Living That "Bend" Life

It's been a crazy fall involving more than a few camping trips, chickens (that's for a later post), and our never ending house and yard remodel. We've been making a conscious effort to enjoy the "Bend Life," and get out there to do what we couldn't do when we were working all the time. Sometimes I still feel anxiety about not being "productive enough," or getting things accomplished around the house or yard. And I do still stress about money. But then I remind myself that our house projects will still be there tomorrow, and I can always go in to the office a few extra hours if I want. Life is short and precious, and what's important is getting out there and enjoying it!

With that in mind, we took advantage of Bernice and Josh's visit over Labor Day weekend to go camping at Crater Lake in Morty. We loved it so much, we went back the following weekend with our local friends. It's a gorgeous and well maintained National Park that is only 1.5 hours from our house, and their campground has flushing toilets, showers, a restaurant and a camp store.

Crater Lake was smoky from the wildfires. That's Wizard Island in the middle.

The smoke didn't detract from the gorgeous turquoise water!

Mike and Morty enjoying the view.

Mike purchased another vehicle, a Subaru Sambar, a right-hand drive tiny truck from Japan. It's mostly for work and has been helpful for the house, but it's also a fun little truck that we can take off-roading and camping. To say that Mike loves this truck is an understatement.

All set up with the hammock to watch the blood moon eclipse

good perspective pic of how small the Sambar is! Pic by Ken Bethe

A peek at Broken Top from our campsite

The Sambar all set up for sleeping in the back!

Snowing! pic by Ken Bethe

We were lucky to catch snow already this season - we woke up to big fat flakes! The pic above shows some of the people we went camping with; other local shop owners and van enthusiasts. I'm in the black puffy jacket and winter hat - Mike and I are always prepared when it involves winter camping, and we were toasty despite sleeping with just a tarp over us.

And since it's now fall mushroom season, we got out there for a couple scouting trips. It was gorgeous and even when we find only a few mushrooms, we still get a nice walk.

Hiking around Suttle Lake

Mountains, forests, and lakes - we never get tired of this view.

Some super cool volcanic rocks covered in moss - that's Mike at the top!

I've been watching the weather reports so hopefully I'll target the right place at the right time and we'll find ourselves some chanterelles. 

Stay tuned for our next post when I introduce our new little chicken friends!

Eugene, Oregon

If someone ever did a "Where Are They Now?" special on hippies from the 60s, a good chunk of the show could be filmed in Eugene, Oregon, where we vacationed last week. It's about 2 hours from Bend, directly over Mt. Washington, and passes through lots of gorgeous forest. If you have a Subaru, you'll love all the windy mountain roads.

Our Subaru isn't quite ready for winter yet - we haven't bought chains or studded tires - but the snow storm we encountered reminded us to get on that...

We hit the first snowstorm of the season - 4 inches over the pass!

Once we crossed over the mountain, the snow turned to rain, and we came up on Sahalie Falls. We've been meaning to check it out, so despite the heavy rain, we pulled over.

Everything on this side of the Cascades is covered in green.

It was totally worth it - everything was blanketed in moss - lush, soft, and misty. It's like something out of a fairytale. Oregon has so many awesome surprises; we feel lucky to live here!

In our new rain gear

Just like a postcard!

Once we arrived in town, Yelp told us that the Cascades Raptor Center was one of Eugene's major attractions. Not one to doubt Yelp, we headed over there to check it out. It's a non-profit, entirely funded by volunteers and donations, and they have over 60 aviaries with rehabilitated birds. Every bird had its story posted outside its cage, which personalized the whole experience, and made you fall in love with individual birds, which you can then sponsor. So clever, and definitely worth a visit. Also it's pretty much free, but they do suggest a $8.00 donation.

our favorite was the little owl on the lower left, who hides in the ground!

On the drive back to our hotel, we spotted some free ranging wild turkeys! 

wild turkeys strutting around confidently

The main reason we were in Eugene was for the Mushroom Show, which was the 33rd annual show, and the biggest on the West Coast. They had lots of cool mushroom themed stuff, mushroom growing kits, and even mushroom-dyed scarves - which you could do yourself, if so inclined. 

the displays were really nicely done, tri-level, and pretty.

one of the Festival-goers awesome cars.

On our way home, we pulled over in one of the forest areas to search for mushrooms. We had some visitors this week and thought it'd be cool to be able to feed them with something we foraged. We found lots of gorgeous mushrooms, and about 4 pounds of chanterelles, which are selling for $39.99/lb at our local grocer right now!

some random mushroom pics from our little hike

Kristy on the hunt!

processing our haul of chanterelles

We had so many that we gave some to our neighbors, and saved some for later. Normally you can just dehydrate any mushrooms you find, but chanterelles don't dry too well and get sort of chewy. So I chopped them up, threw them in a pot with a little salt, and dry sauteed them, until they released all their moisture. Then I vacuum sealed and froze them. 

