Of things Chicago experienced in Hong Kong

1) Well, about time: After going to Cubs games at least 15 times a year for about 10 straight years, my team finally decides to get serious about a World Series after I leave. The one good thing about working late for the Olympics is getting home just in time for the first pitch at Wrigley afternoon games. If they win it all, though, I might have to overturn and burn a car here.
2) I have created a mini-mob here of Gumballhead fanatics. Last year, I made my stash last for nearly 10 months. This time, I went through over a third of it within my first two weeks back. I did just order two cases to be shipped home to Wisconsin, though, so I can bring it back at Christmas. Yes, that's retarded, but it makes me happy.
Plus, I met a bartender here in Kennedy Town who work during the day for a beer/wine importer. I was raving about this beer and he asked to try one, so I obliged. Then he asked how to get ahold of the company. Cross your fingers for me.
3) An old coworker of mine from Chicago is down here this week after covering the Olympics for my old employer. He lived his first 10 years here and is back just chilling out and visiting family. I met him for drinks Thursday, and he kept on talking about this restaurant just down the road/hill from my bar, the Globe, and I could not place it for the life of me. After a minute, I realized he meant a restaurant right near Lan Kwai Fong. He meant about 250 meters away, not 50 meters.
And then I realized how small Hong Kong really is. Most neighborhoods (districts) here are one or two kilometers wide, at the most. When we say down the road here, we mean just within 50-100 meters or so and that's it. He was speaking in the American sense, where it can mean a half mile or so, then around a corner. You forget how distances are relative: in the states, the mall in my hometown takes up as much space with its parking lots as all of Kennedy Town. And the parking lots at a normal TGI Fridays uses as much room as at least 20 restaurants here in HK.

The post-Olympic......crash

Been busy. That whole Olympic thing, you know. 13 hour days, 6 days a week, so I am finally working like most of the service workers here in Hong Kong. The difference is a) I make a lot more b) They have the harder job and c) I get comp time for those long days, and they don't. So the Olympics work could have sucked much, much more.
But things did help me pull through it. Like beer. From Nantucket! (Please maker your own limericks in the comments section.) I arrived at work right at the start of Olympics week and a former coworker (who now works at Cooks Illustrated at a job that only fills me with envy) sent me two bombers of a blonde ale and a british pale ale at great expense to her. The best part of it all is that this started a proud two-week tradition of having beer when everything wrapped up for the night at our desks. Note to all: If you ever go to Nantucket, make it a point of buying this beer. You won't regret it.


The other thing that kept me going is the same thing that goes on all the time: the random weird stuff you only see living overseas. Like coming home at 2am and seeing pairs of shorts hanging off the community notice board outside my elevator.


Oh yeah, the rare day off helped fuel me too. I visited a friend up in Sai Kung, in the far northeast part of the entire Special Administrative Region. It's quite a cool little area, a great mix of expats and locals, with lots of bars and big outdoor fish tanks for restaurants (pics to come on my next visit.) And best of all, many of the bars have jukeboxes, which are rare sights on Hong Kong island itself. And what a selection of music to pic from!


But I did get a lot of comp days from working so much, and I'm heading up to Beijing/Mongolia soon (assuming my China visa comes through). I'll need to buy some stuff to take with me, like a flashlight, and I was tempted by the pig flashlights I saw the other day while running errands.


It's weird though: the Olympics sucked in a big time way, especially in the second week, as tempers started to fray. (They never broke though, despite various bets placed as to who would be the first to snap, and when.) Hell, I even got to work through a day while at home, as we got pounded head on by a typhoon (honestly, it did not seem that bad.)
I was so glad when it ended, but as I told friends, it was like graduating college. What the hell do we do now? We busted our humps for two weeks as a tight little group, and now we have to go back to our mucky jobs. Meh. I was bumming on the first day of doing my old stint.

Ancient Kyoto, filled with young Mormons

You run across strange things, religion-wise, across Asia. During every extended trip in Southeast Asia, I've run across Israeli families in the middle of nowhere. On two separate occasions in the months before my vacation, I had proselytizers come and knock on the door of my apartment.
And then there was Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capital filled with Buddhist temples.



Like this temple. It had a huge bell, that weighed scores of tons, if not hundreds. And who was in the background, gabbing away?


Mormons! Both western and Japanese, though more western. I just cannot get away from these guys. One knocked on my door a few months ago.


Though once you get away from them, the temples are very peaceful and beautiful.


With really cool ornamentation on their building.


Though they do keep the greenery pruned rather well, they let moss grow where it may.


Outside of one temple were the remains of an old aqueduct.


Also there was a sign warning you to put out your fires if you start one.


