I wanted to create a tabloid-size zine. That’s 11×17 folded in half until it’s an 8.5×11 zine. I purchased three, pictured below at ExpoZine in Montreal.
I really like Dumbass, it’s printed on risograph. It’s a comic book. I think comics in this size are very cute.
Pure Albertacana and Clipart Crypt are also in this size. It’s not as colorful as Dumbass so fit the minimalist style of laser printing I was going for. Pure Albertacana is also in the same color I wanted to print mine (light blue).
This was very hard to achieve on a home laser printer. I had to fold the paper in half and run it through the printer. By folding it in half, it got re-folded at a different crease by the printer. So once it’s been run through four times, it was really fucked up. I wasn’t able to print double sided, because making it go back into the printer yielded even worse results. Oh well.
I reprinted it later on just regular 8.5×11 and reformatted the text. That worked better and that’s how the zine is shared.
Over the years, we got better at gardening. Casey started trying new things when we had a tiny yard in California. But it was very dry, prone to ant infestations, and our cat treated the small raised bed as a battleground. He would fight with neighborhood cats and they would take turns using the raised bed as a litter box. So not much grew in it.
Then we moved to Vermont and had abundant land. We moved in the summer and Casey grew radish and zucchini in a small plot.
2022
The next year, we ordered many seeds in a catalog but there was a low germination rate. We did not use any plant starts nor utilized any grow lights in the spring.
We also raised chicken from chicks, which was the most fun I have ever had outside. They free ranged on our lawn and went to our neighbor’s homes for fun. They were silly and sweet.
Summer finally came and we got realistic about what could actually grow in our garden. We had a hügelkultur and was able to grow all kinds of squash on it. We found what we were good at: tomatoes, potatoes, squash, raspberries, and strawberries
2023
The next year Casey started his orchard. There were chestnut, mulberry, currant, and elderberry trees. He had spent the last three years clearing the land of trees to make room for these food trees.
We also went out and purchased some fruit trees for fun. The apple yielded the best fruit.
This year we had grown many squash, potatoes, black raspberries, strawberries – all the things we had mastered and felt good about the minimal effort we put in.
I also had a “vanity garden” which was two beautiful rows on a hill in the front of our house. I had always been jealous of the Instagrammable gardens and tried my hand at one. It was too much work and it was too far from our main garden where the soil was already primed from the years prior of growing.
I was also pregnant so I never watered, weeded, mulched, or fertilized. We got some tiny vegetables out of it but I lost interest as the season went on.
2024
We didn’t make any maps in 2024 because we had a bigger project: growing a baby. But that year still our garden yielded so much. Now we had our perennials down and could just pick at our leisure. We had a lot of squash hybrids because we had let them do their thing in the garden.
2025
This year we removed the hügelkultur, and bought starts from a local guy who would sell them out of his home greenhouse every year. We purchased mostly peppers and tomatoes and they have all been growing so well. Now we are so much better at gardening. Picking the vegetables is way more fun with a toddler.
Our trees are also yielding. We had tons of things to share with others. With a toddler I was able to stay on top of the elderberries and make syrup and tincture on time.
I also decided to tackle a new challenge: improving the perennial garden our house came with. Over the last give years I did very little work on the garden the previous owner put in. There were many beautiful things but it was very overgrown. The peonies, phlox, conflowers, and and hollyhock were the pride of this garden, but had grown unruly. Goldenrod and vetch routinely take over.
This year I reinforced the rock wall. The irises had stopped blooming, so I separated them. The tiger lillies had taken over so I trimmed them all down. I purchased many new flowers from a friend who started a job at a seed company.
So that was the main project this year. I’m going to try tulips and poppies next spring and see what happens.
I had such a great trip to Long Island this summer. Elise has been two times since she was born. The first trip was when she was five weeks old. That was a rough ride, since we hadn’t completely mastered breastfeeding on the go, and I still had an open wound from birth. However, she got to meet her great great grandmother for the first and last time, so that was special.
This time, she was sixteen months old, could walk, and the best part was that everyone was eager to watch her at this age.
I took full advantage of the wonderful family help and I went to work out three times! I took two pilates classes and even a yoga class. It felt so great. We even got the chance to have two date nights. Like boring parents, we went to the same place twice and I ordered the same thing twice. I’m too tired to try new things right now.
This trip was also special because it was my first time on the actual beach. We have been here so many times but hadn’t actually got to enjoy the water.
I used a risograph printed notepad from Tiny Town Surplus in Tucson to write this.
It was my family’s first time in Maine. Actually, Elise has been once when she was 6 months old and I have been twice, but it was all of us together’s first time.
We stayed at Huttopia, a glamping camp group for three nights. It was so relaxing. Then we stayed at Great Diamond Island, one of the islands off of Portland where you have to ride a ferry. We ate a lot of lobster rolls on this trip.
I used a risograph printed journal that I had picked up at Tiny Town Surplus in Tucson, Arizona for this journal.
I find Brossard much more family friendly than Montreal. It’s easier to park and there are just as many food choices.
This is my favorite restaurant in Brossard. The shopping center it is in is scary but it is homey and cute inside this cafe. We’ve eaten here through various name changes, ongoing maintenance issues, and even a fire alarm going off. 😅
I feel like once you’ve tried the lamb shank you’ll understand because the food is truly incredible.
My husband and I decided to collaborate and create a pocket-sized card containing information about the dirty dozen and clean 15.
This was important to us because we are constantly reminding each other and asking one another about produce while shopping. So if it was useful for us we thought it would be handy to others too.
When I travel I like to visit indie bookstores looking for zines. Here are some that I’ve recently found:
Wooden Tooth Records in Tucson, Arizona
Tiny Town Surplus in Tucson, Arizona
Wasted Ink Zine Distro and Library in Phoenix, Arizona
Kei Collective in Phoenix, Arizona
Reverie Books in Austin, Texas
Surprisingly, some of the more famous book stores in these cities do not carry zines. I looked all around Antigone Books, probably the most well-known indie book store in Tucson for zines and didn’t find any.
I have not been back to Austin for a long time. We came briefly in 2021, when we were moving from California to Vermont. But at that time, we stayed mostly in Georgetown and Hutto.
I think before that, the last time was 2018 when I had my first solo art show. I flew from California to Austin. So, it’s been a while.
While I spent most of my life there (20+ years) I don’t really identify as an Austinite. I am not proud of Texas culture and I want to leave as soon as I arrive. People here have big personalities and talk like Texas is the center of the universe. And the worst part is the driving. In the first 48 hours of being in Texas I saw three car accidents. And during the week I visited, I was in one (a minor one, so I am ok, but I was in the back of an Uber).
This trip was the longest we had stayed since moving away in 2017, so almost eight years.
We stayed one week in an Airbnb near the airport. This is an area I do not know at all. I didn’t venture back to my stomping grounds at all. We had come for my sister’s wedding so in the days before, I helped her sew her wedding veil, then finish a seating chart, then color a gift box. She did many things DIY for her wedding and it was so unique and beautiful. She is also an artist, though in the daytime she is a nurse. She married a firefighter and they were perfect for one another.
I got to see two friends from college, who are still teachers. One is even a principal now, and I couldn’t be more proud.
I also ate a tremendous amount of tacos. I got my fill of barbacoa, carnitas, and cochinita. I missed papusas, plantains, and chicharrones, and salsas made from jalapenos so that they are creamy. I wish everywhere had the option of Topo Chico and horchata as a drink.
I helped officiate my sister’s wedding and Elise was the flower girl. I had a really fun week of laughing with my sisters and cousins.
We stayed four nights in Tucson. It’s where my mom lives and I have so many wonderful cousins and childhood friends. I also got to see my cousin’s new baby a few times.
A friend that I have known since Kindergarten and I reconnected. She now has two kids. Elise loved playing with them. They ran around in their grandparents’ restaurant which is just a few blocks from where we were staying. It’s crazy that we were once babies and now we have literal babies. I still feel like a teen mom sometimes?
My favorite street in Tucson is 4th Avenue. I have some favorite local shops like Pop Cycle, Tucson Vintage, Creations, and Tiny Town. I go every time I visit.
I discovered a store that’s my new favorite, called Sun and Sand. They sell Angie dresses for very cheap.
Since giving birth my size definitely changed. So I was happy to buy many dresses at my new size.
Another place I like to visit is the Aquatic Center. I only went once with Elise this time because it is was so unbearably hot. It felt like we were on the center of the sun and would turn to ash if I stayed any longer. I was worried she had gotten a sunburn. It was only May and the temperature was already in the hundreds. Last winter, I visited twice and got to swim some laps on my own.
I also like going to the outlets near my mom’s house. I love Vermont because there are no outlet malls but I also really enjoy going to the outlets when we visit Tucson. I contain multitudes?
Casey and I joke that May this year was our social season. But it actually was, because we kicked it off with a fun friend reunion and a playdate with Elise’s cousins. We drove to Fairfield County, CT first.
Driving with a baby isn’t easy, so we stopped in Holyoke, MA for gas and Puerto Rican food. If you didn’t know, it’s a Puerto Rican enclave and the downtown has about ten Puerto Rican restaurants all within walking distance.
Elise is in-between baby and toddler now. It seemed like between 14 and 16 months she grew so much. From April to June she blossomed, like the spring.
We spent a night in Connecticut. Elise got to play with a three year old there. Then in the morning we drove to Dutchess County, New York, just an hour away.
She finally got to meet her cousins for the first time. They absolutely loved playing with each other.
Last time I went to Phoenix I only stayed one night. So this time I wanted to get to know it better. I definitely accomplished my goal.
We stayed a whole week and got to visit almost every corner of it. And, this was my first trip (alone) with a baby and it went swimmingly! We stayed at a hotel, got to see two of my sister’s graduation ceremonies, and did a lot of shopping.
My favorite neighborhood is definitely Melrose. There are a lot of kitschy vintage shops and funky coffee spots there. I had a burrito there that I will never forget. It was so good.
I also spent an afternoon in Chandler, which I don’t think I liked very much.
My sister and I love a store called Reclectic, which is a discount outlet of Free People, Urban Outfitters, Nuuly, and Anthropologie. The place is ginormous and there are no dressing rooms. So there are packs of women who enjoy the hunt trying things on in front of mirrors. People come prepared, they wear bicycle shorts and sports bras so they can slip clothes over themselves. It can be stressful, but it can also be amazing fun.
The hotel Elise and I stayed at was near a library. We went for three different mornings. It’s interesting to see the vibe of libraries in the different places. Some things are universal and some are unique to each location. At this library, you have to show up to get “tickets” in order to attend any children’s programming. If you don’t get a ticket in time, they don’t let you in. And they police people about this! I thought it was low-key fash so here’s a ticket that I stole and didn’t put back.
This is for all the kids and families that had to sadly turn around because they didn’t show up “early” enough for an event.
Elise and I actually went to two different aquariums during our week in Phoenix. I could talk your ear off about the pros and cons of each but this isn’t a mommy blog.
My favorite activity for kids (ok, I guess this is a mommy blog) in all of Phoenix was the Musical Instrument Museum. We went twice because we enjoyed it so much. The cafeteria was on point. Elise really liked using headphones for the first time at the exhibits. And we took a baby music class together. I will definitely do it again when I return to Phoenix.
Overall, it was an amazing trip. I really saw what I was capable of in terms of doing fun things for me but also keeping Elise fed, rested, and happy. We loved sharing a bed in our hotel room. Actually, I had moved it to the floor for a week and kept the Do Not Disturb sign on the door because I didn’t want anyone to find out. We took sweet baths in the tub every night and we loved buffet breakfasts in the lobby. We played in the pool almost every night.
She was amazing during each of the graduation ceremonies, too. I mastered the art of smuggling in snacks in a baby wrap. She was also such a great eater at every kind of restaurant- Mediterranean, boba, Indian, Ethiopian, and more. I love that we have this little trip that was just us two and that she seemed to be having so much fun.
Last winter we went to Tucson and Phoenix. We’ve decided we’re going to take this trip every year.
I found this little journal at the The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. I went there to hang out with a zine friend, a friend I had only met online. Then we got indian food. You really can find everything in funky little Tucson and I love it there.
It was the first trip with Elise. We spent a lot of time at the pool. We swam in hotel pools and most often at the local public pool. I wish we had year-round amazing swimming facilities like they do in Arizona in Vermont.
I tabled at an event for the first time since having a baby. I can say that I don’t miss tabling and I enjoy not depending on sales for my business. However, I do enjoy meeting other artists and creators and trading. All these zines were traded with other artists in Burlington, Vermont.
I’m launching this blog back up again with this sweet 3d card I just received in the mail from Zhenya!
My friendship with Zhenya has transcended time and so many boundaries. We met in Russia over ten years ago. I moved back to the US. We saw each other in Denver. She moved to Ireland. I moved to Vermont.
Another trip to our beloved Montreal. We’ve been living in Vermont for less than two years and we’ve been eight times. Each time, our heart swells a little more by how much we love Montreal.
Casey and I call our last trip our best trip, because we did it all right. We brought guests with us – two people who have never been to Canada. We parked in the right place. We mastered the subway by now and were able to seamlessly ride it to our destination.
My new favorite place is Marche Jean Talon, which my sister found on a map and turned out to a dream. Like a European market, it’s packed, bustling, so much going on, so much yummy food from around the world. It’s probably one of my favorite places.
We also went to the infamous spa on the boat of Vieux-Montréal, called Bota-Bota. It was amazing and makes me want to plan more trips to Scandinavian spas in Quebec city, which I’ve heard are more fun and less packed. I hadn’t thought that the spa and market could be topped, but we had dinner at Schwartz.
It was such a fun and unforgettable day. I’m glad I got to share it with my family.
It’s good to be back in Tucson. Tucson is sort of my second home, after all the other places I have lived before.
We came during February and we couldn’t be happier to get away from the negative temperatures in Vermont. I ate my body weight in Mexican food, which I really missed, especially birria.
My friend from high school got us into the Tucson Symphony, which they play in. It was a special Valentine’s day treat.
If you hadn’t caught on to my life yet, I run a literary and art magazine called Canto Cutie that showcases the work of Cantonese diasporic artists and writers. I’ve been creating, printing, and distributing this magazine since 2020, when I was living in an apartment in San Jose. Pretty much day one of the pandemic, when I had a sudden influx of free time, I immediately sprung into action with this idea that’s been cooking on my mind for years. Ever since, it’s been a big part of my life.
Now I continue working on the magazine in the sticks of Vermont. Sometimes I leave our neck of the woods to table at zine festivals and independent press events, which brings me out to the *big city*.
Late 2022, I took the magazine on an unofficial tour! First to Boston for the Boston Art Book Fair and then Brooklyn for Zine Fair NYC. In Boston, I stayed in New Bedford, which was an hour away from Boston.
Every time I’m back in a big city, my first thought is “this is fun but I’m ready to go home.” I think I was meant for rural living because while I enjoy eating out, I’m done in like one day. Obviously there are lots of days where I want to scream because I’m tired of cooking and just want to get margs at happy hour but I’ve surprisingly adjusted well to living without the conveniences I had at my fingertips from when I was 18 to 28 years old.
The Boston Art Book Fair was three days but it was fun because it was very well organized, in a perfect venue with tons of foot traffic and great tablers. I met some really great people and was able to expand the reach of the project, and sell a lot of magazines.
While tabling can be exhausting, you use up your social energy really quick, one of the perks is food. They were experimenting with this new brand of seltzers, like an unofficial sponsor, and they were delicious. I probably had about 20 over the course of three days. We were also treated to free perogis, which I wasn’t aware you could crave but months later I wish I was eating perogis.
I met a lot of people with similar projects – like an AAPI oriented zine and collective in Rhode Island, a Risograph artist in New York, a queer zinester based locally but working on their first comic book.
These types of events remind you how lucky you are that you can create, and to create amongst other creators that you respect and admire is the ultimate source of fuel. It feeds me, refreshes me, and reminds me we’re all just drawing lil pictures at home and this won’t accomplish much in the big picture of global economic systems, but damn is it fulfilling.
I went out on a limb and traded a lot of zines, I also bought a lot of art. I bought a lot of Risograph prints and original zines and comics that I can’t wait to share.
In 2022, I took the magazine on an unofficial tour! First to Boston for the Boston Art Book Fair and then Brooklyn for Zine Fair NYC. In Boston, I stayed in New Bedford for three nights.
New Bedford is a small town before the Cape about an hour outside of Boston. I had a lot of fun staying with my friends that I had met in the year prior. We had done a lot of work together as part of an arts nonprofit that they were an executive director of. It hit me hard when they had to move away from Vermont. I get pretty emotional when people have to leave but I was excited to see them.
New Bedford seems sleepy on the outside but they have some really cool places like little Portugal which we had amazing food at and Kilburn Mill where there are boutiques and indie clothing shops.
I had a great day in the city with my in-laws. We played mini-golf, got fancy pastries, went to a photography museum, and ended the night with Korean BBQ.
Richmond is a cute town in Vermont that some friends have told me that I should move to. Too bad, because we love where we live already! I’ve been there a few times, and each time has been really magical. The first time I really got to hang out here was with my friend Nicole, who we met online! She was also new to Vermont. One sticky summer night we headed to the Bolton Pot Holes, an icy cold swimming hole.
We shared drinks on a blanket and braved letting the water come past our knees because of how cold it is. The melted snow water from the mountain drips down in waterfalls all spring and the remaining water pools at the bottom, making it stupid cold.
That night, we had dinner at a cool Asian fusion joint in town and it’s probably to this day, one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in Vermont.
Another good friend has invited me to Richmond a few times later in the summer. It’s a small town that really like-minded people have flocked to. We spent a fun summer night here, playing music (well, she was playing music, I was enjoying it). We reheated bulk carnitas and I busted out mango-juice vodkas at the only pace acceptable for three ladies on a Friday night. Two vodkas in, I rode my first electric bike here. A mutual friend rolled it out of her garage and let us ride down the the street in it.
Finally, I was there last night, where I said goodbye to that friend. We had spent many summer mornings swimming in the reservoir, and prior to Vermont she had lived in many other states, from the backwoods of Alaska with only an outhouse for plumbing, to where I met her, in a funky loft above the town’s only gas station. I don’t know why, but I was emotional when I found out she was leaving, and emotional the entire time during her going away party. I know friendships are fleeting, after all, haven’t I left so many places? But it was time for somebody else to leave and that was really sad. We ate pizza made from the house-turned-restaurant next door, and sat around another friend’s living room, at a gathering where there were more dogs than people. The town’s veterinarian was there. A mix of old and young people. I felt lucky to be a part of that room at that time, and strangely empty when my friend and I hugged at the door when it was time to leave.
