Fries Are Up!

Well, it's taken forever but I've finally got the bulk of my photos from the Asia trip up on Flickr. A few of them you've seen (if you followed the trip) but there are lots you haven't, so feel free to take a look! Go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21380180@N08/ to check them out.

I've still got more to add, mainly the ones with my colleagues in them, which I wanted to add better captions to, so stay tuned!

It's a Freakin' Winter Wonderland!

Well, it looks like the weather hysteria that grips this town every time there's a little snow in the forecast was right this time. Apparently this is the biggest snow we've had here in 10 years. Had to cancel our trip to Cincinnati, which was just fine with Morty until we took him outside with us when we tackled the shoveling. Got the car out and went for groceries, then stopped at the new Chinese buffet place over by IUEast (mixed bag, let's hope for improvement).

Notes From a Perfect Weekend

Well, near-perfect, anyway. Getting towed on Friday evening was the only sour note, but I think that if that hadn't happened I might have had to kill myself. Because of the perfection of my weekend in Chicago and all and the impossibility of ever topping it, you understand.

There was shopping. There was great food. There was more shopping. And more great food. And great company throughout.

Had lunch on Friday at Tamarind in the south loop with Howard from Columbia College Chicago. Highlight was when one of the bamboo pieces adorning the wall fell off and hit Howard in the head (not to worry, no admissions personnel were harmed during the course of the meal). Then saw the new ceramics exhibition at the Cultural Center, "People of the Mud, II (in which I just happen to be close personal friends with one of the artists).

Got together with some other folks from Columbia College on Friday evening (too busy gabbing to take any pictures, though there was a moment when we all got out our cell phones and showed each other pictures of our pets). Great to catch up with everybody. FYI: the Pomegranate Marguerita at Bar Louie is much better than the Black Cherry Cosmo.

Got towed from Wabash and Balbo, though I swear I read every sign and even got out of the car to check. Unplanned expense, but surprisingly minor hassle - took me about half an hour to get the car back, and had the pleasure of being entertained by one of the guys working the desk at the impound lot with stories of animals encountered in towed cars (including two doberman pinschers, a thirty foot boa constrictor, and fifty rabbits). Picked up my dear friend Jason (the aforementioned artist, who always lets me stay with him in his fabulous condo on the Drive) and headed to Blind Faith Cafe in Evanston for some vegetarian Bibimbop (as good as I remembered it).

Went to Mitsuwa Market (www.mitsuwachicago.net) in Arlington Heights in the morning on Saturday (had a few things to pick up for Art Is... Japan, a program I run at the Richmond Art Museum that starts in less than two weeks). Then Jason had the brilliant idea to go to American Science and Surplus (www.sciplus.com). Looked up the address on Google with my Treo, then went to mapquest and we were off. More shoppping ensued.

Found a really great place for dinner and drinks that night. The Violet Hour, in Wicker Park. Who would ever have thought to make curried rice krispie bars? Sounds terrible but they were fantastic. Followed those with the deep fried bread and butter pickles with chipotle aioli (also fantastic). Cocktail wise: the 41 Jane Does was better than the Yellow Rose of Texas, but they were both terrific. Then we ordered the eggnog and achieved Perfect Happiness.

Way over the top and delicious breakfast at Tweet Let's Eat on Sunday (we had the vegetarian biscuits and gravy as an appetizer, let's just leave it there). Very cold but lots of sunshine on the way back to Richmond. Made good enough time to be able to stop at Trader Joe's in Indianapolis. Warm welcome from Brian, Violet, and Morty.







View from the gallery in the Cultural Center.













Very Scary Person of the Mud.















Too dark to photograph anything else with the Treo in the Violet Hour.














A view of Lake Shore Drive at Belmont on a very cold day. Steam rising off the water, very beautiful.

We Are Resplendent

It has taken us some time to adjust to our inexplicable return to our previous abode in the U.S. Needless to say, we look back on our travels fondly, but also with a tinge of regret at missed opportunities. It seems that just as the world began to comprehend our greatness, we have been whisked back to obscurity, and our previous life, which once seemed so wonderful, strikes us as somewhat restrictive and shabby. No doubt the time was not right for our triumphal appearance on the global stage. Either that, or our control-freak of a manager has sabotaged us out of jealousy.

Rest assured though, dearest legions of fans, that we treasure the comforts of home. And we have at last managed to acquire an addition to our wardrobe that will always remind us of our great adventure in the Far East.

Feeding Frenzy

Blogger has apparently fixed its photo uploading problem, so I can finally post some pics of my last morning in Tokyo wandering the grounds of the old Imperial Palace. A very beautiful and tranquil place, which my Treo camera will, unfortunately, not do justice. This first photo is the view from the street where we entered, across the street from our hotel.





This building is a music conservatory that's on the grounds, with mosaic tile murals of birds on the six-sided large structure in the back.








