It's just a different kind of rugged

I have The Dirtiest Car in the World.

Around here, when you see cars covered in dirt, they are usually SUVs, and you can tell that they are dirty because they've been to the mountains.

I have a little white Mazda.  My car is dirty because it's been to the airport.

When I got a white car, my friends with black cars said, "Oh you're so lucky it doesn't show dirt."  Little did we realize that it's like Harry the Dirty Dog.  Black with white spots or white with black spots?


When I travel, I park near the airport, and my car gets covered in dirt and grit (warning: don't breathe near airports!).  I've been to the airport several times this summer.  In between, a few days go by as I settle back in, and then I forget the car is dirty, and then I realize I'm leaving for another trip soon, so why bother getting it washed?


The dirt does not look like mountain dirt; it does not look like it was kicked up by dirt roads.  It looks like airplane exhaust fell on it.

I'm leaving again for another trip soon, so why wash it now?

Put me in an ad.

A colleague told me that I was a perfect advertisement for the iPhone 4S. While sitting next to him at the Twins vs. Cubs at Target Field in Minneapolis, I:

Checked in at Target Field on Facebook. Checked the weather so I could report that it was 88 degrees.  Took a photo of the field and uploaded it, too. 
Texted the photo of the field to my brother. 
Used google to find out that the white 1965 flag represented when the Twins won the AL but lost to the Dodgers in the World Series. 
Looked up th capacity of Target Field (39,504) and the new Yankee Stadium (50,291)
Received a call from my dad, who called to tell me he'd run into the younger brother of my high school boyfriend. 
Emailed several times. 
Looked up the most common male names in the U.S. (James)
Updated one of my contacts. 
Found out that the Twins are last in the AL central, 8.5 games back (before they won the game today)
Texted with a friend about the morning's bar mitzvah. 
Took pictures of my group (using the reverse camera) and posted them on Facebook. 
Received a call from my cousin regarding dinner plans. 
Used Shazam to identify the song being played. 
Said "ice cream" to Siri so she could tell me where I could find nearby places to get some. 
Used the mapping feature to get directions back to the hotel. 

Yeah, it was a dull game.

The country day and the city day

A breathtakingly great day.  My decompression last night seems to have given me a very robust second wind.

1.

I could see the escalator from my hotel room.

I met my colleague (now friend), Tom, at the lobby of Nomura in IFC (because we know all the bank lobbies!) for a trip to Lantau Island.  I got to take the Mid-Levels Escalator down, a direction in which it only runs from 6:00 to 10:00 AM.  Since I am actually in Central already, it was a very short ride.  I was in IFC in four minutes.  What an amazing location my hotel is in. 

Grabbed a Greek yogurt (full fat, oops and yum) and a hot croissant at a cafe, then found Starbucks with comfy chairs and had my tea and breakfast.  The stores of IFC were closed.  It is a beautiful mall, and it was delightfully peaceful.

2.

MTR to Lantau Island and then gondola to the top of the mountain to see the largest outdoor seated Buddha in the world.  Because it was hazy, the views of the South China Sea were not terrific.  At the top, we stopped into a souvenir store, one that was not typical of the souvenir stores we'd seen, and we spent a while there asking a very nice young woman about the music and the paraphernalia.  I bought a CD of someone who is apparently famous singing the Heart Sutra, which is the only CD they had that was in Chinese and not Sanskrit.  I fell in love with the "wooden fish," which, she explained, is just the word for "wooden," but it is also the word for "fish" or something, although it doesn't look like a fish.  It's a percussion instrument that you tap to focus your meditation.

At this store, they had the lots that I drew for my fortune yesterday.  The young woman was impressed that I knew how to shake the jar.  The lots come with a book that tells you your fortune based on the lot you draw.  My fortune was good.  The young woman said that you can do the lots once per day and that my fortune could be good today even if it wasn't yesterday.  Yes, I hear that and feel optimistic -- what is that?  I spent a long time thinking about buying a jar of lots, and I didn't, and I should have, but maybe I can find them (and the wooden fish) in San Francisco.

I appreciate that Tom is an endurance shopper.  We both spent a long time at that store.

3.

We ate at the vegetarian restaurant at the Po Lin Monastery.  We paid a little extra to sit in the "VIP Room" and theoretically had better food.  The food was abundant and delicious.

