Nick Tackett's update

Santa Catalina Island (Christmas 2008)

2009-01-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

Highlights from our trip to Catalina.

Containers and container ship, port of Long Beach:

Photos of Avalon and the north coast:

Me with prickly pear lipstick:

Gina with very big shades

2009-01-03T19:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a glamorous photo of Gina in front of the Hotel del Coronado (photo taken last spring):

Laura Jane

2009-01-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

Laura Jane looking up (Thanksgiving 2008):

Grand Canyon

2008-07-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

After moving out of the Sunset Blvd. apartment (the night of June 19), we immediately went on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. Gina had never been. We spent the first night in Flagstaff and the second at the Desert View campsite within the Grand Canyon National Park. This campsite is apparently rarely full, perhaps because it lacks showers and other facilities. This particular weekend was extremely hot (reaching over 90 degrees on the rim of the Grand Canyon, which is no small feat for an elevation of nearly 7500 feet), so we didn't do much hiking. Here is Gina's very first view of the Grand Canyon (at Grandview Point):

And here are a couple of photos along the Grandview Trail:

Later in the day, as sunset was approaching, we returned to Desert View, where we had a fine view of, well, the desert (along with a lovely little mesa):

Here's another sunset photo. (This photo happens to be Gina's favorite.)

The following morning, we of course returned to the very same spot to see the sunrise:

We then headed out the east (the same way we had come in) and then northward towards Utah. We crossed the Colorado River at Marble Canyon, and then drove on to Zion, where we had lunch outdoors in the 100+ degree heat. After a mini hike, Gina jumped into the river clothes and all, and was subsequently in a much better mood:

Late in the afternoon, we went on to Las Vegas, where we spent a night before returning to Irvine. Las Vegas was uneventful, if not downright boring (and we pretty much both decided we never needed to go back).

Singapore food log

2008-05-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

DAY 1:

Breakfast #1: Instant noodles from Seven Eleven

Breakfast #2: Coffee at Starbucks (which opened at 7:30 am, making it one of the very first places to open in the morning).

Breakfast #3: Coffee, toast, fruit at Sleepy Sam's Bed and Breakfast

Lunch: Fish rice noodles (魚肉米粉) at a fantastic two-floor food court on Beach Road. The soup was slightly sweet (I noticed they were using sweetened condensed milk:

Dinner: Due to jet lag (and maybe also partly due to the three breakfasts), I did not eat dinner.

Day 2:

Breakfast #1: Penang stewed rice noodles (檳城馳名鹵面). The noodles were a bit disappointing. Not much flavor. The meat was supposedly pork, but it didn't really have the right consistency. It was possibly horse meat. To accompany the noodles, I had Hong Kong style milk tea (which I love!!!):

Breakfast #2: Coffee, toast, and fruit at Sleepy Sam's.

Lunch: South Indian food at a small place not far from the Singapore River. Very flavorful!

Dinner: Hainan-style chicken with rice + spicy shrimp + tofu. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph this meal.

Day 3:

Breakfast #1: Fried rice noodle with fried egg and curry paste + Hong Kong-style milk tea

Breakfast #2: Fruit and toast with coffee

[to be continued]

Singapore

2008-05-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here I am in Singapore (for a conference). For the first three nights, I've been staying in a hostel called Sleepy Sam's Bed & Breakfast, located near the Sultan Mosque. In this photo, Sleepy Sam's appears in green on the left:

On the first full day, I remained in the neighborhood of the hostel, visiting the Malay Cultural Centre, followed by a few Hindu temples in Little India:

I thought of entering the MRT (subway) at one point to get away from the heat, but it turned out this was impossible since I was carrying a bag of durian slices:

The durian, incidentally, was disappointing (nothing like Thailand).

On the second day, I went for a jog in the morning (5:30 am) along the Marina Promenade. This was nothing really to write home about; portions of the promenade were blocked off for construction, and I ended up running part way in the middle of the road. After two breakfasts (Penang stewed noodle + the hostel breakfast of toast and fruit), I walked over to the Asian Civilizations Museum, where I encountered a Late Tang Luoyang epitaph on display (which was very cool since I'm into Late Tang epitaphs these days):

At lunch time, I strolled down the Singapore River, looking for food:

The restaurants on the bank of the river seemed overpriced, but I found a South Indian restaurant one street off the river.

That evening, I met two colleagues (Khee Heong and Von Glahn) for a dinner of Hainan-style chicken.

In subsequent days, I will be occupied with the conference, and probably won't post any additional information. I'll be moving out of Sleepy Sam's and into the university visitor's lodge later today.

Yosemite

2008-05-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from our late March Yosemite trip. My dad and Helen stayed in a hotel in Wawona, while Gina and I stayed in a (very cold) cabin in Yosemite Valley itself. Here we are (with our matching Yunnan-style hats) at the Tunnel View coming in from Wawona:

On the first afternoon, the four of us strolled to Mirror Lake. I climbed a rock:

On the second day, we took the Mist Trail followed by the John Muir Trail until we had a nice view of Nevada Falls. The trail beyond the bridge (Dad and Helen didn't go beyond that point) had certain stretches of snow, so that at times we actually had to scramble off the trail to get up the hill. Here's Gina in front of Nevada Falls:

On the third day, Gina and I went up as far as we had time for on the Yosemite Falls Trail. We ended up with a lovely view of the Upper Falls (Gina was convinced I wouldn't make it into position in time for the timed shot...that's why she's not smiling!):

Getty housing complex

2008-02-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some recent pictures. There was briefly a double rainbow visible from my office, though of course it was much less obvious once I got the camera and made it out onto the balcony:

Here is a view from our window at our housing complex. The pink flowers inspired me to take the picture:

And a view in the other direction (with Maomao looking out at us):

Christmas movie with three hats

2007-12-25T09:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve 2007

2007-12-25T03:06:00.000-08:00

After a very late breakfast, Gina, Dad, and I went to the Cite de l'architecture et du patrimoine (at Trocadero), where we saw plaster recreations of church facades from all over France as well as a new exhibit containing models of contemporary architecture. On the way home, we stopped in the Saint Germain district, first to have Lebanese fastfood and then to buy the deserts for that evening (purchased at Gilbert Mulot). Dad went back separately, while Gina & I slowly strolled home. It's always fun to see the good food products at the Rue Daguerre:

A little over three hours later (during which time I was able to squeeze in some work), we had appetizers of pate of duck liver with mangos and champagne while opening presents.

Dad and Helen loved their hats:

Here I am with all of my presents:

Subsequently, we had dinner, which consisted most notably of duck:

Cat pillow

2007-12-25T02:31:00.000-08:00

Gina's Third Birthday

2007-12-25T02:23:00.000-08:00

On Gina's third birthday of the year (December 8, i.e. the 29th day of the 10th lunar month), we went to my mom's place. In the mid afternoon, we went to Las Brisas in Laguna Beach. This was a good time of day to go (no lines + easy to get table by the window):

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-12-25T02:12:00.000-08:00

The evening before Thanksgiving, my mom came up on the train from Irvine and met us in Koreatown, where we went to our favorite food court. Among else, we had fermented tofu stew and pig backbone. On Thanksgiving day, we first went for a fairly lengthy walk along the cliffs and then along the beach of Pacific Pallisades. Later, the feast included a tasteless chicken that I sort of made; the rest was Chinese food (pumpkin fried with salty eggs, fried rice cake, and fried tofu with soybean sprouts) and Thai food (panang beef and beef salad), courtesy of Gina:

Here's also a picture of my mom with Gina on the balcony outside of my office (photo taken the following day):

Getty Research Institute

2007-12-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

Brief overview of fall: I've been doing research as a postdoc at the Getty Research Institute. We live with the scholars in an apartment building on Sunset Blvd. I'll post photos of my office and the apartment complex later. I failed to take many pictures these last few months because of how busy I was. Here are some photos from a picnic/hike in Will Rogers State Park in mid October (photos courtesy of Lorenzo):

(are Gina's shades not fashionable?)

And here are some photos capturing a bit of drama in scholar housing (a fire on the roof) (photos courtesy of Michael):

Finally, a couple of photos from the Winter Party (photos courtesy of some photo company hired to take photos and project them onto the wall during the course of the evening):

(Doesn't Gina look wise in that picture?)

Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang

2007-08-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

We ended up spending about 8 days in Beijing. I bought about 100 pounds of books, we also saw friends (including William who happened to be in town) and Little Sister (here pictured in her dorm room):

and I took one daytrip into the very distant suburbs (well beyond the city of Fangshan) mainly to see a large set of Tang-period stone classics. These stones are interesting to me because on them are inscribed the names of tens of thousands of donors. Today, the stones are stashed in heaps within caves half-way up a mountain near the Yunju temple.

During our last week in China, we were based in Shanghai, but took a two-day trip to Changzhou, Wuxi, and Yangzhou. I was primarily looking for research material, but we also took the occasion to see Gina's cousin and his fiancee:

Finally, we went on a quick trip to Xiaoshan (east of Hangzhou) to deliver several pounds of Gina's mother's dried turnip to Gina's brother (pictured here with Saosao):

and where we also ate (very!) stinky tofu and duck heads:

Henan

2007-07-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

On our way to Beijing from Fuzhou, we stopped at a few places in Henan. Kaifeng was disappointing primarily because the Kaifeng Museum was closed for renovations. The only thing I was really happy to have seen was the Iron Pagoda (with iron-colored ceramic tiles on the outside), which was constructed during the Northern Song dynasty:

We then spent a few days in Luoyang. Highlights included the ancient tomb museum, where numerous old tombs from the area were transplanted into a museum north of town. Here are some photos of Northern Song-period tombs:

We also took one trip a bit out of town to see the Qian Tang zhi zhai. This was the home of an important collector of Tang-period tomb epitaphs. His entire collection of well over 1000 inscriptions was embedded into the walls of his house:

Finally, we spent the last day in Luoyang at the Longmen grottos (a Buddhist complex largely constructed in the Early Tang):

After Luoyang, we headed towards Zhengzhou. On the way, we stopped at Gongyi to see the tomb of the Song emperor Renzong. Here are some of the statues lining the spirit path to the south of the tomb. Note how the tomb has been "improved" in recent years with a Chinese-style red building surrounding the actual tomb mound.

How to make Chinese mugwort rice cake

2007-06-27T02:17:00.001-07:00

To flavor the rice cake, Chinese mugwort (Artemisia argyi) is used:

The mugwort leaves should be cleaned...

...and then boiled:

Wringing the boiled leaves will then remove the bitter sap contained within the plant.

Lye water must now be prepared. Lye water is important for three reasons: 1) to partially digest the mugwort leaves to make them easier to knead into the dough; 2) to serve as a preservative; 3) to act as a flavoring agent. In Fuzhou, soybean ash is preferentially used, but since this is generally in short supply, rice stalk ash is often used instead. Large piles of rice stalk are burned after the harvest and the resulting ash is stored primarily for use as fertilizer, but also for making both rice cake and zongzi later on in the year. Boiled water is poured over the ash and the lixivium is filtered through a cheesecloth. Incidentally, if you are not making rice cakes (or zongzi), the resulting brown alkaline liquid (lye water) can also be diluted with water and used as shampoo:

Note that lye water should NOT be consumed directly (it may burn a hole in your throat or stomach).

