We spent three months on retreat in 2018, so this post will just include new photos of the hermitage. (You can read about our first experience in our blog - scroll half way down.) The beautiful Meditation Hall had a new Tibetan rug.
At the back of the Hall on a small alter were a number of female statues including Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion.
This is Virañani, another teacher of ours. We first met her in Burma in 2013 and most recently saw her in 2018, so it was wonderful to reconnect with her.
Bougainvillea thrives in Hawaii.
Pete liked the gladiolas in the foreground with majestic palm trees behind.
The previous banana trees had been wiped out by a blight, so new trees had been planted in another spot. Behind them is the interview gazebo where we each met with a teacher every three days, which was the only time we spoke while on retreat.
The bird of paradise plants also thrive in Hawaii. The view from this part of the property is down to Wailea.
We liked the torii gate on the property because it reminded us of Japan. Towards the end of our two months, we started speaking again and using computers to help us acclimate to regular daily life.
We flew to San Diego to spend time with Kristina's folks. We went to the Japanese Garden. Patty and Kristina posed next to the Bodhisattva of compassion statue there; In Japanese Buddhism he is male and named Kannon.
The garden had been expanded since we last visited and it's really lovely. Patty had knee replacement surgery in June, but she had no trouble crossing the creek via the stone path.
Pete snapped a selfie to show the small waterfall.
Apart from the Portland Japanese Garden, San Diego's garden is the nicest we've seen outside of Japan.
The next day the four of us went to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Patty had to stand on tiptoes to reach the mother bat's face and Kristina was practically lying down to reach the baby bat's face, but it was worth it for the funny photo.
The park had also expanded a lot since our last visit. We wanted to check out the Australian Walkabout exhibit because we had traveled in Australia with Patty and Bill in 2018 (kangaroo photos are halfway down in that blog).
A highlight of the day was seeing this lion.
This majestic animal walked around, marking his territory,
Here his mouth is open so he's likely smelling.
Pete took this selfie while we waited for the Africa Tram to start rolling.
The cool thing about the Safari Park is getting close to the animals like this giraffe while they are roaming about in large enclosures.
Roan antelope were abundant.
As were the striped forest antelope.
We really enjoyed watching these elephants and talking with a volunteer. She explained that the three adult females had been born in a South African national park around 1990. They were scheduled to be culled but escaped death and were brought by airplane to the Safari Park in 2003.
The mother Ndulamitsi gave birth most recently in August 2018 to Zuli.
Zuli was having some trouble coordinating his trunk to eat this large leaf but he eventually ate it all.
And this is mother Umngani with her daughter Kaia, who is just over one year old. The Safari Park has had tremendous success with their breeding programs.
This southern bald ibis is also from Africa. We had a wonderful time exploring the park.
We left San Diego and drove up to the Bay Area. We spent a few days with Pete's sister Csilla and our brother-in-law Dale. This is Haku, their grand dog, who loves to swim and chase balls.
Csilla and Dale's house gets wonderful sunset views, although this time the Kincade fire was causing the bright orange color.
Next we went to Kristina's cousin Cynthia's house to take care of Emilio and Julian while their parents went on a yoga retreat. We took Emilio to Bentley High School's open house so he could see what he thought of it. He jumped into the science experiment that freshman Julia was leading and figured out the correct hypothesis for the experiment.
Emilio showed us how he had outgrown this t-shirt of his (we think he's grown about two inches since we saw him last).
Pete joked that Emilio could still wear his t-shirt for many more years if he would adopt the tight-fitting look!
We really enjoyed hanging out with Emilio. Here he is wearing his Dad's glasses and posing like his dad Humberto.
We made a vegan pate as an appetizer to share with Cynthia and Humberto when they returned.
We met our friend and durian tour leader Lindsay to buy a sampler pack of Filipino durian that she had shipped to San Francisco.