4.
This was the experience that I did not have at the Wong Tai Sin temple yesterday, only without urban crowds.  Lots of incense (of various sizes, to say the least), lots of places to burn them, people davening.  For the big Buddha, the davening happens on a plaza well below it because it's so big that when you get close you can't take it all in.  It was beautiful.

5.
Tom seems to dither on decisions as much as I do.  So after the Buddha we debated hiking back down the mountain.  We tried to gather information, which is my style of dithering, too.  We looked at maps.  We followed signs.  We decided to visit the Wisdom Path and before making a decision.

The Wisdom Path is a magnificent infinity-symbol of wooden pillars with the Heart Sutra written on them.  Beautiful and peaceful.

Then we looked at more maps, decided to hike in a little circle and then take the bus down.  Halfway through the hike, dithering at a new map (and they reoriented the map at every hiking point, which was incredibly confusing), we chatted with two French guys, who asserted that this particular road would take us back to the subway.  We followed their decisiveness and began walking down the path together.

They went on ahead; luckily, my guidebook had instructions about where to turn, and I believe they are still wandering the hills of Lantau right now, because there are some really obscure turns on that walk.  We got to the bottom and discovered we were not near the subway station (because we could see the gondolas waaaayyyy in the distance) and kept walking.  Near a massive apartment block structure, we saw creatures of some sort.  Urban Tom and I weren't sure what they were.  He said bulls (no udders; but also no bull anatomy); I said yaks.  Either way, they were grazing by the side of a busy road with a bus stop nearby.  We were afraid, and then a local woman just marched right between them, so I got close and took pictures.  I am not sure I've ever been that close to horns.

Much more walking and wandering, and Tom asked for directions, and we found a group of local hikers who were walking back to the MTR station.  All in all, several hours of walking.

6.
Back in Hong Kong, we met Tom's friend, Susannah, and we went to the Manchurian restaurant the rabbi had recommended, the one I had tried to go to last night but found that it was fully reserved.  Another fantastic meal!  Then I found that they were partiers, and we walked around Soho, stopped in a bar called Lotus for a drink (a black pepper-infused vodka pineapple martini -- the best drink I've ever had).  It was 10:00 PM, and they were beginning their night of bar-hopping, and Tom knows some fairly well-hidden late night clubs.  I had committed to myself to get a Shanghai pedicure, which I had googled that morning, so I took my leave of them.

Tom emailed me at 2 AM, when I was also still awake, to say that Hong Kong is dead on a Sunday night.

7.

I went to a reputable place for the Shanghai pedicure, Happy Foot.  There is some strict accreditation around doing this kind of pedicure.  The dead skin was very finely shaved off my feet with a scalpel.  The guy even cut my toenails with a scalpel.  The Mandarin Oriental Hotel here apparently offers this kind of pedicure, which is considered the best in the world.

Since my neck and shoulders had been spasming all week, giving me horrific headaches, I asked for a neck and shoulder massage.  "Full body massage," the pedicurist said.  Neck and shoulders, I gestured.  He directed me to a room.  "Full body massage," he indicated.

A full-body acupressure massage.  What was I thinking?  After hours of hiking in the cold, why wouldn't I want a full-body massage?  At 10:30 at night.  Fantastic.

I walked the three blocks back to my hotel and celebrated my day.

Why my brain is fried

I am trying to have a peaceful, understimulating evening.  I do love Hong Kong.  I love the incredible variety of street activities, building ages, cultures, views, possibilities.  And I love looking at Chinese characters.

I am fried because I can't stop trying to read the characters.  My brain does pattern-matching.  It just does, compulsively.  I'm one of those people who kicks butt on the tests where you have to identify which shape is the same as another but at a different angle.  I can find visual sameness.  But I also can't stop doing it.

I know enough about Chinese characters that I can perceive them -- they aren't just a bunch of lines: they are a bunch of meanings.  I am proud that I can break them down into their sections; I know a fair amount about stroke order (the system for writing them); I know some of the fundamental symbols.  (For example, coming to this blog website I landed on the usual blogspot page but in Chinese rather than English.  I knew which word was "sign in" because it had the character for "person.")  I can glance at a character and know it refers to water: I did that this afternoon and then read in the English that is so always handy here as subtitles that it was the character for "lake."  (Water characters, like lake and river, have three dots on the left.  There, I've ruined your life, too.)

The character for "lake"

I look at the character for "lake," right, and I can see "water," "month," and "place" (more precisely, but I am not precise, "entrance").  I missed "ten," but it's there.  I don't know why they are all there or what it means.