South Hero is the southernmost Champlain island and only a thirty minute drive from my home. Summer weekends are where the Islands really shine, with their farmer’s markets and Vermonters going to their dachas.
Except they don’t call them dachas, they call them “camp” and we’ve always been jealous of our friends who go to camp, because we want one someday.
One afternoon I stopped by for a Filipino Festival here. It was held at a small farm owned by a Filipino family. Tents with all kinds of foods are set up in their driveway. I don’t eat much pork at home, so I pig out on pig buttocks and pork belly and everything I love about Asian food.
Something that has been irritating me a lot lately is when people say “oh, I didn’t know there was a __ community in Vermont” and it’ll apply to say, the Filipino community. I’m not irritated in that everyone should know everything about Vermont, but more that your acknowledgement equals their existence. I asked my husband what constitutes a community? Like, I am the only Cantonese person I know in my town, does that mean my town has a Cantonese community? He said with just one other family, it does. Given how big my town is, then that means there’s a Cantonese community. And it’s interesting because in South Hero, I guess there is a community because on this farm, the family and all their friends are able to hold such food-centered events regularly, at least a few times per year so that means “Vermont has a Filipino community”.
We are in the US, so there’s every kind of community – everyone the world over knows this country is a melting pot of cultures and immigrants. Since living here and working as an ESL teacher, most of my friends are people of color, but I know that’s not everyone’s experience. I know that being a minority in Vermont, I can have a fundamentally different experience than many other Vermonters. People are surprised we have truck to haul hay, straw, and more for our mini-orchard, but then some people are not surprised and are curious to know what we grow and what animals we raise. Some people are disgusted to know we have guns, but some people are like, of course you have guns, it’s Vermont after all, you’re a minority if you don’t have a gun. I’ve met people who don’t know a single Vermonter with a gun, so they have staunch opinions about gun ownership, which is a little bizarre in my opinion because Burlington can surely be a bubble.
Every week I drive a neighbor’s kid to field hockey practice and take her to art class sometimes. People in Vermont will make statements about there being no people of color in Vermont, and here we are, two people of color existing and seeing each other weekly, and can be utterly confused by that statement. I eat mostly at the Nepali and Vietnamese restaurant down the street, so when people say there isn’t ethnic food in Vermont I’m also confused because that’s most of my diet here – the Asian food I make at home and the Asian takeout from our most visited places.
I guess all this to say that I’m irritated when people remark that there isn’t such a community in Vermont, my immediate eye-roll, because I exist, and we exist, and we don’t need to be something you can visit like a Little Italy or Chinatown or something in order to exist.
We’ve had over twelve guests come stay at our guest room this summer. It’s partly due to my urging of everyone come visit us, but also because Vermont is the perfect vacation destination in the summer. There’s no place like it. Californians can’t get enough of the green, New Yorkers can’t get enough of the peaceful, untouched wilderness. A friend told me my Instagram page acts as the Vermont tourism board and I couldn’t agree more. My excitement radiates off of social media, and it’s not a curated selection of what I want people to see; it truly is that wonderful. I’ve only been here one year, but my heart swells with how much I truly love the home we’ve made here.
My favorite guest of all this summer was Mike. Mike is Casey’s dad and I lived with him for a short period of time when Casey and I were first dating. When I had to leave to go live in Russia, we got drunk and I told him he’s like a second dad to me and he is a handful of older people that I cherish because they always have my back.
We all met up in Long Island for my brother-in-law’s wonderful engagement party. A weekend of fun and festivities, and so much good eating. We returned home with Mike and while we all had to work the week away in our home in the woods, we took time to have a lot of fun. We took Mike to Nepali and Vietnamese food. Whenever we visit Mike, we always get Asian buffet and Korean bonchon so it’s always a lot of fun.
My friend and I just started a small business holding paint-and-sip classes and he got to come to our first one ever. It’s been a lot of hard work and I was proud of how much fun he and other people were having at the event we put together, that I facilitated. One thing Casey and I noticed was that Vermonters loved Mike, because he’s friendly, and fun, and knows a lot about old stuff, which is basically what all of Vermont is.
Casey gave Mike a book of Vermont’s civil war history just a few months prior so he was excited to visit museums and see old forts. So many friends recommended that we take Mike to Shelburne Museum, and I was so glad that my first trip to this outdoor theme park (let’s be honest, it’s hardly a museum in how special it is). Shelburne Museum is a campus of oddities, from a huge steam ship in the middle of a field, to fancy homes they carted from other parts of Vermont to be a part of the museum. We saw weapons, laughed it up with fun docents who told us secrets of the exhibits, and loved looking at old barns with preserved machinery. We saw an old certificate with Abraham Lincoln’s signature, really the highlight of the museum.
I found some giant puffball mushrooms in a field, honestly a mark of a really spectacular day. Shelburne is about 45 minutes from home, so on the ride back we stopped for ice cream, picked up local coffee for Mike to take home, and walked a little in a part of Lake Champlain’s embankment that I had never been.
Summer is over now, with the leaves falling, but I had an amazing time when Mike came. Going to the Shelburne Museum was a blast and I’m glad we got to experience that together.
This trip was our first time where we spent the night! And our first time using public transport. By now, we knew our way around and could lead others around the city. This time, we actually went into Notre Dame, instead of just hanging around outside.
First of all, it’s impossible to find. It’s underground, one tiny door in a weird closed/dead shopping breezeway kind of thing, but we found it. The entire museum was just three rooms, some installation art and short films. We got lost there for a while.
I really love planning Casey’s birthday. For one birthday while we were living in San Jose, we drove up to San Francisco and enjoyed a day of eating mushroom risotto at a fancy French restaurant. Foraging and identifying mushrooms was our favorite pastime at that point.
For this year’s birthday, I wanted to treat him to Korean food, his favorite cuisine. I poked around a few Asian Montreal Facebook groups to find out which were the best Korean bbq places in town and we drove up to have an amazing lunch. It rained a lot so we had to dash there and dash to a chocolate cafe for dessert immediately after, ha. We got so wet and so cold we bought all new outfits at Uniqlo, one of our favorite stores anyway.
We read books at two different bookshops, acted as bystanders during a protest, and found a bulgogi spot off of St. Catherine’s for dinner. The street is filled with shops and great restaurants.
Montreal is our favorite place to visit since we’ve moved to Vermont and we’ve visited three times in the span of a few months. It’s cosmopolitan feel gives us the comforts of all the foods we missed about California. It feels European in the way people behave and dress. We love spending weekends here.
We discovered a funky new neighborhood in Montreal. Mile End is where many Orthodox Jews live, so there are many bagel shops. There’s also a small little Lululemon store here. My cousin Molly and her husband visit Lululemon in every city they visit. We also stopped into what I thought would be an Asian snack shop with it’s pink walls and cartoon character murals – it ended up being “the only pink museum in the world” run by an eccentric dude.
Mile End is next to Mount Royal Parc, a random giant hill in the middle of the city. We hiked through it to get to Old Montreal, where we visited the Notre Dame square. I discovered an Arab diasporic bookshop. We happened to catch a basketball tournament with women in 3×3 teams from all over the world. We rooted for Latvia in a game against Spain. We bought baos The excitement of being in a big city was overpowering. We walked miles and went back to the hand-pulled noodle joint for dinner that Casey and I discovered on the trip prior.
Our first foray up to Montreal was with two of our friends from California. Surprise – the border crossing was extremely easy and it took only 1.5 hours to make it to downtown.
We walked around the Montreal Museum of Art and then the Botanical Gardens. Because it was our first time there, we chose easy destinations to drive to, nothing we had to navigate tricky parallel parking, obeying signs we couldn’t read because they were in French.
The Garden was huge and beautiful. We loved the themes and took so many photos. It was a rainy day, so we had to run under a Chinese pagoda or sneak into an insect exhibit to get away from the raindrops whenever it started to pour.
I bravely chose a poutine restaurant in little Portugal, also known as Hochelaga. We walked there from the Botanical Gardens and had our very first French Canadian meal!
One Saturday, I drove down to Western Massachusetts for a zine fair and had the time of my life. Making zines have brought me to places I have never been and has been the best ice-breaker in new environments. I’ve taken part of zine fests in New Haven, Northampton, and Watertown, and a book festival in Woodstock. I would have never thought to come to these places on my own, without a purpose, so I’m thankful for zines that they have helped me come to love New England and see it in new ways.
Northampton has the charm of Vermont, but it’s in Western Mass, so it has way more people and the historic downtowns are much more developed. The event took place in an arts center. When I got there, there were dance classes and art exhibits taking place. The organizers were all super cool and I felt like an invited guest. I tabled next to an artist who made prints of natural and organic forms, and an awesome artist who ran a small thrift-and-arts nonprofit that does Risograph printing. I felt insanely cool that she wanted to trade zines with me.
They sold vegan pizza outside the event. Someone ran a print shop that unofficially only printed black goth-style tees and totes. Another zinester made a giant cat-pig-skull face and made it her emblem, printing it with Risograph in hot pink in giant, 24 inch prints. A brother and sister duo made laser-cut earrings in whimsical shapes, of course I had to purchase a bunch.
I felt like Northampton was the coolest place ever and I can’t wait to be back.
I came for the first time in 2018 with my friend Samantha. I got my bearings – the Isabella Gartner Stewart Museum, Faneuil Hall, Boston Market, Little Italy.
My second trip was with my sisters in 2021, where it was more of an eating trip. We ate a lot of lobster rolls on that trip and had a blast at the Museum of Modern Art.
I came again later in 2021, and spent most of my time in Salem and Cambridge, to visit during Halloween with my friend Lorena.
But this fourth trip was like a homecoming. I got to spend three nights in Boston and they were perfect.
Wednesday night, Casey and I drove down after work. It was dark and we made it to the fancy hotel where his work was paying for. Yes!
Thursday was an absolutely blast. With my laptop in hand, I co-worked all through Boston. I spent the morning at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, which is one of my favorite museums in the world. I can spend hours here. It’s not very large but I’m drawn to it, especially all the animals and gemstones they store here. The glass plants exhibit blows my mind every time I visit. I adore the room about New England animals and mushrooms. I think the exhibits are delightfully informative and the intimate setting makes me wish I lived next door to this treasure of a museum.
I discovered two bookstores: the Harvard bookstore with it’s packed, wonderful basement. There were so many books I wanted to buy but I knew I had to hold out for something better, given that I’d be mobile all day and have no place other than my bag to put all the books.
I’m glad I made that decision because I then stumbled upon my favorite bookstore ever. It’s called Grolier, it’s a block away from the Harvard Book Store, and sells only poetry. A bookstore with only poetry. I could die and go to heaven right now. I spent hours in the stacks and found poets from all around the world, right here in this dusty corner of Cambridge.
I picked up breakfast at Tatte nearby, a suggestion from a friend.
Next, I stopped at the Harvard Museum of Fine Art. I also had free admission with my membership. From there, I hopped on a Lyft to Newbury Street. The first time I came here, it was rainy and at night. In the day time was when it gets really fun. I was broke so I didn’t buy much, but I did discover some really cool brands including:
Mochi doughnuts from Mochi Dough. Conveniently, this one is inside a pho restaurant and they share a basement patio. Yes, think that over. Basement. Patio.
Top Drawer. The tagline to this shop is Nomad Provisions and I sort of see that. If you were a billionaire start up kind of guy doing travel, sure. That being said, I still want everything here.
Trident Booksellers. A bar inside of a bookstore! Recommended to me by an awesome friend.
A strange Brazilian clothing shop on Newbury St called Perfect Wear. Kinda weird vibes, 90’s body con clothing, nightclub highlighter-pink-and-yellow palette, but I mean like… why not?
A boot company called Freebird that I want everything from.
Reiwatakakiya. I don’t know what would compel anyone to purchase face products in a language they don’t understand the ingredients, but I low-key get it because the packaging is all very cute.
The spent the night hanging out at the hotel bar, then hopped over to the hotel… pub. The day was perfect. I couldn’t ask for more.
The second day was a lot of fun too. I woke up early, had the day off, and went to the New England Aquarium. I have pretty high standards as far as aquariums go and it was kind of small. However, being surrounded by families in strollers having a great time made me feel happy that one day I can take my children to aquariums.
I got on a Lyft to Chinatown and picked up baos at one of the many, many nameless bakeries. It was time to leave Boston and head to Long Island, but I had a remarkable time. This was my first semi-solo travel since the pandemic, and I really missed just meandering around the city with no real agenda.
I had never spent much time in New Hampshire, other than an hour stroll through Lebanon. I drove to Dover for a swim meet at the height of summer.
I really underestimated how much time it would take. It was a three and a half hour car ride and when I arrived, I was in no mood to swim. I looked at the map and realized I was almost to Boston. Oops.
The swim meet was interesting in it’s own way. It was my first adult swim competition. I was the only person of color. I was also the only person with a two-piece bathing suit. I felt like I was Lady Gaga or some celebrity on the pool deck with how much I didn’t blend in.
The events I was set to swim were difficult, too. Most swimmers are elderly and excel at freestyle. My events were the 50 and 100 back and fly, plus the IM. They were all back to back events. There were, at most, two heats per event, so I had to rush back to the other side of the pool and not get even a minute’s rest in between events. Suffice to say, that I died on my last event and did some illegal freestyle (during a 100 m butterfly) for survival.
The swim meet was nice, but I realized that the anxiety of competitions is probably not for me. I made a nice friend who we agreed to keep in touch via Facebook. And afterwards, I got to drive to Laconia to visit my best friend!
I passed by many cute and picturesque lake-side downs on the way there. Saturday mornings in New England are just so pure. It’s prime time for craft fairs and wandering around the center of town as slowly as your old people legs can take you.
Laconia is low-key in the same way many of the understated towns in Vermont is. We spent a rainy afternoon on the beach. Now that my best friend and I are both older, it’s so special to be able to visit each other’s homes. Not apartments, not rented spaces, no roommates, but a place of our own. I was pleasantly surprised that there was much of my art and gifts on the wall and shelves.
She is also an amazing cook and fried fish for us. I’ll make that 3.5 hour drive any day to get to be able to eat that fish again, ha.
The drive back was nice and I love just looking at the cute downtowns of small towns in New England. Vermont and New Hampshire have a different flavor, but only slightly.
The race of the summer is the Kingdom Swim. I had heard about this swim my very first week living in Vermont, and while I was too late to register for it in 2021 since I arrived in the summer, I registered in snowy March for the race in July 2022. I spent all year getting mentally and physically excited for it.
The race offers many distances, ranging from a one mile swim to a twenty five mile swim that takes almost a whole day to complete. I signed up for the 5K. It was held in Lake Memphremagog, a beautiful lake that both Canada and the US share. My husband and I came up two nights before, stayed at the only motel in town to prepare for the big race.
Every swimmer had to have a kayaker beside them, for safety and also for snacks. Casey was my kayaker! We had a pre-race dinner with everyone who was participating and there were swimmers and kayakers from all over New England. We even befriended a Canadian who had come down to kayak for somebody. A lot of strangers became friends, since many kayakers were volunteers for anyone who did not have one already selected.
I had even purchased a kayak the month before and practiced with Casey once in a nearby lake.
During the big race, I finished my 5K distance in 1 hour and 36 minutes. I was in the middle of the pack, which was great to know that I wasn’t last. The race organizers threw us a barbecue at the end.
One of the best memories was that Casey and I saw a bison on the drive up. We couldn’t believe it. It was such a cool animal!
We love the Northeast Kingdom and intend to come back again and again.
The summer of 2022 brought guests from all over to stay at our cozy ranch home. We finally got the guest bed set up and our tiling finished on the first floor. Our first guest came in June – the first of many.
My friend Victoria and her husband came to visit first, kicking off the summer of family, friends, and fun. Victoria and her husband were very into coffee.
If you know me at all, I can count the number of times I’ve had coffee in my life. While it is delicious, caffeine affects me a lot. I will have bad sleep for at least two nights after a single cup of coffee. So when they visited, I had to get my act together and do research on where the best cups of coffee in Burlington were.
Burlington’s coffee scene did not disappoint. My favorite coffee shop was one attached to a seltzer place (more up my alley), Brio. Their location is great since it’s attached to art galleries, local gift shops, a pickle shop, and more. I especially love the artwork at Brio.
I also loved the one in Essex, called Uncommon Coffee. It’s a roaster, in a nice large shopping plaza so you can park in front (I am an Arizonian and Texan at heart – I need to be able to drive up to my destinations). Since then, I’ve been back a lot with my laptop to schmooze their wifi. On the day Victoria, her husband, and I went to Uncommon, we got to catch a weekend arts and crafts market! It doesn’t get more quintessentially summer in Vermont than that.
Kestrel was very eh to me, but my friend’s husband loved it so much, we went around the whole town looking for fresh beans from Kestrel to buy!
I think the most unique drinks were from Onyx Tonics. They had interesting mixes like maple lattes and more.
In the same day, we also visited Vivid Coffee and Kru. Kru was the only coffee shop I had ever visited in Vermont, prior to their arrival since it’s on the heavily trafficked Church Street and I had visited with my coffee-loving sisters the summer prior.
I had mostly scones and small snacks at each place, and saved my single coffee of the day for the place I felt most worthy. I think I made a great choice because I loved Uncommon Coffee and Onyx Tonics the most. They had things on their menu that jumped out at me. It’s hard to market coffee at me, since I don’t like cold brew, or espresso, and I don’t drink milk products, which only leaves almond and oat milk lattes. I also don’t care for syrups or flavors since sugar affects many people in my family poorly.
Uncommon Coffee had a ube latte and hocjicha latter, which I still think are some of the most unique drinks around.
Strangely enough, during the pandemic I got to speak and give more presentations than ever before. Zoom made it possible for me to get involved in activism, the indie publishing scene, entrepreneurship, and more.
Prior to Covid, I had only given a few talks. I had given an art talk at an exhibit opening and a few academic conferences. But with Covid, I found myself pursuing more and more things I never had the chance to given my schedule and work commitments.
I don’t necessarily dislike public speaking, or have a great fear of it, like my husband does. When I had the opportunity to share about my small publishing business at a local organization, I jumped at the chance. It ended up being a wonderful evening where I met so many great women. A lot of women shared their stories and it was inspiring to listen to how everyone has their own passion and it’s up to us to pursue it, and support one another.
