Goodbye 2019

Here's to the roaring 2020s!

Central District bike ride

From today's "favorite places" Cascade ride.

Cranberry tart

Successfully tried a new holiday recipe. Splendid red

Reveille balade en velo

It's colder than I expected but dry, so I did a little circuit on the Ship
canal trail. Took Fiorello as my touring bike has a flat. I rode Gulliver for the first time bin many months, so pumping up both tires must have caused the rear tube to bust.

Buche de Noel

Not as elegant as a real one from France but my favorite Xmas cake.

Solstice +1

Let there be light.

Winter solstice at Pacific Bonsai Museum

The flooding rain has stopped and tomorrow the days start to get longer. "Youth on Age" or perhaps it's "Age on Youth".

Bonsai’d in 1915

Mountain hemlock

The architecturally innovative Weyerhaeuser headquarters in Federal Way

Army Corps crane boat’s been salvaging tree trunks

Dry outbound, wet inbound

Well it's December 19. What do you expect?

Floating Christmas tree

The kayaks gliding in Green Lake are my favorite

Buche at Byen Bakeri

So understated

Dunk proof kayak lights

Green lake pathway of lights

It’s a blue Christmas without you

Almost home from JFK

Perhaps Glacier Peak.

In a Colombian bakery in Jackson Heights

Beautiful Christmas Wreath

I hope serenity comes again in 2020.

Giant baby Jesus in a Jackson Heights carneceria

Headed to Queens for wreath making

Something for a return visit

I picked this up at HKG. I've heard that HK is good for hiking and maybe biking (not on the crazy downtown streets though)

Sunday brunch in HK with a view

On Nathan Road

Spectacular bamboo scaffolding

1913-era wholesale fruit market

It's quiet and offering retail sales on early Sunday afternoon. Gorgeous fruit from Japan, Australia, and beyond. We bought 3 passionfruits for $HK 10. Yum

$HK 120 prayer lanterns

Yau Ma Tei temple

Enroute to the wholesale fruit market and Shopping in a crammed Shanghai Street kitchenware shop, a quick
visit inside the incense smoky C19th goddess of the sea temple.

BBQ porked stuffed baked dim sum at the Intercontinental for brunch

A Shanghainese 2-bite specialty. Deliciously crispy, with its 3-pronged base dusted with sesame seeds.
Reminds me of Shanghai at Christmas in 2014.

The old marine police headquarters

Now called "1881" although it dates from 1883, but "3" is apparently unlucky, it's been redeveloped as another high end shopping precinct. From my 14th floor hotel room, I could watch the wedding parties doing photo shoots in the fairy lighted rooftop
garden. It's packed with stores like Chanel and Tiffany, with big bank UBS looming, appropriately for HK, overhead.
Back in the C19th the noontime cannon, marking GMT, let it rip across the harbor from here.

My December 1 Sunday morning walk in Tsim Sha Tsui

Visiting Hong Kong during this time of unrest is a curious experience. There's plenty of "quick 'n' dirty" graffiti related to the anti-government sentiment here. It pops up, is promptly whitewashed, and more protest comments move to new walls.