PEK to TPE

Hello from Taipei.

I have this random tradition of writing a post whenever I step outside the Great Firewall. I've been thinking about why that is, and I've mostly decided that it's to maintain the illusion that the reason I don't blog on here as much as I'd like is because I have to go through the trouble of posting from our VPN.

I spend about 90% of my online time on VPN while in Beijing, though, so that's not a real excuse, even if the Blogger dashboard is crazy slow when accessing from Beijing. Btw, I've been considering a jump to Tumblr or Wordpress if anyone has any thoughts on that.

Anyway, Marilyn and I zipped over to Taiwan for a week to spend some time with her parents. Oddly enough, it's Taiwan's "National Day" today (not sure how to word that without getting in trouble). We had several large tour groups from the mainland on our flight (one feisty tour member tried to cut in front of us at the check-in counter before being regulated on by her tour guide), and M's dad remarked that they were commemorating back-to-back national days, since China's is on Oct. 1.

Looking forward to a restorative week here. Us Beijingers have to get out of the city every once in a while to take a breath (of fresh air) and return, if only temporarily, to sanity.

The truckloads of ultra-fresh seafood that we'll be consuming this week should help with that...

Back in the US of A

Hello from the San Francisco airport. I'm on a brief jaunt to the States for my brother's wedding.

Perhaps it's because I let the hair stylist perm my hair. Or maybe it was the Chinese grandma sitting next to me that I was helping out. Or was it because I wore my sweats onto the plane? For whatever reason, the matronly flight attendant on my United flight totally thought I was a Chinese citizen. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But when I asked for the English/U.S. citizen customs forms, she definitely gave me an incredulous look.

I guess I'm flattered. Hopefully it's more of a Hudson Taylor kind of thing than that of my old college floormate.

Anyway, it's good to be back home, if even for a short time. Excited for my brother to get married (finally). I realized a few days ago that him getting married will mean that our family is (hopefully) done choosing people to add to the family. (Unless anyone decides to adopt?)

I'm really happy for him. I think they're a great match and she's going to add a lot to the family. Not that you can trust what I say here because he'll probably read this.

Despite the fact that it's pouring rain here in San Francisco, the approach was beautiful. I love our life in Beijing, but life in California is pretty frickin' sweet too.

The buzz wore off later when I was standing in the security line and it struck me how miserable everyone looked. It was bad. I guess an airport security line is just one of those places where no one actually wants to be, no matter what country you're in.

Ichthyotherapy, or the one where fish eat my feet

Since I'd never been to Thailand before, I decided to spend a few extra days in Bangkok after the conference finished up.

I've been pretty lazy the last few days, spending a good amount of them sitting by the pool reading in between stuffing my face with all the foods I can't find in Beijing, but by evening, I'm ready for an adventure.

When I spotted a fish tank in the front of a nearby spa, I knew what had to be done. Some of my Korean friends have raved about these fish that eat off all your dead skin (I should add a gross disclaimer right about now). The thought of fish nibbling away at my feet freaks me out, but I've always been (disturbingly) fascinated by the prospect of such an elegant exfoliating solution.

So my friend Nate and I decided to take the "plunge" last night. For a paltry $4, we were able to stick our feet in this tank for 15 minutes. They have a 30 minute option, but I didn't think I could handle it.

I'll be straight up. That was possibly the longest 15 minutes of my life. There's nothing particularly painful about it all, but it's just kind of creepy and uncomfortable. The worst is when the fish go for between the toes, or nibble at the cuticle.

But don't get me wrong, I don't regret it. Especially now that my feet are silky smooth. Kind of. Actually I probably need hours more treatment for the little guys to eat away at all the calluses I've built up over the years.

Let me make this educational for you, since that's how I was raised.

I did a little bit of wiki-research to look up the name of the fish. Apparently they're called Doctor Fish. The scientific name is Garra Rufa, and in "non-medical contexts" (sounds ominous) the fish is called the reddish log sucker (even more ominous).

Apparently the 'treatment,' sometimes known as ichthyotherapy, is banned in several U.S. states because cosmetology regulations require "tools" to be discarded after use, but it's too expensive to throw away the fish after one use.

