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Author: Chris

Traveling via the Icefields Parkway to Jasper

Traveling via the Icefields Parkway to Jasper

We left Lake Louise and headed for the Jasper Park Lodge via the Icefields Parkway.  The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks are a UNESCO World Heritage Site both because of their beauty and fossils that can be found in the area. Our drive took us into Yoho National Park, Banff National Park and Jasper National Park.  The drive was one of incredible scenery with snow-covered mountains, glaciers, beautiful blue lakes colored by glacier sediment, and waterfalls.  The next pictures were taken…

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Kananaskis to Lake Louise

Kananaskis to Lake Louise

My husband and I woke up early in Kananaskis and took a walk after breakfast.  We were treated to beautiful views and saw a doe and her fawn on our walk.  And then we were off to Lake Louise, but with some incredible stops along the way.  One of those stops was Emerald Lake which is in Yoho National Park in British Columbia.  The lake was named by Tom Wilson, a Canadian guide, who found it by accident in 1882….

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Calgary, Alberta

Calgary, Alberta

We took our first Tauck tour, the Best of the Canadian Rockies, in 2009.  We arrived early so we could explore Calgary and chose a tour date that would allow us to be in town for the Calgary Stampede.  The Canadian Pacific Railway has its headquarters in Calgary.  It is also known for the hotels it established to promote ridership on their passenger trains.  We stayed at two of these, Chateau Lake Louise and Banff Springs Hotel, during this trip….

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The Wedding

The Wedding

I am going to share a little about our son and daughter-in-law’s wedding in Seoul.  To protect their privacy, the pictures I am using will not show their faces.  Our daughter-in-law is a Korean citizen and her family lives in Korea, which is why the marriage took place there. They were married in a wedding hall, which is typical in Korea.  The wedding hall staff handles all of the details of the wedding.  The bride’s mother typically wears a pink…

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Imjingak (Near DMZ)

Imjingak (Near DMZ)

Our son and daughter-in-law were married on a Saturday and on Sunday, we had a wonderful lunch with them and our daughter-in-law’s family.  After the lunch, our daughter-in-law’s aunt and uncle offered to take us to Imjingak Park (also called Imjingak Station and Imjingak Retreat).  Imjingak is located in the town of Paju, South Korea and is only 4 1/2 miles from the Military Demarcation Line.  It is the northern most place South Koreans can travel without a permit.  Imjingak…

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Changdeokgung Palace

Changdeokgung Palace

On a day when our son and daughter-in-law were more heavily involved in wedding preparations, we toured the Changdeokgung Palace.  When visiting Korea, we found that there were far fewer people who spoke English when compared to other countries we have visited.  The hotel concierge wrote down where we were going and gave us a card with the name of our hotel which we could give to our taxi driver, ensuring that we got to where we were going and…

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Seoul

Seoul

We spent just under a week in South Korea in November, 2009.  The highlight of our trip was our son’s wedding.  He married a wonderful girl who is a citizen of South Korea. Our daughter-in-law showed us some of the sites in Korea amidst wedding preparations.  Seoul was beautifully decorated for the upcoming Christmas holidays. A “hop on – hop off” bus helped us travel easily around Seoul.  I have included pictures of some of the sites we saw. The…

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Queenstown – Skippers Canyon

Queenstown – Skippers Canyon

Queenstown is known as the Adventure Capital of New Zealand (and some say the world).  There are all kinds of possibilities – mountain climbing, rock climbing, jet boating, kayaking, hang gliding, tandam paragliding and bungy jumping.  In fact, commercial bungy jumping got its start in Queenstown in 1988. We rode on the Skippers Canyon Jet Boats.  We began our day as we traveled through Skippers Canyon to the launch area.  The drive through the canyon was incredible – it was…

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Queenstown

Queenstown

The day after our Midford Sound cruise, we drove from Te Anau to Queenstown.  Many of the pictures in this post will simply be of the beautiful scenery we saw along the way.  As you might expect, we saw lots and lots of sheep.  We also saw horses – frequently wearing a blanket or “rug.”  In warmer weather, this is to protect them from insects.  We  saw alpacas at a rest stop.  They are native to South America but were…

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Mirror Lakes, The Chasm and Milford Sound

Mirror Lakes, The Chasm and Milford Sound

After finishing our cruise on Marlborough Sound, we went back to the airport in Blenheim and flew to Te Anau.  Te Anau is in the southern part of New Zealand’s south island, just a little more than 3,000 miles from the South Pole.  Today our tour would take us to Milford Sound – and there would be incredible beauty every step of the way.  Our first stop was Mirror Lakes.  These are small lakes very close to the road on…

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