Pookie was a really BIG baby.

So, a couple of months ago, my mom sent me this picture of her and her friend and their babies, Pookie and Ferris.




Firstly, before we discuss what is wrong with this photo, can we just take a moment to marvel at how tiny my mom is? In this photo, she would have been a year older than I am now (for the math dysfunctional, she would have been 33), and she'd already had two babies and she's apparently JUST had Pookie - and look how tiny she is! And pretty. My mom!

Anyway, for months I've been looking at this photo, and something's just seemed, somehow, off to me. Then, the other day, I realized what it was.

Pookie was a really big baby.

Ferris is only three months younger than Pook, but in that photo, look how small Ferris is, and look how BIG Pookie is. It's almost un-nerving. Look at that head! At those legs and arms! He's like the baby who ate New York.

Here's another one:



In this photo, I'm somewhere between being three and four years old, and Pookie is somewhere between newborn and one year old, and he's ALMOST AS BIG AS I AM. Even if you don't count that wig. I'm wondering which of my parents thought that wig was funny. Somehow I bet it was my grandmother. She had a weird sense of humor that way.

And before you even say it, you only WISH you could have rocked the matching print kitty cat blue and red polyester bellbottoms and jersey shirt like I did.

Anyway, I have now realized that I was living in a house with a natural wonder. Pookie: BIG BABY.

Love ya, bro!

 

Good night, Vancouver!

First of all, a bit of a delayed shout out: Vancouver folk, that trip was f.u.n. A most excellent time. I'll come back soon, fo sure.

Okay, but then, let me just talk for a moment about, what else, women and body image.

So, while in Vancouver, a boy said the following to me, "Yeah, but, you American girls are pretty much born anorexic, eh?"

(I'm not sure he actually said "eh," but in my mind every conversation with a Canadian ends with "eh," because I think it's hot.)

Now, in fairness, I'd probably given him reason to say that, what with my immediate calculation of the number of calories in a French fry and my refusal to eat one after 9:00pm followed by a solid compliment-deflecting five minute diatribe pointing out every place on my body that's imperfect. Sure, I probably brought that on myself. But my immediate reaction to that comment was that I very much wanted to say, "The average American woman weighs 140 pounds and wears a size 11. And that doesn't support the idea that most American women have eating disorder issues. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's not that big, but it's not anorexic thin either. It's kind of a healthy size, actually."

Yeah, but in that same instance, what I realized was that he was really referring to the mindset. And so I didn't argue it, because he's probably right. I'm not sure I know anybody -- period -- who's not got body image issues, myself included. So my mom will hate reading this, but, you know, as far as sizes go, I'm empirically pretty small. But I avoid full length mirrors and obsess over my upper thighs (which are my "bad" zone) to a degree that's just not normal for most of the woman of the world, and that's got a lot to do with the country I live in. Listen, the reality is that I eat more healthily than really most of the people, male or female, that I know. Period. But truth be told I have, at certain times, a minor binge eating issue when I get depressed. I use food for comfort just like anybody else. I've been known to not eat for several days if I have something coming up where I'll be in front of people. And frankly, I'm no different than 90% of the women I know. Shadalan once, when going through my fridge, said the following to me: "Sometimes, I'm like, 'She got so small and stayed there,' but then I realize it's just a neverending thing with you if you want to stay like that. You never get to stop thinking about what it is you're eating."

Which I think is most women: the little ones, the big ones, and most sadly, the just right ones. I know ZERO women who don't, at least half the time, sit down to a meal and do a mental calculation of what workout schedule and/or other eating adjustments will be dictated by what they're about to eat. Food obsessed? Yeah. Weight obsessed? Yeah.

So, just to wrap, I'm saying that, when presented with that comment, I really had zero come back for it, because we probably are breeding our girls to have some unnatural emotional reactions and beliefs about food and body. And also our women don't grow up bilingual, so, you know, score one for Canada.

 

NutriSystem for MEN, ya'll.

Sunday night, I'm laying around waiting for Shadalan to call and watching Deadliest Catch on the Discovery channel. The fact that I'm watching Deadliest Catch has nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about, but I just wanted to say for the record that I love Deadliest Catch. It's 30 minutes of watching guys FISH FOR CRAB. And I watched the entire marathon all the way through. Twice.

Anyway, in the middle of the episode where we discover that the entire Berring Sea is being frozen over in a freakish environmental twist to a series about men FISHING FOR CRAB, a commercial comes on.

The commercial is for NutriSystem - for men. Now, also, let me say, I don't necessarily know from both a practical and a marketing perspective that it's not better to have separate weight loss programs for men and for women. They eat somewhat differently, they have some different issues with weight loss, etc. And I'm sure that before they produced this television commercial, the NutriSystem folks did no shortage of research and focus grouping about what would actually sell weight loss products to men. What were the men's concerns? What did they need to know before they bought into a planned meal plan? The fact that this product was developed and that research was done into what key message points needed to be conveyed to sell the product is not what concerns me. The actual outcome of that research is what concerns me.

Here, for example, is a snippet from a "testimonial" given by one of the men who used NutriSystem for men:

"Since I lost the weight with NutriSystem for men, my sex life has been great!"

I bet, dude. In that awesome polyester weave polo shirt you're wearing, I bet the chicks at the bowling alley bar are ALL OVER YOU. But seriously, sex was a recurring theme in this commercial. The idea that once you lost 20 or 30 pounds you would return to the "vigor" of your youth was, no joking, the PRIMARY MESSAGE of the commericial. So, it makes sense because billions of dollars have been made on Viagra, so clearly the male population of the US has a concern about sex drive, and thus clearly the way to encourage men to shed some pounds and get healthy is to inform them that it will improve their sex life.

I'm not making this up people.

Here's another snippet:
"No calorie counting, no groups, no weighing in ... because what man would want to do that?"

Again, I'm not making that up? What man would want to do that? Seriously? Hey, how about Halloway Joe, who lost a ton of weight, looks freakin' HOT now and did it while counting calories and weighing in. Don't you worry though, overweight men of the world, now you can lose the weight without those embarassing support groups and TOTALLY TAXING calorie and points counting.

But here's my favorite:
"NutriSystem for Men: You can eat like a man, but still feel like one."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wow. I mean, what to say to this? Maybe because it's out of context, the meaning isn't quite clear, but it's basically saying that you can have burgers and pasta on the plan, but you'll lose the weight, your verility (sp?) will return and you'll start to feel like a man again. That's possibly the most singularly AWESOME marketing meme ever written by anybody. Ever.

Also, by the way, what is awesome, if you visit the NutriSystem for men website is that beneath those before and after pictures at the right side of the page is this disclaimer:

"*results not typical."

Not "results may vary", the standard disclaimer for weight loss programs. It's "results not typical." Wanna know why they results aren't typical? Because losing weight to regain your sex drive while wanting to "eat like a man" with no calorie or point counting and weighing in structure probalby won't work so well for most people.

Yeah, it's probably not much worse than some of the marketing that happens to women about weight loss stuff, but I do think it's funnier.

"NutriSystem for Men: You can eat like a man, but still feel like a man."

 

And CineVegas Happened

And while I was posting 50 million travel journal entries about my trip to China, CineVegas also happened. Because of China combined with a trip to Vancouver, I only got to see four films this year. Two were great. Two were not. We'll discuss.

Wild Tigers I Have Known
(See the official site here or the IMDB site here)
And so, yes, I did love me some Wild Tigers I Have Known. In fairness, during the first fifteen minutes, I did not love it. Now, I'm not sure if that's because the first fifteen minutes aren't cut as well, and it feels choppier and brasher and all over not as beautiful, or as the popular word was, lyrical as the rest of the film is, or if it's because the first fifteen minutes are packed with set up about how sad and lonely the Logan character's life is. The film is a study of a geeky, sexually confused, picked on little boy (Logan) who befriends a popular jock (Rodeo) who is actually just as bored and restless as Logan is. Logan battles his misfit status at school, his painful but also rich relationship with his single mother and his sexual confusion by finding a communal sense with nature, among other things.

The film really captures the inner timbre of the relationships between its characters, and it manages to tell a story without settling on a resolution. Like the next movie we're going to talk about, I had a reaction at the end because I was having a difficulty with the sadness of it, but it was pointed out that, in truth, Logan doesn't seem quite so sad about his life. He seems resigned to living through it without being overly affected by it.

It's just a really, really beautiful film. Everything merging together and these very lush and visually interesting compositions and choices. You should see it if you can. It showed at Sundance and got horrible reviews, but I think that if you can get past that first fifteen minutes, this new cut is really a beautiful piece. One of the only highlights of CineVegas this year.

Also, the kid who plays Logan was also the kid who played Madonna's son in The Next Best Thing. He's much, much, different in this one!

Running Stumbled
Let me just say it and get it out of the way, John Maringouin is a very attractive man.

Okay, so, this puppy is a documentary in which John Maringouin goes back to New Orleans to document the life of his father, and artist, and his father's common law wife, Virgie. Things you need to know: John Maringouin's father tried to kill him when he was a kid, John Maringouin's father is insane and has a drug problem, and Virgie is insane and has a drug problem. And the creepiness ensues.

If you've never lived in a small town with a lot of insane white trash folks who all have drug problems, questionable hygiene and views on life that you absolutely can't understand, this film will seem like fiction to you. If you know people like the people in the film, you'll have a very conflicted reaction to it, in that you'll want to just react to it as art and be either just frightened by it or laugh at it, but because you know those people are so true to life to people you know, you're just really, really uncomfortable with it.

That said, I'm still trying to figure out if my complaint about it is valid or not. There's definitely a point in the film, somewhere around Chapter 10, where I started to feel like it crossed the line from being beautiful documentary film making, or even good therapy for the filmmaker, into just being mean. It's not even about the fact that the house burning to the ground or Virgie overdosing on pills is caught on film, it's just about at some point the footage of the father and Virgie being insane drug addicts on film kind of just feels like it's being done so we can all realize what awful people they are and confirm that fact. But I may just be projecting.

And then in the Q&A, the filmmaker actually called his father on the speaker phone and we asked him questions, and I felt dirty.

I have mixed emotions about this film, but if I were you, I'd try to see it if it's around you.

Thanks to Gravity
Oh my hatred of this film was rich. Let's just summarize to say that this was a film that was billed as the coming of age story of a Latina Jewish girl set against the backdrop of the world of competitive debate teams. So.many.problems.