The mugwort leaves are now boiled in lye water until very soft and until most of the water has boiled away:

After the mugwort leaves are removed from the fire, sugar can be added to taste, and the mixture is poured into a 1:1 blend of rice flour and sticky rice flour (if you want softer and chewier rice cakes, you can increase the amount of sticky rice flour):

Everything should then be kneaded into a homogeneous green dough:

The green dough can then be fashioned into cakes...

and steamed in a cauldron:

After about 30 minutes, the resulting cakes will have become dark green in color and are ready to be eaten:

Swallows in the house

2007-06-26T04:36:00.001-07:00

In Fuzhou, it is considered very good luck to have swallows living in one's house. If the swallows voluntarily choose to build a nest in your house, then your house must be pretty amazing! People put nails into one of the roof beams of the central halls of their houses in order to encourage the swallows to build their mud nests right there. When swallow guano accumulates beneath the nest, this is never cleaned or swept away: it serves as the best evidence that you have swallows happily living in your home. Here are a couple of pictures of swallows in the house (including a parent swallow feeding its babies):

Farming in Fuzhou

2007-06-26T03:46:00.000-07:00

While in Fuzhou, I got to engage in a number of agricultural pursuits. On the very first day, we went into the mountains to forage for Chinese bayberries (Myrica rubra). Wild bayberries are tangy, unlike the bland bayberries available in the rural markets. They are usually picked from the ground beneath a bayberry tree (which can be manually shaken in order to make more bayberries fall). When going into the mountains, we avoided the commonly used trails because we figured all the bayberries would have already been taken. Gina's dad went in front, machete in hand:

On another day, I got to make Chinese mugwort-flavored green sticky rice cakes (detailed instructions on how to make these will be provided in a future post):

I also got to feed the fish (with grass cut along the river):

And, last but not least, I got to transplant rice with the village women (men don't usually do this kind of work...I think they prefer to stay home and play mahjong):

Finally, here's a random picture of a ham hanging out to dry after being washed (hams usually accumulate so much grease over the year from hanging over the stove that they occasionally need to be washed)...

and of Gina eating a cucumber:

The Founding of Fuzhou

2007-06-20T03:09:00.001-07:00

Our next stop after Dongguan was Fuzhou, the hamlet where Gina grew up. (Fuzhou is located in Pengfang Township, in case there is any confusion here.) Here is a picture of Fuzhou from the main road, looking across the rice fields:

For those who have had the pleasure of visiting, you might be interested in knowing when Fuzhou was founded. Two years ago, Gina and I encountered the following tombstone on a hill behind the village:

The stone which actually dates to 1736 is to commemorate a certain Liu Enrong who died sometime in the Ming. The question is who was Liu Enrong. While in Fuzhou last week, I got my hands on a manuscript copy of the clan genealogy (which had been burned during the Cultural Revolution, along with all other burnable material stored in the clan ancestral hall). This particular manuscript was copied (onto an old newspaper) in 1978 (presumably from another copy that had survived the destruction):

This genealogy clarifies who Liu Enrong was. He was none other than the founder of Fuzhou hamlet, arriving in Fuzhou in the eighth month of the year 1504. According to the genealogy, he is the 13th-generation ancestor of Gina's dad's adoptive grandfather (while still very young, Gina's dad was purchased by the Liu family from an avid gambler surnamed Peng).

Shanghai & Guangdong

2007-06-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick summary of the first week or so of our stay in China. We first spent a couple of days in Shanghai. I bought some books, we delivered some tuxedo vest samples to a business associate of my friend's aunt, and we had excellent Shanghainese food in the company of Beijing (in this case, a person, not to be confused with the city), Gina's friend from Knoxville:

We then flew to Guangzhou and spent a night there in order to have the time to see a few of Gina's old friends from her time working in the textile factory:

Gina also got a fashionable new Japanese-style haircut:

The next day we went by bus to Dongguan (about an hour away) to see the family (Gina's three older sisters). Here are some photos (first one taken at Second Sister's factory and the second one taken at Starbucks):

Finally, before leaving Guangdong for Jiangxi Province, I had the immense pleasure of eating durian on two occasions, including this one:

Besides eating durian, the other mission I was on while in Guangdong was to drink plenty of Hong Kong style milk tea. Unfortunately, I failed on this mission because none of the family/friends like Cantonese food, so we never went to the right restaurants (plus, it seems that Hong Kong style milk tea is far more popular in Hong Kong than across the border).

On June 4, we took an overnight train from Dongguan to Ji'an (arriving around 5 am) to spend 8 days with Gina's parents. I'll write more on this later...

San Antonio to Irvine

2007-05-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Rather than take the I-10 across west Texas, we opted for the far more scenic US 90, a lovely road through flat deserts punctuated by deep canyons...

...and rivers, such as the Pecos River west of Del Rio. Here is the bridge bringing the highway across the Pecos...

...and looking south from the same spot towards the US-Mexico border (you can make out where the Pecos empties into the Rio Grande, about a mile south of where I am sitting with Maomao):

After a not-so-good Mexican meal in Sanderson, TX, we continued west to Alpine, before cutting across the mountains on route 118 in order to rejoin the interstate:

We had dinner (at another Mexican place) in El Paso and made it as far as Lordsburg, New Mexico that night (staying in a motel on the main drag, appropriately named "Motel Dr.").

The next day, we got up early to try to make it to Irvine before the dreaded LA rushhour. We stopped briefly in Tucson for my fix (at a coffee shop near the University of Arizona), had lunch at a Del Taco in Blythe, and arrived at my dad's place in Irvine about 4 pm.

Barry and Kathii

2007-05-29T11:30:00.001-07:00

We had the pleasure of staying for three nights at my uncle & aunt Barry & Kathii's place in San Antonio. Barry and Kathii are very much into koi and have a splendid koi pond in their backyard...

...and very comfortable hanging chairs:

Maomao enjoyed the garden quite a bit, as did a bevy of stray cats, including this one:

Maomao was incidentally quite terrified of the koi.

The first night we strolled along the River Walk and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the river. On Sunday, we went for a drive in the hill country north of San Antonio. We had lunch at the Gristmill in Gruene (pronounced "green"), near the site of the oldest dance hall in Texas ("Gruene Hall"):

While at the Gristmill, Gina noticed young people floating down the Guadelupe River on inner tubes (called "toobs") and thought there could be nothing more fun in the whole world. Apparently, when she was a kid, some of her more lucky friends had access to old tires and could float down the river in Pengfang, while Gina (with no tire of her own) could only look on with envy.

Thus, the next day, just the two of us drove back to Gruene and got two toobs from Rockin R River rides. We were taken in a bus four miles up river and floated back down to Gruene. The local college students generally partake of this activity under the hot afternoon sun, with coolers of beer floating beside them on special inner tubes. We did it in the morning and were actually kind of cold at first, until the sun got higher into the sky. I thought it was quite fun, especially floating down a few small rapids. At the very end, however, just as we were nearing the beach where we would pull ourselves out of the water, Gina was struck with misfortune. She crashed into a rock in the last set of rapids, lost one of her shoes (a pair of crocs borrowed from Kathii specifically for the purposes of wearing in the river) as well as her inner tube (which I recovered a ways downriver) and ended up stuck on a rock in the middle of the rapids. After about a half hour, somebody from the Rockin R River shop explained to me that she should just float without an inner tube through the last set of rapids and then swim to shore, which is what she ended up doing. Here is a satellite image of the Gristmill (blue arrow) and the approximate site where Gina was stuck in the river (red arrow):

Knoxville to San Antonio

2007-05-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

As soon as I finished grading the last exams and mailing all my books to California (or Colorado), we sold our bed and bookcases, packed up the car, and left whatever remained by the garbage bin. Maomao was a little more relaxed on this road trip, sometimes even eating while we were driving (last time, he went on a hunger fast for the first few days). Here are the three of us, driving somewhere in Arkansas:

We left well after noon on May 10 (Thursday) and made it the first day only as far as Memphis, where we had dinner at a perfectly decent Vietnamese restaurant (Knoxville, by contrast, has no decent Vietnamese restaurants). We spent the night at a Super 8 by the Mississippi River:

The location was lovely, though the motel will need some work before it is really ready for guests. The first room we were placed in had a large hole in the wall that went deep into the building. We knew Maomao would go exploring and we'd probably never see him again, so we asked the guy at the front office if we could have a room without a hole in the wall. He seemed to know exactly what we were talking about. The moving from room to room was made somewhat more complicated by the fact that we were experiencing a tremendous downpour at that very moment. Here's a picture the next morning of Gina sniffing a Magnolia petal in the park across the street:

From Memphis, we drove west across Arkansas and into Texas at Texarkana. The drive was uneventful. I called Janie in the early afternoon to see if she happened to be in Dallas (she was not), and then to ask her for recommendations regarding Chinese restaurants in the Dallas region. She directed us to a Chinese strip mall in Richardson, TX. We stocked up on snacks at the Chinese grocery and also had dinner (noodles) at Jeng Chi Restaurant. That night, we made it as far as Temple (south of Waco).

The next morning, we continued south on the 35, stopping at Austin to have a look around the university. Gina had her first Jamba Juice and we then ate prepared foods from the Chinese grocery store next to our car in front of an apartment building near the corner of Lavaca and MLK. We made it into a bus tour of Austin. The tour guide announced on the loud speaker the history of the apartment building and then observed, "and in front, there are two people having a snack."

We arrived at Barry & Kathii's place around 1:30 pm.

Spring Recess 2007

2007-05-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

There were no classes on Friday, April 6 (for "Spring Recess"...not to be confused with "Spring Break" which lasted a whole week in March). So we decided to go on a road trip to see Alabama and Mississippi. These were two of the last three of the 50 states that I had never been to (the last one I've never been to is Florida...we were going to go in May if my mom hadn't gotten runovered by an SUV). On Thursday afternoon (after Gina's classes), we headed off towards Birmingham (via Chattanooga). I thought Birmingham might be a nice place to stay but in fact it wasn't. We had enormous difficulty finding anything pretty there. Five Points South was not too bad however:

After some pretty cheap Latin American food nearby, we kept going and spent the night in what turned out to be a really dirty & nasty motel half way to Tuscaloosa (besides holes in the ceiling, there was also, for example, a used condom in the bathroom...for your information, it was the Scottish Inn Bessemer on I-59 between Birmingham & Tuscaloosa).

