H-Mart

We were in the Bay area many months, 2010-2022--visiting daughter Rebecca, grand-parenting Penelope, basing ourselves for western travels, locking-down for COVID--and never found an Asian market we liked. There was a small one near Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park--it had everything--but then it closed by 2014 or so. We never found anything else that had the array of SE Asian ingredients we wanted. I even resorted to pinching kaffir lime leaves from the local nursery. But in Cary, Rebecca alerted us to the H-Mart, a mile from us, which turned out to be absolutely the largest Asian market we have yet encountered in the US. It even had kaffir lime leaves, although pretty browned and spoiled, but it was still an experience to behold here in NC. Turns out it is part of a South Korean chain, which explains its emphasis on Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese products...and its relative lack of emphasis on Indian, SE Asian, and actual Chinese products. Nonetheless, it was by far the best Asian market we've seen outside of Asia. And not without its curiosities and other items of interest.

Gotta have durian, even frozen; sine qua non

Enormous produce section

Sugar cane

Banana leaves!

Jujubes

Cow parts

C

Shhh...be vewy, vewy quiet...

Assorted bloods

Pork uterus...pork bung...stir-fry, sure, but the wine
pairing could be tricky...

Excellent source of potassium; does not taste like
chicken

Long aisle of cooking utensils, apparati

Entire aisle of seaweeds

Yum

Gotta try this

Gift boxes of dried anchovies

More seafood than probably all the Teeters of Raleigh combined...

Cary Incidents And Curiosities; On Foot

Cary is a suburb of North Carolina's capital, Raleigh, a city of a million or so. Cary itself is a suburb on steroids, sprawling over much of western Wake county, full of upscale residential areas, golf courses, public parks, shopping centers, business parks, etc...the Research Triangle, with Durham and Chapel Hill nearby. It is one of the greenest places we've lived, mature evergreens and deciduous trees everywhere, lining all the major thoroughfares, pocket parks and ponds here and there, all of it highlighted in the spring and summer with crepe myrtles, azaleas, and such. A nice place to live, although we both miss our urban European lifestyle.

Incredible as it may seem, and despite warnings, we are suburbanites without a car. Sans voiture. So far, this has been okay. We are committed walkers...6-7 miles a day...we enjoy the savings and certainly don't miss the many hassles of vehicle ownership. Despite the sprawl, we can get to most anything we want, on foot. Within a mile or so (as the horseflies) there are Teeters, H-Mart, Publix, Lowes foods, Fresh Market, Target, Trader Joe's and more. A neighborhood Walmart is a ten minute (free) bus ride away. Costco and Wegman's are a bit out of our range, but we could easily get an Uber or such if needed. Since we are in pre-Death Cleaning Mode we are not buying anything much beyond consumables. Anyhow, below are some incidents and curiosities from our first few months here. Á pied.

As noted in a previous post, Bond Park is only a few 
hundred feet away, and it and its trails and greenway
are our default hiking destination

In the middle of a major tech center, the area's population is quite
diverse...here we are in Bond Park watching a Commonwealth
baseball game, AKA cricket; for my personal insights into this
fascinating sport, read this

We have seen squirrels, rabbits, and even a few
deer in the park; this is our first and only copperhead
snake; so far

My inner southerner is enjoying the plentiful grits, a couple times
a week with breakfast, and with shrimp and andouille sausage...

Cary's extensive hiking and biking trail system; with
my newly rescued and restored bike I hope to see more
of it this spring

Rebecca, Penelope, and Vicki about to leave to go see Wicked in
Durham

After several weeks, we pooped out of the tai
chi and line dancing courses at the Senior Center...
too demanding, and we hate being on other peoples'
schedules

On one of our walks, Penelope spotted a feral kitten on the
apartment complex grounds and attempts to coax it toward her; 
later, with the assistance of animal control and her dad, she
captured it in a cage and saw it off to the adoption center; and
gave it its name, "Ginger"

August and September were pretty warm here...the nearby golf
course provided fans on some of the greens

We had a nice 60th anniversary-of-our-first-meeting dinner at the
Academy Street Bistro...

Vicki's duck; I had an ample bouillabaise

The highlight for me was my dessert sambuca, con la mosca

At the Cary Depot/Amtrak station; although outwardly stiff, the
locals are very friendly people; lots of outdoor sculpture...

Autumnal Abomination...please tell me they're not really making
this in France

Forks in the road are a commonplace worldwide, but
only here have we encountered a fork on the sidewalk

Out in the woods, a pillbox or possibly a dolmen?

Still processing this one...

