Fear Itself

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - FDR

In case you've ever wanted to see what it looks like for someone to stare fear in the face, treat yourself to the pictures below. 

My wife has a fear of heights, but that didn't stop her from doing a technical climb at over 12,000 feet with me earlier this week. At times we were walking on a ridge less than 1 foot wide, with sheer drop-offs of hundreds of feet on either side.

Oh, what's that? A cliff face, a 3-foot wide trail, and
a 125-foot drop?

Another trail, another cliff face. And I'll be honest, the overwhelming brown tone of the landscape really doesn't do
a justice to just how extreme this climb was. Wisely, Stacy opted not to face out while traversing.

Fear? Please. Stacy came to party.

Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a weird entity - it is considered a city, or a "special administrative region" by the Chinese government, but it is actually composed of one main island (Hong Kong Island), a peninsula on the Chinese mainland, and a number of outlying islands. One of those outlying islands is called Cheung Chau, and is home to a small fishing village and not much else (a completely different feel than the teeming crowds on the peninsula and HK island). We took a day trip to check it out.

On the "gangway" (?)

Waiting for the ferry

As I said, it's primarily a fishing island.

A traditional fishing boat

The harbor had a boat or two in it...

The main thoroughfare in the village

The island is too small for cars
and trucks, so everyone rides these
tricycles or small motorcycle carts

Hong Kong the Bustling

We just spent the last two weeks in Hong Kong, which, I must say, was fantastic. There are so many good restaurants and so much fun stuff to do there, plus the city has a really interesting cultural feel to it. There's a strong British/colonial feel going on but that has not in any way diminished the intensely Chinese character of the city, either.

On top of all that, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated area in the world, which made for a lot of crowds and commotion, though in typical Hong Kong fashion, they all move efficiently and in an orderly manner.

The MTR (subway) cars are almost always packed out.

As are the subway stations:

So are the streets, walkways, and public areas:

There are still places to get away from the madness. Stacy and I found those, too.

Hiking on Hong Kong island

Gentiana Update #2

I know that many of you are currently wrapped up the in the unfolding saga of "the flowers Aaron dug up on a mountaintop that he's failing at transplanting in an empty Coke can."

Well, here's the latest.

We were traveling for 2 months during January and February, leaving my beautiful(y nonexistent) Gentiana Phyllocalyx unattended for way too long. However, Mrs. O'Hare didn't raise no fool and my brother is an engineer, so I figured out a way to take care of my "flowers" while I was gone: I put them in a bowl, in a sink, and left it dripping at an interval of 1 drip every 7 seconds. Seems reasonable, right?

Upon our return, I was pleasantly surprised to find that some kind soul had a) broken into our room, and b) turned off the drip. Thanks, eco-friendly cat burgler. Thus, I have been forced to baby my flowers back to life.

At this point, I still have no idea if the flowers themselves have survived this 6 month harrowing saga of transplantation, but I can say with confidence that whatever grass/weed seeds were in the can have continued to grow with a healthy disrespect for the plants I'm actually trying to grow. Here is the current reality:

With a Twist

You'd be surprised how excited some people get about a twist cone. Or waffle cones. Or soft serve.

Let's just say it's been a few years since we've enjoyed such delights.

Extreme bliss. Mediocre ice cream.

The Boot

In May 2012, I sprained my ankle while running over a footbridge in Chengdu, [sarcasm] one of my favorite places in the world [sarcasm]. While we were in America this summer, I went to the doctor and got an x-ray, which showed nothing, so I was cleared to be me.

4 Year Anniversary Date, plastic
boot included

As such, I promptly ran two trail runs with Stacy, my dad, and my sister Eliza. It was incredible.

After returning to Asia, my ankle continued to be the size of an orange, which, after about 6 months, started to worry me. A little. So, this past January in Bangkok, I went to see my doctor about it. Yep, I have a doctor in Bangkok. Because I do some serious van-damage to myself on the regular.

Dr. Ratanachai (yeah, that's real) ordered an MRI, which also came back negative of any shenanigans, so he recommended a sweet plastic boot for 2 months.

Those two months came to a close on April 12, 2013, a glorious occasion. There was much rejoicing.

Allow me to explain...

First, allow me to apologize. I (Aaron) have been sorely absent from this blog, depriving all of you lovely (and avid, I'm sure) readers of the base and asinine element that I bring. I'm sure you've been missing it...

It's kind of a long story, but here's what happened - I started a website. Okay, it's not a long story. And that's not exactly the whole story. I may have technically started the website, but my brilliant wife is really the reason I've been an absentee father to this blog in recent months.

Actual screen shot of my old website.
I censored the picture for your protection.

After about 4 months of building the site, tweaking it, adding material, figuring out exactly what it was going to be like, the above-mentioned wife (hereafter 'Stacy') said to me, with the utmost grace and class, "Your website looks awful. Like really awful. Like a digital turd. Let mommy show you how it's done."

And then she designed a website for me, took my breath away, and showed me how it was done.

So, since March, I have been working on migrating all the content from the old site to the new one and pretty much soaking up all the wisdom about all things technical that my wife will graciously lower herself to teach me.

That pretty much sums it up.

In case you were interested, the website is called "Get Out and Travel" and, together with some friends who write content for me, we write about outdoors stuff, travel stuff, and fun stuff.

As of today, here's what the site looks like. Hats off to Stacy O'Hare, people.

clean up on aisle 7

I'll be honest - I'm just excited that they have trousers that will catch urine, so now we don't see as many little hineys sticking out of split butt pants.

two pictures from easter

I cured a ham for Easter!  We haven't had ham in a few years, so we devoured it. immediately.

pillow fight!

it's not dead...yet.

Aaron says the blog is dead (let's be honest he's the one who's been keeping it alive and now he's stopped).

To revive it, I'm putting up pictures from the last few weeks.....It hasn't been too eventful lately, honestly.

It's snowed a couple of more times since we've been back.
nothing sticks to the ground down in the valley but the mountains are always beautiful.

We celebrated 6 years of dating

We watched this guy tell some epic stories...
we couldn't understand a word he said.

And took some pictures around town

taxi

that guy was caught off guard

sneak shot