[ Living In The Fairytale ]

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Weekend at Leavenworth

This trip was quite eventful, I must say.

18th Feb
We were supposed to meet at the lobby at the unearthly hour of 4.45 am so that we could get an early headstart on the highway to Leavenworth but as usual, Raymond and girlfriend both overslept and hence we set off 2 hours later than schedule. Tsk. Our car was stopped by the police on the highway because the driver was speeding at 86 miles per hour, which was 16 miles above the speed limit. The miracle is that the officer let us off without any fine even with Gabriel's flimsy excuse of having panicked when he missed the exit. Haha.

The ride to Leavenworth was bumpy and I felt carsick for the entire trip even though I was sitting in the middle row of the car. Though I think a major factor for my carsickness was because of lousy driving on the part of the driver. Well, I was quite relieved when we finally reached and took in the beautiful sights of Leavenworth.

The ride to Leavenworth - notice the first few rays of sunlight on the mountain peaks?

Finally the horrendous drive is over! =P

We stopped over at Mac's for some breakfast, but I was too queasy to eat anything.

McDonald's - German style

Raymond took over the driver's wheel and we headed off to the Leavenworth Hatcheries to take a look at salmon breeding. However, we got lost on the way and stopped along the trail for some photo-taking. -_-

Monkeying around in the snow..freezing cold!

After a few wrong turns, we managed to get to the salmon hatcheries. I saw lots of salmon fry, but no full-grown salmon. =( Thought I could catch some for dinner. Haha. There wasn't anybody to bring us on a tour around the place, and we were quite puzzled until we saw a brochure giving us directions on how to take a self-guided tour. Apparently they don't have enough money to hire a tour guide.

Argh! Killer Salmon! (that's my SC junior Huiling, by the way)

Salmon life cycle

Ready for a salmon race?

Group photo at the Leavenworth Hatcheries

Next stop: Leavenworth street tour!
The architecture is quite beautiful but doesn't look quite like an authentic German village. In fact, it looks a bit contrived. (Or maybe it's because my expectations were too high.)

Beautiful, isn't it?

Even the signs look like they're from an amusement park...

Next to a large mural on a wall.

Posing with a...well? Fountain?

After a stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and some free and easy window shopping (there really was nothing to buy at Leavenworth), we had lunch at "Der Andreas Keller" where I had a dish called Kassel Melt which comprised 2 slices of grilled salted pork with cheese in a Kaiser roll, topped with German mashed potato and weinkraut. The weinkraut didn't go down well with me at all because it was quite sour and smelled like it was fermented. Yuck. The Kaiser roll was also quite hard but at least overall the taste was ok. I may like German culture, but I sure don't like their food. =P

Lunch is served. =)

Photographer trying to be artistic here..resulting in an oddly-angled photo.

Schmeck Gute!

With the cute waitress - the service there was good!

After lunch I demanded that we visit the Nutcracker Museum. Haha. We were supposed to pay a $2.50 admission fee but after some haggling with the curator, she let us in for only $1.00 each. The museum had over 1000 different types of nutcrackers ranging from the size of a fingernail to 6 feet tall. Too bad we weren't allowed to take pictures of all the nutcrackers though. Some of them were really amazing.

The largest nutcracker in the entire world. I think it can crack a coconut.

Or is this the largest one? Hmm I don't remember. Haha. (Btw I'm holding the lever behind it.)

The Mouse King from the "Nutcracker Suite".

After having spent a bomb on our lunch, we decided to make full use of the well-equipped kitchen in the family suite we stayed in and we bought some stuff from Safeway to cook. Although it was a budget meal, we had roast chicken, pizza, lasagne, and even strawberry fondue.

19th Feb
We stopped by at Lake Wenatchee on our way back from Leavenworth. The view was simply breathtaking - snowy mountains against the azure blue sky. I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful sight.

Charlie's Angels

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