So when my eyes hit a character I break it down into its components; I consider stroke order; I match what I see to what I know of fundamentals; and I note things I don't know but that seem striking in case I come across it again.  I prioritize: What do I know?  What looks familiar?  What looks new?  Does it match any other sets nearby, such as elsewhere on the sign? 

I love doing this.  And because I compulsively do this whenever I see a characther I have overdone it, and now I have to hide in my hotel room and decompress.

There is no escape from reading.

Missed fortune

At the suggestion of the rabbi, I went out to Wong Tai Sin temple. 

My first problem was that I couldn't find the temple.  It was supposed to be packed with people, and the streets were supposed to be packed with religious paraphernalia vendors.  But it was kind of empty for Hong Kong.  I followed a sign that said "to the temple," and I passed a bit of a creche with a few people doing what looked like davening; then I kept going through the fenced path; a woman handed me a new year's gold coin in a red envelope; and I found myself back at the subway station.  So I did another loop, this time not following the sign to the temple.  Not surprisingly, I got myself lost.  I am really good at that.

I started to suspect that the temple was closed.  Where were all the people?

I asked a woman who did not speak English where the temple was.  That wasn't productive.  Then I showed her my octopus card so she would at least direct me back to the subway.  And back I went.  I did another loop, this this time entering the soothsayer mall, and on the other side of it was the temple.  Which was closed for the weekend. 

Trying to scrape out a Chinese experience, I stopped at the soothsayer mall.  Row after row of fortune tellers in little closets.  Some napping, some on their laptops, most absent.  I picked out an old man at the end of the hallway who claimed to speak English. 

Lesson #1: Old guys who are sitting in soothsayer booths do not speak English very well.

I drew lots for my fortune.  The process was interesting: think of a question, shake a cup of sticks until one pops out (and one does -- I want to think about the physics of that), and the number on that stick is the number of the slip of pink paper he pulls out of a rack.  The slip was covered in a matrix of characters.  Then he asked me what my question was (finding the man, blah blah blah -- he wrote down "love," and I realized I had taken myself to the land of the unoriginal).  He asked me my age, counted rows and columns, and said something about a man dreaming of a butterfly and flowers but it is just a dream.  I managed to figure out that the answer meant: the love I am looking for is not coming this year. 

Then I had him read my palm and my face.  This is where things truly really went awry.  I'd like to believe that I will have a long and healthy life, as he reported.  But pretty much everything else was so far from accurate about me that I felt like he was the worst fortune-teller ever.  Either that or that he got everything backwards and he was really good and just needed to say "not" in front of his comments.

He said that I have a strong mind and that when I make a decision I stick to it.  Strong mind, yes; decisive, no.  As I write this, I am going into a full hour of being paralized about where to go for dinner. 

In reading my face, he told me the major phases of my life.  Like:

• Before I was 28, things were rocky.  
• When I was 28, things got better (OK, those two are right, except I was 27.  But isn't life like that for everyone?).
• When I was 34, I became happy (no: became very unhappy at 33).
• When I was 41, I became unhappy (no: I started the happy phase).

The level of sophistication of his English was pretty much that. 

Lesson #2: If you want to feel like you've had a meaningful experience getting your fortune read, find someone who can communicate not just in unaccented English but with a large vocabulary.

I think he said I should be careful driving when I'm 51.  And, looking at my palm rather than at the pink slip, he said I'd find love within two years from today and that I would have three children, two boys and then a girl. 

I then discovered I didn't have enough money to pay him fully and that there was no ATM nearby.  I felt like I would be cursed by him.  He let me pay what I had, though, which was almost enough. 

So I left feeling entirely misunderstood and like I was a schmuck for not paying for it.  I couldn't shake being bought into this whole thing even though I know it's crap.  I spent the morning worshiping with my own faith: why am I caught up in this?  Fortune-telling exploits something about our hopefulness.

Now my decisive mind has to figure out what to do for dinner.  The rabbi suggested a Manchurian place nearby.  Do I follow another suggestion, or will it lead me toward disaster?

Vacation and Shabbat

The reason I am so bad at planning vacations is that I second guess myself.  Maybe I should fly out this day ... what if my plans change ... what if the hotel isn't good....  One of my vacation days back home -- the entire day -- was spent researching Hong Kong hotels.  It's not like I didn't already have hotel reservations.  But just in case I was unhappy with the fact that I had to pay for wireless or didn't like the neighborhood, I had to research it all.