Tuscaloosa (which we visited the next morning) was a nice town. As we were driving into town, Gina had her first taste of hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which she liked quite a bit (she usually does not especially like sweet things). After taking a walking tour of downtown Tuscaloosa (during which I nearly froze my hands off...a late freeze was striking the south that weekend), we looked around the campus of the University of Alabama (which is MUCH nicer than the campus of the University of Tennessee...much, much, much nicer). Here is a picture of a large lawn with Oliver-Barnard Hall (1889):

We continued down I-59 towards New Orleans, stopping at Hattiesburg for lunch (Cici Pizza). I had had a job interview for the University of Southern Mississippi at the AHA. The interview didn't lead to anything but having now been to Hattiesburg, I must say, thank god I didn't end up there! A very unattractive and uninteresting town. We did encounter some pretty purple flowers on the side of the I-59, somewhere in Mississippi:

Entering New Orleans was kind of creepy, since there were entire neighborhoods that were completely abandoned. It was Good Friday and the "Passion Live" was being held in the middle of one of these abandoned neighborhoods:

We were only in New Orleans for four hours or so. We walked along the Mississippi, stopped at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar for a not-very-good beer (for me) and a not-very-good vodka sour (for Gina)...

...and went to Preservation Hall for a couple of sets. We were thinking about getting dinner prior to leaving town, but couldn't find anything that we really wanted, so ended up heading west out of town, stopping at a Denny's for dinner. Gina found a coupon for a pretty cheap (and clean) hotel by the airport.

The next morning, we headed back towards Mississippi, on I-10 and I-55. To the south and west of Lake Pontchartrain, the freeway was basically a causeway above the bayous. Our next stop was Natchez, MS. It was the time of the "Spring Pilgrimage"; we could have gone on special historic house tours, but didn't really have the time or the money. Instead, we went on our own walking tour, seeing some of the old houses, such as Rosalie (1820):

By noontime, I needed a fix and got a coffee at the very good Natchez Coffee Co. on Franklin St. We had lunch at the Pig Out Inn Barbeque. It was ok (and mainly cheap).

Out of Natchez, we drove along the Natchez Trace Parkway (a National Park-managed road following the ancient trail connecting Central Tennessee to the Mississippi River). Here is a short segment of the original trail (which had sunk down below the forest floor after centuries of use):

We followed the Natchez Trace past Jackson, to the site of a cypress swamp:

By then it was late afternoon on Saturday, and we decided to drive back to Knoxville that night. We stopped at the China Kitchen in Newton before driving pretty much non-stop back to Knoxville, stopping only briefly at Birmingham so I could get my fix (at a Starbucks we had noticed near Five Points South).

Boston

2007-04-21T05:19:00.000-07:00

One of the last trips of the semester was Boston (Mar 22-25). I've been getting kind of tired of flying around (Princeton / Santa Barbara, CA / Greeley, CO / now Boston, all in February & March). Gina was excited, though, since she didn't go to the other places. Anyway, I was busy at a conference pretty much all weekend, but Gina did a bit of quality tourism (Freedom Trail / Harvard & walk along Charles River / Musuem of Fine Arts). Here is a photograph of her in Boston:

C and I

2007-04-21T05:11:00.000-07:00

I'll post a few updates to cover the last two or three months. Chris & Isaac visited us on February 25 and 26. Nearly nobody has agreed to come see us since we've been here, so we were particularly honored by their visit. On Saturday, we went to the Smoky's. Here are Gina, Chris, & Isaac on the Alum Cave Trail:

And here are the five of us near Newfound Gap:

Two random pictures

2007-02-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

I look kind of creepy in this picture, but I do have the wings of an angel:

It snowed a couple of days ago. Maomao went outside and made cute little footprints in the snow.

My new hat

2006-11-11T05:14:00.000-08:00

I really like this hat.

Halloween

2006-10-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've made a Jack-o'-lantern since I was six!

Four-day weekend

2006-10-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

We both have a four-day weekend (mine is Thurs-Sun; Gina's is Sat-Tues) so we went to the mountains. We drove to Cosby Creek Campground in the Smokey's very near the North Carolina border. First we hiked up to a waterfall (I had to run fast to get into this timed picture...which is why Gina has laughed herself blurry):

As it was getting close to dark, we lit a fire (partly using firewood Gina had gathered and partly firewood I had purchased) and started the BBQ (marinated chicken legs and hamburgers, corn, potato, zucchini, yellow squash). Here we are by the fire (with my Negra Modelo):

Having nothing better to do, we went to sleep at 8:30...so we got a fairly early start, though it was a little bit hard to move in the morning because it was so cold (in the 30s). We drove by Davenport Gap to meet up with the 40, heading towards the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the way, a bevy of wild turkeys crossed the road; we also saw a dead black bear on the side of the 40. Here is a very blurry photo of one of the turkeys. (I swear, it's a turkey!):

Here's a photo of Big Creek just downriver of a hydroelectric plant (hence the steam):

Here are some additional photos of the Blue Ridge Parkway:

Finally, we stopped for a couple of hours at Asheville before heading home. Here's a photo of Gina sipping my pumpkin-flavored latte:

Just to complete the weekend, here are a few photos of Maomao from Thursday. First, you can see Maomao causing us to lose our family honor (he's terrified of the little grey kitten Oliver and was keeping out of reach up on the ledge...I wonder what will happen once Oliver gets big enough to jump up on that ledge!). Also a picture of Maomao in a funny position on my blue mushroom chair. Finally, Maomao on the roof and the window ledge at the back of the apartment:

Random Maomao pictures

2006-10-07T18:49:00.000-07:00

We've led dull lives of work and sleep for the past month or more. The only pictures we've taken is of Maomao. So here are some recent Maomao pictures:

Berries in the Smokeys

2006-08-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

Today we finally got around to taking the one hour drive to get to the Smokey Mountains. The mountains were indeed smokey:

(those blurry spots are insects)

Other minor highlights (for major highlight, see below):
1) The woods were nice and had lots of flowers:

2) We had a picnic in a lovely meadow (though there were a lot of insects who wanted to share our salad):

3) We got our feet wet in the (frigid!) waters of a charming stream;

Now for the major highlight. As soon as we started our hike (along the Forney Ridge trail coming down from Clingmans Dome), we encountered bountiful bushes of very sweet and juicy raspberries. Gina put the first four in her mouth before I could even take the picture:

Further down the trail, we found blackberries and blueberries (all equally sweet):

Although we did hike a bit and have that picnic I talked about, Gina's heart was in the picking of berries (the meadow--site of our picnic--was the "headquarters" (as Gina puts it) of the blueberry trees). Back at home, here's a couple photos of our spoils:

(FYI: that's the edge of my purple bean bag on the bottom of the picture)

Maomao in Knoxville

2006-08-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

For those interested, Maomao has very quickly adjusted to his new surroundings. His favorite places to hang out during the day are: 1) inside the bathtub; 2) the top shelf of the hall closet; 3) the top of the bookcase in our bedroom (see below). The bookcase was actually designed just for him. We bought one that would be just high enough for him to look out the window (the window sill in the bedroom is too narrow).

Dissertation and faulty harddrive

2006-08-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

It is now official:

For those interested, my dissertation is available in pdf format on my as-of-yet very primitive website:

Nick Tackett's website

The bad news is that this might be the last post for a while. My harddrive crashed several times today...usually I can get it to start working again by striking the front of the computer. Needless to say, I spent the day burning cds.

Quick New York trip

2006-08-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

On Monday (Aug 7) we drove up to New York. Actually, we first spent a night with Sarino in Maryland, passing the morning of Aug 8 visiting D.C. (we walked from the capitol to the Lincoln Memorial) and lunch with Janie. Tuesday night we had an excellent dinner (as usual) at GSE with Chris & Isaac. Wednesday, I turned in the final copy of my dissertation and loaded up the car with my TV and dvd player, stored in my old apartment (under Andy's supervision), as well as stuff I had left with Tiffany and Cordy. And Thursday we drove back to Knoxville (in one day) stopping in the morning at my cousin's to fill up all remaining space in the car with books I had left in her attic. We got back to Knoxville at 2 am.

Atlanta

2006-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

To backtrack: We arrived in Knoxville on Aug 1 which was a Tuesday. On Thursday we drove to Atlanta to get furniture at IKEA, stuff at Crate&Barrel (where we had a gift certificate), and stock up on groceries in Chinatown. We had some difficulty getting the bed back to Knoxville. The box containing the head of the bed did not fit into the car and so I spent about an hour tying it to the roof. I soon realized that the flat box was acting sort of like a sail and was destined to flip up (and off the car) if it stayed on top. We started taking apart the box (initially so I could cut holes in the box to make it a less effective sail), but then discovered the contents were quite a bit smaller than the box and with a lot of effort (including moving the front seats back and forth), we were able to get it into the car. This process took another hour. The inside of the car ended up looking like this:

Including the eight hours of driving to get to Atlanta and back, it was quite a long day...

Fishing and lots of driving

2006-08-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a summary of the rest of the trip:

On our second day in Woodland Park (that would be last Saturday, July 29), we spent much of the day fishing. We went to Lake Manitou right outside of town. It was very hot, but a lovely setting:

Nobody was having much luck, though Gina did catch a few crayfish. At the very end of the afternoon, just as we were about to leave, Gina reeled in a sucker fish (which, though not really edible, was to be used by Jeff & Dave as bait on their fishing expedition the following week):

That evening, Dave came by to have dinner with us and we all hung out on the deck drinking coffee spiked with either whiskey or rum:

The next day, we left early, continuing on our trek. Not a lot to say. We drove a little over 800 miles making it clear to the outskirts of St.Louis. We then got up early again and drove south along the Mississippi. There was a lovely view of the river north of Cape Girardeau:

We crossed into Illinois and passed through Cairo, one of the more depressed towns I've seen before traversing the Ohio River just where it pours into the Mississippi. That night was spent in a beautiful campground at Land Between the Lakes (in western Kentucky):

Woodland Park (day 1)

2006-07-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of rest. Maomao spent most of the morning exploring the house and napping on the bookcase:

I got scared a little when I couldn't find him and ascertained that he had discovered how to work the doggy door. I indeed found him outside roaming the neighbor's yard.

Gina, Grandma, and I went to the Italian restaurant next door for lunch (Primo's). We were kind of disappointed by the food. In the afternoon we went to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, a for-profit organization that excavates dinosaur bones off private lands and sells casts to museums and universities around the world. They also have a small but fascinating museum in Woodland Park. Here are a couple of photos:

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

2006-07-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

On the fifth day of the move, we started off early in the morning to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (while leaving Maomao in the motel). We took a few small hikes along the south rim of the canyon. It was a truly beautiful place:

After picking up Maomao, we had lunch in the car (Mexican leftovers) as we drove to Woodland Park:

We stopped briefly at Monarch Pass:

and Florissant Fossil Beds:

(this is a 34 million-year-old petrified redwood stump)

Finally, we arrived in Woodland Park just in time to enjoy Jeff's excellent pork ribs that had been stewing all day long.