It doesn’t matter where I am, I absolutely love bookstores.
It all started when I was little. My mom would let me have my pick of anything at Border’s. As I got older, I loved going to Half Price Books in Austin. I knew that the downtown location had gems in different languages, and the one by my house always had a good sale in the CD section. I spent hours in high school at a comic bookstore a little more south than where I grew up, and felt adult buying graphic novels and hanging out with people outside of my Northwest Austin suburb.
I got acquainted with my city more after I got to know other bookstores in college. The beautiful Chicano art book store on the East side, and the weirdo basement bookstore on the drag with the conspiracy books, and the bookstore where all the cool people went on first dates downtown called Book People.
Since I’ve moved to New England, I’ve also discovered the local bookstore scene as well. The dusty ones with stacks of yellowed pages are my favorite. I’ve been to book festivals and I’ve taken part in local book fairs. I’ll always have a home in local bookstores.
Moving to a new state and getting guests for the first time means gifts, celebrations, and most importantly, cards. I collect every card I receive in this scrapbook.
My favorite thing about my family is that they are just as sentimental as I am. We prefer to write and our feelings certainly come out in our cards that we write to each other.
The best thing about making friends abroad is being able to send each other care packages and write letters.
It started when I was seven and moved away from Tucson. I kept in touch with my cousins and my best friend through letters. Even though we had email and could text soon after, writing letters never lost it’s charm.
I typically do not enjoy my birthday because of built-up anxiety and wanting to make the day perfect but a fun fact is that my 28th birthday was the very first day of lockdown.
It was the beginning of some of the best years. I finally had time to breathe and sit and create and sleep. I got engaged on my birthday and married a year later. For many, many, many people quarantine was a struggle but for me, it was a special bittersweet time where I felt happy and weightless like never before.
I received two cards from two very dear friends on this day. They’re still some of my favorite letters I have ever received.
Looking at this brings me back to when quarantine started, where everything was uncertain but all I knew was what I had in my life and my house was good.
My sister got married in Phoenix, which made it the third time I have gone in three years. I’ve always had Tucson loyalty but Phoenix is slowly winning me over with the food and bars. Yeah, it’s that easy for me to love a city.
This winter, I learned to ski. And not only that – I grabbed skiing by the horns. Or the poles.
I took three lessons at Bolton Valley, a mountain about 40 minutes from my house. I heard about it from just about everyone living here that was the preferred mountain for locals. I got to know the trails very well and went over ten times this winter season.
I only had to take a few small breaks, when I injured my toe and had to learn a thing or two about ski boots. They are very painful and my barefoot-leaning feet do not do well in them. I had to bring them to Alpine Shop many times to get them fixed up. Not only that, with huge calves, they cut up my circulation regardless of the temperature and conditions outside. So they are still far from perfect. I’ve had to learn a lot more about the culture of skiing than I had to learn about techniques and strategies, in my opinion.
Still. I had a great winter. Reminiscing on how wonderful it was to learn and feel comfortable on the mountain is a real treat!
Near the end of the season I got a hold of a few free passes and jumped at the chance to visit a mountain I had never been on. I really wanted to try Smuggler’s Notch. It is the mountain that’s closest to home, that many locals go. I got to go to during a weekday off season, when it wasn’t snowing anymore. However, it was still a great time.
Smuggler’s Notch was different from my “home” mountain for many reasons.
First of all, Bolton is 40 minutes South whereas Smuggler’s Notch is 40 minutes north. So the alpine and climate is a bit different. It’s more conifers, spruces, and firs up there, so it feels more winter-y, even on a sunny day. There are definitely more log-cabins along the road as you drive up.
Secondly, Smuggler’s Notch is more family friendly. There’s more of a walking area in the parking lot and lodge to hang out inside and outside. There’s more signage and there’s a lot of decorations reminiscent of a kid’s theme park in the 80’s – like elves, fairies, and random trippy animals painted on the side of lifts and walls. At any given time, there are more group lessons going on. There’s childcare for skiiers. And there’s a Magic Carpet lift. And lastly, there’s playful little nooks and playscapes for really young children to try. At Bolton, there is almost no kids stuff, like at all.
Third of all, the paths at Smuggler’s Notch are much much more wide. So as a beginner, I’m less afraid of falling off the side. Even the manmade snow was slushy, and not as icy as it is at Bolton.
After my fantastic afternoon at Smuggler’s Notch – there’s a few things I walk away with. First, that I really enjoy my time alone in the mountains. I might never have this period of uncertainty during the winter again, so I cherish being about to ski as much as I did in the time that I did. I also am considering a season pass here next year, as the trails were much more at my level. They were less steep and more wide. I’d have to try it out a few more times with Casey and see what he thinks.
For Casey and my one year marriage anniversary, it was also pretty much the one year anniversary of us deciding to move to Vermont. We decided about this time last March to move here.
To celebrate this amazing time as an end to the most wonderful year, we decided to do a few things we love best about the Green Mountain state.
First of all, we went skiing at Jay Peak. For those who don’t know, Jay Peak is the best ski mountain in Vermont. It’s powdery unlike the rest of the Ice Coast. It’s pretty far away from the rest of the state and the rest of humanity here, so it’s a trip that you have to take intentionally.
Prior to skiing at Jay, Casey and I had only skiied together one time this season. We are still getting used to each other on the slopes. On the other hand, I had been skiing a lot this winter.
Even on a Saturday morning, the slopes were packed. There were so many excited skiiers and snowboarders on the lift. We definitely felt the festive winter energy. Nothing is better than a sunny day on the mountain.
The next day, we went home and decided to book a night at the Hilton in downtown Burlington to spend our anniversary night. Since we live outside of Burlington, it’s not like we don’t get to go there about once a week. However, making a special trip out of it made it even better.
Next door to the hotel was an amazing restaurant we had heard about from all our friends – Hen of the Woods.
It was a perfect treat – grassfed meat and the most amazing vegetable dishes by candlelight. We loved everything we ordered and felt like we were on cloud nine. Even Casey loves to be pampered.
I did not expect to like this small town very much but I’m glad I was wrong. Harvard’s campus is wonderfully picturesque, but I loved their university museum most of all. I even became a member. I’ve never supported a museum before this so this is my amazing venture into being an adult with cash I can use to support *~philanthropic causes~*
Every witchy girl has a bucket list destination, and it’s Salem, Massachusetts. Myself included, I had to visit during a Halloween. For the weeks leading up to the trip, I read posts on Reddit about how much locals hate the tourists and what is a tourist-trap and more. Despite all of that, I still went to all the so-called tourist hot spots and loved every minute of it. Graveyard tours, cramming into apothecaries with everyone else in the world, buying tarot cards from psychics – I loved every minute of this gloomy trip.
I’d love to return outside of Halloween because of how quaint the colonial-era buildings are. I wish American town squares were more walkable, as they are in Europe, but New England has some beautiful remnants of pedestrian-centered city planning. Salem brings me back to that.
Before we even decided to look for a house in Vermont, we came to visit. Casey was working from home so I just took the car and drove around the entire northern portion of the state to see what’s up. I drove all the way up to Swanton, which is the northern most city before the Canadian border, then went West to North and South Hero islands, which are located on Lake Champlain, then back down to Burlington.
It was a great time to just explore and get lost. Plus, my phone didn’t have service so I was relying on a tourist map I had found in the Airbnb. The first city I encountered and really liked was St. Albans. It had suburbs and what I call “typical Vermont roads” which are houses, pretty sparsely sprinkled over fields and mountains. But the best part is definitely downtown St. Albans for it’s cute historic district.
St. Albans, also pronounced Snalbins by the locals, has a cute little square with a downtown of five or so shops and cafes. It was a cute place to drive around. The best part about many Western-most towns in Vermont is that you’re just minutes away from the water.
St. Albans Bay was beautiful and I was about to break our unspoken rule of not buying a lakehouse.
There is no St. Albans vs. Burlington rivalry, because almost every job is in Burlington and people can have commutes of up to an hour everyday. However, in this beautiful landscape, it isn’t so bad.
So if Los Angeles is the Los Angeles of California, I would say that Waterbury is the Los Angeles of Vermont. Waterbury is very fun.
On one street alone, there’s Ben and Jerry’s factory, a cidery, cheese factory, distillery, coffee roaster, brewery, state police office, and huge gun outlet. It’s basically the eating capital of Vermont, though some may argue it’s actually White River Junction, as King Arthur Flour is based there; or Cabot, since Cabot cheese comes from there; or Burlington, the most urbanized area in the state. But I stand firm in that the fun capital is Waterbury.
Just down the road from Waterbury is Stowe, one of the most famous ski resorts in all of Vermont. So it makes sense that all the food fun is within minutes of that destination.
On one of my visits to Waterbury, with my sisters, we got asked to model in an apple cider catalog. That was pretty cool. We posed for photos (with our regular clothes on) for a few minutes and got donuts and ciders to take home.
My husband and I have had a fascination with Gilroy ever since we moved here. Apparently, it is the largest exporter of garlic in the world, and if you’re eating garlic, chances are it’s from a farm in Gilroy. Gilroy is just south of San Jose and not considered part of the Bay Area. It’s known for farms, wide open space, and where people from the Bay Area move to when they’re priced out. That, and Modesto, and Sacramento, and Tracy.
Despite it’s reputation, I quite like going there. The first time I really got to know it was during a birthday party at a winery. I thought to myself, this is a real California event. I’ve made it. I had only been living there for two years and it felt right. It wasn’t Napa, but I liked that even better.
The second time was for a bachelorette party, and the third time was for my husband’s second Covid shot. The last time I saw Gilroy was during outlet shopping, on one of my last days living in California. It always has a soft spot in my heart. I don care for huge tourist destinations. I love places that others have considered “boring” and low key. It’s probably why my husband and I decided to move to Vermont.
Sometimes I think that as a couple, Casey and I are blessed with extraordinarily good luck. We didn’t really have a honeymoon plan because we were worried about Covid after the event. Two days after our wedding, we thought that maybe we should just do it? We thought about Humboldt County and seeing whales – but the 5+ hour drive didn’t seem worth it. All we knew was that we wanted a private tub to soak together.
Almost magically, we found the perfect place in Napa – the Carneros Resort. It is a beautiful resort with individual cottages. Our suite was absolutely the most luxurious place we had ever stayed. We had our own patio and garden, with an outdoor tub. The bathroom floors were heated, there was a fireplace right in front of the cozy bed, and a giant window that we never shut during our three day honeymoon. It was really the best thing we could have ever found. The best part was that it was just little over an hour away from home. We really didn’t want to leave. The resort was amazing. We had our little orange son at home, which we couldn’t leave alone for too long.
The entire week left me in a heavenly haze. Almost half a year later, I still can’t believe that week was real. The wedding ceremony, reception, and honeymoon were magical, and so much good luck and blessings showered upon us.
With no end to the pandemic in sight, Casey and I wanted to make sure our guests could at least have a little fun for driving so far. We rented an Airbnb and with the owner’s permission, we had a lunchtime party in the backyard. We had ten guests. Bloomster’s handled the tables, chairs, and flower arrangements.
Our party was as outdoor, open-air as possible.
Our catering was done by Georgy’s of Kolkhida, a Georgian restaurant in Santa Clara. We had previously eaten at their food truck in Mountainview.
Georgian cuisine is one of my favorite foods in the world… Their most well-known dish is Khachapuri, a fluffy bread that is a cheese boat, topped with a raw egg in the middle. It is more delicious and rich than pizza because the cheese comes from milk from a certain mountain the Caucuses… we also had spinach balls with walnut paste, called Pkhali, and Badrijani, a pomegranate seed topped-eggplant at our wedding.
Being seltzer addicts, we also had Topo Chico, paired with Deep Eddy Grapefruit Vodka at the reception. Honestly, can you name a better duo?!
The dish that stole the show, however, was Rusty’s homemade cookie cake tower. She certainly understood the assignment. She used to work for the cookie franchises at the mall, in the 80’s, so we knew it was going to be great! Each layer was rich with icing. Honestly my mouth is watering just thinking about how delicious the cake was.
I converted to Judaism after a year-long course put together by four local temples. I found the perfect rabbi after meeting four San Jose area rabbis in the process. She was the one who also helped me convert to Judaism, and officiated our wedding ceremony.
For the wedding ceremony, we needed candles, kiddish cups, and kosher wine. I hand painted two ceramic cups that have symbols of our life and “love” written in Hebrew on the bottom.
A Jewish ceremony begins with the bride and groom walking in circles around each other, and blessings by the family and friends. Here is a photo of Rusty, Casey’s mom giving a blessing, and the notes she used to read off of, which of course I kept!
Our florals were done by Bloomsters in San Jose. The chuppah was absolutely breathtaking. We couldn’t have been more pleased by how quickly they set up and took it down for our short little ceremony, but also how the palette matched my vision exactly. Florists really are artists! They understood that a chuppah has to have white cloth over the bride and groom. Our florist chose tulle and ribbon, which I think is perfect.
As part of a Jewish ceremony, we signed the ketubah. Our ketubah was hand-cut by an artist in Israel and then handwritten in both English and Hebrew. The details are very delicate and the overall effect- breathtakingly beautiful.
As part of the official ceremony, we also signed the civil licenses. We found out the “quick” way to get a civil license is in Santa Cruz, just forty minute south of San Jose. Thank goodness for Santa Cruz, because getting a civil ceremony in San Jose would have taken months. Santa Cruz was a perfect pick, because that’s where I had my mikveh for conversion to Judaism.
Lastly, as most know, a Jewish ceremony ends with a glass being stomped on! Our rabbi suggested using a lightbulb in a plastic bag.
This absolutely was the wedding of my dreams, from start to finish. Do most couples talk about how amazing their wedding was, even months later? Casey and I certainly do.
Casey and I decided to have a pandemic elopement. We don’t regret it, because we would have chosen a small, intimate ceremony anyway.
Despite the ceremony lasting about one hour – it was still nerve-racking! So many moving parts. The flowers, the booking of the park, the rabbi, getting everything together.
The ceremony was a dream. We went all out on flowers and chose a florist that even made floral designs for the Dutch royal family. We loved our photographer.
The elopement was held in California. Despite the pandemic, my cousins, uncles, and beloved grandpa were able to come.
Many, many, many more posts about this beautiful day coming soon.
We had planned a long engagement but with our out-of-state move looming closer, and no end to the pandemic in sight, we decided to have a tiny ceremony. We figured we’d have a larger party later. The most important guests, my grandfather and Uncle Joe, live in California, so it was a good location and time.
In October, we planned to have the ceremony for December, and later decided to do it in March. All the wedding planning took just a few months – ordering the dress, picking the perfect florist, locating the Georgian food lunch of our dreams, and getting everything settled with the rabbi and Jewish ceremony.
We took engagement photos in December, with the same photographer we would end up using for the wedding.
Our wedding announcements were digital, mostly photos used in graphics for the few guests. I am still so happy with the photos. Our photographer, Bay Area-based Tam Duong, was amazing and told us exactly how to pose.
I love getting done with a scrapbook! Then it gets to go on my shelf, with all my other travel memories. I create one even for in-town trips. I have been sharing pages from Katie and Casey’s Winter Break Adventure 2020! We were socially distant on all our adventures this winter break.
After living in California for over three years, Casey and I realized we had only been to Santa Cruz once! We had never really been to the beaches here.
We took the beautiful drive along Highway One. One day we started from Santa Cruz. Another day we started from up North, near Palo Alto, then drove down. It’s a picturesque drive.
Our favorite beach is Ano Nuevo. It is a state park, so you have to pay to get in. The walk down to the shore is a unique environment, part tall grasses, part swamp. Really interesting birds and flowers were there. That alone makes this trip worth it.
Down at the beach are elephant seals. Casey and I immediately fell in love. They are so lovable! Giant noses, cute barks, sleepy food coma behavior… how can you not love these guys? They are everywhere. We saw three on our short visit to Ano Nuevo.
Afterwards, we saw Shark Fin Bay and Twin Lakes State Beach after some recommendations from some friends. I am glad I don’t live at the beach, but it’s so close by. Another thing – we actually found Greek food in Santa Cruz. In San Jose, there’s only one Greek chain and it’s not very good. In Santa Cruz, there were a few places to choose from. Gyros always has my heart.
The best part about living in South San Jose is that you are right up along the mountains. It can’t get any better than that! I’d take Northern California landscapes over Southern California beaches any day.
Alamaden Quicksilver Park is less than fifteen minutes from our house. There is a grueling uphill loop. We did it on New Year’s Eve. However, we went just a few days prior to hang out on a blanket. Is it weird to take a blanket to the forest, lay down, and read? We tried to stay a little bit hidden so that anyone walking by would not be put off by two weirdos on a blanket. It was a great day!
Monte Bello is a special hiking spot Casey and I go to near Palo Alto. It is our favorite place because it is never crowded and the loop is just at the appropriate level of difficulty. By the end, I am complaining, and we finish right when Casey gets tired. So it’s a win-win for us non-athletes. It is about a four mile loop. We have found all sorts of mushrooms there, from witches butter to lion’s mane to reishi. Casey even proposed to me there!!! That’s why it’s a such a special place to us. We’ve been back twice since quarantine.
It’s difficult to catch Monte Bello in the ideal conditions because you have to wait for a rainy season. But when you find it in March or April, it can’t be beat.
Casey and I visited Nisene Marks at the beginning of our myceulium obsession. We were just learning about mushrooms and getting excited when we could identify basic roussulas. Now, we’ve gotten pretty good and can identify many things!
We went to Nisene Marks this past week. With Covid, it was crazy the amount of bikers and runners who were maskless. All the walkers were in masks, though. We tried to get off the main trail to be away from people. It’s hard to get away from the crowds wherever you go in California. I heard Mendocino and Humboldt is where you can really be away from people so I think the next time we really want to get away, we will go there instead of a forest nearby. It is still breathtakingly beautiful.
We’ve been living in the Bay Area for four years now but we have yet to spend too much time at any of the beaches. This winter break from distance learning, I set out to change all that.
Capitola is an urban beach with a low-key beach town. It is near Santa Cruz. The drive was quick. We read some books on the beach.
I found an old map of Austin while visiting my grandpa one summer afternoon. It was a map from the 90’s, and there are many more roads than there are on the map. I decided to cut it up and reflect on every corner of Northwest Austin – places I’ve been, that were special to me, and places I’ve worked.
Depending on who you talk to, North Austin is defined as North of 183, or West of Mopac. I’m labeling it as north of 290.