Though the closer you look, it looks like there is a big, bloody geiser that the squirrel and rabbit are making a demonic sacrifice to.

Ah, youth....it's wasted on sleeping youth

Anyone who travels in Japan notices something right away: their ability to sleep anywhere at anytime. Asians as a whole have an uncanny ability to sleep at times and in places that strike Puritan-tainted westerners (Work! Schedule! Must follow protocol!) as odd. But Japan takes it to a whole new level, with people sleeping at all hours of the day on trains, yet still most of the time waking up in time for their stop. (In a city like Tokyo, where trains are the main transport mode for most people, that kinda makes sense. You just learn to adapt to your environment to do what is needed.) Plus, in Japan, you can fall asleep without a fear of people robbing you, unlike in the West. (A friend of mine who taught English in Japan a few years ago once had to tell her students who were travelling for the first time to Europe that they couldn't fall asleep on the trains there because they would be robbed. The students' response: "Why would they do that?") Still you do get surprised sometimes at where they sleep, such as 5 feet in front of stage where Spoon was set to play at Fuji Rock. And even when the band started, not all woke up right away. Nighty night!

yes, china, it feels good

A movie poster for a documentary on the 2004 elections for the quasi-democratic legislature here in HK; the movie will be showing soon at one of the theaters here. Though, to be fair, a similar picture could be used for most elections in the US, too. Or, maybe this is the only way to lure people to watch a documentary on legislative action.

Graphic tales of graphic signs

Various cool signs and symbols I stumbled across in my travels.


There were a few Mr. Minit stores at the train stations in Tokyo. Do they mean they sell mints? Or that their stalls are minute? Or you can buy stuff in a minute?


Where do I go with this one: Do IT at the beach, you mean? Maybe this guy was crowd surfing and got passed through a door? Should you only run fast at the beach? Maybe they want people to get tan at the beach so they blend in with the subway. Please explain this one to me.


At a bar next to Feed, a favorite smokehouse/chicken shack in Chicago. If you ask me, public shaming is not done enough in the states.


Yes, and a long-term relationship has never looked cuter nor yummier. From Feed, said restaurant above, on the bathroom door of all places.

A story of mountains, music and beef jerky

When I left Chicago and the Pitchfork music fest a few weeks ago, I was wondering if I would do another music fest again. There's no denying it, I am getting a little old for this, sitting outdoors for 8 hours on end listening to music that that I've never heard before because I refuse to join Facebook. Pitchfork had great music, but the thought of being in a park with 20,0000 other people amidst occasional showers followed by pounding sun doesn't sound as fun as it used to. Sure, it's great to listen to bands I always like or get introduced to new ones, but I'm too old to stand in muddy grass for an hour to do that, especially if the whole area smells like a petting zoo filled with bearded hipsters.
At first, I thought the same about Fuji. I landed on a Thursday afternoon in Tokyo, and the fest was Friday-Sunday. Jet lag is always getting easier and easier to handle the more and more I fly long-hauls, but there always is some, though sleeping pills help solve that, chemical-style. But I knew I would have to push through some exhaustion amid tens of thousands of other people, too. And the lineup didn't seem as strong this year, so I got it in my head that this might be my last music fest.
But it's like a relationship, this music thing; it's not so easy to give it up. Looking back, you remember the good times more than the bad ones. The band I really wanted to see - Spoon - was as great as I expected. The bands I kinda wanted to see, as I had heard of them or had them recommended - Breeders, Stephen Malkmus, Ben Folds - all made me happy and glad I went there. Then there were bands you stumbled across, such as Gogol Bordello, that just blew you away with their show and made that 40,000-yen festival pass worth it, especially if it's the only time you get to see new, live music all year.
Plus, it's Fuji. As I wrote last year, the beers are cheap (though not as cheap as last year, and much skanky Heineken replacing Guinness cans at most stalls), the food yummy and varied, and the fans are respectful, into the music, polite and chill. You're in the mountains, so you escape the heat that the rest of Japan suffers in late July.
Plus, the traditional inn we stayed in was great. We were the only westerners there, but the old man who ran it with his family was charming even though we didn't speak each others' language. Coming back after a night when it rained? He is waiting for you with a scrub brush and hose, so you can clean your shoes. Plus, I learned the protocol how to use the baths this year, so I was actually able to clean up this time. (Though I did mess up the protocol once, on the final night. Because the two baths vary in size, they switch which gender gets which bath every other night. On Sunday I went into what I thought was the men's bath. No one was in there, so I cleaned up and left, and my travelling partner was just finishing up behind me. Then as I was walking away, I remembered some men and women were watching there and I got the feeling we were using the wrong baths. Well, we were, and travelling partner was greeted by a woman in the changing room just as he was finishing up. She, in true Japanese fashion, did not embarrass him, but waited until he left. And god bless travelling partner, because he commented that he thought we were in the wrong one, but he suffered the consequences, not me.)
Anyhoo, will I go back next year? Still in question, but I think so. Heck, it's Japan. It's music. How can it totally suck?

