Beijing!

I'm in Beijing!

It's hard to believe right now since it's been a whirlwind of events leading up to it. Last Friday and Saturday, I spent all day packing and moving my stuff back to Cleveland (about an 8 hour drive). I then had only 2-3 days to unpack, see a few friends, and then repack before doing another 8 hour drive back to NYC in that huge rental cargo van without any windows on the side (Speaking of the cargo van, saved about $70 by not buying insurance for it, which, though perhaps not entirely necessary, would have improved my peace of mind - however, it felt odd later on that same day as I splurged the same $70 on a bunch of souvenirs at a museum which no doubt are just sitting somewhere at home. Isn't my peace of mind worth more than some lame souvenirs? Of course, not getting insurance also made me extra careful while driving, which meant that I ended up not needing the insurance anyways).

Well, the drive back to NYC should've been 8 hours, except I ended up taking a detour, lodging overnight, running a few errands, doing a bit of sightseeing, and seeing some old friends all along the way. I ended up arriving in NYC the night before my flight, and having to return my cargo van the morning of before hopping on a late morning flight to Toronto before taking Air Canada the rest of the way to the Northern (and current) Capital of China.

As on the trip to Taiwan, I met some random people again on the flight which were pleasant to converse with:


They are students from Wuhan, and were in Canada for the World Jamboree. For one of them, it was only their second time on a plane - however, she did not freak out ala Mr. Dijon (a character I once met on a trip to Chicago - an African American man in his 40s who had never ridden a plane before. He blew his mind and sort of lost it when we took off and ended up in the heavens...).

First impressions of Beijing in 2008:


Frankly, Beijing actually looks, well... rather nice! I was impressed - it looks a lot greener, though maybe that is because the photos above were not so much of the city itself but the outskirts. However, once I got into the city, I did find it to be greener and less rugged than in 2004:


Also, as I heard, most of the streets have been cleaned up - they had forced a lot of street vendors out, and there are a lot less cars on the road. Apparently some of that is good and bad news - some people (perhaps surprisingly ironic, many foreigners) reminisce and yearn for the dirty streets and cheap street food of Old Beijing. Now that Beijing is becoming like any other modern city, it's lost some of its allure.

My friend picked me up from the airport, and after dropping off my things, we went to eat at the local Chengdu restaurant nearby. Everything seemed about the same, except they now have TVs broadcasting the Olympics in the background. We got two rather large bowls of soup for $2 RMB each. That's about 30 cents USD. I really missed China...

Opening Ceremony

Wow! The Opening Ceremony for the Beijing Olympics was absolutely amazing. I can't help but feel a bit of the nationalistic fervor even as I watched here in NYC. They prepped 8 years for this, and it must have exceeded expectations still. Watch at:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/nbcencore/

While I am a little disappointed I didn't get tickets to the Opening (they were ridiculously expensive, thousands of US dollars), I'm really excited now about going to Beijing next week!

More Eating & Running in NY

So I got back in NY for another week, which meant more eating and running around:

Pictures from running on the Upper East Side:



Pizza at Luzzo's with Jhony:



Pizza at Lombardo's with Ziwen:

Luzzo's had a better crust, but Lombardi's came heavier on toppings.

Running with TJ in Corona Park / Flushing Meadows:




Ridiculously large serving of Shaved Ice at Queen's Crossing while meeting up with Hsuan Wen, Jason, and TJ:

Boston

So now I'm in Boston... hanging out with friends and family in the area. However, I couldn't resist going back to Shangri-la (twice), a small Chinese restaurant hidden in the suburbs of Belmont. Surprisingly, it is one of my favorite restaurants on the entire US East Coast. While they serve very authentic Taiwanese dim sum and a host of Sichuan dishes, its quiet, secret location gives it even more charm. Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, the chef there used to be the dim sum chef at one of Taipei's top hotel restaurants, the Ambassador Hotel (台北國賓飯店).


Every dish you order there is delicious, but the my personal favorite has always been one called "Ants Crawling up a Tree" (螞蟻上樹), a noodle dish with bits of shredded meat in a spicy sauce. The flavoring is amazing, and they make it more soupy than most places. However, what really separates it is the noodles - they don't use rice noodles (米粉) like other places, instead, it's a clear noodle that's very chewy and... "QQ" is the term in Taiwanese.