The hotel I stayed at this week, the Metropark in Wan Chai, was great.  My second hotel, for the vacation phase of the trip, the Jia, was in Causeway Bay, and while I was excited to stay in a Philip Starck hotel (because design is cool), I realized I really don't want to stay in Causeway Bay, which is where I stayed last time.  It's crowded, confusing, and too far from what I planned to do.  I went to visit and found the hotel to be snooty and not homey. 

So two days ago I opened my spreadsheet (generated from all that other research), started googling, and found a place that was not on my original list.

I canceled the Jia (and had to negotiate away the penalty) and made a reservation here.  The Lang Kwai Fong Hotel (not to be confused with the Hotel at Lang Kwai Fong).  A boutique hotel in SoHo (not in LKF, luckily, which is like North Beach).  Walking distance from everything I want to do.

And it's so wonderful!  The room is the size of a postage stamp and beautifully crafted to feel luxurious and cozy at the same time.  I did have to spend 15 minutes figuring out where to put my suitcase once I unpacked it so I wouldn't have to step around it. (It wouldn't fit: behind the bathroom door; under the desk; next to the refrigerator.  I figured out to put it in the closet on top of the safe.  It just fits.)

The service is so gracious.  And after puttering in my room, there was a knock at the door -- a plate of welcome fruit.  More fruit than I eat in a week: a banana, grapes, an apple, a persimmon, and strawberries.

My view from this inexpensive, well-located, high touch service postage stamp is of Victoria Peak, many of the city's skyscrapers, and the harbor.  I am on the 29th floor, which is quite high because we are partway up the mountain.  The skyscrapers' lights are coming on now, and it's glittering outside my window.  It's been cold and foggy, so there have been no good photo opportunities either from here or from the banks' offices.

And then I think, "Thank God for Jews" and, of course, laugh.  I'm going to go to Shabbat services, as I sometimes do when I travel -- it's perfect for meeting people when traveling alone.  I googled the UJC (United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong), the shul I'm going to, and the rabbi is from San Francisco via Baton Rouge.

To get there, I get to take my favorite form of public transportation here, the Mid-Levels Escalator.  Actually, I don't have to take it because the shul is two exits away -- and that means two blocks.  With having to navigate to and from the escalator, it's probably four blocks away.  But I'll take the escalator anyway with all the commuters.  Since the escalator is one-way, I will walk home afterwards.

The walk will send me through LKF itself, which will make it particularly fun.

Anchored down in Anchorage … happy in Hong Kong

You’d think that taking “No Jet Lag” plus flying to Hong Kong, where I don’t get jet lag, would mean I don’t have jet lag. And you’re right. However, arriving at a hotel at midnight with a first meeting at 8:45 AM means I’m going to be yawning all day not matter what time zone I’m in. And I’m awake before my alarm because I’m so excited to be here.

Unlike last time I flew to Hong Kong, I had enough to entertain me.

• 15 movies
• Three books (two novels, one nonfiction)
• Sudoku
• Knitting
• Laptop
• iPhone stocked with games (but I am still Freecell free!), Hebrew flash cards, and the Tanakh.

I had enough food for two days.

I even slept a little, on purpose, early in the flight when it was technically the middle of the night in Hong Kong.

But then we heard moaning, which sounded like someone having sex, and the attendants kept asking if there were any doctors on this full 747, and then nurses, and then EMTs, and no one spoke up (I thought about offering to help – I’ve seen a doctor – they seemed desperate), and then the captain said we’re landing in Anchorage to take a sick passenger off the plane.

They did a good job in Anchorage, setting and meeting the expectation that we would be there for under an hour, but the detour added three hours to the 15-hour flight (with 10 of those hours after Anchorage). Shockingly, when I checked my email when I arrived here, I received a letter of apology from a named person in customer service referring to this specific incident.

Halfway through that second leg of the flight, jaw and neck started spasming, my right hip started spasming. I watched the wonderful “About a Boy,” and halfway through “The 25th Hour” (how aptly named) my laptop battery died. I switched to watching the airplane movies and saw (can’t remember name; will insert later) and then started playing Plants vs. Aliens on the iPhone, which I could do standing up to keep my legs stretched ... until that battery died, too.