We couldn't wait to dig into our first durian from the Phillipines, which included:
- Arancillo: White-fleshed and sticky, with a burnt-sugar sweetness that can lean toward coffee
- Duyaya: Bright pinkish-orange and very smooth, with a berry taste rimmed with lingering bitter
- Puyat: Rich heavy yellow-orange cream with a pungent sweet-and-bitter Chanee taste.
Our friends Connie and Günter introduced us to Seedlip when we stayed with them in Düsseldorf. We tried another flavor of distilled 'gin', this time with ginger and orange.
And we shared it in mocktails with our friends Paul and Julie. It was great to catch up with them while we took a hike from their house in the El Cerrito Hills.
We spent a few days in our old San Francisco neighborhood, Bernal Heights.
This was the view from the top of Bernal Hill.
As we we saw maple trees with beautiful fall foliage.
It was fun to be in our old neighborhood over Halloween, which goes all out for the holiday. This one included an important reminder that even prom queens have to die.
Our Airbnb host lent us some costumes so we would fit in as we walked around.
The next day we went downtown to check out the Salesforce Transit Center that replaced the Transbay Terminal. The Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco, completely dwarves the Transit Center.
Called "Grand Central Station of the West" by proponents, the Transit Center lets light in through huge skylights like this one, the tallest of which is 36 meters.
Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, our favorite detail was the lacy exterior 'skin' of the building that also lets light into the space.
But the best part of the new transit center is the four block long public park that is also a living roof over the bus depots.
The signs said the five acre park has 600 trees and 16,000 plants arranged in 13 different botanical feature areas. It was a beautiful garden to stroll around.
Lots of people were also enjoying the park for lunch, with its many benches and tables.
Next we spent a week in Forestville and were able to hike in Armstrong Woods most mornings.
We learned about the vision of Colonel Armstrong, a lumberman who saved these redwoods from the saw mill by not logging it in the 1870s. In 1917 Sonoma County purchased the 800 acres and turned it into a park.
This is the icicle tree, named for its draped burls.
What is left of the roots of a giant now makes a great climbing structure for kids and an interesting background for photos.
It puts things in perspective to look up almost 100 meters and still not see the treetops.
How many people would it take to hug this tree? Pete plus at least four more.
We drove through Yosemite, stopping to hike at Lake Tenaya.
It was cold and clear, so we bundled up for our hike on the shady side of the lake.
At first there was a little bit of wind that could be seen in the lake water.
But it calmed down and Pete was thrilled to be able to capture the mountains and trees' reflections so clearly in the lake.
We left our car in Las Vegas and flew to Denver to take yoga classes at Sol Movement. We didn't take any yoga photos, but we did work up a big appetite. Kristina looks ready to devour the buckwheat pancakes.
Here's a closer look to show the toppings of cranberries, granola, whipped vegan butter and syrup.
We visited a nearby cat cafe and played with the cats for an hour.
We met up with Pete's cousins Diana, Alex, Everett and Bailey at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. Here is Bailey with Dory in the Pixar exhibit.
We all enjoyed learning how Pixar makes its animated films. Both Everett and Kristina agreed that Walle was a favorite character.
And who doesn't love Edna Mode from the Incredibles?!
But Pete dahling still needs to work on his pout if he's going to be as cool as Edna.
We checked out the Extreme Sports exhibit. Here Everett is beating Kristina at a simulation exhibit where we tried to line up our bodies with the bodies on the screen.
No surprise he did the Ninja course in record time. We had lots of fun with them.
As we were leaving the museum there was a beautiful sunset.
In Denver we came across this creative little library made from an old refrigerator.
We liked the painted stones and the encouragement to read.
It was chilly but we had enough layers to stay warm.
We flew to Washington, DC and the colors of fall were everywhere.
We saw the Capitol building amongst the colorful trees.
We walked a lot in DC. Pete liked the look of the arches at Union Station.
In June it will be the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage and lots of museums had exhibits commemorating the long struggle to win the right to vote. This is the Belmont-Paul Museum, which was the headquarters of the National Woman's Party (NWP).
