Chitown Chatter

Requiem for an Old Blog

2010-05-09T22:55:00.002-05:00

Over the years, I've written for lots of blogs, many of which have petered out without a whimper, but Chitown Chatter has been my longest running one so far. So, it pains me to announce the retirement of this blog, but my time in Chicago has run its course. (Besides, All Blogs go to Heaven.) I've been informally murmuring about starting a new blog for a couple months now, and I finally sat down over the weekend to work on it. Without further ado, please update your feeds and bookmarks, and check out Lady Parmalade for my adventures in Italy for the next year. If you would like to be added to the blogroll, just say the word. Feedback, comments and deconstructive criticism are also welcome.

http://ladyparmalade.wordpress.com/

Gluttons for Pun-ishment

2010-05-07T17:07:00.004-05:00

Pikachu, I choose you! (Math puns are the first sine of madness.)

This is what happens when you start a pun war with two dogged wordmongers. Stop reading if you aren't interested in Terrible.

me: Phil keeps making puns about my shirt

R: you should stop shirting the issue

me: I hate you all.

R: don't try to shirt the blame for your own shortcomings
me: if I had collar id, I'd weed all of these jokes out
R: my off-the-cuff remarks are pretty clever
me: actually, I'm yawning because they're putting me to sleeve
R: that's just because your personality is a little too buttoned down
me: I guess it's just not tailored for this setting
R: I'm surprised you’re not pleating with me to stop
me: it takes more than idle threads to stop me
R: this conversation is just giving me a pocket full of wisdom
me: well, I just hope we won't be permanently embroidered in dispute
R: it's really tearing at the fabric of my being
me: well I hope you're addressing the issue, don't just hem and haw
R: i have faith that my long struggle with lead me to the land of silk and honey
me: I'm glad that this conversation isn't full of banal plaiditudes
R: it's going seamlessly, in fact
me: in fact, I think we're helping elevate the English language to striping new heights
R: we're going to be on the front lines of a velvet revolution
me: have you got a leader yet? if not, argyle take charge
R: my opposition is bound to fold
me: I'll draw up a laundry list of goals to achieve
R: your ambition is creases to amaze me
me: we'll iron out the details later
R: later? you're hanging me out to dry
me: it's like there was suddenly a sock in your face
R: despite any setbacks, my strength of twill shall overcome all
me: fear not, though one door may clothes, another has just opened
R: the sources of your optimism are growing like tweeds
me: yes, I find it apparelous to wallow in depression
R: you're overwhelmed by dis-cotten-tment
me: that's why I like to quilt while I'm ahead
R: I feel as though I've invested every fiber of my being in this
me: well after being called a spinster at lunch, it's good to feel productive
R: it's spindellabely true
me: admittedly, my level of productivity on work-related projects is rather unseamly
R: you have to make sure everything is documented before you weave
me: I'll work on getting my affairs in suitable condition
R: you have to pastel your replacement about everything you did
me: hopefully the atmosphere at the lunch table won't be too polo-rizing for her
R: I don't think her economist will boss her around like some overlord & taylor
me: yeah, Doug is cool, it's not as though she'll be losing hair and e-Macy-ated
R: if he puts her to work on currency markets, she'll have to be knowledgeable of Feiline's deBasement
me: I must say, this has been quite the epic Pun-ic War
R: a pun is its own reword
me: it is certainly a handy reference material
R: i didn't realize our supply of witticisms would be this elastic
me: I do think some of these remarks have been a stretch
R: most of yours were downright clothful
me: well I think I've learned my lace-son for the day - sparring with you will leave you in stitches
R: you don't have to needle me directly. I didn't think personal remarks were looming.
me: oh I'm not trying to make this an ad homonym attack
R: crochet it ain't so
me: I try my best not to operate in that fashion
R: as this exchange becomes more and more cryptic, I feel the pressure to come up with good puns is getting pintense
me: it's like this data that I'm sifting through in notepad - if only I understood what's in the textile
R: is that your way of asciing me for help with your project?
me: no that's fine, the time I have available for this project is practically delimited
R: as long as you're keeping tabs on what you're doing
me: I generally Excel at organization
R: now you're just giving me SAS
me: sometimes I like to opt for sophistication, other times I go for the low-TeX solution
R: I suppose it doesn't matter as long as the problem doesn't have you Lyx-ed
me: right, and I am quite font of open-source solutions
R: it's a bold point that you've underscored many times
me: one that is fully justified

At this point, it was past 5 and we'd been cracking puns for 2+ hours, so a truce was called. I need to take a nap now.

Pranks, Academia Edition

2010-04-01T20:11:00.003-05:00

You know it's going to be a good day when someone says "I need to prank the shit out of someone."

There is a long history of inspired creativity around these parts, and no better time than April 1st to execute such ideas. What if, hypothetically, a series of emails were sent to an unsuspecting AE (let's call him Z) from an economist, such as Steve Levitt? In particular, it is known that Z despises Levitt and widely disparages his research. So, how would he respond to an attractive job offer from a prominent economist?

These emails were sent from a Hotmail account, rather than a spoofed U of C account. After all, the goal here was to be a jerk, not ruin lives.

Email #1

Z,

Congratulations on your recent admittance to the University of Chicago Economics Department. As you may know, I currently direct the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory housed at the Booth School of Business. I have familiarized myself with your work on DSGE models, and I believe it is in line with the contributions of the Becker Center. To that end, I thought I would make you aware of an opportunity here at the Becker Center. Each year we take on several Graduate Assistants, these are people who we believe show promise. More than half of our Graduate Assistants have gone on to become Becker Center Research Fellows. This position would allow you to work closely with the Becker Center faculty such as myself to develop your ideas as you progress through your degree. I realize you have not yet finalized your graduate school decision yet, but I hope that this offer may help you to understand all of your options. Please e-mail me if you have any questions or to follow up about the position.

Steven Levitt

Let's review: this email included a rather unusual offer, and was sent on April 1st from a Hotmail account. I thought it would get spotted as fraudulent in about 30 seconds. Much to my shock, Z replied sincerely, saying that he was interested in meeting Levitt and looked forward to seeing him at the Chicago open house tomorrow. What now? Clearly, this is a cue to up the ante and become progressively more outrageous.

Email #2

Z,

Outstanding. While you're here I'd like to make sure I introduce you to Gary. Unfortunately he's been a bit moody recently but the color purple seems to have a soothing effect on him (the doctors have called it "neurochromopathy") so if you can make sure to include it in your ensemble it would be for the best. I look forward to our meeting and discussing some of my research with you. Please e-mail me if you have any further questions.

Steve

That's bizarre enough that warning flags should triggered, right? Or, it could result in Z borrowing a purple sweater...

Time to bring out the over-the-top guns.

Email #3

Do you mind swinging by Treasure Island on your way over and bringing some Greek style plain yogurt for Gary and I? I really love the luxurious silky texture of the yogurt in my mouth. When I eat it while listening to a bit of Chopin it, it really helps me focus on the current problem. Perhaps you can try it with us.

Steve

At this point, it was time to call it quits before serious damage was done. Z took the news well, and for the record, claims to have known it was a joke. Also, he said that he did not notice the Hotmail address, since Gmail automatically hides headers unless you click "details."

Lessons learned:

1) The most credible pranks are ones that give the prankee something they desire.

2) Never trust email sent from Hotmail.

Changing of the Guard

2010-03-25T17:49:00.007-05:00

At a meeting of Associate Economists last fall, our department head casually asked how many of us were applying to grad school or otherwise planned on leaving in the next year or so. Given the competitive nature of grad applications, I am not entirely surprised that there was complete and total silence; no one responded and we all sort of shifted uncomfortably in our chairs. Since the probability of getting rejected from all the grad programs you apply to is quite nonzero, we have pretty strong incentives to ensure that we are not replaced by a new hire. Though, to be fair, many of us (myself included) were uncertain at that point about where we would be in a year.

Flash forward to the end of March, and grad school results are in. A quick survey reveals that 9 out of the 20 AEs currently employed will be gone by next August, a whopping 45% turnover. (I did not include the casework department in these figures.) Of the 11 remaining AEs, at least two are considering pursuit of unrelated fields (not econ/math/business). Perhaps my unorthodox exit strategy is rubbing off on others.

About a year ago, I was pondering the transient nature of my social circle and felt a little left behind. Today, I can say with confidence that I have not stagnated and I am going places. About 7,700 km away, in fact. And despite the large exodus of AEs this summer, life at the Fed will still go on and on and on and on...

Anyway, congrats to everyone who was accepted to grad school this year. Anecdotally, it seems like this year was as tough or even tougher than last year. (I heard of someone who won his school's undergrad thesis award and had two incredibly well-known recommenders who hasn't gotten in anywhere.) So, it is no small feat that many AEs have landed spots in respected econ PhD programs.

Internetless, or Why I'm Never Becoming a Hermit

2010-03-22T23:35:00.005-05:00

(Oh yeah, I think most of you already know this, but due to a number of hilarious bureaucratic snafus, I am actually moving to Italy in May, with a flight out of JFK on 5/23. Anyway, that is outside of the scope of this post.)

Day 1:

9 am. I call AT&T tech support to angrily complain about my lack of internet. They tell me that according to the diagnostics, the modem has died and I'll have to replace it. Zetsuboushita! In an instant, I realize I have lost all Truth and Knowledge in the world. And what about the state of my Google Reader? Panic. I tweet my distress through the only means possible: text message. Since I haven't set up notifications to my phone, if there are responses, I won't be able to read them.

11 am. After going for a run, I return home to discover...I have no messages. No email messages, no im messages, no tweets, no unread posts in Reader. I feel sad and lonely. With a vague sense of liberation. No eff that, I'm going to work on a weekend.

3 pm. Inbox and RSS feeds have been cleaned, Facebook messages have been responded to, must-see YouTube clips have been watched. I calculate the cost of a new modem ($80) versus the amount of time I have remaining in Chicago (~7 weeks) . I scan Craig's list for used modems, and email a couple, asking them to please call me rather than email. The Cornell-Wisconsin game is happening, but I need to get going. I ask a friend to text me the results. Turns out, we won 87-69. I celebrate without reading post-game analysis on ESPN and don't check to see if Cornell is trending on Twitter.

12 am. Have returned from a long dinner party. My 5 glasses of wine/martinis help me buzz along home, where I remember, once again, that I have no internet. Sans distractions, I topple into bed immediately.

Day 2:

7 am. I awake to the sound of NPR and actually listen to it, rather than shutting it off. I wait to hear the weather forecast. In the meantime, did you know there's a Mauwi tribe that celebrates divorce? (I wonder if "Mauwi" is the correct spelling, but don't have a way to look it up.) They have a saying, "The more time you spend in divorce, the more beautiful you are." Apparently, when you divorce, they throw you a divorce party even larger than your wedding party. And now, the weather: pleasant, sunny skies, high near 53. Oh, and the health care bill has passed! I itch to check HuffPo.

8 am. Breakfast is eaten, clothing has changed. Normally, this is where I'd start reading the morning's news and blog posts, but Chrome haunts me with repeated messages of "This webpage is not available." Sadness. I check to see if there's unsecured wifi anywhere nearby. Alas, this building is full of stingy, technologically savvy misers. I play some music, an activity that doesn't require an internet connection. I realize that the tracks are not being scrobbled by Last.fm. Ack, this will totally skew my listening data. If "Eating Me Alive" by Miracles of Modern Science gets played and don't get added to my history, does anyone actually hear it? After pondering the absurdity of this question, I turn off my computer for the first time in years, since there's no instant messenger client it needs to be running.

9 am. At work. Can't remember the last time I made it to work this early. GReader at 22 unread now.

5 pm. Spot an ad for an AT&T DSL modem on Craig's list. Call to ask where in "northwest Chicago" they are located. Harlem? Are you kidding me?? But wait, the other dude offers to drive to the loop Right Now and drop off the modem! I agree without hesitation. Then I check my pockets for cash. I have exactly $27 on me, and the ad was for $30. I have no ATM card on me. Conundrum. Quick, who can I shake down for three measley dollars? I dash over to the cubicle next door and beg Rob for money. He agrees readily, with the caveat that I will owe him 20% interest. Oh those econ types, always hilarious.

5:45 pm My Craig's List dude calls me and says that he is a tad lost. I try to give him directions, but it soon becomes apparent that he is completely unfamiliar with the loop. (He claims to be driving on Congress and crossing Van Buren...those streets are parallel.) After another 5-10 min of circling, I finally flag him down, where we do a quick and dirty exchange on the street corner. The modem is MINE.

11 pm. Return home after attending a TV premiere party. Gleefully reach for the "new" DSL modem and plug it in. Lights on, hit F5 aaaand...still nothing. Panic that I've paid $30 for another useless pos modem. I call AT&T support once again, and the woman guides me through some basic questions. I humor her by turning my modem on and off again, and use Internet Explorer for the first time in years. We finally sign on successfully and pages are loading without a hitch. I start breathing normally and thank her as I hang up. Pidgin is running, TweetDeck loads 95 new tweets, virus definitions are updated, and life is good.

Andrò in Italia!

2010-02-03T17:52:00.000-06:00

I think most people reading this know already, but just to put it in writing, I am moving out of Chicago. To Italy. In one month. Yeah.

That is my lame excuse for this being the first post of the year on this blog. The last month has been filled with the excitement of bureaucratic arm-wrestling, selling off all my possessions, and speed-learning Italian. As a side note, there is nothing like the threat of moving to a foreign country to motivate you to learn a language. If only I could have convinced myself that I was relocating to Beijing as a kid.

What on earth am I doing in Italy? I will be enrolled at the University of Gastronomic Sciences as a master's student in their Food Culture and Communication program. The campus is located in Colorno, Italy, a little outside of Parma, which is the namesake for Parmesan cheese and Parma prosciutto. The program lasts for one year, and the language of instruction is English. (Phew!) Course titles include "Medieval Food History," "Sociology of Food Consumption," and "Food Economics."

The other popular question is what I expect to do after my year is over. Obviously there are no Monster listings for gastronomers, but alumni have gone on to work for wine importers, marketers, agricultural NGOs, etc. I'd like to go into food writing, but we'll see where the darts land. The program also ends with an 8-week internship, so that might help open some doors. At the least, it will be a year-long adventure in Italy, with a few trips to neighboring countries (Belgium, France, Spain, Greece).

The economists, suffice it to say, are supportive but a bit confused. The Fed is meant to be a fertile training ground for future econ phds, so my departure for something completely removed from econ grad school has been met with a bit of surprise. Overheard in the kitchen last week: "Did you hear? She's going to gastronomy school...yeah, I don't know. With a G."

Happily, my economists have also been nothing but supportive. I've gotten tons of unsolicited advice, well-wishes and (most importantly) translation help. The finance team held a happy hour last week, and as I left, I felt truly lucky to have worked with such smart, witty, rationally choosy people. It's been a great run at the Fed, and now that the financial crisis is over (at least according to credit spreads), I am moving on new projects.

My flight out of JFK leaves on March 7th, and classes start on March 10th. I just told HR that my last day at work would be Feb 26th. I have been continuously employed since high school, and the thought of not having an income scares the hell out of me. In case you are wondering, I am funding this entirely on my own. With Chester in college and the economy in its current shape, money is tight at home. So, while I won't be sleeping in the streets, I am definitely passing on a trip to El Bulli (not that I'd be able to get a reservation).

Seeing as Chitown Chatter suggests that Chicago will be topical, I've decided to start a new blog for my new adventures in Europe. Further information will be posted after I figure out some design details.

Notes on Las Vegas

2009-12-28T07:12:00.000-06:00

This is a young city, where buildings are considered aged at 20 years (compare that to my house in MA which was built in 1893). And recession be damned, this is a growing city, with last week's unveiling of City Center and an additional 4,000 new hotel rooms. The Strip is slated to double in size in the next couple decades, stretching south to reach the M resort.

Water conservation is a major issue, and houses are allotted a certain amount of water usage annually. Or you can drill private wells. The tap water here does not taste very good; Lake Michigan is better by far, and the Finger Lakes top that. If you destroy your lawn by covering it with gravel or sand, you can get compensation from the government by sending in photographic evidence. Housing and land are cheap and plentiful, which makes the city surprisingly car friendly and conversely, pedestrian unfriendly. Parking on the strip is generally free at casino lots, and free with validation downtown. I can't think of another urban center that boasts free parking. There is no subway system (other than the Strip lightrail), but the bus system seems fairly extensive. Walking down the Strip is a slow process due to crowded sidewalks and the overhead crosswalk system. Each time you cross a street, you have to climb up and down a flight of stairs (or take the escalator). The streets are laid out on an imperfect grid system similar to Chicago's, with 8 blocks to a mile, and the Strip dividing addresses east and west. Avoid driving on the Strip whenever possible; it can take over an hour to traverse the four miles. However you can travel 60 or 70 blocks in just 10-15 minutes if you head away from the Strip.

There is a vibrant "Chinatown" just a couple miles west of the Strip, a series of shopping plazas and storefronts along Spring Mountain Road. I found it quite diverse compared to other asian enclaves, which are generally dominated by one ethnicity. In this two mile stretch though, there are strong Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino offerings. Prices are low, possibly due to the proximity to CA. For a dollar, you can pick up 12 heads of garlic, a pound of tilapia or 3 pounds of limes. Restaurants are abundant and many are cash only. The pho I had here was just okay, but the duck feet and reindeer were excellent.

Las Vegas must be the only city in the world which characterizes itself by imitating other cities. In the four miles of the Strip, you will pass a mock Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, Venetian gondolas, an Egyptian pyramid, Roman columns and a medieval castle. And in case that's not enough to grab your attention, you can watch an exploding volcano outside of the Mirage (colored water and lights set to music) and scantily clad bucaneers at the Treasure Island pirate show. I was warned that this was NOT family friendly, but opted to drag the crew there anyway for maximum hilarity. Unfortunately, it is currently closed for the winter.

I didn't take any of the prostie cards that they pass out on the Strip (figured they might be infectious), but Steven and Stanley grabbed them by the dozen (for Irony, I imagine). Having collected about fifty or so, they then decided to try standing on a corner and passing them out. This was rather unsuccessful. Then Stanley tried to drop one into a homeless guy's hat, and the homeless guy got mad and started yelling after him, "Boy! Leave me alone!"

Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon

2009-12-27T16:16:00.000-06:00

The artificiality of the Strip aside, the Las Vegas area actually has lots of natural attractions worth seeking out. Red Rock Canyon is a short drive away, and you can get to Lake Mead and Hoover Dam in less than an hour. With 4-5 hours of driving, you will reach the Grand Canyon in AZ, and if you drive west instead, you will hit Death Valley in CA. With a bit of internet scouting, I found a $79 bus tour that would take you to see Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon in an all-day excursion. So, one morning at 5 am, we all bundled up and hopped onto a tour bus to escape the city.

Hoover Dam was constructed at the height of the Great Depression, and completed in 1936, under budget and 2 years ahead of schedule, an amazing feat for a public works project. Lake Mead is the reservoir created by the dam. At completion, Hoover Dam was the world's largest hydroelectric power generating facility and the world's largest concrete structure. Currently, it is ranked 38th in hydroelectric power generation.

If you are ever depressed about the state of American science, hearing about the ingenuity of Hoover Dam construction will cheer you up. Two cofferdams were constructed to create a dry riverbed for construction. To divert the flow of the Colorado River, four diversion tunnels were blasted into the walls of Black Canyon, with a combined length of over 3 miles. To smooth the sides of the canyon, high-scalers were suspended from the canyon walls with ropes. They strategically placed dynamite in crevices, then swung away just in time to avoid the blast. There were 112 deaths recorded during dam construction, but contrary to rumors, no bodies were buried inside the dam. However, there is a dog buried inside, a mascot adopted by the construction workers.

When the Bureau of Reclamation solicited bids for dam construction, there was no single company with the capabilities to construct a dam of this size. So, six construction firms on the West coast banded together to bid for the contract. Appropriately, they called themselves "Six Companies." This being the height of the Depression, stable jobs were scarce and Six Companies was able cut corners on worker safety and pay. When striking workers demanded greater access to water and better working conditions, they were fired and replaced.

Two years after construction began, engineers were ready to pour concrete for the dam. Since concrete contracts and generates heat as it hardens, the dam was built in interlocking trapezoidal pours to prevent cracking. If the dam had been done in one single pour, it is estimated that it would have taken 125 years to cool and harden.

As you drive over the top of the dam, you cross the border from Nevada to Arizona, or vice versa. Since AZ doesn't observe DST but is in the Mountain time zone, there are two clocks on either side that show the correct time.

The dam is curved like an eggshell to better distribute water pressure. Two spillways protect the dam from being overtopped by water. These have been used only 3 times in the history of the dam. Lake Mead contains over two years worth of water from the Colorado River. You cannot overemphasize the impact that Hoover Dam had in reshaping the development of the West. Looking at the dam, I felt a mixture of awe, pride and terror at mankind's ability to reshape his environment.

The kids

The old people

Afterwards, we continued west through Arizona to the Grand Canyon. This is the first time I've been in a desert climate, and the mountains are drastically different from the verdant Appalachians that I am accustomed to seeing. I fell sleep for a couple hours, and when I woke up, the landscape had morphed from arid desert dirt to picturesque snow-capped mountains and pine trees. Looks like I came all the way from Chicago to be surrounded by more snow and wind.

We stopped at a visitor's center for lunch, and watched a half-hour National Geographic IMAX film titled "Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets." Unsure of whether or not to see the movie, the tour coordinator told us, "It will be the best $12 you've ever spent. I used to tell people that if they saw it and thought it wasn't worth the $12 bucks, they could call me and I would refund their money...then a group of 58 people called and wanted their money back." With such a rousing recommendation, we all decided to see the movie, and it was totally worth every penny, definitely the best IMAX film I've ever seen. I would go so far as to say it was better than seeing the actual canyon, because the footage of the inner canyon walls and whitewater rapids is something we wouldn't be able to see. You also learn about the history of exploration in the canyon, and how the canyon is still relatively untouched by modernity, an untamed pièce de résistance by Nature. If you visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, definitely make a point to stop and see this movie.

We have arrived! You can't see the ground, but it was treacherously icy near the edge, and my mom was freaking out about one of us slipping and falling underneath the railing.

Mather's point, the widest part of the Grand Canyon

This area is where ~90% of photos of the Grand Canyon are taken

Group shot in front of a stagecoach with everyone except Uncle Thuan

Stanley and Marilyn sword fighting with hiking sticks in a gift shop, luckily we didn't get kicked out.

Stanley pretending to be a unicorn. Icicles were an immense source of fascination for the Cali kids.

