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Hoe kan je overleven in Amerika zonder wagen? Perfect mogelijk! We doen bijna alles met de fiets. Het weer is hier altijd goed (het heeft hier al meer dan vijf maanden niet meer geregend). De afstanden zijn hier wel allemaal een pak groter. De dichtstbijzijnde deftige supermarkt ligt op 25 minuten afstand. Je wordt wel raar bekeken als je fietst, zeker als je rondcrosst met een iets alternatievere fiets zoals een vouwfiets. En bij de meeste collega's op het werk worden de wenkbrauwen spontaan gefronst als ik vertel dat we nog geen auto hebben. Of je krijgt commentaar zoals they are from Europe ... Als de afstanden wat groter zijn nemen we de bus/tram/trein. Of we huren een wagen als we nog verder weg willen. En als we dan een wagen gehuurd hebben, dan beginnen we meestal als zotten te hamsteren.
Enfin, na tien maanden hebben we uiteindelijk besloten om vooruit te gaan. Het is toch wel handiger om een auto te hebben en mobiel te zijn. En wie weet waar we in de toekomst terecht gaan komen, niets is zeker... Het was in ieder geval zeker de moeite waard geweest om te wachten tot nu want rond deze periode van het jaar smijten de car dealers met kortingen. De aanschaf zelf was een fluitje van een cent en op 1-2-3 geregeld. Vrijdagavond na het werk naar de car dealer. Over de prijs moest niet meer onderhandeld worden, dat was al gebeurd via email. Testdrive. Wagen inspecteren. Papieren tekenen. Terug naar huis, autoverzekering aanschaffen via internet. Volgende ochtend met een cheque terug naar de dealer. Klaar. Op minder dan 24h tijd reed ik weg met de auto. Nog nooit zo snel een wagen gekocht.
Het is uiteindelijk een Chevrolet geworden. Bij een Chevy denken de meesten spontaan aan die grote bakken van de jaren 50 en 60.
Maar jullie weten allemaal dat LT en ik een voorkeur hebben voor de kleinste en gezelligste wagens. Dus hebben we de zo kleinst mogelijke Chevy gepakt, althans naar Amerikaanse normen, want deze wagen is echt een pak groter dan onze oude Ford Fiesta. En jawel hoor, LT was heel tevreden met de naam van de wagen. Een wagen is voor mij geen tweede vrouw, maar in dit geval wel een tweede LT. Dezelfde dag nog zou Lai Tjong voor het eerst sinds acht jaar terug acher het stuur zitten.
Garlic festival
Inderdaad, hoe bedenken ze het? Een festival gewijd aan look. Er is hier een stad in de buurt (Gilroy) dat bekend staat voor zijn lookplantages. Een keer per jaar wordt hier een festival georganizeerd om de look te vereren. Het was enorm druk toen we daar aankwamen. Er waren verschillende podia waar muziek werd gespeeld maar de nadruk lag duidelijk op de massa's eetkraampjes aan de kant waar garlic food geserveerd werd. Look is geweldig en we hebben ons daar tegoed gedaan aan lookfrieten, lookloempia's, lookijscreme (!), gegrilde lookmaiskolven,...
Met heimwei verlang ik plots naar de nachtelijke vettige kebabs met looksaus van de Oude Markt in Leuven...
"Yama yo Yama yo..... Yama yo Yama yo..... Yama wa ikite iru..... " The mountain is alive. Unbelievable very funny song - and I love the choreography - from one of the most peculiar and sublime Japanese movies we have ever seen "Cha no aji" - The taste of tea. A very suitable introduction for this entry, I think...
Thursday late afternoon. I took my laptop, some instant coffee, a mug and my thermos can to go sit outside at the swimming pool for doing some writing. I just got fed up with sitting inside all the time, but on the other hand, I can't go outside to downtown all the time and drink coffee on my own, can I? Anyway, it's a good thing, close to the apartment, some children playing in the swimming pool, nice music in my ears, my 'own' isolated world of thoughts, as always.