This cat is wearing a hat like Alva Belmont, who gave the building to the NWP.
This is a bust of Alice Paul, a Quaker who lead the NWP in the successful fight for the 19th Amendment and later unsuccessfully for the Equal Rights Amendment. She favored using militant tactics based on the British suffragettes.
The NWP authored 600 pieces of legislation from this building, and was able to pass 300 of them.
Once Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1818, it was then up to the states to ratify it.
So women went on road trips, pushing for states to ratify the 19th amendment.
The National Portrait Gallery had an exhibit too. It focused on artwork about the changing views of women, and here the three farmers look critical of the woman wearing bloomers and riding a bike.
The art deco influence is clear in this image, which could be in the Bay Area with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
We were thrilled to be able to meet Congresswoman Katie Porter for coffee while we were in DC. We had worked on her 2018 primary campaign.
Katie's three kids are now going to school in Virginia, and her oldest son Luke was spending the day with his mom when we got together. We are thrilled with the wonderful job she is doing in DC!
Congresswoman Porter was one of the first people to push for impeachment in the House. The impeachment hearings were in progress while we were in DC but we only saw the line to sit in. We passed by this display as we walked in DC.
We walked past the Supreme Court building.
At the National Portrait Gallery, we enjoyed Nelson Shanks’s The Four Justices painting.
We checked out The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today exhibit. Kristina's favorite was Claudia Patricia Gómez González (Reminder to Remember) by Patrick Martinez that memorializes the 20 year old Guatamalan Maya who was shot and killed by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent in 2018.
This is a portrait of Nobel Prize Winner and unparalleled writer Toni Morrison by Robert McCurdy. We learned that, "He seeks an image that has no implied past or future but exists in the eternal present."
A highlight of our trip was the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It opened in 2016.
Set in the National Mall, the Washington Monument was visible from the upper floors, where the cultural exhibits are.
Here's a close up of the exterior scrim with geometrical patterns based on historic iron grilles found in African-American communities in Charleston and New Orleans.
The building has five stories above ground and five stories below, which house the fantastic history exhibits. It took us two days to go through all the history exhibits. This is the Monumental Staircase that leads from the lower level up to the ground floor.
Alvin Hollingworth's Trapped from 1965 demonstrates the detrimental impact of redlining that prevented loans from being made to less affluent urban African-American communities during the '30s.
We had dinner with our friends Colin and Jon. They suggested the Fancy Radish, where we shared a delicious vegan meal. The last time we saw them was March of 2018 during sakura season in Kyoto.
We started with rutabaga fondue that was creamy and delicious.
The pastrami spiced carrots had wonderful flavor.
Of course we wanted to try the fancy radishes dish, which looked like seared scallops atop yuzu avocado with pickled vegetables.
We knew they would enjoy this Japanese book, with the translated title Misao the Big Mama and Fukuaru the Cat. We had a great time talking about traveling with Colin and Jon.
Colin recommended we try Little Sesame for vegan Middle Eastern food. It was a great suggestion.
Little Sesame even offers sesame soft serve: dark chocolate Turkish coffee and vanilla swirl with soom soom cookies and cocoa nibs.
Another day we went for Ethiopian food at Ethiopic. This is the vegetarian sampler. Not pictured is the injera bread made from teff flour that we used to scoop up the vegetables.
Jon and Colin told us about the National Museum of Women's Arts, dedicated to only women artists. This is Acid Rain by Chakaia Booker and it's made of tires.
The Stags from 2008 by Patricia Piccinini features two mutated scooters as living creatures sparring like bucks in the wild. The artist questions what the outcome might be as humanity and technology become more entwined.
We walked through the Library of Congress to see the impressive Reading Room.
Here's what the domed ceiling looked like.
The foyer was impressive too.
Here's Pete with the Capitol building behind him.
Towards sunset the clouds were really striking. We are grateful for our time in DC.
Next we head to New York City.
