2024.6.23-6.24. Oslo, Norway

6/22, Saturday. 7pm fly to Oslo. Icelandic Air is cheap, but the fastest (better route). Costed me 42500 Alaska Airline miles. No free seat selection, no snacks. Even headset costs $3.5. Water, tea, coffee, juice is free.

6/23, Sunday. Transfer in Reykjavik. Fields of blue lupine by the runway. KEF airport has long seats with no armrest: good to lie down. Airport has no view at all. Seems very flat outside. No concourse. We piled onto a bus, then walk up to the plane. Our flight to Reykjavik got in late, but the connecting flight waited for us. Arrived at Oslo on time, ~3:30pm.

At the VY (national train) ticket booth, someone took/stolen my partner's purse with cash, on the counter. NOK 124, 23 minutes, with one extra stop, every 20 minutes. There is a fast train, 21 min, but costs NOK 240. We got off at National Theatre, short walk to our hotel. Hotel Verdandi has self checkin, a small magnetic machine to program the room key card. Our room is small, so cheap (under $100/day). However, quite clean, efficient. The location is perfect.

It's surprising warm in Oslo, in the 20s°C (70s°F). Walked out to the city along Karl Johan gate. Two long rows of large flowering planters. Quite pretty. Parlement is closed by then (after 5pm). Nice fountains and pools. Many tourists.

Continued walking east, until the harbor. Walked up the Opera House on this wide walkway for a very good view. When we got back down to the waterfront, more and more people were converging. Asked around. There's a mid-summer bonfire, starting around 6:30pm. So we waited with all the rest. It took some time for the fire to catch up enough for all the see. More smoke than actual fire.

Walking back along the waterfront, around Akershus Fort, to the ferry terminal. Saw the building for Nobel Peace price.

6/24, Monday. Another sunny and warm day. Didn't get up early. Took a ferry (NOK104/RT) to Bygdøy Peninsular for the museums. Other museums in the city center are closed today. It's a pleasant and short ride, terminal close to the hotel.

Got off at the first stop for the Folk Museum (NOK180). 3 (somewhat connected) buildings with artifacts (clothing, furniture, earthware, religious items) in exhibition. The essense of this museum is the old homes transported here. Many have plants growing out of their roofs. Most of them are locked, unable to see inside. Quite a few are on stilts. They are not very old, 17-18 century, and very much restored. One of the oldest here is the stave church. Looks new-ish to my eyes. Once an hour, there's a short (~10 min) performance at this intersection. Employees here are dressed in traditional outfits, quite pretty. Even a group of kids in timed costums at this school house.
My most recent memory of a folk museum is the one near Cardiff, which has older houses, more varied, and larger ground.

Walked to the cluster of 3 museums near the 2nd ferry stop. You can purchase combo tickets for these: 1 for NOK140, 2 for NOK250, 3 for NOK350. We chose to see Kontiki and Fram, both are inspirational.

Kon-tiki museum exhibits not just Kon-Tiki expedition (a 1947 journey on raft crossing Pacific from Peru to the Polynesian islands) but also Ra #2 (1970 journey on papyrus crossing Atlantic from Morocco to Caribean). Kon-tiki sailed for 101 days with a crew of 5 Norwegians + 1 Swedish on Humboldt Current. Ra II sailed with an international crew, sailing on Canary Current.

Fram museum is on polar exploration. So many explorers that I hadn't heard of. Fram was designed to be frozon in the Arctic ice sheet. This Fridtjof Nansen's expedition drifted with the ice for 3 years. Nanthan produced many sketches of the ship and surrounding landscape. The ship is large. We were allowed to walk inside and on the deck. Another ship in the museum is Gjoa, slightly smaller. Amundsen sailed it through Northwest Passage in 1905. We can also walk onto this ship. The museum exhibits other polar explorations (including the race to South Pole by Amundsen and Scott), as well as original arts by Nansen.

Took the same ferry back. At the dock, saw some barnacle and pink footed geese.

Near the ferry dock, along the waterfront, lined with restaurants and bars, open terraces. A lot of people. We had dinner at Robua restaurant. Tried the Taste of Norway (skewer of 4 meats: reindeer, deer, beef, whale, ~$55), and a game stew (reindeer, moose, mushroom ~$40). Both were decorated with lingonberry. Quite tasty, expensive. Beer: ~$13.

6/25, Tuesday. SAS flight to Longyearbyen. The ticket I bought includes lounge access for the outbound leg (a different class). So, this is where we had breakfast, After inquiring at lost and found, registered a search at missingX.

We will be spending the next 2 weeks on an ice-breaker named M.V.Ortelius, visiting Svalbard's various islands.