Today it will be 3 weeks that I have been back from Korea. Almost one month. Time is passing by so fast... *sigh*
Two weeks ago, it was Friday the Fourth of July : Independence Day. National holiday here in the USA, but for me it meant one day of weekend more to spend with LJ and jippie hey - going on a short road trip to Northern California. For the occasion I even wore my funky USA top :).
Our main destination was Lassen Volcanic National Park. LJ wanted to go there for quite some time, because he has always been fascinated by volcanoes - while I just love hiking and want to eat my 'boterhammen met choco' on the mountain top :)).
Up till now, we have been traveling to some volcanic destinations in the world - Taupo, Rotorua and Tongariro (New Zealand), Taveuni (Fiji Islands, scattered sleeping or dead volcanoes), Mount Fuji (Japan), Hallasan (Jeju-do, South Korea) - except for the last one, all being part of the Pacific Ring of Fire : "an area of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions encircling the basin of the Pacific Ocean". LJ has set up some kind of 'life goal' for us : to visit all the places on the Pacific Ring of Fire. And of course living in the area close to the San Andreas fault makes it even more exciting for him to experience earth quakes in person...
So as I was telling, destination Lassen.... As usual, we did not really do a lot of preparations : just rented a car, packed some stuff in a rush and just left like that. Going on holidays is easy, if you have nothing really planned in your head except for the destination. No stress, just one goal :).
Bumpass Hell and Cold Boiling Lake
Bumpass Hell is a geothermal site in the park, where you can find terminal geysers, mud pools, boiling lakes,... as THE evidence that miles and miles underneath our feet the heart of mother earth is still alive and kicking. Imagine yourself walking around in an environment surrounded with the odor of rotten eggs and stinky damps ;p. In our opinion, not as worse as in Rotorua - the city that really smells like rotten eggs - New Zealand, where the people actually are living in that kind of stench day in day out.
After the geothermal site, we headed for some lakes in the surrounding area, most of them formed by melting water from the mountains. Beautiful landscapes with yellow, red and purple wild flowers :).
We got back by dawn after being bit - actually after "I" was being bit - by an army of blood thirsty tiny mosquitoes. At dawn, those tiny flying animals are at their worst : they even managed to stabbed me through my clothes... Anyway, did not really matter... I was willing to sacrifice my body for a nice scenery :-)
By the evening, we headed back to a town called Red Bluff - famous for its annual Rodeo riding contest - I thought such things were held in and around Texas or something - where we found ourself a cheap motel to spend the night. We ate dinner in a typical American 'diner' : meat with sauce, fries and fried shrimps. Not exactly my kind of food but once in a while, I don't mind. Ended with a the most sweetest cheese cake I have ever eaten in my whole life - soOOO much sugar in it that I don't find it hard to believe that a lot of children nowadays suffer from 'sugar-addiction'....
Mount Lassen Peak and crater - 3187m
The main goal of the next day was hiking to the top of Mount Lassen and to visit the crater. Departing from Red Bluff in the late morning, temperature already reached some 37°C - almost 100°F. We just found out that we were in one of USA's most hottest areas and we were lucky that we did not come to Red Bluff a few days later, where the temperature hit the 40°C and over. Moreover we were also in the 'wild fire' area, it hasn't been raining here for more than 4 months. Not a drop.
During the hike we could see some of the smoke hanging low above the mountains, as we heard it from someone, that those were not clouds but smoke from the fires. (The annual firework for the 4th of July in Red Bluff was even postponed because of fire hazard. ToOO bad, because there was nothing else to do in Red Bluff but sleeping in our motel room :))
Lassen Peak was really a very nice hike : the landscape surrouding the mountain was really impressive as it was for the crater itself. Even climbing up to an elevation higher than 3000m, it was not cold at all that day.