Interstate 70

2006-07-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

After a pancake breakfast (courtesy of Tim), we set off in the direction of Colorado. We wanted to stop at Arches National Park and were debating whether to take the interstates or to cut across on a surface road. We stuck to the freeway and this turned out to be a good choice. I-70 heading through eastern Utah is very beautiful:

Lunch consisted of a taco salad purchased at a Mexican restaurant in Green River and consumed in a small public park (where we could park the car in the shade for Maomao's comfort). Shortly thereafter, we left the interstate and headed south to Arches N.P.:

We headed back to I-70 along a canyon carved by the Colorado River:

And we ended the day in a motel in Montrose, Colorado. For dinner, we had more Mexican food across the street (Gina was starting to get sick of it but I wasn't) and, after eating, I took advantage of the motel wireless to update this blog.

Salt Lake City

2006-07-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

Most of the third day of the move involved a fairly dull drive across Nevada. I listened to some books on tape for a while, but since Gina couldn't really understand anything, we didn't do that for too long. We were very happy to arrive in Salt Lake City and see our friends Tim, Fumi, and Kenji. We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and then spent an hour or two walking around downtown (mainly Temple Square). Here's a picture of us (minus me) outside of Tim's dad's place the next morning:

Portola Redwoods to Reno

2006-07-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

We arrived at the Portola Redwoods State Park around 5:30 p.m. and set up camp. Then we went back down the hill to Mountain View to see Michelle and Dave. Dinner at a Japanese place near Castro St.

Early the next morning (early is about the only time we can leave Maomao in the car alone), we went on a little walk among the redwoods:

Later, after my doctor's appointment down the hill, we left town in a hurry, trying to beat traffic. Heading east on the 80, we crossed beautiful Donner Pass:

before ending the day in Reno. We each gambled 30 cents (one nickel and one quarter) and lost it all.

Moving to Knoxville

2006-07-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

Right now, we are in the process of driving to Knoxville, "we" being the three of us:

Gina and I been having a good time, eating a lot while driving (including beef jerky courtesy of Frank & My, who gave it as a present at a very nice dinner party they hosted on Friday). Maomao, on the other hand, appears to not be enjoying the trip much. He's been sleeping a lot. Sometimes on us:

But mostly in his kitty litter:

(consequently we've been keeping the kitty litter real clean...)

Gina can now drive

2006-07-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

Disaster on Whitman Ct.

2006-07-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

There are those who may be horrified to see how things have declined in our final days living on Whitman Ct. First, there is the mess in the living room:

Second, evil gardeners have dealt a more permanent blow to the privacy formerly enjoyed on the back patio. Two bushes have been without warning chopped down:

Ukrainian culture night

2006-07-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday night was Ukrainian culture night at Katya's place. We were treated to a plethora of photographs from Katya's days in the Ukraine, examples of traditional Ukrainian clothing (made by Katya's mother-in-law), and folk music. However, first and foremost was the food. Dinner began with borsch:

Then came gretchka (buckwheat) with mushrooms (here photographed with Gina and Kazu):

Next came kutya (sweetened wheat grains), which is usually a Christmas specialty. Here is a picture of kutya in the hands of our chef:

Although by now I was stuffed to the brim, Katya then came out with three different kinds of varyeniki (dumplings): potato with shkvarki (fried lard), meat with shkvarki, and cheese with raisins. Here is the first type (photographed with Chihiro and Katya):

Finally, we were served paska (a type of sweet bread usually served at Easter) and "Katya's crazy tea" (crazy because it's so strong).

July 4

2006-07-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

July 4: In the morning, Gina went to my mom's place to clean up her patio. In the afternoon, we had a bbq. We were very honored to have Allan's presence. Allan had once vowed never to venture south of the 10 freeway, so you can imagine what a trek it must have been to come down to OC. Allan & I formed the American contingent. Our remaining guests were some of Gina's ESL friends: Katya, Chihiro, Zohreh, and Frank. Frank and Zohreh are siblings; along with their father, they all took ESL classes together! My mom also stopped by a little later on. Here are some photos:

Sometime after dinner, we went off onto the grassy knoll behind the house and watched in the (far) distance a large number of firework shows in progress.

Bday dinner

2006-07-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

For dinner Monday night, we went (on my dad's recommendation) to Sage restaurant in Newport Beach. For starters, I had gazpacho and Gina had pepper-seared ahi:

For main courses, Gina had balsamic glazed salmon and I had grilled pork tenderloin:

We had a good time. Sage is sometimes known for being noisy, but on Monday night at 8:30 out on the patio, the ambience was quite subdued.

This weekend

2006-07-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, Gina (who will be taking her behind-the-wheel driving test next Tuesday) drove me and Katya (Gina's ESL classmate) to Crystal Cove State Beach. There is a conveniently placed Starbucks at a strip mall across the street where I set myself up with my computer to work while they had fun at the beach. I nearly starved to death waiting for them, but they arrived just in time. We bought salads at Trader Joe's and ate at a table outside. Although it was hot outside, there was a cool breeze.

In the evening, Gina made excellent spaghetti with meatballs (with basil from our basil plant):

Sunday morning, while I went for a run, Gina went swimming. Then, I went to pick her up on the scooter. See how happy she is when in a pool:

At lunch we went to the tea place with my mom (Gina had three coupons for free meals)...

...and after lunch we met Sorin at the Steelhead. We had seen him at his wedding in January, but I hadn't really had a chance to talk to him in probably two years.

Today (Monday) is my birthday. For lunch (while Gina was hard at work at the tea place), I met Sean, whom I also hadn't talked to in a very long time. He provided me with a lengthy Marxist interpretation of the Bush regime. No plans yet for the rest of the day...

Sending books from China

2006-06-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

I was once told by an employee of the Chinese postal service that one should never send books book-rate to the United States. He chuckled as he told me they would never get there. I had asked Gina to get two books for me last time she went to China, but had forgotten to tell her about the no-book-rate rule. So she sent the two books book-rate at a cost of 85 RMB (US $10) on November 20, 2005. Today (June 28, 2006) the package arrived:

Notice how the package is open and I didn't even have to open it. Another interesting thing about the package is that I didn't have to empty it either. It was already empty (as noted in red by the US postal service: "Received without content"):

If you think about it, it's a win-win situation: the Chinese postal system gets to make money selling the contents of my package and I am freed of the burden of opening and emptying the package myself. The one suggestion I would make to the Chinese postal system is that they consider saving themselves a little bit of time and effort by simply throwing out the package after it has been opened rather than take the trouble to pass it on to the U.S. postal system.

Dimsum & steak

2006-06-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

To wrap up the NY trip:

Yesterday we began with a short run in Central Park. Isaac went on to do his 12 mile run, but Gina & I got tired and went back early. We went to Jinfeng's for dimsum and then picked up four Portuguese tarts before going to meet Anne-Catherine (my cousin) in the Village. Our plan was to see some of the Chelsea galleries, but we couldn't remember exactly where they were so we walked around quite a bit. Like a few miles. Meanwhile, I was developing a caffeine-withdrawal headache, so I eventually needed to stop for coffee. Which made the rest of the walk much more enjoyable. June 30 is apparently the end of the art season, so many of the galleries had already shut down until July, but we did see a few interesting things along 21st and 22nd streets. Then we headed down to the meat-packing district, an area I didn't know all that well. At this point, Anne-Catherine had to head home (after we snacked on the custard tarts).

In the evening, we went to GSE (Grand Sichuan Eastern), the best Sichuanese restaurant outside of China. (I cannot fail to mention this event which was certainly the highlight of the whole trip for Gina.)

The highlight of the trip for me, on the other hand, was this afternoon's lunch at Peter Luger. Peter Luger is one of the most popular restaurants in NY, so it was not easy to get a reservation when we called on Wednesday. They had only one time available the whole weekend: 2:45 p.m. on Sunday. It is well-known that what one orders there is the porterhouse for two:

The meat there is always dry aged on site ("dry aged" meaning that the salt and flavors do not leach out with the fluids that accumulate during standard aging). Very good meat. We were all happy:

Dessert consisted of pecan pie for me and cheesecake for everybody else. Having consumed too much, Gina & I decided to walk home across the Williamsburg Bridge, from where there are charming views of Brooklyn & Manhattan:

We stopped at a Chinese market on Clinton and then saw the tower in the 6th & Ave. B Community Garden:

before walking back towards the subway on St. Mark's Pl.

Trip to NY

2006-06-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

June 17 we went to NY for me to defend my dissertation. For the first few days, I was largely occupied preparing, though I did take a little bit of time off to accompany Gina. Here we are atop the Belvedere Castle:

And here I am smelling flowers by Shakespeare's Garden:

I spent that day at the Columbia library, but came back in time to meet Gina at the Natural History museum. Here's Gina with a couple of dinosaurs:

The day after I (successfully) defended, we went back to the Columbia area to see classmates (Alex and Karl). Gina wanted to do something touristy, so we tried to go up the Riverside Church tower. But it was closed. We hung out for an hour or so at Max's Cafe instead:

Tiffany had very kindly invited us to a dinner party for the evening. Excellent food. Here is the menu:

shrimp with fresh peas salad
herb gnocchi with summer vegies

...and a photo of Tiffany photographing me:

Gina's last day of school

2006-06-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

Thursday ten days ago was Gina's last day of school. Here is her account of the day:

June 15 (Thursday) was the last day of spring quarter for ESL students at UCI. It was an easy day because all exams were finished except the "mock trial" that afternoon. In the morning idioms class, the teacher brought the game Scrabble and cookies. The reading and writing teacher was busy calculating our grades. As for the students, we talked about our upcoming plans. Some are going back to their countries; others are going to different places to continue their studies. It was a happy and sad moment for all of us: happy because this quarter was over; sad because many friends were going away. Then, we took pictures with our teacher in front of our classroom as a souvenir:

After the mock trial was successfully finished, we rested for a couple hours in preparation for the graduation ceremony. Last quarter (winter quarter) I did not go to the ceremony because I was working at Cha (the tea place). So I was determined to make it this time. It was fun, even though poignant. Usually it takes place in the Bren Events Center. However, this time it took place at the University Club because the Bren Events Center was fully reserved by UCI spring graduation ceremonies. I found it was a charming place. There were many people: students, teachers, and their kids. The ceremony itself was a litle bit boring. They gave awards to the students who had gotten straight A's and who had perfect attendance. Afterwards, I took many pictures with all my clsasmates from different classes. People were smiling all the time and took advantage of opportunities to take photos with everyone whom he or she knew because they might not see each other again. Here are some pictures that I took:

When the time came to the food, things got a little out of hands. At the beginning, they did not allow us to eat until after the ceremony had concluded. After I lingered taking pictures and talking with classmates, there was no more food left. That was what they called light refreshments. Anyway, I felt happy and lucky that I participatd in the ESL program, and I've made many friends who come from different countries. I took them for granted until the day when I realized that maybe I won't see them again.

Cats & party

2006-06-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

Volodya and Katya went back to the Ukraine and nobody is there to look after their Russian blue. So we've been going by daily to feed him and hang out a little with him. This is what he looks like:

He's a very sweet cat, always happy to see us. And, like our cat Maomao, he is a recent immigrant.

