Spring! Oregon 2013

I came to Oregon for business trip before but I never get to visit a lot places because I was always there for short 2-3 weeks trip. However this time, my trip is a little longer but I still can't find suitable time to visit Crater Lake. ;)  Ai Chee and Chun had being such a good host for taking me out for few of the weekends to join them in their family outing with his shy little boy. 

We went to Mount Hood, now skiing but I had fun seeing the snow and the mountain in such a short distance. 

(Pic credit to Chun)

It's spring time! I am feeling so lucky to be here this time around April time because I got to experience the blooming of cherry trees. This is the cherry blossoms moment in State Capitol of Oregon which is in Salem. 

 (Pic credit to Chun)

It was a sunny bright day, we all sat down and had picnic. Chun cooked super good nasi lemak and curry chicken with "tao hu pok"! I am going back to Malaysia and cook this on the coming week I am at home.

 (Pic credited to Chun)

It's not easy to get hold of Locky. Here in the picture he's looking away because he has a very shy personality.

 (Pic credited  to Chun)

I managed to snap this rainbow that goes across the water fountain at the front of the state capitol building.

Last week Yvonne was here. She is my baby sister who had turned into this tall young lady. She flew all the way from east coast to meet me in between her school exam and class schedule for a weekend. I love you!

I took her to a few places. We went to Wooden shoe tulip festival in Woodburn. It is a largest tulip farm in Oregon. There's other small farms around but they are not as happening as this one. It wasn't a sunny day but we still had a good time photographing the colorful field of tulips.

I drove her along the scenic route at Columbia River Gorge. We went to a few of the falls and the tallest one is the magnificent Multnomah falls.

We then drove up to the Vista House to view the beautiful gorge with  a river running between it.

During the weekend she was here, the weather wasn't very good. It rained a lot. We went to Seattle and it rained too. It made the travelling on foot harder and it was so cold because of the wind. I didn't take a lot photos there. We visited the Pike's market. We had seafood feast at the Crabpot. Then took a picture at the Space Needle and few other places.

The basically summarized most of the weekends here and I am going home soon to my baby! I miss him

cold. freeze. snow

As some of you might know, I am currently in Oregon. It's cold up here comparing to Arizona which is about 23 c when I was there last week. Here the average temperature is about 9-10c. Ai Chee asked if I would like to join her and her husband with their little boy to somewhere near Mt Hood. This is the first time her son going to see snow. I took a colleague with me too.  We went to the goverment camp near Mt Hood. It required snow park permit which is pretty descent $5 for a car. So we went there and played snow, build snowman and took pictures. I didn't take much as I hope Ai Chee's husband will have nicer pictures of me using his DSLR. I am a little disappointed that I didn't bring my Columbia parka along this time to this trip. I took it with me last time but I didn't go and play snow.  The temperature is about 3c and snow chain is not needed because the snow on the road had melted. But luckily there is still snow here where we went. So tired now.. Bye.

In Chandler again

So guys, I am in Arizona. The state at the south west of United States. It's sunny since the day I arrived. The temperature is around 23 celcius in the day which is good to go without any jacket. That's the hotel I am staying in currently. See the blue sky? That's how the sky looks like here.  

Ate this for dinner yesterday after starving the night before because I forgot how to start hybrid car engine again. But I got it after many attempts of trying. The delay is also contributed by the long queue to get our cars. I treated myself with 6oz of steak with lobster tail! and 2 sides. Yummy to end the day like this.

After familiarizing with the car and road, I invited my colleague to join me to a visit to Saguaro National Park. I was so tired because I drove all the way there and back. We didn't do much things there basically just drove on the 8 miles drive path and see cactus. Really, we only see cactus and nothing else.

Small flowers survive in dessert. I hardly can find anymore plants with  bright color like this.

Another yellow on top of the cactus. And  do you know digi sucks apart from the low quality and slowness of it's data line, it has something else that made my head ache? I didn't activate my roaming system before I came oversea because I thought it's activated by default. Luckily my dear buddy Suet Yin is available in whatsapp and she helped me to contact them  regarding this.

Another species of cactus. Don't look down at the thorns. They are deadly sharp. I poked my finger when trying to remove a part of it that stuck to my shoe and left in the car. I think the cactus in Malaysia does not have sharp thorn at all.

A different flowery species of cactus

And last but not least, Saguaro cactus! This is one of the giant ones

I am drop dead tired now. I need to rest to recharge for work tomorrow.

Pumpkin Patch

Random pictures from pumpkin patch that I visited in short hour back in Hillsboro.
Pumpkins everywhere. It was a happy colour.

Animal barn visit

More pumpkins. Pick your favourite shapes for Halloween, weigh and pay.

