There is a saying that says ‘If you want to see the China of the past, go to Xi’an. If you want to see the China of today, go to Beijing. If you want to see the China of tomorrow, go to Shanghai.’ So today, we’ll go to the future.
Boats, Trains and Planes: round trip Victoria - Seattle
On the Clipper
We have two young grandsons and wanted to take them on an exciting, but short, trip. A few days in a city might be fun for island kids: a zoo, a museum, the science centre perhaps? But then we stumbled on an idea that would make even the travel itself exciting: boats, trains and a border crossing!
The Clipper, the fast ferry between downtown Victoria and downtown Seattle offers packages on their website. We discovered that we could take the ferry to Seattle, stay in a hotel there, then return by train! The Clipper organized all details.
We made our way to Victoria where we boarded the Clipper in the inner harbour, right across from the Parliament Buildings. The ride takes less than 3 hours. You go through US Customs and Immigration prior to boarding. Because we were taking our grandkids, we had a letter from their parents saying that we were allowed to take the kids across the border. Children don’t need a passport for this land crossing (they DO need it if you are flying back!).
The Clipper has comfortable, assigned seats and offers food and drink. The kids can walk around and we played games at ‘our’ table.
It was fun for all of us to see the San Juan Islands from a different angle and a different side of Seattle as we approached.
Because the ferry docks right downtown, we didn’t even need a taxi to get to our hotel. We had booked a two night package deal through the Clipper and simply walked uphill to the downtown hotel.
The hotel was perfect, with two beds, plenty of space and a pool. The next day we walked to the famous Fisherman’s Wharf where large fish are being tossed through the air at the open market place. We visited our favourite little shop with magic tricks, where the kids’ dad shopped for flaming wallets and fake thumbs when he was their age. Of course we had a coffee at the original, very first, Starbucks on the water front in Seattle.
Seattle’s mono-rail
Riding the mono rail.
Another exciting form of transportation in Seattle was the mono rail. We boarded it not far from our hotel and rode, right up front, to the Space Needle. The Space Needle is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the US. It was built for the 1962 World’s Fair and stands 605 feet tall. The tower’s “top house” offers 360-degree views of downtown, Mount Rainier, Puget Sound, the Cascades and Olympic mountain ranges.
Floating on a glass floor high above Seattle!
The top includes a floor-to-ceiling glass observation deck with open-air glass walls and a rotating glass floor. I opted to stay on solid ground but Kees and the kids zoomed skyward in the elevator and loved walking around, gazing down on Seattle and surrounding area.
Right next to the Space Needle is Pacific Science Center. We spent hours in here, exploring tide pools, shooting water guns, playing with gigantic chess pieces and much, much more. Well worth a visit.
There is also a great, large playground right by the Space Needle and Science Center.
On our second full day in Seattle we rented a car to reach another of Seattle’s iconic landmarks: the Boeing factory. We had booked a tour time online to visit what is, apparently, the largest building in the world, measuring 13,385,378 m³ and covering 98.7 acres! We all enjoyed walking around this operational airplane factory to watch how Boeing airplanes are assembled from engines to wings to seats and everything in between. Be sure to check online if you want a tour because I think it has been closed during Covid. The Future of Flight shows do seem to be open.
Boeing: largest building in the world.
After these days full of excitement, it was great that our hotel had a pool where we could relax before bedtime. On the day of our return trip, we had to get up early and made our way to the Amtrak station. Our package included the return trip by train: Amtrak-Cascades. How exciting to settle into our seats for a different view. This time Washington zoomed by our window as the train clickety-clacked us back up to the Canadian border.
In Amtrak’s dome.
The train was a bit run down and food at the cafeteria cart was very limited so it was good that we brought some of our own lunches and snacks. But it was again great that the kids could move around. We spent much time in the view dome above the regular compartments. The border crossing was painless as US Immigration boarded the train and walked around checking passports while we traveled north.
This entire 3 day trip was something we thoroughly enjoyed. It was a chance to relax, not having to drive, to watch the scenery and explore attractions we had not visited before. With or without kids, this is a tour we highly recommend if you want to explore the Victoria/Seattle area.
RESOURCES:
https://www.clippervacations.com/seattle-victoria-ferry/
https://www.warwickhotels.com/warwick-seattle
https://pacificsciencecenter.org/
https://www.boeing.com/company/tours/
Among Moai on Easter Island
Often, our travel destination is determined by which international school invites me to do author presentations and workshops with their staff and students. And almost always these destinations are fabulous and exciting. But our bucket list contained a few places that we wanted to see without waiting for a school. At the top of our list? Easter Island!
Helping in Honduras
Hong Kong: Jungle of Contrasts
We’re lucky that a friend who lives in Hong Kong, has lend us his condo. Housing is hard to find and expensive in this mass of people: 7.5 million live in this special Administrative Region of China, which measures a mere 1,110 km² (429 mi²). It’s different from mainland China: no need to apply for a visa ahead of time and much easier to enter. Hong Kong is made up of over 260 islands. The major cities are Hong Kong and Kowloon. Most people live vertically: in the many skyscrapers that make up HK’s concrete jungle.