The first problem is that the film never really decided what type of film it was. In fact, it was about seven different types of films all in one. It was...

1. The aforementioned coming of age story
2. The popular story of the girl who rejects her culture while being forced to operate within the bounds of her culture
3. A sports story using competitive debate as the sport
4. A love story
5. A rape-recovery story
6. A story about a geeky girl who learns to love herself for who she is
7. A feminist statement film

So, that was one problem. The second problem was a cast of thousands, many of whom were interesting but because the cast consisted of thousands, you never quite got enough of any of the interesting characters and there were all kinds of appearances by characters that had no purpose at all in the film.

Another problems: I'm all for following the formula of a type of movie and incorporating the cliches of that genre, but if you're going to do that, you'd better do it well. Gonna incorporate the controlling Jewish parents? Better do it well or we'll mock you for the cliche. Gonna incorporate the lesbian roommate at college? Better do it well or we'll mock you for it later. There was lots of that, and none of it was done well.

The biggest problem for me? The ending. I'm just going to give you the spoiler and tell you that at the end of the film, Jordan (the main character) drives off to New York to take her dream job as a speech writer for the secretary general of the United Nations while her impossibly hot boyfriend waits for her in Miami until she's ready to marry him. OHMYGOD my anger at the message of this ending has no bounds. It's one thing to tell women that you can balance a career and a homelife, I even agree with that. As we all know, I don't agree that it's possible to have it all, and I think that's a dangerous belief to put out there for women. But this? This was even beyond that! Not only can you have EVERYTHING you want, but the expectation should be that you should run off to do whatever you want while you're dream man with his dream job pines for you? WHAT WORLD IS SHE LIVING IN AND WHY DOES SHE WANT YOUNG GIRLS TO BELIEVE THAT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD?????

I really just write it up to a filmmaker without any guts, not willing to have to make the choice about what her character will have to give up in life.

That said, I will say that Sean Astin as the geeky high school debate team coach was cute.

Full Grown Men
(See the official site here or the IMBD site here)
Okay then.

This was cute. It was really cute. It's a story about one of those adult males who's never really grown up and his quest to resist becoming and adult, in which he inevitably becomes and adult. It really is adorable and cute, though with a somewhat fatal flaw.

Firstly, the really good:
- Lots of funny writing
- Midget clowns
- Alan Cumming is super hot in his cameo
- Special ed children

Now, here's the problem. The whole point of the movie is that you're supposed to care about the main character (Alby), but you never really know how you feel about him. Are you supposed to love him for being a hopelessly happy, never grow up boy and cheer for him to end up with a perfect life? Are you supposed to dislike him for being, well, frankly really mean and feel like he's getting what he deserves? Are you supposed to feel sorry for him because he's so freakin' naive and clueless and just want to wrap him up and fix him?

And without knowing that, it was really difficult to feel invested in that film. But it was cute.

And so that was CineVegas for me. I'll take a slightly over 50% ratio. That's all I'm saying!

 

China 2006: Travel Stories from the Yunan

In chase you weren't reading along the whole time, here's the complete index of travel journal entries from China!

1. Just for (I Love) Paul Jack: Get Your X3 On!
2. Just for Pookie: Get Your Starbucks On!
3. Get Your Ad On!
4. Meet Frank
5. Hong Kong Day One
6. Hong Kong Day Two
7. The World's Largest Seated Bronze Buddha Statue
8. Bo, Janette & a Goose Foot
9. Kunming City Has Great Food
10. The Sadistic Hike of 1000 Temples
11. Fried, Dried Salted Beef
12. Into Lijiang: Jade Snow Mountain
13. The Best Photo of the Trip
14. Tiger Leaping Gorge, Some Wetlands and a Big Dinner
15. Out of Lijiang
16. We Travel
17. Snake Wine & Toothpicks
18. Back to Hong Kong
19. Wooden Tiger, Water Monkey, Metal Dog

 

China Entry The Eighteenth: Wooden Tiger, Water Monkey, Metal Dog

To be honest, I have never been so glad to be in a Novotel, with its familiar bar, beds that approximate soft, a bathtub long enough for my legs and a staff that proudly displays only their English names on their name tags. Lisa and I watch French soap operas on TV and fall asleep in hotel robes. In the morning, I kiss Lisa goodbye adn tell her that I'll see her in Kenya in 2008. Isn't it odd that, most likely, the next time I will physically be in a room with Lisa is in 2008 when we have a trip planned to see Kilimanjaro?

Odd.

On the plane to San Francisco, I sit with a Phillipino coupleand their three daughters. They talk to me about how inhumane the lack of vacation time that American workers get is. I don't always agree with people who say that, but in this moment I definitely do!

On the plane, I'm re-reading the answers that we all gave to our trip-end questions in the airport leaving Guilin.

It was a great trip.

Thanks, Ho.

Thanks, Lisa.

I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Metal Dog, Water Monkey & Wooden Tiger Remember the Trip!
When the animals were deciding which animals would go where in the Chinese astrological system, all the animals had a race. The dog came in almost last because, well, he's lazy. You may think that the tiger should have won, because he's so speedy. But the tiger and dragon got into a fight halfway through and ended up in the middle of the pack. The ox was going to win, because he was very industrious and started out early and just kept trudging along, but the sneaky rat hitched a ride on the ox's neck without the ox noticing, and then he jumped over the ox's head at the last minute and ended up being the winner and the first animal in the Chinese zodiac.

1. What was your favorite place that we visited?
Metal Dog: Lijiang
Water Monkey: Lijiang
Woodent Tiger: Lijiang



2. What was your favorite site that we saw?
Metal Dog: 1a)The Li River Boat Ride, 1b)The trip to the wetlands, 2)Horseback riding on Jade Snow Mountain
Water Monkey: Horseback riding on Jade Snow Mountain
Woodent Tiger: Horseback riding on Jade Snow Mountain



3. Who was your favorite new person whom you met?
Metal Dog: The artist in Lijiang
Water Monkey: Debbie the RPCV from Liberia in the post office in Hong Kong
Wooden Tiger: Bo



4. Who was your trip crush?
Metal Dog: Country Mountain Flower
Water Monkey: Larry from the Wedding
Wooden Tiger: Paul from the Wedding



5. What was the best meal that we had?
Metal Dog: The Dim Sum breakfast in Lijiang
Water Monkey: The first meal the first night in Hong Kong
Wooden Tiger: The Dim Sum breakfast in Lijiang



6. What was the best hotel or hostel?
Metal Dog: The Camellia in Kunming
Water Monkey: The Grand Lijiang
Wooden Tiger: The Grand Lijiang

7. What was the worst meal we ate?
Metal Dog: The airplane meal from Kunming to Guilin
Water Monkey: The catfish dinner in Guilin
Wooden Tiger: Fried, dried salted beef

8. What was the worst hotel or hostel?
Metal Dog: MCA in Dali
Water Monkey: MCA in Dali
Wooden Tiger: Deer Source Inn in Lijiang

9. What was the best transportation we took?
Metal Dog: The bus from the Hong Kong airport into the city
Water Monkey: The bus from the Hong Kong airport into the city
Wooden Tiger: The bus from the Hong Kong airport into the city



10. What was the worst transportation we took?
Metal Dog: The bus from Dali to Lijiang
Water Monkey: The bus from Dali to Lijiang
Wooden Tiger: The overnight train from Kunming to Dali

11. What is the thing you will remember most about Metal Dog from the trip?
Water Monkey: That Metal Dog picked wonderful places to visit!
Wooden Tiger: The look on Metal Dog's face when I told Felix that Metal Dog's camera was nicer than mine and he looked so happy and smug!

12. What is the thing you will remember most about Water Monkey from this trip?
Metal Dog: The moment when Water Monkey was learning to count in Chinese from the horse guide on Jade Snow Mountain.
Wooden Tiger: The morning when Water Monkey got up at 6:00am and busted out into the streets of Lijiang to secure a new hotel.



13. What is the thing you remember most about Wooden Tiger from this trip?
Metal Dog: Easy. Snake wine.
Water Monkey: I'll remember how Wooden Tiger managed to work "The Legend of Zelda" and "TLC's What Not to Wear" into vacation conversation five times each.



14. What is your favorite trip souvenir?
Metal Dog: The painting by Zhao
Water Monkey: My vase
Wooden Tiger: Naxi scrolls

15. What was the biggest thing you learned on this trip?
Metal Dog: Two things. That I have to come back to this area again, and that everywhere you go, some things change and some things stay the same.
Water Monkey: How to count to 10 in Chinese!
Wooden Tiger: The history and existence of minority populations.

16. What's your favorite memory of this trip:
Metal Dog: The trip to the wetlands because it was such an unexpected experience
Water Monkey: Playing cards together on the last real night together.
Wooden Tiger: Playing cards together on the last real night together.



17. What was your favorite Mandarin word that you learned?
Metal Dog: Zou Huan (Walkaway marriage)
Water Monkey: Yi Bai (the number 100, formerly known as the number 20)
Wooden Tiger: Ni Hao (also known as the only thing Wooden Tiger could pronounce)

18. Favorite Quote from the Trip:
Metal Dog: "You know, you Americans really like to eat your vegetables cooked", said by Zhong the cab driver/guide in Dali while Metal Dog and Water Monkey were eating, the irony being that everybody ate their vegetables cooked because we were told it was unsafe to eat them raw.

Water Monkey: "The most joyous occassion is meeting friends from afar," said originally by Confucius and again by David the tour guide at Solitary Beauty Point.

Wooden Tiger: "Foreign devil says...", said by Metal Dog.

19. What was your favorite overall Chinese food item?
Metal Dog: Steamed Pork Buns in Lijiang
Water Monkey: Pork Dumplings
Wooden Tiger; Steamed Bread

20. (Group Question) Favorite mis-translated signs
1. Slip Carefully
2. Next 20 meters, notice rock slides, run about by cliff.
3. Enter the view area, strictly forbid the firework.



21. What have you done on this trip that you've never done before?
Metal Dog: Eaten herbal infused chicken at Wei's Pizzeria
Water Monkey: I've never slept on harder beds!
Wooden Tiger: Two words. Snake wine.

22. Which of the two was your favorite Chinese drinking game?
Metal Dog: The numbers game!
Water Monkey: The numbers game!
Wooden Tiger: The numbers game!

