I apologize folks for the tardiness of updates, I am logging on through google China and well, it's in Chinese.

Beijing cuisine

Beijing street breakfast: Carolina and I came upon a cart near where we are staying. For 2 RMB (twenty cents) you can purchase a ping. A ping is uh, well outside of the egg, I am not sure what’s in it: the taste is a mixture of a salty crêpe and a salty omelet. The gentleman preparing the ping and his toothless older friend found amusement in us asking where we were from and the like. The presentation of the finished ping was well dog walkeresque.



Across from Nieves’s flat is a hole in the wall of a dumpling house with a scattering of tables. I have now grown accustomed to being stared at by the locals and at this tiny place where the sanitary conditions ward off foreigners like a lepers’ colony, I was the 6-foot blond with big tits at a USO concert. With our seven-word Mandarin vocabulary, Carolina bravely took the helm as the proprietor of the establishment asked for our order. Carolina surmised that there were only three things served, two types of dumplings and pork buns, which we sampled all of. The dumplings with the side condiments of soy sauce, vinegar and hot sauce were hands down the best I ever had. After finishing the last morsel (here lies the rub) I had this overwhelming thirst. There is a special place in hell of the inventor of MSG next to the inventor of aluminum siding. Funny when you can taste your own mouth and run your tongue over your gums collecting the salt deposits and spitting it onto the street. If you have high blood pressure and want to lose some weight Beijing is ground zero for fat watchers. After 18oz of water and a chocolate bar, the taste of my mouth went away and I was hungry again and craving dumplings. Just typing this I’m thinking about that whole in the wall, the whole tasting your own mouth make you more aware of yourself like yoga but with out moving.

Generally, we have found people very friendly, helpful and curious as so far as to take the time to show us how to eat the food. This was the case with hot pot. Hot Pot is cooking meat, fish, or vegetables in a broth at your table, which is supplied with a burner. We found ourselves on Ghost Street, as people call it here, with over a hundred restaurants serving hot pot. Basically, the hot pot strip. We picked a restaurant using the New York scientific equation

Some form of pricing in the window + the amount of people seated in the restaurant x visual appeal of food on the tables x Hunger = Yeah or Nay.

We were handed a picture menu I feel like a West Virginian here. Choosing raw Pork balls, small thinly sliced steaks, a variety of mushrooms, noodles, spinach, soy and three large beers. The waiter who realized we had no clue, explained with hand gestures and pictures that we needed to order broths. A few minutes later our order arrived, with our blank stares the waiter grabbed a pair of chopsticks and demonstrated how to prepare the food. Dumping the plate of pork into the three broths to cook. The waiter dipped a the thinly sliced steak into one of the broth for about 30 secs smiled and left us to our own devices. The steak was amazingly tender the pork balls had a hint of spice and the mushrooms meaty. Two of the three broths chosen were spicy and rich with flavor. We did damage to the food that would have made a Roman proud. The bill came to 150 RMB ($15) the most expensive meal we have had here.

Carolina’s aunt invited us to dinner at Quanjude a 5-story fine dine restaurant where Kissinger and Nixon, to name a few, ate with the party chairmen. Duck in Beijing is an art; the skin of the duck being the pride of each restaurant and at Quanjude it was crisp and savory. The duck is presented to the table and then sliced, each tables receives a card denoting the number of the duck served since 1864 we had 346088. Bamboo steamers were placed with flour sheets, a side dish of thick sauce and a vegatable to make spring rolls with the cut duck meat. The texture of the spring roll was that of tender succulent meat with crunch of vegetable, crisp duck skin and duck fat. A fatty duck soup with mushrooms was served on the side to round out the fat factor.









Cruising around the city hunger hits you unexpectedly thanks to living better through chemicals you can eat a full meal and never feel full. This ad brought to you by MSG.

After scaling the Drum tower on a half a ping Carolina and I were scoping for food joints. We found a restaurant that matched the equation. Picture menus in hand I picked out what looked to be chicken and ordered beer. Mental note as a photographer I should know better, things never really look like the photo. The dish that arrived was definitely not chicken. From what I could gather it was deep fried bone bites from some animal possibly fish. That said three chopsticks full was more than enough to produce “I don’t like it” out of me.


In Beijing they have an amazing way to disguise salt in many ways a true culinary talent. My palette is still adjusting to the sodium over load, with bottle water in hand and easy access to chocolate I shall go forth and eat.