Great Hills
Far West/Old Chinatown
Intersection of Burnet, Lamar, and Koenig
Wells Branch
2222/Emma Long Park
Westlake
2222/Far West
Anderson Lane
North Lamar
Downtown
Zilker Park
You’ll find a recurring theme – Westlake sucks and that the best Asian food is found in the most unexpected corners of the city.
I lived in Austin for almost twenty-five years and called several places home, mostly in North Austin. I have fond memories of all the places I’ve lived. My childhood home was on 360 and Spicewood Springs, a house I’ll return to over and over again for holidays. The home represented stability and quiet. While I didn’t recognize it as a child, only later, it was in a breathtakingly beautiful landscape with hills, endless oak trees, and picturesque hiking trails. I certainly had a childhood of privilege in what seemed like a giant small town. Every corner of Austin is so different, yet the city itself is not a a large metropolitan area.
Reflecting back on the places I’ve lived all around this city, I can’t help but wonder how much it will all change in the next twenty years.
My second homes were dormitories and small apartments all around the University of Texas area. My favorite apartment of all was in Riverside. I met Casey while living there, and experienced my best year in college – student teaching and finally getting to take on the career I had been dreaming of my entire life. On one of our first dates, his car got towed. I made some of my best friends while living in Riverside.
When college ended, I had a few months of bliss before moving to Russia. I worked at an outdoor camp and Casey’s dad ran a small gym. It seemed like a moment lost in time. Everyday was pretty fun, waking up to homemade smoothies from a raw health expert, to weekends at swimming holes around Austin.
There was always some sort of adventure regarding Casey’s dad and a ragtag group of athletes, from barbecues, to cast-iron experiments.
When I returned from a year abroad in Russia, I lived with Casey again near the University of Texas campus. We spent two years in a tiny apartment, where we acquired a cat and decided to move together to California. The apartment was in a great central location. I went from being a tennis coach, to working retail, to working at a call center, to going back into teaching, and discovering my love for middle school, while living in that apartment. I even saved up for a new car. Ultimately, I was glad to upgrade to California.
I’ll always describe Austin as my hometown. There were so many sweet, blissful homes there. It’s weird visiting, because you forget that so many things happened in a certain space, and you’re not quite sure it those experiences were ever real. I feel that sense of listlessness when I visit Austin again, and pass the area of my old apartments and homes.
Quarantine makes me nostalgic for places I’ve been, even if they’re not my favorite places. I haven’t left the house really, since March. As I clean out my house, I find little snippets of life before quarantine – maps, ticket stubs, flyers, and more.
Last August, Casey and I saw a comedy show in Oakland. We don’t normally venture this far north from San Jose, but we had a great time at the show. We had the most amazing chicken and waffles just a few blocks away near the dock. Oakland is always eerily empty.
Last spring, I went to San Francisco for an education conference and yet another comedy show. Instead of chicken and waffles, my friend and I had sushi. Even quarantine makes me miss eating. I don’t like how soup is delivered and in takeout – restaurants use plastic tubs which can be dangerous when hot. I haven’t had pho or restaurant ramen since March. Fresh raw fish is also a toss-up. I miss the Asian classics like tom yum soup.
Other than missing the mere idea of being able to leave the house, I miss certain dishes that are best served in restaurants. I’m in no rush to meet up with friends, though. Everyone experiences quarantine a little bit differently.
I found an old wallet filled with punchcards from Austin. There were about thirty in there. Didn’t I say I was a paper hoarder? If it’s printed, I want to keep it. I decided to record some of my favorite places in a tiny journal. Some of the punchcards were from places I love, whereas some had awful memories – like bad service. Here are some of the more memorable ones:
Maoz is a chain I was excited to see in Austin. It exists in New York but getting one in Austin was a gem. First off – their salad bar was absolute fire. It’s endless beets… let me know if you know a salad bar that good. Until then, I’ll lament the loss of Maoz. When Maoz had to shut down, I was definitely sad. Sure, it’s corporate, and some may argue it’s a sanitized version of Middle Eastern food, but what girl could forget her first falafel experience? One of my closest friends, who was a student from New York, had found a little refuge in Maoz.
Remember when fast-casual was nothing but an idea? Now we have Chipotle, build-your-own pizza places, and Verts (another fav of mine) – endless fast casual options. When How Do You Roll? Opened in Austin, we thought it was a revelation. Overtime, I think people quickly realized that sushi prepared in a sushi kitchen, with raw fish, was better than anything Maki had to serve. That’s ok though. Those were better times.
My partner rarely gets excited for restaurants because he is a diehard cook-at-home type of guy. However, a place he loved was Elevation Burger. Not only did they have lettuce wraps, they were the beginning of grass-fed beef in Austin. Unfortunately they had to go to make way for more expensive dining options for Austin, but it was an OG.
I’m currently learning French through Duolingo. It is going surprisingly well. I am catching on and it seems like it’s filling gaps in my brain. I think I see French words, just around, in life, and finding out what they actually mean and how to accurately read them, is helping.
I’ve only been to one French-speaking country and it’s France. It was surprisingly grungy compared to Germany, which I just visited prior. Frankfurt and Berlin had clean, modern signage, state of the art graphic design, and impeccably clean streets. Paris seems a little bit stuck in the 80’s. Not that it doesn’t have a lot of charm. I didn’t catch the Francophile bug many of my friends had in grade school, wanting to see the Eiffel Tower, eat pastries, see world-class fashion and art. Germany seemed accessible for many people who speak a variety of languages. France seemed like it was only for French speakers.
I got to meet up with a friend and see a night club. We also had dinner at a tiny cafe. Paris was a cool little place that I’m glad to have experienced. I do think it might be overhyped. I would love to see the countryside of France and also other French speaking countries such as Belgium and Montreal. Casey and I have been watching French movies.
Have you been somewhere that’s so completely magical that you vow to return again and again? That’s how I feel about Istanbul. I didn’t know what to expect but when I got there, I was impressed by everything. I loved it.
I stayed at a cozy little hostel tucked away in Kadikoy with one of my best travel buddies, Keri. I met Keri for the first time in Los Angeles, then again in Morocco. She always knows the local language and the cute little cafes nearby. She’s literally the best travel buddy. Keri was busy at work but I got to explore a lot of Instanbul on my own. The best area was probably where our hostel was located- Kadikoy. It is the “Asian” side of Istanbul. I was just a block away from a hammam and had probably the best scrub of my life. I didn’t know that such a therapeutic little haven could be just off a busy city street. Kadikoy is lined with bars serving raki and hookah, bakeries, and open-air shisha bars. It is really a place where locals go to wine down.
Other parts of Istanbul are fun – like Istiklal street for shopping. I also saw the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Basilicia Cistern, Topkapi Palace, Galata Tower, among other “attractions”. I visited most of it on my own and found people inviting, non-creepy, easy to ask for directions. It is a really modern place with all sorts of people. I would say that chilling at a cafe and eating lula kebab is probably my favorite thing to do there.
I loved the serene oasis of the Blue Mosque. I loved getting lose in the modern art museum. My favorite walk was through Istanbul University with it’s stone buildings, open-air book sales, and watching the most trendy people.
It is one of the best places in the world and certainly not off the beaten path. I love telling people how fun Istanbul is. I hope to return one day.
Vietnam was the cheapest ticket I could get out of Korea. It was also a place I wasn’t familiar with, so I was interested to visit. I should have done more research or possibly learned Vietnamese because it wasn’t very accessible for a budget traveler at all.
The second I arrived, there were also masses of foreigners that didn’t “do the right thing”. Because of the confusing bureaucratic mess of how visas are administered, I think this kind of confusion happens at every arriving international flight.
You need to have a printed Vietnamese visa already in your passport (I had that, check). You need to have EXACTLY x amount of Vietnamese money in CASH to pay immigration. Every website that helps you secure a visa has altering information, for example some say Euros or foreign currency equivalent is ok. How can people even get Vietnamese currency before arriving in the country? Anyway, since most arrive without the exact dollar amount of currency, or over the amount (because it is weirdly specific), the armed guards take foreigners one by one to an ATM THAT IS BROKEN on the entrance of the airport. You go one-by-one and they walk so bureaucratically (yes I invented that word) slow to get cash out of the machine. Again, as you know ATMs spit out large bills. So there’s really no way around it. It’s not a good feeling to start off a trip with a four hour hold-up trying to leave the airport. Don’t get me started on taxis though.
I stayed with my friend in Hanoi. He had a motorcycle and cush apartment. Even though he had to work a lot, I was able to recuperate from sleepless nights in hostels. I hit up couchsurfers to show me around Hanoi and got to see a lot of cool things and eat interesting food. Although there is a lot of Vietnamese food in the US, I’m not sure if I can find the same things, or even remember their names.
I found a tour to Ha Long Bay. I was on a small, beautiful ship, with about ten other people. It a random assortment of people. I fit right in as being another weirdo. We got to know each other very well. It felt like summer camp or a the beginning of a new program.
Ha Long Bay was absolutely breathtaking. The water is green and the rock formations are amazing. It was so much fun. It’s crazy to know that I’ve been to the place on most screensavers and desktop backgrounds. It was incredible.
Decided to leave Hanoi and get on a sleeper bus to Hue and Hoi An. Hue low-key sucked. I got robbed there, and it’s my least favorite travel story. So I’ll just leave it at that.
Hoi An was beautiful. I spent days just asleep on the beach. I stayed at a beautiful hotel with a single floor converted into a hostel. Their breakfast spread was incredible. I spent my days riding bikes with people I had met. The “downtown” area is really nice. Is there anything better than satayed skewers?
The bus route ended in Ho Chi Minh but by then I was tired of Vietnam. I was exhausted by the constant ripping off I had experienced in every part of Vietnam and decided I was better off just going inwards and turning off my brain a little. I understand that they have a much more dog-eat-dog life than I do, and that it is so much harder to hustle there and make a living. I was just tired of it by the end of three weeks in Vietnam.
Santa Cruz has a cult following around the Bay Area. Everyone has a bumper sticker of The Mystery Spot. Well, it seems that way. I finally got to visit. It definitely reaffirmed that Santa Cruz has a strange energy to it, not in the sense the attraction advocated about, but in the attitude that people living here share about it.
Since then, I’ve only been back once. It is kooky, laid-back, and I understand why so many people move there for a breath of fresh air.
My friend was living in LA and I was a new transplant in San Jose. We wanted to meet but didn’t want to drive over nine hours to see each other. We settled on San Luis Obispo, a cute town right in the middle.
San Luis Obispo was having a poppin’ weekend. They were having a succulent and cactus show, strawberry festival, and a few other events. We checked out the beach, Madonna Inn, and also some natural hot springs.
The strawberry festival was weirdly sad because there were no strawberries, like at all. And there were a looooot of tents with distributors of MLM products there. Is this more a commentary of “middle America”? It was confusing for us outsiders, to say the least.
Since visiting, I’ve met a lot of people that went to school here with mixed feelings. Personally, I don’t know if I’d ever be back with the exception of the Madonna Inn. My friend and I had happy hour here but I would love to stay a night in one of their eclectic rooms.
Sycamore Springs is definitely a gem. It is tucked away on the side of a mountain, with private tubs filled with sulfur water. It was so relaxing.
What is my hometown? I never know how to answer this question. Is it where I was born? Is it where I live now? Is it the “reason” I look the way I do? I usually change the answer depending on who is asking.
I’ve lived in Austin for over twenty years. I moved away only three years ago. When I left, it was definitely time to go. Austin’s infrastructure was never made to support the large population it has now. Because of it’s reputation as a “cool” place with low taxes, a lot of predatory short-term companies, start-ups, and (white) people have moved there.
However, I still cherish my friends who live all over. Many have been pushed up north to smaller suburbs like Cedar Park and Round Rock. Many are east in Manor now. Or south in Kyle.
My favorite thing about Austin is all the good food and drinks. With the exception of real Asian food, it is a fun place to visit with friends if you just want to hangout. My favorite nostalgia spot will always be Chuy’s.
In Austin, I grew up near many watering holes. Jumping into a creek with your friends is really typical here. That’s probably why I have no hesitation jumping into any body of water now. Since quarantine, I’ve heard all the local spot are packed and there’s trash everywhere. That’s a shame.
For this year’s climate-poclypse, Casey and I headed to Tucson. We packed up everything of importance into our car and drove twelve hours southeast. The wildfires were only a few miles away from us. We ended up staying two weeks.
We didn’t do much while there because it’s wasn’t really a vacation. However, it’s still good to be back in Tucson. On my last night we had a socially distanced barbeque with my family. I had missed them a lot.
First of all, it is like immersing yourself in a bucket of sweat during the summertime. It is unbearably hot and you are extremely close to a million different smells and people at any given second. I don’t think New York City is as lively or as nearly dog-eat-dog as Hong Kong is. Hong Kong is a place of extravagant luxury but it is also very rough. My mom frequently told us that she was glad she didn’t have to raise my sisters and I there.
I’ve been to Hong Kong four times. I went once as a child, once as a teenager, and two times as an adult. When I was a child, I saw it as a shopping mecca. People who live there often treat it as such. Maybe that’s just the culture of my family or the culture of the upwardly mobile middle class, but everyone who has been to Asia knows that shopping is insanely better over there than in the US. Many trends start in Asia so they seem to be on the cutting-edge of things, design-wise.
The second time, it was en route to Thailand with my entire family. I already knew at a young age that I would never live in a big city because of uncomfortable it was to have five people crammed into a tiny apartment. My mom grew up with an even larger family in an even smaller apartment. Sometimes I look at her and wonder… how?
I returned twice as an adult, with my mom. Each time, I felt my freedom and got to explore the city. But a part of me still loves when I get to follow my parents around. They have family on all corners of the city. When I’m alone, I don’t have the language skills to be as social. I also don’t have the connections. It’s sad to think about the wealth of connections that will be lost if my parents aren’t around anymore. My mom’s dad is number nine of nine children. She is still connected to every single one of them and their children. I will need to actively preserve the ones I have already established.
Do all children of immigrants have this exchange?
Mom: Remember ____? He’s my fifth cousin’s second son on my dad’s side. Me: No… Fifth cousin: Oh I remember you!! I saw you when you were just a baby! (Proceeds to list facts about myself I wasn’t aware my mom was sharing)
One of the best things about having a family member an official tour guide is all. the. discounts! She gets comped to go to museums all the time because she brings large groups of students there. So, following her around a new city is a lot of fun.
Rusty took us to Philadelphia. We had a cold but interesting tour of Eastern State Penitentiary, enlightening walk around the National Liberty Museum, opportune photo session at Magic Gardens, and dinner at the European-style Reading Terminal Market. Hot take: I don’t think Philly Cheesesteaks from Philly are better and I think people try too hard to make the Liberty Bell an icon.
What is Russia like? It’s difficult to explain to people who have never been to a “second world country.” The West likes to paint Russia as a depraved place but in reality, it’s not that bad. It’s not like the wild wild west. It has nice parts and poor parts. It has problems but also extravagant luxury at times. The divide between rich and poor is outrageous in the US. But I feel like in Russia, it is an even wider gap. The rich control everything and regular people are left with nothing.
The city that I spent most of my time in while living abroad is Samara. I have so many mixed feelings about Samara. It is the ninth largest city in Russia, with a population of over one million. It is part of Western Russia but at least eight hours by train away from Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is on the banks of the Volga River.
Before coming to Samara, I had been told that it is the “San Francisco of Russia.” That’s one way of looking at it. The city is known for its embankment which sits on a downhill slope towards the Volga River. So I can… sort of… see it that way? The city comes alive in the summer. In the summer, it is certainly a place where people roller skate, lay out on the beach, barbecue, all that fun stuff.
I lived in Samara for nine months. I had four different jobs. I worked full time as a university lecturer, part time at a private language center, part time at a local gymnasium (a fancy term for private school), and at a work and travel program. The university lecturer job was ok. The differences between American and Russian university students is pretty stark. For one, university is almost free. More people attend university in Russia than they do in the US. Because of that, there is a sense that it is high school 2.0. It is basically a requirement to go. It seems like the stereotype of people who do not go into university when they’re eighteen is that they go straight into the army. They also have a different culture of the army, that there is a higher concentration of recruits from poorer ethnic republics. Another aspect is that in the US, higher education is seen as necessary for job advancement and higher pay. In Samara, that was not the situation because wages are stagnated and a degree does not guarantee a good job, a high paying job, or even a job within the industry. I am aware those are not the outcomes in the US either, but there is more of a match. For example, in my college of education program in the US, every one of my peers became an elementary school teacher, whereas the pedagogy program I worked at in Samara, only a few students pursued that after graduation.
One of the better jobs I had in Samara was working at a work and travel program. Basically, many countries, such as Russia, have programs that help youth find temporary minimum wage jobs in the US. Often, these are roles in theme parks and stores. Many of my students ended up working in New York City, some in Ohio, some in Wisconsin. It was just what was available or what their other friends had connections at. If you ever wonder why there are so many foreign young people staffing theme parks, it is probably because they are taking a part of a short-term work and travel program. These programs try to get students visas to come work. Often, it is under an “illegal” tourist visa. Many students overstay their visa and never return to their home country. Conditions are pretty bad, and job prospects can be low, so it is understandable that some may not want to return. When I stayed in Turkey, I had also met people who had taken part of a work and travel program to the US.
I held an informal English club at a work and travel center once a week. Students would come to prepare their paperwork and get ready for an English interview at the American embassy in Moscow. At every turn, there were so many ways Russian students would be turned around. For one, it is expensive to file for a visa. The paperwork is complex. They need to secure a job interview with the park, store, or restaurant, they intend to work. After that, they need to travel to Moscow, which is pretty expensive compared to travel in the US. Most students travel by train to Moscow and find friends to stay with, as hotels are also out of a typical Russian student’s financial means. They can pass all those steps but then fail their English interview at the American embassy. They might not show strong enough English skills. They might not make a convincing enough argument. They might cast doubt that they may not keep to their promise of returning home after the job assignment. It was tricky. At the club that I taught, my job was just to tell students about American culture. It was pretty fun.
A majority of the questions had to do with what was New York City like and had I ever been to the Statue of Liberty. Students also wanted to confirm of things they had seen in American movies were real – like Fourth of July being a big holiday or frat parties were a real phenomenon. I had never been to New York City prior to traveling to Russia, so I didn’t have much to offer. I told them a lot about Texas, though, but I don’t think I convinced any of them to travel there.