23. Which of the campy Chinese comedies they showed on the bus was your favorite?
Metal Dog: King of Beggars
Water Monkey: King of Beggars
Wooden Tiger: Seriously, I slept through every bus rid.

24. What song from the trip will stick in your mind when you think of the trip?
Metal Dog: U2 Covers & the balad by the Naxi baritone performer in Lijiang
Water Monkey: Cajun Moon
Wooden Tiger: "Bye Bye Bye" and the three Naxi girls who were playing Ya Ya So in Lijiang

25. What was the best scenic view you saw?*
Metal Dog: Scenes of the Li River from the boat ride down the river
Water Monkey: Erhai Lake from the mountain top in Dali
Wooden Tiger: Coming up on the temple entrances during the Sadistic Hike of 1000 Temples

*We believe had we gotten to the top, Victoria Peak would have won this category.

And in traditional closing style, here are the "Sometimes, travel is rough" photos.


Water Monkey naps it homeless style with the cardboard pillow at Tiger Leaping Gorge.


Believe it or not, Metal Dog does sleep sometimes!


That's KFC, and that's Wooden Tiger being REALLY excited about it.

 

China Entry the Seventeenth: Back to Hong Kong

We may be ending the trip tonight, but that doesn't mean we can't see as much as possible today. We are picked up by our "English-Speaking" guide at 10:00am and head out. First activity, a motorboat ride on the river so that we can see Elephant Trunk Rock which is, not surprisingly, a rock shaped like an elephant's trunk. We love the motorboat ride! We get to see all of the riverside portions of Guilin, including the Old Town Wall, the local fisherman and the town's sort of famous bridge.

















As a bonus, it's Dragon Boat Festival time. We do pull a total foreign devil moment. The boat driver gets very close to the celebratory dragon boat during the actual ceremony so that the white women tourists can snap lots of photos! Awesome!



The next stop on the trip are the reed flute caves. If you like stalactites and stalamytes then you'll love it here! It is quite lovely, though I have no good pictures to show you. Sorry!

If you're in Guilin, skip the South Sea Pearl museum. Not worth it!

Our final stop for the day is the palace at solitary beauty point, which is mostly a reconstruction of the original palace. Our guide's name is David and he is wonderful. He know absolutely everything about the palace and its history and the surrounding area. He is also the sweetest boy ever. I wish he had been our guide for the entire day! We loved David, and we loved solitary beauty point. It was a great part of the day.

And then, lunch. At KFC! No joke. But never has a chicken burger (or two) and a cup of coffee tasted so good.

And with that, pretty much, Guilin sadly ends for us. At the airport, we all reminisce about our favorite, not so favorite, and funniest parts of the trip. Arriving in Hong Kong, I say words that I never thought I would hear myself say: "I'm so glad to be back in Hong Kong." I'm glad of that even as I watch them shoot radar guns at our heads as we come through customs in order to take our temperatures so we won't bring bird flu into the country.

We kiss Ho goodbye in the airport, and even though we won't fly out right away, that signifies the end of the trip. And...I'm not ready.

 

China Entry the Sixteenth: Snake Wine and Toothpicks

We are on the road at 8:00am on the way to our boat ride down the Li River. Obviously, by 8:00am, I really mean 8:15am after our usual series of debacles about jackets and bathrooms and "I'll run and get that before we go." I smile fondly and miss these moments when I'm gone from them.

We're headed to a boat tour down the Li River, which is also the best way to view the strikingly beautiful scenery of the famous hills of Guilin. There are two key things to take away from this boat trip: Firstly it rained the whole time, and secondly Felix and the snake wine.

1. The Rain in Guilin Happens, Well, All Day Long
So, the point of this boat tour is to stand on the open-air deck and take in the fabulous scenery. At the first opportunity, we rush to the deck to do just that. Hey! Here's a shocker! Rain and wet! Rain and wet!

I spend the first fifteen minutes of the tour being cranky about the rain and ducking inside every three minutes. Also, of course, being cranky that we're not seeing the scenery in all of its glory.

But then something happens. The rain stops feeling cold and uncomfortable to me and starts feeling refreshing and clean. And Ho and Lisa and Felix are making me laugh at every little thing. I start to realize that tons of people have seen this scenery during the high season, but how many have seen it look so true to classic Chinese paintings and depictions, with the thick heavy mist around it? I start to be really aware of how beautiful it is and how happy I am to be there in that moment. And I'm glad I didn't waste too much time being annoyed at the rain.







2. Felix and the Snake Wine
Felix is this adorable and charming German whom we've been hanging out with. It soon becomes apparent that Felix and I are the "drinkers" on the boat. When I order my first glass of flower wine, Felix says, "So you like to drink in the morning, do you?" And it's only in that moment that I realize that I've started drinking at 10:00am. I feel like I'm in Pennsylvania hanging out with my family all of a sudden.

Felix and I have a couple of glasses of flower wine. It's a nice way to spend the morning.



And then they bring around the snake wine.

Snake wine is exactly what it sounds like, by which I mean grain alcohol with dead snakes fermenting in it. No kidding. Take a look.



I say to Felix, "Maybe we should just get one and split it. It might be really disgusting."

Felix thinks this through, takes a moment to look at me with that "Nope! I'm an adventurer!" look and says, "Let's get two." And so we get two.

And we are, of course, immediately disgusted by what we are drinking after the first sip. Ho takes this brilliant photo of us as we're taking our first sips. I think the photo accurately captures the fact that, when you drink this, YOU CAN ACTUALLY TASTE THE DEAD SNAKE. It's so foul that I can barely describe it, though I do think that the photo does all the speaking for me.



Ten minutes later, our glasses are still full.

I look at Felix and say, "Maybe we should just shoot it."

Up go the glasses.

We down the snake wine.

And I taste fermenting snake in my mouth for the next two days.

Isn't Felix adorable? That's all I'm saying.

Also On the Boat Trip...
- Throughout the entire boat ride, I was fascinated by watching the locals ride bamboo rafts up to the side of the boat and then jump onto the boat runner to try to sell cheap, knock-off jade Buddha statues through the boat windows. It was actually very creepy. This nation is poor.




- There's a cranky Australian couple who actually stays INSIDE for the entire boat trip and then nixes the idea of spending extra time in the town where the boat docks before we head back to Guilin. They are proof that no matter where you are, unhappy is unhappy.

- There are french fries for lunch. That's what I eat on the Li River in China. French Fries.

- There is this brilliant moment where we're out on deck and I say to Felix, "Ho's camera is way nicer than mine is," and Ho turns around and the look on his face is so smug and happy. Beaming, even. It's adorable. I'll remember that look always.

- Heike was invoked! I believe Heike will be invoked on every future trip we ever take.



Once we dock in town, I try to fenangle extra hang-out time, but there is scenery to see! It's actually impressive how we squeeze in maximum viewage in just an hour and a half. Even more impressive when you know that we burn the first fifteen minutes that we're there booking our plane tickets from Guilin back to Hong Kong. It wasn't so much an option because those tickets really needed to be booked, but it means our speed sightseeing is even more condensed.

Then, we track down a taxi driver and get him to give us a speed tour. We book it out to Moon Hill, where we literally get out of the cab, take about five pictures each and then get back in the cab and rush to some other natural beautiful spot that I think is called something like Big Tree or something like that. There, we get out of the cab, walk around for a closely timed ten minutes, take some pictures and then book it back to the cab to get back to our transport to Guilin.











We arrive back to the rendevous point to head back to Guilin exactly on time. It's not pretty, planned or relaxing, but it is awesome and fun. I'll take it!

That night in Guilin, we have catfish with its head on the plate and chicken with its head AND feet on the plate. Nobody's feeling all that well after dinner, so we decide to stay in that night and play cards.

We've been teaching Lisa how to play Texas Hold'em all trip long. Whenever there is down time, we've had cards out (more or less). This night, because we are in for the evening, we have time for a full-on tournament using toothpicks as betting chips. Ho goes out early when Lisa's busts his low number kicker with a only slightly higher number kicker.

I hold on for a long time. I have her down to her last toothpick at one point when I'm running a Royal, but I start to feel bad and advise her not to go all in. After that, she suddenly starts playing brilliantly and takes every single toothpick away from me. She eventually wins the entire game by once again beating our matching pairs with a low number kicker. Sigh. But she ends the game with the funniest comment: "In real life, I loose huge amounts of cash. In fake life, I win toothpicks."

We turn on the TV before bed and the final "Lord of the Rings" movie is on in English. We fall asleep to it, and I'm already sad as we fall asleep because tomorrow is the last day of the trip.

 

China Entry the Fifteenth: We Travel

And so, we wake up at the crack of dawn to make our way to Guilin. We wake up at the crack of dawn because the taxi driver who was Ho and Lisa's guide the first time we were in Dali is supposed to pick us up at 8:00am to catch our 9:10am express bus to Kunming, where we can then catch a flight to Guilin. Still with me?

Except that we begin the day behind already. The original driver can't make it that morning, so he sends his brother to drive us. Only his brother doesn't recognize us, nor do we recognize him, so we all stand in the lobby for fifteen minutes until we figure out what's supposed to be going on.

But there should still be lots of time to make the bus! After all, the bus doesn't leave until 9:10am!

But then there is confusion about which bus station we're supposed to be dropped off at. A phone call is made to the original driver -- who also arranged this bus ticket for us -- and Ho and the driver's brother both confer back and forth with the original cab driver. Suddenly, we make a quick turn-around and head to a bus station that's a entire town away.

In a country where the patented Pookie statement, "Traffic lanes, who needs them?" holds as true as it did in Peru and stop lights are a mere suggestion of who should drive and who should stop, we take aggressive driving to a whole new level.





We get to said bus station ... and none of the busses there are the bus that we're supposed to be on! What do do? Ho Lin saves the day and procures tickets for the next bus to Kunming. But don't stop reading. It can't be a simple as "And so we just bought tickets for a different bus and headed off."

This bus we're on? This is a nice bus. The seats are big and cushy. There is a real bathroom. It's a nice bus.

And we're settled in.

Comfy.

Suddenly, the original cab driver runs onto the bus and pulls us off. He is upset because his brother took us to the wrong bus station, so he has gotten our money back on the tickets for the new bus and is taking us to meet up with our original bus.

Lisa and I protest. "Nooooooo! We LOVE this bus! It's so comfortable, and this is a four hour bus ride. Let's just stay on this bus." But the consciences driver wants to be sure that we get on the original booked bus, so off we go in a mad dash Dali cab ride. Again.

