Chinese New Year

Well, it was a few days ago, but here’s a shot I took in Hong Kong of some lanterns (this is also a nice illustration of how skyscraper-y some parts of Hong Kong are):

And here’s the art project we did wherein we made and decorated similar lanterns:

My first meme!

Passed to me by rv.

Seven Things to Do Before I Die:
1. Get a Ph.D.
2. Learn to make Pad Thai
3. Learn another language
4. Watch the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions succeed again
5. Watch a documentary made by my sister
6. Juggle clubs
7. Star in an interpretive dance show

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1. Understand Jurgen Habermas' prose
2. Speak Japanese without an accent
3. Win consistently at poker
4. Enjoy shopping
5. Dance
6. A reverse windmill dunk
7. Remeber the French I learned in middle school

Seven Things I Say Most Often:
1. I didn't see you there
2. hai
3. domo
4. sumimasen
5. Felicity's on!
6. I'll make pasta
7. The Pistons won again

Seven Books I Love:
1. War and Peace
2. Anna Karenina
3. Franny and Zooey
4. Patrimony
5. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
6. The Rules of Play
7. Gender and Human Rights Politics in Japan

Seven Movies I Watch Over and Over:
1. The Big Lebowski
2. Annie Hall
3. Hudsucker Proxy
4. Hiding and Seeking
5. Old School
6. Manhattan
7. Star Wars 4-6

Seven Songs I Play Over and Over:
1. Good Vibrations
2. The Boxer
3. Moonshadow
4. I am the Walrus
5. Gigantic
6. She's an Angel
7. One Hundred Names

Seven Things that Attract Me to Blogging:
1. Getting to keep in touch with my friends and family
2. when unexpected people stumble onto our blog
3. I like it when Rob Farley makes fun of us

Seven to Join Me:
1. Matt Rochkind
2. Zo
3. Jomamasan
4. Brenn
5. Eric
6. K

And now for some navel-gazing . . .

It's been a slow weekend here (gearing up for the big adventures next week – or just conditioning the two readers of our blog to learn to do without us over the next two weeks).

First, a word cloud of our blog:Second, a meme from RV:

(keeping in mind that my mother and – occasionally – my grandmother read this, and one wants to make them cry neither tears of joy nor shame)

Seven things to do before I die:
Own another dog
Grow a really, really awesome vegetable garden
Run a marathon
Write a book
Visit Alaska
Take some art classes in painting, drawing, and ceramics

Seven things I cannot/will not do:
Sing solo in front of others
Dance
Clap in rhythm
Accept stupidity or arrogance from those in positions of authority
Ride in a hummer
Smoke cigarettes
bungee jump

Seven things I say most often [recently]:
wakarimasen
Goaty!
I meant . . .
I’m so cold
I’ll do the dishes
Tell me a story
Did it snow last night?

Seven books I love [and that I’ve read in the last ten years, so this excludes any classics read in high school and any childhood books]:
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
Small Wonder: Essays, Barbara Kingsolver
Spirit Walker, Nancy Wood
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
The Classic Hundred Poems, various
. . . “love” is such a strong word that I might have to stop here – I can think of many books I like, but love . . . I am looking here for something so rich that if one were alone on a desert island, one would never go bored thinking about the multitude of questions raised by said book, which must, of course, also be a pleasure to read. Given those high standards, I might actually take down a few of the above books, but, hey, I just wanted to play along . . . [I am also trying to make an effort to avoid academic (States and Social Revolutions) or pretentious (The Future of an Illusion) books]

Seven movies I watch over and over:
Sadly, there’s only been one - and that was several years ago (since I am generally opposed to re-watching movies or re-reading books): Top Gun. And, yes, I know that the fact that this was the one movie is even sadder.

Seven things I like about blogs and blogging:
Not having to explain what I’ve been up to / what the weather is like / how I like Japan over and over again.
The (quasi) anonymity
The comments people leave
Getting to share my pictures right away with those that are far away
The feeling that I can participate in the lives/experiences/thoughts of those far away and who lead very different lives from mine just by reading (and very rarely commenting on) their blogs
The fact that I could never, ever keep a diary, but somehow keeping a blog is much, much easier
Bitch Ph.D.

Some to join me:
Well, whoever wants to! Any of the people on the blogroll!

The best part about the snow

Is the sparkly day after.
(of course, since it’s now several days later, it no longer looks like this, but rather more patchy and icy)

This is/was near our house:our neighbors made snowpeople:our car:

This is/was at Doho Park:

And this is the art lesson – inspired by the snow - that we did. We talked about same-ness and then symmetry and made paper snowflakes. The older ones got the concept of linear/bilateral symmetry versus radial symmetry; the younger ones, not so much . . .

p.s. I am sorry this is sooooooo booooooring. Not everyone can write about battleships or, better yet, BattleStar Gallactica.

A Snowy Saturday Night

Kate and I passed our first (and perhaps only) snowy Saturday night in Japan playing cards (casino) and drinking hot chocolate with a little kahlua. I'm sure there is another more common name for that drink, but I call it "liquid kahlua bad boys," in honor of my Aunt Jo's award winning brownie recipe.

Snow Day!

Well, it finally happened here – and it might as well, if it’s going to be so darn cold all the time!

The snow is beautiful and magical (but the pictures are a little dark, since I took them first thing in morning through our windows)!

In other news, I just put the finishing touches on this ladybug hat for a baby born in October.

Return to Tsukuba

Well, I’m back – and it’s considerably colder here than it was in Hong Kong. Considerably. However, I’m wearing my nice, new Eddie Bauer flannel-lined jeans (brough to me by Eric), and I’m quite cozy.

I took the bus to and from the airport, and for those visitors who are considering doing this (or who may be forced to consider it if they bring too much luggage), it’s really very easy. And you can speak English to buy the ticket. No worries, really.