What is sad to me is that even after such a process, they will be earning below minimum wage at these American jobs. However, I met many happy students who returned summer after summer to work in the same parks. I also met students who stayed and are technically undocumented, cannot return to Russia. I feel like our countries could do better as providing short term jobs with higher pay. Or at least more specialized work. But as the US workplace is mostly monolingual, it’s difficult to think of other solutions.
I also became really good friends with the administrator of these work and travel English club meetings. We had a lot in common and I got to see her again when I visited Los Angeles. Even though Samara got to be dreary at times, I was happy to share traditions like Valentine’s Day and Christmas with young people.
Have you ever been heartbroken and alone in a city? That’s what St. Petersburg is to me. I went there as a shell of a person.
In Russia, I found it easy to just exist and float through life. As a foreigner, you don’t owe anyone anything. So you can check into a hostel, cry in bed, and half-assedly try to socialize. People are all over the place in a hostel, so it’s ok to be weird. It’s relatively safe so you can kind of wander in and out of shops and meander through book stores.
This was my second trip to St. Petersburg. This time, I went in the winter so there were no white nights. Still, St. Petersburg is so beautiful on every corner. The original French architecture is artificial, frivolous, and overly decorative. I love it all. It is the least Russian city in Russia. You kind of need to search for Russian food amidst all the European cuisines represented in downtown Petersburg.
I got to see some really awesome things there while I was being sad. Even if you’re too busy being your worst self, sometimes you meet some cool people that let you tag along to their adventures.
With some new Turkish friends, I acted as an unofficial translator and found myself at the Freud Dream Museum and Dostoevsky Museum. It was a lot of fun.
Petergof is for happy summer days. Peter and Paul Fortress, and the Museum of Torture, is for dreary winter days that drag on and on.
Forget the Hermitage. While it is only the most jaw-dropping, breath-taking museum in the world, this time I decided to visit Kunstkamera. Kunstkamera is the first museum in Russia. They have all sorts of zoological oddities and anthropology exhibits. I guess they are most famous for their weird samples of deformed babies preserved in glass jars. Just Google it to see lots of contextless images. According to this probably-not-very-reliable website, “people ascribed physical abnormalities or disabilities to supernatural powers so opening this museum was a way of raising the awareness of medical conditions that can be explained scientifically as opposed to make-belief nonsense.”
Sometimes a city is engrained in your mind as an emotion. I think that’s what makes traveling so special. St. Petersburg was a place I visited four years prior and opened my eyes to Russian Orthodox iconography. Cathedral of Spilled Blood is still one of my favorite churches in the world. However, a city can be created and recreated in your mind. I am so lucky for the opportunity to have traveled throughout Russia numerous times.
Ulan-Ude is the capital of a small Asian republic in Russia, Buryatia. Buryat people are buddhist and speak both their native language and Russian. Earlier in the year, when a non-profit organization asked some American teachers if they would like to travel to some remote republics, I jumped at the chance to go to Ulan-Ude. How could I resist? I am obsessed with learning about the culture of the lesser-known Asian republics in Russia. I only spent three hot summer days there but they were amazing.
I rode a train from Abakan to Ulan-Ude. That was a two day journey. Have you ever been on a train that long? You start wondering what life would be like actually married to the train conductor. If he’s ugly, he starts to get hot. It’s weird, I don’t recommend it. Also, you’re at the mercy of whoever shares the cabin with you. You could be stuck with a racist. Or some children. Or a man. More likely, just a racist.
At each train stop, you have about twenty minutes to buy microwave food from snack stalls on the train platform. Microwave food is sort of a weird concept in Russia because in the US, it would be a little shameful if you found out McDonalds or a restaurant was microwaving your food. You prefer not to know that. And they try to hide that. But in Russia, it’s just how things operate. Food at fairs and at train stations just get microwaved (IN THE PLASTIC) in front of you. So imagine dealing with that for three days.
I don’t know if it’s like this in the US, but you are only allowed to use the bathroom in the train while it is moving. Because the toilet is just a bowl that goes to the outside. There is no septic tank. Your waste just goes onto the tracks. Is that strange? I really try not to make Russia seem like the world’s strangest place because I dislike that kind of alienating and nationalist language but um, train bathrooms are a trip. I don’t think I went to the bathroom in the two days because I was terrified I’d fall through.
But enough about Russian trains. Ulan-Ude was beautiful the second I got off the train. It’s nice stepping out of the train into a place where everyone looks like you.
I got into a taxi and the driver immediately asked if I was Chinese. They can spot foreigners right away.
I taught at a school for two days. With the students, we visited an open air Ethnographic museum. I don’t know how problematic that is, but in Russia, it is pretty common to see reenactments of indigenous life. There are just so many ethnic groups within Russia, so they don’t see it as over the top. Many ethnic groups are still alive and attempt to preserve their culture. I don’t know how protected they are by the state (in the West, we see Putin as a nationalist but in reality, I don’t know how ethnically diverse people groups in Russia feel because there’s a wide range in attitudes).
I also visited a large buddhist monastery called Ivolginsky Datsan. I had just learned in Tuva from a devout buddhist that in order to show respect you should ring the bells and walk clockwise around it.
I also got to visit a beautiful, natural place that was on my bucket list: Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is the largest and deepest freshwater lake in the world. It is also ancient. Even though we went in the middle of summer, the water was still freezing cold. It is a feeling like no other to be next to a body of water that has seen the world change and remains the same.
I loved Buryat food because it involves fish and dumplings. I had an amazing time there. The people were nice. I find myself strangely at home in Asian-Russian spaces. It feels like everything in my life led an Asian-American encountering those places. I don’t get weird looks or need to explain how I am American but also Asian-presenting at the same time.
I love Japan but I have an issue with all the stereotypical people that dream of going there.
First of all, Japan is totally warped by upper middle class white people all around the world. It’s like, the place they all want to go. Japanese food and anime are placed at a pedestal. I’ve met so many Americans that dream of going there but show no interest in seeing the rest of Asia. As an Asian-American, I immediately cringe when Japan is brought up in a conversation because it is so awkward being in the same room as someone who is clearly fetishizing Japan!
On the other hand, I’ve been there twice and each time I’ve visited, it is a really neat place with the most interesting culture. There are things in Japan that don’t exist anywhere else. I don’t understand any Japanese but their cities are easily accessible. Everything is orderly and predictable. They also have every kind of food imaginable. I even saw a Denny’s in Tokyo.
Osaka is kind of crazy at night and a home to a different type of counter-culture. I ate a lot of seafood there. I think I would want to return with girlfriends in the future because it looks like a fun place to party.
Tokyo is a shopping mecca. My mom and I really liked Kappabashi, a street devoted to restaurant supply and kitchenware. But all their malls are winners because they hyper-modern malls have all the unique brands from around the world.
Kobe is would probably be my favorite city in Japan. The streets are almost picture-perfect and lost in time. I had the opportunity to stay at a private onsen. The onsen had a private house-like hotel, with only five rooms. Each room had a private tub, but my favorite was the group bath. It was outdoors. I love bathing in sulfur springs and laying on rocks. It’s such a mood. In Kobe, my mom and I also discovered omakase dining. It’s a fun way to eat but I was not about it. I eat embarrassingly fast.
Another problem in Japan is that I end up drinking way, way too much tea. I get brain fog from caffeine, yet I kept downing cups of tea. It’s similar to when I go back home with my parents.
Japan is a beautiful country with both large cities and small towns. The food is incomparable because of the care and precision chefs put into preparing Japanese food. It’s not just ramen and sushi.
When people ask for advice for where to go in Russia, they ask, “Do you like Moscow or St. Petersburg more?”
My honest answer is neither. I appreciate both cities but if you really want to understand Russia and meet Russians, I say go to Siberia. In both Moscow and St. Petersburg, it’s pretty difficult to meet locals unless you already know people. In Siberia, any new comer is a friend because they don’t really have the same amount of tourists.
My absolute favorite place in Siberia is Tuva. Tuva is a small Asian ethnic republic in Southern Russia, on the Mongolian border. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is also extremely remote. They have everything – mountains, steppe, domesticated reindeer, salt lakes, spring water so pure you can drink it off the ground, like, everything.
If you’re coming from Moscow, there’s a weekly flight to Tuva. But other than that, most people ride a train to the neighboring republic, Khakassia, to the city of Abakan. From Abakan, you take a private van for eight hours into the capital of Tuva, Kyzyl. The private vans are stuffed with passengers they pick up in Abakan and don’t leave until they’re full. So if you’re claustrophobic, you’ll have to deal with that.
Tuvans look like me! And speak both Russian and Tuvan. Tuvan is a turkic language with Mogolian and Tibetan roots. Tuvans are buddhist and some practice shamanism. It is such a neat place with the most interesting culture. Tuvans have dual identities because they’re both in Russia but they have a different culture from the dominant Russian identity. So when they meet an Asian-American, there are no confusing looks. It is such a remote place that many people in Russia do not know that it exists.
In Tuva, Greco-Roman wrestling is popular. The small republic is proud of its athletes and you can see that in their streets, museums, and media. People talk about their athletes all the time. Since the population is so small and word travels fast that a foreigner is in town, there’s a chance you’ll meet an athlete or someone married to one.
I worked for two weeks at a summer camp in Kyzyl. I rode in a small bus to the school everyday with the students and it was pretty typical to have kids on laps. I love places that don’t mind getting close up, because it’s so different from life in the US suburbs.
The children there were really unlike other kids I have worked with. I have worked with small kids in Samara, Ulan-Ude, and Nakhodka, and these were kids that radiated kindness, positivity, and an atmosphere of inclusion. I was just an onlooker. I was really impressed by what kids were capable of and how easy it was to feel spiritually and emotionally connected to the community while living there for only two weeks. I was so impressed I ended up writing a paper about the children in Kyzyl.
Tuva will always have a special place in my heart.
I’ve lost track of the times I’ve been to New York City. If I had never met my partner (who’s from New York), I probably would not have had the chance to see it in all the different ways that I have. I don’t know if summer or winter in the city is better. For one, summer in the city means a happier Long Island. But being bundled up in New York doesn’t stop New Yorkers.
The first time I went to New York City, it was for a month. I stayed in both Nassau County and the Upper East Side of the city and took everything in for the first time. It was Christmas and everything in New York was exactly like I had pictured it. Plus, my partner’s mom is a New York City Tour Guide (apparently there is an exam you take for this certification). We went on one of her tours.
Then we went back three different times for three different weddings. Two in the summer, one in the winter. Perhaps I am not from the East coast and only came into this habit as an adult, I feel cool telling others I go to New York for weddings.
One winter, I went to hang out with my uncle and watch musicals. I think in one weekend we saw three shows. We’re crazy. I stayed at one of my high school best friend’s apartments. It was an awesome time that involved too many late nights and junk food.
One winter I went to the city to a conference. I got to know a small aspect of Columbia University. I showed one of my other best friends around Coney Island and Brighton Beach, the gritty Russian side.
One summer I spent a whole week lazing around Long Island. I hopped boardwalk art fairs, got my nails done, and ate a lot of pizza rolls.
New York has always been a place of good memories. Despite it being portrayed in the media as a place that is fast-paced, I’ve only seen the casual laid-back side of New York, and I don’t really want that to change.
I visited Mexico City the fall of 2015. I had just come back to Austin after traveling nonstop for a year. And within weeks of being back, I knew I had to go again. Travel is an addiction for me.
One of my best friends, David, and I planned a trip to Mexico City. We stayed in a hostel. We spent our days eating tacos al pastor and cruising the city. Mexico City has a Central Park type area with museums and neue-bohemian book stores and coffee shops. I was in heaven. I’m so easily tricked by topiary, coffee, and pseudo-eco spaces in large cities. I am a millennial after all. The anthropology museum is great. While it is totally aesthetic, I am working to unpack the trauma and looting that probably went into the creation of that sterilized, magnificent place.
My favorite place in Mexico was Xochimilco. It is an area of Mexico City with historic canals and artificial islands. Tourists ride in beautiful wooden gondolas along the lake. There is music, food, parties, and even strange folklore that accompany Xochimilco.
Another great place David and I went to was Plaza Girabaldi. It was just a few streets away from our hostel. Music played all night. I love taking it all in. I am especially fascinated with nighttime traditions around the world because I’m such an early sleeper. Mexico City is a truly city that never sleeps. Also, don’t you think street food tastes better at night?
While in Mexico City for a short time, we saw a few protests and marches. I don’t know if that was just a tumultuous time and as a traveler we get the privilege of not learning about it if we don’t want to. But it reinforced notions I had about Mexican Americans and Mexicans in general, that they frequently speak up and speak out in injustices. I feel that resisting is engrained in Mexican culture, and I admire it so much. One such protest we came across on the street involved over two hundred naked farmers, men and women, running down the street angrily. I think the uprising was about how farmers were being screwed over by the government, but I’m not sure. Suddenly, the anger, resentment, and everything else built up, gets absorbed by the city and onlookers. It’s a gut-wrenching feeling.
Everytime I travel somewhere new, I make a new journal documenting well, basically everything. No meal or sight is left undocumented. My partner reads these little journals and is impressed that every little chicken nugget I eat has profound signifigance to me. Well, I interpret it as being a super neurotic traveler.
By now, I have a couple of shelves filled with notebooks and scrapbooks. I have journals just for travels, notebooks saved from school and work, and regular diaries, too. Did I already say that I’m neurotic?
The last four years of short-term travels have been documented in adhesive-backed photo albums. My mom used these same albums to document my childhood, so that’s probably why I lean towards these. You can save just about anything in it’s pages. It’s therapeutic for me especially after the trip to think about it. I find that after a long plane or car ride, you need one day to just do some bullshit with your hands and write a silly little story. It’s like therapy – filing away the little receipts and ticket stubs. For longer trips, I journal each day instead of afterwards.
This year is 2020 and because of covid, there are even fewer pages. I planned on summer trips to Connecticut, Atlanta, Orlando, and Tucson, but none of them happened. I wonder if we will ever “return” to normal and what did that even mean?
Marin County is the area north of San Francisco, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had heard a lot about that area from fellow mushroom collectors and identifiers. It is moist, mountainous, and has great trails. My boyfriend and I shared a special weekend there this Valentine’s day.
We liked Mount Tamalpais so much we explored three different trails in the park. It was a dry season but we were able to find some north facing slopes. Some common species of mycelium we found were Turkey Tail and King Alfred’s Cake. We found our first Pink Oyster. We also discovered many Turret Spider nests, mistaking them for mushrooms at first.
At night, we stayed at The Gables Inn. There are only thirteen rooms on the property. It is homey and cute. They have a great breakfast spread and wine and cheese happy hour in-house every night. Sausalito closes very early at night, so we were lucky to get a table at The Fish Peddler. I had a three pound snow crab.
Marin County was an idyllic place next to the sea, perfect for hiking. Only a week later, they were one of seven California counties to vote Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders. I’ll probably never forgive them but I’ll appreciate the time we spent there.
Most of my time spent in Arizona is in Tucson. I went to school there for two years and all my cousins live there. Tucson is low-key and funky. Phoenix feels more corporate, cleaned-up, and built out. I definitely prefer Tucson even if it doesn’t have much of the same conveniences that a large city has. For example, finding good Asian food in Tucson is near impossible.
This year, I spent an entire week in Phoenix. More specifically, Scottsdale. I’ve never spent more than a day in Phoenix. I got to know Phoenix through the lens of my sister, who recently moved there.
As much as I wanted to hate Phoenix, the beautiful desert landscape is unbeatable. The Sonoran Desert is my favorite ecosystem in the world.
One day, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden. There was a kitschy art exhibit and a variety of desert plants. But it was gruelingly hot even in February. I learned what a brushetta board was shortly afterwards. I kind of understand the Arizona wine mom stereotype now. Wine in the desert just hits differently.
There was so much good food in Phoenix. I gained nine pounds in just five days. My sisters are amazing at finding the best brunch and happy hour spots. One of my favorites was The Henry. The patio was beautifully decorated with colorful tile. The drinks were all artisanal cocktails of gin and tequila – yum! I had a Ginger and Fig Mule. It’s part coffee shop, part restaurant, part happy-hour patio.
The shopping in Phoenix was good, too. There are so many boutiques on 4th Avenue. But there was one place that stood out among the rest. It’s called Last Call. There are only few Last Call locations in the country. Items that don’t sell at a Nordstrom Rack get shipped to one of the few Last Calls in the country. As a result, they are crazy. The stores are packed to the brim, not consistently organized. You can literally find anything. The shoppers act like it’s a life or death situation. Tensions are high. It doesn’t help that the Phoenix location is underground, lacks windows, requires walking into a dungeon-like room, and is in a dying 80’s-like linoleum-tiled shopping mall. My sisters and I liked it so much, we went twice. On my first visit, I scored Blundstones boots for only $60. On my second visit, I found some $30 Uggs. If you love thrifting or the thrill of the hunt in shopping – there’s no experience quite like shopping at Last Call. Enter with caution, I say.
On one of the last days, my sisters and I headed to Sedona. It’s less than two hours outside of Scottsdale. We went on a hike, saw an infamous Catholic church paved on the side of a rock, and Slide Rock State Park. We had Argentinian style-burgers. Sedona is filled with new-age shops, similar to other “holy” spots in the US.
Although the home of John McCain and private prison paradise will never be one of my favorite cities, I’m glad I got a taste of Phoenix.
I went to Yosemite for the first time in October. I’ll be honest – I don’t like the idea of Yosemite. Apple (and capitalism) has ruined the name for me. The kind of affluent, oblivious Colorado-loving kind of American that I despise – really love going there. Two super cool documentaries were even made this year about El Capitan, a stupidly steep rock mountain in Yosemite. It seems so intentionally unsafe to climb it, why does everyone need to climb this mountain? Can’t we just appreciate it as a natural wonder and not need to prove our human finesse on it? It bewilders as well as irrationally angers me.
When I’m looking for a hike I love my local parks like Monte Bello Preserve (in Palo Alto) or Big Basin Redwood Forest (in Soquel). I really dislike the idea of using nature as a fitness aspiration. I am unfairly assuming that Yosemite, along with Yellowstone, has been co-opted to represent pure human sport and superiority by the very same people I’ve been generalizing. I’ve let myself associate examples of breathtaking natural beauty with consumption-happy white people who put their lives in danger on purpose while millions of people literally live in danger they cannot escape. In short, I am not inspired by an “against all odds” kind of story when it involves climbing a mountain for reasons other than survival.
In total, we stayed two nights in a cabin at an RV park. October was already chilly in Northern California.
