beijing, finally.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

i always start off a beijing adventure right with a bowl of soymilk and fried dough. jon tried to have the hot soymilk and the cold soymilk at the same time, and as my mother warned, he ended up with a war in his stomach.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

the first day, we went to the obvious places: tiananmen square, the forbidden palace, and yiheyuan. the weather cooperated fully (now that i'm british, i like to take note of these things), and we randomly bumped into frankie from work, who happened to be going to all the same places...but we obviously didn't want to go together, so that was a bit awkward. after a round of introductions, we let him walk on ahead, and tried not to catchup too quickly.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

this sign forbade the scratching of walls. i'm glad the government is taking the necessary measures for the preservation of historical sites.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

LION! TIGER? LIGER?

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

the second day, we had the grand idea that we would hike between two stations of the great wall, but a traffic accident conspired against us. we did manage to walk around a bit, and some guy tried to fine me for climbing on the walls, but he was clearly drunk (inspite of his official arm badge), so i managed to get away clean. i was also very close to finally buying a hairy russian hat, but i escaped from that silly notion too.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

and afterwards, we went to a famous beijing duck place: quan ju de, that jon had learned about in his chinese lessons. they put on a nice show during dinner with lots of old beijing cultural things (like the long stemmed teapot dance)

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

and the third day we went to the zoo! the beijing zoo is the best zoo in the world, b/c they're not so concerned about animal rights as to give every single thing an acre large compound. obviously, they're very nice to the pandas (those things are cash cows!), but lots of other things are just running around in concrete cages with painted walls. which means, you know, you don't have to walk a mile to try to pick out the lone cuddly thing which is inevitably hiding under a bush.

don't get all up in arms, let's remember our priorities (humans first!--as in, if you're gonna protest anything to the chinese gov, perhaps it should be humans rights, not animal rights--and this is by no means an advocation to protest the chinese gov. they're a lovely gov, and i was very happy as a chinese citizen, which is, i'm sure, exactly how all the animals feel). they do have large compounds, but the animals have to take turns in them. so between like 10 large cats, they'll have 1 large enclosement, and while the other 9 are languishing in their cells, 1 will have the room to frolic. and whatever the animals lack in space, i'm sure is made up for in feed. every animal we saw seemed to be eating. watching hippos eat is GREAT fun. every couple of bites, they'll lift their great maws as if to coax their cud down their gullets. i wonder if they can swallow without the gravitational aid.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

these wolves? hyenas? were running frantically in circles, trying to hide their bits of meat. every once in a while, two wolves? orbits would intersect, and one would bully the bit of meat out of the other one's mouth. or one would deposit his meat into a hole in the ground, only to have it found by another one. very hyper animals, these. reminded me quite a bit of sir wile e. coyote.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

in a tragic twist of fate, this tire ended up locked in a cage with a frustrated tiger. must've been a bad tire in a past life.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

one of these things is unlike the others...but he does a very good gay kangaroo impersonation, doesn't he? go on darling, you're a wild thang! make love to the camera, be a jungle beast!

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

and here, he seems to have an elephant up his butt.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

ah, ethel and henry, the lovely couple.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

fried scorpions anyone? also on offer: starfish and spikey things.

From May 08 Beijing and Jeju

wangfujing small snacks street. now that's my type of street.

hip to the hop and you don't stop

tonight i'm going to a pop-up restaurant with camilla, jon's sister. it's a restaurant "installation" that's here for 2 months and then gone. it's the restaurant equivalent of a travelling circus, except it doesn't travel. it just gets dismantled. anyways, on the menu, there's this:

roast guinea fowl, carrot gallete, salsify, poached date.

now i have a question for you. what kind of ingredient is salsify?! that sounds like the best thing i've ever heard of. that is all.