We actually do catch the correct bus, and actually it's not a bad bus for a four hour ride. I listen to NPR downloads and Ho and Lisa watch Chinese comedies the whole way there. It turns out that, to her surprise, Lisa REALLY likes campy Chinese comedy. Go figure.

The issues again arise when the bus ride does not take four hours. Between 30 minutes for a forced rest stop and completely debilitating traffic outside of Kunming, the bus ride that was supposed to get us to Kunming four hours before our flight to Guilin actually gets us there with less than two hours to spare. We immediately grab a cab and hightail it to the airport.

Believe it or not, we make it to the aiport and get on our flight just fine. We arrive in Guilin around 7:00pm and get lucky again that our randomly selected cab driver is somebody whom Ho gets along with quite well. After booking a SOLID day and a half's worth of activities, we head to the hotel.

The hotel is dandy. I get to shower for the first time since Lijiang, which feels good. Ho heads out to dig up some food, but Lisa and I are exhausted and can't stand the thought of going back out into the rain storm, so we fall asleep to the long-lost sounds of English-speaking TV. The rest is key, because we have crack of dawn plans in the morning!

 

China Entry The Fourteenth: Out of Lijiang

We wake up late, have a leisurely breakfast, and then Ho meets up with us at the Grand Lijiang around 10:00am for our last seven hours in Lijiang, which has been an incredible highlight of the trip. Oh, but we are not daunted by the mere seven hour time frame. You have no idea how much can be done in a mere seven hours!

It is, by the way, raining. As it will be for the remainder of our trip. By the end, I have a complete love/hate relationship with the rain.

We begin with a hike up the hill, past the Deer Source Inn, to a newly built pagoda tower on top of a high point of land. Though the construction is new, it's still quite beautiful, and the views from the top are outstanding. In one direction you can see the painted rooftops of Old Lijiang, and in the other direction you can see the contrasting rooftops of the new part of the city. It's well worth the hike.















Then, down into Old Lijiang we go, where I eat again -- a yummy, sweet Naxi pancake from a street vendor.



Lisa also realizes that we can purchase bugs to eat, but "Fear Factor" got cancelled for a reason, folks.



How wants to track down a local artist who is friends with a friend. We trek to the address given, which actually turns out to be the artist's mother's store where she makes and sells small blue communist era style hats. The woman herself is old -- we guess in her seventies -- but she is flat out stunningly beautiful, despite having lived an obviously hard life (she would have experienced the cultural revolution). In fact, the two exceptionally old women bickering/buying hats from her are also stunningly beautiful for their ages.



The woman sends somebody to get her son, who greets Ho warmly and invites us to his home to site for a while and see his art. He and Ho also discuss his impending trip to the US for an exhibition in LA (he's been exhibiting outside of China for about two years now). His artwork is reminiscent of ancient classical style and it's absolutely beautiful. We spend the next hour or so looking at the beautiful pieces, and then the lovely man gives us some Chinese poem scrolls. He's the most gentle man. He's so lovely. You so feel warm in his presence.

It's also engaging to watch the artist and Ho talk. They have that instant "artist's connection" that translates clearly even though Lisa and I cannot understand a word they are saying.







I do believe that Ho would have been happy to stay here all afternoon long, but as the afternoon started to get late and the rain started to dump down even harder, we ventured out to wrap up some last minute ... shopping.

Foreign devils must consume!

At 5:00pm sharp, the driver is ready to go to drive us to Dali. It is, perhaps, the most punctual start we get at any point on the trip.

The drive is lovely, though I sleep through most of it.

We arrive back in Dali around 9:00pm and head straight to the MCA.

For some reason known only to God and Buddha, a film is being shot at the MCA. This means that unless we want to stay awake all night to the sounds of the film crew (which we don't), we need to upgrade our room to the "suite" in the front part of the hotel. After some bartering, Lisa and Ho get the room at a reasonable rate, so we go for it.

Upon first entering the room, the room appears FANTASTIC. The three beds are split over two rooms. There are books and ample electronic plugs and a table with chairs! But then, of course, there is the bathroom. I'm not sure that in any way I can describe the odor that somehow creeps into the bathroom by morning, except to say that something must have flown in the open window and dropped a dead animal carcass in there. It was so bad that this was my process for brushing my teeth the next morning:

I stood outside of the bathroom and took a big gulp of air and held my breath. Then I ran into the bathroom, turned the sink water on and ran back out.

I took another big gulp of air, ran into the bathroom and wet my toothbrush, and then ran back out again.

Standing outside of the bathroom door, I apply toothpaste and brush my teeth.

I take another huge gulp of air (which, for the record, is very hard to do with a mouth full of toothpaste) and run in to spit. I do not rinse!

And then...off to Guilin!

 

China Entry the Thirteenth: Tiger Leaping Gorge

We awake again to leave Lijiang at 8:30am to drive to Tiger Leaping Gorge, which is, not surprisingly, a gorge where a mythological tiger once lept across.

It's a drive, don't get me wrong. We stop on the way there at an overview of the Yangtze. Firstly, lovely. Take a look.

There's a Buddhist temple there, too. Inside, a Tibetan monk is visiting, and he reads Ho's fortune for him. Outside, a tiny child is learning his scriptures. It is, honestly, beautiful to look at. Lisa, however, uses the restroom here. She is braver than I am.




We arrive at Tiger Leaping Gorge in a light rain. We take the walk through the gorge, where we take many photos and learn stories about Chinese astrology. It's really lovely, but I will say this. Just because it's not in America, that doesn't mean it's by default better. It's very pretty, but for the scenery type "River cutting through dramatic gorge," I'll take either the Grand Canyon or many points where the New River cuts through Appalachia. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it wasn't beautiful, I'm saying that there are similar places that are more beautiful right here at home!











Tiger Leaping Gorge is also the home of the phrase of the trip (in my book). So, what you must know is that Lisa was having Ho translate many, many, many, many questions on the drive to the gorge. Then, at the gorge, there was "activity" across the way. A bunch of people were trying to pull something out of the river using a rope and a small motor boat. It turns out that a car had gone into the river, but we didn't know that. So we ask Ho to ask one of the security guards what's going on. As Ho is asking the security guard the question, we see him pointing at us. When he gets back, I make a joke that what he really said to the guard was "Those annoying white women over there want to know..." Ho looks at me completely deadpan and says, "Foreign devil wants to know ..."

Maybe you had to be there.

After Tiger Leaping Gorge, we stop at the White River Dam to see some more yak.



And then we stop at the first bend of the Yangtze to see that too!

Our last official stop for the day is at the Wetlands National Park to see not only wetlands, but also the INCREDIBLY FAMOUS BIRDS. This stop is supposed to be a 30-45 minute stop. I know, if you've ever traveled with us before, you are laughing.

(If you've never traveled with us before, I think this exchange can sum up what I'm trying to say. A few days later in Guilin, Lisa and Ho are considering whether to take a half-day city tour or a whole-day city tour. We have flights out at 5pm, but the whole day tour ends at 3pm so we could make it. I just look at Lisa, roll my eyes and say, "Those tours are timed based on people who take, like, an hour at each location. WE ARE NOT THOSE PEOPLE.")

Anyway, back to the story. To begin with, as soon as we have ALREADY paid our entrance fee to the Wetlands National Park, our guide (Country Mountain Flower was her name), explains to us that the birds only come out in the winter, so we will in fact not be seeing any birds.

Okay, then. That's fine. There's still scenery. No birds, but scenery! Here we come!

The first stop on the official tour is the exhibit hall, which hasn't been visited in so long that she actually has to go in and turn all of the lights on for us. And so we look at some photographs of birds that we will actually not be able to see.

Then it's time for a video! Except that Country Mountain Flower can't get the tv/video contraption to work. She places a call to the other girl working at the ticket desk. That girl manages to tear herself away from the mad rush of off-season visitors who are flocking to the wetlands to NOT see birds long enough to realize that she can't get the TV/video thing to work either. I pass the time while we wait by forcing Ho and Lisa to listen to me while I recount my favorite Legend of Zelda boss battles and strategies for winning them. Not long into this, we opt to skip the video and start the actual tour.

So, we start the tour, and the wetlands are indeed beautiful. We learn some Naxi and Yi symbols. We learn that in Naxi pictoral representation the character with the bigger hat is always representative of the male character.







The grass is pretty. We take pictures in the grass. We're all like, "At least we're getting some good scenery out of this."





We enter a Naxi compound. We're fascinated by the greetings on the door. The left side basically tells you to come in and rest your spirit in the home and the right side threatens harm to evil spirits. Lisa will later notice that most of the lion statues gaurding the doors on other buildings have a gentle looking lion on the left adn a ferocious one on the right, and Ho will deduce that this is probably related to the greeting messages on the Naxi doors. Ho and Lisa are more observant and bright than I am.





In the main area of the Naxi compound, a small Naxi man and his female companion (who we later learn is his neice) are cooking up a piece of ... possibly chicken ... in the communal cooking area. They invite us to sit for tea and talk (via Ho). It turns out that the man had once traveled to the US. Apparently, there is an institute in DC that works to preserve ancient writing types, and since he was a master Naxi writer, he went there to teach the written Naxi language. Lisa and I were in awe of what the process of taking a 14-hour flight in a massive jumbo jet to a SUPER BUSY foreign country must have been like for this man, who lives in a tiny village in a poor and rural area. We were amazed by it.

After we finish our tea, the man announced that he actually makes his own rice wine, and would we like to try it? Lisa doesn't really drink hard liquor and I am full of tea and also worried about the bathroom situation on the way back, so we pass. Ho, however, does not pass and rice wine is brought out. For the record -- Moonshine! MOONSHINE IN A PLASTIC JUG! I take one sip of Ho's and I nearly pass out on the spot. Ho finished the wine and proceeds to look at me with uncentered eyes almost immediately!





Lisa and I want to have the man create some scrolls for us. I can't write about that here because it will ruin the surprise for people later. But suffice it to say my "Can you do two for me," turns into "Can you do three for me," and Lisa's "Can you do one," turns into "Can you do three," and then Ho gets into the action. We are there for A LONG TIME.

In fact, we've now been there for so long that our guide comes looking for us. He's ready to leave. We're not even a quarter of the way into the wetlands.