Vatican City: a visit to the smallest country on earth
If Kees hadn’t stayed with Dutch people who run a B&B in Umbria, while hiking the Via Francigena, we would have never found out about a Dutch church right in Vatican City! We couldn’t believe our ears: a Dutch Reformed church within the Vatican, right across from St. Peter’s Cathedral?! Turns out there are some fascinating historic connections here.
Books, Potholes and a Galloping Goose
Prior to Covid we, like many of our friends, flew to far away places for a change of scenery. During the restricted Covid era we mostly stayed home but also tried to find ways of taking safe, local mini-vacations. One of our favourites has been a 6 night get-away very close to home. From the book-town of Sidney, to Victoria, to the Sooke Potholes, we rediscovered the diversity of southern Vancouver Island.
School Visits in Sumatra
The librarian emailed me: “Would you like to come and do school visits? I have 4 schools that would love to have you. We’re across Indonesia.” These are the invitations I dream of. And so we packed our bags and flew to Indonesia to do school presentation in Pekanbaru and Duri on Sumatra, in Surbaya and on Borneo (Kalimantan) in Balikpapan.
Pangani: Paradise Found
After working for 3 weeks in schools, speaking to hundreds of kids each day, and after bumping around the hot and dusty interior of Tanzania, we decided to conclude our time in Africa with a few days on the beach.
Zanzibar had long been on our bucket list. Images of its white beaches and aqua marine water made me drool. However, the more we read about Zanzibar, the less sure we were about going there. It seemed very busy and crowded with 1.5 million people, a plethora of shops, restaurants, vendors, disco’s and bars…
Our travel agent at Mambulu Safaris, knew exactly what we needed. “You’re looking for Zanzibar the way it used to be,” he said, “You should go to Pangani.” No one I asked about it had ever heard of Pangani. But what we read online sounded just like what we were looking for: white beaches, palm trees and warm water.
Amazing Race Italy: Sienna to Pisa
Pisa. Many iconic, world renowned sites can be a let-down when you first see them in person. But the leaning tower of Pisa, to me, was amazing to see in reality. Photos just cannot convey the awe that I felt when I saw the tower. It’s not just leaning… It’s ornate, delicately carved from marble. It’s gleaming white. It’s gorgeous. And it is definitely leaning! Só much so that I am amazed it hasn’t toppled over yet.
Santiago, Chile
Normally, we are very independent travellers and book all of our own arrangements, including flights and accommodations. However, just like in Africa, we felt that our trip to South America merited the knowledge and advise of a specialized travel agency. We found South American Vacations in Florida. They helped us to get to Chile and Ecuador….
Exploring Gwaii Hanas
Timeless Taiwan
A Date in the Desert
I love how much you can learn while traveling, as long as you are curious and ask questions. We recently decided to trade a portion of our wet and windy Pacific Northwest winter for some dry, sunny days in southern California. En route driving south, we suddenly started noticing crooks, curved posts along the highway with… what was it? Was that a bell in top? Or a lantern? We couldn’t tell while zooming past so we stopped to investigate…
Singapore: Asia's Shangri La.
Singapore is a most interesting place: 47% of its land is set aside as parks and includes 1,300 KM of bike and hiking trails. Considering the fact that the total land area is 709.2 sq km, about 3 times the size of Washington DC, setting aside that much green space is quite an accomplishment. The almost 6 million people of this Parliamentary Republic are very diverse.
Exploring Northern Vancouver Island
While restricted to local travel during Covid, we were grateful to live a 20 minute ferry ride from varied Vancouver Island. The book Vancouver Island Vs The World compares world renowned locations to spots found on this island, from waterfalls to beaches, from cities to mountains.
We decided to explore the northern part of the island where we knew we would not encounter many other people.
We started by driving as far north as we could: to the town of Port Hardy. After that we would slowly make our way south while making side trips, exploring places we had not visited before and also some special boat trips.
Rhinos of the Ngorogoro Crater
After having spent time in the fabled Serengeti, we left - albeit reluctantly - we explore our next destination in Tanzania and drove along the cloud laden rim of the Ngorogoro crater. We had heard about and read about this legendary place all of our lives. To finally see the crater in person was pretty overwhelming. We had read so many books about animals of the Serengeti, and accounts by wildlife preservationists. Now we are here…
Greek Island Hopping
After having spend time in and around Athens (link) we are headed for a few of the Greek Isles. With so many islands to choose from, which ones do you pick to visit? We had carefully researched and selected three of the nearly 2,000 Greek Islands. Our choices were based on geography: they had to be near Athens because of our limited time.
Walking Cambodia: A 15 Day Trek
Walking. Perhaps there is no better way to see your surroundings and get to know the locals than when you walk. When we planned our trip to Cambodia, we wanted to see Angkor Wat, Siem Riep, and we wanted to hike.
We came across a website for Cambodia Cycling & Trekking. That appealed to us. The company replied promptly and was very willing to tweak and answer questions. They offered a 15 day trek that included accommodations and luggage transport. The detailed itinerary included things like “Day 3: Siem Reap to Kratie. Breakfast at the hotel, visit Kompong Kdei Bridge, transfer to Santuk Mountain, climb to hilltop pagoda, transfer to Kratie.” What we didn’t realize until we were actually there, is that the ‘transfers’ that day amounted to driving 400 KM. Each day listed the walking distance, ranging from 3 to 17 KM but also included driving to many different regions of the country.