I would definitely recommend Hong Kongas a destination – it was interesting and not too difficult to get around - and the food and the shopping are really good there. I’d be more cautious about suggesting you take a day and go to Macau, unless you have as many days as we did.

It was great and fun to see and travel with Eric, and it’s great to be back with Mike.

10,000 Buddhas Monastery

Today Eric and I headed out of the (downtown) city again, this time to Sha Tin to visit 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

The Monastery isn’t really in the country: you take the light rail, but not even to the last stop. And then you walk by some government offices and a big Ikea before you start climbing the 400 stairs up to the pagoda.

Eric fit right in.

The temple is beautiful.
And so is the pagoda (and you can even climb up inside of it).Also, dogs featured prominently in this temple’s statues. My kind of temple.

A day of pilgrimages

First, Eric and I went to see the big Buddha. Getting there was a bit of an adventure. To start things off, you take one of the subway lines to its terminus. Then, you ride a bus for an hour. Our Frommer’s guidebook stated that the bus ride was “hair-raising,” so I had envisioned breakneck speed and lurching around corners. This was not the case. Although there were sharp mountain curves, the buses didn’t move that fast. Rather, the thing that made the bus ride scary was the fact that the road was basically one lane. About every 600 feet or so (?), there’d be a lay-by where oncoming traffic could pull over. Good thing that there wasn’t much oncoming traffic. Except all the other buses.

Anyway, we arrived at the monastery in one piece after driving by some very nice beaches (Hong Kong has beautiful beaches. Who knew?). This is the world’s largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha (not sure how much competition there is in that category, though). For some unknown reason, I was always think that Buddha statues are very old, but this one was unveiled in 1993.

After walking around the Buddha (and up the 260 steps), we went to eat at the Temple’s vegetarian restaurant. The food was very good.

Then we took the bus and the subway back to Hong Kong. By the way, for those who think that Hong Kong is all city, the countryside looks like this:

Our second pilgrimage was to a restaurant (recommended to us by our friend who lives here) that specializes in spicy Chinese food. You know the food is going to be spicy when the outside of the restaurant looks like this:There was, blissfully, food on the menu that wasn’t super-hot, so I was okay. Eric loved his food (which looked so hot that I didn't even dare to taste it), and is thinking of going back on Monday.

Our third pilgrimage was to a place that has the best cakes in Hong Kong (again, suggested by our friend).

I am now so full that I won’t be able to eat anything until, oh, tomorrow.

Dissertation

Aside from pounding mochi and making latkas, there is actually a reason that I am in Japan: I am supposed to research my dissertation, and maybe even write a few chapters.

Today I took my first step in that direction, as I finished my first draft of a dissertation chapter. It is my theory chapter (which will be chapter 2). This weekend I will send it to some of my professors and colleagues, for comments. So, that's good (although I have a feeling it still needs a lot of work).

Today’s Amusements

Involved an amusement park: Hong Kong Disneyland. (The park is located about thirty minutes by train [complete with mouse-shaped windows] from central Hong Kong).Eric has a friend from high school who works there, and she was able to snag us some tickets. Eric’s friend was transferred from the Anaheim Disneyland. Her job: princess. The type of princess varies, depending on the day. Today she was Cinderella.We also rode the rides (of course!). We rode almost every ride in the park, and we waited only in one line for about 10 minutes. There were some rides that I’d never been on, like the Winnie the Pooh one and the Buzz Lightyear one, and then there were the old standards, like Space Mountain and the carousel. This park doesn’t have a Matterhorn or a Thunder Mountain, though.The park is much, much smaller than the Anaheim one. However, even though it is smaller (and thus we did the whole park in about 4 hours), we still left the park with that dazed/confused/exhausted feeling that one gets from the “real” Disneyland in California.

Our second amusement involved a free ride (arranged by the tourist bureau) on a traditional junk boat, the Duk Ling. At first, we thought it was this boat:But then it turned out to be this:

The cruise lasted about an hour and stayed all within Victoria Harbor.A big thanks to Jen Em, who mentioned that some of her friends had done this when they were in Hong Kong.

Last, after a very yummy Chinese dinner, we saw a light show. Every night at 8pm, the skyscrapers light up with colored lights, flash, and shine laser beams across the harbor for a choreographed 12-minute show. There is even music that accompanies this, but we didn’t have a radio, and so couldn’t hear the music. The show was pretty neat all the same – especially because Hong Kong (the city) is composed almost entirely of skyscrapers, so almost all the buildings that fronted on the water were involved in the show. Here's a shot of a portion [really, just a little, little bit] of the harbor and the skyline at night (although not during said light show):

Hong Kong update

We’ve been busy – and walking a lot, which means that I am almost too tired to write this right now, but I just wanted to share a few pictures.

This tree grows all over the city and has the most amazing purple blossoms.

More shots from the Botanical garden (the second picture is worth opening to see the inscription):

The views from Victoria Peak, high above Hong Kong Island. You can definitely see that Hong Kong has a great harbor.

High Tea, with Victoria Harbor in the background.

Raising the flag, complete with a pipe band.

Macau's Senate Square. Macau is only an hour away by ferry (and I only nearly backed out of riding the boat seven/seventeen/seventy-seven times before we got on. Kate hates the boats - but it did turn out to be a very smooth ride). Like Hong Kong, Macau is a Special Administrative Region of China. Unlike Hong Kong, it used to be a Portuguese colony. Thus, note the buildings . . .

(This is the remaining part of a church that burned down in a fire [I think]. The stone edifice made it, but the wooden building did not. So there's just this church standing there, with nothing behind it. Like a Hollywood set or something, but it's real . . .)

Tomorrow we go to a meet a princess! For real - details to come!