I try not to think about the sanitation of it all, though. Kind of creepy to think that some fish was just eating someone else's skin and now gets to eat yours...

Tune in next week when I kick things up a notch and try leeching and medieval bloodletting. Or maybe I'll go all the way and go for a shark massage.

Bangkok Safe

You know how I said in my last post that my life was ridiculously boring? (which actually isn't that fair. Life in Beijing is very rarely boring, though often ridiculous. It's probably more accurate to say that life had been routinely interesting)

Things just took a turn for the un-routinely interesting.

I arrived in Bangkok last night to play bass at a conference that some of my close friends are attending. This is my first trip to Thailand, and so far, I've been having a fantastic experience.

I forget how much of a home Beijing has become for me until I'm in a truly foreign environment. Most people can communicate in English really well here, so language hasn't really been a problem, but it's the little unfamiliar things like having no clue what the currency is supposed to look like and getting confused about how much everything is worth. Or forgetting that they drive on the other side of the road and almost stepping into the street in the way of an oncoming tuk-tuk. Those remind me that I'm out of my element, and they remind me that these kinds of new experiences add a new dimension to life.

Bangkok is, of course, notorious, but it's also a really vibrant urban space that's got a lot going for it. I'm here until the 25th, so I'll try and check-in periodically with updates on life here.

Visa Trouble = Vacation

So last you heard, we were going to make our way to Mongolia to refresh our visas. However, that didn't work out. For one, you can't buy a round trip train ticket, and no one knows the price of the return trip, so that was all up in the air. Also, apparently in Mongolia they can't exchange RMB, so we'd have to change all our money back into USD before we crossed the border. That just blows my mind. Neighboring countries won't exchange each other's money so you have to convert to USD?? I hate to be a pessimist, but these days, the USD isn't exactly the most stable currency...there were a few other reasons, but finally we decided to try our luck with something else.

We finally found some cheap tickets from Beijing to Shenzhen, the southern border city between the mainland and Hong Kong. I'd been to Shenzhen a few times before (it's a land of cheap day spas, knockoffs, strange amusement parks, and factories) and enjoyed it, but the real draw is the hour train over to Hong Kong which counts for refreshing our visas.

Our cheap tickets ended up hooking us up with an adventure. Our flight was supposed to leave Beijing at 9 pm, arrive in Shanghai at 11 pm, and then we had a layover until 8 am the next morning. Marilyn's cousin and friends were in Shanghai so we were going to stay with them for the night. When we got to the airport, it was raining and there were some scattered thunderstorms, so flights were grounded. The plane we were supposed to take was rerouted from landing in Beijing to Tianjin instead. So we waited around the airport until about 10:30 when the weather cleared up enough for the plane to come back and for us to board. The plane taxied onto the tarmac, but we were informed that we'd have to wait on the tarmac for an hour. So we didn't end up leaving until closer to midnight. Marilyn and I dozed on and off during the flight, so we were groggy as we stumbled off the plane, but Marilyn was alert enough to pick up that we were at the wrong airport. Wait. What? We'd been rerouted to a different airport in Shanghai. And all of us would have to take a charter bus over to the original airport. By the time we arrived, it was almost 4 in the morning. The terminal didn't open back up until 5, so we had to trudge over to Mcdonald's to pass the time. Surreal...

Although getting there was a pain, being in Hong Kong was really refreshing. The post-typhoon weather was amazing (see below). Plus, our friends Lianne and Victoria, and Marilyn's cousin and friends were all in town. We'd all hung out in Beijing the week before, so it was like our little Beijing party had just moved south for a few days.

More later, but first some pictures:

When Marilyn and I went through HK on the way to Beijing, it was mostly rainy and gross those few days, so we didn't go up to the Peak. This time, however, the weather was so nice, it's one of the first things we did.


While there, Marilyn spotted a rare Bean tree.


Sunset on the Star Ferry


Just a normal day in Hong Kong as this Rolls Royce slowly pulls out into traffic.


The Hong Kong skyline at night. So gorgeous!


I wish we were better with a camera so we could capture all this better for you...but we're learning!