Despite Hong Kong’s efficiency, I had to wait a half hour for my bag as they trickled onto the conveyor belt. Labor is so cheap here that customer service is excellent, but I kept thinking that they just had a lot of cheap labor carrying each bag one by one from the plane.

And then I ran into a student, and things turned around. An extrovert, my energy picked up. It was his first time to HK, so I showed him the ropes of ATM, Octopus Card, and train to central. I watched him become awed by the train; he helped me with my bleary eyes see that the taxi stand to the hotel was right in front of me. The warm, balmy air of midnight smelled like a nice urban vacation.

The hotel is great. I might change my mind and stay here the whole trip. The room is huge for HK standards (or for any major city). I have a bathtub, which is unusual in dense city. Everything seems brand new. I was so excited I couldn’t get into bed.

And then I cracked up. I’m observant, sure, but it had hit my blind spot. In this room that I think is so beautiful, all the accents are fuchsia. The soap is fuchsia. The water glasses have little flower petals floating within the edges. The shower curtain is bright pink. The hangers are pink. The phone is a set of big red plastic lips! They put me on the “SHE” floor! Targeted and limited to women travelers. (I think many a guy would have commented immediately on the feminine touches and said, “huh?”) I love it – I’d wanted one of these newly-renovated rooms, but I didn’t want to pay the higher room rate. I bet they don’t have fresh flowers on the “THEY” floor.

The sun is not yet up, and I’m awake before my alarm. No jet lag. I’m glad I’m near the source of the world's tea – this is going to be a heavy tea drinking day.

Things I am taking to beat this cold

1. Zicam
2. Robitussin
3. Sudafed
4. Advair
5. Ibuprofen
6. Ocean nasal spray
   
7. Gelsemium (homeopathic)
8. Chinese herbs (left over from last year's trip)
9. Chicken soup

I think I'm winning.

Southwest's compass bearing

I seem to have a new puzzle interest that has been sparked by Southwest Airlines. Flying last weekend, trying to kill time during takeoff, I flipped through the magazine to see the puzzles in the back. I love sudoku, so I did those. The next page had something called shinro. It took me a while to figure out how to do these puzzles, and then I fell for them. I ripped the page out of the magazine so I could remember the name of this game.

On my flight back, it had become August. I got on the plane and grabbed the Southwest magazine, eager to get new Shinro puzzles. Alas, they had a whole different set of puzzles.  No Shinro.

So here I am with a crumpled piece of paper pulled from the Southwest magazine, googling "shinro."  And I found this:

• I came across a new kind of puzzle called shinro that can be found in Southwest Airline magazines. According to the magazine, shinro is Japanese for “compass bearing.” The puzzle involves finding holes in a square grid. Like battleship puzzles, the number of holes in each row and column are indicated. In addition, there are a number of arrows in the grid that point to at least one hole.
  
• waa hoo! i found myself looking up shinro after flying southwest airlines, as well! thanks for the link. great puzzle!
  
• Yeah! I was just on Southwest last night and solved 4 shinro puzzles. Thanks for the info
  
• Me too! Southwest flight! landed, thirsty for more.
  
• I also flew on Southwest Airlines and was hooked!!! I Love IT!!!!
• Just discovered the Shinro puzzles on a flight on Southwest and am hooked.

Google has just four references to the paper-based game shinro on its first page of results, and all mention Southwest.  (After that, it references either shinro iPhone apps -- yay! -- or Shinro Ohtake the artist.)  My favorite is this:

If you're visiting this site, we probably have something in common... Most likely, you recently flew on Southwest Airlines and passed some of the time by working on the Shinro puzzles in an issue of Spirit Magazine. Like me, you later searched the internet looking for additional puzzles to work on and found little or nothing in the way of Shinro puzzles.

That person is creating the puzzles, so he or she is my new hero.

Who knew that something in an inflight magazine could inspire such passion?   

But when will I get to London?

I really, really want to see this:

"Godot" in London. So hard to get to from the west coast!

Vendredi Gras

Mental snapshots from my first time in New Orleans at Carnival season.

The farther from the French Quarter you get, the less nutty the paradeviewers are. I watched from Magazine Street, right at the beginning of the parade. Started with wine and cheese at Shannon's house (which can only be reached by walking, as the street was closed already). That her male Golden Retriever, Boomer, who weighs as much as I do, likes to hump was the most debauched part of the evening.

