Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas or Happy Boxing Day as the case may be for your time zone!

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving from Hong Kong!

More Travel

Greetings from sunny Tianjin! We decided to take a long weekend and get out of our city for a while to visit some friends. It's been cold (lows around 0C--that's about 32F), although it did heat up yesterday. We thought it'd be a lot colder here, but so far it actually seems warmer.

We took the fast train, which takes about five hours, and our trip was quietly uneventful. Be looking for pictures of this fine city to grace the blog soon.

Curtain Call

The show was awesome, but now it's over. It's funny how you can spend such a long time building up to such a relatively short event, but I believe it was worth it. Pictures, music, and video to follow shortly, though probably not on this site. I'll be cutting together a DVD of the show that'll also include photos and behind-the-scenes footage and making-of features. If you're interested, drop me a comment. I'm not sure what the recommended donation will be on that or how I'll get it to you once it's done, but if there's enough interest, we'll find a way.

Now, onward to the next show!

Mazel Tov!

The show was, as predicted, a great success, playing to an international audience in a packed house where we brought in extra standing room. The cast and crew are to be congratulated as they reap the fruit of their long labors. Congratulations! Now, where's the party? What's that you say? Oh, right. One down, three to go.

Opening Night

Opening night. Friday and Saturday are sold out. Only a few tickets left for tonight's show. Still unsure? Click below to hear a sample.

Thespianism

You probably didn't know it (and there's no reason you should), but we're doing a play right now! As is always the case, the show has consumed our waking hours. We've had a couple of days where everyone's just dropped what they were doing and we ran from 9 to 5. I'm doing some directing, some choreographing, and leading tech. It is quite an undertaking, let me tell you. It is also definitely an adaptation. It breaks with a lot of long-standing tradition. We open next Thursday for a three night run (plus a matinee), and we've got full houses every night.

Please remember us in the days to come. We've got practice in the afternoon every day next week, and a lot of folks are struggling with illness. You know, I once did a show where one of our main cast members had the flu. He was running a temperature over a hundred and bolting off to puke between scenes. The show must go on, right? I'm sure we could do that, but I'd really rather prefer not to have to (as I'm sure we all would).

If you're in the area next week, drop by for one of our evening shows. I'm sure we'll have standing room available, at least...

Pics!

It occurred to me that I have not yet shown you the view from my office, so here it is:

From My Office

Hit the link for more pics.

Also, we went on a tour of the city a few weeks ago. We saw an old German church complete with working clocktower, a bird that spoke Chinese, and some truly spectacular views of the city.

From Tour

Again, hit the link for the full album.

I'd tell you more about how this is the end of the quarter and work is really busy, about how I'm directing a production on Monday, and about all the neat and interesting things that are happening, but I'm sick. :-( I'm hoping it's not my semi-annual sinus infection. The good news is, I can probably get meds for it over the counter. The bad news is, I have no idea what meds I'd need.

Shanghai

A few weeks ago, some colleagues and I attended the Learning 2.008 tech conference in Shanghai. It was a nice three day trip, and a few pictures can be found in the gallery below.

Shanghai

Shanghai is definitely a big, modern city. It's also much more bicycle-friendly than our city. On the other hand, we almost witnessed an accident. That is to say, an accident occurred right behind us as we were walking down the sidewalk, and we turned and saw the aftermath. A motorcycle cop had run into an old lady crossing the street, and she was down for quite a while. The guy seemed genuinely sorry about it as he tried to staunch the blood flowing from her head, but he was flustered, too. He seemed to want to help her up and on her way as soon as possible. It is my observation that the police here aren't like police in the States. For one thing, I don't think they receive the same level of training or discipline. I once saw an officer who ostensibly was supposed to be standing watch on a triathlon route but was instead sitting on the curb on the side of the road with his hat off, listening to a portable music player. The yellow "Police Line: Do Not Cross" caution tape commanded zero respect from the pedestrians. Another time, I saw two officers walking hand-in-hand with a third, non-uniformed man between them (one thing about Asians in general is that they are not shy about what Westerners would consider intimate hand-holding between same-gender friends). Police here also don't seem to be taken as seriously by themselves or the general citizenry. I wonder if this isn't because most of them don't carry guns (although I have seen tasers and collapsible batons--but then again, you can buy those in the open night market for under $5). In the end, they just don't seem to command the same respect, power, or authority as officers in the States. Of course, I've never been on the wrong side of the law there or here, so a lot of this is purely conjecture.

There are many things like that here, that at first blush seem similar to what we're more familiar with, but the visual cues mislead us because the reality is something very different.