Most of the snow already melted but some of the glaciers were still intact. As for climate is changing and because of global warming, we might not see some of these glaciers anymore within a few years. We could hear the melting water streaming 'invisibly' underneath the glacier blanket; for us it was the first time to experience a melting ice mass like that.
From the peak, you could see some dead wasteland - an area with almost no vegetation around the volcano - resulted from the last volcanic eruption back in 1915. Although the last eruption was almost 100 years ago, in 'earth' terms, this is a quite recent one. The most know recent eruption known in the States is the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens, still being active today.
After the peak - and having lunch there of course - we walked to the crater : a large rough moonscape landscape - no words to describe how it feels to be at the edge for what was once a living volcano. I will just leave the impressions to the pictures, but even then the scenery was too big to really capture the essence of it on image.
I am sitting outside at the Bean Scene Cafe, downtown Mountain View, enjoying my cafe Mocha... Yeah - outside - right and having wireless internet access as well because this is MOUNTAIN VIEW, home town of Google Headquarters... Actually it is the first time that I am doing this, don't ask me why I didn't come out earlier the last half year before I left for my three months Korea, don't ask. I don't really have a clue... maybe it was not time yet...
BUT now, my experiences in Korea did change me. Especially in the way I want to spend my 'free' time here. Have been doing a lot of sports lately, as the weather here is really fantastic : inline skating, jogging, swimming.... Yesterday, I went jogging, followed by a nice evening dive in our swimming pool and ended with jacuzzi under the stars... There I met a British architect who has been living here for almost 30 years - and passionate about foreign languages like me - and we talked a lot about our profession, making me reconsider to maybe continue my job as architect here, when I get my Green Card. So that's a good perspective too... Not having to give up everything I have worked for in Belgium... But now, I just want to focus on language study...
It is actually the first time, that I realized I am living some kind of 'Californian' life... enjoying weather, enjoying my time on my own. Trying to get used to this kind of life and see the positive side of it. Although, I am a really social person, too, liking to be surrounded by friends and family... That was actually the main reason, I could not really adapt to my new life here in the States... I missed everybody so much...
And now? I feel much better now. Adapting to this kind of life... after 'ever bright light and living city' of Seoul. It is true... the further you go sometimes, the more you can see 'through'....
And there are nice prospects here too for me... Some friends and my sister are coming over in September and meanwhile I started my Korean class at Adroit College again. Too bad it's only two hours per week. It's really nice : my class mates are Americans Korean and the teacher is speaking Korean all the time, so I am really happy to be surrounded by 'full' Korean conversations again. By the way, the class is held in Palo Alto - much closer than Milpitas - and I only have to take my bike and train to get there. So no strange conversations with ex prisoners at 'I-880' Light Rail Station in Milpitas any longer... Although I found it very fascinating to meet different kinds of people :).
As for the rest, I spend my time studying Korean, bought a lot of new books so I can keep myself busy.
I have also been looking for some other activities. Next Wednesday I am going to start a course 'dance the way you want improvisation'... I should have done this earlier, now I think. But everything has it's own timing in life I think. I danced a lot in Seoul : outside in the grass at the DJ world Festival, at Jane's Groove - best rock and 80's bar in Seoul, in a studio during a photo shoot - yeah, I still have to tell about this in my Korea blog... - ... That's when I really realized, I really have to do something with this. Although my sister and my best girl friend have been pushing me for years to do this.... So, this is step one...
Waiting for my husband now to come off from work. Tomorrow will be the 4th of July, Independence Day. Tonight there is a small 'evening' market in downtown Mountain View. We might get some dinner outside today. And this weekend, we will be road tripping for Lassen Volcanic National Park (for sure), Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. Can't wait to hike and reach the mountain tops again :)).
So... dear people at home... Don't worry about me. I think, I changed, became more positive and am adapting myself eventually to life in the States... AT LAST...
And erhm... as you noticed, from now on I am going to write in English, for my friends in Korea and else where in the world can follow me around :).