Barn ride. We were seated on hay stack, pulled by this green tractor

Images by me, Oregon Coast

Leaving Oregon - Autumn 09

I am leaving today, in the airport currently.

Good bye autumn
Good bye chilly weather
Good bye beautiful scenery
Good bye yummy Korean food
Good bye green trees
Good bye foggy morning

Note: Photos are taken by Chun at different times and spot

Painted Hill & Sheep Rock

Everywhere was reported to be cloudy, shower or wet on last Saturday. The only place that didn't rain probably is the place we went. I visited some colourful hills with a bunch of monkeys. LOL. The name of this place is Johd Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

(Note: This pic is from Bong's camera)

It is in a very outskirt area near Mitchell. There are no restaurants nearby Painted Hills, the nearest is the tiny one in Mitchell. We visited the Painted Hills which looks like watercoloured hills. The sands and soils has some kind of minerals that create yellow, red, green, goldish colours. Some parts of the hill are very fragile that walking on the ground will cause the soft surface to sink.

By the time we reached there it was in the afternoon where the sun was above our head.

There is a trail where we can walk on to get closer look at the hills.

After that we went to visit Sheep Rock which is the fossil monument. There are a few trails for people to hike and we took the shorted one which was like 1km.

There is this place called Blue Basin at the end of trail. Green or blue-ish rocks/hills. It was quite a boring place because all were hills and hills and hills, number of humans we saw didn't exceed my finger counts.

A group photo at last. We were back to Hillsboro at 11pm. Tired

Fall & Trillium Lake

I am here in Oregon during fall. All the leaves beginning to turn yellow, some to red.. and orange. It is my first time experiencing fall, to tell the truth. The scenery is beautiful. Perfect for a peaceful weekend if you want to spend it slow and comfy.


It was my second and last Sunday morning in Oregon. I wanted to go somewhere that I can take a photo with Mt Hood behind me. Lovely Aichee and hubby introduced me to this place called Trillium Lake where it supposed to have Mount Hood reflection on the water.

This is the photo I took of Aichee accidently when I was swinging my camera. Anyway, I kinda love it. Feels like the world around her moving nonstop, going back in time.

We stopped by the road side on the way up to the lake, and took some photos, which looks something like Yosemite valley.

There is supposed to be Mount Hood at the end and it's reflection in the calm water. However it was really cloudy and grey on Sunday. There isn't any hope to see the mountain at all. We hung around for like thirty minutes or plus hoping for the cloud banks to slowly shift away. But they didn't because there was like clouds everywhere. Anyway, it was nice to just be there. Twillight kind of weather..

This man had the lake all by himself. He was out there fishing with his small little puppy on the floating boat. We went for dimsum later on, not a dissapointment because the food was not bad.

My Grand Canyon trip

I squeezed a tight Grand Canyon trip on the next day I arrived in Arizona. I asked Wee Meng if he would like to go with me again to Grand Canyon because he visited the place many times before. I always see pictures of the magnificent Grand Canyon from people that travelled to The States but I haven't been there myself. Despite the short trip, to be exact 3 days, I had to Chandler, hardly I must visit the sandstone hills at least once in a lifetime. There isn't much chance to travel here again after this trip, I guess.


Early Sunday morning, we departed from my hotel. The drive took about 4.5 hours. Luckily I had Wee Meng to chauffeur me as I have not drive in any road in Arizona before.. Pity him that he has to hold the steering wheel whole day.


This is a must-take picture to prove that I have been to Grand Canyon National Park. The wind was strong that day. The weather board put 100m/h of max wind. After the stop to snap this photo, both of us decided to put our jackets on.

We were told to drive along the road which we will see the canyon from all the different points, from the map. We stopped at all the points near east entrance station, South Rim.

I can't really remember which point all these photos were taken because the views look almost the same from every point with the Colorado river flowing in different direction but the canyon stand still, layer of different brown tone. It was very windy, too strong that I can feel my body were leaning to a side and both my legs were not touching the ground whenever the wind blow. There were a few times my bag almost flew away if I didn't hold on tight to it.

This view I am not sure where it is. It can be either Grandview, Moran , Lipan or Navajo Point

There is a viewing tower to watch the dessert view

The dessert view

This was about an hour before sunset. This is the hermits rest. We came here in shuttle bus provided from the village

I have to show at least one picture of Wee Meng because he is the honorouble tour guide. He was trying to act courage by sitting at one of the cliff overseeing the canyon. Kill me if you want me to sit over there.

We watched sunset in one of the point. I am not sure. I think this is Hopi Point at ~6.10pm. It was once in a lifetime opportunity, to watch sunset and Grand Canyon, one of US's national park.

I was exhausted from this trip because continuosly I slept only 4 hours everyday until the day after I reached Oregon. Anyway, a big thank you to Wee Meng for his generous time accompanying me.