Sunset over the Grand Canyon, framed by picture-perfect snow-covered pine trees

Christmas

2009-12-27T14:27:00.004-06:00

I have now celebrated 25 Christmases, and though they've varied wildly in terms of location, company and gift quality (the bubble gum pink shoes were a nadir), every celebration has been marked by reconnecting with people I haven't seen in a while. This year, Christmas sort of turned into this domino effect of families latching onto other friends and families to converge in Vegas. At one point, we had a roving horde of 20 asian people. Seriously, if I weren't part of this group, I would be scared of us. It was loud. I tried to get people to form battle formations, but this proved to be too complicated/people were inept at making rows of four. Then, I assigned everyone a number and tried to get people to count off. This was also a formidable task because people kept forgetting their numbers. Le sigh.

Three years ago, when we gathered with this set of relatives, we put together a gingerbread house. Since the constructing-something-gingerbread thing clearly needs to become a tradition, I picked up a gingerbread tree this year. The piping of the icing was surprisingly tricky, the green icing didn't look at all like leaves (the way the box looked) and the overall effect was sort of like slime dripping down steps.

Here's the finished tree, with a snowman on the bottom-left and presents in front. Some of us (high school boys, ahem) looked at the presents (upside-down) and immediately started making comments about boobs.

Then of course, we immediately dismantled the entire thing. The gingerbread was pretty tough to bite, but it was still edible overall. Mmm, sugar, preservatives and Red 5.

That's right, we were all drinking (mock) mojitos by noon on Christmas. What better way to celebrate a birthday??

As a reminder that we are in Vegas, the house down the street has this ridiculous 90,000 light display, synchronized to music broadcast on 95.9 FM for a four-block radius. According to the hand-out, the owners begin work on the lighting system after Halloween, and the light show goes live after Thanksgiving. There are 16 dedicated circuits of 20 amps each powering the lights, and the electricity bill is comparable to one month of heavy summer a/c. You can't see it in the video, but there is a custom made Ferris wheel, built in pieces similar to an erector set. During the off-season, the lights and equipment are stored in a large barn. Why do they do it? "We are both still kids at heart, and enjoy seein the smiles on all the children, especially the "adult" ones. This is our Christmas gift to everyone." Let's hear it for public goods.

Signs

2009-12-26T12:07:00.005-06:00

In case you weren't aware, sex sells. Here's a selection of signage from the Strip:

At the M&M World store, four floors chock-full of M&M golf tees and poker chips

Paris (casino) is filled with lots of Frenglish, like "Le Car Rental"

This moving billboard and one for Chippendale's moved up and down the Strip, but I couldn't find the stripper mobile, alas.

The line for this nightclub was pretty intimidating, my pi t-shirt would not have passed muster.

Somehow I didn't realize that shrimp cocktail actually came served in a cocktail glass until this trip.

I did a double take when I saw this leaflet because at first glance I thought it said "barely legal asian blondes." That would win points for most specific porn demographics ever in my book.

Roots

2009-12-25T23:04:00.001-06:00

In case you are wondering, I haven't been blogging my Las Vegas escapades extensively for a few reasons: 1) the density of WTF-I-must-blog-this-now events is lower compared to Tokyo, 2) I have comparatively less control over my downtime and by extension, blogging time, and 3) sheer laziness.

Let point #1 in no way undermine your opinion of Vegas however. The thing is, though Vegas has strong potential for hilarious shit to take place, the prospects for ridiculousity are rather muted if one is traveling with one's parents. At least, that is what happens with my parents. Moreover, I am here with a good deal of extended family, most of whom are well-meaning but fairly conservative, typical Asian parents. And well, if it is no fun to drink alone, it is not much better to drink while surrounded by a dozen sober/underage people. It is a darn shame that none of these cousins are legal. Ironically, I somehow got suckered into playing bartender and making mocktails for everyone.

This is not to say that vacation hasn't been fun, but simply that this is much more a family vacation than a Vegas vacation. Which is fine, seeing as I haven't seen my family in 6 months and my cousins in about 3 years. I actually arrived a couple days before Chester (something about a minor snowstorm on the eastern seaboard...), and for that period, I felt like I was an only child. I can't remember the last time I had the undivided attention of my parents, and it felt pretty weird. On the other hand, I did enjoy catching up with my mom on family gossip, and it feels good to speak extensive amounts of Chinese.

Much to my relief, Chester arrived soon enough, and pretty much the second thing he said was "Hey Crystal, feel my pecs!" Apparently he's been making ample use of his gym pass at school, and can now bench his own weight. Um, what happened to the scrawny nerd I left behind in MA?

All was not lost though, as Chester whipped out a DVD with the Christmas special for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. We've finally reached the point where our interests have converged and we find the same things funny (IASIP, Hipsters Discussing Cyclocross). Six years is a significant age difference for siblings, and as the older child, I always took the lead in Making Shit Happen. This week, for the first time, it dawned on me that Chester is all grown up and I could afford to take a step back.

My cousins have also grown by leaps and bounds, losing rounded baby faces and gaining height with shocking speed. It seems that longish hair is in these days for guys. Or maybe it's just the recession-friendly option.

Where's Chester?

My mom (#6) is closest to her two younger siblings (#7-8), so we tend to hang out with their families and shun the others. The second generation is pictured here in a classic sidewalk self-portrait. We run the gamut from 8th grade (Marilyn) to two years post-college (me). I was mildly taken aback when Marilyn told a masturbatory joke, and also when she began laughing uproariously and pointing at a sign advertising Hot Babes with the number 696-9696...kids these days.

My aunt brought along her dogs as well, two pint-size chihuahuas. Apparently, shelters in CA are flooded with chihuahuas, not surprising given the popularity of toy dogs in purses on the west coast. We never had pets at home other than the cursory goldfish because my mom thinks they're too much trouble. As it turns out, she used to have a dog when she was a kid (my uncle kept teasing her, "Remember that time you made me go buy five cookies, and gave one to me and four to the dog?"). Then somewhere along the way she went grinch. I'm not firmly planted in either the pet or no pets camp, but I could kind of see her point when we got back one night to find that Lucy had gotten out of the kitchen, where we had penned her, and had proceeded to pee in four places, poop in several more, and her sweater had somehow disappeared. Oh and, she dragged a pair of my underwear into the living room, where Chester found it. Awk.

Media Dinners

2009-12-15T19:32:00.002-06:00

So the other night I went to a media dinner for the opening of two new restaurants. It was incredibly stressful. It was also extremely rewarding.

Media dinners are held by restaurants to quickly spread the word about an opening, advertise a new menu, introduce a new chef, etc. Back in the old days, this was a good way to get local journalists, writers and publicists all on the same page and to answer any questions at once. Nowadays, the lines between journalists, free lance writers and bloggers have blurred, and many mainstream media publications forbid their staff from accepting gifts. That prevents traditional reporters from attending these sorts of galas, where you are plied with all sorts of complimentary food and drink. Wait, so this is a party with free food and wine, what's to be stressed out about?

Mistake #1: severely underdressing. I've been to these types of functions before, but they were smaller and more low-key than this particular party. I'd just come from work, so it wasn't as if I was wearing jeans, but as I walked into the lounge I quickly realized that in a sea of black cocktail dresses, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Mistake #2: arriving alone. Since I'd gotten the invitation last-minute, I didn't have a chance to grab someone else to accompany me. (Usually I show up with my editor.) Picture the discomfort of going to a bar by yourself. Now add the unease of being a lowly grad student at a prestigious conference. As I cast glances at the unfamiliar faces around me, I overheard snippets like "You were at Blackbird with Thomas? Who else was he with, Grant? But of course!" That would be eminent chefs Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz, by the way. Great, I not only look like a hot mess, I am surrounded by people (who know people who know people...) who are my heroes. I beelined to the champagne station.

After chugging a flute of champagne, I resolutely dove back into the crowd, looking for openings and people who seemed amenable to making new friends. At your average party, you ask things like where do you work, what do you study, and where are you from. Here, the default was to quiz people on the publications they write for. Invariably, I would mention that I work in economics research at the Fed, which resulted in a casual "Oh, that's interesting" before the conversation came to a dead end. Let's just say that my knowledge of asset-backed securities was of no help in this setting. Just as I was wondering if my inner hotelie had died and I'd completely lost the ability to make small talk, I struck up a conversation with a guy who works in film, and we started talking about Miyazaki and my recent trip to the Ghibli Museum. Everyone else began tuning out, but heck, I was thrilled to have made a friend, and one who watched anime to boot.

Mistake #3: chugging alcohol. Though this goes against my usual behavior at places with open bars, I strongly recommend not getting drunk, or even tipsy, at these affairs. After all, you need to remember these people's names, jobs, publications, etc for next time. And I am so bad at remember names and faces to begin with, I really don't need any extra handicaps.

The rest of the night went more smoothly as I met other area publicists, bloggers and minor Chicago food scene celebs. Some were quirky and eccentric, others were stand-offish, but the majority were friendly and interested in meeting people. Stories were swapped on who to call to kill your chickens (Mike Sula), and how David Chang (of Momofuku) decided to go get tacos at Big Star at 3 am while he was in town for a book signing last week. I debated the ethics of media dinners and journalistic integrity with other bloggers, and discussed asshole chefs and past scandals (like the ad Rick Bayless did for Burger King) with publicists. I met the chefs and management team for the host restaurant, and we were regaled by the manager's stories of working for his aunt as a youth. The aunt in question is none other than organic revolution figurehead, Alice Waters. My jaw dropped when I heard that.

I need a Twitter account. Also a black cocktail dress. And a better memory for names.

Holiday Shorts

2009-12-13T13:49:00.007-06:00

After the frenetic pace of posting in Tokyo, I haven't been updating, partly because I needed a break and partly because I've spent an embarrassing number of hours watching Fullmetal Alchemist in the last couple weeks. But due to popular demand, here is what I've been up to in the last weeks of 2009:

For the first time, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year for assorted friends and Thanksgiving orphans. Since my rule of thumb for dinner parties and potlucks is to never cook anything I haven't cooked before, I immediately ruled out turkey and substituted beer can chicken instead. Besides, beer can chicken looks theatrical and complicated while being really easy. In essence, you put an open can of beer inside the chicken's chest cavity, and the beer evaporates into the chicken and keeps it moist. My other concern was carving the chicken, and I spent a while reading the wikihow on how to carve poultry. Luckily, Sean volunteered to cut up the chicken for me; this kid is definitely getting invited to all future dinner parties. The rest of the menu included sun-dried tomato hummus, vegetable crudite platter, acorn squash-apple soup with pepitas, zucchini cups stuffed with cannellini bean, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms over cheese grits, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and pecan pie.
Due to a series of (un?)fortunate events, I recently got a stand mixer. That's right, this is the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, something I've coveted for years but could never justify buying myself because I don't bake nearly that much. But now that I have a shiny cobalt blue stand mixer, I have been making an effort to bake bread once a week. The results have been mixed (har), and I have yet to duplicate restaurant quality bread, but hopefully it will get easier with practice. After I get tired of breads, I plan to move on to macaroons, meringues and marshmallows. Or, maybe it's time to splurge on the attachment appliances, which you can use to turn your mixer into an ice cream maker, pasta roller, meat grinder, grain mill, etc. Pictured below is focaccia topped with Bergkase mountain cheese, rosemary, red pepper and onion flakes.

After seeing this amazing barbershop video and Tomas' Lymph Notes project, I was inspired to do some singing of my own, and decided to rope people into going caroling with me. I tried to recruit people who either a) were strong musicians and would be able to read music or b) were ballsy enough to sing in public with me. Unfortunately, the two sets did not really intersect. This meant that the people who were singing correctly were far too quiet, and the people who were out of tune were singing quite exuberantly and enthusiastically. I did my best to belt out the melody to cover up any discrepancies. At any rate, it was still fun and I can now say that I've caroled under the Millenium Park Bean.
With Chester off to college and out of the house for the first time, the parentals have been relishing their newfound status as empty nesters/having a mid-life crisis. For instance, my mother informed me the other day that she signed up for belly dance lessons. (Do not make comments on how my mom is a MILF.) And for the holidays, we are abandoning the traditional New England Christmas for Christmas in...Vegas. Yeah, this will be hilarious. My uncle (#7) and his family are coming too. Also my aunt (#8) and her family. And their two dogs. And also my aunt's brother in law and his family are coming along. And my mom's friend from St. Louis and his brother. I have been assigned the task of finding family-friendly activities to keep the not-yet-legal high schoolers entertained. Do you think we can go looking for the stripper mobile? No?? Ok, I am also planning an excursion to see Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. As it so happens, J&P will also be in Vegas at the same time, so I might sneak off for a bit to hang out on the Strip with them.

Survival Japanese with Minimal Effort, or How I Started Obsessively Watching Anime (cringe)

2009-11-17T07:30:00.001-06:00

I consider myself decent at charades, but after scrutinizing Google Maps and ogling the spaghetti platter of Tokyo train lines, I decided it might be helpful to at least learn some basic Japanese before traveling. Hence, I loped off to the library and picked up the Berlitz Japanese in 30 Days course book and CD...I'd be practically fluent in a month, right? The Meguro Language Center also offers a nice collection of worksheets that you can download. I dutifully learned some vowel sounds and began piecing together rudimentary sentences. After a few days, I was itching to write some actual Japanese (the text introduces you to romaji first, or anglicized pronunciations using the Roman alphabet), so I flipped to the back of the book, where they formally introduce the three Japanese character systems. Seriously, one wasn't enough? And depending on context, the same character can have different pronunciations? It is settled: Chinese is the superior language.

Anyway, I continued slogging through the course book until lesson 13 or so, when I was memorizing the Japanese words for "arithmetic" and "February." In a sudden epiphany, I realized that the probability of me needing to talk about geography or parts of my body while in Tokyo was pretty darn low. Where would it be most useful to be literate then? Answer: train stations and restaurants.

A little more research revealed that train stations generally have signs in Japanese and English, so I figured I'd be able to navigate that with a color-coded map. How about reading restaurant menus then? After some Googling, I discovered Satterwhite's What's What in Japanese Restaurants, which exhaustively documents the various types of Japanese restaurants and common menu items, with their pronunciations and descriptions. Bingo, now I was learning much more useful vocabulary, like "bamboo shoots" and "grilled eel in a rice bowl." At this point, I'd learned the hiragana (used to write Japanese) and katakana (used for foreign loan words) alphabets, so I could generally sound out words. Actually, I strongly recommend learning katakana because you'll find that your Japanese vocabulary has suddenly grown by a couple thousand words. Take this random bar menu, for instance. I am going to hazard a guess that ｻﾗﾀﾞ (sarada) indicates salad, ﾁｷﾝ (chikin) suggests chicken, and ｽﾐﾉﾌ (suminofu) under the Vodka section means Smirnoff. I don't remember what learning how to read was like, but the wave of warm, fuzzy glee that I felt upon learning katakana was pretty priceless.

Then, I stumbled across the "Guide to manga and anime" in the Lonely Planet Tokyo guidebook. And despite my staunch refusal to watch anime and be one of Those anime-obsessed nerds, I started to mull over what a large part of Japanese otaku culture I'd be missing out on. Besides, watching subtitled film would help me learn the language right? So in the name of "education," I started off with a couple classic Miyazaki films, My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke. If you are unfamiliar with Miyazaki, he is sort of the whimsical Japanese Disney, and his films are primarily targeted towards children, though they incorporate deeper themes of feminism and environmentalism. Next, I watched the Ghost in the Shell movie, which, despite strong recommendations from multiple people, sucked. I whined. "No no, you're watching the wrong one," was the rejoinder. "You're supposed to watch the anime series, not the movie." But that's 9 hours of my life, as opposed to 2, I argued. "Look, if I could pay a dollar for a steaming pile of crap, or $5 for something that I'd actually want, I would pay the $5...Anyway, I think you should watch Death Note; it's only 37 episodes." Hmph.

So, one sunny afternoon, I sat down and watched an episode of Death Note. The basic premise is that a notebook is dropped onto Earth by a Death God, and the finder of the notebook can use it to kill someone by simply writing their name inside. After one episode, I was intrigued enough to hit next and watch another 20 minutes. Then another. And another. And another one after that. Friends called to ask if I wanted to go out for dinner and I mumbled some excuse about needing to work on something else. Then I hit next again. Never before had I felt so helpless against the pull of a TV show. Luckily, this was Columbus Day weekend so I had Monday off, otherwise I might have called in sick in order to finish the entire series.

Bleary-eyed, the next day I announced that the anime wall had come crashing down. The reaction was a mixture of congratulations and smug satisfaction. "Welcome. We've been waiting. So, what are you going to watch next?" Erm. I had to keep going? Ah, what the hell. The next week, I went through Cowboy Bebop (a tech-noir, Western space opera...yeah), then started Escaflowne (girl-in-a-magical-land battles large robots) and Serial Experiments Lain (cyberpunk psychological thriller). I discovered the AnimeNfo search engine. I listened to "Tank!" on repeat. I read the "Laws of Anime" and laughed. Wait, what? What had I become? It had been quite a slippery slope. At least I didn't pick up the habit until after graduation?

Also, this costume (a combination of Ronald McDonald & Ryuk from Death Note) got a helluva lot funnier:

In the end, I'd say I learned just enough Japanese to really explore Tokyo. You can survive well-enough in the city without knowing any Japanese at all, since there is a good deal of English signage, but you will be limited to activities geared towards Western tourists. Some useful phrases that I found myself using daily included "I am American," "I am Chinese" (when they refused to believe I was American), and "Do you speak English?" (You may not have to explain to people that you are foreign.) I would also memorize sumimasen (pardon me), daijyobu (okay), and arigato gozaimasu (thank you very much). Even if you can't speak a lick though, the Japanese are very, very friendly (unlike the French) and will do their best to help you out.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have the other half of Neon Genesis Evangelion to watch.

Meiji Shrine + Wedding Bonus

2009-11-16T11:17:00.001-06:00

On my final Sunday morning in Tokyo at 9 am, I trekked to Meiji Shrine, which enshrines the Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken. Like so many other buildings in Tokyo, the original shrine was destroyed in WW2 bombing, but the reconstruction looks every bit as authentic.

To get there, you have to walk through the adjacent park and gardens. This is a beautiful, serene stroll, worlds removed from the bustle of Harajuku (another center of teen fashion in Tokyo). The area is also a fantastic place to hide say, a letterbox...

As I was winding through the park's paths, I suddenly turned a corner to find a bunch of men in Shinto garments processing solemnly through the park. Policemen were clearing the path of people ahead of them, so that they could proceed uninterrupted. I tried to ask someone what was going on, but they didn't speak enough English to be able to explain what was happening.

The procession meandered its way to this pavilion, right outside of the shrine's gates. They began to conduct a ceremony with a lot of stylized bowing and the waving of some kind of tree branch above people's heads. Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd began to purify their hands, using the provided ladles and pool of water.

I went on ahead into the shrine grounds, which had the now-familiar accoutrements of a torii gate, omikuji (fortune slips), and offering tills.

After about 15 minutes or so, the clerics proceeded into the inner courtyard of the shrine...

...and a large drum began to sound. As the clerics entered the shrine, the drum was beat with greater frequency and finally ended with a bit of a roll. The clerics sat down at the front of the shrine, and other shrine staffers scurried about, wearing brightly-colored green, white and orange robes. One of the clerics began to play a flute, and someone else played koto (I think). Shinto ceremonial music is fairly austere; a Bach chorale this is not. Peering into the inner courtyard, I felt like I had been transported centuries away to a wholly foreign, mystical land.

At this point, I turned to leave the shrine when I stumbled across--a wedding! My camera battery died at this point, so I don't have more photos, but the raiments of the wedding party were gorgeous, particularly the bride's dress. It was funny to see everyone wearing the traditional flip-flop-like sandals, since I associate those with going to the beach. You can also see the variety of dress in the rest of the group, from traditional kimonos to western suits to women in black skirts with high boots (of course). The group processed into the shrine, where they disappeared to presumably undergo some sort of ceremony. There was actually a second wedding taking place on the other side of the shrine, but I didn't have the camera juice to photograph it.

After leaving the shrine grounds, I headed right outside to Jingu-Bashi, the so-called epicenter of Harajuku's cosplay scene. On warm, sunny Sundays, this is where cosplaying teens gather to strut their stuff and be photographed. On a good day, you will see an array of goths, punks, French maids, anime characters and Lolitas. At 10 am though, there was not a single cosplayer there. I wasn't sure if my timing was too early, but this post seems to suggest that homework might be taking its toll on the free time of Japanese teens these days? Anyway, here's a taste of what I missed:

Retail Therapy, part 2

2009-11-16T07:18:00.004-06:00

The clothing that I picked up in Shibuya only set me back ¥3150, including tax. Now I can start expanding my collection of tights/leggings. (Though it is true that Jenny Z would not be using them.)

Dirt Cheap Hostels in Tokyo

2009-11-15T22:56:00.006-06:00

Per popular demand, I'm going to discuss what accommodations were like in Tokyo.

The guidebooks tend to steer you towards traditional hotels, which are rather pricey, even the ones which are marked as "affordable," or to ryokans, or traditional Japanese inns, which are also pricey though they usually include meals and a chance to sleep on tatami mats and futons. Personally, my goal is to minimize lodging costs as much as possible subject to getting some sleep and not getting bedbugs. In Tokyo, there are capsule hotels, which consist of a closed capsules only slightly larger than the Seinfeld dresser drawers, stacked on top of one another. While this is truly a one-of-a-kind Tokyo experience, they are geared towards businessmen and many don't accept women, or relegate you to the top floor. Plus, they aren't that cheap for what you get. So, I decided to bypass this option.

With some googling, you will find there are many hostels for backpackers and young travelers located in Asakusa. While this area does have attractions worthy of your time, Asakusa is located in the far northeast corner of the city, and it will take some time to get from one end to the other.

Instead, I chose to stay at the Sakura Hotel, located in central-east Tokyo near the Jinbocho station, and at the Ace Inn, located in central-west Tokyo near the Akenobashi and Yotsuya Sanchome stations. Both have English language websites and seemed like promising places to park my bags.

The Sakura Hotel offers single rooms (¥6,000), doubles (¥8,000) and triples, but they also have 6-person dorm rooms in the basement level for ¥3150 if you make your own bed, which is what I chose to do. The room, bathroom and premises were quite clean, and the blanket was this lovely, fluffy comforter that I wanted to curl up inside and never emerge from. You could rent a towel for ¥100, the wifi was free and very fast, and several computers in the lobby were available for (I think) ¥100 for 15 minutes use. For ¥315, you could get breakfast in the morning (unlimited coffee, tea and toast) but I picked up food elsewhere. The other lodgers were very friendly and tended to be in college age or in their 20s. It was very easy to meet people and find dinner mates. The front desk staff were very friendly, spoke English, and supplied me with a 3 prong converter for my laptop while I was there.