Ants Crawling up a Tree:

Salt and Pepper Shrimp (椒鹽蝦):

Roasted Duck with Pancakes (similar to Peking Duck):

Zhajiang Noodles (炸醬麵)

My aunt and uncle and I looking satisfied in front of Shangri-la:

Shangri-la (四川小館) is located at:
149 Belmont St
Belmont, MA 02478
(617) 489-1488

Columbia Heights to the White House

Perhaps it two things in the post's title seem strange: 1) Columbia Heights, and 2) White House. Columbia Heights, years before, was a pretty scary neighborhood in DC, where murders and riots were routine. In the last 9 years or so, the area has gentrified quite a bit, enough so that my Cleveland friend JK felt "relatively safe" coming in at about 2am. Now it's known as the place where my friend Jason rolls his oats and makes his own bread; the only inconvenience seems to be that garbage sprouts out of gardens like flowers, and cockroaches come out to the sidewalks to play at dusk.

As for the White House, it's usually not a destination I have in mind when I go running, but regardless, I decided to go for a jog today since I hadn't done so in more than a week. From Columbia Heights to the White House was about 6 miles roundtrip, which I did in a decent 52 minutes. Running through DC was relatively easy, though as you near downtown, they seemed to space out the traffic lights so that at running speed, every time you near the next block, you hit another red light (which I did not count as part of my time). Perhaps the sequencing is great for walkers or drivers, but extremely annoying for runners.

Anyhow, all that extra time waiting around caused me to be running late for my flight out of Dulles Airport, and so I ended up having to take a taxi from West Falls Church after missing the bus there - it was $38! And when I got there, the flight was delayed (even though it was fine when I checked on it before I got in the taxi). Ridiculous.

At least I got to see a crazy red sun.

DC

Since in all this time that I've been on the East Coast, I haven't been able to go to Washington DC (it's been about 8 years), I decided I should first take a short trip out there before I head out of the country. I had a friend from Cleveland that was nice enough to let me stay at his place, and the timing worked out well since it ended up that another old friend from Cleveland was going to be visiting there as well. So we hit up the local Mexican restaurant which was quite good and cheap. My friend Jason, the amateur food critic, wrote a review of the place at:



http://dc-restaurante-critic.blogspot.com/2008/08/taqueria-del-distrito-federal.html



Anyhow, it was awhile since I was back here, but I didn't realize that: 1) Washington DC had a Chinatown (I guess they must, right? It's a big city staple), and 2) DC's Chinatown lacks a Chinese community - in fact, most of the stores are Western chains.

Okay so the gate looks nice, but...

See!!!! They just have Chinese signs, but they are all Western stores! What a joke. I guess it's a strange zoning regulation that forces everyone to make up Chinese names for their establishments in the area...

Restaurant Week and more

I ended up not doing very much in New York except meeting up with friends and eating at various places:

Filip's Going Away Dinner (7/15):

WIB Opera Picnic in Battery Park (7/18):

Lunch/Dinner at Sakagura - I ended up going twice (7/20, 7/21):


Dinner at EN Japanese Brasserie (7/23):

Lunch at Cafe d'Alsace (7/25):

Dinner at Delmonico's:


There were a few other extracurriculars:

Taking a ferry to Manhattan - okay not that interesting, but the first time I've done it since I started living here (7/18):

Watching the Opera Volleyball post-championship friendly (7/23):

Watching people camp out for Hannah Montana (7/24):

Going to Naomi's play with Evan and Brianna (7/24):

Walking around Wall Street and watching people ride the bull (7/25):


Goodbye Party for Maya (7/25):

China Visa

So today I finally got my China visa, though people weren't kidding when they say it's quite a hassle. The first time I tried to drop off my passport and application was on Wednesday, after I had spent a good amount of time thoroughly reading through the Chinese Embassy's website. I studied the requirements, made sure I got every little piece, and even tried to visit at the recommended non-peak hours (of course I didn't get up early enough, but it didn't matter, when I got there, there was no line anyways).

The lady at the window looked through my paperwork. Passport? Check. Application? Of course. Passport-sized pictures? Yes. Plane ticket? Enclosed as well. She eyed me closely a few times. Then she pushed all of my documents back to me, and said that I still need to show documentation for a hotel reservation. I protested that I was not staying at a hotel; I was going to visit a friend. She responded that in that case, I would need an invitation letter from my friend.

