Travel Log: Alaska, Seattle, Canada

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For the past week and a half, I have been traveling along the Pacific Northwest, through Alaska, Canada, and Seattle, and while it was tiring, I’m glad to say I finally visited these places!

Alaska: Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway

Alaska was breathtakingly beautiful, and even though the pictures I took were pretty damn good, no camera on Earth could possibly capture the absolutely gorgeousness that was the wild Alaskan landscape.  I visited the Tongass National Forest while I was there, ate authentic Alaskan salmon, and learned how to properly skip rocks.  When I went kayaking in Juneau, I got to get up close and personal with wild seals and eagles (fitting since my trip in Alaska started during July 4th weekend).  I couldn’t get any pictures, unfortunately, because I was afraid my phone would get wet from kayaking, but there was actually a seal no farther than 10 feet away from me while I was in the boat!

Gotta say, though, I wouldn’t really ever want to live in Alaska.  The towns are small, a little sleepy, and ridiculously expensive.  A lot of towns aren’t accessible by road, so things have to be shipped by sea or plane.  A single tomato is $4.00 in Juneau.  Why.  There also weren’t any doctors or dentists in Skagway, the last Alaskan city I visited, and if you needed serious medical help, you had to be medivac-ed to Juneau or even Seattle.  I’m not a nature girl, but Alaska really made me appreciate Earth.  Made me want to watch a documentary about wildlife or something.

Canada: Victoria, British Columbia

Only spent a day in Victoria, but I was glad I got pictures of the harbor and the beautiful Parliament building.  My family and I were also craving Asian food.  Any type of Asian food, which you can imagine wasn’t abundant in Alaska.  So, we stopped by the Chinatown in Victoria.  We were sorely disappointed since it was no bigger than half a block, and it was weirdly…too clean?  If you’re Asian, you know that the nastier a restaurant is, the more genuine the food is.  So we’re a little wary of Asian restaurants that are a little too clean.  Real Chinatowns, Little Saigons, or Vietnam Towns make you fear for your digestive system.  That’s where the good stuff is.

Seattle, Washington

It was so nice to be back in civilization where things were somewhat familiar.  True to our Asian selves, my family and I first found the Chinatown and Vietnamese communities in Seattle which wasn’t too far away from Pioneer Square and Downtown.  We visited the usual touristy fare like the Space Needle, Pike Place, and this awesome museum of Dale Chihuly, the glass artist.  We explored the city in three days, and I think that was enough.  Or maybe I was just itching to get home.

But here’s to more travel, more adventures, and more places to see!