The Ace Inn offers capsule-like beds for around ¥4,000, but if you choose the 12-person mixed dorm, you will get a bed for ¥2,000 on their 10th floor which is a regular dormitory. This is simply a room with 12 beds in it, including two futons in an adjoining tatami room. The beds are not bunked, which gives you a little more space away from your dorm mates. Everyone was courteous and friendly, however since there are on average 8 people sleeping in the room every night, there is a fair amount of noise as people enter and leave. Hopefully, unlike me, you are not a light sleeper. There is a lounge on the 9th floor with a TV, and it is very easy to meet gregarious Australians there. Bicycles are available for rent for ¥500, and you will have a better selection the earlier you arrive. Wifi is free and there are computers in the lobby that you can use for free for 30 minutes. The hostel also sponsors tours to museums or other attractions for ¥500. My biggest complaint here is that the toilets were not very clean, and were often out of soap or toilet paper. The showers downstairs are ¥100 for 10 minutes and these seemed clean enough. There is free soap, shampoo, and towels. There is a lock-out period from 2-4:30 am, but if you tell them ahead of time that you are going out they'll let you in during that period.

Both hostels were located in semi-residential neighborhoods with not a lot going on after 9 pm. Then again, aside from Shibuya and Roppongi, not a lot is going on anywhere in Tokyo after 9 pm. Sakura Hotel was very close to 3 train lines, whereas the Ace Inn was close to the Shinjuku train line, which is run by the Toei company. Since I often used the all-day Metro pass (¥700) for transportation, this meant I had to walk 5-10 min to the Yotsuya Sanchome station, which is run by the Metro company. Not a big deal, but slightly more inconvenient than the Sakura Hotel location.

Neither place offered lockers in their dorms, though you could store luggage behind the front desk. I decided to have some faith in humanity and leave everything unlocked under my bed, including my laptop. Nothing was stolen. I love Japan.

Soba Noodle Class

2009-11-15T19:44:00.001-06:00

Somewhere along the way, I stumbled across the Tsukiji Soba Academy, which offers classes on how to make soba noodles from scratch. These range in difficulty from one time weekend workshops for novices to a series of classes designed for professionals. I emailed to sign up for a 3-hour workshop for novices, and soba master Akila Inouye wrote me back with the date and time.

Sensei Akila turned out to be a jovial fellow and a wonderfully patient teacher. He first jotted down the basic steps for making soba noodles. As it turns out, soba noodles are made by simply mixing 80% buckwheat flour and 20% regular wheat flour, then adding 40% of the flour's weight in water. So, you would mix .8 kg buckwheat flour, .2 kg wheat flour and 400 ml of water together for your dough. "How many servings does this make?" someone asked. "Ten Tokyo servings...which would be two American servings," Akila joked.

Notice that the final product is 1.3 mm wide and 1.5 mm tall, so the soba noodles are actually not square on the vertical slice.

Next, you knead the dough for a few minutes, then shape it into a light bulb, then a cone, to bunch the creases on one end. With a few deft gestures, Akila pressed the dough into a round disk, and all the folds had been smoothed out.

The next two steps are "very easy," and involve rolling out the dough and then slicing it into noodles. Take a rolling pin and press the dough evenly and uniformly from 15 mm thick to 1.5 mm thick. There are plastic disks of varying heights to show you when you have flattened the dough to an appropriate amount. After you flatten the dough to 8 mm, you stretch it into a rectangular shape, which eliminates wasted dough, then gently flatten to 1.5 mm thin. Easy, right?

Finally, you dust the dough with uchiko, a starch powder that prevents the dough from sticking, and fold it into thirds. With your fingers gently pressed on a soba cutting board, slice the dough and keep the blade perpendicular to the table. After each slice, tilt the knife the the left slightly, which slides the top cutting board 1.3 mm over. Then, slice the next batch of noodles. In just a couple minutes, Akila had cut his dough into beautiful, uniform soba noodles.

Now it was time for us to try our hand at making soba noodles. I mixed my flour and water, then kneaded and patted it into a disk. The rolling proved to be a lot harder than it looked. After a few missteps, my dough had torn in one corner, and it was no longer uniformly square. Alas. Like a good sauce though, cutting the noodles hides a lot of mistakes. "How long should we boil these for?" someone asked. "If you have thin noodles of the right size, it should be 3 1/2 minutes. Otherwise, cook them for 4 minutes." Akila replied. "What about these?" I asked. Akila inspected them carefully. "Hmm, 4 minutes!" Oops.

Here I am with my finished tray of soba noodles. I ended up taking home two extra boxes from the two French students in the class because they didn't have any place to store or cook them. Unfortunately, after putting them in the hostel frig, I dashed off to the airport the next day and completely forgot to tote them home with me. :(

For one final lesson, we were taught how to properly slurp our noodles. Forget what your mother said about not making noises while chewing or eating; the Japanese show their appreciation of noodles by slurping them noisily. To eat soba noodles, you first taste the noodles by themselves and appreciate the texture and taste of the buckwheat by itself. Next, drop 2-3 noodles into the soba dipping sauce in the cup. Slurp them up noisily, and keep the noodles contained between your chopsticks to minimize flicking sauce into your face. Next, eat a little bit of the onion with the noodles. After you finish the noodles, fill the soba sauce cup with the leftover boiling water. This creates a thick, creamy mixture that is a perfect finish for your meal.

"Thanks for coming!" said Akila. "Don't forget to friend me on Facebook!"

Needless to say, that is the first thing I did when I got home.

Bukkake Udon

2009-11-14T23:03:00.003-06:00

Get your mind out of the gutter, you silly Americans. In Japanese, "bukkake" simply means "pouring," as in the soup is poured over the udon as opposed to noodles being dipped in.

Lonely Planet suggests Sakata (さか田) as the one restaurant you should go to if you visit Tokyo and eat one meal, so I dutifully ventured there. Unfortunately, it was gone. After some googling, I figured out that the restaurant had moved .5 km west, so I stopped by for lunch on a second attempt. The menu is entirely in Japanese, so you need to know some hiragana to figure it out. My server did speak a little English, so they might be able to help you order.

Sakata's specialty is udon, particularly bukkake udon. Above is the lunch set (¥1000) that I ordered, with a bowl of warm udon (you can get it cold), topped with grated radish, green onions, sesame seeds and a dollop of ginger. The noodles were fat and silky smooth, in a simple broth designed to showcase the udon. This came with tempura (jumbo shrimp, green pepper, eggplant) over a little rice. Freshly fried, with a crisp, thin coating, this tempura is miles above popcorn shrimp. Accompanying all this is the obligatory small dish of pickled vegetables, some fermented beans, and a mini salad.

Sakata (さか田)

3rd Floor, Dai 2 Hibiya Building

1-6-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo

Metro: Chiyoda, exit A4, head around the corner in a counterclockwise fashion

Entrees start at ¥700, cash only

Tsukiji Fish Market

2009-11-14T20:07:00.002-06:00

Tsukiji Fish Market is the world's most famous seafood wholesale venue. About ¥2 billion worth of seafood is sold here daily. If it lives in the sea, chances are it is sold here. From Tsukiji, wholesalers distribute goods to restaurants in Japan and the rest of the world. At one point in your life, your sushi probably passed through this market on the way to your plate.

The market itself is a series of concentric horseshoe shaped stalls and warehouses, and the atmosphere is chaotic, to say the least. You need to be hyper-aware of your surroundings, since people are constantly trying to move around you, lifting heavy boxes nearby, and the fishmongers drive surprisingly agile motorized carts, which whip around corners unexpectedly. If you aren't careful, you will get in the way/get hit. The market is also rather wet, so you should not wear your best dress shoes.

The market's most notorious event is the morning tuna auction, which takes place from 5-6:30 am each day. For a while, visitors were banned from viewing the auction due to its popularity; the crowd of rubberneckers was becoming too much of a distraction for people trying to conduct business. Now, it is possible to watch the tuna auctions from a cordoned off area, and you can take photos without flash.

I woke up a little later than I wanted, and made it to a train station at 5:15, not accounting that the trains would be running less frequently in the morning. It was 6 am by the time I arrived at the Hibiya Tsukiji stop, and I started running down the street towards the market. After a frantic search, I found the tuna auction in the back of the horseshoe, with a door marked "Vistors Entrance." It was 6:10 am, and they stop admitting people at 6:15. Phew!

Inside, you could see hulking frozen tuna lying on the floor, with pieces sliced from the ends so that buyers could inspect the quality of the meat inside. On another table, you could inspect tuna steaks, touch them, and warm them a little with your hand, before putting in bids.

A bell clanged and the auctioneer moved toward a tuna. These bluefin tuna weigh several hundred pounds and can fetch up to $20 million apiece. I couldn't follow what the auctioneer was actually saying, though he held up fingers to indicate the current asking price. After the tuna are sold, they are packaged and shipped off around the world again. There is also a fresh tuna room, with tuna that are caught in the previous few days. The frozen ones could have been caught anywhere in the Atlantic or the Pacific, before being frozen and flown here for sale.

Outside of the tuna auctions, you could buy every seafood product imaginable, dead or alive. There were buckets of writhing eels, beautiful iridescent shrimp, freshly gutted fish, piles of oysters and even a few turtles. (This is where you can get upset about the devastation of the ocean's seafood stocks and Japan's lack of environmental policing.) Men sliced apart hunks of tuna with hacksaws. Forklifts and trolleys sped through the warehouse.

Traditionally, a visit to Tsukiji is followed by a trip to a nearby sushi restaurant. Just north of the inner market is a series of stalls with slightly less chaotic shops and restaurants. Tipped off by Lonely Planet, I headed to Daiwa Sushi (building #6), where a mass of people was crowded in front. Disorganized though it appeared, the crowd was actually an orderly mass of people, snaking towards the front. I was directed to the end by an employee, who urged us to stay clear of the central path so that the carts could get by. It was 7 am.

After about 45 minutes of waiting, I was starving and had only moved 50% of the way to the door. Suddenly, the hostess leaned out of the door and shouted something, holding up one finger. The crowd jostled and looked around. Wait, one person? I said. Me, me! I leapfrogged in front of at least 15 people to be seated.

Daiwa Sushi is actually two adjacent shops, one run by the father and the other by the son. I happened to be in the one run by the elder chef, who was quite friendly as he showed me a picture menu with English translations. The easiest thing to do though is to order the set sushi meal (¥3500). Everyone else around me seemed to be doing the same. This comes with 7 pieces of nigiri, 1 set of maki rolls, and a bowl of miso soup. As the pieces were made, the chef would set them down in front of you on your plate. I ended up with a piece of squid, shrimp, maguro, sea urchin, tamago omelet, horse mackerel, eel, and tuna and roe maki.

Not surprisingly, everything was top-notch and extremely fresh. I even got a piece of the shrimp head with the shrimp nigiri. Earlier, someone had mentioned that they didn't like the sea urchin, and I have to say that this was the most challenging piece. The texture of sea urchin is too soft and squishy for most American palates, but I actually enjoyed it once I got over the unexpected texture.

I don't think I can ever eat another Philadelphia roll.

Shiseido Gallery: RMB City

2009-11-14T12:42:00.003-06:00

(Somewhere around here, I noticed that my camera battery level was dipping precipitously low. Since I forgot to bring my charger, dy/dx(pictures taken)<0.)

Shiseido is a major Japanese cosmetics and hair care corporation, but they also run an experimental art gallery in Ginza that features installation pieces. I popped in to take a look and ended up watching a video on RMB City, a virtual city created by Cao Fei in Second Life.

Judging from the anime I've watched, I'd say the Japanese are big on wrestling with the boundary between the virtual and physical worlds, so this film will probably go over well with Tokyo audiences. It featured a female avatar named China Tracy and her son, China Sun, who travel to RMB City, where they explore the virtual world in Second Life. They meet a host of people, like Mr. Reality and Feng Shui Master Q. It was entertaining and thought provoking in that almost-too-cheesy-to-be-deep kind of way. Or maybe the English subtitles could have been better.

Some of the more amusing quotes from the film:

Mayor: Like a five-star hotel, I am here to serve you, to meet any of your needs.

China Sun: Can you change my diaper, or nurse me?

Mayor: My little citizen, yes of course, but I must discuss this with the programmer first.

Man on street: I am writing a novel. Some people say that Second Life is a novel, or maybe a novel is writing me.

China Sun: What is life in here?

China Tracy: Life in here is a reflection of what you see and who you are.

China Sun: I have the urge to poop.

China Tracy: I hope that is not in your programming.

Yokohama: Ports, Pandas and Ramen

2009-11-14T07:37:00.002-06:00

Yokohama is Japan's second largest city and a major port hub situated on the Tokyo Bay. I got my first close-up look (excluding the plane ride) at the western side of the Pacific here.

The city also boasts Landmark Tower, which at 296 m (971 ft) is Japan's tallest building. It also includes the world's fastest elevator at 750 m (2,500 ft) per minute.

Really though, I was mostly interested in investigating their Chinatown, which is the largest concentration of Chinese in Japan, with about 2,500 inhabitants. The neighborhood is ringed by a series of pagoda-topped gates. Ah, feels like home.

I have been to quite a few Chinatowns, but this one is characterized by the popularity of mooncakes and steamed buns (bao). While these are also sold in other Chinatowns, there aren't generally whole shops devoted to all sorts of mooncakes, momo (peach) cakes and buns.

Of course, this being Japan, we had to come up with a way to make bao cute. Enter the Panda bun.
The centerpiece of Yokohama's Chinatown is Kantei-byo Temple, built in 1887.

Oh, one more thing that is very prevalent here: pandas. There were entire shops dedicated to selling panda paraphernalia, from socks to umbrellas to backpacks, with hordes of Japanese schoolgirls ogling and shrieking in excitement. Are the Chinese catering to Japanese tastes, or do the Japanese really think China = Panda? Then again, Cadie did determine that everyone <3>

This is a panda hat on a plastic Obama model, thus combining two of Japan's great loves into one.

Afterwards, I headed to the Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum. Yes, Japan's museum ecosystem is so broad and diverse, it can sustain a museum on ramen. Upstairs, there were displays (unfortunately all in Japanese) about the invention and history of ramen. Apparently, there are 12 types of ramen noodles.

In case you are wondering, ramen in Japan has very little to do with American ramen that comes in packets of 6 for a dollar. Here, ramen is a noodle soup that is accented with slices of pork, fish balls, seaweed or other additions. There are tons of restaurants dedicated to serving only ramen; in fact, I think this may be the most popular type of restaurant I've seen in Tokyo.

Downstairs is a ramen restaurant mall, where you can try 9 styles of ramen from different areas of Japan. The decor is modeled after Tokyo in the year Showa 33 (1958), which was the year that instant ramen was invented. As it turns out, the replication looked almost exactly like Kawagoe from the day before, complete with loaves of fu for sale.

Ramen was ordered via vending machines (of course), and you could get full size portions for ¥700-900 and mini (ミニ) half-size portions for ¥500-600.

Ramen bowl #1: category / tonkotsu, basic seasoning / salt, ingredients / pork, kikurage (wood ear), bean sprouts, menma (fermented bamboo shoots) and green onion

Ramen bowl #2: category / miso, basic seasoning / soybean paste, ingredients, pork, fish cake slice, menma, green onions, red pepper paste

Retail Therapy

2009-11-13T15:41:00.003-06:00

The Tokyoites have certainly embraced shopping as a legitimate pastime, so with that in mind, I spent a couple hours shopping in Shibuya 109, which is a mecca for young fashionistas sporting the latest trends. If you are over 30, you will feel out of place here. Actually, I felt pretty out of place anyway since I was the only woman in the place whose knees were covered. The uniform of choice for a young Japanese woman is comprised of a miniskirt, leggings, high boots, and some sort of cute top. That's cute, not skanky; the emphasis is generally on feminine and sweet, rather than hoochie mamma. However, as you go further up in floors, the attire does get a bit edgier, with more black, leather, and particularly for men, chains and ripped jeans.

Downstairs at the Hello Kitty store, there was a display of rhinestone studded items, including a guitar, a miniature piano, cell phone accessories, notebooks, etc. The caption was "Bling Me!"

Since Asians are not well known for having curves, I guess it makes sense that there is so much focus on legs. I have never seen so many varieties of socks, high socks and tights in my life. I was going to buy a pair of Super Mario socks, but then I got distracted by something else (fleece overalls perhaps) and forgot to go back and get them. I was also really amused by the store called "American Casual Wear" which featured colorful varsity jackets, jeans and corduroys in bright greens, reds and yellows. Suffice it to say, not many Americans casually wear any of this.

Engrish is omnipresent on clothing, labels and signs. It makes me wonder if they bother asking someone to grammar and spell check writing before they rush off to produce clothing, or if the Japanese simply don't care. I saw a hoodie for "Chicago Univer" and considered buying it.

Most clothing was priced higher than I was willing to pay, but items on the "Price Down" racks tended to be reasonable. I choose a few things and tried them on. Whoa, everything fit perfectly! I hadn't even bothered to look at the sizing tags. All you people who are average size in the US should appreciate it.

The Japanese are ridiculously polite to the point of it being uncomfortable for me. Every retail transaction is a theatrical show, as the clerk makes a point of showing you the item you're buying, having you place your payment in a tray, gingerly handing back your receipts and/or change, all while smiling and bowing slightly. When you try on clothing, they undo all the buttons and take everything off the hangers for you before you step inside the dressing room. One time, after buying something, I reached for the package that I'd bought and the clerk waved me away. She walked me to the door, then presented me with the bag handle, and bowed until I'd left the premises. Is this really necessary??

They also love excess packaging here, with every item (already wrapped in several layers of paper or plastic) placed in a paper bag that is taped, and then placed inside another larger bag. Having said that, Tokyo has a great municipal recycling program. Every trash can has slots for cans, bottles and paper. If only this could take off in the US as well.

Despite my staunch anti-consumerism, eventually the neon lights, blaring pop music and entreaties of "Irashaimase!" from the store clerks got to me: I bought clothing in a store (so this excludes Woot t-shirts) for the first time in at least a year. This dress is definitely not my usual style, but I've decided I'll be wearing it for the Irony.

Earthquake?

2009-11-13T13:56:00.004-06:00

4:23 am. I awake to vibrations oddly reminiscent of the earthquake that hit Chicago a couple years ago. The vibrations continue for a few short seconds, as everyone else in the room sleeps through it unnoticed. A reminder that we are on the ring of fire. The last major earthquake was the 1923 Kanto quake, which leveled the Tokyo area and inspired the design of quake-resistant architecture. If you inspect the city maps carefully, there are specially marked evacuation areas in case of an emergency.

Hanazono-Jinja Shrine

2009-11-12T23:25:00.003-06:00

Shinjuku is a bustling commuter hub, filled with Tokyo's ubiquitous commercial outlets and neon blazing signs. However, it also includes some more interesting enclaves, like Kabukicho, the red light district, filled with sex shops and populated by Triad members and Nigerian criminal syndicates. There is also Shinjuku ni-chome, the city's gay district, which was disappointingly tame compared to the more raucous gay districts of NYC and Chicago. I decided to take a trip to the Hanazono-Jinja shrine, just a few blocks northeast of the train station. By day, merchants come here to pray for the success of their businesses. By night, well let's just say the area takes on a decidedly unsolemn character.

Approaching the temple, the pathway is marked by the distinctive gate of a Shinto shrine. Street vendors hawked goods on either side, and the crowds began to thicken.

This vendor was selling some type of curry or soup, with the fresh lobsters and conches to show for it.

Yakitori and other variations of meat on a stick were also omnipresent. Grease splattered from the grates and smoke billowed from charcoal grills. I kept thinking that there should be a way to capture and record smells, because there are no words to describe how delicious everything smelled.

I'm not entirely sure what this stall was selling; it seems to be some kind of fruit in an ice bath.

This is a goldfish scooping game, where you are given a scoop called a poi that is fragile and easily torn. You carefully scoop up as many goldfish as you can before your poi is completely torn, then you get to take the goldfish home in a plastic bag.

Takoyaki, or octopus balls, cooked in a pancake dough-like batter and doused with a sweet and sour okonomiyaki sauce. I bought half a dozen for ¥500.

The chocolate and candy dipped bananas here come with sprinkles and teddy bear cookies attached at the top. I was impressed at the tricolor ones in the back row.

Oh right, we were here to see a shrine! This is the long line of people waiting to get in. The police were directing people to form an orderly line and as is the usual case in Japan, everyone readily complied.

You can buy offerings from the dozens of vendors immediately adjacent. Each vendor is marked with a sign that explains what you are asking for, e.g. blessings for a rock or mining-related business, or a forestry-related business, or for success on university entrance exams.

Finally, there were a few men who seemed to be moving from stall to stall, striking wooden clappers in a rhythmic pattern whenever someone bought something. I wish I'd paid more attention in Shinto Sunday school...if anyone has a better idea of what's going on, feel free to correct. Apologies that the video is rotated 90 degrees, Youtube refuses to recognize my video as being vertical.

Namco Namja Town

2009-11-12T18:28:00.002-06:00

After spending the day in Kawagoe, I wandered around Ikekuburo for a bit. Ikekuburo is one of the three main JR train hubs (the other two being Shinjuku and Tokyo stations), and as such, it is a commercial center, home to two of the world's largest department stores.

Sunshine City is a huge retail complex with shops, restaurants (including a branch of NYC-based Joe's Shanghai), and an amusement park. So, for ¥300, I took a peek at video game producer Namco's Namja Town.

As one might expect, the amusement park is filled with flashing lights, over the top displays and cacophonous noises. The first area I wandered into was some sort of ghost town, with eerie cat lanterns and ghosts dotting the windows.

There was even a haunted Bhuddist temple, complete with neon dancing skeletons in the background. I'm glad we have a healthy dose of reverence for religion in this country.

Really though, I was much more interested in the other half of the amusement park's offerings. First up was Gyoza Stadium, where over a dozen vendors compete to sell you fried dumplings. These range from your standard meat and veggie filled dumplings to soup dumplings to cheese "dumplings."

Even better, the dumplings were featured in posters detailing their stats: weight, length and quantity.
I think there was some sort of voting ballot, but I didn't bother attempting to read the signs.

Upstairs, I came across a miracle fruit cafe. Zomg, I could be downing lemons and vinegar again!

You can order normal foods, like a curry rice bowl, but to truly appreciate the miracle fruit's effects, you should probably order one of these sets with sour foods.

That display is all plastic, by the way.

This is Ice Cream City, where you can get all sorts of gelato, ice cream on waffles, some sort of Turkish ice cream served to you by a guy in Turkish attire, etc.

