In high school, I had a poster of Neuschwanstein in Germany on my bedroom wall, rising out of coniferous forest. Again, I stared and stared at the poster and wished that I could enter it!
In college, I wandered around Europe, and at one point, I met up with a college classmate somewhere in Bavaria, and we walked from youth hostel to youth hostel (with occasional stints of hitchhiking) until we walked out of the coniferous forests to...Neuschwanstein!!! One of my dreams come true!!!
Some thirty years later, we drove around the panhandle area of Alaska (near Juneau) and when I saw the coniferous forests and glacial ponds, I felt that I had entered the fake oil painting of my childhood! Another dream come true!!!
Some things were not in my childhood dreams. I was a homely and awkward girl, rarely asked to dance (and I did so love dancing!). So boyfriend, marriage, and children were not on my radar screen at all.
My life was never conventional, but I did end up getting married and having THREE children.
It was a joy bringing up our children. Yes, we certainly had our moments (to put it mildly), especially as they entered junior high and high school, but time erases the bad memories and they grew up to be accomplished adults with good hearts. I remember how sweet they were when they were young, and I was, and still am, very proud of them!
And because of Se Fok's job, we traveled and lived all over the world. This, too, was never in my childhood dreams. But I was always a very adaptable sort, thanks to attending college at Swarthmore, which was full of adaptable and very resourceful people who were my role models. While at Swarthmore, I went camping, canoeing, hiking, and hitchhiking - things I never dreamed of doing while a child in Hawaii. I wandered around Europe on my own, making friends (Scotland) and doing minor jobs (Germany, Norway), allowing me to linger in places longer. I returned to Hawaii and hung out with botany grad students, visiting parts of the islands with wonderful rare plants and birds found nowhere else in the world. At grad school in CA, I met Se Fok and we went camping and hiking all over CA (I learned my lessons well at S'more!) and its neighboring states of AZ, NV, and UT.
Going back to Se Fok's job: besides living in parts of the US that I would never have visited on my own (Beeville, TX, Robinson, IL, Lake Charles, LA), we lived in Indonesia, Egypt, and China.
Our oldest daughter turned 3 in Indonesia, but she was our only child at that time, so we traveled all over the place, by car when we had it (Se Fok's crew shared a car), and by public transportation when we didn't. Again, I was resourceful, thanks to lessons learned from my fellow students at S'more. We went to Yogyakarta, Borobudur, Dieng Plateau, Solo, and many less famous but still absolutely fascinating and beautiful places. For example, Se Fok's crew chief had a car and we did a day trip to a wonderful place that had a huge cave full of bats, and we watched people fishing by throw nets from paddle-less paddleboards. Some Australians had a Hash House Harriers going on - kind of like a jogging club, navigating via a shredded paper trail (often with deliberate dead ends - it was all part of the game) along rice paddy dikes, through villages, tropical orchards, forest, along the beach. Always an adventure, followed by beer drinking cameradie.
In Egypt, we went to Giza (of course), Luxor, Sakkara, the Egyptian Museum (amazing! the FULL King Tut exhibit is there in all its incredible glory, along with the bust of Nefertiti and other famous statuary that graced my Art History books), Khan-al-Khalili (the famous and very colorful Cairo bazaar), and more. Once again, lessons learned from my S'more fellow students (i.e., resourcefulness) came in handy! We wandered the Cairo and Alexandria back alleys, shopped at the local markets, took trams and taxis (cheap if you could speak a little Arabic), and had a grand time!!!
From Egypt, we moved to a small refinery town outside of Shanghai, where our son was born. I walked along the Bund when the Peace Hotel was the only tall building there. We had a refinery-organized trip to Hangzhou. I missed out on a trip to Guilin, and Se Fok still hasn't heard the end of THAT!
Our youngest daughter was born in Beijing, in the late 1980's. China was still very primitive at that time. Beijing was a city of hutongs and bicycles. We went not just to the Great Wall at Ba Da Ling, but also at Mu Tien Yu and some other place, too *we called it "The Great Wall with Water". And we went to a lovely, lovely place called Shi Du, "10 Bridges," full of rice paddies or wheat, depending on the season, water, and impressive karst mountains. We also saw the site of the Peking Man discovery. And much more. We had one nice outing to Thailand just before our youngest was born, visiting Bangkok, Ayuttaya, and Chiang Mai.