2024.6.22. Day of Music - Benaroya Hall

6/22, Saturday. A community Day of Music to celebrate Benaroya Hall's 25th year. Time flies. I remember it being built. Krishna Thiagarajan, CEO of Seattle Symphony and Benaroya Hall was giving a short speech.

My favorite performance group is the Rocketeers swing dance. The Morning Star Korean dance group has the most colorful and varied costumes.
The Metropolitan Fashion walk is fun to watch. Those costumes are outrageous. Had to leave before the end, for I'm flying to Oslo this evening.

Walking home, happened to see this street fair, called Cutie Pride. Everything is cute. One India girl was doing a standup comedy, she's quite good.

2024.6.21. Painting workshop

6/21. A free event in the Summer Series by Shunpike, at 2+U. A lady from Brown Girl Charcuterie brought beautifully packaged snacks and non-alcoholic drink. The artist teaching the class today is Marisol Ortega. She prepared acrylic paints, fresh paint bushes of 3 different sizes, cups of water and napkins to clean. Easel and stretched canvus for us. She also prepared a print with a flower/vase design outlined in pencil for us to reference. Maybe about 10 participants. All women. Later, a guy came, mainly letting his 2 young daughters play with colors, also advertising an event next weekend. This is my first time using acrylic. Feels like oil. It drys quite fast. My final result is quite ugly. I'm unable to draw anything from memory/imagination.

2024.6.18. Tiger 3 + Smith Tower

6/18, Tuesday. Cloudy -> sunny. No excercise last weekend, I need to pub some workout in, especially that I don't foresee any serious excercise in the next 2.5 weeks. Also, I need to test my new hiking boots. Decided to go up to Tiger. Didn't get up early. By the time I reached Jakob Two Trees, it was ~10:20pm. So a lot of people.

Only went up to Tiger 3. Brand new log bench at the summit. 12:05pm. Chatted with the 2 lady in my photo. They've never gone to Tiger 2. This surprised me. Due to time constraint, I didn't go to Tiger 2 today. Rather cloudy, not much of a view. My new cellphone carrier (Visible by Verizon) has no coverage here. This also surprised me, because cell towers are on Tiger 2.

More flowers than all my previous trips here. Carpets of minor's lettuce, speedwell near the summit. Lots of sinky bob at all elevations, daisy and foxglove at lower elevations, especially in the open under the powerlines. A few remaining bleeding hearts with seedpods.

Had to respond a couple of Slack messages during the hike. I came back to Issaquah's Community cCnter to use the restroom. Google routes me on the east side of the high school. Not as pleasant as walking on the Rainier Trail, where Jakob is. Seems the same distance. Had a Zoom meeting 2-3pm. I took the meeting half at the community center, half on the bus back.

Alliance for Pioneer Square hosts a happy hour at Smith Tower today 2:30-4:30. I haven't been up there since I first volunteered with Seattle Architecture Foundation, 10+ years ago. After picking up a ticket at the cafe/bar downstairs, followed the sign through many exhibitions. I made a mistake not looking at these, because the exit is to a different door, completely bypasses all the exhibitions. Took the elevator to the 22nd floor, the "Lookout Lounge and Deck". Checked in with this girl on the left of the photo. Bar is on the right of the photo. Later, she also gave me a small bottle of honey made by the beehives out on this very deck. (The hives were taken down just a couple of weeks ago). Drinks, charcuterie, chicken skewer (too tough), macaroni and cheese (good, but need salt, which goes well with the salty charcuterie). When I arrived ~3:30, it's quite empty here. Turns out most of the guest are out on the deck. Suddenly, they all filed in: to refill their glasses.

I went out to the deck. Now, too much sunshine now, especially compared to this morning. After 1 beer, I asked for a mocktail, but they ran out.

2 beers later, stuffed and light-headed, I rode the elevator up to the top floor observation deck. The elevator that goes to the top floor is shutdown. So everyone had to walk 3 more flights. I'm not sure if they serve food here. Drink flows readily. There're chairs and tables agains the window. So when you are outside walking around, these people are stairing at you. I walked the 360° fenced walkway surrounding the building, each side has 1 or 2 plaques explaining what you are watching.

Walked home ~5pm.

2024.6.17. Intel AI workshop at CVPR

6/17, Monday. This week is Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition annual conference. I actually didn't know that until I received an email from one of the many meetup groups I'm a member of. Went to this workshop organized by Intel. They are promoting their AI ready chips and to show off this chip, they created various software tools that are in demo today.

One of them is OpenVino toolkit, completely open source, made to run on local machine with limited resources. Here, you can see the 512x512 image produced from my prompt. This is its 4th try which I liked. The previous 3 are nice too. It took a little over 5 seconds. Quite fast. A poet with a typewriter and some writing paper with onion fiber sat at a corner. He can type up a poem at your request, and then you can feed the poem to OpenVino to get an image. Another demo is by Voxel 51 for animal classification. There is aother vision demos built in house at Intel.

