Jul/100
westside! (china)
my friend and former colleague bryan warsaw is currently on his way out of china. on his way out, he’s travelling through xinjiang, tibet and nepal. stop by his blog and check out his photos.
Jun/100
wuhan – an i get buckets tribute post
my friend rocky has a blog – i get buckets. he often travels and puts together photo posts here’s my tribute post (or ‘biting his style’) as some might say.
Jun/100
wuhan
spent a couple of days in wuhan recently. photos will be up soon. heres a couple of emails i wrote from my lunch
From: Terence
Sent: 06/04/2010 02:17 PM ZE8
To: Colin
Subject: The scene
A japanese restaurant in a shopping mall.
A man with a baseball cap is berating the poor waitress who had the termerity to tell him he couldn’t smoke.
He is wearing an Ed Hardy shirt, versace like shades and carrying a large European carry all.
He sits down, studies the menu, and tries to call a waitress over.
Snapping his fingers loudly) “??Lai! ” he exclaims.
I drink my Coke in the corner and ask for the fa piao.
From: Terence
To: Colin
Date: 06/04/2010 02:23 PM
Subject: Re: The scene
Oh, they’ve ordered sake for lunch.
His companions have arrived, one, a portly middle aged man with a brush cut straight out of the PLA recruiting manual and a toothpick jammed into the corner of his mouth, the other, a female of indeterminate age, slightly pigeon toed, un certain of her walk on plastic clear heels.
She is screaming into a mobile phone.
Attractive in the classical sense, a long legged beauty, she makes you think of the old adage “no matter how good looking, someone, somewhere is tired of dealing with her.”
I recognize this comment as it applies to me right now in this moment.
May/100
beijing food porn
a friend of mine turned me onto this blog . . . written by a friend of his. the photography is gorgeous . .. and the food looks awesome.
it’s a phat sh for beijing!
May/100
expo post #3 sleeping cops
seen during the training day (april 20th) – check out the sheer number of PAP officers who are snoozing during training.
May/102
expo post #2 herbie hancock rocks shanghai
one of the really cool things about living overseas – well, our cultural opportunities are not as frequent as they would be in san francisco, la, or even houston, but when they are, we get a much more up close and personal touch.
because of the largesse of some friends working at the usa pavilion at the shanghai world expo, we were treated to 4th rows seats to see jazz legends dee dee bridgewater and HERBIE HANCOCK play at the expo performing arts stage last friday, not only that, but it was free. FREE!
suffice to say, sharing a small, intimate concert venue with such esteemed -jazz- musical legends is beyond my ability to translate onto a blog post, but it was truly a special evening.
See the rest of my photos here
Apr/104
the hui hang ancient tea road
last weekend, my friends and i spent saturday hiking the hui hang ancient trail – it was an old tea route between the provinces of anhui and zhejiang – about 15km in an old almost untouched valley (no cell phone reception!) in between two of the more populous provinces in china.
there’s plenty of hiking companies who will take you out there, but with a little bit of work and some chinese ability, you don’t need to spend the 100 USD that some companies are charging.
how we did it:
1. late night bus to jixi. jixi is the hometown of hu jintao – and a four hour bus ride from shanghai which costs about 120 rmb. the buses left from a private station near the zhongshan north road station on line 1.
2. across the street from the long distance bus station in jixi – there is a village level bus station – just ask around for buses vans headed towards the hui hang gu dao/ancient road. should cost around 6 rmb.
3. from there follow the handpainted signs towards the ancient road. its fairly well signposted with one turn up the valley which we almost missed and lots of food, drinks and a few guesthouses along the way. and some spectacular views – especially for being a short weekend trip from shanghai.
4. by the end of your hike you can head to some county level seats – we just booked a mini bus all the way back to hangzhou and then some of us came directly back to shanghai that night.
here’s the photos:
Mar/100
fooling around with the 50
i bought this 50mm/1.8 lens a while ago (1 year?) but have barely used it. decided to shoot with it over the past three weeks. here are some results:
Jan/100
shanzai youtube
if you’re in china, sometime some of the sites you might want to get to are blocked – some of these might be twitter, facebook, or most vexing – youtube.
some ingenious chinese programmers have now come up with youtubecn – which is a shanzai version of youtube. we’ve talked around shanzai around here before – here’s a shanzai website.
the address is youtubecn -dot – com
have fun for the few days its up. it has most of the contest of youtube as far as i can see.
for example here’s a link to “pants on the ground”
(h/t to my co-worker craig for the tip)
Nov/0917
i don’t feel like coming up with a clever pho pun
frequent readers of youusedtobealright.com know that i enjoy my pho. those that live in shanghai should also know that pho here is often disappointing or unauthentic or otherwise not fulfilling.
with the recent opening of pho 26 on wujiang road, i think there’s a new solution for all of us pho deprived masses in shanghai.
pho 26, opened opposite the yet-to-be-opened krispy kreme is, at least to my taste, the best and most authentic pho place open yet in shanghai.