Last night we had a party. Mainly Gina's ESL classmates, but also a few of my friends. Lots of people ended up coming, probably around 25. Gina made a ton of food and we also bbq'd kebabs. Frank and My brought a large amount of excellent beef jerky (they own a beef jerky factory). It was really, really good stuff. I forgot to take pictures of the party until the very end when a lot of people had already left. Here's a group of ESL students interrupting their game of taboo to pose:

UCLA

2006-05-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

We went up to UCLA yesterday. Helen was going for some women's conference and we ended up all tagging along. At the coffee break before going to the library, an annoying squirrel was begging for food. Eventually he gave up on us and dove into the garbage can. There was some loud rustling. Then out he came with a piece of pizza. Here he is back in his tree chowing down:

The library was useful: there were archaeological journals for me and travel & other journals for Gina. After lunch (Mexican + Chinese fastfood at the student center), we walked down to Westwood Village to show Gina around. Gina finds that Westwood is more interesting than Irvine (what a surprise!). My dad and Gina had ice cream at the Hungarian-Danish joint and I had a coffee at Pete's.

Gina works late these days, often doing the 8-2 shift at the bubble tea place. Eventually she crashed on a bench near the law school (while we waited for Helen to finish up...):

Avocados and more

2006-01-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

Here's some stuff we did yesterday (Sunday). Gina went crazy on the avocado tree:

She ended up picking nearly a hundred. And there are at least one thousand more up there for later...

In the afternoon we went to the beach. There was a neat tidepool:

Hermit crabs, little fishies, and more...

Then we had dinner at my mom's (Gina cooked). We got to see Maomao! ...who was in the mood to play with Gina's hair:

Bronx Zoo

2005-12-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday (Dec 20), we went to the zoo. There was a transit strike, so we couldn't take the subway, but we were able to get there by walking to Grand Central and taking Metro North to Fordham Road. It was one of the best possible days to go to the zoo. It was a cold day and all school field trips had been canceled because of the strike, so the zoo was deserted! It was so pleasant! Moreover, nobody was even there to sell tickets, so we just wandered in free of charge. Some of the highlights were:

1) All the different kinds of birds.

2) The tigers. In all zoos I've been to before, the tigers are behind multiple security fences, so you can't end up seeing them that well. At the Bronx Zoo, they were simply behind a glass window:

3) The baboons, energetically throwing themselves against the glass windows:

4) The nocturnal animals, including bats and sand cats:

Mediterranean

2005-12-02T03:05:00.000-08:00

Just came back from a week in Southwest France (based in Toulouse). Got a lot of work done, but also had a little bit of fun. One day, we drove to Collioure, a town on the Mediterranean, very near the border with Spain. (Not surprisingly, there were LOTS of Spanish tourists!) It was a cute town:

Gina and I took a hike up to a little castle on the hill. We encountered LOTS of prickly pears, and since that was something I knew for a fact wasn't poisonous, I mentioned to Gina that the pears were edible:

They were very sweet and VERY good. Rumor has it that my uncle makes prickly pear margaritas. I can tell you that if you made a margarita with the prickly pears we ate, it would be a great success. (Isaac, in particular, would like it!)

Unfortunately, I forgot about a couple of drawbacks when you eat a cactus. You may have noticed in the picture where Gina is opening up the pear that there is a cactus spine sticking out of her right index finger. In fact, she ended up with numerous spines on her lips and tongue (we spent about 10 minutes picking them out). Next time, I think we'll use gloves and be more careful about only eating the inside of the fruit...

Santa Claus

2005-12-02T03:02:00.000-08:00

This was kind of weird. It's a second-floor balcony, by the way...

Nancy

2005-11-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

On the fifteenth, my dad & Helen arrived. My dad & I left immediately the next day for Nancy (city in Lorraine...as in the quiche...not too far from Luxembourg). My dad went for a conference and I wanted to check out the town since I had never been. Very interesting architecture. A little bit of the medieval town survived; and most of the newer center of town had buildings from the 17th/18th centuries. What attracted me most was all the art nouveau architecture scattered around town. I'm a big fan of art nouveau and had not even made the connection with Nancy until we got there. It turns out Nancy was one of the great centers. The Musee de l'ecole de Nancy had a very impressive collection of art nouveau artists from Nancy, especially Emile Gallé, Victor Prouvé, and Louis Majorelle. There were several entire rooms preserved, with matching furniture, walls, ceilings, etc.:

(Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me to Nancy, so these photos are taken from a museum catalog that we purchased).

Here's a ceramic cat by Emile Gallé:

The museum also had an amazing collection of glassware, lamps, furniture, etc. This was a great discovery for me.

The next morning, before boarding the train back to Paris, we took a quick walk around town to look for art nouveau houses. We found a couple of very interesting ones, with the typical organic patterns, vegetative chimneys, etc. I wish I had my camera...

Maman

2005-11-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

My mom visited from Nov 5 to Nov 10! It was a while ago, but I never posted anything. I was actually working a lot of the time she was here, and Gina took her around town. One the first day, they went to see the wallabies in the Jardin des plantes:

The next day was the first Sunday of the month, when many museums, etc. have free admission. First, the three of us went to the Sainte-Chapelle:

It was a sunny day, so the windows were particularly glorious:

We also went to the conciergerie and the museum of medieval art. No pictures though.

Everybody (except me) left on the tenth: my mom went back to California; Gina went back to China (to pick up her visa for the U.S.). This meant several days of canned food for me.

Breakfast

2005-11-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

FYI, here's what breakfast looked like on October 31:

One of us ate basil omelette with steak hache and one of us ate instant noodles with laoganma (a spicy black bean sauce).

Claire

2005-10-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

Gina's schoolmate from Beijing was here for a week. See how happy they are to have been reunited:

Claire is studying to be a beautician, hence her lovely fingernails:

Today is Gina's first (of three) birthdays. She was born on the 29th day of the 10th lunar month (in 1980). At some point, this was translated into English as October 29 (today!!). In fact, using the solar calendar, she was born on December 6. And, this year, her birthday using the lunar calendar is November 30. Since Gina loves eating gastropods, we went to Leon de Bruxelles (a restaurant chain that specializes in mussels):

Next, we walked up the Eiffel Tower, which Gina has been wanting to do for quite a while.

I wonder if there's somebody who can tell the day of the year and the time of the day by that shadow...

Jane & Olivier

2005-10-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Jane & Olivier came this weekend from Geneva. They'd been meaning to come and took advantage of the fact that Jane suddenly had a day off on Friday. We all went to the Louvre on Friday evening (and everybody got in for free except Jane). Looked at Boulle furniture and the Islamic collection (which included a temporary exhibit of stuff from Nishapur courtesy of the Met in NY). In the evening, we went looking for mussels, but did not find a good place.....so.....the following morning, when we found a box of 3 kilograms of mussels for 3 euros, we bought them right away on a whim. We didn't even know what to do with them. Fortunately, Anabela (the cleaning woman) was around at noon and told us how to cook them (Portuguese style). To continue on the food theme, we had fondue in the evening (with ingredients brought by J&O). Not too bad. Then I imposed a James bond movie on J&O, who slept through half of it (Gina slept through all of it). I was on #11 (Moonraker). After Gina & I did our 5k run around the Parc Montsouris, we went with J&O to the Musee Rodin. One of the better deals in Paris as long as you don't buy the ticket for the museum (5 euros); the ticket for the garden is just 1 euro. Here are some of the pictures. First, J&O:

(I counted to three (in Chinese), but they ignored me and didn't smile.) Here are some other pictures:

Google maps

2005-10-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

Anybody who knows me would know how excited I am about Google maps! I now need to hold myself back from spending all day playing around with it. I've also added a link to my present location (look to the right).

Nice day

2005-10-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today was the nicest day we've had since we got here. Sunny and warm. Maybe the last nice day of the season. After Gina's class, we made sandwiches and left for St-Germain-en-Laye. We had lunch on a bench overlooking the surrounding countryside:

Then walked down the long terrace (2.5 km in length)...

For those interested, running up and down the terrace a couple of times makes for a nice jog. On the way back into town, we went through the forest. Gina loves forests.

When she was young, there was nothing she liked better than an excuse to walk through the forest. Apparently, there are lots of little snacks to eat. Today, she found some nuts and berries (which she promptly ate). She was looking for mushrooms...

...but the bastard that I am, I physically prevented her from eating them.

After a quick peek inside the castle...

...we took the train back into town, stopping at La Defense, the business district on the western edge of the city limits.

Bastards!

2005-10-04T01:37:00.000-07:00

I was in a bad mood today (starting at noon). First, I found out Gina's French class has been canceled today, tomorrow, and probably the day after because the teacher and the substitute teacher are both on strike. Gina was told to come back on Thursday, but then was also handed a leaflet which seems to indicate that the striking teachers want the students to come back on Thursday to join them in their protest. Considering that the only people losing out here are the students (who are paying $27.50 per class and probably won't get payed back for missed class), I'm not sure how much support they'll be getting.

Second, we received a bill from a shipping company for $225. We shipped a bunch of my old books + my old clothes, underwear and socks from China to France. We were already annoyed because we had asked the company (TNT Express International) to ship "Economy Express," but they shipped at the next more expensive rate ("Global Express") and refused to lower the charges because of their fuck up. Now, they're also charging us $225 in import duties and other administrative fees. Apparently, tourists coming to France now have to pay $2 per underwear. I guess it's a way of encouraging tourists to leave their underwear at home and buy new ones in France.

Anyways, since I was in a bad mood, we went for a walk (instead of me studying). The Promenade plantée is a charming two- or three-kilometer long stretch of greenery. There was a little delay getting there (due to striking subway workers), but we made it and had a nice walk.

Free Day

2005-10-02T04:02:00.000-07:00

A number of museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of the month. After lunch, Jane headed back to Geneva and me, Gina, Claire went to take advantage. First, the Musee Picasso. It was a little disappointing because the permanent collection was largely in storage and there was a huge exhibit of his sketches...since I'm into his colors as much as anything else, sketches don't do it for me...moreover, there were no explanations of anything, which definitely didn't make it an appropriate exhibit for people who had never seen his works before (like Gina). We did find one old friend:

We went over to the Pompidou next to briefly walk through the new organization of their collection. I was intrigued by a rather large desk lamp:

Now back at home. Almost dinner time!!

Nuit blanche

2005-10-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

La Nuit Blanche was more interesting than fun. I HATE crowds! There were unbelievable numbers of people, and more coming as of 3 AM (when we headed home). Including scary drunk young males who would sometimes suddenly start growling and chasing random females (like Gina, who did the knee-to-the-balls move, and Jane who, an hour later, did an evasive little run).