And Ho and Lisa and Country Mountain Flower are not ready to leave! There will be more wetlands! Off we go!

It's about at this point and time that Lisa and I decide that Country Mountain Flower is the perfect woman for Ho, and we start pointing this out relentlessly. And when I say "relentless," I mean "RELENTLESS." Ho, Lisa and Country Mountain Flower all mosey out onto the wetland planes, and Lisa wants to take a picture of Ho and Country Mountain Flower. She brilliantly turns this into a solid five minute process wherein she keeps making the two of them move to different spots while she's "in search of the perfect picture," each time having them stand next together while she's all like, "Hmmm...wait....just stand there...hold on a second....Nope! Why don't you move over there!" I stand in the windbreak and laugh hysterically the entire time. We're wondering if Country Mountain Flower is figuring out what's going on, but if she does she's too classy to say anything. She also wants a copy of the picture, so she gives her address to Ho. Lisa and I see endless possibilities there!








We finally get in the car to head back to Lijiang. It's 7:00pm.

Our driver calls home and his family has already sat down to dinner (because, you know, it's 7:00pm). So he decides that he's coming out to dinner with us! We go to a Naxi place with a Naxi stage show and order ... NINE PLATES OF FOOD FOR FOUR PEOPLE. Plus beer! Dude, the driver makes out. He could have been home with his family of wife and all daughters listening to them yap in his hear, but instead he gets a massive feast, beer and a stage show without them! There is -- A LOT -- of food. It's almost unreal.




I also forgot this story. In the car on the way back to Lijiang, the driver turns to Ho and asks him if he has a headach. There are many, many ways to interpret that question, but Lisa and I decide that clearly the driver means, "Do you have a headache from listening to these gossipy women all day long?"

It was a good day. We fall asleep right away.

 

China Entry The Twelfth: The Best Photo of the Trip

Somehow, because I named it wrong, I neglected to put this photo in yesterday's entry, but it's the absolute best photo of the trip. It's Lisa as the horse guide on Jade Snow Mountain teaches her to count using mountain flowers. I love this photo.

 

China Entry the Eleventh: Jade Mountain and Drinking Games

Before you start reading this, don't get yourself confused that this entry spans multiple days. We really did all of the following in one quick day: switched hotels, went to Yak meadow on Jade Snow mountain, visited a traditional Naxi village, saw some really old scrolls, saw the Naxi symphony, got confused by Chinese drinking games. That was all one day. THOSE KIDS NEED NO SLEEP I'M TELLING YOU.

Okay, so, we take a bus to Lijiang. By bus, let me say, I mean bus for small, Chinese folk. Lisa and I both ran for aisle seats, which I usually don't do, but the only was I was going to fit in this bus was to be able to put my legs in the aisle. The.only.way. I manage to sleep the whole way there, which apparently is a mistake, because I'm later told that the Chinese comedy film that was playing on the bus was so funny people couldn't stop laughing at it. Sadly, I missed these things.

When we get to Lijiang, we head to a hostel that has been recommended to us. Lisa and I are so excited to be staying somewhere recommended because it can't be very bad. Until Ho says this, "Well, I mean, he recommended it because it's in old town and its supposed to have amazing views of old town from the rooms, so ... "

And indeed it did have fantastic views. Check it out.








And we get into the room. And at first it appears to be a winner. Clean, not too damp, beds more closely resembling beds than what we've been seeing that trip. Hopes begin to spark.

Until we enter the bathroom.

"Where's the shower?" we say. And then we realize how the bathroom is set up. Not only is there not any kind of stall to separate the toilet and the shower, but there isn't any kind of stall to separate ANYTHING, so when you turn on the shower, which by the way is a hose snaked through a hole in the ceiling, you will flood the entire bathroom floor, so that sucks if somebody, say, needs in there when you're done. BUT ALSO, this is one of those places where you can't flush your used toilet paper. So when you shower, not only is the toilet right there, but so is the wastebasket full of USED TOILET PAPER. Do you feel clean yet? DO YOU?

We head out and explore Lijiang. Oh my goodness, it's lovely. All old and narrow cobblestone streets and tiny stores. We have a delightful meal and walk around just taking it all in. It really is that pretty.





When we get back to the room, I look at Lisa and say, "We're totally moving to a new place tomorrow, right?" Lisa cannot more emphatically answer yes.

Lisa is way more awesome than I am. I hear her leave in the morning before the alarm even goes off at 6:30am. I wake up, amble to the bathroom and stand in despair, neither willing to actually use the bathroom nor take a shower. I opt for a "sink bath." Lisa arrives back sometime as I'm trying to kill my body odor with a paper towel and tiny soaps. She has moved us to the Grand Lijiang. It has real bathrooms, a breakfast buffet, no humidity, clean ass linens, an actual alarm clock in the room, and did I mention a breakfast buffet? Suddenly, Lijiang became very, very heavenly for the bargain price of $50 US a night!

So, we head out with our local guide: First stop is breakfast, and it ends up being my favorite meal of the trip. We go to this very local -- and by local I mean that I watch a many carry some plates to customers while the ash from his cigarette drops into the food. That said, the dumplings are amazing. AMAZING. And, of course, our entire breakfast cost less than $1 US, which is also nice. I cannot even describe the love that I have for these dumplings, so instead I treat you once again to pictures of food. As Tom Cruise would say, "Much love."







And then we are off. After a twenty minute debate on jackets (do we need them, do we not, should we rent them, go back to the hotel for them, will I really be okay without them), we head out to a Naxi village to take a tour. Naxi are the majority minority population (ha) of this area. We begin by learning about the Naxi written language, which is obviously image based. It's one of the prettiest image based languages I've ever seen, not that I'm an expert. We also learn the Naxi version of the Noah's Ark legend, which goes something like this:

A man is told of an impending flood. To save himself, he sews himself inside of a giant drum along with a knife and some seeds. When the flood has ended, he cuts himself out of the drum and replants the earth with his seeds. Impressed with him, the daughter of the local god who has also survived the flood marries him and they re-populate the earth and eventually ascend to become gods themselves. The large drum when hit is said to bring luck and prosperity and is used in many traditional Naxi music and dance numbers.





Next up, a Naxi coming of age ritual is demonstrated in which a man climbs a huge ladder made of blades. Ouch.



And then the history of competitive swinging. Ho can swing.



Next up is a Mosu complex. The Naxi may be matriarchal too, but the Mosu are definitely matriarchal and practice the fine art of the walk-away marriage. What, you may ask, is a walk away marriage? Sons stay with their mothers until it's time to marry. Then they marry, and stay with their wives until their wives have a son. Once the wife has a son, the husband returns to his mother's home to take care of her into her old age.

Yes, men, at first that may sound fantastic, but take some time to really think about it.

And kids, I don't think it's even noon yet. We leave the Naxi village and head to Jade Snow mountain.

Prefacing this by saying that most of the good pictures from Jade Snow mountain are on Ho's camera, so there will probably be a photo only update later. But I'll work with what I have.

We're heading up Jade Snow Mountain to Yak Meadow, and the scenery is spectacular. But let me just say that it's on this ride up the mountain that I really start to understand and get impacted by by how poor many of the people around us are. I mean -- they actually herd goat, and not just for show for tourists. They children are all very dirty and unsupervised. Old, old, old people cary huge bundles of dirt on their backs. As was said at one point, it definitely is more of a peasant nation than we thought.

However, that knowledge doesn't stop me from handing over my white folk cash so I can right the posh incline to Yak Meadow.

We hit Yak Meadow and it starts to drizzle. We're not deterred because there are yaks! Yaks!



And Yak butter, even though you can barely see it in this picture. In an effort to not have a moment during the trip where I'm not shoving food into my mouth, I have some. It's so good! Like a lemon-tinged curd cheese, and you put it on a stick and dip it into sugar. So good.



Food here is good.



We begin to hike Yak Meadow, which is stunningly beautiful. It's also at an extremely high altitude, which we all begin to feel immediately. AND it starts to rain ... like real rain. And even though at the beginning, I had been the only one who wanted to ride horses in Yak Meadow, suddenly we are all on board with the horseback riding. And it turns out to be the most awesome thing ever.

It's dumping rain now, but that doesn't stop us, or our lovely horse guides. My horse is named Little Flower and he's wonderful. Ho and I use the same horse guide, and we try to teach her to count to ten in English during the trip. We are not as successful at this as Lisa's guide is at teaching her how to count to 100 in tens in Mandarin during the trip. He picks wild flowers for her and uses them to demonstrate numbers. Then he makes fun of her accent. It's the most delightful thing you'll ever see.

The ride is perfect, even in the rain because in so many ways the rain makes everything more beautiful. There's snow on the mountain top and yaks and goat and birds and flowers. I'm really not even going to try to do this justice in words. Hopefully Ho's photos will do it justice.

When we get back to the horse stable, our female guide's brothers try to sell her to Ho. It was so cute.

It's my favorite day of the trip.





We finally head back down the mountain and into the car -- I think to go home. But no! There's one more stop to see some ancient murals painted in the mid 1300's. Even though I've been near things that old before, these aren't behind any kind of glass or velvet rope, and it's a little awe-inspiring to be in a room with something that old.

Back at the hotel, we take quick showers and change, and then we're off to the evening's activity, which is a performance by teh Naxi orchestra. Lots of drums, bells, flutes and a virtually endless array of string instruments. There are some lovely solo performances including a flute solo (my favorite), a mouth harp solo and a solo song by a velvety baritone who, I later find out, is actually from a small town in the mountains where there is barely any educaiton -- yet he achieved his doctorate in music. Impressive.

In between each musical piece, the orchestra conductor tells stories in Mandarin for ten minutes. I'm told that they're quite engaging stories, but really I'd have no way of knowing.



After the performance, we agree to eat and overpriced dinner so we can experience the insanity that is this weird Chinese party strip (tm Felix) in the middle of old town. The food and beer are not the best we experience, but the local entertainment is top notch.

Behind us, six student-age kids are playing a Chinese drinking game. We can't figure out all of the rules for the game, but it involves tongue twisters and random standing up and banging on the table. The side of the table that messes up firsts has to drink.

There is also another local drinking game that everybody plays that's a singing game. First, a random group sings a song and then challenges another table by yelling "Ya-so, Ya-so, Ya Ya So". The other table then has to respond by singing a song that's in some way related to the first song. AND THIS GOES ON ALL NIGHT LONG. As Ho said, "The Chinese are a very musical people." As Felix said, "They're flirting in groups. It's a very comunist way to flirt."