The Cup Ice Museum features ice cream of many walks and flavors. I began reading through them: pumpkin, green apple, darjeeling tea, tofu, currant...yawn. Wait a minute, that one said garlic. Which was followed by beef, shark's fin, curry and viper. That's right, you can get snake in ice cream form here. This is a wonderful country.

This is a 5-carton sushi flavored set. Mmm, octopus ice cream. The other sets available included potato flavors and miso flavors.

This flavor was misfortunately translated as "old taste ice cream." Maybe they meant to say "classic"?

After mulling it over, I ended up buying a carton of wasabi ice cream. The wasabi is definitely present, and the sting of the cold ice cream transforms into the sting of the wasabi. It was interesting but not my favorite feeling, so I probably would opt for something else next time.

Kawagoe or "Little Edo"

2009-11-12T09:40:00.001-06:00

Inspired by a Sept NYT article, I trekked to Kawagoe this morning to check out the town nicknamed "Little Edo," in reference to the ancient name for Tokyo. Here, you will be transported to the Tokyo of yore, via the town's well-preserved kura, or late 19th century warehouses. Ironically, the preservation of the buildings is due to the resistance of the town's landlords to railways during the Meiji Era. Consequently, many of the town's buildings survived the bombing of WW2.

These days, the kura are used not as warehouses but as retail spaces. Peeking my head under the half-curtains, there were shops for candies, crackers, kimonos, pickles, and more.

Best of all, many of the shops offered samples. And though I don't generally snack between meals, I suddenly felt the compulsion to buy every cracker product under the Kawagoe sun.

In case seaweed rice crackers or green tea candy alone doesn't appeal to you, you can opt to buy super cute panda-wrapped crackers.

Kawagoe's most prominent agricultural crop is sweet potatoes, and you can find all sorts of products made out of sweet potato here, from crackers to sake. This food stall was selling triangular sweet potato cakes, fresh off the griddle. I quickly snapped up three of them.

Three or four varieties of sweet potatoes were also on sale.

The centerpiece of Kawagoe is its bell tower, with a chime that rings four times a day.

Suddenly, a guy began yelling with a megaphone to the street. A parade with drummers and men with conical straw hats followed. I wish I had understood what the announcer was saying, and whether I just witnessed some sort of protest or a historical memorial or a funeral or what.

Just behind the kura district is Kashiya Yokocho, or Penny Candy Lane. This narrow alley is packed with vendors selling candies, crackers (slightly cheaper than on the previous street), and gift items.

One of the local products here is fu, which comes either in large loafs the size of a French baguette, or cut in smaller chunks about 3" long. From the signage, it is made of wheat and sugar, and is a bit lighter than bread. I haven't tried it, but I was convinced by a shopkeeper to buy a bag and bring it home for sampling.

The Kita-in Temple was on my walk back. The original building was destroyed after a fire in 1638, but shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu ordered buildings moved from Edo Castle to the temple.
The grounds also include Hie Shrine. It's funny how many Bhuddist temples and Shinto shrines share the same grounds. When's the last time you ever saw a combined Catholic cathedral and Jewish synagogue?

I am not sure what god this statue is supposed to commemorate, but it seems to be a protector of children based on the offerings: pinwheels, Care Bears, pacifiers, juice boxes, a persimmon, candies...

Finally, the courtyard contains Gohyaku Rakan, or the 500 disciples of Bhudda. Amusingly enough, the monks are depicted in all manner of expression: laughing, drinking, and even picking their noses.

Onsen

2009-11-11T23:45:00.002-06:00

When I set out on this trip to Tokyo, I wanted to embrace my fellow Asians and truly explore what it was like to live in Japan. I wanted to bathe in a pool of the unknown, luxuriate in the warm waters cultural learning, and plunge headlong into uncomfortable situations.

And so, dear readers, that is how I found myself at an onsen.

An onsen is a public bathhouse heated naturally by hot springs. A sento is similar, only the water is heated rather than sourced from a hot spring. The public baths are all over Tokyo and are generously subsidized by the the local government, which means bathing at an average sento will generally only set you back ¥500 or so. In return, you will be soaking in the neighborhood chatter, with people from all ages and all walks of life. Suffice it to say, English is not spoken here.

Reading through the Lonely Planet listings, the onsen in Ginza seemed the most conveniently located/priced. The description, however, was a bit daunting: "The fact that this straightforward Meiji-era bath manages to keep its wits about it, even as real estates continue to climb in the ritzy Ginza that surrounds it, must be one of Tokyo's best jokes. The bath mistress is a daunting battle-axe - no kidding, this gal chews tacks. With this in mind, make sure you scrub extra hard behind your ears." All righty then!

I circled around the block several times as I set off to find the onsen, which (as expected) was marked by a tiny sign and a half curtain leading down a narrow flight of stairs into a humid basement with a bunch of lockers. What next?

As I sat scratching my head, a man emerged from one of the doors and pulled an umbrella out of a small locker. Aha, I hadn't noticed the umbrella icon on the keys.

Then, he put a wooden block into a larger locker and pulled out his shoes. The wood blocks were a rudimentary key system with lines carved to match the key hole.

At this point, I'd stared long enough at the signage to figure out the onsen was ¥450 for admission, and for another ¥100, you could get a towel set with a towel, soap and shampoo. So I stored my umbrella and shoes and resolutely marched inside the door marked for women.

Immediately to my right, there was a counter with the bathhouse attendant. I explained that I was American and heads immediately swiveled. After handing over my money, I stripped off my clothing and put it in a locker. Next, you are supposed to thoroughly scrub yourself clean with a bucket and washcloth. I spotted a few buckets in a corner and grabbed one. Hmm, looks sort of dirty, I thought. As I headed into the scrubbing area, I heard shouts behind me. Oops, I'd mistakenly grabbed a regular bucket. There was another stack of buckets inside that I was supposed to use. Bathhouse faux pas #1, check.

Another woman was cleaning herself inside, so I figured I should scrub at least until she finished. Though I usually shower in 2 minutes or less, Lonely Planet suggested that 10 minutes or so was a solid amount. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and the woman was still there. At this point, I decided that I'd sufficiently scrubbed myself red, and headed toward the bath. Wait, she said, and motioned towards my hair. Oh, should it be tied up? I gestured. She took a hair pin out of her hair and stuck it in mine. I was now cleared to enter the bath. Bathhouse faux pas #2, check.

Now, when they say "hot," they aren't effing around. I slowly dipped a foot inside, and almost yelped from shock. Gradually, I submerged my whole body into the bath, which had a whirlpool of hot water circulating from the bottom and seating on the sides. First time? asked the other woman. I nodded yes, and explained that I was American, from Chicago. With some additional charades, I told her that I was Chinese, and then gave her my American and Chinese names.

At this point, the water was really, really hot, and my skin was wrinkling like a Sharpei dog. Also, I really needed to pee, and being submerged in warm water wasn't helping. I eyed the clock. It had been about 5 minutes, maybe ten. I forced myself to stay in for a few more minutes, then decided to call it quits. I rinsed myself off with cooler water and tried to stop my head from spinning.

The small hand towel that I'd bought was completely soaked, which left me with a dilemma: how to dry myself. In the end, I simply wrung out the towel and dried myself off as much as possible, then changed back into my street clothing slightly damp. I returned the hairpin back to the woman, who looked me up and down and asked, You okay? Yes, I smiled.

Lessons learned: bring your own towel and hairpins to the onsen, pee beforehand, be prepared for uncomfortably hot temperatures. I don't think I would do it again (I really prefer lukewarm showers) but after a long day of walking around the city, the hot water did wonders for curing sore muscles and I slept like a baby afterwards.

Yasukuni Shrine

2009-11-11T23:32:00.004-06:00

Yasukuni Shrine is the controversial one that makes all the worldwide headlines every year when the Japanese Prime Minister visits on August 15 (the anniversary of Japan's defeat in WW2). The shrine is dedicated to the souls of Japan's war dead, particularly those who died after the Meiji restoration, which was a series of events that lead to the modernization of Japan and its emergence as a world power.

Thus, the shrine commemorates the deaths of soldiers who died as Japan began dealing with the West (Russian, US, UK) and other powers in East Asia (China, Korea). Most importantly, this includes the Greater East Asian War, aka World War 2 to the rest of us. The conservative right wing in Japan stand by its duty to honor war dead, and the Yakusuni shrine is the physical representation of Japanese jingoism from the perspective of neighboring Asian countries who suffered under Japanese imperialism. It was suggested by one of my fellow Chinese compatriots that I spit all over the memorial when I get there. So you could say that feelings are still running high.

At any rate, the shrine itself is beautiful, with two elegant, soaring gates (torii) as you approach. In warmer months, the courtyard is filled with displays of ikebana and a flock of doves (ironically in the midst of war hawks?). But that's not what I was really here to see. I headed for the Yasukuni Memorial Museum where I paid ¥500 (for a student ticket) to learn something about Japanese war history.

The museum is laid out in a very clear fashion, with lots of English signage for your edification, though perhaps a quarter of the displays were only in Japanese. But the translations that were present were sufficient for me to get the gist. Samurai swords and artillery equipment decorated the floors. Phrases like "the encroachment of Western powers" and "expel the barbarians" were bandied about.

Things that I learned at the Yasukuni Museum:

"The purpose of the Nanking Campaign was to surround and occupy the capital, thus discouraging the Chinese from continuing their resistance against the Japanese."
The preemptive strike on Pearl Harbor and declaration of war on the US was to "insure [sic] the stability of East Asia and to contribute to world peace."
Japan inspired other oppressed peoples to achieve independence. "Once the desire for independence was kindled under Japanese occupation, it did not fade away, even though Japan was ultimately defeated." This display was accompanied by the flags of newly independent Asian countries (Vietnam, Myanmar, etc).

There was also a display on Japan's paltry natural resources, with a bar graph showing the months supply of raw materials that Japan had stocked before World War 2. Military events aside, I would say that economic pressures were a strong impetus in Japan's decision to declare war on the US. The country had only 24 months of oil and 3 months of raw rubber in the lead-up period. To get rubber and other resources, Japan began invading SE Asia. In response, the US declared an oil embargo on Japan, which was treated as an act of military hostility.

Truly, history is written by the victors.

A cool barrel display on the way to the temple that probably has some deeper significance unknown to me

Engrish Signage of the Day, Part 2

2009-11-11T23:30:00.001-06:00

Tokyo Tower

2009-11-11T17:52:00.002-06:00

Tokyo has a little bit of an infatuation with all things Parisian, and it is most prominently manifest in the Tokyo Tower, opened in 1958. Yes, they copied the Eiffel Tower. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, is it not?

Fittingly, the tower is located in Roppongi, the expat center of Tokyo, filled with American military men, Nigerian bouncers, and Chinese hookers. It is loud, active, and a "bit dodgy." Here, you would be hard-pressed to find any self-respecting Japanese over the age of 30. The area is well known for its boisterous bars and night clubs. If you are out after the trains stop running at midnight, you can opt to cab it home...or party all night in Roppongi until train service begins again at 5 am.

Back to Tokyo Tower. The Eiffel is an elegant black, but here in Japan, that would not be nearly enough to hold people's attention spans. So, Tokyo Tower is painted orange and white, and is lit by 176 flood lights. The tower serves as the Tokyo metro area's primary radio and TV broadcasting wave transmitter. Oh and, the tower is 13 m taller than the Eiffel, making it the world's largest self-supporting steel structure. Snap!

To further Japanify the tower, it does not merely have an observation deck. No no, there is an aquarium inside. And a wax museum and Nipponland amusement park and a slew of restaurants and shops. My eyes were glazing over at this shameless tourist trap, but then, I saw that on the fourth floor there is an exhibit on statistics! Zomg.

Unfortunately, the statistics exhibit was closed for the day, so I was denied the chance to learn whether the Japanese use "rogarithms."

The observation deck at 150m is closed, and while this protects you from the elements, it makes taking photos much more difficult since you are photographing through glass. In that respect, the Eiffel definitely wins.

Yebisu Beer Museum

2009-11-11T17:37:00.002-06:00

Yebisu Brewery is now part of Sapporo, however the name lives on in museum adjacent to Sapporo headquarters. The first thing I did here was to give away the flowers from ikebana class to the girl at the Yebisu gift shop. After some charades, I managed to convey that she should take the flowers home with her if she liked them. Judging from the smile on her face, I'd like to think they didn't end up in the trash.

Having toured a decent number of breweries, I'd say this museum's display were lackluster (some timelines on the history of beer, old advertisements, a giant brewing vat), but the tasting room at the end lets you try four beers for ¥500. Overall, Japanese beers tend towards the light, crisp, one might even say, bland, side of the spectrum, but then again, we're not in Germany so I won't complain.

The more interesting part of this excursion was when I plopped my tasting tray down on a table and took my camera out. A voice emanated from behind: "Say, would you like a photo of yourself with the beer?" I acquiesced and the gentleman introduced himself. "Hey, I'm John, would you like to come sit over here? Because I hate drinking alone." We were both clutching copies of Lonely Planet Tokyo (my bible for this week). John, as it turned out, was a seasoned traveler who was in town for a few days while his wife was on business. He was Canadian, currently living in Munich, and heading to Sydney and then somewhere in SE Asia in the next week. Among other stories, he regaled me with this anecdote from Egypt (amounts are approximate):

"I was in Cairo talking to a cab driver, and he mentioned that he needed to save money. I asked, for what? He said, well, to buy a woman. I said, wait, what? He replied, well if I have $750, I can get a woman who is widowed with two kids. If I have maybe $1000, I can get a woman who is widowed with one kid. And if I have $1500, I can get a woman who is single without children. So, I asked him, what would you do with $2000? He looked at me and said, well, then I would buy a camel."

Meguro Parasite Museum

2009-11-11T07:21:00.003-06:00

Normally, this wouldn't have been high up on my list of things to see, but since I was already in the neighborhood, why not check out the world's only parasite museum?

Besides, word on the street was that the Meguro Parasite Museum is a hot date spot. No, really. From the NYT:

But in the last several years the museum has also turned into an urban version of Blueberry Hill, where eager couples come to bond and test their mutual mettle. And while two floors filled with graphic pictures of goiters, a world map of infectious diseases and bottle after bottle of hookworms would seem unlikely to put one in a romantic mood, there appears to be no shortage of young lovers willing to play Gomez and Morticia Addams for a day.

Ah, the culture that is Japan. In their defense, maybe seeing gross things is kind of like going to a haunted house or a scary movie; you have opportunities to clutch each other in fear.

Too bad there were no sparks flying and nary a sign of hand-holding during my visit. (This may have been due to my midday Tuesday timing.) Instead, there were a couple of suited guys in their 40s and a younger guy wearing ripped jeans and a flowery hoodie. Slim pickings indeed. Still, the museum's focal piece, an 8.8 m long tapeworm was pretty neat. Apparently, this was taken from the small intestine of a man who'd eaten marinated trout. Let's hope all the sushi I've been eating has been parasite-free.

Ikebana (Flower Arranging) Class

2009-11-11T07:00:00.004-06:00

The Meguro International Friends Association (MIFA) is a group dedicated to international outreach and offers a variety of workshops and language classes designed to breakdown cultural borders. I saw that they offer a weekly ikebana class and signed up. Who says I can't be domestic??

After introducing myself as a first time attendee, I was assigned a teacher who tried to explain the principles of ikebana to me in limited English and my limited Japanese vocabulary. No matter, art is a universal language, right? I chose a packet of flowers and unwrapped the bundle to find some long wooden twigs, some green leafy things, and some pink um, does anyone know what kind of flowers these are?

Anyway, my teacher explained that there were many, many schools of ikebana. We began with a basin filled partially with water, with a spiky pad at the bottom to attach the plants. I selected a twig and attached it to the pad, then cut a sprig of flowers such that it was two-thirds the height of the twig. My teacher looked on, making clucking noises of approval or adjustments if I was doing it wrong. "So so so so," she said, "Bee-you-tee-ful!"

The other major pointers I learned were that triangles were good and harmonious, and that the tips of flowers should be curved toward the center of the arrangement, as if they were arching toward the sun. Of course, this might be different in another school of ikebana, so don't take my word for it.

After placing a bunch of plants, I stepped back and admired my work. But wait, my teacher pulled out a tall vase and asked me to do something with the leftover flowers. This proved to be a bit more difficult, since I was now working with the discarded flowers from the previous arrangement, and it is hard to adjust the heights of items in a vase. But hey, if you start off with beautiful ingredients, it's hard to screw them up.

The final products:

The MIFA coordinator was pretty impressed that I came all the way out to Meguro for this workshop and snapped my photo before I left. At that point, my teacher had painstakingly bundled my flowers into newspapers, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I would be walking around the city all day and would probably throw them out at the first opportunity.

Ghibli Museum

2009-11-11T05:33:00.004-06:00

Hayao Miyazaki is widely renowned as an elder statesman of Japanese animated films, the equivalent of America's Walt Disney, if you will. Over the years, he has won acclaim for directing children's films that explore feminism, environmentalism, and the relationship of man and technology. Moreover, his movies are just plain adorable, with characters recognized by every child in Japan.

Miyazaki is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, an animation company, and the Ghibli Museum celebrates his canon and offers hints of future directions. When I heard about the Ghibli Museum, I immediately added it to my list of sights to see. Unfortunately, as Lonely Planet writes, it is "more difficult to gain entry to the Ghibli Museum than for the Kremlin." There are only a set number of tickets sold per day, you have only a half-hour window to enter, and you must buy a ticket ahead of time, not at the door. For overseas visitors, you can order through a designated travel agency and have it mailed to you. I emailed the Chicago distributor, and with shipping and handling, the ticket came out to about $30. Argh.

A loophole: you can also buy tickets in Japan through the Loppi kiosks at any Lawson convenience store. If you do this, a ticket is only ¥1,000 (~$10). So, armed with the directions for the Loppi machine, the first thing I did after landing was march into a Lawson and attempt to buy a Ghibli Museum ticket. Unlike ATMs and train kiosks, there are no English directions. I got an error message. I tried again. I got another error message. I tried another date. I made it to a new screen. A keyboard popped up and I surmised that they wanted a name. I typed in random characters and got an error message. At this point, I was about to throttle the machine, but then the Lawson attendant came over and asked if I needed help. He successfully typed in my name in katakana and added a fake phone number (9999-9999). Bingo, I had a ticket.

The museum is in the suburb of Mitaka, which is accessible from the JR Chuo line at Shinjuku. This is the busiest station in the world, with a dozen rail lines converging from 5 rail companies, and an average of 3.64 m people passing through each day. As Yukako put it, "Shinjuku station makes me want to cry." To add further complexity, each line has about 5 levels, from super duper express to local. I took a deep breath and hopped onto a train that seemed to be headed towards Mitaka. The next station indicated that I was heading in the right direction, so I sat down to eat a green tea-sesame seed cinnamon roll (without cinnamon). Fifteen minutes later, I looked up to see that we'd just pulled into...Shinjuku station. WTF just happened?

I bolted off the train and tried again. This time, the train actually went to Mitaka. After a 15 min walk from the station, I finally made it to the museum, which looks like something out of a Roald Dahl book.

You are immediately greeted by a giant Totoro in the window.

At the entrance, your paper ticket is exchanged for a ticket that contains an original frame from one of Miyazaki's films.

Alas, the museum doesn't allow photography inside the building, so you'll just have to take my word that it was pretty neat, despite being filled with dozens of (polite, well-behaved) children. As indicated by the exterior, the inside of the building is full of whimsical displays, depicting the inspirations for Miyazaki's work, storyboards, and other information which I couldn't read. The first floor contains a theater where you can view an unreleased 15" film short. For this day, the movie was about an adorable fanged water spider. (This is further proof that anything can be turned cute in the hands of Miyazaki.) The third floor features a giant, plush Catbus (from the film My Neighbor Totoro) for elementary school kids to play on, complete with dust sprites that you could throw.
The building included lots of stained glass with characters and scenes from Ghibli films. Above is the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke.

Everywhere you went, there were little nooks and crannies with interesting things if you opened a shutter or poked your head under an arch. Here is a random shed filled with knick knacks.

This window is filled with dust sprites peeking outside.

I think this is the seaside town that Kiki's Delivery Service was based in.

There was also a tree stump and wooden broom in the courtyard, so I clambered on and put on my best flying face.

The museum's credo from Miyazaki:

This is the kind of museum I don't want to make!
A pretentious museum
An arrogant museum
A museum that treats its contents as if they were more important than people
A museum that displays uninteresting works as if they were significant

This is the Kind of Museum I Want to Make!
A museum that is interesting and which relaxes the soul
A museum where much can be discovered
A museum based on a clear and consistent philosophy
A museum where those seeking enjoyment can enjoy, those seeking to ponder can ponder, and those seeking to feel can feel
A museum that makes you feel more enriched when you leave than when you entered!

I think he succeeded.

Technical Difficulties

2009-11-10T07:32:00.004-06:00

Egads, dear readers, I am sorely lacking a 3-prong converter for my laptop, and despite walking all over Tokyo today, I did not manage to come across one. So tomorrow, I am heading back to Akihabara first thing in the morning. And then, the posting can return full speed!

Anyway, I realize some of you rely on this for procrastination/boredom relief, so I shall offer you a preview of things to come.

Sony Showroom

2009-11-08T05:06:00.006-06:00

After a morning of zen greenery, I headed to Ginza, one of the posher districts in town and filled with department stores and luxury brands a la Fifth Avenue. Forget Dior and Prada though, I headed straight for the Sony building, where their showroom is open for public browsing. The first room featured a joint display with Lego of World Heritage Foundation sites. I am not sure what this has to do with electronics (the signs were mostly in Japanese), but it was still pretty cool.

Maybe this is a model of the Imperial Palace. I wouldn't know, since I didn't get close enough to see it. :(

A close-up of one of the building entrances

Here we have the Colosseum in Lego form.

Upstairs, in the midst of a display of PSP games sits an Egyptian pharaoh. One floor was dedicated to duty-free and foreign model items. The signs suggested that we should be thinking about buying Christmas presents. To the Japanese: capitalism much?

Lots of computers were on display, and stations were set up where people could customize their machines and cases.

For the audiophiles, listening booths were set up so that you could try out headphones.

I was most fascinated with the digital camera section though. The globe above was there to demonstrate a new 3-d technology in cameras. The new DSC-WX1 low light camera featured in the NYT was also on sale (for ¥34,800). And as I strolled from room to room, shutter noises would periodically sound and my face would be plastered in high-definition on a monitor. The ones that used smile detection would zoom in and focus on your face, and as soon as your mouth upturned, snap a photo. I purposely tried frowning and the camera resolutely did not photograph me. I imagine they wouldn't be using these cameras in prisons.

