#135 - ahh, portland

travel is fun but it's always nice to come back home. i'm lucky and i have two such places, portland and hawaii. no matter how long i stay away for, hawaii still feels like home. i don't really want to live there anymore cause i love it on the mainland, but it is a special place. i am lucky to have family and friends there. i've been living in portland for 4 years now and oregon for a total of 8. i love the weather, people, places, greenery and attitudes.

my parents are here for two weeks so we went up to seattle and canada for one of them. after bumbershoot and spending time in seattle we drove up to canada. we have some far off relatives that live in vancouver, BC. we stayed with them for one night and they were nice people. i got to hear many stories about their past, many many stories of hardships they endured. it does get old eventually but they were pretty sweet and cute. we went to dim sum one day for brunch, it was the best i've had. the spring rolls with shrimp were amazing. the shrimp were HUGE and the outside so crispy and not greasy at all. roast duck (always a treat), choi sum, char siu bau and an assortment of other dim sum things. we also got a good spicy eggplant noodle dish. mmm...our relatives cooked dinner that night as well, baked salmon and tuna cakes. it was actually good, and i don't even like seafood. we visited grouse mountain, which is the highest peak in vancouver. they had a wildlife area with two grizzly bears and a program with birds of prey. it was pretty cool seeing the horned owl, ferruginous hawk, turkey vulture and bald eagle up close. they trained them to fly from post to post but some of them flew right over head. whooosh!

vancouver is where the olympics will be in 2010 so they are working hard on improving the city. it is costing them millions so i definitely plan on going and spending a few dollars up there. starting to save... my "aunty" (or however we are related) is not very happy about the money situation since they'll be in debt up to their heads and then have all these buildings afterwards. they had to build a curling building cause for olympics i guess it needs 8 lanes. the ones they had were only 4. so they built it on an old playground or something.

we took the ferry to victoria BC and went to the butterfly gardens and butchart gardens. i took many pics that i will upload soon. we spent lots of time and it was a lot of beautiful things with many colors. also in victoria we took a tour of the parliament building and visited the royal bc museum and saw two IMAX shows. it was fun!

all this was fun and i spent time with my parents but it was nice to finally come home to portland. it's comfortable here and i actually missed it while i was gone. seattle is too big and city-like, even though people like to think we're as big. we're not. being in canada was nice but we were mostly in touristy areas so that changes things a little. i'll be going back in 2 years and it'll be even more touristy. it's not a very big place yet thousands of people will be going for the olympics. i am giddy with excitement! stuff i want/need to see - snowboarding, ski jump, speed skating, figure skating (practice would be fine), hockey (any country). i am sure the events will all cost an arm and leg but i just want to be there.

#125 - olympics 2008

usually i am all over the olympics. i like to watch as much as i can, even if it's something i find boring like track or it's in the middle of the night. some people enjoy watching other people run around in a circle, personally i find it boring. i don't care if someone can run 100 meters in less than 10 seconds cause if i don't have to run, i'm not gonna! i used to be very patriotic and believed USA should win it all, have the best medal count and all that jazz. did i somehow lose my olympic spirit and national pride? maybe it has to do with the fact that it's so much about marketing and money now, even if they say it's an amateur things with amateur athletes, that is not true. i don't even know if i care that some of them are professionals and get paid to do what they are great at. sure, there will be people who rise from being nobodies to become national heroes. there will be "sure things" who fail and don't live up to expectations of their country and countrymen. people will get up on the podium and cry as the national anthem is played, mouthing the wrong words because they forgot them. there will be (or probably was already) a crazy long opening ceremony with lots of interpretive dancing and music that is culturally relevant and what not. i guess i've always liked winter olympics better but i used to enjoy them all. what happened?

i didn't realize till now how much money and work goes into building and planning for olympics. there are millions of people involved and billions of dollars. they make an olympic "city" in a few years, i guess that's pretty amazing. they clean up the area that it's held in. i heard sydney was a pretty dirty city before the olympics rolled into town. the thing that has been bothering me is i read an article about people who have been displaced because of the olympics. they just get kicked out of their homes because it's now gonna be a stadium, or parking lot, or whatever. they have no choice but to leave. this is unfair, but i guess that is life. sucks.

another thing - tibet. i won't go deep into this issue but i believe that china is slowly crushing and destroying tibet's rich and beautiful culture. tibet's spiritual and political leader, hh dalai lama lives in exile in india and has not even seen his country in the 50 years that china has occupied tibet. it makes me angry and sad because of the atrocities that have taken place at the hand of chinese ruling in tibet. they have not only destroyed monasteries, homes and temples, but also tortured and killed over a million tibetan people, many over religious causes. the chinese government says they are "improving" tibet and putting money into that region to benefit the tibetans but really it encourages more chinese to move "out west".

so i am frustrated and not sure if i will watch any of the olympics. honestly i have a lot more going on right now and don't even have a tv. watching it on tv is so commercialized and over-produced that it's not as fun to watch. you have to sit through a lot of talking in order to watch any athletic action! i'm just not into it this year. i can't wait till vancouver '10 though!