The Chinese have drinking games that involve singing and verbal trickery. We have quarters. I think they may have won this round.

And if you think this journal entry is long, please believe me when I say that we started at 8am again the next day, and it goes just as long!

 

China Entry the 10th: Things You Need to Know

There are two things you need to know before we head on to stories of Lijiang.

Thing #1 That You Must Know: There was an overnight train ride to Dali.
Why must you know this? Because the lack of sleep obtained on the overnight train ride to Dali probably was what put my body in a position to be so severely impacted by the fried, dried salted beef. Why was there no sleep on a moving train, in a cushy soft sleeper car, while traveling to Dali? The answer, my friends, is Jeff.

Jeff was our berth partner since Ho was in another car. Actually, three other men were our berth partners, but they all wanted to be together so they switched, and we got Jeff. It started out seeming like Jeff was a great berth partner. After I whined to Lisa that I needed somebody to tell me a story so I would fall asleep, Jeff told us Chinese fairy tales -- one probably something similar to what Mulan was based on in which a princess disguises herself as a boy so that she can be close to the forbidden prince whom she loves but once discovered the two both die and are then brought back to life as butterflies and fly away together (I guess Disney didn't like the death and reincarnation thing any more than they liked Cloudy Bay). The second was about sexy women ghosts and lame mortal men.

So it begins like Jeff will be awesome. Then we all bed down.

Snorer. Not a light snorer. I heavy snorer. And by heavy I mean that I had my iPod on and I could STILL hear him.

On top of that, Jeff tells us not to worry about the lights because they would automatically go off at 11pm. They did not, and Lisa didn't figure out we could turn them off ourselves until 1am. But at least she did.

And it was cold. I did not sleep at all.

Thing #2 That You Must Know: Fried, dried salted beef.
Though I am planning on taking the day off in Dali, when we arrive I decide to go to breakfast with Ho and Lisa. Because Dali is full of Bai minority population people, we ordered some Bai specialities. I ordered fried, dried salted beef, which is exactly what it sounds like. Take some beef, preserve it in TONS of salt, and then pull it out and fry it in lard. I ate, like, a pound of it.

I was out. OUT. My stomach had had enough of this nonsense. The fried, dried salted beef was the last straw. For Ho and Lisa, Bai minority culture and old town Dali. For Jocelyn, a bed and a bathroom.

Fortunately, Lijiang was next.

 

China Entry the Ninth: The Sadistic Hike of 1000 Temples

This entry is mostly photos. I know that you prefer that anyway. You're not fooling me.

So, the next day we kick it at breakfast at a chirpy SEVEN IN THE MORNING and then we're off. First stop - Bamboo Temple. This is a Budhist temple up in the hills outside of Kunming. It's incredibly lovely, as is the green and scenic drive up there. An A+ experience. Actually, this is an A+ day. It's one of my favorite days of the trip.


Translated, this means "temple".











From there, the Ho Lin Sadistic Hike of 1000 Temples begins. To be fair, I loved this hike and every temple we stopped at, as is evidenced by the many, many photos I'm throwing at you now. That said, the hike goes aggressively up most of the side of a mountain, and includes many steep stairs. At one point, I'm quite sure we climb over 250 stairs straight up. It's exhausting ... for Lisa and I!!!! Ho jumps on up the mountain like there's no incline at all and waits for Lisa and I at the top. It's cool though, because wondering through all of the temples on the way up makes it worth it.














Tea seeping during out tea break.


Tea - ready!


Ho and I enjoy a tea break.

At the top of the mountain, we get on a cable car and ride down the side. I don't love that given that I don't love heights, but it's all good. From there, it's a minority population cultural museum, a stop at a food vendor for eggs and prawn right from the river and a trip back to the city to wander around and get some food before we board the all night train.

We go American style for dinner at the highly recommended Wei's Pizzeria. It's a delightful dinner full of food (noodles, dumplings, pizza, old recipe coke) and we start to teach Lisa to play Texas Hold'em. Then, back to the hotel where we grab our luggage and play cards until it's time to head to our overnight train. Ask me tomorrow about the overnight train.

 

China Entry the Eighth: Kunming has Great Food

Usually I just copy an "edited" version of my actual hand-written travel journal for these entries. But because of the dried fried salted beef that we will discuss later, my actual journal entries for these days are light so I'm trying to recall things a little bit ad hoc. Work with me.

We make our flight out of Hong Kong to Kunming City. I am fascinated by the mainland almost immediately. The people here are not as wealthy as in Hong Kong. The buildings look more like communist architecture. I stare out the cab window on the way in from the airport in awe. I'm fascinated. It feels completely different. And, of course, the fact that the language is different and the currency is different enhances that.

We check in to our hotel, which is the fantastically wonderful Camellia Hotel. Also of note for future reference, the Camellia Hotel as the most OUTSTANDING breakfast buffet. I mean, good lord. Great bathrooms. Pretty lobby. Extremely helpful staff. I give it the thumbs up. And, yes, the breakfast buffet. Good lord. Kunming has great food.

We spend most of the afternoon walking around, shopping, exploring, visiting the city's old pagodas, which are beautiful. It's and odd architectural contrast, the ancient pagodas surrounded by folks playing cards and relaxing mixed among no shortage of blockish, communist looking buildings.


The fair city of Kunming.


Lisa and Ho decipher meanings.


I give you fake Chinese Armani.


Followed by fake Chinese Nike.


We all love pagodas.

Here also starts my mini-obsession with food vendors. There aren't many stops in the trip where I'm not buying food from food vendors. In this case, I'm still not even sure what Ho and I ate. I know there was milk involved, that the milk was somehow mixed with steaming hot water and that sweet, flavorful seeds of some type were added so that in the end it was a sweet, gelatenous substance that felt weird but tasted good. Kunming has great good.



In the evening, we head to the Muslim quarter for dinner. I get reprimanded for taking pictures of the raw foul hanging out that later gets cooked up and fed to us. You may wonder why, by the end of the trip, the bathroom has become the most coveted location in our rooms, or you can take a look at these foul, no that we're regularly eating things that have been hanging out like this and understand that.



We have a fantastic dinner of chicken, lamb, sweetbreads, pea pods and my new favorite beer. The wait staff is truely endlessly amused by the presence of the white women. I feel like a rock star, and it's awesome. For real.

Kunming has great food. And great tourists sites, which we'll discuss tomorrow.

 

China Entry the Seventh: Bo, Janette and the Goose Foot

So, napped and showered and dressed in our finest wrinkle free travel dresses, Lisa and I head to Bo and Janette's wedding banquet to meet up with Ho. At least the rain has paused.

Our first stop before catching the bus to Victoria Peak is the ferry station. We are baffled, BAFFLED, as we walk through. Thousands of Phillipina women are in the ferry station ... just ... um ... sitting there, playing cards, talking. What is this? There are THOUSANDS of them. We're confused. It's later explained that Hong Kong has a high population of Phillipina women, and that most of them work as live-in maids so they only get the day off on Sunday. The rest of the week their job is to live where they work. So on Sunday, they all get together at the ferry station and hang out. The reason it's the ferry station probably has to do with some older rule about where they were allowed to be and not be, but I don't even understand that.

Also, while waiting for the bus, we learn about the Royal Bank of Scotland building. At least I think that's what building it is. It's architecturally amazing and we can't stop looking at it. Then, people we apparently met but whose names I can't remember, explain to us that the building was constructed so that it could be easily de-constructed and moved out of Hong Kong and back to Britain if things got politically shaky in Hong Kong. Things are thought of in this part of the world that would never otherwise cross my mind.

We finally arrive at Bo & Janette's reception. The hall is lovely, decorated in red roses, white candles and beautiful salon photos of the happy couple. There's cake as a first course! I love this country! There is also red wine, which makes this girl happy. Lisa and I, the only white folk around, are seated at a table with a bunch of Kellogg graduates. Fortunately, they're all willing to help us at every step of the banquet, and one of them has brought his parents who are the sweetest, most helpful people ever introduced to the earth. So sweet, in fact, that the mother at one point actually makes this darling, darling revelation:

"In America, the toilets are so big! Just so big!"

She's so cute. I want to bundle her up.

I head into the banquet convinced that I'm going to at least try to eat every delicacy that's put down in front of me. This theory held up well through the roast suckling pick, good fortune chicken, shrimp balls, grouper. The first challenge was the shark fin soup. I actually like the savory taste of shark fin soup, but it also contains, you know, boiled down shark fin, which in case you've never had it, has the texture of ... mucus maybe? It does not feel fantastic on your tongue, but I work with it.

But, but, but...then...

A plate is put in front of me. On the plate is a squishy piece of sea slug and an entire roasted goose's foot, with the webbing still on it. My face reveals my horror before I can make a valid attempt at hiding it. Paul and Larry both simultaneously say, "Don't even eat it. We're not going to, and we grew up here!" But the parents at the table are looking at me, and I don't want to seem rude. With the help of some large gulps of wine, I make it through the sea slug, which can best be described as "mushy". Think overcooked eggplant but with meat grease.

Then, I bring the goose foot to my mouth and gingerly take a bite. Webbing and duck meta tarsal come off in my moouth and I simply cannot take another bite. Larry and Paul are laughing as their goose feet sit untouched on their plates. The parents are calling me very brave. I am throwing up a little bit in my mouth, but there is wine. The lesson learned is when the locals in your own age demographic tell you they're not even going to eat it, you probably shouldn't eat it either.

Anyway, the entire banquet is lovely, and Janette looks stunning in all four of her outfits and I hope that she and Bo have a long and very, very happy marriage. Thank you for letting me be a part of it!



We're leaving Hong Kong in the morning for Kunming City. Lisa and I made a list of our favorite things about Hong Kong on the way home on the MTR tonight:

• Amazing skyline views
• Food
• Unbelievably good public transportation
• Food
• Endlessly entertaining advertising
• Food
• Our hair looks great with this exact level of humidity
• Food

Finally, I just want to say that I can't quite get my mind around this whole Chinese name/English name thing. Firstly, I can't quite handle two names in general because in my mind your name is your name...right? It identifies so much about you. The fact that the British didn't want to learn how to properly pronounce Chinese names, however, led pretty much everybody to have an English name, too. So I've been asking folks how they picked their English names. Here are some sample answers:

"When I was a kid, my sister just gave me five English names and told me to pick one."