The workshop is only 30 minutes long. They ran it twice in the same afternoon. I went there late, so joined the 2nd group, which was maybe 8 people (only occupied 1/3 of the seats). 30 minutes is barely enough to go through each step, but no time understanding it, or even looking through the code. At the end, we were given a "dev-kit", basically a new Asus NUC (with a so-called AI chip), and 2 drink tickets. If you want to take this NUC home, need to sign an agreement (so no re-selling, or commercial use, allow Intel to contact us). Food was laid out just before this 2nd workshop, available to all, with or w/o attending the workshop. Later, they brought out some calamari.

6/20, Thursday evening. The same guy who organized this Monday workshop hosts a happy hour at the same place (Fonte Bar at Rainier Tower). I arrived late, almost no food was left. Drink tickets were given out at will. Good that I ate before coming over. A lot more people (most with conference badge). Same demos, but no workshop.

2024.6.15. Phoenix Children's Chorus

6/15, 7pm. Phoenix Children's Chorus performed in Seattle on their last concert of PNW tour (after Vancouver, Portland, Corvalis) before flying home. 90+ kids, 2 percussionists, 2 conductors, 1 pianist. They are surprisingly good. Full of enthusiasm. Very orderly. I especially like the song about time/clock, which has no instrument accompaniment. Seattle Girls Choir joined them singing the last song "Why We Sing". «Why we sing»
music: Greg Gilpin

A sound of hope, a sound of peace,
a sound that celebrates and speaks what we believe.
A sound of love, a sound so strong,
it’s amazing what is given when we share a song

This is why we sing, why we lift our voice,
why we stand as one in harmony!
This is why we sing, why we lift our voice,
take my hand and sing with me!

Sooth a soal, mend a heart, bring together lives
that have been torn apart.
Share the joy, find a friend,
it’s a never – ending gift that circles back again.

This is why we sing, why we lift our voice,
why we stand as one in harmony!
This is why we sing, why we lift our voice,
take my hand and sing with me!

Music builds a bridge, it can tear down a wall!
Music is a language, that can speak to one and all!
This is why we sing, why we lift our voice,
why we stand as one in harmony!
This is why we sing, why we lift our voice,
take my hand and sing with me!
This is why we sing, we sing, WE SING!


I thouroughly enjoyed this hour of music. The only minor gripe is that whenever there is soloist, the group sang too loud. The part that I couldn't make out is how the kids' position is arranged. They seem to know exactly where they stand, but to me, all looks random: a small child may be standing right behind a tall kid, boys and girls completely mixed up. The middle school group has very few boys, maybe 3. The high school group has more even participation.

2024.6.13. Solar prints with Cyanotype

6/13, Thursday, lunch time, Occidental Square. I went an event on maps organized by Coco Allred of Drawing Herd on May 23rd, and liked it. She hosts various arts & craft events all over the town, partnering with different artists and artisans. The May map event featured John Loacker, owner of Metskers, the iconic map store in Pike Place Market, the 3rd generation map maker of Kroll Map.

Today, I walked to Pioneer Square to "harnest solar power". The lady (sorry, I forgot her name) who does these solar prints already coated the cards in Cyanotype last night. There were 2 flowering plants, various dried leaves and flowers, some cloths. We can clip fresh plants, or use any of these materials. Arrange a pattern on a card, clipped on a board so the arragement is fixed (not blown away by wind). Let it sit in the sun for 5-7 minutes. Then, rinse it in clear water. The coated paper is white, but once fixed by sun, it turns blue. It's fun to see what others are making. A few passers-by stopped to make some prints without knowing this before. The security guard also made a print. He's the one who brought water.

These random events (thanks to the artists, the city's commitment to art budget) are what made me live in downtown Seattle, willing to pay more for a tiny abode, and put up the trash, the crazies, the noise.

2024.6.9. Denny Mountain + Easton Ridge

Back on Thursday (6/6), O.K. and I were preparing for a 2-day climb of Mount Garibaldi Because O.K. had some appointment on Friday, we couldn't get to Canada until the evening, which means camp on Saturday, and summit on Sunday morning. Around midnight when I checked the weather again, 20% shower was predicted on Saturday evening - Sunday morning, and thunderstorm on Sunday. When I woke up Friday, I was informed that the search of 3 missing climber in Mount Garibaldi area was suspended previous evening due to avalanche risk. We've had loads of snowfall last weekend and early this week, and then sudden warm weather. The forecast called for 30% rain now. All of these didn't bode well, and I bailed.