Mike's pumpkin tribute to our new home.

We are excited for tomorrow (Halloween), because we haven't had trick or treaters since we lived in Long Beach, and even then, I think we only had a few. Our neighbor said we'd get a couple dozen this year, so we carved a pumpkin and bought some candy. Our life is so different from just a year ago, but we are loving it, and really, what more can you ask for?

Sayōnara, Tokyo, until next time!

As our Tokyo trip wound down, we packed as much as we could into each day, making carefully plotted and planned itineraries, and packing our backpacks with band-aids and bottles of water. We were on a mission. 

We made a special effort to get to a Tokyo skatepark. We were totally impressed by the little kids shredding it up here! I think it made Mike and Josh feel old.

The larger skate park, with its gnarly ramps. BMX bikers used it as well.

Josh and Mike on one of the ramps they had in the back!

Another long trek took us to the Tokyo National Museum. This is where many of the most special Japanese artifacts and historical treasures are housed. It is comprised of 7 main buildings, 6 outlying buildings, and parks and gardens. Basically, it's too big to see everything all at once, so we did the best we could and tackled a couple of the main exhibits.

A whole room full of samurai swords. Wish they had more info in English!

One of the most interesting things I saw was the Buddha, in stone and sculptural pieces from early AD, from three Asian countries - China, India, and Japan. I loved seeing the similarities and differences between each country's take on their deity.

The Buddha as represented by India (almost always sitting, usually in Lotus).

Buddha carvings (statue and the reliefs in the back) in limestone from China.

Japan's take on the Buddha - with guardians.

My favorite piece was this contemporary (1881) piece by Miyagawa Kozan. Those two crabs looked so real in person, that it seemed like they were taxidermied and attached to the bowl, but they're porcelain.

This bowl is representative of Satsuma-style pottery.

I will say that America has something to learn from Asia, in terms of museums and public availability. Every museum Mike and I visited on our trip, from the Hong Kong History Museum to the Macau Museum, cost less than $6.00 to enter. In comparison, the LA Natural History Museum cost $12-$20, and the Art Institute of Chicago cost $27.00. Shouldn't we, as a society, want people to be educated and exposed to history and art? I think if our entrance fees were a little more affordable, maybe we'd have a few less ignorant people. 

One place Mike was determined to see, was the Lucky Cat Shrine, otherwise known as the Gotokuji Temple. I'm sure you've seen Lucky Cats in random Asian restaurants and stores. The original Lucky Cat's name was Tama, and he helped this particular temple flourish, and with it, his legend. Although it's a little bit outside of Tokyo, in the suburb of Setagaya, it was worth the trek.

The Lucky Cat Shrine, and many people's offerings.

The grounds of the temple are beautiful and include a cemetery and several other temples and shrines. You can purchase porcelain lucky cat statues here, to leave at the shrine as an offering (which we did), or to bring home and give yourself some luck (which we also did). Mike wanted one for Subietech HQ, so we got the largest one! He hand-carried that sucker back to the US.

Ringing the bell and leaving an offering at the temple.

Leaving another offering (can't have too many prayers!) of a little cat.

You can also purchase prayer boards, on which you write a wish/hope/prayer and leave, with an offering, at the temple. I got one and wrote a little hope for our future. I think we covered our wishing and praying for the day.

So many prayers, and ours just one of the bunch.

We continued our cat theme with a stop for drinks at a cat café! This was one of Bernice's must-dos for Tokyo, and as all of us are cat lovers, we were happy to oblige. I must say, with all the rules they have at this place (wear their provided slippers, wash your hands, don't bring in your bags, etc), these are some of the luckiest and cleanest cats alive. The room looked like a crazy cat girl exploded.

everything in this entire room is for the kitties and scratchable!

Of course the cat café was right near the Harujuku District, so that was our next stop. There are no words for the insanity here.

A shot of Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street), stuffed with fashion stores.

We stopped in at a Daiso, one of my favorite Japanese stores, on their main street, and bought a package of 20 masks for less than $1.00! We randomly wore them around town for the rest of the trip, and amusingly, no one even took notice. I wonder what kind of looks I'd get if I did this in Bend.

Josh and Bernice going incognito on Takeshita Dori.

Next, we walked up the street to the Meiji Shrine, which was built in the early 1900's to honor the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken. It is surrounded by over 100,000 trees, donated from all over Japan. It is a natural oasis in the middle of Tokyo.

