Catching cherry blossim in the capital city
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Although the University of Illinois has some cherry blossoms near the Japan House, we thought it would be fun to visit Washington, D.C. to see more blooms around the Tidal Basin. However, catching these delicate flowers turned out to be more challenging than we expected. We booked our flights based on historical peak bloom data, but still missed the peak—wind and rain had swept through just a few days before we arrived. Despite the timing, we thoroughly enjoyed other aspects of D.C., especially the art galleries, museums, and the (long-awaited return of) giant pandas!
At the end of the spring semester, I attended a number theory conference in Dallas for a week. After the conference, my fiancé flew in to pick me up, and we took a trip to Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas! We hadn’t originally planned it, but once we realized how close Dallas was to the park, we decided to go for it. Without the conference, we probably would never have considered visiting Arkansas, given its distance and how far it is from other national parks. We really enjoyed the thermal baths there and hope to return someday!
We’ve been to Florida together before, but last time we stayed in Orlando and visited Disney World. Now that we’ve started exploring more national parks, we decided to return to Florida with the goal of visiting all three national parks in the stat, namely, Everglades, Biscayne, and Dry Tortugas. Except for Everglades, the other two are only accessible by ferry or speedboat, which gave us some unique experiences we hadn’t had anywhere else in the U.S.
Skiing has become one of my favorite sports since I moved to the U.S. I first learned how to ski back in prep school, and this year, we planned our very first skiing trip together. We chose Chestnut Mountain in Galena, a small town in Illinois. Surprisingly, the terrain there wasn’t as flat as most of the state. That’s where Poy had his first skiing experience—taught by me, a first-time coach! (That does sound scary.)
We started this year by traveling to Seattle as part of the JMM conference. Although we have been to Seattle before, but we only visited national parks here not the city itself (despite the fact that we flew to SEA-TAC airport). For this reason, while I was attending the conference, we then also spent a little bit of our free time exploring this lovely city together. To our surprise, we could fit so many attractions in this business trip. The city was so charming and, more importantly, walkable!