We started out around 11 pm at the Sacre Coeur. Some guy was conducting 300 electric guitars on the parvis. The effect was interesting, but the crowds! We had luckily come up from the side, but when heading down, we used the central staircase and got at one point caught in a narrow passage of barely moving people for 20 minutes. We tried to hear an all-night organ concert down the hill, but it looked like we'd be in line for 2 hours. We then headed across town to Chatelet (on foot, since the metros had shut for the night and there were probably 10,000 people, literally, trying to catch a cab). In St. Eustache there was a woman making funny screechy noises with a double-bass and occasionally making little shrieking noises with her own voice; she was drowned out by the loud rock concert going on outside. Finally, we went to the Hotel de Ville, where there was some game people played, involving jumping as fast as they could on little colored squares that were being beamed down from above. Two teams of people competed. Meanwhile, on a large screen behind there were movies of people in the daytime rushing about the square in front of the Hotel de Ville.

Finally, we headed home by bus. We fought with masses of people to get onto a night bus at Chatelet (including more drunk young men using physical force to get on before others). Unfortunately, Jane suddenly felt claustrophobic and got off, so the two of us ended up walking home (Gina & Claire, in the meantime, took the bus back and, with the traffic jams, arrived 5 minutes before us).

Jane

2005-10-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

Jane is in town! Arrived last night on a train from Geneva. After a slow morning (including a run in the park and lunch), we went on a little walk around town. Gina hasn't seen much of Paris yet, so since it was a nice day, we thought we'd do a walk from the Louvre

to the Arch de Triomphe.

On the way we noticed this...

Since we still had energy, we went on to Trocadero and then clear to the Ecole militaire:

Incidentally, I really came to realize the extent of Jane's wine problem. Not only did she buy 65 bottles of wine over the past couple of weeks in Switzerland, but she bought two more bottles at the only wine shop we passed on our walk today!

OK, time for dinner, then we have to get ready for the Nuit blanche!

Running (part 2)

2005-09-29T03:58:00.000-07:00

Whose shoes are prettier? Whose shoes are bigger?

We went running today in the Parc Montsouris. I found out that this park was originally called Mocquesouris because of numerous abandoned windmills that were tempting the poor, starving rodents. Since we were running together, I was prevented from running too fast, though at each corner of the park, there was a way of running a little farther, so while Gina cut the corner, I had the opportunity to speed up for a stretch. Lots of runners in that park in the morning!

Running

2005-09-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

We've decided we really need to get back to our running. Haven't really done any exercise since arriving in Paris (or, for that matter, since leaving Shanghai). First we staked out the running course at the Parc Montsouris. It's a nice park with green grass:

The park is about 1 kilometer from the apartment and it's about 1 kilometer once around the park. I'll have to try to figure it out more precisely one of these days.

Next problem is running shoes. Gina forgot her shoes in Shanghai. So we need to get new ones. Will have to wait until tomorrow...

Trip back

2005-09-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

The trip back from Shanghai was pretty uneventful. Maomao came with me. He didn't enjoy the trip very much. Here he is at KFC before taking off (with his pink girlfriend):

Oh, and at the same KFC, check out the size of this French fry!

E-bay

2005-08-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

E-bay fans may be happy to know they've made it to Shanghai:

Of course, most Chinese barely trust a seller when they buy in person; I can't imagine on-line purchases becoming popular anytime soon...I guess that's why they need an actual shop.

Nanjing

2005-07-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

The train for Nanjing left at 8:30 AM. Naturally, we left our apartment at 8:15 AM. After a 2 minute walk/run to the subway station and a 4 minute wait for the subway, it was now 8:21 AM. We got to the train station at 8:29 AM. And, after another walk/run (more run than walk), we were on board by 8:30 AM. BUT, when we went to get our seats, we found people sitting there and only then realized that we had gotten on the wrong train (the 8:37 train). It wasn't a huge deal. For some reason, the two super-fast two-hour express trains to Nanjing leave 7 minutes apart. But we had to spend some time looking for new seats.

The first stop was the Nanjing Museum. These are the bastards who won't let me see their tomb epitaphs. They told me that if I wanted to see their epitaphs, I needed to fax them a letter explaining my research. Which I did. I called them a few days later and they told me they had lost my letter and I needed to fax it again. Which I did. I waited another day to call and they told me I couldn't see their epitaphs because they're too heavy to move. Why didn't they tell me that to begin with? So I asked them if I could see rubbings of the epitaphs. Needless to say, the answer was no. Presumably, as soon as they ascertained for sure that I was white (and not an American-born Chinese), it was an easy decision to forbid me to see their stuff. Despite the fact that the museum is run by racist bastards, their collection includes a few items that made the trip worthwhile, including a Western Han jade burial suit and inscribed bricks from a 5th century tomb depiciting the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.

It was oppressively muggy when we first arrived in Nanjing; I was relieved to see signs of an impending thunder storm as we left the museum. We made it to a restaurant for lunch just in time to escape the downpour. Then, we took a cab to the forested Zijinshan (purple-gold mountain); more precisely, we took a cab most of the way to the mountain, until the cabbie got lost, and then walked the rest of the way. Gina really likes climbing mountains, so the chairlift to the top was pretty much out of the question. After a year of Chinese polution, it was a delight to breath in the fresh air of a forest after rain. There was another brief downpour during our ascent, so we did not spend as much time on the mountain as would have been otherwise possible (and took the chairlift back down).

We then decided to visit the tomb of the first Ming emperor (the capital of China was in Nanjing for the first 50 years of the Ming). We didn't actually go in because the ticket was too expensive, but we did see it from the outside:

In addition, part of the spirit path, which marks the lengthy approach to an imperial tomb, lay between two lanes of the public road, so we were able to examine several fine 15th-century statues:

We continued south along the same road until we reached the city wall, a very impressive structure that survives almost intact along most of its 30-mile course.

Old Ming-period bricks were neatly stacked in front of the wall, all bearing the names of the brickmakers or the people in charge of the brickmaking. This brick was made in Jiangxi Province:

For a change of scene, we then took a cab to the center of town (Xinjiekou) to try to get a glimpse of modern Nanjing. Numerous unmemorable department stores were clustered around a pedestrian zone. After a bowl of noodles, we headed to Nanjing West Station for the trip back to Shanghai.

Super Brand Mall

2005-07-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we went to Super Brand Mall, in Pudong. An interesting building with a very uninteresting name. The Mall reminded me a little of the Kyoto train station, with the central axis extending upward along a series of escalators and staircases.

The grocery store in the basement had everything. We bought lots of fruits (durian, mangosteen, peaches, plums, etc.). And if you reached the check-out counter and realized you had forgotten to buy toothpaste and batteries, you were in luck:

I mean, it's perfect if you forgot to buy 6 batteries and toothpaste. But what happens if you forgot to buy 6 batteries, toothpaste, AND catfood? I think they should start selling a package of 6 batteries, toothpaste, AND a one-day supply of catfood.

Fashion update

2005-07-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

Today, for the first time, I wore my "lao wai lai le...lao wai zou le" t-shirt, which I purchased in Dali in December. On the front, it states that "the foreigner has arrived" and on the back "the foreigner has gone." The word used for foreigner is considered slightly derogatory by some (and rapidly changes to "foreign guest" or other overly polite term when the person has realized that you understand them when they're talking about you in Chinese). Anyways, it was a sensation! Absolutely everybody was reading the t-shirt and laughing (mainly because they didn't even know foreigners knew about that word they use when referring to us). I have never worn ANYTHING that has attracted so much attention. In fact, I have never SEEN anybody wear anything that has attracted so much attention. Caught me kind of by surprise. Anyways, here is the t-shirt. Did you ever think a clothing item so plain could make such an impression?

On another fashion note, we went for a walk after dinner, to a mall known as "Time Square". It's very close to our place, but I had never been. In the basement was a foreigner's dream supermarket, with such delicacies as Campbell's soup and Prego tomato sauce. I bought some frozen bagels. We then went up to the top floor, where there is a movie theater. But there were no good movies showing (just a bunch of ancient Hong Kong flicks). On our way back out, we passed by a Calvin Klein Jeans store that was loudly advertising "Sale! 40%-90% Off!". If it's really 90% off, I'm buying it, I told myself. So I walked in and asked where the 90% off items were. They pointed to a rack and said everything there was 40%-90% off. I replied that I didn't want something 40% off, 50% off, or even 80% off. I wanted something 90% off. The guy found the ONE item that was 90% off. A red wind-breaker. Just what I needed on this steamy summer night! It was $115 before the discount. I paid $11.50. That's cheap for a wind-breaker, right? Except I think it's a little too big and it might be for women...

By the way, these photos were taken in the bathroom, because I don't like the flash on my camera. The bathroom has very bright heat lamps on the ceiling...perfect for taking pictures at night. Here's a nice picture of Little Sister in the bathroom:

Hopefully the above description of this picture won't attract too many child porn pervs.

Suzhou

2005-07-15T17:12:00.000-07:00

July 10 (Sunday) [several photos courtesy of Andres & Paulina]

Last Sunday, on Andres & Paulina's second day in Shanghai, we took the train to Suzhou. The fastest express train takes 40 minutes. I had been to Suzhou in April, and preferred seeing gardens I had not seen just three months ago. But I did take everybody (A&P + Gina and Little Sister) to see the Master of the Nets (my favorite):

After lunch, we headed out to the west side of town to see the Lingering Garden (one that I had seen with my mother a few years ago but that I had not seen in March).

It was very hot that day (that's probably why Andres looks so unhappy in the last picture), so we did not squeeze in a third garden before returning to Shanghai. While A&P and Little Sister went shopping, Gina took me to a promising bookstore that she had noticed during one of the cab rides. I bought volume 13 of Zhongguo shufa quanji (Complete Chinese Calligraphy).

Andres & Paulina in Shanghai

2005-07-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

July 9 (Saturday) [all photos courtesy of A&P]

Andres & Paulina arrived from the US on Friday, in the evening. The next day, after breakfast (shaolongbao and pork puffs), we went to a couple of places in Shanghai I had never been to. First, the Fabric Market on Dongjiadu Road (where we bought two peacock feathers for Maomao). Here I am with Andres at the fabric market:

We took a peek at the Dongjiadu Cathedral as well, though it was closed for renovation (or demolition?). Not too far away was the Sanshan Guild Hall, built in the early 20th century for merchants from Fujian Province.

According to our guide book, the guild hall was supposed to house the Shanghai Museum of Folk Collectibles. But it seemed to be now housing some sort of anti-Japanese exhibit.

After an uninspiring lunch of noodle soup, the next stop was the bazaar, which I had been carefully avoiding since my arrival in Shanghai (too many tourists and too many rip-offs). Although I had been to the bazaar about 5 years ago, I had never seen the City God Temple.

We picked up some snacks back in the bazaar: Dairy Queen for Andres & Paulina, shaved ice for me (the ice was hard and no good), and, for Gina, a large juicy dumpling (that is consumed with a straw):

Finally, on the way home, after buying train tickets for the next day, we stopped in the park behind our apartment.

I just took this survey

2005-07-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to me!

2005-07-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

Today is my 30th birthday. As of midnight last night, I am officially old.

Last night, we went to Judy Too, and it was there that I became old. Gina was able to capture the very moment on film (to use an antiquated expression). The metamorphosis from young Nick to old Nick was very rapid, so the picture is slightly blurry:

For comparison, here are pictures of young Nick and old Nick taken at only a few minutes apart. I think the change is very obvious.