The sleepy Beijing night awoke in the morning to be a sea of humanity and vehicles. My eyes half cocked and a growling belly we set forth to the bus station to take a local bus to the Great wall. Nieves command of the Mandarin is a life saving asset, she took us to the street vendors for breakfast where we ate ping a egg mixed pancake for 30 cents tasty if you like an egg with salt. Charles a friend of Nieves and Carolinas who attend my wedding who got my cake last night met us at the bus depot with Ruby his girlfriend and another girl.
We hoped a bus and headed to the Great wall. Castillo don’t do buses and this ride confirmed my distaste for the form of transport. Out the window construction on a scale of post WW2 Europe doted the landscape, train lines, highways, and high rises being built as for as the eye can see. We got off the bus and Charles who’s mandarin is very impressive haggled a illegal van taxi to drive us the rest of the way to the Wall, a hour and fifteen minute drive round trip for twenty bucks.

A ski lift ride up I was standing on The Great Wall; it is as impressive as you would think. Mao said He who has not climbed the great wall is not a true man. I am glad at thirty-one I am now a man, I need a beer. Charles haggled with a bunch of beer selling old ladies sitting on the wall Cheers!! Hiking up the step stairs we pushed past the rehabilited part of the wall to the none tourist old remnants parts. Hanging out on the wall for several ours we slowly and carefully head back. To get back to the van we took sleds down yes sleds it was Action adventure with out the decapitations.

The two-hour van/bus ride back went quickly with my newfound narcolepsy. Off the bus to a duck dinner, amazing duck skin dipped in sugar tasty way to disguise salt.

Drifting off to sleep in my 31st year of reign

Carolina and I awoke at 5 30 am, showered and said our good byes to upset cats who would not look us in the eye. The car service sent us a mini van from Palestine missing seats and with a banged up tape deck blaring what sounded like an accordion with a cat being shaved as vocals. Several near death experiences later, we arrived at JFK wide awake.
Da plane!! Japan Airlines, the best way to travel the services as always is exceptional and the food and more importantly the free sake are always tasty. The thirteen hour flight in a nutshell
Reading cover to cover
Harpers
GQ
Lonely Plant Tokyo and Beijing

Movies (time served in purgatory)
Night at the Museum
Charlotte's Web
Open Season

Consumed
4 bottles of sake
1 ambien CE

Sleep
3 hours (note with ambien CE usually a solid 8 hours)

We arrived in Naritta airport in Japan with a four hour layover. Layover is just another word for airport bar and who am I to deny the time honored tradition.Yes, that’s a Mohawk compliment of Carolina and Terry, my next-door neighbor, for my thirty-first birthday haircut. Even the Japanese airport food is great: a little pork and rice with udon noodles mmmm. Two pints and half two bowls of food $36.00 spanktackular! Boarded another plane for the three and half hour flight to Beijing. After two sakes, an hour nap and yesterday’s New York Times, we arrived in The People’s Republic of China. After a painless custom’s check we met Carolina’s sister Nieves and emerged from the sterile airport world at 10 pm. Nieves threw us in taxi speeding towards central Beijing glancing out the windows of the cab you can see globalization. The highway could have been in New Jersey green highway signs Toyota, Cadillac and Audi cars on the road.

We came into Beijing on a sleepy Sunday night hurraling past hundreds of high risers and neon signs with a thick mist of pollution permeating the air. We dropped our bags at Nieves’s flat in Dongcheng and found another cab and headed to D22 an ex-pat dive bar. http://www.d22beijing.com Johnny Cash is everywhere man!! Funny you fly half way around the world to find yourself in a dive bar listen to jazz drinking rot gut vodka. The jazz band Red Hand fused Mongolian throat singing with Coltrane, it was one of the best jazz bands I ever heard. Just a car ride and a couple drinks in a dive bar and the vibe here is undeniable the wave surging. Not a bad place to start celebrating your 31st birthday cake and a crown.

Good Night and Good Luck from Beijing

Day 9 Monday our last day and back to work, breakfast fish at the train station. We but tickets to the bullet train to a town 60 miles outside of Tokyo for a meeting. The bullet train is an amazing thing double decker and the smoothest ride i have ever been on the trip tooks us about an hour. I explored the train with Hugh watching out the window as Tokyo raced by a population of 20 million I think we went north but i am not sure I really wish I had a map. I passed out for must of the trip to be awoken at the station, out the train down tot he cabs and off to the meeting a 30 min ride into the country. Yet another powerpoint in japanese and a tour of the complex lunch and another meeting meeting in the afternoon. My head was inches from the table I am just exhuasted my brian can take any more I can't wait to get home and sleep, drink another three cans of Boss coffee.

The Japanese hosts takes us to a dumpling house, the food is great and sake and beer are heavily poured. We are all happy as we walk back to the station and back on the bullit train to Tokyo. We all meet for our finial drink in the celler bar and off to bed. Looking forwar to the 14 hour flight i hope i can by some stuff in the airport a bit shy of the gifts i need to bring back.