The forested path to the Shrine.

Many sake brewers make offers each year to the Emperor and Empress.

The 40 ft tall Torii gate, made from 1,500 year old Cypress trees from Taiwan.

Cleansing our hands and mouths in the traditional way, prior to entering the shrine.

You can purchase prayer boards here, or simply write a prayer on a piece of paper, and drop it in the box with a little donation. Since we'd already spent the whole morning praying at the Gotokuji Temple, we just prayed on paper here. 

Mike, deep in thought, before the rows and rows of prayer boards.

the courtyard of the main shrine

Our final pilgrimage of the trip was to the Mecca for all Subaru lovers, the STI Gallery. This is a museum dedicated solely to Subaru STIs. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is a car that is famous for excelling in rally racing (motor races along actual roads, rather than a track). If you'd like to see all the pictures from this museum, you can go to the Subietech HQ website, or "like" them on Facebook. 

To the untrained eye, this is a museum full of blue cars.

The museum is in Mitaka, which is about an hour on public transit from Tokyo. So understandably, they don't get a lot of visitors - only a few a week. The museum manager, Ken, spoke perfect English and was happy to answer questions and let Mike and Josh peek under the hoods.

Mike and Josh geeking out with the museum manager.

We had the whole museum to ourselves.

The treatment we received at the museum exemplified what we'd been experiencing all week in Japan. Everyone thanked us for liking Subarus, and acted really grateful that we had come to visit them. As a whole, the Japanese people were very polite and gracious to visitors, and we really came to appreciate and love Tokyo, despite all the communication difficulties. Next year, we will be sure to learn a lot more Japanese before we go!

It is worth mentioning that we were in these countries while some major events went down - the protests in Hong Kong, and the eruption of Mt. Ontake. While we were not physically affected, it does affect us emotionally, and I have been thinking about those whose lives were lost or changed. Life is precious and unpredictable. Be sure you are living it, enjoying it, fulfilling your purpose and experiencing everything you can - none of us know how much time we are given.

A photo of Izumi Noguchi, right before the eruption.

Admiralty protests - Photo by Bill Kwan

Admiralty protests - Photo by Bill Kwan

Oregon Life

Mike and I finally had a nice long stretch of time here in Bend (2 weeks and counting!). As much as we love to travel and adventure, we also love hanging out at home, and exploring our new little town. One sure way to do this is to have out-of-town guests - then you get to play tourist in your own town, which is really fun. In fact, in Los Angeles, that was the only time I ever went to go see the Hollywood sign.

Here in Bend, the main attraction is the scenery. Mike's parents came to visit for a weekend, and we finally made it up to Bend's version of the Hollywood sign - Pilot Butte. That's pronounced with a long "U" sound, in case you were wondering.

Sunset view from Pilot Butte. We live down there in those twinkling lights!

The view from the top is spectacular. You can see almost all of Bend in one shot, with the mountain range in the background. Since there's been so many wildfires lately, the sky is super dusty and you get some nice reds and pinks in the sunset.

We also took them to the Saturday farmer's market, which was very fun and great for gifts. I even crossed one person's Christmas present off my list!

One of Bend's more popular veggie farms, which also does a CSA.

Mike with the gorgeous flowers Michelle bought for us!

Spending time in town has really paid off. We found the best donut store, the best taco truck, and the best Mexican restaurant (we have been missing Mexican food something CRAZY!).

Street tacos and tortas just like we're used to. Just hope they're open in the winter!

This Mexican joint uses local pasture raised beef, and makes their own horchata. Love it!

The local favorite - blueberry fritters. These are DELICIOUS.

Have you ever had a fritter? They're basically chopped up little chunks of donut dough, mixed with whatever flavor (in this case, local blueberry preserves), made into patties, and fried. I don't even really like donuts, but these are SO GOOD! Made fresh every morning, and they sell out by 10am. 

Other fun local things we've noticed:

You are allowed to park any which way on the street you want.

No one in Bend locks their bike. Even the expensive, mountain bike ones.

Everyone has a "Bend Love," Oregon heart, or "Be Nice, You're In Oregon" sticker on their car.
And a roof rack, usually with bikes or kayaks strapped to it.

A deer on the street where the new SubieTech HQ is located! Lots of deer, everywhere.

We're still suffering a little bit of culture shock - I mean, a tamale plate is $9.00 (WTF), and we really must buy an umbrella one of these days - but we're adjusting, and enjoying the change in scenery. We're in for the long haul. This is as good a time as any to announce that we've officially opened up SubieTech Headquarters in Bend, Oregon! Wish us luck!