Young Nick appears young and robust. Old Nick's head isn't on straight.

Judy Too is my favorite bar in Shanghai (I haven't been to that many, though). Usually there is a scantily clad female who dances on top of the bar, but today she was serving drinks fully dressed. I asked her why and she said the police wouldn't let her dance anymore. Gina and I were very disappointed.

Purchasing plane tickets in China

2005-07-02T04:58:00.000-07:00

Two friends visiting from the States asked us to purchase tickets from Beijing to Shanghai for them since Chinese domestic tickets are much (i.e. four times) cheaper if purchased in China. This situation had two requirements: 1) we had to buy tickets from Beijing to Shanghai despite the fact that we were presently in Shanghai (this was a problem because most travel agents in Shanghai only have discounted tickets on flights leaving Shanghai, not on flights to Shanghai); 2) because we wouldn't go to Beijing to meet our friends, we needed to buy electronic tickets (relatively new in China). The total process of purchasing the two tickets took two full eight-hour days. Below is a detailed account.

Day 1. Morning

We first tried to purchase the tickets on yoee.com. We used to use yoee in Beijing to buy electronic tickets. They always screwed up somehow or another (badly misspelled passenger names despite the names being spelled correctly when entered in on their webpage forms; sometimes they also forgot to send us the tickets; etc.), but we always got the tickets in the end. In Beijing, we either payed on-line using a Beijing bank account (that we had spent considerable time setting up to allow us to make payments on-line) or we payed when they hand delivered the tickets. We had closed that particular bank account when we left Beijing and yoee does not have a Shanghai office, so neither of these options were available. Yoee has an option to use credit cards, so we tried that. After spending a good half hour filling in all the forms, we discovered the first problem: our friends had two-word surnames and the computer refused to accept these names. So we called yoee and had them manually enter the names; they then told us to go back on-line and use the webpage to pay for the tickets. We went back to the webpage, navigated to where we entered the payment info. I selected the "Mastercard" radio button and entered in my Mastercard number. The payment failed. Now with yoee, if a payment fails, you have to call the company so that they can clear the record and allow you to try the payment again. We called them up and first asked if we could just give the credit card number over the phone. They told us this was not possible and that we had to pay on-line; they told us to wait 20 minutes to clear the previous failed payment and then try again. We waited, tried again, and the payment failed again. We called yoee again; they put us on hold; then they explained that the Mastercard feature was not yet implemented (despite the fact that the web page allowed you to select Mastercard as your credit card!); you could only use Visa to make payments. I used to have one Citibank Visa and one Citibank Mastercard; but at one point about 3 or 4 years ago, my Visa was converted into a Mastercard (without my consent and without any warning), so I no longer have a Visa card.

Day 1. Late Morning
So we gave up on yoee, and tried to use a Shanghai-based company, ctrip. Now ctrip has a website for ordering tickets, but, unfortunately, they cannot issue electronic tickets on-line (only over the phone). So we bypassed the webpage altogether and called the company directly. This meant that we had to spell out our friends' foreign names over the telephone. It took about 30 minutes for them to get it right. Then they asked for our friends' passport numbers. We knew that passport numbers are required for domestic flights in China, so we were prepared. Then, something unexpected happened. They asked for our friends' dates of birth. We have bought dozens of domestic tickets in China over the past two years and never encountered this requirement. I didn't know the dates of birth. Was it possible to leave this blank? No. The system couldn't process the tickets without dates of birth. In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea to just make up some dates, but we gave up with ctrip at this point, and went out for a quick lunch before continuing our mission.

Day 1. Afternoon
We next decided to try to use yoee again, but this time use our Shanghai bank account to pay directly. Gina was under the impression that when she had opened the account, she had asked to have it activated for on-line payments. We called yoee first to clear the account again so that we could reattempt to pay. There was some information on the yoee webpage about how to set up the bank payment for our particular bank (a Shanghai branch of the Bank of China). We downloaded the necessary browser helper object so we could use internet explorer to make the payment. This took a while because of the slow connection. We then tried to pay. The payment failed. We then went to the Bank of China, waited in line, and asked a representative what we needed to do. He gave us a phone number to call. We went back home and Gina called the number. They gave us some additional information which we tried. It still didn't work. At this point, yoee also told us that an excessive number of payments had failed and that the system would not allow us to purchase any additional tickets that day. It was about 5 pm by then and we figured that we would try again the next day.

Day 2. Morning
At this point, we tried another approach. The airplane tickets we wanted were for a Hainan Airlines flight, so we tried calling the Shanghai branch of Hainan Airlines directly. A woman answered the phone and told us that she didn't know if they could issue electronic tickets or not and that the person who knew wasn't in yet. We took a break to have breakfast. We called Hainan Airlines and the person who knew about electronic tickets told us he'd look into it and call us back. We waited. Eventually, he called us back and told us they could not issue electronic tickets for flights to Shanghai (only for flights departing Shanghai); we were directed to call the Beijing office. It occurred to us to check yoee again to see if any other airlines had cheap tickets (prices can suddenly drop on any given day). To our horror, we discovered that the cheap tickets we had tried to purchase the day before were no longer available and that only substantially more expensive tickets were now for sale. We didn't know what to do. Gina thought that yoee perhaps still had a hold on the tickets we tried to get yesterday and called them. They did indeed still have a hold on those tickets. But this meant that we had no choice but to use yoee. The Beijing bank account we had used in the past to pay for yoee tickets was a China Construction Bank account. So we decided to open up a China Construction Bank account in Shanghai and try to pay for the yoee ticket on-line that way. It was about a one hour wait at the bank before we could be helped. During the wait, I explained to Gina that Bank of America had just bought a 10% stake in China Construction Bank, partly because it was one of the least corrupt of Chinese banks (last year, a mere sixty thousand China Construction Bank employees had been disciplined). We had no problem opening the account. The woman then told us to wait in another line (only 20 minute wait) to activate the account for on-line purchases. Having succeeded with the first step of our new plan, we took a quick lunch break.

Day 2. Afternoon
We were very eager to try out our new approach. We logged onto yoee and navigated to the payment page. Access denied. We called up yoee and they told us that the tickets had not yet been cleared since the failed payments the day before. They told us to try again in 30 minutes. We waited 30 minutes and then logged onto yoee again. They had actually created new ticket entries in their system (at this point misspelling our friends' names, though not too badly, so we decided not to worry too much about it). We entered in the account information from our new China Construction Bank account. The payment failed. We called a China Construction Bank hotline for on-line payments and asked what the problem was. The guy said he'd get back to us. After about 30 minutes, he called back and said that new account numbers could not be used for on-line payments because the first four digits of all new account numbers were not recognized by the processing system; only older account numbers with older first four digits could be used. We then called yoee again and asked if they had any suggestions on how to pay them. They did not. We asked if we could wire money directly to yoee's corporate bank account. The lady on the phone checked with her supervisor and found out that this was a possibility. She gave us the account numbers we needed and we headed back to the China Construction Bank to wire the money. After waiting for an hour, we reached the counter and were given forms to fill out. After we filled them out, the person at the counter told us that 1) we had filled out the wrong forms; 2) we had to go to the counter for corporate finance; 3) money could not be wired directly from our account but needed to be withdrawn from the ATM first. We waited in line at the corporate finance counter. After a complex process involving three different forms (and the need to enter our account number multiple times...despite the fact that we had now withdrawn the money and were asking them to wire cash), the money was wired. We then called up yoee and told them we had wired the money and that they should receive the money within 24 hours. They replied that we would lose the hold on our reservation if we did not pay for the tickets that very day. We told them we had already wired the money. They did not believe us. Finally, they agreed to issue the ticket if we faxed them copies of the receipts from the bank proving that we had wired the money. Unfortunately, it had suddenly started to rain, a veritable downpour. Nevertheless, the clock was ticking, so I braved the rain with the bank receipts deep in my pocket (protected from the rain) and walked over to the nearest fax place (a 15 minute walk). I faxed the documents, waited for it to stop raining, and returned home. We called yoee to confirm receipt. The person on the phone said she had no idea if any faxes had been received but that we could call back in 30 minutes and she would tell us. We waited 30 minutes, called, and got confirmation that the fax was received and that the tickets would be issued. By then, it was about 6 pm.

Michelle and Dave's wedding banquet

2005-06-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

The purpose of our Hong Kong trip was to attend Michelle and Dave's wedding banquet. We were unfortunately not able to attend their wedding in California for a variety of (fairly obvious) reasons. The reception began at 6 pm, with drinks, chatting, photographs, and, last but not least, mahjong:

Here's a picture of Gina with two (!!) glasses of champagne:

And here's me in my new suit (which almost anybody can immediately identify as a mainland Chinese suit because of the way the crease on the pants goes all the way up to the waist):

See how I drink more moderately than Gina (only one champagne glass).

There were well over 300 guests at the banquet, including MANY members of he Tung clan, some of whom are pictured here:

...and numerous Nigerian VIPs, including His Excellency Otunba Gbenga Daniel (special envoy from the "Nigerian president and head of the armed forces"), Ambassador Jonathan Coker (Nigerian ambassador to the PRC), and several important tribal chiefs:

Here we are with the bride & groom:

The eating part of the banquet began at 8 pm in a large banquet hall. Gina & I were among the very first to sit down; I was slightly uncomfortable when the bride & groom arrived and I realized that I had sat down directly next to the groom...I don't think I deserved the honor, but I couldn't exactly jump out of my seat and go sit somewhere else.

Here are a few more shots of the wedding (including the tea ceremony and the cake eating):

Hong Kong

2005-06-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Hong Kong on the evening of June 15, and headed straight for our favorite hostel, the Wang Fat (located very conveniently in Causeway Bay). On the morning of June 16, I was studious (read some of the books I brought / went to the library) while Gina shopped. Later, we went to Gina's favorite Mexican restaurant in the whole wide world (she's only been to Mexican restaurants in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai):

More shopping in the afternoon...I liked this curved escalator:

Then, Michelle and Dave's wedding banquet! (see next post)

Last morning in Chiang Mai

2005-06-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

We left on June 15. On the afternoon of June 14, we had done some shopping; nothing too interesting to say about that. On the last morning, we did a little more additional shopping (we needed to get something for Gina's little sister...we ended up getting her a hat). Also, breakfast, which included Thai iced tea:

Notice the kaffir lime in the picture...