"In kindergarten, the teacher just queued us up and assigned English names."

I mean, it just seems so wrong to me. I feel like a name should mean more than that, but maybe that's just very American of me. I'll let it go and assume that if nobody else is complaining, I should shut up.

Goodbye Hong Kong! We'll see you on the return!

 

China Entry the Seventh: The World's Largest Bronze Seated Budha Statue

Ho has things he needs to do today, so Lisa and I decide that we really want to go to Lantau Island to see the monestary and the world's largest bronze seated Buddha statue. But when we awake the next morning, the rains had come in full force.

Lisa and I eye each other. "Let's do it anyway," we say, "How bad can the rain be?"

To answer our own question, the rain can be bad. The rain can pour down on you pretty much non-stop all day even when you try to hide under the brim of your silly travel hat (tm tripsright). Let me just say, immediately after this excursion, we both wondered if we wouldn't have been ahead of the game to just stay in and journal. Writing this now, a week or so removed from the trip, I wouldn't trade that day on Lantau for anything, even a grande mocha and wireless access. But at the time...

So, the trip to Lantau, much to our surprise, is two hours each way. Thats an hour on the MTR and then an hour on a crowded, damp bus careening through winding roads up and down the hills of the island. By the time we even reach the monestary, the rain is coming down in torrents. TORRENTS. Lisa actually has to buy a plastic raincoat to wear. Because this is China, the plastic raincoat has huge letters on the back that say "ENJOY." You'd better believe I got leverage out of that joke for hours.

The monestary is lovely. Probably more lovely because of the rain. Take a look.





And also, the worlds largest bronze seated Buddha statue is, well, the worlds largest bronze seated Buddha statue. Take a look.







Despite the rain, we take the trek to the top of the hill where the statue is and go in to see the artifacts, which include a number of ancient wooden scrolls and some of Siddhartha's legendary crystals. But I start to freak out at all of the people and don't get to see as much as we'd like. Nonetheless, I wouldn't trade a moment.

Wanna know what the real highlight of Lantau is? It's the snack shack where we have noodles, sesame balls and steamed rice cakes with red beans. Jocelyn went to China and ate it.

The two hour trip back to Causeway Bay is stopped short of being torture by the childen on the MTR who are returning from their day at Disneyland and are more than happy to perform for the freakish looking, damp and scraggly white women. We hit the hostel and sleep for hours. When we wake up, the rain torrents are back, making the prospect of getting to the wedding banquet that night challenging. However...

 

China Entry the Sixth: Hong Kong Day Two

It's raining. Not like monsoon-raining, but like "there was just a monsoon the other week and now it's raining like crazy" raining.

Anyway, so Ho arrives at 11am. Having had my Bucks, I'm feeling ready for the day. More specifically, I'm ready to head off for some dim sum, which is what we're doing. Have I mentioned that it's already day two and I've eaten more than I normally would in four or five days? The 7-11's have pork buns! We head off, we get lost several times but that's fine because I get to watch school children play and see a university.




We get to the recommended dim sum place. And it is delicious. We gorge on pot stickers and dumplings and spare ribs and rice and more and more dumplings. I am going to gain 15 pounds on this trip. I cannot stop eating (or apparently writing journal entries devoted to nothing but eating). I promise tihs trip becomes about more than dim sum pretty soon.

After dim sum, we head to Mong Kok, home of the most massive shopping area I've ever seen. I am totally freaked out by the volume of people. Totally overwhelming. People are packed into every available spot. Just...people...everywhere. I could never, ever make the adjustment to living like that. I am sure that if you spend your entire life living in such a densely populated area, you probably then feel very alone and exposed in less crowded places -- for example most US cities. I am sure that if you grow up in a densely populated area like Hong Kong, you don't even notice much of the stress of maneuvering through seas of people just to walk a block. I, however, grew up near farms. I can barely handle it and almost freak out several times.










After a break to refresh, by which I mean I took a break to refresh and Ho and Lisa just kept going at full speed BECAUSE THEY NEVER NEED TO REST, we met up with Bo for dinner at the famous Jumbo floating restaurant. Touristy? A bit. Did we care? No, because it was mega fun. Deal with it. And also, mmmmmm, delicious. Yes, I'm recounting the menu for you since this entire travel journal is about how Jocelyn ate China: crispy Peking duck skin, shark soup, fried crab puffs, lettuce wraps with duck, duck fried rice, shrimp with cashews and vegetables, dumplings and mango pudding. By the time we leave the restaurant, the city is dark and beautiful. Hong Kong at night is stunning.









After dinner, we head out to a party for one of Bo's friends at some ultra trendy night club where they have red wine and smokes distributed by an adorable looking half-Frenchie. They also have Nick, who is an ex-pat who actually grew up in Dublin, OH, which is where my uncle and aunt live and where I've spent a lot of time! AND he knew Ho's old boss from Beijing. Even 15 time zones away, the world is a small place.

Then we head out to take a ride on the world's longest escalator before we call it a night.

For the record, the world's longest escalator is actually the longest series of individual escalators in a row. But the night is pretty, and it's a delightful ride, if also totally mis-named.

It was a delicious day and night. We fall asleep immediately. Which is good, because the next day is very, very, long...

 

China Entry The Fifth: Hong Kong Day One

Never has a country, or city disguised as a country, had easier customs. But I should count my luck, given that Canada hates me.

The bus ride from the airport into the city is amazing. Ho and I rush to the top level of the bus for the best views.



Our first view? The exit sign to Disneyland Hong Kong. Awesome! What you need to know about Disneyland Hong Kong is that the piece of bay on which it is located is actually called, in Catonese, "Cloudy Bay." However, the Disney folk were having none of that translation, so the English version of the name on all exit signs and MTR signs is "Sunny Bay." I kid you not. Look.



Hong Kong is a physically beautiful city, with is amazingly high skyscrapers and looping sections on the curves of bays and islands. If you ever have a lay over in the Hong Kong airport, even if you're not staying in the city, take the bus ride in and then come back. It's beautiful.



Ho and I head to Causeway Bay, which is where Lisa and I are staying (Ho is crashing with friends). As we haul our stuff around, looking for the right street in the middle of busy Hong Kong afternoon, suddenly, walking up to us on the street are Bo and Janette -- out getting photos taken for the wedding. Bo and Janette immediately insist on taking us for breakfast/noodles and satay, and I get my first indication that all I'm going to do on this entire trip is eat. I probably would have ordered a second breakfast if we'd had time. The 7-11's in this place all serve pork buns. Before the trip, I'd intentionally added five or seven pounds since I usually shed 1o or so pounds when I travel. I'm immediately concerned that this may not have been my best move.

We finish up and head to the hostel Lisa and I are staying at. We can't check in for another hour, so we head out for a walk. My first impressions of Hong Kong are that it's dense to the point of being overwhelming. People and stores are stacked on top of each other. I can feel some kind of panic attack wanting to happen. I decide maybe I just need to get some sleep before I absorb it all. Victoria Park is beautiful. The air here is thick with bay water. When you open the windows in mine and Lisa's room, the bay breezes cut through and somehow the noise of all the people and businesses sound lovely.





Speaking of the hostel Lisa and I are staying at, let's discuss bathrooms. Bathrooms will be a recurring theme in the China journal entries because they were almost always an issue. So, common, apparently, is that your shower and your toilet share a stall. Yes, you can go to the bathroom, shower and never feel clean with ease here! Take a look.



You know what though? By the end of the trip that bathroom looked like pure luxury to me.

Because Ho Lin does not ever need to sleep, he's headed out to lunch with Jolie. I look at him blankly, because one thing I know is that I cannot do the Ho and Lisa WE CAN SLEEP WHEN WE'RE DEAD version of traveling. I take a shower and journal instead.

When Ho gets back, STILL NOT HAVING SLEPT AND SEEMINGLY IN NO NEED OF SLEEP, we head out for various errands. We visit Sam the Tailor so Ho can get some threads done. We take a beautiful walk along the ferry pier. Walking along the pier, I say to Ho, "It looks like perming your hair is back in fashion here." Ho says, "I'm pretty sure perms never went OUT of fashion here." Here's my favorite shot of Ho from the trip.



Then, ahem, we head to meet up with Lisa. Try not to laugh one sentence in when I tell you this story. Lisa and I were originally supposed to be staying at a hostel called something like the Spider House Hotel. Right before the trip, Lisa is having a conversation with Ho and says that she wishes she'd read the itinerary more closely because she would have preferred the other hostel he suggested (the Hong Kong Hotel) since it was closer to where he was staying. Ho, being awesome and wanting folks to have a good time, switches the hostel reservations. Except before we left, he couldn't get a hold of Lisa to tell her that we'd switched the reservations, so she thought she was still supposed to go from the airport to the Spider House Hotel and meet us there. Ho and I decide that it will TOTALLY WORK to just show up at the Spider House about 15 minutes before Lisa's expected, intercept her on her way there and take her back to Causeway Bay with us.

Right. I think that you can already probably tell that this plan was doomed to fail.

Sam the Tailor's is awesome as advertised. The shopping and walk to the ferry are awesome as advertised. We arrive at the Spider House Hotel at 5:45pm and there is no Lisa. At 6:30pm there is still no Lisa. Ho talks to the hostel owner who informs us that Lisa was there at 5:30pm but left with her baggage when she realized that I'd never checked in.

But she has to come back, right?

I head to the bus stop to try to intercept her. Ho stays at the hostel to try to intercept her. We wait. And wait. And wait. No Lisa. Finally, at what is now, you know, much later, Ho remembers that Lisa has Jolie's number. And so he calls Jolie...who told Lisa to head to Causeway Bay and wait for us in a restaurant in a (what else?) shopping center! She's been there for an hour. But now, Ho and I have to go back to Sam the Tailor's for a fitting before we can head over. I ponder the good omen of Frank on the plane and decide that a trip that begins with wacky hijinx will probably be a good trip. Wacky!

Finally, we all meet up for dinner at Times Square and my fears of gaining weight on this trip are confirmed. Why hold back? Dinner is drunken chicken, two types of dumplings, fish with pine nuts, string beans, pickled something or other, huge bowls of soup ... food upon food. And, of course, the wonderful company of Jolie to make it even better!