I kept both a journal and artifacts while at Yosemite. The journal was nice to have on the trail to write and doodle in, especially at the nightly traffic jam leaving the park. It was the most awful traffic jam of my life and I’m not even joking.
The first day was a short hike. The second day was a more difficult hike. It wasn’t El Capitan thank god, however. I learned the meaning of gorp. Except I kept calling it glorp and glorb.
The second day ended with dinner in the nearby small town, Groveland.
Overall, Yosemite was a great experience. I saw a lot of amazing natural rock formations. No picture could ever do Yosemite justice. However, it was indeed crowded and the trails were lined with speedy college kids in Patagonia carrying wretched conversations loudly with the backdrop of prehistoric trees and rocks. I’m not used to hiking in such crowded places and I typically avoid those kind of trails. It was difficult to contend with.
I had never been to Africa before. When I found out a friend had just finished Peace Corps in Morocco, I jumped at the chance and had to visit her. I spent some time in Spain, then headed to Northern Morocco, specifically, the city of Tangier and Chefchaouen.
Tangier
Morocco was not what I thought it would be. I thought Tangier would be a bohemian escape with stereotypical Eastern “delights” like pastries and shisha and string-y music. At least that’s what documentaries make Morocco seem like, even Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown episode about Tangier made it seem like that. It was just a regular city, a balance of “new” and “old”, entitled men acting like fools, and everyone else trying to make it with their small wages. The average wage does not match the cost of living so again, as a tourist here I profoundly understand my privilege abroad.
I was lucky enough to have some local tour guides, and they made sure I got to try every Moroccan dish.
Moroccan food that I got to try:
Tagine Kefta – A traditional way of cooking in Morocco involves a ceramic tagine. That’s a skillet that comes with a cone-like top, which allows spices to be trapped in the dish while being cooked on a stovetop or open fire. Kefta is lamb/beef meatballs in a tomato-ish sauce. It was good but not my favorite dish here.
Bastilla– This ended up being one of my favorites. It’s chicken pie. Not chicken pot pie, American style, but imagine a regular apple pie, but instead of hot apples inside, it’s hot chicken. With cinnamon and honey on top. It’s like ten year old me dreamed of a meal, and it’s bastilla.
Bessara – A frothy soup of beans or peas. I wish the keto or paleo community would adopt more foreign soups because literally every country does soup better than the US.
Rfissa – Ok this dish was CRAZY. And also my favorite. Imagine a whole oily rotisserie chicken on top of shredded tortilla. That’s what rfissa is.
Moroccan Breakfast: Baghrir, harcha, miloui – Moroccan breakfast is basically ten types of carbs and some dip. I’m very cool with it.
Chefchaouen
Other than eating my way through Tangier, I made a small trip to Chefchaouen, also known as the most Instagrammable city (TM)
Apparently, Chefchaouen was a Jewish safe haven during World War II then which is why the entire city is painted blue. I’m not sure about that, but it remains a very picturesque little town that was a breath of fresh air, tucked into the mountains. I got there by riding a shared taxi from Tangier.
The entire town is walkable. Cars can’t even get through even if it tried because of the tiny, winding paths. The kasbah is cute. The men are less stalker-y here.
I stayed at Hotel Souika. I was feeling fancy and got my own room there. I had been staying in hostels or dorms for the past two months, it was a very affordable luxury in Chefchaouen. Warning: Moroccans do not sleep at regular sleeping hours so appreciate that cultural fact in your own way. So even if you have a private room… it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get sleep.
I met an artist and had mint tea with him. I sat in a rooftop cafe and listened to the call to prayer. I got the full body treatment at a hammam. I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to get back to Tangier, but I found a group of British tourists last minute and found myself on a taxi back to town. Chefchaouen felt like a summer camp or church retreat with how incredibly relaxing it was.
I’ve been to London twice. Once in 2014 and again in 2019.
When I visited in 2014, it was at the very beginning of my solo travels. It was my first stop in my 15 months abroad alone. I was only there for twelve hours on a layover to Moscow. I was so scared of traveling alone that I had my mom reach out to a family friend to show me around. She event sent me a subway map, months in advance. Jet-lagged and nervous, I met up with her, only to truly discover how much I needed to be alone.
She took me to many of the “tour guide” places in London, many of which I honestly do not even remember because of the a jet-lagged daze I was in. I think we went to the London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Hyde Park. I’m not really sure because I was so exhausted. She was much older than me and we had extremely different interests. But I kindly appreciate the companionship and everything she offered to me on that day. What I really needed that day was a nap. Or mindless people watching. Or just… not that. Anything but “tourist sights”.
Looking back, I’m glad I had that experience because since then, I never felt the need to meet up with people when traveling. I’ve become keenly aware of what I like to do and am proud say that at many of the cities I’ve traveled to, I’ve neglected their most “famous” or “must-see” sights, instead creating my own “must-see’s” and going off the beaten path.
In 2019, I went to London again. This time, I didn’t call up anyone before. I stayed at a hostel, based on my own interests and budget. I let what I wanted to do take me… wherever. I ate whatever I wanted. I took a nap wherever I wanted. And I had three days there. Instead of ticking off the boxes that a typical London trip should entail, I headed straight to an art museum. It felt right already.
I’d been obsessed with taxidermy animals for a while. I’m interested in the now-defunct-ish study of zoology, at least in the colonial way the British do it. I love seeing rooms full of animals classified only by type. I fell in love with this at Kunst Kamera in St. Petersburg. With no formal science background, I just love seeing tons of ravens in a row, different only slightly or by gender. This tickles the need to organize and list in me, as well as fascination for animals. My boyfriend describes what I like as “a drawer full of birds”. With that in mind, I made sure I visited the Horniman Museum and Grant Museum of Zoology in London.
I moved to San Jose three years ago. San Jose is an hour south of the world famous San Francisco. Every movie and TV show takes place there, everyone abroad dreams of visiting San Francisco. However, in my three years here, I’ve only managed to visit SF a few times and sort of end up hating it every time. Why? San Francisco is dirty. San Francisco isn’t an easy drive. San Francisco is expensive. The people of San Francisco are all transplants. It doesn’t feel sustainable. And start-up culture is the worst! Just watch HBO’s Silicon Valley or watch any interview of a tech billionaire. They’re the worst.
I prefer my sleepy town of San Jose. But some times, you just have a perfect day planned out and SF is part of the plan. That was my cousin and me in April of this year. I hadn’t visited the deYoung Museum yet, and there was a Claude Monet exhibit there. She and her boyfriend are plant lovers and artists; we had to catch that exhibit.
After the museum, we headed to the Conservatory of Flowers. Oh. My. God. It is one of the coolest places I have ever been. It’s a Victorian-style greenhouse filled with the most exotic plants. Each room creates a different ecosystem. There are the most unique plants, many of which I’ve never seen in my life. It was crazy! It also has a corpse flower. That corpse flower is the most starkly alien creature, wondrous and unforgettable. It makes me wonder why I wasn’t taught about something this cool in school.
It was early in the day but we had enough of SF. We headed to Berkeley and Richmond afterwards. In Berkeley, there is an employee art store called Artist & Craftsman Supply. Aren’t co-ops or union-run companies just better? We lost ourselves there for a bit.
We ended the night in Richmond with fried Taiwanese snacks, Asian beauty, and bubble tea. While SF is mostly horrible (still), the places around it contain gems and make the trip up worth it.
Do you have a travel bucket list? I sure do. Here are my top places:
Spain
Greece/Cyprus
Ethiopia
All of Northern Europe especially Estonia and Sweden
All of Eastern Europe especially Ukraine and Hungary
All of South America especially Peru and Argentina
All of Central Asia especially Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan
I guess every country I haven’t visited is a place I want to go…
The “easiest” place to get to is Spain, as in, it’s already a well-known and easily accessible vacation hot spot. It was the focal point of my three month-long trip this summer!
Barcelona was gaudy and exciting. The buildings and streets are beautiful. Every plaza, apartment, road, window here was out of a glamorous movie. Even the people were well-dressed. My hostel was a trendy place that required walking up a beautiful marble staircase and was next to a glamorous lingerie shop. Every little cafe I popped into seemed idyllic. Everything here feels glamorous but down to earth. Are all Spaniards just this effortlessly cool?
Gaudi’s buildings are charming and worth every tour. I went to Casa Batllo, Basilica Sagrada Familia, and Park Guell. I checked out Museu Frederic Mares for the most unique sculpture work, Joan Miro Museum, and the Pablo Picasso Museum. The Gothic Quarter that Pablo Picasso’s museum was in was an endless maze of narrow streets, quiet pubs, and art studios.While wandering around, I sort of had a goal, but I sort of didn’t. I knew going into Barcelona I’d definitely visit Sagrada Familia and Joan Miro mseum, but the rest sort of just happened. As an art teacher, wandering around this city just felt right. I never felt lonely here.
Madrid
I rode a train from Barcelona to Madrid.
Madrid and Barcelona are like night and day. While Barcelona was cool and contemporary, Madrid felt like it was still in the 80’s. But that didn’t mean I enjoyed it less. It also seemed like more of the “people’s city”. I had been told prior, that the day in Madrid starts at 9 PM. They were right. Another thing is that in Spain, people travel in friend groups. It was common to see five to seven old men laughing and walking in a group to their favorite pubs. Or groups of young people and friends squished together in a restaurant. It’s a good place to be a friend. Or have friends. Or be friends forever.
It was an easier place for me to make friends as well. I met a 40 something Argentine dancer. A Korean exchange student from the Czech Republic. Book shop owners that recommended good writers.
Madrid was great. I got to see Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” in person. I learned what croquetas are and actually found an app that shows the best croquetas in the city, consumed probably my body weight in croquetas. Spain was blissful. Forget what you’ve heard about visiting in the summer. It wasn’t unbearably hot and art museums are air-conditioned. It’s definitely worth it.
One of my favorite travel partners is my grandpa. He and I have been to countless places… Brazil, Hong Kong, Canada, Northwestern United States, just to name a few. It had been more than a year since we went to Brazil, our last trip. So it was time for another trip…
I got the idea to visit a bug museum from Atlas Obscura.
That is one of my favorite travel sites and I’ve used it to find
recommendations for strange and interesting places all over the world.
Davis is less than an hour drive from Sacramento, where my grandpa
lives.
With biology in mind, Davis seemed to match the mood. We saw a giant crane up close in the parking lot. We saw a wild turkey on the road. I don’t know what it was, but Davis had a very conservation-oriented, animal-friendly vibe. We definitely saw it in the museum and just in the space around UC Davis, where the museum was.
The
museum was small but interesting. It’s said to be the largest
collection of cataloged insects in the world. Large shelves require
wheels to be moved around. Pretty cool. They had tarantulas, stick bugs,
and other creepy crawlies they were letting children hold. Our trip was
short but sweet.
I spent ten days in Cleveland this summer. Before going there, I heard from a lot of people that it would be boring. They were so wrong. I met the most amazing, sweetest Ohio natives who had so much to share about their state. The arts scene is busy and exciting. I spent most of my time creating art and exhibiting at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
My friends and I somehow all got diarrhea from the same ice cubes at the most upscale bar in all of Tangier, Morocco. Yes, whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably true, and yes, it’s disgusting. It lasted about five days. I left Morocco and made my way to Amsterdam. I was in the world’s hottest freakin hostel (in August), with the tiniest, most steep steps, on the fourth floor. Shared bathrooms. One shower. It wasn’t going to be good. Europeans laugh about how air conditioning is an American thing but… why? Why don’t they have air conditioning when it is literally hot every year at the same time? A cold winter does not mean your entire continent is exempt from air conditioning.
Well, I sweated everything out, day in and day out for the next three days in Amsterdam. I prayed to red district Jesus to revive me. And he did!
When I arrived, the first thing I did was eat ramen. Hot, sodium pumping, hearty, pork broth ramen. The restaurant had no other patrons and they said it’s because it’s summer, and they don’t have AC – nobody wants ramen. The people working there were all fanning themselves with how hot it was. Again… if they know it’s hot every summer why… don’t… they… just…? Ok then. Regardless, it was perfect for me. I needed that pure animal fat to shock my immune system. I continued to sweat everything out there.
I gathered enough of my strength to pull my body through some of the world’s best art museums. Continued to look at most food with disgust. Eventually the diarrhea and fever went away. Regardless of it’s reputation as sex-positive or weed-friendly, I’ll always remember Amsterdam as the place where Van Gogh’s Sunflowers revived me.
A very sick but devoted art lover’s guide to healing:
Van Gogh Museum – They have Van Gogh’s letters, contemporary exhibits, daily lectures, amazing architecture, and a fucking awesome museum cafe that remind you of why you came to Amsterdam in the first place
Moco Museum – For Kusama, Warhol, Basquiat, Haring, Koons, Kusama, Hirst, and Dali. Super small museum and not worth all the “hype” unless art is everything.
Casey and I just celebrated four years in the Bay. California has been enjoyable, with new experiences, and good memories. We don’t know if it’s the perfect fit for us, though. We are far too kooky for this hyper-capitalist, business-centered state. It’s difficult to afford a house. The weather is perpetually perfect here. Small cities all along the bay have their own flavor. While I don’t set out to visit them all, it is inevitable that you don’t end up at each one for some reason or another while living here.
Morgan Hill
Morgan Hill is the town south of San Jose. It is where tons of families are flocking to for more affordable living. I have a great memory of a night with girlfriends here one night. The drive is pretty short now that I live in South San Jose.
Gilroy
Gilroy is what most considered the southern most part of the “south bay.” One of my closest friends is from here. Unfortunately it is also the site of a horrific shooting. Apparently all of California’s garlic comes from here. When I’ve passed Gilroy, I know I’m in for a road trip, whether to Southern California, Nevada, or Arizona.
Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale is west of San Jose and an outpost for many Asian groceries and neighborhoods. Casey and I come here frequently for food shopping, and when we have a friend in town.
Mountainview
The more north you get along the peninsula, the worse it gets. I don’t have any interest in Mountainview, Palo Also, Redwood City, or San Francisco. Everything gets fancy and new-money up here. Unfortunately, you do end up on this side of the peninsula for various reasons while living in the Bay. These cities are the home to many headquarters of many world-reknown companies.
Palo Alto
Palo Alto is a place Casey and I go hiking a lot. It is an area of tall trees and hills. It seems to be always at a cooler temperature than the rest of the bay. While Palo Alto downtown is curated and has a rustic feel, and the area near Stanford is woodsy and inviting, like a dreamy area out of a movie.
Redwood City
This is the most north I’ll go before calling it San Francisco. My favorite art store closed down it’s San Jose location, so I come up here to get new paints. Redwood City also has a lot of secondhand and thrift shops, like a diamond in the rough.
When I was about eighteen, I set off with my grandpa and fifty other retirees in a stinky tour bus all Canadian national parks. I’ve also written about the time I toured the US on a bus. Hadn’t I learned my lesson?! The result was a chaotic and unforgettable time. I signed up thinking it would be a budget Eat Pray Love adventure, the result was more… frustrating.
It was two weeks of highly structured “tourism”. It was planned meals and not-so-great wi-fi in some not-so-great motels. It was also the first time I was categorized as the type of traveler I didn’t want to be – in a giant group, rabid and relentless about taking photos, eating out constantly, showing no respect for the preexisting community. Most of all, loud. I detest loud travelers and here I was, identified as one, as my group (led by a guy with a flag, so typical), clumsily bumbled through Canada.
All the retirees were from China and
spoke different dialects of it, so it wasn’t like half the group
understood the other half. It was all the ingredients you need for a
fantastically frustrating trip. The I’ll find myself in the great outdoors! image died down quick.
The
started in Richmond, BC and went eastward to glacier national parks.
Richmond, BC is where a large concentration of Chinese retirees live, so
we all packed into a bus from there. Visiting that town is a
out-of-body cultural experience in itself too, because it is a place in
North America where all the street signs, gas stations and banks were in
Chinese. Workers at all places spoke only Chinese and were frequented
by what seemed like only Chinese people. I distinctly remember trying to
buy something at their mall and tripping over my words as I wasn’t used
to such an instant cultural shift. Not what I thought Canada would be
like.
What I brought along with me on this cramped bus ride
was a journal and washi tape (and clothes of course). What I produced
was a giant novel packed with crazy thoughts.
Ever heard of Duncan, Canada? Probably not…
Canada had cool totems and meaningful native art. We stopped at small towns along the way to check out totem poles.
Banff
National Park was pretty sweet, too. Our tour bus got out of the bus
and got onto a snowmobile that plowed onto some far-out seeming glacier,
to a little snowy plateau for us to take pictures. Then we were quickly
off to Kamloop, to see a ginseng farm and frozen grape winery…
For
our four year anniversary, my boyfriend and I spent the weekend in
Monterey. We saw the infamous aquarium, went to the beach, had fish and
chips, went hiking at Aptos State Park, and even kayaked alongside
otters.
Monterey is a beautiful coastal city only an hour south of
San Jose. While driving down, you know you’re near because the air gets
salty and you start to see dunes.
In a very unpopular opinion,
the Monterey Bay Aquarium is underwhelming. And the design of the
building was confusing, leading to a disjointed viewing experience.
Perhaps the exhibits were in transition, but it didn’t live up to the
hype.
What was amazing, however, was kayaking at Elkhorn Slough.
You can rent a kayak for a day and pass by hundreds of cute otters
floating around. It’s unbelievable that you can get so close to such
majestic animals. There are strict laws about getting too close, which
is great. And there are different kinds of boats you can rent if
kayaking is not your thing. At a certain point you can also see
walruses.
I was able to connect with Zhenya, a friend I made while living in Samara, in Denver! It was the perfect place to meet up. It’s mild in the summer and an urban center with a lot to do. Zhenya and I spent many late nights talking and eating (she’s a chef!) in Samara, and Denver’s is a city all about good times and eating with friends.
Despite being in the southwest, their new rail system makes it incredibly easy to navigate without a car. They also have daily buses to other Colorado cities.
My favorite things about Denver was experiencing the artwork of Justin Favela at the Denver Museum of Art. It was an immersive and colorful exhibit. Justin Favela also makes the Latinos who Lunch podcast, which is unique and hilarious.
Recommendations:
Awesome hostel: 11th Avenue Hostel Mostly
a hotel but with a single room converted into a “hostel”. Next to some
hip coffee shops and walking distance from the public library, numerous
breweries, and the 16th Street Mall. I stayed there with a close friend.
