rental condo so he knew the combination for the door lock. Chad was trying to convince him to leave and threatened to call the cops. Little did we know that minutes earlier, this same guy had been banging on our neighbor's door, so they had already called the cops. The police handcuffed the man, and we all had to write statements at 3AM. What a bizarre way to start the new year!

the crew hanging out in Park City (Sean, Adrienne, Chad)

the mountain view from Solitude Resort

a moose we saw alongside the road on our drive to the mountain

sunset at Park City, Utah (the sky was an unbelievable shade of orange/pink)