And this

Yes, they do Halloween here, big-time

At a nearby "European" supermarket; we had high hopes, but 
nearly everything was labeled in Cyrillic; the shopping bag display
sort of explains

Penelope has gotten into jewelry-making and sales at several local
junior entrepreneurial fairs...making some serious bucks and also
winning several 'best in show' prizes

My study of French has not won any prizes, but
I am persistent, here extending my Duolingo streak
to 665 days; with appropriate attire, furniture, and
beverage

Our Cary Apartment

We resume our regularly scheduled blog posting. It's been nice taking a month or so off: not much has occurred that is blog-worthy, and there is the usual worry about what do you do with a travel blog when you're not traveling. We are here, in Cary, NC, for the fall, winter, and early spring months, doing the death cleaning thing* and seeing our grand-daughter and her parents. Every day we do some serious walking and have even made a few more distant excursions, by bus, to the state capital and the state fair, both within 10 miles. And we spend considerable time going through our 70+ years of accumulated stuff, listing it on eBay or Craigs', boxing it for trips to the charity shops, or saving it for later. I also spend some time most days going back to posts people have visited the day before, making corrections, enlarging photos, embellishing with new snarky comments. 

Back in August I promised pix of our apartment here. It is now presentable, at least with the understanding that it is part abode, part warehouse, part museum, and part studio. I suppose that could be said of any abode, particularly ours. But it is also all those things in the process of reducing 70+ years' accumulated stuff, particularly books, down to an order manageable for older persons--older persons who still want to spend most of their time traveling--and their descendants. 

Our building in the Cary Greens apartment complex, near Cary Parkway
and High House Road [Google Earth view in a previous post]

Our apartment is on the ground floor, back side of the building, facing

the little wood

There's its ample screened-in porch

Bedroom; a pleasant surprise was that our cherry Queen
Anne furniture squeezed in pretty well [we are open to offers
if you're into valuable OBF]

Thus we were able to re-use much of the decor we'd saved from
houses in Columbus, Dallas, and Missoula; serves also as media
room; note brand-new TV; also view out to warehouse/studio/porch

Bath; double sinks; one of the largest one-bedroom units we've
seen

And tub

Grand Hall; Everest view (from above Namche Bazar)
and prayer flags above the washer and dryer alcove

Kitchen

We 've lived in RVs much smaller than this...

Living area; the T-shirt quilt covers a principal warehousing wall

Study niche/music room

Some of the steadily dwindling library

Dining/study/office

Living room view; note Czech art nouveau stained glass in window;
the table is Vicki's sewing center/studio

Now on the screened-in porch; note remains of Montana
sign forest and new bistro chairs and table

Also the two Diamondback bicycles, his and hers, rescued and now
undergoing restoration

More porch, atelier and art museum

Oxides, c. 1991; more of my art works in later posts

Pretty much every visible metallic surface is covered
in magnets

Cleverly concealed refrigerator; burglars would never

find the vintage Costco poulet roti

Our gardening now is pretty much limited to cilantro
("Cory Ann"), sweet basil ("Basil"), and Thai holy
basil ("กะเพรา"); and some succulents Rachel gave us

*Swedish Death Cleaning; look it up; we are all dying...

It's Intermisson Time, Folks!

We're beween missions...

Interim Update #1,280

So we are in Cary,* NC, settling into our one bedroom apartment, beginning the Death Cleaning project aforementioned, re-acquainting ourselves with suburban life. Such as it is. We have even bought a television; our first in fifteen years. The apartment is larger and quieter than we had imagined, even has a view, sort of, and will accommodate all our remaining but dwindling stuff. The location is very good for us: 2 miles from Rebecca's house, near one of the major bus routes, a few hundred feet from a small strip shopping center with a sizable hypermercado, a few hundred more feet to Bond Park, a large city park (lake, forests, athletic fields, trails...), and within the park, the Cary Senior Center, where we are already taking courses in technology, line dancing, and tai chi (or is it chai tea?). One of my long-held dreams has been to cross-breed line dancing with tai chi, to be done to Pashelbel's Canon or possibly Gregorian Chant...but I digress. Anyhow, we are here until spring, with plenty to do but with plenty still to decide. Like whether or not we should keep this or some other apartment; buy an RV; just keep moving.... We have reservations for Nice/Paris/Belgium/the Baltic for the spring, but, beyond that...well, stay tuned. 

We are actually somewhat below and to the left of the red Google pin; Rebecca, Jeremy and Penelope
are in the Riggsbee Farm area to the left; no relation to Eleanor Rigby

*not named after Cary Grant**
**nor the great Mel Brooks routine (horrible video but Mel Brooks at his best)