That Expanse of Space

When I scrolled through the photos, it can be hard to tell one park from another. Heheheh. All are lush, green and serene. It's been quite the perfect season and we got lucky with a long stretch of sunshine and little rain.

There're people on the park/forest trails, but it's never so crowded till it sucks. Hey, there're only like 653,000 in Seattle, 200,000 in Tacoma, 55,000 in Redmond, 123,000 in Bellevue, 50,000 in Kirkland, 23,000 on Mercer Island, which all adds up to about three million in all of King County. Singapore residents, you get the picture. King County's 6000 km² versus our 719.1 km². The entire Washington state with its 184,827 km² holds a population of 7.5 million. -_- I could cry. I live in a can of sardines.

We visit so often till the staff at the hotel address us by name upon sight and many people have asked if we've finally moved here. Heh. No leh. But in this season of life, we enjoy the Pacific Northwest a lot more than if we have to be on the east coast stateside. Hurhurhur. Or rather, the man is more adaptable, and I need to live in a city that's close to mountains, lakes or the sea (or have a decent-enough rail network or airport to get out on the weekends).

The man was holed up at work and tried to squeeze in as many meetings as possible. He could also finally work on US timings properly. He managed to get in some gym time and quick tabata workouts to ease into each work-day. However, his 14-hour work days are still grueling. The man is in music mecca here. There's almost a gig at a venue within an hour away every night. My work is easily done over email. Currently, it involves translations mainly and some research stuff. Nothing too complicated that requires more than three hours a day (combined) on the macbook. Come weekends, we get out of town to roam the green spaces.

There's always the threat of earthquakes and the current legislative debate on reinforcing old buildings for the big one... ah well. I hope those new condominiums springing up like mushrooms in Bellevue, downtown Seattle and on Capitol Hill are retrofitted to seismic changes. The man and I love the space in Washington state. We don't even mind the grey and rain. I love it! (Yes yes, lousy public transport, guns, those other issues, etc. 6.5% sales tax. No income tax.) For now, we love how the physical space calms the mind and expands the figurative horizon.

What a marvelous spring.