Finally, here is the RollY, an mp3 player/entertainment system/dancing robot. I know, how much had they been smoking??

Imperial Palace

2009-11-08T04:20:00.004-06:00

Tokyo's real estate comes at a significant cost, which means that while there are a few small parks scattered here and there, there is pretty much no green space other than the Imperial Palace grounds.

Unlike the analogous Central Park though, the majority of the grounds are closed to the public. I suppose that's because the Imperial Family wants their privacy, bah. Still, a large swath of the land is open year-round, admittance is free, and oh yeah, the landscaping isn't half bad either. On the outer perimeter, paths have been outlined for runners and cyclists. My visit seemed to have coincided with some sort of race, as the area was flooded with runners in spandex.

The Imperial Palace was originally built in feudal times, but over the course of centuries of war and mismanagement, the buildings were in a state of disrepair by the turn of the century. Most of the current palace was constructed in 1968, though parts of the moat and the entry gates are original pieces.

Due to popular demand, I am actually in a picture (to prove that I'm really in Japan and not simply posting photos from home.) Though this is no Taughhannock Falls, this waterfall was pretty soothing on a gorgeous 20° day. You know, this would be a great place to hide a letterbox too...

The gardens feature lots of traditional Japanese architectural elements, and the plants were labeled with their origin in Japan.

All of this was even more amazing when you thought about how close modern Tokyo was to this oasis of tranquility. The palace is pretty much in the shadows of Tokyo Tower.

This light seems rather out of place to me, and looks rather Victorian, or perhaps Narnian when you factor in the lion's heads.

The guardhouse housed 100 of the best, most loyal samurai.

Detail on the roof

The moat contains some very, very large koi. These were at least the length of my arm, which makes me think that the urban legend about fish growing proportionally to the size of their tank might be true.

The moat also contains seven swans a-swimming.

The Meganebashi (eyeglasses) bridge is a double-barreled bridge that is named for its shape.

Did you notice any photos of the Imperial Palace itself? Yeah, me neither. The family is notoriously reclusive, and save for New Year's Day and December 23rd (the Emperor's birthday), the rest of the grounds are closed to the public. The Imperial Museum was however featuring an exhibit on the personal effects of the royal family, so I got to ogle the royal hand washing equipment (looks like fancy tea kettles), kimonos, harp (the Empress apparently likes Mozart) and journal articles (the Emperor has published research in ichthyology).

On Sundays, from 10 am to 3 pm, the koban (police box) at Uchibori-dori gives out bikes for riding in a circuit near the palace grounds. The roads are closed off to traffic, so it is very safe for children and geared towards people wanting a leisurely ride, as opposed to triathletes. I decided to take advantage of this and checked out the above bike, which is a bit less badass than my usual rides, a single speed bike equipped with a pedestrian bell and basket. Oh well, it was good to be on two wheels again. Too bad the route is only 3 km long, so I was done in about 15 minutes. I will also mention that bike security here is extremely lax; about 50% of bikes are locked with a small cable lock (if you did that in the Loop...lolol) and the other 50% are just unlocked. Compare this to Paris, which is having a bit of a rough time with vandalization of Velib bikes.

After I returned my bike, I wandered into the adjacent restaurant. There was a buffet lunch available for ¥1200, which is a steal in this town. Plus, the food was actually good! (I think this is the first time I've been happy about the food at a tourist attraction.) I could only translate some of the labels, but for the most part, we have traditional Japanese pickled items, radishes, tofu, some salmon (with bone), chicken, several kinds of mushrooms, yakisoba (Chinese chow mein), a potato croquette, potato salad and udon noodles.

If you ever have the chance to try the Suntory Coffee Boss from a soda machine, don't.

Asakusa Temple and Nakamise-dori

2009-11-07T18:02:00.006-06:00

As you step out of the Asakusa station, it's pretty hard to miss the approach to the temple as it's marked by a huge honking gate and red lantern. The temple is known as the Asakusa Kannon Temple, since it is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon, or Goddess of Mercy. According to legend, in 628, two fisherman were fishing and found a golden statue figurine. They threw it back in the water, but then they caught it again, twice. Recognizing godly acts for what they were, the village decided to build a temple at that site to commemorate Kannon. This is the oldest temple in Tokyo, and very popular with locals and tourists alike.
Nakamise-dori is the street leading to the temple and it is lined with street vendors, and most exciting, food stalls.

This cookie making machine was the most fascinating thing I've seen since the tortilla making machine at Uncle Julio's. The cookies are molded, pressed and packaged in a matter of seconds, then they slide down the ramp into a box, where you can purchase 3 for merely ¥100.

The 3 that I grabbed were shaped like a fish (eaten too quickly to be photographed), a bird, and the lantern at the gate above. These are soft cookies with a glutinous dough, filled with lotus or red bean paste, and they were still warm out of the conveyor belt!

I am familiar with the okonomiyaki (a sort of Japanese omelet) but this stall for osakayaki caught my eye. You take an egg, a few pieces of ham, corn kernels, dried shrimp, crunchy rice puffs, shredded lettuce and grill it in pancake-like batter.

The whole thing is flipped, then topped with pickled ginger, nori, mayo, and okonomiyaki sauce. Oishii!
Approaching the temple itself, we have another gate with a red lantern.

For ¥100, you can buy a mikuji, or a small fortune. You put your money in the till, then shake a box filled with long wooden rods. There is a hole at one end, and when one of the rods falls out, you look at the number and draw the corresponding fortune from one of the wooden boxes. After you read it, fold it up and tie it to the wire racks. I watched intently as a couple Brits tried this and then realized they couldn't read what their fortune was anyway.

This burner is filled with incense and billowing smoke, which is why everyone beelines toward it.

Breathing in the smoke is supposed to bestow good luck, so crowds gather around for some quality smoke inhalation and waft the smoke towards their faces.

This fountain includes several ladles, with which you can catch the water and sprinkle some on your hands. Well, I also saw an old lady sipping the water directly. Considering how paranoid they are about swine flu over here, I was surprised at this rather unhygienic move. Maybe Kannon will protect her.

The inside of the temple
On the outside, there is a small park with a rock garden, statues, and some other significant figures whose names I can't read. At this point, I went looking for octopus balls.

Akihabara or Geekdom, Ground Zero

2009-11-07T12:04:00.010-06:00

Faced with the dismal failure of my quest for soba noodles, I thought, "F that, I'm going to Akihabara." For those of you unfamiliar with Akihabara, it is known as Tokyo's center for electronics and the focal point for otaku (nerd) culture. This is the place to go if you are looking for the latest digital cameras, video games or anime releases.

On the way there, I spotted a Mister Donut, a donut chain that Steph had raved about on the plane. Since my stomach had just been denied soba, I stepped in and began translating the katakana on the display labels. Chocolate, honey, curry...whoa, curry? There comes a point in every man's life when he should consider eating a curry donut, and for me, that point was now. I ordered it. It was indeed filled with a savory curry, with a crunchy panko coating on the outside of the donut.

They really like their buildings big and tall over here.

And they're not really ones for subtlety.

I was warned beforehand that Akihabara can be rather intense, but I shooed that aside. I mean, how bad can it possibly be? As it turns out, Akihabara is the munincipal equivalent of LSD in terms of sensory overload (not that I would know). The streets are filled with neon signs, blaring loudspeakers, flashing displays, music cranked to the highest decibel and girls in French maid outfits. Wait, what? Yes, somewhere along the way, Japan decided that it was a) obsessed with Paris and b) obsessed with servility in women and the two have happily combined in the French Maid Cafe phenomenon. At a number of fine establishments in Akihabara, you can indulge in your wildest fantasy of being served and pampered with French maids. They will greet you as master or mistress, cater to your whims and serve you overpriced coffee. I thought about going into one, then decided that it wasn't worth waiting in the line spilling out the door.

I'd been expecting more cosplayers, but instead there were French maids on every corner.

The sign is hard to read, but these girls (and a dude??) are advertising an opportunity to eat at the same table that the Backstreet Boys used for their music video "Bigger" (released on November 2).

Aside from French maid cafes, Akihabara is filled with electronics stores, vendors hawking duty-free items (some specialize in overseas models that will work abroad), and anime and manga media shops. My neurons were overloading. Ceramic knives! Rewritable Blu-Ray discs! Gorgeous, phenomenally crisp 60" TVs with resolutions better than my eyes (for the low, low price of ¥648,000)! Monitor cleaners shaped like a hamburger! Arcades filled with adolescent boys who looked like they hadn't showered in some time!

A capsule pod in an arcade, there is a list of machines that you can fight as.

I was really amused by this taiko drumming video game.

All right, focus Crystal, you don't really need a WiMax router. Or a USB key with a figurine attached that does crunches.

Akihabara's raunchier side also made its presence known from time to time. On more than one occasion, I would be browsing a perfectly respectable manga store, then go downstairs and suddenly notice that all the covers feature scantily clad, big-breasted women and that I was conspicuously the only female in the room. Or, I'd be drawn into a shop by a display of short skirts (I figure I can augment my collection of one). Then the next floor up would feature lingerie and vibrators, and the next floor up would feature clamps and dildos, then the next floor up would feature dolls...

Anyway, I was on a mission with this trip. After a lot of searching, I managed to find a copy of the first Cowboy Bebop album. It took me a while to realize CDs were being sorted alphabetically in hiragana, and even then, the first couple stores I tried didn't carry it. Then, I did some monster hunting for the Tokyo Anime Center, which turned out not to be on the main drag of Soto-Kanda. The Tokyo Anime Center is worth a short sidetrip though; I thought their selection of trinkets and paraphernalia was well-thought out compared to the average jam-packed store.

Several hours of browsing later, I was drained and ready to move elsewhere. Next up, the Asakusa Temple.

Navigating in Tokyo

2009-11-07T11:31:00.009-06:00

Unlike some classic cities laid out on grids (cough Chicago), Tokyo's addressing system has no rhyme or reason. Well, the addresses are given in terms of wards, chome (city district), block and building number. And the building numbers were given in the order of their constructions, so they are generally not consecutive (a lot of things were razed in the 1940s...). Wait, what? How the hell to the Japanese find anything around here? As it turns out, they do a fair amount of bumbling around too, but at least they speak and read Japanese. So, what's it like for a nearly illiterate gaijin (foreigner) to navigate the city? For an exercise in masochism, I decided to go to Kanda Soba Noodle (it was recommended by an article in Metropolis) armed with nothing but the address: 2-10 Kanda Awaji-cho and the recommended subway station (Ogawamachi). No maps, no directions, nada.

I stepped out of the Ogawamachi station on the Ginza line and immediately regretted my decision. Street signage was in Japanese and I had no idea which direction I was headed. Spotting a koban (police station), I waltzed in and asked, "Eigo o hanashimasu ka?" The two officers sitting behind the desk announced resolutely, "No Engrish." My heart sank. I gave them the address I was looking for and they managed to convey the general direction I should head. (Giving directions via charades is surprisingly difficult.) I walked off and soon found myself lost in another part of town. By this time, I'd started noticing the small green signs that denote chome on street light poles. Ok, I can just follow those because they're numbered consecutively right? 2-16, 2-20, 2-7, 2-8, 2-13...dammit. An hour or so passed and my frustration was rising.

As I stood on a corner with furrowed eyebrows, a woman approached me and asked if I needed help. I quickly explained that I was American and was a bit lost. "Ah, I thought you were Japanese!" "No, just Chinese and American," I said. "Do you know where Kanda Yabu Soba is?"
Her eyes immediately lit up and she grinned. "Ohh, Yabu Soba!!" she exclaimed, as she made eating motions with her hands. Within a few minutes, she walked me a couple blocks away, where she pointed to a sign with directions to the restaurant. I was pretty much kissing my knees bowing to thank her.

Following the signage on the street light poles, I soon came across a wooden fence and a woman vigorously hosing down the sidewalk. "Kanda Yabu Soba desu ka?" I asked. "Hai," the woman answered. However, the restaurant was closed for another hour. I groaned.

Conclusion: Print out maps of the places you're trying to find. Make sure major streets are marked in both Japanese and English. Learn how to understand directions in Japanese. And finally, check the hours of the business you are trying to find.

Engrish Signage of the Day

2009-11-06T08:23:00.004-06:00

Normally, with bad translations, I can at least guess the writer's intent, but here I am not so sure.

This isn't Engrish so much as something we beelined toward.

It's a Small World

2009-11-06T03:06:00.004-06:00

In less than 2 hours in Tokyo, I have already met a couple guys...from Chicago...and we have a friend in common (a Fed AE). Good thing I went halfway around the world to hang out with people who live in my state. Yay for not having Dinner for One tonight!

13 Hours is a Very Long Flight

2009-11-06T03:02:00.002-06:00

...but at least I met Steph, my new bff from Singapore and seatmate for the ORD-NRT leg of this trip! Normally, I don't make too strenuous an effort to talk to people on planes, but this time, after the round of courtesy pleasantries (are you coming or leaving/traveling for business or pleasure?), we kept the chatter going. She had just spent a week visiting Chicago and was now on her way home to Singapore. "So, what did you think?" I asked. "Ehh..." was the reply. Unfortunately, she had a pretty lousy week in the Windy City, since she was a) sick and b) staying in the 'burbs. "My friend had this bright idea to stay out in the suburbs, which meant it took an hour to get into the city every time, and cost about $15. Next time, I'm definitely staying in the city I'm visiting." Apparently, she'd visited mostly to experience Halloween, but they missed the train into and on weekends, Metra tends to run every 2 hours so...

"Ok, what did you like about chicago?" I asked. "THE POPCORN! I have TWO jumbo bags of the Garrett's cheese and caramel mix in my luggage. I was going to give one to friends but now I'm rethinking." I started chuckling. "Also, Denny's!" she continued. "And Taco Bell, it's so good!" We got into a discussion of Chicago's food highlights (you knew it was going there) and she did at least cover the basics (hot dogs and deep dish pizza) though she wasn't particularly impressed. "You know," I commented, "those are both well-known features of Chicago cuisine, but we actually have really great Mexican in this town too." I began raving about tamales and carnitas by the pound in Pilsen, freshly fried churros at Maxwell Street and Rick Bayless' haute Mexican. "Drat, I wish I had met you on the way here, rather than on the way back." Steph said sadly. The discussion then meandered onto durian ("ice cream is the best introduction"), what it's like to work in public relations ("sounds glamorous but in actuality a lot of sucking up"), and things that are illegal in Singapore (jaywalking, selling chewing gum though actually chewing it is not).

At this point, the flight attendants thought we were traveling together, and were giving us one menu to share and the same sets of customs cards. ("Wait, I'm not staying in Tokyo!")

A few potentially enlightening gleanings:

I'd never before thought of American fast food as a tourist draw, but in retrospect, it does deserve recognition for being widely accessible, consistent, cheap and most importantly, tasting good. Food snob though I may be, if it were no longer available, I would be clamoring for an Arby's roast beef and McDonald's fries like a kid at fat camp.

Though we may be typified abroad by the McDonald's arches, American cities are actually quite cosmopolitan. In Chicago, you can easily get excellent examples of French, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Cajun, Polish, etc. In contrast, Tokyo, with its population of 28 million, has woefully nonexistent Mexican food. This country is truly a melting pot and it's something to be proud of.

Steph's English was almost indistinguishable from the average American, save for a few Britishisms like "tea time" and "queue." Apparently, her parents raised her speaking English, and though Mandarin is compulsory in schools, she never learned it well and has forgotten the bulk of it. That surprised me, as it was the first country I'd heard of where the language of the colonizers has supplanted that of the natives.

Tokyo!

2009-11-04T17:43:00.001-06:00

Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants.

I know I've been pretty quiet lately (life has been busy), however, prepare to be deluged with posts in the next 10 days as I venture off to Japan and report to you guys on how life looks from the Future.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-01T01:00:00.006-05:00

Every year, Halloween brings out an endless slew of people dressed as strippers (an oxymoron, I know), Jesus, Mario, and slutty [insert symbol of innocence/normally staid occupation here]s. Though there were plenty of these haunting Chicago, overall, the quality of costumes seen this year was higher than last year, possibly because it was not an election year.

Somewhat surprisingly, I did not see a single Bernie Madoff or Kanye West costume. There were at least half a dozen people dressed as swine flu though, with padded stomachs and swirly tail accoutrements.

In no particular order, some of my favorite costumes this year included:

A guy dressed up as Chicago legend and Hot Doug's proprietor Doug Sohn accompanied by a girl dressed as a hot dog
Stunningly realistic Chicago parking meters, a fearsome sight indeed
Libyan Dictator Muammar Qaddafi/"part-time UN Secretary-General"
Quail Man, complete with tighty whities
Cereal Killer with bloodied cereal boxes and plastic knives stuck through them
A Bunch of Grapes (purple balloons in assorted sizes all over the body)
Vince from the Slap Chop infomercial, wielding a slap-chop and greasy hair
And finally, Redneck Siamese Twins. There are no words to explain this, so I'll just include the following picture. Yes, that is one pair of overalls. Watching them walk, or dance, or sit down was knee-slapping hilarious.

In the realm of conceptual costumes, I decided there was no way I'd be able to top last year's rendition of Picasso's Blue Period. So I went another route and decided to go as Gogo Yubari, the crazy Asian chick from Kill Bill. I collected a navy blazer, plaid skirt and white knee-length socks, and pinned the coat patch to the pocket. Then, I spent a while nailing a metal chain around a foil-wrapped styrofoam ball, studded with shish-kebab skewers painted silver. The resultant morning star was actually semi-dangerous; I kept accidentally stabbing myself with it all night.

Here, we have the illustrious Doug Sohn, myself, Haley (dressed as a Mii) and Britton (dressed as a "nurse").

Overheard in Chicago

2009-09-26T15:42:00.003-05:00

On Chicago's (perfect) grid system: "I was driving in Newark and got lost, so I pulled over at a Dunkin Donuts, hoping there would be a policeman around. Sure enough, there were four cops inside. They told me to go back out and take four rights...After I gave them a confused and quizzical look, they asked me, 'What's wrong?' I said, well, where I come from, taking four rights would put me exactly where I started! They said, 'No no, it doesn't work that way here. You must be from Chicago.'"

At the Culinary Historians meeting: "Our meeting today falls between the two high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippor, so I thought it'd be appropriate to mention that Jonathan Goldsmith is not only a certified pizzaiolo miaker, he is also a circumcised pizzaiolo maker, so you know he's a cut above the rest!"

Sweet Carolina

2009-09-12T11:19:00.000-05:00

The one thing North Carolina has in common with London is its fervent observation of God's day...MF and I were heartbroken when we got to Stamey's barbeque for lunch and found shuttered doors.

Erik and Ricky have been gone for less than two months, but as I regaled them with tales from Chicago, it felt like they'd missed out on light years of information. It's funny how we've gone from having a wholly shared experience for the last two years, to simply filling in and recapping the major highlights. It's even funnier how the Crew has carried on and revitalized in the aftermath of many departures.

Most of my social activities are spent with a nerdy, Fed-centric crowd, but hanging out with Erik's econ grad school buddies was a new level of nerd. At the James Joyce tavern, we debated the best version of Risk (Lord of the Rings?), the appropriate frequency of showering, and the greatness ordering of Mas-Colell, Green and Whinston (the authors of the seminal grad textbook in microeconomics).

The grad cohort appears to have self-segregated into study groups of Asians (both international and not), Mormons, and All Others. Apparently, there are strong ties between BYU and the econ department at Duke.

Finally, Cornell Plantations, move over. The South wins hands-down for the beauty of their gardens. I explored the Greensboro Arboretum, some parks, and the Duke Gardens while I was here, and the latter in particular was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Look at those giant lily pads! I wanted to curl up on a lily pad and take a nap.

Schwa

2009-08-26T00:29:00.003-05:00

Things I learned at Schwa tonight:

Bringing extra food for the chefs really, really pays off...
Dining on a Tuesday night means running into tons of luminaries from the Chicago restaurant scene (we saw people from the Publican, the Bristol, Grant Achatz from Alinea (!!)...)
The difference between a $20 meal and a $120 meal is the beer/rhubarb/methol crystal foam/smear/puree.
Anything deep fried tastes great. Anything topped with truffle (oil) tastes even better. Seriously, I'm going to start putting that shit on my rice crispies and Doritos.

Observations from My Old Kentucky Home

2009-08-18T22:09:00.000-05:00

Some assorted thoughts from the weekend...

I feel sad for people whose parents/grandparents can't cook because solid home-cooked meal >>> restaurant any day. When I decided to skip the bachelorette party at Buca di Beppo, my calculus was mostly influenced by the roast duck, bitter melon, salt & pepper shrimp, soy chicken wings, roasted pork belly, fish maw & egg drop soup, shiitake, scallop and broccoli stir fry, and almond tofu that my aunt was preparing for a typical Friday night dinner. I've also come to realize that my grandma is excellent at pickling things and making buns from scratch, and that none of the rest of us (including my mom) know how to do this. Is it too late to go back and learn?
For some reason, I can't help raising my voice about 40 decibels as soon as I'm in a room full of Chinese women. And you guys thought I was loud before.
Everyone and their mother was telling me that I've gotten thinner. Sure, I am in better shape than I was during college, mostly because of all the intracity biking, but I never made a conscious decision to lose weight. I mean, I even have a desk job now. This kind of makes me wonder how fat I was before.
Including the bride, there were 4 other girls in the bridal party. I liked precisely one of them. Well, the other two bridesmaids were nice enough, just a little too vanilla. On the other hand, my newfound bff Cat was wearing a Gryffindor hoodie when we met. Other ways to win my respect include: expressing admiration for the Cornell DC++ hub, bringing up the divorce court dance video after someone mentioned the (much ballyhooed) wedding entrance dance video.
I haven't kept in close touch with that many people from Louisville, but there were a couple that I would have wanted to call up. Unfortunately, I had zero free time/spent far too many hours in nail/hair salons over the weekend. So then, I just didn't tell people I was in town at all. Would it have better for me to say, "Want to come meet me in the parking lot of the temple? And bring food, please??"

How to Be the Worst Bridesmaid Ever

2009-08-16T22:51:00.006-05:00

It has been suggested that I write a book titled, "101 Ways to Destroy a Wedding, Tried and True." I don't think I succeeded in destroying this weekend's wedding (arguably for the best), however here is a quick list of ways to passive-aggressively suck at being a bridesmaid.