Shannon, E, N, and I put wine and beer into a backpack and grabbed a folding chair, a beach chair, a stepstool, and a ladder and strolled down the street as Krewe d'Etat was starting its parade. No crazy mob; just the locals. Two pieces of advice I remember: don't touch the police horses (mandatory instant arrest), and that no matter how I felt about beads I'd end up going for quality, not quantity -- and for quality of the other throws. Other throws?

As we arrived, the lead police motorcycles were going by ... and a band was marching the wrong way. Turns out the Dominican High School Band was in the wrong place. So they turned left in front of the parade and hung out on our side street until their spot came up.

Krewe d'Etat is a great parade. Every float mocks politicians. There were floats that mocked Ray Nagin (the absent mayor), a member of the city council who cries, the banking system, the trillian-dollar bailout, the win of Obama, and a whole float on Sarah Palin.

Floats are preceded by fire-carriers -- they have a different name, but basically they are men carrying poles with a platform with two flames on top. It lights the parade. That was my favorite part, not only because the fire was nice and warm as it went by, but because apparently you're supposed to throw pennies at them (demeaning, but they are unpaid workers and have to schlepp fire for miles). I handed quarters to them, walking into the parade route. It was fun to give out money.

After the fire-carriers, there is someone carrying a sign explaining what the float title is. Locals also seem to notice the float number. The Dominican band was on "after seven," they said. I said, "good, because it's 6:45," causing laughter around me. Seven was the number of the float they followed.

I immediately became a bead snob. And I was excited to collect cups -- they throw plastic cups!

When I discovered they were throwing stuffed animals, I shouted for them. Shannon told me I had to just go up to the float and ask. So I did. In that neighborhood, you were already two feet from the float, so I just stepped forward. At one point, I followed the float for a while, and they gave me two stuffed animals.

S and N and E kept offering me the stepstool or ladder, but between jumping up and down, following the floats, and giving the fire-carriers money, I couldn't stand still.

The Morpheus parade started less than 10 minutes after d'Etat ended. It took me a while to get that everything was about dreaming.

Our next goals: moon pies.

Culture shock

Things I miss about China:

• Elevator "door close" buttons that actually close the doors right away.
  
• The pork chop noodle soup from the massage place.
  
• Toothpicks provided with every meal.
  
• More substantial packets of sugar. Packets here seem to have less and less sugar every year.
  
• Prices. The 90 minute massage plus the above pork chop noodle soup plus any other food and drink I wanted at the spa, including on-the-spot squeezed apple-cucumber juice ... cost $15. 
  

Things that are really different here:

• Carbs: Aside from rice noodles, we ate very few carbs. "Chinese food" is not served with rice there. Walking through the grocery store today, I was amazed at how many flour products we have.  
  
  
• Litigation. A number of us noted as we walked through the Forbidden City that there were many ways to trip and hurt yourself on the irregularly-paved surface. That in the US the surface would have been fixed or the intentional variation (such as grooves in the surface) would have been cordoned off so that no one would get hurt. Instead, we had to watch our steps. Kind of liberating. 
  
  
• News. The Kelloggs salmonella recall has been an eye opener. My first thought was actually, "So American. In China there is so much central control that there were no things like food recalls." My second thought was, "Ah, right, control of the news."
  
  
• Inauguration burnout. While I was there, sick in bed, I watched hours of the BBC and CNN. Loving every bit of American political news. But once I returned it took me less than 24 hours to feel that the inauguration preparation is overhyped.
  
  
• Traffic. I feel like I have PTSD from the Chinese traffic. It was remarkably bad. Like nothing I've experienced here, even as a rush-hour commuter. In Shanghai, a three-lane freeway has four lanes because people are trying to take advantage of every spare inch to get ahead. And it's not four lanes of forward motion: it's four lanes of weaving (at one mile an hour), taking advantage of that every inch. A friend rightly pointed out that the traffic would move just fine if people stopped changing lanes. Here, I was driving down San Pablo and was behind about four cars that weren't moving. Perhaps there was a stoplight. My anxiety level went through the roof as I suddenly believed I would be stuck there for hours.
  

Homesick

Maybe it's because I'm sick-sick, but I feel homesick. My only outing for the day was to the American embassy for a meeting with various economic and security staff. Recognizing from a distance the seal ("The Great Seal of the United States") on the side of the building, the glimmer of familiarity of that bald eagle felt good. When I walked up to the equivalent of the ticket window, the guy behind it said, "Hey, how's it going?" in an informal way and with such a good American accent that provided a rush of comfort. (I'm sure that's a staged thing, but it felt good anyway.) Not that it was any different from Chinese soil, but it felt good to be back on American soil, in a place where rules are unambigious. (At least, to me. At the corner near the American embassy, two busy streets intersect -- and there are no traffic controls. And yet you wouldn't know unless you tried to cross the street and started looking for a stoplight: the traffic looks like that in every other intersection here.)

