on the Bund, everyone is a 13-year-old kid

the Oriental Pearl tower is probably the most striking building on Shanghai's skyline -- it's the one that sort of looks like a giant, unnecessary phallus meets the Jetsons. the best place to see it is on the Bund side of the river, and walking along you eventually get to a stretch of sidewalk that is just clogged with tourists. why? because the building in front of the oriental pearl has two spherical ends to it, and at this point on the sidewalk, they look like . . .well, you know what I'm getting at, we're all adults here. though "adults" might be a stretch, judging from some of the looks of glee on tourists' faces.

suddenly, the po-po isn't looking so bad after all

the Dongyue Temple in Beijing is a Taoist complex that basically takes the concept of 'hell' to a completely surreal level. I thought the rat temple in deshnok was creepy (see "kind of like being back home on the J train platform"), but Dongyue turns hell into a bureaucracy, with departments lining the temple bearing names like "Department of River Gods," "Deep-rooted Disease Department," and "Department for Suppressing Schemes." huh? considering that about all I know about Taoism is what I gathered from the cover of The Tao of Pooh (having not even read it), all this focus on death, sickliness and sin is a little unsettling. or at the very least, un-Pooh.



this is my favorite department. you know that if you get sent here, you're in for all sorts of fucked up, middle-ages kind of pain. especially since these guys . . .



. . .are the ones who run the department.

unleashing my inner yuppie

I've been in Beijing for about a week now, and yeah the forbidden city is great and there are a lot of cool temples around, but what I've been really enjoying is eating at all the bougie restaurants I otherwise can't afford in NYC.

I'm not really sure what is going on -- most places we've eaten at have been maybe 1/3 full, usually not even that. perhaps with all the western business in the area, entrepreneurs are jumping the gun and supply is exceeding demand? maybe they're getting ready for the influx of foreigners during the olympics? maybe we're going on off-nights? perhaps chinese people don't like contemporary fusion cuisine? but either way, we're going to semi-empty restaurants that should cost 4 times more than what we're paying. I normally don't care much for how artsy my environs are (I just want good food and a lot of it), but beijing is making me appreciate just how nice it is to dine in the midst of original art, or perch on one-of-a-kind stools.



cafe Sambal URBAN -- I swear to god, that is how it was written on the business card



Garden of Delight, located in a renovated alleyway. that's totally brooklyn as it is, but they also turned their giant white planter (yes, that thing with the banana plant in it) into a toilet pod.  tiiiight.



duck de chine -- exposed brick and handsome mahogany inside a converted factory? please, that is the original bourgeois

my lungs long for los angeles

according to the World Bank, 16 of the world's 20 smoggiest cities are in China -- so I figured Beijing would be bad, but since the olympics is happening in a mere 3 months, it must be getting better by the day, right? not really.

apparently all the coal power plants have been shut down and polluting trucks have been banned in the past couple of months, and soon all construction will be stopped. and locals have been telling us that it used to be so much worse -- doctors used to advise residents not to go outside and sometimes you couldn't see a skyscraper across the street. but even with all the improvements, it sucks to breathe here. and the pollution is so bad that each day, I break out in hives on a different part of my body. good times!



a relatively good day



most days were like this



I took quite a few antihistamines this day

lost in translation

I know that poking fun at chinese interpretations of english is a pretty cheap shot, but I feel like these two should be exempt.



this is from the menu of one of Guilin airport's chinese restaurants -- this isn't exactly a small regional airport, you can fly direct here from London. I wonder what 'sliced meat cloud' is?



and this is a wet towelette that Air China gave me after my meal -- Air China is part of the star alliance that also includes United, Lufthansa, etc., so it's not like they don't have contact with the western world. but perhaps they don't have much contact with middle eastern patrons?

obviously, someone smoked up and then watched 'bubble boy'

Zorbing is all the rage in Manali, for obvious reasons.

I mean, who wouldn't want to be shoved into a big plastic ball with an opening that is eerily reminiscent of an anus?





and then get strapped in and rolled down a hill, with 3 indian guys running alongside you "in case anything goes wrong."



I just feel bad for this poor guy, who has to slog up that hill only to . . .run our muddy shoes down.

next time, I'll try "ladies room"

I've been pretty lazy about blogging lately, for a couple of reasons -- 1) toward the end of my stay in india, I was starting to get a little stir crazy, so I sort of shut down for a bit, and 2) once I left india and arrived in hong kong, I was too busy lapping up western amenities and culture to think about writing. I'll have to backtrack at some point so I can finish my thoughts on india, but meanwhile I'll write a little about my experiences so far in china. if you've been following my blog, you can probably guess what this will be about. yup, toilets.

so I've been on the chinese mainland for about 4 days now, and I grossly underestimated how necessary a working knowledge of mandarin is. today, I went cycling in the countryside with 2 friends, Sara and Cameron, and at one point I needed to find a bathroom. I walked over to a little chinese roadside eatery and asked if there was a toilet. she obviously didn't understand. here's the rest of the, uh, conversation --

me: toilet . . .uh, bathroom?
woman: (looks at me blankly)
me: [thinks to self, shit, how do I gesture this?] uh okay. toilet? [mimes squatting down on toilet, on pavement in front of passing bicyclists and nearby farmers]
woman: (smiles, says something in chinese, but still doesn't understand)
me: [thinks to self, fuck, what else can I do?] uh . . .okay. you know eating? [mimes shovelling food into mouth] then finish? [mimes rubbing belly with peaceful look on face] then toilet? [mimes squatting on toilet again, this time to the amusement of a passing tractor]
woman: (smiles, says in chinese, obviously has no idea what I am doing)

at this point, I give up and walk back to Sara in defeat. Sara speaks some mandarin so says she will try to talk to the woman. she comes back laughing -- apparently if I had just asked for the w.c., the woman would have understood. I come back to the eatery shyly, and meanwhile all the chinese staff are in hysterics because they finally understand what all my pantomiming meant. folks, the lesson of the story is this: exhaust every single word you know for 'toilet' before you start trying to act it out.