Danny ChaiRoad Trip II Day 7
Saturday was another outdoors day, one I enjoyed a great deal. We went to Mt. Rainier and spent the day there. We drove around, also did a nice hike. To just about as high as you can go without requiring special equipment. Climbing to the top of Mt. Rainier isn’t trivial. You need equipment and it’s a 2 day ordeal. You go a certain amount one day, then set up camp for the night. Then you get up early (like, just past midnight. Earlier is better, because the sun increases the chance of slides and whatever with the softening snow) and go to the summit.
At any rate, it was a nice hike but not trivial. At least me and Henry were sore the next couple days. And it was cool to see snow in August. We also went to some gorge that was actually pretty cool. Just like the Grand Canyon, you have no idea it’s coming until all of a sudden you’re there and there’s a huge hole in the ground.
Dinner was Korean in the “International” district of Seattle. If this is all the international flavor Seattle has to offer, they’ve got a while to go. We decided on Korean just because we hadn’t eaten it on the trip. Dave got to practice his Korean by asking some Korean store where to go and then again at the restaurant.
I suck at Korean so what do I know. But to my feeble ears Dave still sounds like he has a noticeable honky accent. But, he has incredible comprehension and a cool vocabulary. All I remember is he asked for something, maybe more bowls, and the way he asked it was like nothing I had heard before, nothing I would have thought of, but mellifluous and perfect. Dunno if that makes any sense. But that’s my impression of Dave’s Korean.
The Korean food there was terrible, by the way. Not inedible, just not very good. For a restaurant. For homemade, it was pretty good, if that makes sense. But it was also smoky and there were some people singing karaoke who really needed to be put out of their misery the whole time. But whatever, that’s Seattle.
We found two bubble tea places, and got stuff from each place. Neither was as good as in Vancouver, I think. Mine was pretty good. Side note: the sizes of the bubble tea was a lot bigger in the Northwest. It was like a medium drink at In-N-Out. But anyway, mine was OK, Dave and Henry’s were terrible, in my opinion. Just this weird taste to it, like a tea that didn’t quite match well.
So yeah, that was the only reservation I had about Seattle. Not really enough Asian stuff. But whatever, that will happen in time, without question.
That was pretty much our trip. The next day we checked out, dropped Andrew off at the airport, went to IHOP for breakfast. By the way. I have no idea why I keep going to IHOP. It’s not that good, and on at least 2 occasions, I’ve eaten with people there who later got sick. And yet, I keep going back. I don’t understand myself.
But yeah, we flew back and that was that. John and Henry moved out that week, I was alone for a bit, and now Eric and Keith are in 420 James Rd. It’s the end of an era, and a new era has begun.
I was kind of sad to see things end, partly just to see John and Henry go, but it’s more than that. I think mostly it’s that I’ve been extremely comfortable with the way things are in my life. I loved my living situation, liked being Jieun’s boyfriend and seeing her each day, I like my job, I’m learning a lot; I was just satisfied with the way things are. Maybe too much.
But now that things are changing my comfortability is threatened and as always I’ve got some apprehension about it. But I think it will be good for me, and maybe beyond comfortability it will push me out of my inertia tendencies.
But the times they are a-changin. I don’t know if we’ll do this road trip thing next year. Dunno if it’s possible, with Henry being married and everything. And me being close to marriage. The other thing is this. In some sense, this was “Henry’s” road trip. Like, his last single gasp; in a way it was like his bachelor party. And it was great. I hate pressure. I don’t want next year’s trip to be like “my” trip, you know? Because I’m convinced it will be terrible, for some reason or another, and I don’t want the burden of the terrible trip being “my” trip, if that makes any sense.
I guess the solution is for John to get married next summer and we can make it “his” trip. Get cracking, John.