Wait till the last minute to pick up your dress. Announce that you seem to have gained/lost a lot of weight, but you're sure that you'll be able to lose/gain it back by the wedding date.
Have unpierced ears. Refuse to get them pierced when requested by the bride. When further pressed, flat out tell her there's no way in hell you'll wear clip-on earrings.
Skip the bridal shower.
Agree to come to the rehearsal dinner. Discover that attending would require taking two precious vacation days. Have your boss help you fake an email with new "last-minute" assignments. Skip the rehearsal dinner.
Pretend that traffic was really bad as you drove to town. Feign tiredness. Skip the bachelorette party.
The week before the wedding, announce that your car has broken down and they're having trouble getting the parts to replace it, but you're sure it'll be fixed in time so there's no need to look into rental cars. Don't pick up when the panicked bride begins calling twice a day to check on the status of your car.
Acquire interesting tan lines over the summer. My personal favorites include Sports Bra, Birkenstock, Watch and Backpack. Bonus points if you can tan in messages like "Divorce Rate = 50%."
Pick up the (unlabeled) wedding favors (tea packets). Ask, "What is this? Is it a moist toilette? Or a condom?"
Get an expensive manicure with the bridal party. Casually flick your hand into a fan, thereby chipping a nail within 5 minutes of the completion of your manicure.
Go to an 8 am hair/make-up appointment. Blink furiously every time the mascara wand gets within a foot of your eyeball. Refuse to put on fake eyelashes.
Be ravenously hungry post-make-up-ing. (The other girls curiously seem to insist that they're full from last night's dinner.) Start eating the muffins that the bride's mother brought, and thereby smudge and remove a good deal of lip gloss and powder.
Wear a shirt with a tight collar to the hair salon. Struggle to get it over your hair when changing into your bridesmaid dress. The dislodged curls will add a desirable wind-tousled effect.
Forget to shave your legs.
And armpits.
Acquire several large mosquito bites on your arms the night before. Scratch vigorously. The redness of the bites will help bring out the red in your dress.
Think about the paltry breakfast and zero lunch you've had. Growl your stomach loudly during the ceremony. Think about how the reception has no food (except cake) and no open bar. Growl some more.
Lock your knees while standing behind the altar. Pass out dramatically and divert all attention towards you.
Take off your heels as soon as the ceremony is over and walk around in bare feet during the reception.
While in the receiving line, point and whisper loudly, "Wait, is that the groom's sister? The one who tried to break up this engagement?"
After the best man gives an engaging toast to the groom, stare blankly and opt out of giving a toast for the bride.
The night before, help choreograph a routine to "Dancing Queen" for the reception. During the performance, change your steps just enough to make the rest of the group question if they're wrong, e.g. start on the other foot or face the opposite direction.

And now, because "pics or it didn't happen," here's me painfully awake at said 8 am hair appointment:

Things that I have acquired today

2009-07-31T00:11:00.004-05:00

Wedding present for Emily: matching Woot Shirts. Normally this kind of thing would make me gag, and I have no idea if she + hubby would actually wear them, but I don't really care because this present amuses me. The Suess-y artwork is also a plus. Besides, I never buy gifts from the registry. Other items I was considering include a bloodied chef's knife and tickets to the Louisville production of A Chorus Line (the Oct run is not on sale yet, wtf).

Google Voice number: In case you haven't been following this, in an ever onward quest to take over the world, Google is moving into phone and voicemail services. You can get a phone number through Google and link your mobile/cell/office number to this number, then tell your contacts to call the Google Voice number. This thereby frees you to switch numbers as you please, and you could foreseeably use this phone number for the rest of your life. I finally got an invitation to set up a gVoice number, and then faced the quandary of what to choose for my number. Like any good nerd, I started looking for numbers like 314-1592. Unfortunately, all the good variations of pi, e and the golden ratio appeared to be taken. There were also no numbers with the words "crystal," "cyclist" or "foodie." So, then I typed in:
True, it is a dirty Jersey area code, but this was better than being stuck with something from say, Wyoming or Mississippi.

Plane tickets to Tokyo: Singapore Air is doing a special on roundtrip airfare to Tokyo from LAX for $473. Yeah, that's right. Somehow in the last 24 hours after Liz discovered this deal, we managed to convince ourselves that not taking advantage of this sale would be a travesty, and perhaps even a crime. So, we'll be trekking to Tokyo and Kyoto in November. I've already got my "Japanese in 30 Days" phrase book. Fugu, here we come!

Zombies Attack Chicago!

2009-07-27T07:27:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, Wicker Park played host to a massive band of roving zombies. The horde of undead had collectively risen and come out for a Michael Jackson Thriller Zombie Walk, an event one part flash mob, one part killer dance moves, one part gore. When Melissa jokingly suggested going ("Check out this facebook event...not to say that we should go"), my only question was, "Why aren't we going?" So on Sat night, I found myself in a bathroom, dousing my hair with talcum powder and applying circles under my eyes with the appropriate rest-in-unpeace zeal. The end result looked something like this:

To further prepare, I also spent some time analyzing the Thriller dance. Actually, there seems to be a cottage industry of instructional videos that show you how to get the perfect blend of Jackson-finesse and jutting, angular movements. My personal favorite was this 80s (parody?) video of "Totally Rad Dances with Dancing Kim," in which the narrator talks about how the Thriller dance is "totally cool" and she is "totally obsessed" with it. If you are looking for a more accurate version of the choreography though, I recommend this 40-part video series with helpful mnemonics for each dance move. I can now do the March Booty Swim!

At this point we were running 15 minutes late, and racing to get to the meeting point of Wicker Park. I mentally surveyed our options for the rest of the night should we not find the zombie horde; what bars could we hang out inconspicuously at with outstretched claws?

Luckily, as we were walking down Damen, we were greeted with the sound of howls and screams in the night. All of the sudden, we were in the midst of a mass of people who looked something like this:

There were definitely a few confused pedestrians who got caught in the zombie invasion. One guy said to his friend, "And this is why we live in the suburbs." (Then he pretty much put on a shirt that said "I am a square.") Actually, the event invitation made sure to emphasize a few ground rules, the first one being "No touching of pedestrians!" Also, "Do not drip blood on the sidewalks!"

We continued down Ashland towards the Polish Triangle, hooting at cab drivers, banging fists on bus windows and reaching outstretched claws to people who had otherwise been having a peaceful al fresco dinner. At first, we tried to stay on the sidewalks, but as the crowds grew in size and unruliness, the zombie mob ended up blocking street traffic and intersections. It was like being at Critical Mass, only with fewer bikes and more blood. (Wait, scratch that, there's plenty of blood at Critical Mass too.) And for hipster-approved Irony, there was even an Anti-Zombie Task Force of people clothed in black leather waving batons, trying to arrest and control the zombie horde.

After looping back to the Damen/Milwaukee intersection, we milled around in front of the Wicker Park Fest stage, until a security guard tried to shoo us out of the street. Someone muttered, "Yeah? There's 700 of us and we don't have to go anywhere!" Then, a bike with a stereo system trailing it pulled up to the front of the crowd, and on cue, we all began to dance.

Dancing to Thriller in the middle of the moonlit street in sync with hundreds of people dressed up as zombies was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

At the end of the night, it was pointed out to me in the middle of 7-11 that there was a bloody hand print on the back of my shirt. Grr, and I really liked this shirt too! If it doesn't come out in the wash, I am going to personally hunt down the perpetrator and make them wish they were undead. I have no idea when it happened or who did it (was it the guy that I gave a fake name to?), but let's just say the Thriller Zombie Walk left an indelible imprint on my life.

To the Southside and Back

2009-07-18T00:07:00.006-05:00

There are those who look at me and see a smallish Asian girl, with glasses and an air-conditioned desk job, and might be inclined to think that I am far from being a locked out gangsta, set trippin' banger. Well, I am here to disabuse you of the notion that I have no street cred, because I have officially seen the Southside of Chicago. And I don't mean Kenwood (where the Obama home is) or Hyde Park (Univ. of Chicago hosts the nation's largest private police force). I crossed the Midway Plaisance and survived, with all vital organs intact and no wallets mugged.

I only have anecdotal evidence for this, but I assert that the city of Chicago is the most racially segregated in the country. It is absurd how neighborhoods on the Northside seemingly have no minority residents, while large swaths of the South and West sides are essentially black and Hispanic ghettos. There is essentially no mixed housing. In addition, public transportation routes are designed in such a way that traveling to and from the Southside is time-consuming and difficult. Chicago's local government being what it is, I have no doubt that this was purposely done by the political powers that be, to further separate and divide the city. Needless to say, nice girls generally do not travel to the Southside on a lark. Then, what on earth was I doing there?

The adventure started when I kept reading about Soul Vegetarian East, an old restaurant on the Southside run by Black Hebrew Israelites and specializing in vegan cooking. I mean, given the rarity of vegetarian restaurants in Chicago, and the allure of alt-history religious trappings, how could you resist this combination? Besides, the menu was predominantly soul food, and I was curious as to how well you could possibly do soul food sans meat or butter.

Somehow I was able to convince Katherine and Melissa that this was worth a trip to 75th St. Moreover, I suggested a post-dinner trip to Rainbow Cone, another traditional Southside institution. This is at 92nd and Western, which under normal circumstances is not particularly close. However, since we were already that far south and probably never returning again, this would really be the only opportunity we'd have to see it. Oh, and remember how public transportation sucks in this area? Since getting from Soul Vegetarian to Rainbow Cone would require a ridiculous number of buses and transfers, we opted to bike the 6-mile distance in between. After dark, on a weekend night: the prime time for gang-related violence. Ain't no thang.

Over the course of the journey, heads turned at the sight of three young, non-black women pedaling bikes down the street. We were asked where we had come from, as if people wanted to make sure we weren't lost. One woman stopped in the middle of crossing the street and yelled at us, "Ya'll be careful now!" We thanked her as we sped past. One man tried to reverse-racially profile us, and berated us as being University of Chicago students who were about to "go back to Hyde Park and sit on the internet." Suffice it to say, we stuck out like the Rocky Mountains. All this for some ice cream.

I will say that though I never felt threatened, I often felt uncomfortable, and I've done some searching as to why. Was it because I wasn't used to being in an all-black neighborhood? Would I have felt as uneasy in Humboldt Park (a predominantly Puerto Rican area)? We biked through some parts of Chatham, home to the infamous Roland Burris and according to Wikipedia, predominantly middle-class. The streets were quiet and lined with one-story bungalows, much like any other neighborhood, and yet I still fought to quell panic whenever a car slowed beside us, or someone passed next to us on the sidewalk. How does it feel to be a young black male walking around say, Winnetka (a wealthy northern suburb)? Has there ever been a case of reverse white-flight, where whites moved into minority neighborhoods en masse?

Then suddenly, as we crossed to the other side of the railroad tracks, 95th Street suddenly became "safe." Words cannot express the wave of relief I felt as a Borders, Panera Bread and Gamestop came into view. We were in Beverly, a heavily Irish-American neighborhood, home of the annual Southside St. Patrick's Day Parade and Chicago's 3rd highest median income. Rainbow Cone was frequented by a diverse crowd of middle-aged parents with small children, goth teens and blue-collar men. The suburban normality was jarring.

Here's the route we took last night from Soul Vegetarian to Rainbow Cone. Total distance: 5.6 miles. In retrospect, it would've been shorter to take 87th street west, but then we would have missed the scenic part of Halsted and 95th...The colored flags indicate locations of murders in Chicago in 2009 thus far. You can also see that our end point at Rainbow Cone is in a decently well-to-do neighborhood, across the street from a country club.

Getting home posed another problem as none of us were particularly keen on biking all the way back north. The closest train station was the red line 95th/Dan Ryan stop, the southern terminus of the line. For those unfamiliar with Chicago, I will mention that prior to this, the only first-hand story I'd heard about the 95th St stop was from JT, who said that she'd fallen asleep and mistakenly gotten off there once. After leaving the station, she tried to bolt into the McDonald's across the street in a panic. Unfortunately, it was the type of McDonald's where customers have to be buzzed into the restaurant. The clerks behind the counter were ROFLing at the sight of this clearly lost white girl.

Putting that aside, we gamely opted to bike to the 95th station, and had crossed back over into the seedier side of town when my bike rolled over a thin sheet of metal with a loud pop. Egads, a flat tire. I had a spare tube and pump on me, so I could have tried fixing it, but this wasn't exactly the type of location I wanted to linger in. We decided to simply walk the rest of the way to the station, and luckily this only turned out to be three or so blocks. Somehow, being on a moving bike makes me feel invincible while I feel completely vulnerable as a pedestrian. In retrospect, I really should have brought my pepper spray.

I've no regrets about exploring the Southside, however with the amount of unsolicited attention we attracted, it would be foolhardy to go back again. It amazes me that one of the richest neighborhoods in Chicago is separated by the thinnest of margins from super sketchy, impoverished urban blight. Beverly is surrounded by predominantly black neighborhoods that were predominantly white until the '60s. Why was this neighborhood able to hold on to its white population?

And for reference, this is the full map of YTD 2009 homicides in Chicago. From the map, it is clear that incidents happen disproportionately on the south and west sides of the city.

Dell Vostro 1520

2009-07-13T20:42:00.002-05:00

I've been putting this off for a while now, but I finally sat down and bought a new laptop. My current computer (Dell Inspiron 5100) is now a Triassic 6 years old, so I figure I've gotten my money's worth, and can afford to move on to something that doesn't have a panic attack under the duress of Photoshop. No, I didn't cave; I am still Mac product-free.

The new Dell Vostro 1520 goes something like this: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz, 3 gb ram, Nvidia Geforce 9300m 256 mb video card, 250 gb 7200 rpm hard drive, 15.4" display, DVD burner, webcam, laptop bag included. It comes with Windows XP Professional installed with Vista cds and Windows 7 upgrade rights, so I can upgrade if/when I want to. (I know, if I were cooler, I'd be running solely Linux. Yeah, yeah.) The outside of the case is cherry red, which is my new favorite color. (Or not. I didn't have another option.) With various sales and other discounts, the whole shebang set me back $746 + tax. This is about 33% off the amount I paid for my last laptop, or an even steeper discount if you account for inflation.

It feels weird not to have a browser history, almost as if a good chunk of my past and my identity has just been wiped out. In the meantime, I am still soliciting ideas for a new desktop wallpaper (so far, suggestions have included Naruto, two votes for Bruno, and digital abstract). As a stopgap measure, I am currently using chef Philip Foss' photo of a mussel, which may or may not be in good taste. (I did find Bruno hilarious, after all.)

The Times They Are A Changin'

2009-07-12T09:35:00.002-05:00

-By the end of July, four of my closest friends in Chicago will have moved out of town.
-They will be replaced by new hires, some of whom were born in 1988.
-That seems ridiculously young somehow.
-I am anxious.
-"All" my friends are leaving me behind.
-Is this what it feels like to stay in Ithaca for life?
-If you had asked me at graduation to predict which of my college relationships would strengthen/weaken in the future, many of my predictions would have been wrong.
-Yet I am still fairly confident in my estimates for what will happen with the four people mentioned above. Perhaps this is simply hubris on my part.
-I met two new people last night.
-One of them was an ABC girl, the first one I've met in Chicago, oddly enough.
-In the last week, one of the Fed AEs got engaged
-While another couple broke up.
-I have completed my second year in Chicago.
-It comforts me that I know the city like the back of my hand.
-The thought of starting anew in a new location is daunting.
-I have been reading Fuchsia Dunlop's memoirs of traveling to China as the first Westerner to study at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine.
-She managed to barge her way into kitchens, hearts and "forbidden zones" like Tibet through sheer chutzpah and tenacity.
-I know what I want, but I don't know how to get there.
-I want to go skydiving.

Today's Department Meeting Agenda

2009-07-01T17:48:00.002-05:00

Kumbaya Sing Along*
Introductions
United Way Fundraiser
Project 26
Regulatory Reform Proposal

*Gotcha...yes, this is a joke!

Chicago's "Tour Da Lakefront" Challenge

2009-06-28T15:36:00.003-05:00

Once again, Chicago Park District is sponsoring a "Tour Da Lakefront" biking challenge this summer, from Memorial to Labor Day. The idea is to encourage people to bike the length of the lakefront bike path (or most of it), from Rainbow Park on (3111 E. 77th) to Margate Fieldhouse (4921 N. Marine). You check-in at one end of the trail to get a time stamp, then you have to present your card at the other end of the trail within 3 hours. Though the 18-mile length may seem intimidating, 3 hours is actually more than enough time to get from one end to the other. (Depending on traffic/wind speed, I generally bike 16-18 mph.) For your efforts, you will receive a free t-shirt and the satisfaction of knowing you've seen more of Chicago's lakefront than 95% of the population.

Now, this is fine and dandy, though I am a little worried that we are encouraging newbs to bike more on Chicago's most congested bike path. This can only cause additional biker rage. Also, as a purist, I feel that people should be forced to bike to the northern terminus of the lakefront trail (at Hollywood, another mile north), or you're not biking the entire length. However, I suppose that Margate Fieldhouse is the most convenient check-in point in the area.

Moving on. Though I've biked the lakefront path many times, I never got around to formally doing the "Tour Da Lakefront" challenge last summer. So, I decided to do it today, while attempting to improve the state of my tan lines. (My back pretty much has all of Michael Jackson's skin tones. Too soon?) I called Margate Fieldhouse to make sure they were open on Sundays, and they told me that the Rainbow Beach office was actually closed for the day, so I could bike north and check-in (by 4:30 pm), but if I biked south, it'd be purely for kicks and giggles. Fair enough. I didn't really care where I checked-in because I planned to bike both legs to get home.

A little over an hour later, I presented myself at Margate Fieldhouse. (Exit at Lawrence and take your first right to get there.) There were plenty of t-shirts left, though they were mostly in large sizes. After a bit of rummaging, the lady was able to find a medium, which of course, still looks ludicrously large on me. Oh well, I no longer have a dearth of cyling t-shirts in my wardrobe!

On the Chicago Food Blogosphere

2009-06-24T23:08:00.006-05:00

Tonight, for the first time, I went out with a bunch of Chicago-area food bloggers. I imagine this is what it feels like to discover that other people share a weird fetish of yours on the internet (cough, FA). Though we spanned a large range of ages and professions, we were all united in our love for 1) food and 2) the internet.

About eight of us gathered downtown for a promotional event (few things makes me happier than several rounds of great food and drinks on the house), armed with notepads, cameras and lots of opinions. I briefly mentioned having been in London and Paris last week, and was immediately bombarded with questions. "Where did you eat? Oh, you went to Brick Lane? Awesome, we did too! Oh oh, I know a great place for fish and chips...you went to Rock & Sole Plaice? That's my favorite place for fish and chips! But never mind London, tell us about Paris..."

Twitter follows were promised. Podcast previews were offered. The competitive sport of the night was Guess the Next Hot Food Trend (pork belly, out; ramps, in?) and What's the Last Restaurant You Ate At (my answer: TAC Quick). "Oh, I went there but I ordered the wrong thing!" someone would say. "I hate when that happens!" three other people would blurt out. We all sipped our wine and commiserated.

The highlight of the night was when someone mentioned the Chicago Fed, and I said, "Oh, I work for the research department!" "No way, really? I worked there until about a year ago! It's good to know there's another food blogger at the Fed." A discussion of all our mutual colleagues ensued, gossip on people's weddings, etc. It is indeed a small world after all.

After a heated discussion on the merits of the meat dress and the bacon bra, I heaved a satiated sigh, and headed for the door. Is the NYT still hiring to replace Frank Bruni??

Deflationary Donations

2009-06-20T09:39:00.003-05:00

Last June, after donating $25 to Cornell (directed to the Cornell Chimes fund), I decided I could commit myself to donating $25 every year in perpetuity. Furthermore, to make sure my gift would maintain the same buying power over time, this amount would be adjusted each year to account for inflation.

Well, BLS has just released the CPI numbers for the month of May, so I did some quick math to calculate my annual contribution to Cornell:

$25 in 2008 dollars * 213.856 (May '09 CPI-U, all items) / 216.632 (May '08 CPI-U) = $24.68 in 2009 dollars

Ah, deflation. Thank you, Helicopter Ben!

I can't wait to get my letter from President David Skorton thanking me for my $24.68 donation this year.

Living Across the Pond, or "I'm never staying in a hostel again!"

2009-06-18T19:07:00.015-05:00

Fifth and final post in a series of posts about Europe

As I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, I loudly exclaimed, "Man, I could really go for a bagel right now. Have they got those here?" Megan replied, "That sounds delish. Screw this, let's go back to New York." Two people immediately turned their heads and gaped at us agog.

In all seriousness though, for all the idolatry we accord to Europe, the U.S. and NYC have plenty to offer. Why then, should I traipse all the way across an ocean to a country where my dollars suddenly have 2/3 of their original buying power? Well, for the moment, let me wax on like one of Those People who studied abroad and say that it forever changed their lives: Visiting another country completely brought me out of my isolationist shell, and opened my eyes to the possibilities of an alternate worldview. I now understand much more clearly the hurdles facing diverse policymakers, and the gains to be won through greater international cooperation.

Eh, who are we kidding? You should go to Europe for the pretentious bragging rights, end of story. In case you are interested though, I did learn a thing or two across the pond.

Space is a luxury: Okay, this is also true of NY and any other US city. But overall, we are accustomed to bigger closets, bigger rooms and bigger cars, while there must not be any claustrophobic people in Europe. Our accommodations in London were at the Clink hostel, adroitly named because it was a former jail. We were assigned a "cell" and though living in a prison cell sounded cool in theory, in practice it would be uncomfortably cozy for three people with luggage. When we saw the size of the room, Megan exclaimed, "I'm never staying in a hostel again!." (To which Matt and I said, "So...tube hotel in Japan?") We immediately established a house rule that if anyone needed to do #2, they should feel free to ask the rest of us to leave the room. The only way to wash my face in the narrow sink basin was to squeeze my head under the shelf. There was nowhere you could possibly sit or stand comfortably while in the room.

Actually, given the savings, I'm a little surprised that there isn't more of a market for cheap, hostel-type accommodations in the U.S. There are a handful of hostels in major cities, but for the most part, we expect and demand at minimum enough space to walk around the bed. Parking was similarly tight, and I saw cars hitting other bumpers regularly. Smart cars abounded; I am curious as to whether these will take off in the US, given that they would be perceived unsafe in accidents with SUVs on the road.
Biking culture is thriving: Again, no surprise here, given the constraints on parking, space and the price of petrol. Both cities had bike lanes marked on main thoroughways, and plenty of commuters using them. I was disappointed to see that many of Paris' bike lanes were actually on sidewalks though. This is much less safe than incorporating bike lanes into roads, and significantly increases the probability of accidents (albeit with pedestrians rather than cars). In contrast, London's bike lanes were clearly marked and always in traffic. Plus, we even caught the tail end of the London Naked Bike Ride. I thought about renting a bike for a spell in London, but decided it'd be too difficult to navigate on the left side of the road, since I could barely understand the flow of traffic as a pedestrian. Luckily, London marks its intersections with handy directions:
The London Tube is the greatest public transportation system. Ever: The Underground is a marvel of engineering and a thing of beauty, and if I were an objectum sexual, I would marry it. It is clean and fast, with clear signage, broad coverage and a sophisticated, low-cost pricing scheme. It is superior to any other train system I have seen, particularly compared to Paris' Metropolitan system, which was an abysmal wreck of smelly, slow trains with confusing signage. Also, you have multiple options for free newspapers near tube stops. I was a big fan of the London Lite, and was able to keep up with my Obama news that way. (Michelle, Sasha and Malia were visiting at the same time we were.)
Just how amazing is the tube? It is so amazing that even when the tube is supposed to be on strike, they were still running several lines and we were able to take the train home. Perhaps they should take a lesson from France. Tube, 1 - Labor union, 0.
Rational pricing schemes for beverages: We were sort of up in arms over the price of soda (Matt paid €6 for a Fanta), but I could get a mojito for €3,50 or a glass of wine for €2-3. Upon second thought though, this makes sense because an abundance of wine is locally produced, and corn production (and high fructose corn syrup) is not heavily subsidized the way it is in the U.S. In fact, I would be strongly in favor of raising the price of soda in this country and getting rid of these corn subsidies because it would limit soda consumption and be a boon to public health.
Despite concerted efforts to meet locals, you will attract the attention of every other American within earshot: Over the course of the trip, we met people from diverse nationalities such as Connecticut, Virginia, Philly, Chicago. One night, we ventured to a gay bar in Marais, where there was only one table available...and the occupant was a gay man from Alabama. He helpfully gave us advice on places to shop in Paris, and raved about the French police. "Mmm, they are sooo hot!" Further, you will speak with your fellow Americans and conclude how banal and un-unique your trip is, since you've been visiting the exact same places.

There is nothing to do in Paris besides people-watch: All right, not entirely true, but since we didn't speak the language (ruling out the theater options that we'd had in London), after exhausting our list of monuments to see, we were at a bit of a loss over what to do on Friday night. Out of energy and money, we plopped down on a bench in the Latin Quarter next to a fountain and people-watched. And by that, I mean, other people snapped pictures of us (we're pretty darn multiculturally picturesque, I must say). Then, by perfect chance, Matt and Allison walked by (a couple tourists that we'd met in London). We marveled over the coincidence and then talked about spending the day at the Louvre. (See #5.)

Overall, I must say that though I liked both cities, London edges out Paris for its superior public transportation system, cleanliness and diversity. Paris bests its British counterpart with superior food, scenery and cheap alcohol, though the price of nearly everything else is exorbitant.

Food and Drink, or "I'll have the jalfrezi muffin please."

2009-06-17T18:46:00.003-05:00

Fourth in a series about Europe

Given their stature in classical gastronomy, I had very high hopes for Parisian cuisine and figured that the Brits would, erm, come through with a good ale or two. For the most part, these assumptions were accurate, with Paris serving up consistently excellent meals with London dining being a bit spottier. At any rate, I proudly waved my tourist flag and took photos of most of my meals (who wants to see the Eiffel Tower when you can look at this gorgeous steak tartare?). Without further ado:

We begin on the Aer Lingus flight across the Atlantic, where passengers were offered the scintillating choice of chicken or beef. The beef ravioli seemed like it could be the riskier choice, but after overhearing from a stewardess that the beef was better, I decided to take a gamble. Here we have a pretty decent carton of ravioli topped with cheese, a roll, a side salad, a piece of cheesecake, and a plastic cup of water. I was so hungry by this point that everything tasted terrific, and I was only slightly bothered by the way the ravioli pieces had all stuck together. After finishing my meal, I proceeded to carefully stack and place everything on the tray into the ravioli tin. When the flight attendant came by to pick it up, she exclaimed, "This is the tidiest tray I've ever seen! I wish they were all as neat as you."

Our free breakfast at the Clink hostel consisted of toast and the worst cereal I have ever had in my life. They had combined rolled oats with some cocoa crispies and other stuff, which resulted in a not quite granola, not quite oatmeal amalgamation. Plus, the milk was warm and tasted like 10%. At least they had a nice, tart blackcurrant jelly.

London definitely wins over Paris for greater diversity of food offerings. Though the restaurant scene is dominated by pubs serving pies and chips, Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants abounded on every street corner. Pictured above is the commonly seen genre of Sushi Deli Cafe. If I had more time, I would have definitely tried eating at Wok in a Box, purely for the ingenuity of the name.

Haché Burger in Camden Market bills itself as London's favorite burger (as awarded by TimeOut London) and offers a menu of upscale burgers. The name comes from bœuf haché, or ground beef in French. I tried the Steak Catalan burger, topped with chorizo, chili and tomato jam. Not surprisingly, ketchup was not provided though we had three kinds of mustard. Matt was upset.

Aside from the usual clothing and trinkets stalls, Camden Market has a few fresh fruit and produce vendors. Since the prices are in £/kg, I couldn't gauge how expensive items were in comparison to the U.S. Having eaten mostly carbs nonstop for the trip, Megan and I decided to indulge in something healthy for a change, and grabbed peaches for 20p each.

Camden Market has dozens of food stalls, each one wafting lip-smacking aromas and often passing out free samples. Within five yards, you could pick up all manner of Indian, Thai and Moroccan food for dirt cheap. Even the faux (Britishized?) Chinese food looked delicious.

Brick Lane is the hot spot for London's Indian and South Asian restaurants, or as they call it, the place to go for "currying." Each restaurant is manned outside by a host of sorts, who will try to twist your arm and convince you to come to his restaurant. They are incredibly persistent, almost to the point of being intimidating. In speech after speech, we were regaled with the awards that each restaurant had won, the luminaries who had dined there previously, the specials for the day (only £7.95 for 3 courses!), and oh yes, we would even get a free round of drinks.

Earlier, we'd stopped to ask someone for directions, and the guy recommended that we eat at Cafe Bangla. Unfortunately, as we approached the restaurant and patiently waited for their doorman to give us a spiel, he turned away and walked inside. Poppycock, we refuse to dine at a restaurant that isn't throwing specials at us! So, we went two doors down to the restaurant billing itself as Prince Charles' favorite. Upon being seated, we learned that the round of free drinks did not include alcoholic drinks, and that rice/naan counted as one of our three courses. Ah well.

Matt had been making a fuss over not liking Indian food (some lame story about food poisoning), but we decided to ignore his grumblings and drag him along, reasoning that he could go for something tame on the menu, like mango chicken. After Megan and I carefully negotiated what we were jointly ordering and splitting (tandoori chicken, vegetable curry, lamb naan, a curry with lychee, coconut rice), we asked Matt what he planned to get. "I think I'll order the jalfrezi," he responded. "Wait, what? The jalfrezi?" said Megan. "Not to doubt you, but that is one of the spiciest dishes on the menu! Are you sure??" Matt sniffed and said hotly, "I can handle spicy foods! Look, this one's listed as very hot, so it's not even as bad as this dish which is listed as extremely hot." Our server approached and as I ordered the (mild) fruity curry and coconut rice, he definitely gave me an "aww, coconut rice, that's cute" kind of smirk. On the other hand, as Matt ordered the jalfrezi, the server gave him an "Ooh, badass!" kind of wink. Harumph.

The food turned out to be not very spicy at all, and even the jalfrezi was probably only a 3 on the Taste of Thai scale. Overall, a bit disappointing and not one of the best Indian meals I've had. Perhaps Cafe Bangla doesn't need to exhort customers to come inside for a reason?

As we walked down the street after dinner, we continued to be accosted by Indian men demanding that we try their restaurant. "No thanks, we've already had dinner," we said. "Come have another!" they would reply.

Further down the street was an Indian confectionary shop, the first one I've ever been inside. The proprietor helpfully gave us suggestions on what to try. Unfortunately, I can't remember the names of the items he pointed out.

For the most part, everything we tried tasted like a variant on halvah, a dense, chalky sweet with origins in the Middle East, made with a semolina or tahini base.

In Paris, I ordered a croque-monsieur for my first meal. Essentially, this is a hot ham and cheese sandwich with a strong Emmental on top. It was a heart attack on a plate, and the cheesiest thing I've eaten since Hot Truck. In the background, you can see the bottle of Perrier that I ordered by accident. Later, I would be sure to insist upon un carafe de l'eau non-gazeuse.

I gamely ordered the steak tartare at the Café de la Musique (where we thought there would be live jazz, but Fodor's once again proved to be wrong). Yes, that is raw beef. And it was delicious, especially when spread upon toast like a paté. I tried to argue that eating raw beef was no different than eating sushi, but somehow this wasn't logical to the rest of the group. To the naysayers who said I would come down with mad cow disease, I am still quite hale and hearty, and intend to live long enough to try fugu in Japan. Besides, in the spectrum of wacky foods, I still think the maggot-infested casu marzu cheese is far worse.

We ventured to Le Refuges des Fondues for dinner in Montmartre, where they had no qualms about handing us lots of wine while seated next to cauldrons of bubbling oil and cheese. Megan had inordinate amounts of difficulty getting the meat to stay on her fondue fork (it kept sticking to the bottom of the pot), and eventually gave up and stuck to the bread and cheese.

Megan feeding Matt a piece of bread since they were in a "relationship" at this point

One of Matt's earliest discoveries was the café chocolat viennois, or Insanely Decadent coffee with chocolate shavings and a ginormous pile of whipped cream. After ordering this, he attracted a number of stares from neighboring tables.

Our hotel in Paris did not include breakfast, so every morning we went around the corner to this boulangerie, where I would pick up my pain au fromage. Luckily, our bakers were quite patient as we stumbled over our orders with badly pronounced French. As soon as I got home, I went to the store and bought a baguette, but it wasn't nearly as good.

I didn't get a chance to try any of the pastries, but they looked quite tasty.

Matt will attest that the chocolate croissants are awesome as well.

Outside of Versailles, we had lunch at a crêperie. The menu was divided into sections for crêpes and galettes, and I was under the impression that a galette was more of a tart, the way that a fruit galette is a tart using pâte brisée. Megan wanted a savory crêpe, but since the crêpe section only listed sweet toppings, she ended up ordering a crêpe topped with nuts and ice cream. As it turns out, galette can also refer to a savory crêpe made with buckwheat batter. Oops. Pictured above is my ratatouille galette, filled with a tomato-based vegetable stew. For the rest of the afternoon, we teased Megan about ordering an ice cream sundae for lunch.

Marais is both the gay district and the Jewish quarter in Paris. We'd heard that L'As du Falafel makes a mean falafel pita, and it was indeed delicious, a colorful sandwich of falafel, red cabbage, cucumber and tahini sauce. Their hand-pressed (and pricey) lemonade is also supposed to be excellent. Too bad they brought the lemonade at the very end of the meal without so much as a word of apology, which infuriated Megan to no end. She spent the next hour fuming about how she would've given our server a piece of her mind if she spoke French. Parisian restaurants, 2 - Megan, 0.

Back in London, we went to Costa's Cafe for lunch. The first time we tried to eat there, we were starving and barged in without noticing that workmen were laying tiles on the ground. "Can't you see that we're closed??" they barked. This second attempt was a bit more successful, I daresay. Megan ordered an avocado club sandwich, which looked more like a party tray. Sadly, she was unable to finish it.

My vegetable omelet sandwich was also pretty expansive, and at £3.50, great bang for the pound. If I lived in the neighborhood, I'd come here every day.

Passing through a street market with food stalls immediately after lunch, I felt pangs of regret that we hadn't come here instead. They had a 4-foot pan of seafood paella! And tons of local cheeses, jams and pastries! I held back and unnecessarily bought only one item, arancini (fried risotto balls) served with chili sauce. The sauce was actually one of the best chili sauces I've ever had, sort of a mixture of basil pasta sauce and Sriracha.

Our last supper was at the Rock and Sole Plaice, one of Erik's recommendations. (The punny name is an added bonus.) This outfit specializes in fish & chips, and you can choose from half a dozen types of fish, including cod, halibut, rock and skate. A piping hot styrofoam carton filled with a large battered fish fillet and potato wedges was handed to me. Mmm, I began to understand the British obsession with fish and chips. Doused with a generous sprinkling of salt and vinegar, there was no need to add tartar sauce or any other condiments. Is this where the salt & vinegar chip flavor originated from?

French Museums, or "We're Racking Up Life Points!"

2009-06-16T07:15:00.002-05:00

Third entry in a series of posts about vacay in Europe

Continuing on from London, we took the Eurostar across the Channel to explore Paris. When we arrived, it was drizzling and gloomy, so we decided to make the best of the situation and headed to the Louvre.

The Louvre is an enormous building, and definitely the largest art museum I have ever stepped foot in. Here, you can see one side of the Louvre, photographed from the other side, with the landscaped glass atrium in the center.

We immediately set off for the Mona Lisa, but en route, a museum security guard suddenly waved us back. "S'il vous plaît, nous avons cherché un objet suspicieux." They had found a suspicious object and we weren't allowed to proceed any further. I checked to make sure that I hadn't dropped my bag somewhere unattended.

Foiled, we next set off to find the Venus de Milo. I am still unsure as to the artistic significance of this statue (she looks like pretty much any other classical Greek statue I've seen), but I'm not about to question.

The Code of Hammurabi is a large stone tablet inscribed with one of the world's first legal codes. One of the more frustrating aspects about the Louvre was that the majority of the information was given in French (naturally), which meant that non-speakers were out of luck if they wanted to know more about the work on display. The Code of Hammurabi was written out in French, and I did my best to translate its contents for Megan and Matt. Almost every rule went something along the lines of "If ____, then he shall be put to death."

A stained glass window in the medieval section, it is here that Megan and Matt said their wedding vows. Unfortunately, this "relationship" would end about 48 hours after that.

The throne of Napoleon III, I was surprised at how small it was, especially when paired with the showy carpet before it.

Another meta photo of us taking photos in front of a mirror

At the end of the afternoon, we went back to look for the Mona Lisa once more, et voilà. After fighting the crowd, I managed to reach the front and snapped a picture of my favorite eyebrow-less girl in the world.

The famed glass pyramid outside of the Louvre

The Place de la Concorde, a gold-capped obelisk gifted to France by the Egyptian government. Though the name suggests otherwise, this was actually the site of many executions, where the guillotine was located during the Reign of Terror.

Paris is filled with dozens of monuments, museums and palaces that are "must-sees," at least once in your life. With that in mind, I felt a keen pressure to check off all the major sights in Paris like some sort of scavenger hunt, as though my trip would be cheapened if I returned without seeing X. In an ambitious itinerary, we declared the next day to be "Monument Day," and traversed much of central Paris, trying to score as many Life Points as possible.

We started out at the Arc de Triomphe, located in the center of the craziest rotary I have ever seen (topping the 9-entrance rotary in E. Longmeadow). With several unmarked lanes of traffic zipping by at high speeds, I am not sure how accidents do not happen every hour here. To reach the center and view the underside of the Arc de Triomphe, there are tunnels underground that traverse the square. Unfortunately you have to pay €7 or so to surface, and we weren't in the mood for that. You can see the Eiffel Tower in the background on the right.

The Eiffel Tower is an elegant, iron structure constructed for Paris' 1889 World's Fair. It is repainted on average every 7 years to prevent rusting.

To reach the top, you could take the lift or the stairs. After pondering the relative lengths of the lines, we opted to take the significantly faster and cheaper stairs (a mere €3,50 for students). This allows you access to the first two étages of the tower, which was plenty high for me to view Paris. The stairs were also a much-needed chance to get some exercise. Though there were many of them, we all agreed that taking the stairs wasn't terribly draining, so I would definitely recommend it unless you're elderly. And, on the way down, the lift is free.

The Musée Rodin comprises a large collection of Rodin's works, including his infamous "Le Penseur," or the Thinker. For only €1, we were granted admission to the garden, which features a dozen or so of his sculptures on display amidst roses and fountains. The Thinker statue was teeming with tourists vying to take photos in the Thinker-pose; I was evidently not above this. Elsewhere in the garden is Rodin's "La Porte de l'Enfer," or the Gates of Hell.

A shot of a sculpture centered in a pond, with Megan taking a photo of the same. You can see the gold-capped dome of the Palace des Invalides in the background, where Napoleon's Tomb is located.

Outside of the Musée Rodin, we were greeted with our first French protest! Now, I know that I have truly experienced the cultural flavor of France. The police had blockaded the street, so we weren't able to approach the protestors to find out what they were fired up about. I did some googling afterwards, which revealed that they may have been upset about the price of milk.

We made our way to the Île de la Cité to view the Gothic splendor that is Notre Dame.

A closer look at the detailed masonry in the center. Here, as with all of Paris' other tourist attractions, we were accosted by people begging for money.

Afterward, we decided to take a break at Shakespeare & Co, a famous English-language bookstore in Paris. This was a very cute shop, the only store I've seen which tops Hyde Park's Seminary bookstore for books crammed/square foot. Their top floor features hundreds of old books available for browsing, not for sale, and seating for you to lounge and take in the musty scents as the sun sets outside over the Seine.

The sign outside of Shakespeare & Co. is appropriately poetic.

The Sacré-Cœur basilica, another area teeming with vendors selling chintzy items and panhandling beggars, juxtaposed with a beautiful building. The basilica is located at the summit of the butte of Montmartre, the highest point in the City (unless you count the top of the Eiffel Tower). To reach the top of the summit, you can take the funicular (free with our Mobilis train passes) or the stairs (according to Matt, who lost his train pass, this was no worse than hiking up Libe Slope). We were able to tour the inside of the basilica for free, and a service (in French!) was taking place simultaneously.

For dinner, we went to Le Refuge des Fondues (per Katherine's recommendation). This is admittedly a bit of a tourist trap (when we arrived, all the guests were speaking American English), but heck, we are tourists after all. The restaurant offers an €18 prix-fixe menu of apéritif, a cheese, salami & olive appetizer tray, cheese or meat fondue (Megan couldn't handle dealing with the bubbling oil to save her life), and wine served in a baby bottle. Yes, a baby bottle. Apparently, there is some sort of additional tax if you serve wine in glasses, so the owner has taken to serving it out of baby bottles instead. This is probably for the best anyway, because spacing in the restaurant is extremely tight (to be seated against the wall, you must step over the table), and the baby bottles are adept at preventing further spills. On the wall behind Matt, you can see a myriad of colorful currencies, signed by visitors all over the world.

Elsewhere in Montmartre, the area is known for being "bohemian" and also for its plethora of sex shops. Walking down the Boulevard de Clichy, we saw store after store with titillating offerings, something that would certainly offend American zoning proprieties. The famed Moulin Rouge cabaret is located here; unfortunately the entry prices are somewhere in the triple-digits, so we definitely passed.

Continuing down the street, we stumbled across the Musée de l'Érotisme. After Megan posed outside of the fat Bhudda statue, we decided to hop on the low-brow museum train and go inside.

This chair is prominently on display in the window, and does pretty much what you would expect it to. The rest of the museum's collection contains mostly artwork with accentuated body parts, from a variety of cultures and time periods. Not that I fancy myself a connoiseur of sex museums, but I would recommend NYC's Museum of Sex over this one.

Megan and Matt plop down for a break in a pair of leopard print heel chairs.

The next day, we decided to trek to Versailles, an over-the-top, extravagantly ostentatious homage to the power of Louis XIV. To get here, you must take a commuter train on line C about 20 minutes outside of Paris. Simple enough, non? It turns out that the C train has a number of branches, and after querying some other passengers, we realized that we were on a train headed somewhere other than Versailles. After we noticed our mistake, several other passengers who had overheard the conversation leapt up to ask, "Wait, did you say this was not the train to Versailles? Can we follow you?" All of the sudden, we were responsible for leading an Indonesian family and some other passengers to Versailles.

Once we boarded another train, the Indonesian family proceeded to plop down next to us, and strike up a conversation. Correction: it was mostly the dad who was interested in talking to us, with Mom making occasional comments and Angsty Teen Daughter sullenly sitting in a corner with her iPod on, hating life and making no effort to engage with us. After we said that we were recent college graduates, Dad whispered to his daughter, "These kids graduated from college, you should talk to them!" Daughter's response was to blatantly ignore him and turn up her music. Afterward, we discussed how all of us would have killed to have parents who took us on paid international vacations, and how the daughter would later regret how unappreciative she was as a youth. Though, Megan admitted that when she was 15 her parents took her to see the Grand Canyon, and all she wanted to do was go home and hang out with her friends. Ah well, c'est la vie.

After successfully arriving in Versailles, we approached the palace. Though it was an overcast day, the golden gates still shimmered in the distance. Engraved above the columns is the message: "À toutes les gloires de la France."

The Château de Versailles is filled with hundreds of paintings, mostly commemorating royal family members and other nobles. I didn't take a single picture of a monarch, but I did snap this all-important photo of Blaise Pascal. I also made sure to photograph the statue of L'Hôpital. Go mathematicians!

This painting covers the entirety of the ceiling in the Hercules Drawing Room, a work of breathtaking proportions.

This is the king's bedchamber, where King Louis XIV died in 1715. Each day, elaborate ceremonies would accompany his waking ("Lever du Roi") and going to bed ("Coucher du Roi"), with a formal procedure and order outlined for the people designated to see him.

Here we are inside the famed Hall of Mirrors, a long passageway outfitted with arched mirrors and chandeliers.

A formal garden viewed from the inside of Versailles. We didn't have the time or energy to explore beyond the palace, but the grounds cover an additional 800 hectacres, much of it perfectly landscaped in French Garden style.

London Attractions, or "Definitely Punk Scene"

2009-06-15T15:52:00.001-05:00

This is the second in a series of posts about the MCLU trip to Europe.

Between the three of us, we probably took over a thousand pictures on this trip. I'll eventually post more of these on Facebook, but the London highlights are here.

We started off with the Tower of London, an old royal palace and military fortress. It also houses the crown jewels and served as a site for prominent executions, including several wives of Henry VIII. Here, you see the exterior and a trebuchet demonstration with some festive-looking tents. The grassy area is actually a filled-in moat. As our tour guide told us, this area used to be teeming with mud, raw sewage and polar bears. Yes, polar bears. The Royal Menagerie here included exotic animals, though the unfortunate polar bears died of typhoid soon after arrival.

Our Yeoman Warder tour guide, Bill Callaghan, was a hoot to listen to. He regaled us with tales of past executions, medieval history, and jokes about the French. Luckily, for those of you not traveling to London in the near future, his tour has been posted on Youtube. Now, if only he would confirm my Facebook friend request. :(

A memorial with a glass pillow marks the spot where the scaffold and executioner's block used to be, where Anne Boleyn and others met their demises.