But with three young children, we didn't travel too much or too exotically. After returning to the USA in 1990, we went on camping trips, mostly, but they were wonderful! Yellowstone & the Tetons, circumnavigating Lake Michigan (REALLY nice!!!), Colorado Rockies (Rocky Mtn NP, Dinosaur NM, a spectacular raft trip down the Green River, Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, and more), Washington State (Olympic & Mt Rainier NP's), CA (Kings Canyon & Sequoia), and AZ/UT (Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce). We also did a trip out east when our oldest was doing a summer internship in VA, visiting Asseateague and Shenandoah, as well as Washington DC. I also went on many wonderful trips with our son's Cub and Boy Scout troops - the Boy Scout camps (which were surprisingly FUN!), and also a memorable caving trip in southern Indiana, and a week-long canoe trip in the Algonquin area of Canada.
After our children all left for college, Se Fok & I were free to travel more. Not only that, but Se Fok had an overseas assignment in Shanghai, with a special benefit of paid family travel! The budget was small - just $14K for starters, which isn't much for a family of 5. Just one reunion visit would wipe out our travel fund!
But our children didn't always want to travel with us, and I usually was able to score relatively cheap travel by using various combinations of free air tickets or hotel points. We did some wonderful trips to Italy (Milan, Venice, Florence), Spain (Barcelona and Madrid), London, Yucatan (great trip, entire family!), Costa Rica (our son Alex came on this one - a terrific trip using public transportation and horses to get from Monteverde to Arenal to Manuel Antonio), and, best of all, to various relatively unknown (at that time) and beautiful parts of China. Se Fok arranged trips to XinJiang, Yunnan, Zheng Jia Zhe, Jiu Zhai Gou, Huang Long, and Huang Shan. Every place was absolutely OUTSTANDING (but sanitation, not so good - we had some ailments in Yunnan and XinJiang).
I was working full time and thus didn't move to Shanghai. But we had some company furloughs at opportune times, allowing me to do the China travel with Se Fok. I also had some company-paid biz trips of my own, to India, Malaysia, Korea, and Japan, and I took full advantage of my opportunities!!! In India, I visited the Taj Mahal and Jaipur as well as the Red Fort in Delhi. In Malaysia, I went to see the fireflies that blink in unison (read about this when I was in entomology and was thrilled to see it!!!), walked all over KL, and took a bus ride to Malacca. In Korea, I had a free day and I think I covered most of the highlights of Seoul (a palace, a big museum, some other stuff) by bus and by train. I started early in the morning and didn't stop moving until late at night when I collapsed in my hotel bed. In Japan, I covered most of the highlights of Tokyo in a similar manner to Seoul, and went to Kamakura twice, and to Hakone, again early-in-the-morning-until-collapse-in-bed days. PLUS I went jogging every morning, all over the place - saw such wonderful out-of-the-way shrines, little gardens, graveyards, and so much more. Even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Tsukiji fish auction at 5:30 a.m. (work started ca. 8-9 am)
And after being laid off, I was no longer tied to accounting deadlines! I went on a "Silk Road" (XinJiang, but we went to a lot more places via plane & bus) tour with a friend, and to France and Spain (Barcelona and Costa Brava) with some girlfriends. Se Fok & I went to Cambodia, Belgium (ate so well and had such excellent beers!), Holland (saw Keukenhof Gardens in bloom - what an experience!), France (a wonderful joint 60th Bday celebration w/classmates), Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the fall (spectacular!), Turkey (fabulous!), Jordan (also fabulous!), Iceland (cold!), and New Zealand (Milford Track and Routeburn). Also wonderful walking trips in New England (Cape Cod, Maine including Acadia NP, and New Hampshire), Tuscany, and the Philippines.
At the same time, I spent 4 months/year in HNL helping care for my mother, then 6 months in her last year of life. Mom was a good and loving mother, sweet tempered and appreciative. The back and forth to Hawaii (I went for 2 months at a time) took a lot of time & caring for our mom took a lot of mental & physical energy, but I was "young" (in my 60's) at that time so we managed.