Here are two pictures of Gina in a song tao on the way to the airport. Song taos are red covered pickup trucks. Notice that Gina is first unhappy in the back of the song tao, but gradually adjusts and gets happier:

Guangzhou -> Beijing express

2005-06-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, after failing to obtain cheap plane tickets, I purchased a train ticket to Beijing (on the T16 express)...this new express train has cut two hours off the old Guangzhou-Beijing trip, and can now accomplish the run in a mere 22 hours. The trip started out ok. I had bought a soft sleeper ticket, so I could lie down in an air conditioned cabin. Unfortunately, one guy in the cabin started quarelling with his wife (over his cell phone). They quarelled non-stop beginning at 11:30 pm. The guy's cell phone apparently has a very hardy battery. By 2 am, they were still at it and I was starting to go insane, so I sought some relative peace on the floor next to the bathroom (which is where I sat for the next 14 hours). One interesting incident that happened as we were approaching Beijing was that all of a sudden the train stopped suddenly and a whole crew of train staff came rushing down the corridor. It turned out that a careless smoker had started a fire a couple of cars down, so for the next 20 minutes the staff was running back and forth with buckets of water. Fortunately, the train was back under way after only stopping for about 20 minutes. One last thing: for anybody interested in geography, the train stopped in Changsha (capital of Hunan), Wuchang (part of Wuhan, capital of Hubei), and Zhengzhou (capital of Henan).

Mae Sa Valley Loop

2005-06-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

This morning we rented another motorcycle for a little ride out of town. After dropping off my passport at the Chinese consulate (to get a new visa), we went north as far as Mae Rim, then followed a lovely two-lane road that went up the Mae Sa Valley towards Samoeng. Not far up the road was the Mae Sa Elephant Nursery. Originally, we had planned to visit and even go on an elephant ride, but dropped the idea rapidly when we were informed of the price at the gate. Instead, we ate our fried chicken with sticky rice (that we had brought with us from town) on a picnic table across from the elephant farm. We did get to see some elephants from across the river:

The drive from there to Samoeng was really beautiful, through the northern Thai jungle, with a mist and sometimes a slight drizzle. No photographs could capture the impression, so I didn't bother trying. As we approached Samoeng, we were a little nervous because we were nearly out of fuel, but we did get to a gas station in time. Check out the gas pump we used:

We had lunch in Samoeng. Even in this very remote place there were two other white people who showed up. Both appeared to have "gone native" and married a local. One Englishman came up to me to introduce himself. I knew right away he wasn't an ordinary Englishman when he said "Me England" and proceeded to speak without the use of any articles. Seems he's been in Thailand for a few too many decades.

From Samoeng, we followed highway 1269 towards Hang Dong. Gina suddenly yelled that she had seen a deer and so we stopped to take a look. After much confusion, I figured out that she had actually seen a road (same pronunciation in Chinese). I'm still not sure why THAT was so exciting, but we did walk down the road a little bit to look at a minority village. There was nobody in sight and we had no idea who the villagers were. Here's me by a papaya tree we encountered there:

Here's a couple more views from the highway (the first one with a cow and a wat in the background):

Finally, how can I not mention the "Beer Hut". Nearly every sign along the entire route was in Thai. Lots of roads and driveways headed off to the sides, but since we didn't know if the signs were welcoming us in or threatening us with death if we trespassed, we thought it best not to intrude. The Beer Hut, on the other hand, had an English sign and we figured they can't possibly not want us to stop by for a drink.

I think you can actually spend the night in those houses back behind. If anybody is interested, the Beer Hut is on highway 1269, on the Samoeng side of the Belle Ville Resort. They have a phone number too: 01-7966037. If you want to look for our graffiti on the wall, here are our signatures (just under the elephant):

Back in Chiang Mai, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts since I was having a donut craving (actually I've had this unfulfilled donut craving since September). I ate four and am saving two for later...

Browny House and Wat Chiang Man

2005-06-13T03:26:00.000-07:00

Browny House Internet & Coffee Shop is where I did my internet stuff yesterday early afternoon (and where I am right now). Here I am hard at work:

And here's the little kid next to me:

And, last but not least, the two funny metal statues in front of the Browny house (one wearing my hat and the other Gina's shades):

Incidentally, to my great disappointment, the Browny house doesn't sell brownies. Just coffee & tea...

After interneting yesterday, we visited Wat Chiang Man, one of the nicer temples in Chiang Mai:

Then pool, night market, dinner, etc....

Cleaning the street

2005-06-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

Today, we decided to do a walking tour of the wats in the old town of Chiang Mai. We essentially followed one of the main east-west axes (Thanon Ratchadamnoen). The wats speak for themselves (see my flickr page). What requires further note is the huge mob of children dressed in red shirts ("Montport 72nd anniversary"), armed with brooms, sweeping the streets (most seemed not to be working all that hard though). Two fire engines were in the midst spraying water out onto the street. Some giggling boys neglected their duties to play with the spraying water. Here are some photos:

Oooh, one other cool photo from Thanon Rachadamnoen. Don't you think all police stations should have a statue like this in front?

For lunch, we went to a vegetarian Thai restaurant (over Gina's vigorous objections: "if it doesn't have meat, I won't eat it!"). As we were randomly looking for a restaurant for lunch, we "accidentally" walked by the vegetarian place that Gina had refused to go to yesterday. She was won over though: the food was not too bad and, more importantly, it was CHEAP (75 cents for lunch for two). Now Gina wants to go back for dinner...

Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

2005-06-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

We rented a motorcycle this morning. Here we are in our fashionable helmets:

Sixteen kilometers west of town is a forest mountain with a wat (temple) near the top (the temple's name, by the way, is Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep). There was a very big jackfruit tree at the temple; I had to get my picture taken in front:

Here's some pictures of the wat:

Further up the hill was the summer palace for the Thai king (the palace's name is Phuping). We thought of going, but decided we were too cheap to pay the admission (+ Gina, who was wearing a sleaveless shirt, would have had to borrow one of their shirts to not be disrespectful of the royal family...and Gina was guessing their shirts wouldn't match her pants).

On the way back to the guesthouse, we had a flat tire. I was very upset because I imagined we would end up being extorted out of a lot of money to get it fixed, but it ended up just costing 50 cents. One good result of this unfortunate incident was that we realized that the market we had been driven to yesterday was right next to the motorcycle repair shop. Gina had been looking forward to going to the Ten Payom Market once more because she thought the mangos there looked very good. We also bought more durian since we both love it so much.

More cats

2005-06-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

I have this problem about taking pictures of every cat I see. At the Smiles Guesthouse, where we took our cooking class, there were three very cute kittens:

Cooking class

2005-06-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

Today, we took a cooking class. Gina has been wanting to take this class since she first heard about it last year. Here we are in our fashionable aprons before embarking on our first dish:

Here I am hard at work:

And here's Gina proudly holding the fruit of her labor:

Note how happy Gina is as we prepare to eat 4 dishes that we cooked. She is giggling with joy (and her head is moving up and down very fast causing the picture of her to be blurry):

Market highlights

2005-06-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights from the market this morning. First, there was the curry stand, with 12 different types of curry paste (if you zoom on these pictures, you can make out the names of the curry...the darker red ones are the only ones that have already been fried; the frying, incidentally, causes the oil to separate out from the rest of the curry; as we learned, curry paste should always be fried before use):

Below are some of the vegetables. The tiny little green pea-like things on the upper left are actually a type of eggplant (known, not surprisingly, as the "pea eggplant"). These are frequently found in green curries. Two baskets to the right are the VERY spicy "bird's eye" chilis.

Finally, for those interested, here's a picture of Gina holding a basket of kafir limes. The limes are scratched to collect the fragrant oil used for flavoring dishes. The actual pulp of the limes is inedible, but was used in traditional times to make shampoo.

King & Queen of fruits

2005-06-10T03:16:00.000-07:00

It turns out that several fruits that I like very much are in season. First, the "king of fruits," the durian. I really like durian. Very flavorful. The other day, we had durian milk shakes in the basement of Raffle's (right off People's Square). It was GOOD! One thing I did not realize is that there are four different kinds of durian. The best ones are called "long-stemmed durians" because they have...long stems. The best long-stemmed durians are from Rayang (Eastern Thailand). A region just outside of Bangkok also used to be famous for durians, but the prime durian land has been sold to developers to build housing tracts. Another thing I never thought too much about is that different people like durians at different degrees of ripeness; more ripe equals more sweet, but also more "fragrant". A good durian seller will have a little felt mallet; you strike the durian gently and if it makes a hollow sound, this indicates that the fruit is more ripe (as it ripens, the sweet pulp starts to pull away from the skin, creating a hollow space that will resonate when the skin is struck). A durian that is too ripe will emanate a powerful fragrance even before you break it open. A good durian seller will ask you how you want your durian, and can then pick the perfect fruit to suit your taste. Here are durians at the market we went to this morning:

The "queen of fruits" is the mangosteen (known as "shanzhu" (mountain bamboo) in Chinese). According to traditional ying-yang theory, the mangosteen is a "cold" fruit and balances out the "hot" durian; too much of one without the other and you might get sick. Here are mangosteens (60 cents/kilogram) at the market we went to yesterday afternoon (the saleswoman, incidentally, was from Guangzhou; her Mandarin was a little off, but her Cantonese was good):

Finally, my old favorite, the lychee, is also in season. Chiangmai is famous for its lychees. We bought the expensive kind ($1/kilogram), sweet with very small seeds:

Airport pictures

2005-06-10T02:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some airport pictures. First, here we are at Pudong International Airport (Shanghai). I like the blue ceiling and the white pillars:

And here is one of the Nok Airline airplanes:

What is it supposed to be? I think it is a duck. Gina thinks it's a goose. Nok Airlines is cheap by the way (less than $35/flight).

I need new shoes

2005-06-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

I need new shoes:

I took these pictures, by the way, in the only spot in the apartment where there is a really bright light: the bathroom (there are these really bright heat lamps). So you get a nice view of the side of my toilet as well!

Uniqlo

2005-06-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

OK, one more post today. Has anybody heard of Uniqlo? No idea how you pronounce it. I guess it's supposed to be "uniq" + "lo"? But what is "lo"? I've been pronouncing the q like a pharyngeal stop (like in Arabic), but I doubt that is right. Anyways, Uniqlo is a clothing chain from Japan. They opened up across the street from us (in the Hong Kong New World Tower). Gina & I go there regularly because they're a)cheap; b)decent quality; and c)simple (the kind of clothes I like). A couple weeks ago I bought a light blue and a yellow t-shirt. Today, Isao & Fumi got back from their day of sightseeing & shopping, and guess what...

On the topic of Japanese clothes stores, check out Foxy Nail, a shop I encountered in Nara a couple years ago:

Actually, I can't figure out if the name of the store is "Foxy Nail" or "Be Soul" or something else. Personally, I like "Foxy Nail" the best.

Bifengtang

2005-06-02T04:02:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Bifengtang on Nanjing West Road. This place specializes in Cantonese food, and it was quite good (we had roast pork(chashao), roast duck, rice noodles, dumplings(shaolongbao), some sort of crustacean, and of course sesame buns and egg tarts. Here we are at Bifengtang:

Isao was very intent on taking the above picture and leaned into this lady to line up the camera right.

Since we were thoroughly stuffed, we walked home. Gina & Fumi wanted to check out this clothes store. I was bored so I started playing with this strange Mickey hanging from the ceiling:

More cat pictures

2005-06-02T03:21:00.000-07:00

Fumi caught Maomao on top of the door again (this time from a different angle):

And here are some pictures of Fumi & Isao with Maomao: