Frosty Valentine

The sun was out today, and of course I wouldn't miss another photo walk. After the snow yesterday and last night, Evanston is officially white, except where the cars run which is always always yucky. Took a walk during mid-day towards the beach around Centennial Park. It wasn't so cold when I left the house, but after a while the wind just got my toes some serious frostbites! But I would have to say, Lake Michigan looks amazing! The other day I could only see icy rocks, and water was still water. Today it's all frozen, with very interesting surface texture too. I don't know how much weight it could take, but I really wanted to try walking on the ice. Of course I didn't try.. afraid it would crack hehe.. So my first walk didn't last so long as my feet couldn't handle it. Decided to walk downtown to grab some hot coffee and warm myself up, got into Peet's, about to order, and then realized I forgot my purse! Great.. Lucky I hadn't ordered yet - that'd have been really embarrassing. Plan B, Park-E! (that is short for Park Evanston which is the apartment bldg nextdoor). Have to thank Kuk for letting me stay for a while :)

two lonely benches at Centennial Park

all the white in the back is Lake Michigan, frozen..

Second walk, basically walked back home and detoured towards the Lake again. This time, got a better view of the endless frozen lake. It looked as if we could walk to downtown Chicago from there. Some parts of the walkway weren't plowed, so it was fun walking with half my legs under the snow. But again, after a while as the sun was setting it got much colder. Pitstop was Norris center as always.. This time I got to have my hot latte at Starbucks sa tee ;)

yup, that is (or used to be) the lake!

More on flickr: my wintertime in Evanston album ja..

More snow

Been snowing like crazy all day.. and the wind was so strong that any direction you turn, your face still gets struck by it.. I walked to a meeting earlier today, and had to struggle through piles of snow.. not that I didn't enjoy it ;) fresh snow is always fun.. and it wasn't as cold as several days ago.. but after a while my face was just all wet.. Nothing much today, just sharing the cold moment with you.. tomorrow will be a very white valentine's day for sure ^^

can't get any gloomier than this..

snow pile in front of my place..

Vail recap

So since i wrote about going to Vail, i should at least write about how the trip went. It was again another fun trip during winter break, and i'm sure everyone looked forward to it. We left on Dec 9 and stayed on until Dec 15 - so basically about a week of exercise! Our group stayed at Monteneros resort, and we got some sweet 4-bedroom condo with fully-equipped kitchen, dining and living areas. So there were 10 of us total, and the fun part, besides skiing, was definitely cooking! With the help of condomates and designated head chef, we all enjoyed really yummy dinners.

The skiing part was exciting and, after a while, pretty tiring :P It's been exactly a year since i last did this, so took me a while to get used to it again. Vail is definitely much bigger than Steamboat, and therefore the trails are a bit more confusing. Sure i tried to stick to the greens, but sometimes you cut through the blues as well, and there's no other way but to go ahead. Of course my pro friends would go to blues and blacks and double diamonds whatever.. i'd rather enjoy my chill-chill ride, hehe. But the view up the peaks was just awesome, and i'm sure those who went down the back bowl would say even better. We were lucky to have gone during that week, cuz after we left the snow storm just hit Colorado pretty bad. This could be my last ski trip, at least for a long while, so next time i go skiing i guess i'll have to start from zero again.. Just thinking about that process tires me out already :P I hope i could just get used to it like riding a bike!!

Map of Vail

let it snow

winter is officially here.. the beginning of the long, cold season where day is short and night is freezing.. not much comes to mind when i want to describe winter.. good thing about it, in addition to snowfall and how beautiful it is on the first day, is probably for skiing!! wonder how much it's snowing in colorado.. Vail, here we come!

more photos of winter in Evanston >>