While in Shanghai one of the guys we were with decided he wanted to buy a Wii (you know, Nintendo's ubiquitous game console?). That big glass ball you see in the picture above is actually the front of a giant mall. Inside, there were plenty of vendors with Wiis for sale. However, all of the Wiis on sale there had been "modded." That means that they'd had their hardware slightly modified to allow them to play illegally copied game discs. When my friend tried to explain to a vendor that he wanted an unmodified Wii, the man was very confused. His English was pretty good, but could this Westerner really be asking for a Wii that couldn't play copy games? A "shackled Wii", as it were? What for? He tried to convince my friend that regular games were too expensive. Why pay that high price when he could get a copy game for 1/10th the cost? Integrity didn't even enter into it, merely economics. Finally, he said he could maybe get an unmodified Wii in a few hours, but it would cost 500 RMB extra. My friend politely declined.

During that trip, I experienced a lot of new things. The second night there, we ate at a Japanese Teppanaki restaurant, and that was quite possibly the single most transcendent dining experience of my entire life. I've had better individual dishes before, but the total offering was greater than the sum of its parts. I sustained epicurean delight across eight courses.

Soon, I'll have more pictures of our city and work environment, but for now it's to bed for me. It's only Tuesday after a holiday break, and I'm still missing sleep.

Space

Did you happen to catch the space news last weekend? China is moving ahead quickly with its space program, but rumors of a moon landing having already occurred are, needless to say, somewhat exaggerated. Still, China is only the third country to have a man walk in space. It would appear the sleeping dragon is again on the rise (literally).

Wei Hai, Finally

As promised, the Wei Hai album can be seen below. I had to, on occasion, be creative with the cropping, so please forgive the split infinitive above and any of the shots that look a bit strange below. All in all, a splendid weekend it was, as I hope you will see. (Click through below to see the album.)

Wei Hai

Yes, that is us attempting to windsurf. We were able to try sailing, too, both on one-person crafts and a couple catamarans. Unfortunately, the weather was too nice (what kind of a complaint is that!?), so there wasn't really enough wind to get moving! This was about the same time Ike was blowing through Houston, too...

Wei Hai

A few weeks ago we traveled to a small resort city by the sea. Pictures are forthcoming, but here's a little something to whet your appetite.

Aarrrr!

T'day be September 19th, maties, International Talk Like A Pirate Day! How will ye be celebratin'?

Floating About

Posting from Shanghai. Some really cool stuff going on. This looks like it could be good conference. Check out the new Twitter feed on the right. You can follow me directly on Twitter, username "mallak".

There will be pictures of Shanghai later. Oh, and I had my first Starbucks in China today! It tasted just like Starbucks.

Alive and well

I'm sure some of you were thinking maybe we'd disappeared forever, but it is not so! We are merely quite busy, what with the new school year starting up and trying to be teachers and all. On the bright side, I've got a new set of photos for you, and you can view them all here:

Two

We could see the fireworks for the opening ceremonies from our back window, and now you can, too!

Unfortunately, I missed filming the beginning of the show, which was spectacular. Since we didn't expect this show, I wasn't ready with my camera, more's the pitty. Also, the camera work ended up being pretty bad since I was just sort of holding it. Ah, well, there's no shortage of fireworks around here. One night near the end of the events, the city sounded like a warzone. Everywhere people were firing off firecrackers and even the big blooming airborne fireworks. It was definitely something you would not experience within a municipality within the states. For one thing, Americans just don't know how to use fireworks safely. We were joking that here, you can buy a box for a few hundred kuai (100 kuai is about US$15) that you put on the ground, light, and it shoots a bunch of fireworks into the sky that explode in pretty colors. The people here light the fuse, stand back, and admire the fireworks. In the states, drunk guys pick up the box and aim it at passing pickup trucks. That's why no cool stuff for you!

First Impressions

Wow, so much has been happening! We've been so busy, I don't know where to begin. How about I just throw up some pictures, eh?



I haven't taken many pictures, just a few when we got here, and then some again today as we wandered around town. Hit the link above to see the album with captions.

Touchdown

We're here safe and sound. I have now officially seen both sides of the Pacific. Pictures to follow just as soon as I figure out this foreign internet thingy. (Dump trucks? Tubes? Dump trucks full of seaweed driving through tubes?)

Chapter 1

I'm sitting in the Hong Kong International Terminal, local time approximately 6:00AM, Sunday, July 27th. We've been traveling since 4PM on Friday, but that was Pacific time. For those keeping score, we're fifteen hours ahead (or nine hours back plus a day). We left the States at 1AM, and we flew through fourteen more hours of night. We arrived with the dawn.