When the food is put down in the center of the table, everybody dives right in with their individual chop sticks, but Jolie immediately insists upon a pair of "serving chopsticks" being brought to the table so that we can all move the food from the platters to our individual plates and THEN use our individual chopsticks. She says the following:

"We used to do it that way in China -- we would all just dive in with our chopsticks, and it was gross and we all knew it was gross, but that's how we ate. Then SARS came along and it totally changed the way we ate."

Can you even imagine? Somebody something like that will really hit the US, but for now, I can't even imagine.

There are several times during the day when I am simply overwhelmed at the huge numbers of people. Ho and Jolie laugh at me, saying "It's not even that busy right now!" But at the end of the evening, I am ready for some space, even if that space is exactly the size of a twin bed in a room shared with Lisa.

And so Lisa and I go to sleep with the windows open and the breeze and non-stop noise coming in. Then, we wake up in the morning, wondering what time it is. When we do the math, we realize that it's 6:30am. Ho and Jolie aren't due to meet us until 10:30am. We promptly go back to bed to try to defeat the jet lag. Which is good, when you hear about how slammin the next day is.

 

China Entry the Fourth: Meet Frank

Even though I have every intention of staying up and talking to Ho on the plane, I fall asleep 30 minutes into the flight. I wake up, you know, hours and days later and look at the mini-screen monitor on the seatback in front of me. We're right over Tokyo. In the time I slept, we crossed the entire Pacific Ocean. That feels significant. And strange. I'm 32 years old, and I've actually never crossed the Pacific before.

But by now, Ho has fallen asleep. The movie selection pretty much sucks, which is one of the only poor things I'll say about Cathay Pacific. But the person sitting on the other side of me, Frank, is wide awake and more than ready to talk.

I always consider it a good omen for a trip when you start the trip off by meeting somebody hugely interesting. Entrance Frank! Unfortunately, I don't think that I can actually do justice to the three-hour narrative of Frank's life story here, but I can bullet point the highlights.

• Frank left home at the age of 17 and, I kid you not, went to work on a railroad gang.
• From there, Frank ended up working on oil rigging drills and lived for years in Asia and Brazil.
• At some point, Frank invested his own money in oil rigs. He made a lot of money, but when the oil bust hit, he lost everything.
• Then Frank became a general contractor and made lots of money again.
• At some point in there, Frank marries a Phillipina, has a son and builds a house in Spokane.
• Frank decides to go to cullinary school in Vancouver, BC with a misplaced dream about starting a restaurant. Though he graduates cullinary school at the top of his class, he realizes that he doesn't want to start a restaurant. As he puts it, "If you love mindless, repetitive tasks and going into a business where there's a 90% chance that you'll lose all of your money, then the restaurant business is for you."
• Now, Frank does contracting work 4 to 6 months out of the year and spends most of the rest of the year traveling. He also freakin' imports pearls.

In his pearl importing business, Frank pays high neighbor's daughter fifty cents for each pair of pearl earrings she posts and closes for him. The only rule is that she's not allowed to tell her parents about the money because they would spend it before she could use it to pay for college. Frank's going to match her total savings when she graduates. Frank's a good type of dude.

Frank spent the last month in India getting dental implants. He also chased religion around and became enamored with the concept of Ganesh. Says Frank, "When I look at religions, my theory is that the religion where the people in the religion are smiling the largest part of the day is the religion that's got it right. My brother is a Promise Keeper. Those conservative American right wing religions, they don't smile very much."

Frank as a lot of theories...theories on national debt, refinancing, unions, beurocracy, family, cultures, pearls. He claims to be a guy who likes silence, but he talks non-stop from Taipei to Hong Kong.

Did you know that the way to create pearls with a rose coloration to them is to culture those pearls in Oysters closer to the surface of the water so that the pearls get exposure to diluted sunrays? I did not know that. Frank explains that to me and then, as we begin to descend into Hong Kong, he gives me a tiny jewelery box with a pair of perfect blush colored pearl earrings in it. "They'll look good with your skin tone," he says. Maybe he's right. I've never had a pair of pearl earrings before. Also new for me at 32. Ho will later say those earrings are the price I charged to listen to Fred for three hours. Yeah, maybe, but this stuff is interesting, too. But also, yeah, Ho's right.

Frank is on his way to the Phillipines to meet up with some buddies and some Asian hookers. We talk about that for a long time. I guess when you've lived Frank's life, staying still and settled in Spokane is hard ... even though Frank has me sold on moving to Spokan and its affordable cost of living and full symphony orchestra.

I love jewelry because I love the things it makes me think of when I put it on ... the trip I was on when I bought the piece of jewelry or the person who gave it to me. Whenever I put on Frank's pearl earrings, I'm going to think about how he had a life so full that 14 hours on a plane wouldn't have been enough to tell all of his stories, and I'm going to want to live like that.

Yeah, Frank's a good dude, but now we descend into Hong Kong.

 

Redford is Home!!!!!

And now my life can begin again! We found him at central Las Vegas animal control. There were 250 cats in there (it's the saddest thing you'll ever see -- adopt a cat today if you can). We looked at 240 of them before we found him in one of the last ten cages.

He's got a little bit of a cold and he's shaking off the depression (and he's lost some weight, but that's not a bad thing), but he's bouncing back. He slept with Sly and Rooney and I last night and I felt like somebody returned a kidnapped child.

Thanks for all of your support. We'll get back to China stories now.

Big sigh of relief.

 

Interlude: Chez Jocelyn is the Saddest Place in the World

I know I'm not returning phone calls or email. I'm sorry. Chez Jocelyn is in mourning. I just stand by the door hoping to catch a glimpse of Redford so I can run out and get him. When I can't to that, I curl up in bed and cry. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm too depressed to call you all back. Sly is broken-hearted. He goes and sits on Red's spot in the closet and cries. That makes me feel even worse. I actually sneak peaks into my neighbors' windows to see if anybody's hiding him. I look at them with suspicion like one of them sent him to animal control and won't fess up to him.

I am so sad. I miss him so much.

 

China Entry The Third: Get Your Ad On

Here in the States, we like to think we know a lot about a lot of things. We like to think that there's not much we can still learn from the world. We particularly like to think we KNOW consumerism.

People of the States, I am here to tell you, you don't KNOW consumerism. You have some things to learn from the people of Hong Kong. Here are some examples of some exchanges I had while in Hong Kong:

Random Woman Sitting Next to Me at the Wedding
You know, shopping is reallly how you define yourself as a Hong Kong woman.

To be fair, I thought that just maybe her English translation of what she really meant to say was possibly a tad off, but upon further discussion with her, I realized that that was not the case. She really did mean that the act of buying things, they frequency with which you did it, the social interaction you experienced while doing it and the things you actually bought really did help to define you as a Hong Kong woman. I should move!

Also, we've got nothing on Hong Kong when it comes to the following: UTILIZING EVERY SINGLE SPARE INCH OF PUBLIC SPACE TO ADVERTISE PRODUCTS. Listen, I know full well that the pictures I'm about to post cannot possibly do justice to the concept that I'm trying to convey, but at least it's something. Work with me.






This is an actual exchange I have with Jolie while walking down the street one day.

Me
You know, I could walk around this city for weeks and never say a word to or have an interaction with another person because I'd just be completely sucked in to staring at ads all day.

Jolie
Yes, well, that's pretty much what we do!

You'll also notice that there are an extremely high ration of white folk in these ads. For real.



This next one is mine and Lisa's favorite ad, and it was everywhere. Actually, our favorite ad was for cellulite remover because, you know, tiny Asian women need that like I needed Coke Blak. But this was our second favorite ad. What's awesome is that, though those pearly smiles are blazingly white, the dude's teeth are crooked. I'm not sure you can tell that from the photo. We kept being baffled by how so many of the ads seemed to promote physical perfection even moreso than in the US, but this totally pervasive ad for having great teeth featured a model without great teeth. I don't pretend to understand.

The other thing that you should know about that toothpaste brand is that when it was originally introduced, it was actually called "Darkie," not "Darlie". Take a look at the little logo that goes with it and then imagine that. I kid you not. True story.



Finally... Here's the most important thing that we can learn from the people of Hong Kong. How to properly use the exposed male abdomen in advertising.

 

China Entry The Second: Especially for Pookie

I swear that there will be real entries about real things in Hong Kong and China coming shortly, but I need to get through these funny (I know, most of you don't think that they're so funny, but work with me) one-offs designed to highlight how cool the inside jokes my friends and I have are. You know we rock it. That said....

Dear Pookie,

I just wanted to let you know that any fear you had that I may have to go without my bucks was only valid on the Chinese mainland. In Hong Kong, I was solid. There was a Starbucks on every corner, just like in the States! It was awesome! You'd love it! There was even one just four doors down from where I was staying, so I could wake up to a good, solid cup of drip coffee every day. Awesome!

What's most awesome about the Hong Kong Starbucks though is that it seems that somebody has come in and trained the Hong Kong natives who work at Starbucks on the "proper" way to pronounce the various drinks. For example, on my first day in my temporary local Starbucks, I had a conversation with the barrista in which he gave me directions and a tip on a money exchange location all with a thick accent in his English. Then, not two minutes later, he holds a comforting green and white Starbucks cup out over the light wood, mod curvature design counter and says IN PERFECT MIDWESTERN ENGLISH WITH NO HINT OF AN ACCENT "Double soy vanilla latte, extra foam." I kid you not! That's awesome!

I took some photos for you. Enjoy.


Starbucks in Hong Kong looks just like...Starbucks in Ohio!


Don't you worry, you can get your bannana mocha frapachino anywhere you go!

 

Interlude: Send some good vibes for Redford

This is a true story. My freakin' cat sitter let my precious Redford run away. Just like that. The cat sitter let him run away a solid 4 to 5 days before I returned, meaning that by the time I hit the streets looking for him, I was already long behind the trail.

WORST CAT SITTER EVER. MY FURY IS IN UNCHARTED LANDS, PEOPLE.

I spent the first couple of days just under the covers crying my eyes out, and the next couple of days spending 8 hours a day in 100 degree heat canvassing my neighborhood with flyers and knocking on total strangers doors. I'm even offering a reward.

But the truth is, if I were lucky enough to find that cat wandering outside, I probably wouldn't give him back for a couple hundred dollars either. He's the best cat ever.

I've said that in my head, if nobody's brought him back by Monday evening, I'll start to believe that he's really gone. Please be sending some good vibes. His brother and sister miss him, and so do I.