Author: lauren

Photogenic Seattle

I’m taking an “Introduction to SLR Photography Class,” and my assignment for this week is to take photos of scenes containing interesting geometric shapes. The assignment can be interpreted loosely — e.g., a pine tree can be a triangle, and the geometric shape in the photo may exist only because I’ve cut off the edges of an object in the way I’ve framed a shot. I kind of copped out on my last assignment because I was so busy and out of town for a few weekends in a row — I ended up finishing my assignment by taking photos around Microsoft campus during my lunch break. As you might expect, they weren’t very interesting.

This time around, I have all day Sunday free and I want to go do some shooting in various parts of Seattle. Here are some thoughts on places to go (mostly very obvious spots):

Any other ideas?

Alternative Homemaker

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My good friend Anjali is one of the most creative people I know. In the 12+ (!) years that I’ve known her, there has never been a time that she hasn’t been working on a new project (or three). These projects have included (but have not been limited to): jewelry-making, sewing her own clothing, knitting, making decorations for theme parties (and coming up with ideas for theme parties), papier-mache, designing outrageous Halloween costumes, and developing interesting (and attractive!) concoctions in the kitchen.

That latter interest has recently led her to make her first foray into the world of blogging, so that she can share her creations and the results of her experiments with the world.

My favorite posts so far are:

…with many more on the way. I can’t say the various attempts at bacon ice cream really do much for me, but I am a chickentarian after all.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention — by day she’s kicking ass as a first-year medical student, and this is somehow done during her copious amounts of free time.

Snow and More Snow

I’m in California for the weekend visiting my family. I just decided to check weather back in Seattle so that I’d know what to expect upon arriving early tomorrow morning. Gorgeous:

Interestingly, Kenny told me that snow was a pretty rare occurrence in Seattle during his first six winters there. This is my fifth winter in Seattle, and we’ve seen snow every year. El Nino/La Nina? Climate change? (Somebody get Al Gore on the phone)

And while it looks like this coming week will be complete crap, it bodes well for snowboarding next weekend! This will be my first chance this winter, since I’ve been out of town for six weekends out of the last seven. Crystal got six inches last night.

On Being Chickentarian in Indochina

Being chickentarian* in Vietnam and Cambodia involved some challenges, but in general it wasn’t too difficult. I think that being vegetarian, on the other hand, would be much more difficult.

A few observations:

  • Interestingly, I had an easier time finding good chickentarian food in the north than in the South (perhaps nowhere was as easy as Hang Ga)
  • The chickentarian options on the Santa Maria Cruiser (Halong Bay) were fantastic and plentiful.
  • Hue seemed to be a pho bo town for some reason — it was very hard to find ga, except at Pho 24 (more about Pho 24 in a later post).
  • There are also many “Hue specialties” — food dating back to Imperial Vietnam — almost all of which contain pork. FWIW, they look very good.
  • There was all kinds of seafood to be had in Nha Trang, which was all kinds of goodness.
  • We had two meals in the street stalls in Vinh Long, one before and one after our boat trip. Vinh Long is somewhat remote, and very few people spoke English there. The first time it was a bit difficult to find anything — but a nice vendor made me a banh xeo (pancake that normally contains shrimp and pork) without the pork, in response to some very creative sign language on Kenny’s part. The second time, we had com ga (rice with chicken), which was fine, if a bit boring.
  • Back in Saigon, it wasn’t especially easy to find chicken, and when we did, it was often a bit plain. In Saigon and elsewhere, we had a couple of dishes called “chicken with chili and lemongrass” that were disappointing (although we had an amazing version of the same in Hanoi!). Our three (!) meals at Pho 2000 were the exception — this was probably the highest quality chicken we had on our entire trip.
  • One time while we were in Saigon, we sat down in a restaurant without inspecting the menu first. After we saw the menu, we noticed that there was nothing for me and had to walk out!
  • There’s a lot of pork in Cambodia, especially if you stick to Khmer food. Fortunately, there’s always amok (with fish or chicken — I recommend fish)!
  • I’m certain that there were a few times, in both Vietnam and Cambodia, that I unknowingly consumed dishes cooked with meat. C’est la vie.

In general, both the chickentarian (me) and the meatatarian (Kenny) ate very well in both Vietnam and Cambodia.

*This term means different things to different people. For me, it means: poultry and seafood are fine, but no mammals.