Day 8 Sunday, our second day off and our only chance to go shopping, the group meets at noon in the lobby of the hotel. all but J dog, Hugh and I go shopping. We head off to buy sake, first at a department store which turns out to have a large selection of sake. We figure out what to buy after a long time of discussion and questions to other folks in the aisles. The next stop is to get J dog a Tokyo Giants baseball hats, the only place is at the Tokyo dome for every sports store in Tokyo carries American major league team hats only. The heat is down right brutal I could be in an African jungle. The Tokyo dome is packed with people waiting for the game of the day to start j dog finds his hat and we head to purchase sake glasses. J dog and I depart from Hugh who is hooking up with friends for a night of drinking. J dog and I head to a high end neighborhood the SOHO of Tokyo that we had visited the night of Italian food at Africa. We stop at a French cafe for refreshments and escape from the heat, I try a new beer from Tahiti . After an hour of cool relaxation we head back into the heat and discover that the shopping in the hood is all westernized stuff nothing tradition Japanese which to this point I realize globalization has taken hold. After walking for a couple of hours we find nothing to buy, but enjoyed the amazing hood for all its richness and that can buy. We navigate the trains system the first time without a guide back to the hotel. I shower up and head to eat ssushi, I bump into mike at the sushi bar and chow down on Torro only 4 bucks here.

Mike and I head over to an office complex behind the train station that he explored the night before. The architecture of the complex is amazing five or six sky scrapers clustered around a park with covered walkways. The only way to describe it is to make reference to Akria and Ghost in the Shell movies, just huge buildings with strong lines and perfect complementary lighting. This society is amazing all this metal tile and glass put together to create a minimalist's complex that must have cost a fortune, it is the most amazing balance of architecture. Mike and I head back to the hotel were the bed just came at me .

Day 7 My first day off we are all just exhausted the long week of work and heat has knocked us out J-dog was the first to pass out on the train. We took a hour long train ride to the country side for a group tour to a temple and small towns I have no idea of the names of the places I can't read the signs. The small town was nice but I have been noticing a thing about cats with the Japanese there are cat images everywhere bowels,glasses, posters, warning signs on trains, just about anything you through an image on there's a cat. I asked Hugh about the cats and the response was I have no idea why you ask me i have not lived here for 4 years. I will find out this cat thing it just to weird. We worked through the town that was a tourist haven and wedding Mecca because of its heritage and large temple. The streets were full of stores with traditional Japanese items, but pretty much over price chopsticks for $50 bucks and some cool stuff I can get in chinatown in NYC. We stopped at noodle restaurant that Hugh knew, had one of the nicest bottles of sake in my life and the noodles that were out of this world. It was nice to sit down and enjoy a leisurely lunch my first since I have arrived. We moved on to the temple and I could feel the sake, it was like walking on air. The temple compound was serene and a breath of fresh air from the mad rush of Tokyo and the office, the humidity was past 100% but the beauty of the place made the sweat worth it. I sat down on a rock bench and stared out over the landscape listening to birds for sometime. Photographed a monk with my rolliflex taken my time to enjoy the exchange. On the temple compound was a modern art museum with three galleries, I paid 8 bucks and saw some very interesting oil paintings. The paintings were to best describe them seeing light through your eyelids, try it you'll see shades of pink,white, and purple. The titles of the paintings were light in the wilderness, dawn, light again, it made think of my sister who is legally blind and a tinge of homesickness came over me. I at the moment wished to be home with family and friends or have them here with me to enjoy this. I joined the group again and headed to the train by this point every step was a wet one my shirt was drenched in sweat we stopped at a liquor store and bought a couple local brewed beer, you can drink in the streets here without a paper bag. Hugh and I polished of a beer each walking down the street to the station. On another train heading to see a Buddha. Mike Mount and I broke away from the group and strolled down the street discussing the layout of buildings and the wish to live in a minimalist home. As we were walking down a sign caught my eye I remember a documentary on the Nazi symbols and the swastika had been borrowed from the far east odd to see on a small street in a small town in Japan. Mike and I walk into what we thought was a sake bar turned out to be a sake jar store. The owners of the store were very nice and with broken Japanese and broken English we talked for sometime and Mike end up buying a beautiful jug. The owner thanks us for the conversation and purchase gave me a gift of a small sake cup with the symbol for summer in it, I believe it was one of the nicest gifts given to me by a stranger. Rejoining the group we head back to the train to meet with Jay Asano and some other Japanese from work for dinner. Jay had chosen Korean barbecue in Tokyo, if your not familiar with Korean barbecue the tables have grills in them and food is brought to the table and you cook it. After dinner Jay took us all out for drinks a cab ride to the bar, throught the door of a hotel to a small hotel bar. The hotel and bar are known for two things one being 250 years old the oldest hotel in Tokyo and for being the headquarters of general MacArthur. Unfortunately the small bar was packed and we moved to a jazz bar across the street which turn out to be a jazz bar and something out of Lost in Translation. I placed an order for the last round that i wanted to pay witht he waiter who billed me the entire evening at the bar 300 worth, lost in translation I'm just glad I can expense it. Leaving thr bar we walked through Tokyo's chinatown which looked close to pretty much every other Chinatown in the world. We managed to grab the last train before that line closes until the morning. We were tired and in a slap happy mode and like tradition with the group every major event we work together someone's got to get naked in public for a picture this time it was Mike's turn