*edit: camilla actually ordered the fowl, and turns out, salsify is a starchy tuber like a parsnip.

hello again!

i know i know, i'm way behind. LOTS has happened since i've been away...and i STILL haven't written a post about the beijing trip with jon and my mom. a list to get me in the mood:

BEIJING
HK beach hat
New Zealand
How the world went to hell in a handbasket while I was reading about bees in the New Zealand news (holy crap!)
Saikung hike and last day of beach ulty
London
Obama?

and can i just say, again, HOLY CRAP! who would've thunk that the failure of lehman would've triggered all this? i mean, HOLY CRAP!

today, circuit city filed for bankruptcy and a Swedish bank got taken over by the Swedish gov for insolvency. the scary thing is that neither of these incidents are abnormal in this environment. i mean, i think circuit city may be the first large commercial company to go under from this, but ppl didn't even bat an eye. the unexpected 1.5% rate cut by the uk gov last week got a couple of cheers from ppl paying floating rate mortgages, but it hasn't changed much else...(except for killing a couple of our structured products that are now too expensive).

the media coverage of it is a bit infuriating too. one day, they'll interview a bunch of small business owners who will all cry and say, "boohoo, the banks won't lend us money, how will we buy the flour to bake our bread? boohoo...the banks are kicking us out of our houses and i've just had these two babies too". and then the next day, it'll be, "the evil banks have caused this financial crisis by lending out a gazillion times the amount that they actually have in their coffers, leaving them vulnerable to overnight financing costs, etc etc." so, do you want us to lend or not to lend? make up your minds bbc.

and you know, i tend to think this mess is caused more by the buy now pay later mindset than by banks and their large fees/bonuses. both americans and brits tend to be oddly comfortable with spending money that they haven't yet earned. after the rate cut last week, my colleague (roughly the same level as me) said straight away, "woohoo, now i can buy a ps3 by refinancing my loans!"...um...this is the guy who still has college debt, has a loan on a bmw z4, has an apartment to himself (i'm guessing that would cost around 300-400lbs a week), and covers his day to day costs with credit card debt...what's wrong with ppl?!

and this thing about the evil banks repossessing ppl's homes...fyi, banks hate having houses on their balance sheets. they're illiquid, they don't move, it's naked risk most of the time. in fact, they hate it so much, they're willing to sell them at like 50% of face value, which i guess may even be an improvement on what they were selling some of their other mortgage-backed assets at, but still.

OHHH, and the thing that really really pissed me off: the anti-capitalism protest in canary wharf. i guess the uk doesn't really celebrate halloween, so instead, a bunch of bored ppl organized the protest in the city's financial center and screamed "capitalism doesn't work" all night. ok, what do you suggest as an alternative, smarty pants? have you ever lived in a non-capitalist system? ok then. it's kinda disturbing how many mccarthyist feelings that protest stirred in me. after being teased for being communist most of my primary school life, i thought i would be pinker. instead, i find myself thinking things like, "we should've fed you to the soviets".

but come on, those ppl aren't protesting capitalism b/c they have some higher belief in utilitarianism or socialism, they're protesting capitalism b/c they're on the wrong end of it, which, if they were starving or homeless or beaten down, fine. but they were dressed up in fairy wings and monster masks. grrrr. i'm not sure why i'm so angry, i just am. if you have free time, protest a real injustice. why doesn't capitalism work--b/c you're poor? and why are you poor? were you a crack baby? no? ok then. oh, you're poor b/c some evil salesman tricked you into spending too much on your credit card, and now no one will give you a loan to cover your other loans? too bad mr mcgee, no sympathy from me. take some responsibility, ppl!

and i kinda feel bad for dick fuld. he built something all his life, he cared about it, and despite trying really really hard, it died. and not only is it dead, everyone blames him, and they're right (at least partially). how bad must that feel? without the benefit of hindsight, i'm not sure what else he could've done. it's like a greek tragedy in 2 acts. and sure, he has 300 million in compensation over 8 years, but i bet a TON of that was in lehman stock, and i doubt he sold much of it either (how bad would that look--a CEO selling his own stock).

ok, this turned into a lot about things that aren't really related to me, but i promise a more personal post soon. i miss you all.

lily

pics from new zealand

From new zealand week 2 9-2008

From new zealand week 2 9-2008

From new zealand week 2 9-2008

From new zealand week 2 9-2008

From queenstown skydiving 10-2008

From new zealand week 1 9-2008

From new zealand week 1 9-2008

From new zealand week 1 9-2008