I don't even bother carrying a camera or a notepad any more. Beijing is a beautiful city, but I'm done and hope to come back to truly experience it as a tourist.

No need for a pig humidifier (which was really an ox, for year of the ox, but it was round and had a nose like a pig): apparently the hotel provides humidifiers, and I could have had one all this time. Perhaps it would have saved my lungs.

Escaping the cameras

I'm free! I feel like Truman in "The The Truman Show" when he escapes the cameras. Like in the spy movies when they manage to sneak through the cracks in observation.

The Shanghai/Beijing part of this trip has felt like I'm traveling in a Communist country. Oh, wait. But I mean that it has felt very orchestrated. Not because we are a threat but because the organizers were very ambitious and crammed the schedule, allowing no room for spontaneity or independence. We actually surprised them when we visited a river/canal town near Shanghai, Zhujiajiao. They thought we wanted to see something historic, and we did, but then we MBAs went mad over the shopping and negotiating process. After the extraordinary massiveness of Shanghai, Zhujiajiao has a scale that is small and cozy and the familiarity and freedom of instant-gratification shopping (until then, our shopping had been at the LVMH flagship store in the huge mall). We bought a lot of crap. I don't think they expected us to go so nuts over the tourist souvenirs, but the shopping bug took over for all of us. We all needed that freedom.

I thought Beijing would provide more free time, but no. The problem with these cities, versus my beloved Hong Kong, is that they are so big and we take a bus everywhere, so every trip takes 30 to 90 minutes. In Hong Kong, everything was under 15 minutes away, and travel was not passive: you had to consciously get on the right train or walk down the right street.

But now I have a really bad cold. Yesterday the organizer, who was also getting sick, and I went to a Chinese medical facility and got Chinese meds. I had no voice, laryngitis, at the time. The pills they gave me immediately restored it. Cool.

I felt so crummy as we began tonight's 40-person pizza dinner that I bagged out entirely. And I think even the freedom is causing me to feel better. I walked into the hotel and immediately asked the concierge where I could find a pharmacy, because no matter what eastern meds I'm taking, I need Robitussin. He pointed across the street to the big sign that said, "Supermarket."

Crossing a dajie, a big Beijing street, at night in the cold, all by myself! No American voices next to me. Going into the supermarket, it had the familiar smell of fresh vegetables. I found the pharmacy, which looked just like the place I'd visited yesterday. That particular pharmacy did have a western section with several flavors or Robitussin. I mimed coughing (actually, I coughed), and they pointed me to the right counter. I thought, how do I see where the Robitussin is? Then I noticed the large advertisement for it on the counter and pointed to it. Whoo-hoo!

I ended up talking to a very nice pharmacist via his medical complaint translation book. He gave me another med as well. I have bought meds on my own at a Chinese pharmacy where they don't speak English!

Then, after super-strongly considering buying a green pig-shaped humidifier (I still might have to do that -- my hesitation is that the instructions are not in English and look complicated ... but, after all, it's just a humidifier so I could probably figure it out) for $15, I bought some apple juice and re-crossed the street. No caucasians around! I joined a small group, including a woman holding a very ugly shih-tsu in a sweater, that was doing the pedestrian-inch-across-the-street-in-traffic-before-the-light-changes thing. Such a free feeling.

And now my chicken soup has arrived from room service. Who knew that having a cold could be so liberating?

Clockwise with Robitussin at the center: asthma chewables (red box), syrup to treat runny nose and sore throat, sore throat lozenges, immune strengthener tea, voice restorer pills, something else for throat tea.

Photo of the night

That "sa" is the same character as in "Li-sa."

... and more

Today:

• A double decker bus to Stanley Market (top level)
• A minibus from Stanley Market (why don't more people take these?)
• The Mid-Level Escalator (all the way to the top this time, then walking down)
• A few taxis.

All I have left is a red minibus (not sure if I can figure those out) and an electronic trolley (tomorrow morning?).

I am a transportation geek.