These are still on our list:
Italy: Ravenna, Trieste, Puglia, & Girasole's Italian Lakes, Chianti, and Veneto walks
Possible Road Trip to New England, visiting Falling Water en route, possibly classmates in MA
SE Asia: Laos, & more Vietnam
Nepal: I'd like to do a flightseeing trip around the Himalayas
South America: Iguazu Falls, Chile, Peru
England/Wales/Scotland: walking trips, e.g. Cornwall, Wales, possibly Scotland to see MacIntosh architecture
Africa: a safari
Other: Galapagos, perhaps more of South America? (but I'd need to learn Spanish first!)
Don't expect to do everything. Alex has gone to Africa - he was our eyes. Anela went to Manchu Picchu - she was our eyes (we get altitude sickness in our old age). Keala has traveled extensively too - we will go w/her to Japan.
We do find that we like trips with lots of walking, whether in interesting cities, or outdoors. We usually take public transportation, though as I get older, my mind has been slowing down so I may eventually segue over to tours. Currently I make arrangements for air travel, hotels, and ground transportation (public), and book day tours when I think they are necessary (e.g. in Cappadocia, Turkey, where you need a car to get to many of the sights). In Europe, I usually sign up for walking tours. We see a lot more that way.
SF's company was shut down by its owners at the end of 2016 which worked out perfectly for us. SF was 68 at that time. After spending a few months working out the logistics of unemployment, pension, severance, etc., SF was truly free, so we covered still more places on our bucket list: many parts of Italy on foot (Dolomites, Cinque Terre, Amalfi, Umbria, Sicily), the Naples region including Pompei, Pasteum, and more, and many beautiful towns and cities. We did a walking/biking trip in Myanmar (before the country closed again), combined with a wonderful trip to northern Vietnam with our children. We walked Laugavegur in Iceland - spectacular, but again, too cold for me! We did several legs of the Mt. Blanc hike in Italy and France. We also had a wonderful hiking/train trip to Switzerland.
The world is a wonderful place, and at first, I felt that the more we saw, the longer our bucket list became. However, now that we are in our 70's, we are slowing down and no longer anxious to see so many things. Covid taught us that we could find joy in small things even within the confines of our condo - a very important lesson (thankfully everyone in our families survived so far). Post-covid, we kind of went crazy with travel once we were vaccinated, starting with midwestern road trips throughout most of 2021 (surprisingly interesting and enjoyable!), and using up some airline credits with a trip to Alaska (Denali & Seward - but although Alaska is wild and beautiful, my conclusion was that it, like Iceland, is too cold for me). In 2022, more midwestern road trips and several terrific domestic trips, including southern CA early in the year where we visited SF's sibs, and also AZ in the spring. We also did walking trips in Ireland & Northern Ireland, and a very nice walking/touring trip to Sicily, partly with Sharon & Bruce. But 2023 is when we went wild, booking NINE trips - 4 international (Maremma, France, central Europe, Japan), and 5 domestic including a 3+ wk trip to HNL/Kauai, New Mexico w/J-F, a road trip down the central OR coast (one of our fav trips, w/tide pools, and walks amidst cathedral-like coastal rain foest), and two shorter trips to WI and NYC. The France & central Europe trips were especially exhausting, mentally.
So, rather than getting longer, our bucket list is now getting shorter.
These are still on our list:
Italy: Ravenna, Trieste, Puglia, & Girasole's Italian Lakes, Chianti, and Veneto walks
Possible Road Trip to New England, visiting Falling Water en route, possibly classmates in MA
SE Asia: Laos, & more Vietnam
Nepal: I'd like to do a flightseeing trip around the Himalayas
South America: Iguazu Falls, Chile, Peru
England/Wales/Scotland: walking trips, e.g. Cornwall, Wales, possibly Scotland to see MacIntosh architecture
Africa: a safari
Other: Galapagos, perhaps more of South America? (but I'd need to learn Spanish first!)
Don't expect to do everything. Alex has gone to Africa - he was our eyes. Anela went to Manchu Picchu - she was our eyes (we get altitude sickness in our old age). Keala has traveled extensively too - we will go w/her to Japan.
We do find that we like trips with lots of walking, whether in interesting cities, or outdoors. We usually take public transportation, though as I get older, my mind has been slowing down so I may eventually segue over to tours. Currently I make arrangements for air travel, hotels, and ground transportation (public), and book day tours when I think they are necessary (e.g. in Cappadocia, Turkey, where you need a car to get to many of the sights). In Europe, I usually sign up for walking tours. We see a lot more that way.
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