Experiences at hostels vary based off of who is there at the time
you’re there… but we had good luck and had the place mostly to
ourselves. Much of the hotel has maintained the old architecture,
including the shelf where they keep keys, it’s old-timey and kitschy.
Off the beaten path find:Red Chair Bookstore This is a small used bookstore inside of Denver Public Library Central. They had a huge selection of large art books, which is pretty unique. While browsing, I found some great books you probably can’t find in a big corporate bookstore.
My
boyfriend and I decided to spend ten days in Grenada, also known as the
Isle of Spice. He had served in the Peace Corps for three years in that
country and had not returned to a visit yet. Coincidentally, it’s also
an island paradise famous for their nutmeg, sugarcane, rum, carnival,
and jabjab celebration.
We
stayed in three different places: an Air Bnb, hotel, and a cottage a
friend helps manage. I brought watercolors and a black ink pen with me
to every location. In my journal, I experimented with different
handwriting.
We mostly traveled by bus – privately owned vans
that blast soca and reggae and are driven by (crazy) knowledgeable guys
who knew every bump of the hilly rainforest.
I have never
been to a place where tropical fruits just fall like it’s no big deal.
We constantly saw coconuts on the side of the road, vagrants munching on
mangos, and guavas littering the oceanside. Plants here all have
different names: An avocado is a “pear” and cumin is “saffron”.
The
island is famous for it’s 50+ beaches, all with a different name and
priding itself in a different aspect. We went to Grooms Beach for the
privacy, Grand Anse for the calm waters, and Morne Rogue for the
beautiful cliffs bordering coral reefs.
Rivers Rum Distillery,
that makes rum that all locals brag give no hangovers whatsoever. Sugar
cane is still ground by a water wheel at the distillery.
Abandoned planes from the Grenadian Revolution. Beware of cow dung while exploring the planes.
Seven Sisters Falls. Ask around for the guide named Warren Farey for an awesome personalized tour of the waterfalls.
This
summer I spent a month on the East Coast. As a kid, I had never been to
any part of the East Coast. Most trips my family took were to the West
Coast or Southwest. So as an adult, I get excited exploring the kitschy
colonial buildings and idyllic towns of the East.
I spent three days in Boston. I met up with my best friend, rented a cheap motel room, and had an awesome girl’s weekend! My favorite place was the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. I had just finished listening to podcast Once Upon a Crime episode about a mob-related robbery of artworks from the museum in the 1990′s, that still have not been recovered.
The museum blew me away. They retained much of the original architecture so it feels like a turn of the century palace! It is naturally lit by skylight. The terrace that is the center of the museum is breathtaking, lined with airy plants and delicate stone structures under an extremely tall sky-lit ceiling. It’s so beautifully designed. Each room of the museum doesn’t feel like a traditional museum, with rigid and plain rooms. Instead, the rooms are dark, draped in robes, and feels more like an antique shop than an art museum. Apparently, the rooms are set up in the exact same way Isabella Stewart Gardner had and only minor changes have been made. That includes the way the art is displayed. There are even spots in the museum missing certain paintings, which are from the infamous robbery, left empty and eerie.
It’s inspiring how a place can feel so lost in time amidst the ultra-modern, somewhat gritty city of downtown Boston. Unfortunately, I only spent a few days in Boston. I spent the next ten days in New York, meeting up with friends and trying new things.
On this trip, I also got to visit more areas of New York I had not previously been. Places include:
1. Red Hood Food Vendors for papusas and baleadas. It was kind of out of the way… but an interesting find. I just finished Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda and have been intrigued by this melancholy place. 2. Tenement Museum. I’m starting to get the hype about this place. 3. Vaselka
for Ukranian classics like borscht, pilmeni, and chicken kotleti. It
brought me back to living in Russia. Also, isn’t East Village so fun?
It’s my favorite neighborhood in Manhattan! 4. Belmont Stakes. Say what you will about horse racing but man, the ponies sure are pretty, and it’s fun to win money. 5. Pinball arcade behind a laundromat in Brooklyn. Beer only though, but beggars can’t be choosers. This was another place I scoped out on Atlas Obscura. 6. TWA Hotel Food Hall. This is attached to the Jetblue terminal at JFK airport. It’s so cute!!
Costa Rica was a rain forest paradise, everything you’ve ever
wanted and more! I’ve always written off this place because growing up, I
would hear about countless mission trips here. Like, isn’t everyone
there culturally catholic already? Can’t we just leave them alone?
The
plane ride to Costa Rica from JFK reinforced my fears. There were
multiple groups of 5+ smiley braced-faced white people, names of their
youth group adorned on their matching hoodies, boarding in groups. I
braced myself for the worst. I grew up with a strict souththern
evangelical background and knew exactly who these people were. AKA The
worst. As the plane landed, I stomped in my Doc Martens past their
confused currency exchange and oversized luggage fuckery and made my way
outside to the perfect, sticky, island air.
We were able to
shake off the missionaries. Turns out, you don’t run into that many
people on the island. Everything is spread out and each region is as
different from the neighboring region as can be.
My sisters
made the itinerary. My family and I rented a car. I had three swim suits
packed. We had a lot of nature and clean eating planned for the next
six days. We spent time in San Jose, Quepos, Monteverde, and Jaco Beach.
Here are some highlights:
Manuel Antonio National Park
– Paved trails that lead to about six different beaches. You can see
sloths, crabs, and all sorts of exotic animals here. The Spanish word
for sloth, “Oso perezoso” meand lazy bear. The guides say you need a
tour to see all the animals, but you’re fine without them. But it’s
always a good idea to support the local economy.
Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve–
This region reminded me of Denver with it’s windy roads and vast
differences in altitude. Hiking though here feels surreal. The hike is
not bad too, only a few miles. You feel very, very alone here.
Paradise Hot Springs –
There are about five different pools here, with hot sulfur spring water
supplied by local volcanoes. One pool has a swim up bar. One pool has
built-in lawn chairs. One pool has temperatures above 100 degrees
Fahrenheit.
Oceano Boutique and Gallery – My favorite hotel. Ever. (Not just in Costa Rica, but ever). Seems more like a fancy art gallery rather than a hotel.
It was a beautiful place. It seems “underdeveloped” at first glace, but I think it is by choice. Everyone we encountered in Costa Rica is proud of their nature, culture, and how they take care of their surroundings. Natives frequently ask tourists if they have seen the Costa Rican animals. In an attempt to not sound like a privileged American traveler, which I completely am, it’s an ecosystem and way of life that the rest of the world should aspire to be.
In
March 2017, I had the opportunity to visit two cities in Brazil:
Florianopolis and Rio de Janiero. I have a great uncle that is a retired
ship captain and many second cousins there. My cousins had just opened
up a pizza shop. It was the perfect time of year to visit!
Santa
Catarina is a state within Brazil and most of my time was spent there.
One place we visited is called Balneário Camboriú, dubbed “Dubai of
Brazil” because it ritzy and tourism-oriented. We had a blast there
visiting a nature park and riding a cable car.
My great
uncle, which is my grandpa’s brother, is younger by twenty years! It was
a “boy’s trip” for the most part because I went to Brazil with my two
uncles and grandpa. It was fun just being there and seeing a side of my
family that I have never seen. I loved just about everything I ate in
Brazil – my great aunt’s home cooking, churrasuria, pizza from my
cousin’s pizza shop (very different from American pizza) and of course,
drinking caparinha.
We
visited Rio de Janiero at the end of the trip. We hired a private tour
guide who took us around to some famous places. But on one day, my
uncles and grandpa gave me the reins and I planned an artsy day. They
followed me around as I took them to the Escalara Selaron, Museu de arte
do Rio, and Modern Art Museum.
I’ve been to Alabama twice. It’s funny because people outside of Alabama are like… why? It’s a humid and strangely beautiful place. But I also feel like an outsider the second I step foot there. I don’t feel like I could ever blend in, no matter how hard I try.
But I guess another strange story is why I went to Alabama the second time. I wrote a paper about Leo Tolstoy and was invited to present about it at a conference. Which leads to so many other questions. Like… why?
I double majored in Russian and even though it is my fifth year as a public school teacher, I can’t shake it off. It’s something I’ll always love reflecting and sharing about. This particular conference was in Mobile.
I don’t think Mobile has a “must-try” cuisine but I certainly consumed a large amount of fried food while there.
I remember when I met my first college roommate, who is from Houston, and stupidly asked her, “Houston has an airport?” I’m pretty sure she alerted the authorities immediately because I knew an embarrassingly small amount about Texas.
Houston is one of the largest cities in the United States. Growing up, I thought Houston was just a chinatown! I used to dread family vacations to Houston because they involved spending hours (read again: hours) at Ranch 99, an asian grocery. I hated going to Houston as a kid! It was a four hour drive that involved packing our car with vegetables on the way home. I had no interest in it. I had the same attitudes about San Francisco. We’d make the three hour drive from Sacramento just to sit in cramped, dirty dai-pai-dong stools and eat wonton noodles. My parents forbade us to drink water so we were stuck with soda all day. I was surprised there were non-Asians in San Francisco when I was older.
Since then, I’ve come to know the Houston area pretty well. It’s a sprawling city that goes forever and ever. There are endless suburbs, but also some cool parts. I plan to go back in the future.
Victoria, Texas
I’ve been to the little down of Victoria twice! My best friend lived there for a short time. It is close enough to Rockport. I would say a redeeming quality of Victoria are the large HEBs. It’s more than a grocery store. HEB is a way of life.
Galveston
My sister attended nursing school in Galveston. It is also a quaint coastal city. There are a lot of highways leading up to Galveston though, so it doesn’t feel underdeveloped at all.
The closest I have come to living by some water is an hour away in San Jose. Or just minute if you count the mostly-frozen Volga River.
I think the hottest guys in Russia are from Kazan.
Hear me out.
Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan, a semi-autonomous region on the western, European side of Russia. Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to that region. There are also about five million ethnically Tatar living in Russia. There also also Crimean Tatar and Siberian Tatar ethnic groups, they’re not all homogeneous. Tatars are often muslim, often speak both Russian and Tatar, and can trace lineage to the Empire of Genghis Kahn and to the Turco-Mongol semi-nomadic empires and kingdoms.
This is what it means in modern day:
Complete. Daddies. Everywhere. They don beautiful clothes and hats for prayer and religious festivals. They aren’t completely removed from the Russian gopnik stereotype but they’re the best of that world. They dress more formal (or maybe they make higher salaries?) Their language is distinct. It’s noticeably different from shrill, raspy Russian (though I love both languages)!
All jokes aside, beautiful people really make Kazan an interesting place to travel to. Wikipedia says “In 2015, 2.1 million tourists visited Kazan, and 1.5 million tourists visited the Kazan Kremlin, a World Heritage Site. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the right to brand itself as the ‘Third Capital’ of Russia. In 2009 it was chosen as the ‘sports capital of Russia’ and it still is referred to as such.” – so it is not a remote, unknown place by any means, maybe only to outsiders. There is a lot to do there. I liked it so much, I went back twice.
The first time I went to Kazan, I stayed with a couchsurfing friend and we went to a water park in the middle of winter. Yes, those exist in Russia! My friend lived next to the kitschy Puppet Theatre. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see any puppet shows. The theatre is a monstrosity, but weirdly cute, and so very Russian. We also went to an awesome experimental art exhibit and even to the Museum of Soviet Life. I also went out of my way to the Temple of All Religions. It is a part found-art exhibit, part temple only in a symbolic sense. It’s a little far away from the city center so I thank god for my Asian privilege and was able to catch a ride with a Tatar guy driving by (or else it would have been a four hour wait for the next bus that may or may not come – in the snow). It’s an interesting phenomenon I’d love to explore with other Asian-presenting travelers in Russia – just the community care I inadvertently receive from minority Central Asian groups, typically employed as bus drivers, custodians, mechanics.
The second time I returned to Kazan, I went by bus with two international friends from Argentina. We stayed at an awkward hostel. Russian hostels are really hit and miss. Sometimes they’re amazing and sometimes you see more human bodily interactions than you plan to see. The three of us were right in time for a gastronomy festival. We ate a lot but didn’t really participate in the festival. Isn’t every day a gastronomy festival if you really think about it? But my favorite thing about Kazan is the Kazan Kremlin and Kul Sharik Mosque. It is so perfectly teal! Middle school Katie is realized when I see geometric teal buildings. Being in such a carefully taken care of area, with such ornate architecture, is so awe-inspiring. It remains one of my favorite buildings in the world.
San
Antonio was awesome! We’ve been here many times in the past, but it was
the first time we flew here as a destination. Casey and I brought our
cat there. It was cold and rainy the entire time we were there. That’s
becoming my preferred weather. The first thing I did upon arriving was
get breakfast tacos. It had been a long time.
We had our first visitor to in the Bay Area! My boyfriend and I moved here in 2017 and we never miss “home”. For our first visitor, we wanted to welcome him to our California. It wasn’t the theme parks, or bars, or cool restaurants we wanted to take him to. What we define as “our” California are the endless forests and perfect hiking spots.
We did it right by packing our backpack with tons of Ike’s sandwiches and hiking deep into the forest to eat them. The hike is easy. The sky is practically covered by all the tall trees. At this park, you’ll feel transported to another mystical world.
Another beautiful day at a State Park, hunting for mycelium and breathing the fresh air. I think this park is too close to the city because it was quite crowded. Is that just an American thing – a crowded forest?
I spent an entire week in Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia. When I told people in Russia I was headed there, the immediate reaction was why? Bashkortostan is a sleepy Muslim republic off of the White River. I was like, why not? I want to get to know every inch of Russia.
I rode a thirty hour train from Tyumen (Siberia) all the way to Ufa. I met some people through Couchsurfing and stayed in their child’s nursery, in a sleeping bag on the ground. It was perfect. I got to be the fourth member of their cute family for one week.
First
order of business: I tried horse milk, known as kumiss. It’s the
Bashkir national drink. Imagine regular milk, but carbonated and
alcoholic. That’s what horse milk tastes like. In addition to Russian
food, Bashkir have their own dishes, a celebration of their Turkic
culture and nomadic roots.
There are some famous mosques in Ufa such as Tukayev and Lala Tulpan. In Ufa, Russian Orthodox Christianity and Islam coexist peacefully. Also, you can hear both Bashkir and Russian on the streets. Both are taught in schools.
I didn’t plan to be in Ufa during a special time, it just happened. I was there for both a jazz festival and a reunion show of a beloved Russian band, Chaif. The energy at the Chaif show was incredible, as it was an extremely popular band in the Soviet Union and still has the most diehard fans. The lady at the ticket counter said I bought the last ticket available.
Ufa
is a special little place in Russia. Forget Moscow and St. Petersburg. I
met the most memorable people in Ufa. I met people who love where they
live.
I’ve visited Los Angeles many times as a kid with my family. I knew it for the beaches and Getty Museum, which was a memorable place for me as a kid. I finally got to go back, as an adult.
I was in Los Angeles to reconnect with an old friend. She was working at a cool foreigners-only hostel in Venice Beach. The hostel is not on any booking sites and known through word of mouth. I felt like I had insider information staying there, as I was the only American out of thirty or so foreign guests. It’s a two-story house converted into a cozy place for travelers to crash. Smoothie places within walking distance, Nepalese food on the boardwalk, cute bikes and the ocean breeze – Venice Beach was the perfect mix of hip and cozy that I’ve come to love in LA.
My friend and I visited numerous art museums as she is an artist as well. My favorite one was the Craft and Folk Museum. It was a small, folk-style building across from the LA County Museum of Art and La Brea tar pits. We saw an interesting exhibit, Betye Saar’s solo exhibition. And we got to meet her in person!
Since LA was another solo trip for me (one of my favorite ways to travel!) I had some creepy true crime podcasts to listen to along the way, to “set the stage”. Some episodes I had on rotation while there are:
Once Upon a Crime – Episode 93 was about the weird happenings at the Cecil Hotel involving a college student from Canada
Thin Air – Episode 31 was about the mysterious disappearance of somebody at the LA County Museum of Art.
I definitely do not recommend murder podcasts for the lighthearted. Or the first-time solo traveler.
One of the perks of having a friend working was that I had a lot of time to myself to explore and hang out. I spent many mornings meandering through the canals, contemplating way too long for which cold pressed juice to get, and doing yoga on the beach.
Unforgettable place: I had duck confit and hash from Nighthawk Breakfast Bar at Venice Beach. It’s not on the menu anymore but I’ll never forget how delicious it was! It was duck egg, poached, on a beautiful bed of potatoes. How can anything be better than that?!
Some of my best travels happen right when I quit a job. I remember when I quit my crappy retail sales associate job in Austin the day I bought a ticket to Long Beach. And with the latest trip, I quit a job and flew off to Portland that very night.
I get so cooped up working for too long. And I feel like exploding if I am not in a new place very soon.
I
met up with my sisters and mom in Portland, Oregon. It was itching to
become a consumer again. Portland was the perfect place for that. I spend all year saving my money so that when I
travel, I can eat at the coolest restaurants and drink all. the.
alcohol.
My favorite places in Portland:
Bollywood Theater Kitschy Indian street food restaurant I did NOT want to like because cultural appropriation but ended up being the best meal of the trip. I had Gobi Manchurian (fried cauliflower), Pork Vindaloo and Pimm’s Cup.
Kennedy School – A school turned into hotel/bar/theater. My sisters and I snuck into the pool. We got to chose from “Honors Bar” or “Detention Bar”. A very unique place.
My family and I traveled to Frankfurt, Berlin, and Munich in 2015. We met friends and visited museums. I kept all notes and paper in a Moleskine notebook.
Germany is surprisingly a lot like the US. For some reason I get Philly-vibes there. Maybe the cleanliness, small streets, houses in rows make me think that. Also, people there speak English clearer than most Americans.
Most people rave about the food or beer of Germany but I fell in love with museums.
While I’m a shawarma addict in any country, I loved how doner kebab stands were on every corner of Berlin. I would go back to Germany in a heartbeat just for the snacks.
When I was in college and already feeling the wanderlust, I joined my
grandpa and fifty other retirees from China on to a Chinese tour bus
and visited many of the national parks in the US.
Yes. One of those tour buses.
The
ones filled with obnoxious, throwin’ up their peace signs for terribly
staged photos, tour guide waiving around a flag. Yes. That was us.