A view of the main stage. Yes, they're hipsters, but much cleaner than the American variety.


One one of the side stages, they release bubbles during some of the shows. It's pretty cool.


Yes, it really is in a ski resort. One of the small stages is set in the trees, and when I say small, I mean 12 feet by 12 feet, and you sit on the small boardwalk or just amid the trees. This is why this festival would never work in the states, because people would throw all their trash amid the trees and start the forest on fire with their cigarettes. Here, people keep their trash until they hit the recycling center, and then you have one box for the watter bottle top, one for the bottle itself and one for the label on the water bottle. They will not accept the bottle with the label on, either. And everyone does it, because that's what they do, no questions asked. Oh, and everyone has small portable ashtrays if they smoke, so there are almost no cigarette buts anywhere. Imagine a rock fest in the states where you look around a main stage on the third day and only see two beer cups on the ground and about 10 cigarette butts. Impossible isn't it?


A warning that yes, there are power lines above.


One the final day, Sunday, it rained for a good part of the afternoon, but finally cleared up an hour or two before sunfall, creating a really eerie glow in the sky.



At one end of the fest were a few drinking venues. One had a full bar, complete with about 20 types of whiskey and Guinness on tap, plus great meat on a stick. The other was the Mexican Fiesta Cabaret, a sight in itself. On Saturday, it was filled with a table full of Aussies dressed up like Mad Max refugees, who did some type of performance at certain hours. Also there was a mariachi band, who I think were mostly Filipinos. Plus, the tent had pinball. What more could you ask for than "La Bamba" and pinball?


A slightly sunny day, in a beautiful setting.


It never was a struggle to get to the next act; nobody pushes or shoves, but just makes their way.

And if you get low on electrolytes, there always is the Pocari Sweat tent.


But even better, was the tent I mentioned above. I never drink dark liquors, but I had a tumbler of Heaven Hill there, along with a fresh Guinness and a great bowl of jerky with a great traveling partner. What more do you want?

A tale of happiness, through food porn

Ah, food pictures. Is there a better way to describe the joy you've had while pictures than hot, juicy pictures of food pron? I think not.
On a side note, if you haven't stubled across it yet, go to Greasefreak. Though it probably qualifies as the snuff film of food porn, nothing makes me hungry for late-night food back home like Greasefreak.


My first breakfast in the states, at Orange, a breakfast place in the South Loop in Chicago. It's their weekly pancake flight, and it made me remember why I missed funky breakfasts. Creme fraiche with rasberry preserves (lower left)? Sure! Pop rocks on pancakes? Why, I'll take a stack and relive my childhood, thank you very much. But don't eat too much, because you have to eat at Hot Doug's 3 hours later!


If I remember right, this may have been some kind of antelope sausage, with gobs of french cheese and mustard on top, with duck fat fries in the back. If I ever win the lottery, I might fly Doug to wherever I am then to make my 40th birthday lunch.


Cause, really, how can you go wrong with blue cheese and a spicy mayonnaisish sauce on top of encased meat?


When I lived in Chicago, I was only partial to the breakfast burritos at Bite, which was a few blocks from me and my usual weekend brunch spot. But when you don't have one for a year, you forget how the combination of potatoes, eggs, cilantro, peppers and chorizo (the proper, crumbly mexican one) with sour cream and salsa on top can make you shiver with delight.


In Japan, I ate plenty of avocados. Why, I don't know, but they were on a lot of menus on places I went, whether at the department store food courts, my beer bar in Tokyo or at the brewpub in Yokohama. But here was one avocado-less meal, at Maison. The Tokyo restaurant specializes in deep-fried pork cutlet. You slather a great soy BBQ sauce on top, with some must hot mustard, then enter heaven. I don't know how they do it, but the pork they use can only be described as airy, possibly ethereal. It's not dense like you know pork at every other restaurant. It's the differense between a light, loosely packed hamburger at a steakhouse and one packed together with dense, tough meat by a machine for McDonald's. And knowing my love for things pork, this will become a regular stop on my trips to Tokyo.

a taste of what's to come

Be patient, friends. I shall post soonest, but here's something to whet your appetite, from Hot Doug's. The mighty hot pork bomb sausage really was mighty hot. And the duck fat fries? Just ducky.