Day 6 Friday Breakfast needed a little something closer to home to started the day Japanese version of American breakfast. Another day of meetings and powerpoints, I am holding on only with knowledge that this is the last day of powerpoints other wise I would look for knife to cut my wrists. I have been drinking coffee like water here to keep awake, I switched to chilled coffee because of the heat and have been drinking BOSS coffee, it caught my eye with the image of Hemingway on it. The coffee is not bad here except for the Starbucks everywhere eight beans and a drop of water burnt. The day ended with a shopping trip to eletronic stores, nothing really to interesting, all my eletronic needs are filled at the moment so I was kind of bored. The group was then taken to a shopping district, I have not seen anything that has caught my eye here to buy. What is cool hip and in style in the majority of the shops were American jeans t-shirts and just anything that is American culture, I thought about buying an I love NY tshirt just tell people I got it in Tokyo. We had a group dinner in an Italian restaurant called Africa, I still can't make the relation but the chopstick were held in an zebra stripped holder. The Italian food only had a loose resemblance to Italian, was ok but not enough to hold one over. Train ride back to the hotel and crashing in to bed

Day 5 Thursday, took a different route to the office from the train stop, and found a surf shop, the area is miles from the ocean. Another morning of powerpoints, I want to find the sick masochist's fucker who invented the progam and knee him in the balls. After a morning of meeting the foreign visitors and I were taken to a studio to shoot images. A long cab ride and many shared stories of the night before advantages limited as they were was exchanged, the Dutch folks end up in a section of Tokyo called Ripponge a dodge night life section known for the red light services and bars and clubs. Jim one of the young guys from Canada tagged along with the Dutch contingency, had one to many drinks and was trying to hook up with a women who was not a women but a transvestite. After being told repeatedly look at the feet it finally sunk in that indeed the chick was a dude.Of course with the information at hand after the cab ride the American group tortured Jim with songs of hands, feet and toes.

The studio was located in the Beverly Hills of Tokyo, very apparent with the Alfa Romeo dealership on the corner of the block. Upon entering the studio as the custom we had to take our shoes off and put on plastic slippers two sizes to small for any of us. The set was pre-lit a very flat bright set, the crew knew their stuff.I had experience the set up upon my last visit. The light in Japan due to its location on the planet is very flat and a cooler colored light then what we have back in New York or in California. In New York the light is warmer and due to the sky scrapers there is more shadows and contrast, and Cali the light is very warm and even perfect for shoots. The Japanese light for pictures, how they perceive light which in this country is bright and flat. I was given free range to relite which I did, the communication was a bit difficult, but after I moved a light and changed diffusions and gels the crew followed me. I had a very beautiful model to work with who was very professional I think one of the most professional models I have ever worked with. I did three light set ups and three wardrobe changes with her and got some great shots. The crew was taken notes on my work which I found very flattering to say the least. Today was the first day since I arrived here that I was out of the windowless meeting room in the day time. My synapses were not firing properly today do to the heat and long work days I shot what I thought was a roll of film in five minutes only to discover that there was no film in the camera. The crew and all those in the studio got a good laugh at the mistake, I polished off three rolls of film and about 150 digital shots by the end of the day. After all the formal thanks and good byes the group of us walked to the local trains station which was a good 15 min walk through some of the nicest homes of Tokyo. The sweat pouring down me and the down right exhaustion that I felt, sushi once again came to mind. I asked Hugh if he would join me for dinner which he excepted, got back to the room showered laid down for 1o min and out the door. Hugh and I went to the same restaurant as Mike Mount and I had gone the previous night, I left myself in Hugh's arm when it came to ordering, I told him I'll eat anything you order. I am getting so spoiled on sushi here. Hugh ordered stuff I have never heard of or seen before, after proclaiming how good it was Hugh look at me queerly and said the sushi was average at best. I have eaten sushi at Nobu, Tomo, and many places in la, and the sushi at this little restaurant near the hotel is damn good in my opinion. But as Hugh has told me wait and see in a couple of days from now he will take me to one of the best sushi places for dinner.