O.K. suggested Big Jim. The weather forecast was similar, similar distance and EG, + bushwacking, no crevasse, less drive. Doesn't look appealing to me. Then she told me that she may need to be home Saturday morning for a contractor, so we agreed to discuss later Saturday. I went to Teneriffe on bus. That's enough workout for a week. So, I suggested a flower hike (Easton Ridge), where weather doesn't matter much, based on this trip report on 6/6. Of course, she discarded this idea, she wants to bag a peak. We agreed on meeting up later Saturday and look for a less risky day-climb.

6/8, Saturday, O.K. text me from Alpental, and suggested Denny Mountain, which is in Alpental. Forecast is cloudy, 20% precipitation after 3pm. No thunderstorm.` 2 miles 2500', sounds easy. She arrived at my home ~8:30pm, from Alpental, after climbing Avalanche Mountain. I don't understand this driving back-and-forth. Why not just camp at Alpental area?

6/9 Sunday. We got up at 6am, as suggested by O.K. She forgot her wallet, and then I forgot my hiking pole. By the time we drove off, it was 6:50am. Parked in the big empty lot of the ski area. Less than 10 cars this early, will be almost full when we got back. We headed out ~7:50am.

First followed the road up the ski slope. It's wide but rough, with creek running in the middle. We kept on the road for too long. Turned left fairly high on fairly steep snowy slope. A bit of bushwacking at time. Once at the end of the Amstrong Express lift, continued flat-ish, to Edleweiss Lift. The lift goes above some cliff, which we had to route to its left. You can see O.K. in this photo.

At the top of Edleweiss Lift, it's again a small flat area. Turn left to go up to Denny. This is somewhat steep, but not too much. See this photo to the right. We left spikes at the bottom of the rocks. Climbed up the base of the rocks. O.K. explorered a crack, but she didn't find a way up. I went in and found a crack to the left which we could squeeze by. I had to take off my day-pack, and dragged it behind me. Once out of the crack, there's straighforward scramble. In the photo to the left, you can see O.K. inside this crack. On the way down, I picked a different route, without going though the crack. The big cube rock that made a crack has an iron cable all around it. Hold this, you can also go around.

The summit offers 360° view, including the cellphone tower. The cable is to ancher the cell tower! I ate my sandwich on the summit. OK left her pack below the crack, so she went down earlier.

Took the same way down to the top of Armstrong Express. OK continued our booktrap down. I instead tried to follow the track I downloaded, which connects to the summer trail. We agreed to meet at the car. I went down, more or less below Armstrong Express' lifts. Managed to find the summer track. It wasn't obvious, especially its higher reach was still in the snow. I arrived at the parking lot quite a bit sooner.

It was still early. Not yet 1pm. Sun was out. Olga suggested that we go to my recommended flower hike. So we did. But I didn't plan to go to 2 hikes, only brought 1L water, now half gone. We stopped at the WDOT restroom to clean up a bit. No drinking fountain. One server at the attached gift shop was very nice. Filled our water bottle. Then we drove half an hour east to Easton Ridge TH.

The small TH parking can fit ~8 cars. Saw at least 4 cars parked in small pullouts along the 1 mile dirt road leading to the TH. In early afternoon, people are usually done hiking. We found a spot in the shade. It was getting hot. Thankfully, you start in the shade here.

This TH is shared by multiple trails. Turn right and go down to cross Silver Creek, both Baldy Mt and Easton Ridge, which shared the first 1.3 mile and 1100'. Right before the bridge over the creek, there's a nice area for camp. Would be lovely in summer: shade, next to the creek.

After the trail split, it continues to go up. Less shade now. Once awhile open view to the Kachess Lake. Saw some strange quarry (green-ish chemical color), and 2 stretches of long rectangular tree-lined space. The higher we went, the more flowers. Saw many species. A lot of lomatium, larkspur, white phlox. Even trillium and balsamroot (only one clump). Tons of silvercrown (but not in bloom yet). Some species of lewisia. Some chocolate lily, white current, velarium, glacier lily (almost all withered). Saw a few snowy douglasia (endemic). Most notable is small blue-eyed Mary. Millions of them. See the background of this sicklepod rockcress. It's a treat. Funny that O.K. didn't see any until I showed one to her. Then she said "Oh, they are everywhere". We "bagged" the highpoint of the ridge, Point 4518. Rocky, good view. O.K. continues to another point, a bit lower, not far. I walked back, finding a shady spot to air my socks and boots (a bit wet due to the snow). It's quite warm here.

Back the same way to the car. By the time we reached the car, it was ~5:35pm. Only 2 more car in the parking lot.

Stopped in North Bend for dinner. O.K. wanted Thai. Other than fried rice, she ordered Thai ice tea w/o ice. A bit odd, but they complied. In the photo, it's my dinner.