This grate is where the food comes out for the fish. They apparently know when to expect the good stuff to come out, because they were all swarming the area and went completely nuts when the grate opened.
















I've finished my nightmare of an expense report (with its eight different currencies and receipts with no recognizable characters other than the numbers), and am working on preparing my report for Columbia College. Have a meeting scheduled in Chicago on December 3 to go over the trip with them. My recent travels figure less and less in my dreams, and I'm finally starting to feel like my head has caught up with the rest of me in the states. I have a vague plan to get my photos organized and get them up on Flickr (I have LOTS that no one has seen yet), and am trying to figure out what the heck to do with this blog now that I'm back. Will keep you posted.

Re-Entry

It's good to be home, but my head is still partly in Asia. I dream of exotic places and traveling with a large group of people. A huge tour bus is always a fixture in these dreams, and there's often something odd about it (one time it was full of water, and the seats were floating inflatable pool chairs). And several times I've seen someone on the street here in Richmond and thought it was someone from the tour group.

Have, unfortunately, picked up some kind of bacterial infection (the severe abdominal pain kind, not the vomiting kind, and not the SARS kind, either), which manifested itself over the weekend. Am on some wicked antibiotics and feeling better. My main complaint right now is that I haven't been to a restaurant since I got back, and I've been SO looking forward to being able to read every word on a restaurant menu again!

Blogger is having a technical problem and images are not uploading properly. After several tries, this is the only one I got up so far:




Sunset from the plane window.









Still want to post on my exploration of the Imperial Palace Gardens, right across the street from our hotel, on my last morning in Tokyo, but that will have to wait. In the meantime and for the record, here is my pitiful bird list:

Common Myna (saw this one all over southeast Asia)
Olive Backed Sunbird (Singapore)
Spot Billed Duck (in the pond at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo)
Mute Swan (ditto)
Great Cormorant (ditto)
Common Raven (ditto)
Black Kite (saw this many times in Hong Kong and Shanghai, apparently it has adapted well to big cities)
Cattle Egret (many sightings in southeast Asia)
Oriental Magpie (Hong Kong)
Red Billed Blue Magpie (Hong Kong)
Rock Dove (can't have a big city without pigeons)

We Are Not the Backstreet Boys (Thank God)

Arrived back in Richmond about 5pm yesterday (10/23). Brian picked me up at the airport in Dayton and took me to Friendly's for some ice cream before we headed home. Mort very excited to see me, Violet feigned indifference. Peteena in denial, wants to know when room service is coming.

Have lots of processing to do, and pictures still to post. Will try to put some order to my thoughts about this amazing trip over the next few days (am also doing some on-line research in an attempt to verify a very short bird list). In the meantime, here are some further shots of Tokyo -- an extremely polite, orderly, beautiful city that seems to have one thing on it's mind: shopping.


Tokyo Station - a very dangerous place. If they don't run you down and leave you for dead in the train station on the ground level, you could wander until you drop dead in the endless series of connected shopping malls under ground.





Or, you could run into these guys. three self-described "drunken" men who attached themselves to me and couple of female colleagues who were looking for a currency exchange where they would take my Chinese money (which the hotel would not touch). Two of them spoke a little English. They were quite charming, but apparently had been drinking all afternoon, and their breath would just about knock you down.




The IIE fair in Tokyo was held at "Sunshine City," a huge convention center/shopping mall/hotel complex where, instead of having signs or a marquee to tell you what all is going on that day, they have actual live people (usually young, and usually female) wearing white gloves and holding up signs advertising these events. This is the view from the plaza outside where the fair was down to the street.



Live entertainment in Sunshine City. A very animated guy with a very listless money doing the kind of spiel where the monkey does everything except what the guy tells him to do, and the guy pretends to get frustrated and angry, and then the monkey placates him, etc. etc. Yeah, it was pretty depressing.







You could have a four-course meal at the crepe stand in Harajuku, because you can buy any conceivable foodstuff in a crepe (and there are pictures of all it on the front of the crepe stand).







Then, of course, there's the absolutely disgusting steaming bin of unidentifiable meats at the Seven-Eleven. Seven-Eleven is everywhere in Asia, but only in Tokyo did I see this. You grab a pair of chopsticks, pluck out the nasty tidbit that you want, put it in a cardboard cup and pay for it. Another pic that you all are very fortunate cannot be accompanied by its aroma.






Motorcycle parking in Tokyo. Each space is equipped with a lock you can rent. You plug coins in like a parking meter and lock up your bike.









The crown of photographers and other press people who were waiting for the arrival of the Backstreet Boys when we arrived at Narita airport on Oct. 20.







The rock garden next to the bus pickup at the airport.








The Palace Hotel (where we stayed) is right across the street from the Imperial Palace (hence the name). Spent a couple of hours there on the morning I left Japan, wandering the grounds. Will post on that in the next day or so, it was truly amazing.