Hong Kong, high and low

I took four forms of transportation today:
1. The subway
2. The ferry (Star Ferry)
3. The funicular (Peak Tram)
4. The Mid-Levels Escalator

Bidet giggles

Four forms of communication (Chinese, English, braille, and pictures), plus rows of lights, and yet how to turn it off once you've started pushing buttons is still unclear.

(If they hadn't written "ladies" on this, would people have washed their faces with it?)

Liveblog from flight to Hong Kong

[It took me a while to figure out how to post this -- my first encounter with Google China -- all the links were in Chinese.]

My biggest fear: the weight of my suitcase. It weighed 48.4 pounds. Whew!

On a packed plane to Hong Kong, the seat next to my window seat (which is at some sort of structural point, so there is no actual window) is empty. The guy in the aisle seat, Gary (my made up name for him, although I would think his name is Ryan), and I look at each other and decide we’re the luckiest people on the plane.

If there had been someone sitting next to me, and me with no window, just a blank wall, I would have gone insane with claustrophobia.

As we’re served our food, United shows an hourlong Discovery Planet special. It’s on lions. And, over and over, it shows lions killing and eating a variety of animals. Oh, and then they show some sort of ceremonial bleeding of a cow. Really appetizing. Plus I feel for the mother of the four-year-old girl in the first row, right under the movie screen.

I am so grateful to M&M for sharing their Bose noise-canceling headphones with me. I took them off at one point – how deafeningly loud planes are. Cordless, I can even wear them walking around the plane. Why don’t people just wear these all the time? We can converse with them on, so why not cancel out everything else? Why don’t airplanes just use the technology to fly more quietly?

Further playing with my airplane toys, I just dropped an Airborne into my latest cup of water. Wow, that stuff looks nuclear.


10:30 AM HKT
After I looked out of my half-window and saw the spectacular mountains of an Aleutian island, the second movie, “Ghost Town,” with Ricky Gervais (loved it, cried) played. Then I check my watch and am shocked at how much longer this plane ride is. The in-flight map comes on, and I see that we are over the Bering Strait, barely past the “Great State of Alaska,” still flying over the Aleutians, and WE ARE NOT EVEN HALFWAY THERE?? I have eaten pretty much all of my snacks – all I have left is a Special K bar and half of a really destroyed peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I can’t find my the two packs of gum I packed. These fabulous headphones are weighing heavily on me. Normally I pack too heavily for the plane and end up with too many snacks when I land. This time, I did not bring enough variety of food and entertainment.

If there had been someone in the middle seat, I would have had to jump out of the plane.

I’ve been Freecell-sober for almost 10 years, but now being able to play solitaire for 10 hours straight seems like it would be a functional skill. However, I seem to have deleted all games of all sorts from this damn laptop!

OK, in my widgets I have a tile game. This will last me about 30 seconds. Where is my Tetris????

12:10 PM HKT
Cried through another movie, “Nights in Rodanthe.” Good thing I had Kleenex within reach: just as I thought I had my eyes under control, my nose started dripping. With Bill’s death this week, I can’t handle all this dying in movies. Next up is “The Duchess.” Hopefully it’s just about manipulative people and there is no poignant dying. Meanwhile, there are more than six hours left to the flight. What are they going to do about entertainment? We only have one more movie on tap. Then four hours of TV? Hopefully no more lion shows.

I’m so bored!

I want another cup of water so I can make another Airborne radioactive drink.

Turning over a new leaf

Today, in Seattle, I pity people who grew up in California. At least, my part of California and south. And other places that don’t have autumn.

Like with snow, you can visit it, but being surrounded by it on a daily, routine basis is an entirely different experience.

I looked out of the cab window and saw the beautiful density and variety of trees – you can’t see individual trees – it’s just mounds of trees. With spashes of color. You get an almost tactile feeling of a paintbrush having swatted at them.

Do people who grow up without mounds of deciduous trees even know the expression “The leaves are starting to turn”? I said it to the cab driver, and it was like an ancient, familiar phrase in my mouth. Like the name of a best friend you haven’t talked about in many years.

Someone from California, someone who hasn’t lived through fall afer fall, might think these splashes of gold and red and orange among the rich green is what fall colors are. Even as a midwesterner I used to celebrate the arrival of the colors, thinking fall is here. Forgetting it’s just the beginning. It’s not when leaves are splashed with color: it’s when leaves are doused in color, bright golds and flaming reds completely replacing most of the green, that fall is at its most awesome.