I
visited all the states you never probably thought of visiting – the
Dakotas, Utah, Wyoming. The tour was entirely in Mandarin, a language I
barely know. That tour included stops at every Chinese buffet in towns
that don’t have any Asian population. You know those untouched crab
rangoons at a sad little pan-Asian buffet on the outskirts Salt Lake
City? Well, I’ve tried them. And I’ve been there. And not only have I
been there, I was there with fifty other retirees.
Despite
the sarcasm, I had a great time connecting with my grandpa. He is my
absolute favorite relative. I didn’t mind being with all the old people
because it meant I could hang out with him. We ate buffalo burgers at a
monument that failed to bring prominence and tourism to Sotuh Dakota. We
saw baby bears running through a sketchy safari park.
We
visited Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Devil’s Tower and Grand
Tetons in Wyoming, and also Yellowstone National Park.
For
spring break, my boyfriend and I took a road trip to Colorado. We
visited Crestone, Valley View, and Colorado Springs. We also stopped at
Zapata Falls and Great Sand Dunes National Park. For this trip, I
created a journal that we could both write in.
This
journal alternated between pages written by my boyfriend, and pages
written by me. The highlight of our trip was certainly Valley View Hot
Springs. It is a hot spring located on the side of a mountain,
overlooking the entire valley. It is all-nude. We shared the water with
snakes and deer. It was my first time sleeping in a car.
All
of Colorado was like a scene out of a magical realism novel. We met
strange people and encountered places that were lost in time. One such
place was a roadside alligator nursery where we got to hold an actual
alligator. Another weird location was the Japanese shumei. It was some
kind of nature-based sustenance-farming cult that has roots in only
Japan and Crestone, Colorado and we attended a Sunday “healing service”.
Another weird place was a bar with live music in Crestone. We saw how
dreadlocked new-age white people dance and I’m not sure if I want to see
that again.
My
boyfriend and I also walked around a frozen waterfall. I face planted
about three times per minute. It was probably infuriating at the time.
But our recollections are humorous to look back at.
Busan, Korea is where I found myself in 2015 after living one year in Russia. I backpacked through Siberia and the Far East and left the country on the day my visa expired. Going to an Asian country was almost like a well-deserved homecoming. There was Western food. There were the conveniences I had taken for granted and yearned for while living in Russia.
I picked up this journal from Istanbul, used it to document my travels in Seoul. I kept a single roll of paper-based hot pink washi tape with my at all times for taping tickets down. The roll of tape was paper-based so I could tear it off easily.
In
Seoul, I visited countless temples and made a day trip to the infamous
demilitarized zone. I spent two weeks in Korea, then was off to Vietnam.
Korea was a dizzying, wonderful place that I never fully processed
because of my short time there.
Samara drops below 40 degrees starting January. I decided that it would be a good idea to go to Siberia… because, why not? Siberia turned out to be awesome! I returned later in the year to visit the Kyzyl, Ulan-Ude, Abakan, and Krasnoyarsk. On my first taste of Siberia, I visited Yekaterinberg and Tyumen.
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg is not actually in Siberia. It is the fourth largest city in in Russia. Other than Moscow, it is the only other city with an American embassy. I went with a girl friend and we stayed with a local Couchsurfer. Couchsurfing is one of my favorite ways to travel because you can meet locals who can tell you what their city is really like. But now that I’m older, I prefer hostels and hotels to Couchsurfing.
Yekaterinburg is trendy and cosmopolitan. There were so many things to do there. I loved the arts scene. There were so many independent artists and small, funky galleries. There were cool spots for vegan and vegetarian food. There’s also a large cemetery where some gangsters are buried, with gaudy monuments in their place. My friend and I scoped it out, against all sensible advice.
Yekaterinberg is also the site of The Church on the Blood (it actually has like five different names, depending on who you talk to), where the last tsar of Russia and his family were killed. Yep, the family in Anastasia.
Yekaterinburg is a good city to visit to get the true Russian feel. It’s not too contrived like how Moscow or St. Petersburg often gets characterized.
Tyumen
Tyumen is the capital of Siberia. I headed there after visiting Yekaterinburg. I met some friends there to compete in a Model UN competition. I had never done anything like that as a student, so I was excited! I choose Turkey, which is still one of my favorite countries that I have ever visited.
It was January, the coldest month. It was gray but it didn’t feel sleepy. At the university I was staying at, I met foreigners in the dorm, hung out in multiple bars, and felt very welcomed. The university was a hub for students from many places: Nigeria, Cameroon, Palestine, to name a few.
Tyumen is known for it’s oil and gas industries, so the people live a much comfortable life than people in other Russian cities.
My favorite thing about Tyumen was visiting some natural hot springs. Imagine soaking in hot sulfur springs as snow falls down around you. It’s an ethereal feeling that can’t be replaced.
I spent a whole year in Western Russia, in Samara working as a university lecturer. Samara is a mid-sized Russian city. I got to know every part of it, as I worked in a major university but also weekly taught at an elementary school, private language academy, and even a US Work and Travel preparation program. I even occasionally taught English at local bars and restaurants!
If I could describe Samara in one one word, I would say… dreary. Most people that I met there dream of leaving. And not in an aspirational sort of way. People in Samara feel left out of the narrative of what it means to be European and also Russian. Traveling to Europe is out of reach for most families, as strict visa regulations make Western European travel almost impossible and inflation is rampant across the entire country, making upward mobility only possible in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. Another aspect to state-funded university is that a disproportionately large number of young people are university educated but it does not change their prospects for a higher-paying job.
Students that I interacted with were fascinated with life in America, as their media is saturated with American-made movies, music, and celebrities. As excited as I was to share about the nuances of life in the US, I was routinely astonished that they did not have much pride in their own city. They constantly talked of government corruption, as witnessed in Samara’s numerous construction and development problems. Their narrow focus on simply leaving Russia (at times, illegally) also left no room for optimism or empowerment to change their own communities. The rampant racism, sexism, homophobia, and financial problems didn’t help either. I was in a dreary place… filled with people who saw no hope that things could be better. But it’s hard for individuals to feel empowerment to change their city with so much corruption, it’s almost like people are afraid of getting power. Of course, I befriended a few people that showed me another side of Samara, but they were few and far in between. Another positive note is that since I left in 2015, I heard local development had picked up and there were arts programs and new events that were making life better in Samara.
After I finished teaching in Samara, I was able to backpack through Russia and visit other parts. I spent two weeks in the Republic of Tuva, Republic of Buryatia, Republic of Khahassia, and finally, Primorsky Krai. Primorsky Krai is Russia’s easternmost region, sharing a border with North Korea and just across the sea from Japan. It was a breath of fresh air from Samara, and the end of the time I spent in Russia. I spent about a week in both Nakhodka and Vladivostok.
Fun fact: Did you know that most of the world’s population of wild Siberian tigers are found in Primorsky Krai?
Nakhodka
Nakhodka was a picturesque city located on a peninsula, with narrow highways wrapping around coastal cliffs.
I got there on a plane from Ulan-Ude, with only five other passengers. As exciting as that was, the ride was turbulent.
I got to teach at a summer camp in Nakhodka. The camp is run by an enthusiastic, worldly teacher that made learning English come alive to the students and provided ample opportunity for international travel and cross-cultural exchanges. I was ecstatic to be a part of that camp! The high-school aged kids took me around to museums, ice cream spots (literally a national Russian pastime at this point), and even to the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, an enormous church on a hill that provides the best view of the bay. We even went hiking on Sister Mountain, a rocky point with a steep climb.
The people I met, including the children, were so different from the Russians I had met in Samara. I think being next to the ocean, and left out of the stereotypical bears, vodka, and snow image of what it means to be Russian – made Nakhodka a fundamentally different place. Everyone recognized both the Russian and Asian influences on their hometown.
Vladivostok
After the camp ended, I spent a few days in Vladivostok. The Russian navy is stationed in Vladivostok, so there were hot guys everywhere! I was traveling solo, just trying to maximize my last few days before my visa permission ran out.
I had heard rumors that there was Indian food in a local mall. I had Indian food for the first time in one year! There was also bulk-candy there, something I hadn’t seen in a while. There were also Asian snacks, which I had never seen in Samara…
I stayed in a crazy hostel with some interesting characters. The hostel ended up shutting down just weeks later. On a rainy day, I rode the bus to a beach. More than anything, it was time to reflect and say good-bye to my year in Russia. It was an exhilarating chapter of my life.
Long Beach is one of my favorite places in LA. I love the colorful horticulture and the perpetual ocean breeze. It embodies every idea of the concept of California. With the perfect temperature year-round and the low-key vibe of the entire city – makes it a perfect place to visit. I had an awesome vegan guide that showed me to all the coolest places.
Fun things to do in Long Beach:
Aquarium of the Pacific– I think this is one of the best aquariums I have ever visited. I’ve been to many aquariums, all over the world. Notable ones include the world’s largest aquarium in Singapore, New York Aquarium, to name a few. I unironically have some pretty high standards for how I think they should be… At the Long Beach Aquarium, they have extremely rare animals and an amazing penguin exhibit. Everything is academic as well as visually stunning. My favorite are the Japanese Spider Crab. They’re seriously an evolutionary marvel. The aquarium even has free entrance days for teachers.
Retro Row – A row of cute vintage shops. You can find anything here. The parking is accessible and not in a confusing or expensive downtown kind of area.
The Parlour – A cool speakeasy with live piano. Cocktails are good and and the time-period decor is so cute!
Soviet-era birthday postcards and a matroshka doll from Izmailovsky market in Moscow
When I was a freshman in college, I spent a summer studying at International University in Moscow. It was my first time alone abroad and my first time in Russia. I studied Russian in college, a brave and stupid decision that would leave me no choice but to travel a lot as an adult or suffer extreme wanderlust for the rest of my life. I saved all the little bits from my trip, from the flyers to metro tickets. It was my first time seeing beautiful Cyrillic everywhere and I was enamored. I wanted to get my hands on any print matter containing this beautiful alphabet. When I came home, I had a bag full of what everyone else would probably define as junk. Lots of papers, random photos, my university ID, all the random papers that came along with a six week trip to Russia. I only had few conventional “souvenirs” .
I decided to put it all together in an unconventional album, a vintage book.
This is a theory of music book found at a street market in Moscow. Don’t be fooled, this isn’t the romantic idea of street market that you probably have about thrifting and estate sales in Europe. Much of Russia is unemployed, especially the elderly, and people do what they can, selling their possessions on the street. I “thrift” as a foreigner on the streets of Russia with a tinge of irony and sadness.
As promised, calling cards and bus coupons.
Photos that I took on my first day there. I used old scrapbooking stickers and paper, hence the inability to find all the letters needed. As disorganized as it is, I tried to use make use of any little scrap.
When I look back at these posts, I cringe a little. It was 2015. I was weird. This is embarassing. But I am also proud to have this mish-mash of my psyche. I remember exactly who I was and what I was thinking.
Something I’ve always liked about scrapbooking is that you can make one entirely out of found materials.
When I think of scrapbooking, I typically associate it with going to a craft store, picking out sheets of 12″ x 12″ patterned paper from the scrapbooking aisle of a craft store, finding matching stickers and putting it all together into a pre-bound binder, pages with glossy sheet protectors. It’s all much too fabricated for me, reminiscent of PTA moms. And a traumatic history where I was elected historian of a terrible “professional honor society” I was in while in university, forced to produce a souless scrapbook so sorority girls could display it while tabling. *Close eyes and rock back and forth*
Anyway… in an attempt to stay far, far, far away from the traditional ideal of scrapbooking is to create one of all found materials or with unique materials, not purchased from the big box craft store. One idea I’ve come up is turning a paper bag into a scrapbook. A paper bag is something I usually have laying around, usually from a recent trip to the pharmacy.
I’ve made so many of these little books that now I have a small shelf of these books, lined up next to each other. Finishing one and adding it to the shelf feels good. It’s as satisfying as putting all your hardcover Harry Potter books in order on a shelf, and seeing how uniformly neat they look.
A
small book made from a paper bag to document a recent trip I took with
my family to Cancun, Mexico. We got to go to Chichen Itza and Cenote Ik
Kil. It was so magical. Traveling in Mexico always makes me wish I paid
more attention in Spanish class in middle school.
The pages are torn out of another small notebook. This map was cut from a mass-printed map that all tourists get as soon as they set foot in Mexico.
Money always makes the best souvenir to include in scrapbooks. It’s something I’ve already usually acquired on a trip. A customs form is always given at the airplane too. I love seeing official documents in different languages. This one is in Spanish.
Stamps made into stickers with a colored frame. All text “framed” by construction paper.
I couldn’t just leave Mexico or any island place without a cheesy handmade bracelet. The small photos are either from a Mexico travel magazine I found at home, or printed from photos taken on my phone.
Mun Guey means stationery in Cantonese. I believe I sort of have an ancestral memory for all things written on paper.
My paternal grandfather traveled all around the world with his friends when he was in his twenties and thirties. He’s been to practically every country in Europe and Asia. He has brothers in Taiwan and Brazil. My grandma has boxes upon boxes of the postcards he would send back home, always written in Cantonese.
Stationery in East Asia is a whole other game and I have seen its increasing influence on Western culture.
I remember sticking out as a kid in my Texas and Arizona elementary schools. I always had a pencil bag with Japanese characters on it. My mom always got me a Hello Kitty backpack. My paper was colorful. I always had stickers to decorate my schoolwork. Even my stapler was sparkly and pink. It wasn’t until middle school, I wanted to be like everyone else and opted for a solid colored Jansport backpack, Mead notebooks and Crayola supplies from Target. My mom always took my sisters and I shopping for cute stationery. There was a Japanese stationery shop downtown that my mom always took us to on weekends, our little downtown outing, when we were still in school.
Washi tape is just becoming the new “it” crafting item and it’s been something that I’ve had at my house since childhood. My relatives all have mechanical pencils and ink pens that are specific down to the model and size of led they carried. Hello Kitty, decorated school supplies, mini-versions of things – all aspects which I associate with my Asian side and traveling in Asia – are all now getting mainstream here in the US. I’m glad I don’t have to fly back to Taiwan just to get skinny pens or save my money up to go to San Francisco’s Japantown just to pick up new rolls of Washi tape. I’ve seen entire stationery stores with Asian products in Austin, Portland, and San Jose.
I try to think about why East Asian cultures value
stationery so much, but I haven’t come near to understanding it. For
now, I’ll continue enjoying the small greeting card shops that have
popped up in the US as of late, and supporting independent printing
presses.
My grandfather that I never met in front of the grocery that he owned in Tucson, Arizona in the 70’s and 80’s.
My mom says my grandfather, her dad, always loved stationery and had always bought them notebooks as gifts. I never got to meet him but it’s a characteristic that I proudly find in my family history. She did the same for me and my sisters as kids. And I’m not the only one to retain this – my sisters hoard notebooks and cards as well.
Whether
it’s photos or writing, families share a lot of precious written media
between them. I love going through old photo albums, reading my mom’s
iconic cursive script on a label next to each scene. Photos and paper
share something timeless. It’s fun to go through them and even more
rewarding to create new memories.
The first thing I do on every trip is buy a notebook. I used to take a journal with me from home, but now I always pick a journal while in the actual destination. I’ve found that there is way too much oh-my-gosh-why-didn’t-I-buy-this-notebook anxiety. I frequent book stores and stationery shops in all the places that I travel to, and in the past, I’ve turned down buying yet another notebook, as I always already had one in my bag. Then, I made notebook-searching part of the trip and I’ve looked at shopping while traveling differently ever since. The perfect journal matches the length of your journey. A short little trip would warrant a tiny little thing, a long trip might need a larger journal. Moleskine and Rhodia are preferred hipster notebook brands right now, but I always try to find something that contains elements of the country on the cover.
This guy is a little 5″x”4 passport buddy that I found at a bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan.
It was the beginning of a week long journey around Taipei. My family and I visited Ping Hsi Railway (where the lanterns get famously released into the sky), Yangmingshan National Park, and the Beitou hot springs. It was my second time there. I went with many cousins and distant relatives. As in, how many of you all know your grandma’s step-brother’s children? Hello, I do, and I’ve traveled with them to other countries.
The first time I had been to Taiwan, I was only twelve
and had forgotten everything about the place. Don’t you feel a little
bit sad for all the places you’ve went, but you weren’t awake yet? That’s how I feel about so many places I went to on family vacations as a kid.
Travel tip no. 397: The best part of traveling with well-travelled people is that the food you encounter is so, so much better.
Whenever
I journal, I keep space to paste photos in later. Developing phone
photos (versus film photos) at a photo kiosk is anachronistic.
Developing photos is slowly becoming obsolete, yet to bring it back by
developing photos taken on a smart phone is fun. It’s also inexpensive
to develop photos. You can always just print photos out later and wait
to journal when you’ve returned home. I find that printing out photos
and then waiting to journal after the trip is part of a necessary
post-trip reflective process.
Receipts in a language that I can’t read.
The
best part is that you can write in your worst handwriting because
you’re journaling for yourself. Or you can be as descriptive as you’d
like.
You
can be as dorky or as personable as you want. I’ve printed photos from
my own Instagram to supply pictures for journals, as well as picked up
money and coins to line the pages.
One of the best parts of traveling, for me, at least, is all the paper memorabilia that I encounter on the way to the destination. A business card written in French for a French company and a flyer for a French cafe actually in France are things so peculiar and special, especially if it’s a faraway land. It feels foreign in my hands. The words, and even the paper that it’s printed on feels different. But it doesn’t even have to be as far away as France for it to have it’s own explainable, quaint charm. The typeface, even the logos and the borders of movie ticket stubs from a theater that is not your local theater are enticing in its own way. Whatever piece of paper it is, its almost always more remarkable than the same of its kind back at home.
Scraps collected during a three week long trip to New York. As a Native Texan, New York might as well be as far away and foreign as France.
Collecting scraps along the way is another form of souvenir collecting. Buying souvenirs for friends and family members was always something that came natural for me, but buying a gift for myself to remember that trip while I am on that trip is weird, too self-involved. Choosing that one perfect item to carry back home seems too calculated. Souvenirs, like memories, and like memory keeping, should be acquired naturally.
I save all my little pieces of paper in an envelope until I get home. Or I tuck it into a notebook. This is a business card for a comedy show, a rubber stamp shop, and a Cajun-themed pizza place in New York City.
We acquire scraps so rapidly that in our hometowns, it becomes an annoyance. Your pocket fills up with gas station receipts, concert stubs, flyers handed out at a busy walkway. You get a sticker for attending an event at a gallery’s latest exhibit. You get a wristband for going to concert in a bar. But in a new town, those things can be collected for later.