Tower Bridge is quite beautiful, unlike its more famous counterpart, London Bridge. I actually didn't even bother taking any pictures of the latter, since it was so underwhelming.

We made an obligatory trip to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. I am still unclear as to what guards are changing where, but the highlight was the royal marching band, pictured here in concert formation behind Buckingham Gate. They regaled us with (rather staid) renditions of Hairspray's "You Can't Stop the Beat," Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca," and Enrique Inglesias' "Bailamos."

Westminster Abbey, where Isaac Newton, many major poets and other luminaries were buried.

Here you can see Big Ben, the London Eye in the background, and part of the House of Parliament.

Camden Market, an alternative neighborhood catering to punk, goth and Lolita clienteles. Further north is a series of Camden Locke markets, a maze of stalls selling everything from spiral lightbulbs to books on how to tell if your dog is gay.

Some of the more typical pedestrians seen strolling through Camden Market; I only wish I'd brought my fishnets with me to London.

I was highly, highly amused by these purses, which are constructed from a single zipper and can be unwound and rewound freely. It was just quirky enough for me to splurge on; I think this is the first time I've ever bought a purse. I also snagged a pair of green hemp pants for merely £10. Just call me Ithaca.

All of Britain's major museums are free to enter, which wins them significant bonus points in my book. I decided we needed to see the Tate Modern, since I've never gone to a museum focusing solely on modern art, and the Brits tend to have broad ideas on what constitutes modern art. Alas, we did not see anything involving elephant dung, but here is a photo of the three of us in front of a series of animal mirror panels.

I am looking nonchalant in front of pink cows in the Warhol room.

St. Paul's Cathedral--this is pretty much the best photo I took the entire trip, if only because Matt forgot his camera on that day. Conveniently, there was a letterbox located in an adjacent park, marking the first international letterbox I have found.

The British Museum is a history museum and collection of items from Britain's colonial exploits. Here, you can see many artifacts from ancient Egypt and friezes from the exterior of the Parthenon (which the Greek government is demanding to have sent back to Athens).

The famed Rosetta Stone. I hadn't realized that there were actually not two, but three languages written on this stone: hieroglyphs, Demotic (ancient Egyptian), and classical Greek.

Elsewhere on the must-see London tour, Matt and I stopped by a game shop called Playing Games. This was the most comprehensive gaming shop I've ever seen, with all manner of board, strategy and roleplaying games. The clerks were also super knowledgeable, and took the time to introduce us to a couple specifically London games. The first was a card game called Crunch, themed around the financial crisis, and the second was called War on Terror, featuring a politically incorrect map similar to Risk. Both are produced out of Cambridge.

Here is an ominous warning to all those who might be tempted to shoplift from the store.

Matt and Megan outside the Globe Theatre; we managed to score last minute tickets for As You Like It for only £5. Unfortunately, these were also standing tickets, which meant my feet were rather unhappy by the end of the show. The show was extremely entertaining though, with burning torches, live music, and a dance spectacle at the conclusion. If only we had put this much effort into our dramatic readings in high school english class.

Standing in the pit provided an up-close view of the stage; you could almost touch the actors and in fact, many of them walked through the crowds when they entered scenes or tumbled off the stage during fights. Still, after a long day of walking, I would have much preferred the comfort of a galley seat.

The Shakespeare Globe Theatre balcony orchestra included a sousaphone, drum, trombone, crotales and marimba, among other instruments. I am not sure how historically accurate this is, but it was definitely fun to hear.

Clueless Americans, Faux Pas, or "Guess Who's Lost As Shit?"

2009-06-15T05:56:00.006-05:00

This is the first in a series of posts on the MCLU (Megan, Matt, Me) trip to Europe.

Being sophisticated international travelers (I'd never been outside North America), we opted to start our travels off in London, where the locals at least speak English, and we wouldn't have any trouble understanding them. Sure, there are foreign peculiarities that arise in British English, but having read Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island, I at least knew that a counterpane was a bedspread. Which is why I was mildly perturbed when I had some trouble ordering in restaurants.

(at a diner)
Me: Is this cheese sandwich hot?
Waitress: No, it's cold.
Me: Could we make it hot? Like grilled cheese?
Waitress: ...Grilled?
Me: Um, toasted? On both sides? With cheese in the middle?

(at an Irish pub)
Bartender: Would yeh liek ennehthang else?
Me: Would I like an L? [confused stare]
Bartender: Would you. Like. Ennehthang. Else?
Me: Would I...oh! No, thanks. [hastily hands over a colorful non-green bill]
Bartender: Erm...we don't take euros.
Me: Oh, so sorry!
Bartender: Yeh just stepped off the plane, didn't yeh?
Megan: [whispers] Fresh off the plane!

For the most part though, I navigated the British mangling of the English language just fine. Matt, on the other hand, couldn't seem to get people to understand his New Jersey.

Matt: Could I get the mint chocolate chip?
Ice cream vendor: You wanted strawberry?

Matt: Can I get two one-pound lemonades?
Vendor: [hands him two cans of lemonade]

Pity. Well, so long as we don't open our mouths, we blend in perfectly, yes? This is why we were constantly offered unsolicited help. Be it at Barbican Hall for a London Symphony concert or at the Eurostar station, an attendant would approach our friendly flock and proceed to give directions to the American newbs. I was most impressed with the speed at which we were singled out at King's Cross. "Looking for Platform 9 and 3/4?" asked a conductor. "Right this way around the corner!"

Then there were the times when we were actually lost. For one afternoon, we decided to have an independent exploration period, since Matt wanted to see the London Zoo, Megan wanted to see the Freud Museum, and I had no interest in seeing either of those and planned to look for kayaking in Regent Park instead. I was a tad concerned about Megan's lack of directional sense, but she seemed confident enough. So, armed with a book of maps, Megan gamely set off on her half-hour walk to the Freud Museum. Matt and I browsed a record store, took a leak, then began strolling toward Regent Park, whereupon we found a frustrated Megan standing on the corner, fuming "Guess who's lost as shit??" I literally began to ROFL. Several passerbyers began to rubberneck.

All this, however, was topped by our scenic excursion to the East End. We wanted to check out Brick Lane, the Indian-Bangladeshi district on the outskirts of Central London, located in what might be called a more adventurous terrain for tourists. According to the Fodor's guidebook, the Bethnal Green tube stop alighted right at Brick Lane. After surfacing though, a second glance at the map revealed that two Bethnal Green stops were marked on the map, and we were a ways away from the correct one. No matter, it was a fine day for a promenade through the East End, and we had no qualms about taking pictures as a couple BMWs driven by Pakistani drug warlords passed us by.

Later, we noticed that Fodor's warned against traveling through the Bethnal Green and Whitechapel neighborhoods, warning that "muggings are a frequent occurence in daytime" and "tourists should be on their guard." It is a good thing that Matt (toting a camera bag) looks like he'd be tough in a fight.

Less you think we were completely helpless, I shall point out that I managed to give directions in Paris to a tourist looking for Hemmingway's old cafe. And, while looking for the train to Versailles, we inadvertently ended up leading a small group of Indonesian tourists to the correct train.

Hopefully these contributions helped make up for the time that we were admonished with "Silence, silence!" while in our Paris hotel room. I swear, these were the thinnest walls I've ever seen.

Hey, Remember that Time...?

2009-06-04T23:01:00.007-05:00

My mom and I did some cleaning today, sorting through old files and trying to throw things out and mostly failing. Amidst the detritus of yellowed receipts and cobwebs, Mom uncovered things like my hospital bill from 1985 and my dad's journal from his first few years in America. The segment that most neatly wraps up my dad: "1979. We are living in a boarding house with 6 other families, and it is always terribly noisy. More than anything else, I wish I had my own study so that I can read in peace. I am determined to make enough money so that my kids can have rooms of their own."

Elsewhere in the department of things I had no idea about: apparently, my dad used to be a champion ping-pong player back in high school. Sadly, I have yet to see him demonstrate this prowess at ping-pong.

Upon reflection, I myself was a pack rat/budding archivist from an early age. I'm not sure if this is normal, but I kept meticulous files all throughout childhood with stuff that I thought was interesting or significant: 1st grade report cards, math awards, ticket stubs, my sticker collection, a long Starburst wrapper chain, a Jigglypuff gummy snack from a crush, a piece of the wall from Meyzeek Middle School that I took when I graduated...I have at least 5 boxes in the basement simply labeled "Memories."

Today, I rediscovered a few old photo albums that I'd stored and completely forgotten about once digital cameras came into fashion. Since digitization is FTW, I started scanning some of the photos for kicks and giggles. Here are the fruits of my labour:

Me, blissfully unaware at age 3 that this outfit is totally stereotypical

Chester and me, circa 1994. At this point, I hated dresses, lace and anything pink. I assure you, my smile here cloaks a simmering rage at the domination of adults.

Standing in front of the White House in 6th grade or so

Chester, cracking a lot of eggs

8th grade--Is it bad that I still have this shirt?

As much as I hated having my picture taken while growing up, I have to say that looking at old family photos was hilarious.

Quote of the day:
"I was talking to my tai chi master, and he asked if I was religious. I said, well I believe religion is best suited for extremely wise people, or extremely stupid people. I fall somewhere in the middle, so no." -Mom

Reason #238 Why Being Home Rocks

2009-06-03T15:46:00.006-05:00

I consider myself a pretty good home cook, but there's nothing like getting home and being welcomed by a ginormous bowl of bún riêu, or rice vermicelli with crab. This is usually done with a spicy seafood broth, and my mom shelled a dozen crabs for this, so it's extremely flavorful. In this cannot-be-bought-in-restaurants rendition, you can see huge hunks of crab meat, accompanied by tomato, bean sprouts, lettuce, mint and thai basil.

Cantate, Latin Edition

2009-05-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

Ten rehearsals and two concerts later, another whirlwind season of Cantate is over. This time, the theme of our program was Latin, meaning we had a hodgepodge of classical Latin pieces, Latin American folk songs, and Latin jazz numbers. Saxophonist and band leader Greg Ward accompanied us on several pieces, then his band led the second half of the program with Latin jazz numbers. When I read the program notes, I realized that Ward had been born in 1982, meaning he's only 3 years older than me. Considering that Ward travels, composes and performs all over the world (he just got back from Spain), I was immediately hit with a sense that I Have Accomplished Nothing With My Life. But I digress.

This program was stylistically more diverse and overall less challenging for audiences. Don't get me wrong, I love the lush, warm traditional choral works we performed last fall, but as with any piece with depth, it takes repeated exposure to fully grasp the motivation behind the pieces. We had a couple stunningly beautiful Latin pieces at the beginning of the concert, one dedicated to the passing of one of our own members from cancer, and I was happy to hear people comment that these were gorgeous. However, the most accessible piece was undoubtedly "Chili con Carne," a Latin jazz piece ironically written by Swedes. This is a fun, whimsical piece that is actually a recipe, with directives like "don't forget the Mexican spices/without them you won't get the flavor of Mexican sunshine" and "when your mouth gets full of fire/you might need something to drink/one or two or three or four or/seven beers will be enough."

Much to my relief, only two of our pieces were in Spanish; the rest were either in Latin or were some sort of nonsensical scat singing. Having studied French and Latin, I know just enough about romance languages to royally butcher the rules of pronunciation for Spanish. Conclusion: I will take the rapid-fire rhythmic challenge of "wa p t ba da da t ba ba chi ki ba tsao" over the trimmed diphthongs of Spanish any day.

On another note, the recessionary economy has damaged the finances of many groups, including performing arts organizations. Nowhere is this more evident than in the conservative programming that many groups have planned for the next year. In good years, ensembles are able to take risks, plan challenging programs, commission pieces and premiere new works. For next year, Chicago Acappella will be rehashing old standards (Beatles, "Holiday Favorites") in an effort to draw audience members and cut down on rehearsal time. Grant Park Orchestra will be performing Beethoven 9 and a lot of material you have probably already heard. Oh, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is performing Beethoven 9 too, the third time in 5 years that they've ended their season with the piece.

Cantate has always been entirely self-financed, depending on its members for publicity and to drum up an audience. When all is said and done, we usually clear about $100 in the bank when all the bills are paid. For this concert, we had enough saved up that we were able to take a chance and veer sharply away from recognizable names and pieces. It remains to be seen whether the gamble paid off, but I am extremely grateful for everyone that did come out to support us.

Anyway, I strongly encourage you all to continue supporting live music and the arts.

Quote of the Day

2009-05-29T17:30:00.006-05:00

"Critical Mass is like 4chan on bikes...they do it for the lulz." -Phil

Indiana Dunes

2009-05-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

It is a universally recognized fact that Indiana is the backwoods armpit of the United States, where casseroles go to die. So when the idea of daytripping to the Indiana dunes came up, I admit to feeling some trepidation. Wait, we're leaving Chicago? To go to...the Midwest?? I also wasn't quite sure how to handle the thought of dunes in Indiana. I mean, don't those belong in deserts? The only image that came to mind was that scene in Spaceballs when they're wandering the dunes, combing the desert.

After a 45 minute drive, we began seeing signs for various beaches and dunes. Spying an arrow for the Indiana Dunes State Park, we pulled in toward the gatehouse. "That'll be $5 for parking," said the trooper. "Wait, are you Indiana residents?" No, we responded. "Then it'll be $10." We supressed some grumbling and handed him the money, while asking for directions on how to get to the Cowles Bog Trail (the only trail marked as "moderately arduous.") "Oh, actually that's outside of here, in Indiana Dunes National Park. They're entirely separate from us," said the trooper. "Uh, well then can we get a refund?" we asked. "Nope, sorry. I can't just give refunds like that," the trooper responded, as he pocketed our still-warm Hamilton. We looked at him agape. "Well, it's up to this guy." He waved at another guy wearing a blue t-shirt. "It's your call, do you want to give them a refund?" Luckily, the guy in the blue shirt was reasonable and said, "Sure, why not? Why pay if you don't want to be here?" He handed us a lengthy form to fill out. Under "reason for refund request," Katherine wrote, "Don't want to be here." On our way out of the parking lot, I may have loudly called the trooper a douchebag.

Take two: we made our way (down the street) to Dune Acres, which is part of Indiana Dunes National Park. Here, there was ample parking for free, even though the trooper assured us that we'd have to pay anywhere else we went. The sun was shining, the water was frigid, and we spread out our wares and began picnicking on the beach.

Adam, Shani and Leah smile for the camera as Melissa displays her lip-framed sunglasses.

Our picnic included many interesting contributions, including this lovely cherry & chocolate chip studded emerald-green cake with blue frosting. I think my teeth hurt after eating a piece of this.

Katherine taking a picture of me as I take a picture of her

A sand dune, covered with small grasses, trees, and intrepid explorers. If a dune is not anchored with grass and other plants, it is considered a "living" dune since it moves.

After spending a couple hours on the beach, watching white people get comically sunburned, we went to the Cowles Bog trailhead. This was billed as a 5 mile loop with three types of terrain. I was excited for my first real hike in the Midwest, since the last attempt in Madison was fairly lame (it turns out the prairie is flat). The first mile or so was relaxing, a scenic tour of forest and wetlands, but nothing particularly novel. Then, as if Nature had read my mind and wanted to up the ante, we came to the Bridge of Branches. A large expanse of water stood between us and the other side, and the only way across was to walk over a haphazard series of branches. No railings, no solid planks, just pure balance. "I bet there are crocodiles in these waters," I joked. "Probably not, but there are definitely leeches." said Adam. I wrinkled my nose in dismay. For some reason, the lava theme from Donkey Kong 2 came to mind.

Leah leads the way, boldly testing which of the branches are the most stable.

Melissa officially wins for having the most grace and balance. I blame the dance lessons.

With abated breath, we all successfully stayed dry. Once we made it across, the terrain gradually shifted from boggy to sandy. The dirt trail underfoot morphed into sand, and we found ourselves climbing in elevation. If you think hiking uphill is hard, try doing it as the ground gives way underneath and you slide backwards. Suddenly, we reached the summit and were rewarded with a gorgeous view of the beach and Lake Michigan below us.

Adam takes in the not-quite-ocean vista.

The amount of vegetation that manages to grow and thrive in these sands is amazing.

Coming down the dune, we decided to take off our shoes, since we were plunging in past our ankles with each step.

The view from the bottom, on the beach with "singing sands"

That's right, the sand makes noises in Indiana, particularly if you drag your toes through it. I would liken the phenomena to the sound a seal makes. According to Wikipedia, for singing sand to occur, the sand grains must be round and between 0.1 and 0.5 mm in diameter, must contain silica, and the sand needs a certain humidity.

Katherine demonstrates the singing sand

I was highly amused by the name of this boat.

And of course, this being Northwest Indiana, there are plants sprinkled amidst the other plants.

Rather than building a sand castle, I decided to build a sandy rendition of McGraw Tower.

On the way back, we spotted a few frogs, and Katherine managed to pick one up. Several warts promptly developed afterwards.

All in all, I must say that this was one of the best hikes of my life. I hereby revise my opinion of Indiana's suckitude; there are select parts of Indiana that are awesome. Also, I will never take solid ground for granted again.

Blood is Thicker than Water

2009-05-20T23:50:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday, I checked my phone to find three voicemails in the span of an hour. The first was my mom, frantically telling me that my cousin Fong was in town, and that we should hang out and could I please make sure my apartment was clean if he came over. The second was my aunt, telling me that my cousin Fong was in town, and that we should spend some time together. The third was (surprise!) my cousin Fong, who said that he was in town and we should get together. All right, all right...

To provide some background knowledge, Fong is one of the cousins on my mom's side that we don't particularly keep in touch with. I hadn't seen him since about 6th grade. I didn't know what he was doing job-wise, or where he was living. I couldn't remember how old he was. Hell, I didn't even know his (English) name. This was pretty much like a blind date except for that sharing genetics part. Hesitantly, I picked up the phone and tried to tease out what he liked to do, so I could get a better sense of what form this hang-out would take. After all, this is Chicago, so we could have done anything from seeing Jersey Boys to jeering in the bleachers at a Cubs game.

I threw out the idea of a brewpub, and Fong was on that like white on rice. (Go figure, beer is almost always a sure-fire common denominator.) Since I've been meaning to go back to the Publican, I billed the restaurant as the ultimate anti-Semitic temple to pork, oysters and beer and Fong readily agreed to meet me there. He also said that he would eat anything. So far, so good.

On Monday, Fong gave me a call to find out what time I would be free. "Well, I'm about to go to a lecture by Michael Pollan right now, but that should only last an hour. Um, he's an activist who supports sustainable agriculture and eco-conscious eating. He wrote Omnivore's Dilemma, if you've heard of that...Actually, you don't need to give me a ride to the restaurant because I'm going to bike."

At the restaurant, I waited and nervously scanned the incoming crowd for Asian guys. Finally, there was a tap on my shoulder. "Fong, what's up? It's been forever!" I hugged Fong and looked him over. A little shorter than I remembered (or maybe I had simply grown), but still a recognizable fit with my hazy memories. Fong took a look at me and said, "Ok, so how much of a hippie are you?" I cringed inwardly and tried to explain that I wasn't that much of a hippie, just environmentally conscious. (Oh boy, has Ithaca done a number on me...)

The rest of the conversation proceeded smoothly. Fong has always been the self-proclaimed black sheep of the family, and the most prominent story about him in the family is the time he went to the wedding reception for Terri (my oldest cousin) and got ridiculously drunk. I wasn't actually there, but I've definitely heard about this from several relatives. In his defense, Fong simply said, "Well, I was 19, and there was free alcohol, and oh yeah, I spent most of my time hitting on one of Maggie's friends...yeahhh."

As you might expect, Fong's antics tended to raise eyebrows amongst my conservative Chinese relatives. In contrast, I was always upholding the "perfect" child, academic superstar mantle. Hence, I was somewhat relieved when Fong sized me up and said, "Well, I'm glad you turned out cool. You drink beer."

Fong went on to say that while he may have experimented lots in college, he was much less adventurous these days and mostly just stuck to smoking. Besides, while he may not be considered a role model by his Chinese relatives, compared to the Cambodian side of his family, he was a friggin' genius. Most of his cousins on that half of the family were working blue-collar jobs and didn't have college degrees. So really, he was doing quite all right for himself, thank you very much, Judgmental Chinese Relatives. Then, he may have strongly advised trying mushrooms just once in my life, so long as I was in a safe environment with people I trust. Say, how about a family vacation in Amsterdam?? I giggled as I pictured traipsing through Europe with my cousins on the ultimate family-unfriendly vacay.

Hedonism aside, Fong shored up his nerd cred and cemented my respect for him when he mentioned that he'd set up an FTP server at his parents' house, since they were one of the first households to get access to Verizon FiOS, and so he gets insanely fast download and upload speeds. "There's 1.2 T of space on that computer! I'll make you an account when I get home and you can check out all the media that's on there." He went on to describe his extensive collection of jazz, french rap, indian music and anime. "Wait, French rap?" I questioned. "Oh, I'm fluent in French. I even spent a few months in a Bhuddist temple in France one summer."

It's funny to think that I really don't know many of my cousins. For a variety of reasons, we never meet as a group. We're geographically dispersed across the country, and there's never been a tradition of getting together around the holidays. Also, since there are 8 siblings on my mom's side of the family, various factions are always feuding with each other at one point or another. In fact, every year when I send out Christmas cards, I ask my mom if there's anyone we're currently not talking to.

My mom is known informally as 老六, or Number Six, and she is closest to her younger siblings (#7-8). Fong's mom is 三姨, or Aunt Three, and since she left Vietnam to study abroad when my mom was pretty young, they were never very close. Thus, we've had little contact with Fong over the years, but I know my youngest cousins pretty well (e.g. we're Facebook friends). Fong, on the other hand, couldn't name any of the younger cousins, and drew a blank when I mentioned Chester. "Who's Chester?" he asked. "Um, my brother?" I replied. "Ohh shit. Don't tell your mom I said that."

We went through the list and tried to figure out everyone's ages. I was shocked to hear that Terri now has two kids (I haven't seen her since I was maybe 3.) For the record, here are all the cousins on my mom's side of the family: Terri (36?), Maggie (34?), Al (31), Jun (30?), Fong (28), Choy (28?), Chris (26?), Yogi (26?), Me (23), Jenny (21), Chester (17), Steven (17), Stanley (14), Evelyn (15), Marilyn (12?), Dino (10?)

I mentioned that for the most part, I disliked talking on the phone but was logged into some form of instant messenger 24/7. In a classic dork moment, Fong said, "Oh, me too! What's your screenname, what platform(s) do you use?" Then we bonded over our mutual use of Pidgin. Perhaps it will be another decade before I meet up with Fong (legal name: Sornak) again, but at least we will keep hanging out on the internets. Or maybe Amsterdam.