So Wednesday night, I had my friend in Beijing write me a letter and email it to me. I printed it out, and on Thursday, I once again set off for the embassy to try my luck a second time...

Once again, everything went smoothly... until the invitation letter. This time, the woman at the window frowned. "This is a copy," she stated matter of factly, "and we do not accept copies."
"But my friend is currently in China! It would take some time to get the actual document!"
"We only take actuals or faxed copies," She added, tersely.
"Fax copies?" In my disbelief, I had to check twice. She nodded.

Defeated, I headed out of the embassy somewhat annoyed. They accept fax copies but not printed copies? What kind of logic is that? Don't they look exactly the same except fax copies are slightly less readable?

I was not immediately sure what my options were. I did not own a fax machine, and would have to designate one for my friend to send to. In addition, I don't think my friend has a fax machine either, and since Beijing and New York are 12 hours apart, that probably means one of us has to be up in the middle of the night trying to send/receive this fax. Clearly, this was not ideal.

However, another idea struck me. I took a bus back to the Times Square area, and asked around until I found a Staples. I checked with the store clerk, who said that they can accept faxes, and gave me the fax number. Next, I found a Fedex Kinko's around the corner, and set my brilliant plan into motion: I would fax my copy of the invitation from Fedex to next-door Staples!

The copy came out, the only difference major difference being that it was slightly harder to read, and there was also a line on top which said "FAX" and had a timestamp. With renewed energy, I marched back towards the embassy for a third time, and successfully submitted my paperwork without further incident. Indeed, perhaps even if they knew how I obtained my fax copy, it wouldn't have mattered. After all, I had provided what they had requested, they had abided by their strict but silly regulations, and no one was any worse for it. And it's not like I forged the invitation letter, right? Utterly ridiculous regulations should be handled via utterly ridiculous workarounds.

Back in NYC

Well, my short trip to Taiwan is over now, and I am back in New York City. First things first - I bought a new camera to replace the one that fell into the Pacific Ocean. I looked around some, but I enjoyed the low-light performance of the Fujifilm Finepix F-series so much that I ended up looking mostly there again. They no longer sell the old Fujifilm Finepix F20 which I lost (or the F30 or F31fd, which I wouldn't mind getting either), instead the latest in the F-series is the Finepix F100. The camera seemed to have received mixed reviews online, though the features sound nice: 28mm wide angle, 5x optical zoom, greater dynamic range, updated face detection, additional ISO sensitivity, etc. The F100fd is also compatible with SD cards (finally)!

However, I was still hesitant - the price point was much higher than where I usually bought at ($300+), and the battery life was shorter than the F20. Truth be told, I really just wanted another F20 - I had fond memories of that camera, its exceptional battery life, huge LCD screen, and excellent low-light capabilities (which should continue on in the F100).

And so when I actually bought the F100fd, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. The improved dynamic range did not seem to make that big of a difference in high contrast shots, the battery life was noticeably shorter, and even the LCD screen seemed smaller (though I think it is actually bigger - the perception must be due to my romanticization of my lost F20). Plus, some of the photos seemed noisier than the F20 upon zoom - it was very apparent that there was no need for 12.0 MP, as the 6 MP or so from the F20 was just fine. The controls on the camera also seemed a bit weird - instead of using the traditional buttons to zoom in and out, there was a mechanical swivel that was very hard to control. In fact, when the swivel and the push button broke, I almost got a refund instead of a replacement. However, I kept with it, and the F100fd is slowly growing on me.

Danshui

So we're back in Taiwan now, at the ILT Debriefing session in Danshui, an area in northern Taipei. Not surprisingly, it is named after the Danshui River, which mean "freshwater." We got to go around and tour some of the old historical sites as well as go walking along the "Old Street," where many of the vendors are set up.

This is 紅毛城 (literally translates to, "Fort of the Red-haired people"), also known as Fort Santo Domingo. It was a fortification originally built by the Spanish, but was burnt down a couple times before the Dutch controlled it. The Qing Dynasty took it from them, but then the British used it as a consulate after that, before handing it to the ROC in 1927:

We then walked along the Old Street. Some interesting things include:

So apparently this traditional Danshui dish (roughly sounds like "Ah-Gei") has been termed "Arcade" in English...

There's a tractor in the middle of the river.

I can't help but feel sorry for Snoopy.

I must concur.