Future pico de gallo

I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.

A visual summary of the month

Four more inches, and it will have snowed up to my height so far this winter. We’re supposed to meet that target tomorrow!

Ode to a Honda Civic

During the Long Blog Blackout, one event occurred that can be seen as either momentous or no big deal, depending on whether you give a crap about cars. I confess that I do, and so when it came time to replace our 1997 Honda Civic with a newer Toyota Matrix, I was compelled to write this homage to the old trusty car. Read on below the pic.

It was inevitable, of course I knew it was inevitable. But just as humans have the ability to adapt to new situations, so they also often favor the routine, well-worn path. And in this case I’m talking about a path that was worn for nearly fourteen years: our 1997 Civic, bought at a time when we were kind of poor and in grad school and driving around in a shitty Hyundai Excel. That Civic seemed like pure luxury by comparison—I still remember feeling like it was a major step up even on the test drive. Now it’s fourteen years later and 185,000 miles further down the road, and it definitely doesn’t feel like luxury anymore. (Not that it ever really was: manual steering! manual transmission! manual windows and locks!)

A lot of people view cars with an entirely unromantic perspective: necessary transportation, gets you from here to there, annoying when they break down, unremarkable when they don't. Unfortunately I see cars as more integral to my life. In grad school it carried us on thousands of miles’ worth of trips back home for the holidays, most of them, it seems, conducted in horrifying snow or rainstorms legendary in scale. It was bought mere months after we got married, so it forms a sort of monument to the longevity of our relationship. It carried us into our new life when we graduated and moved back to the East Coast; we slept in it during that horrible drive east when there wasn’t anywhere to stay on the way. And then, a few years ago it acquired a roof rack, and we put our bikes on it and had all kinds of fantastic day trips and vacations. With the new car’s arrival it became almost purely a vehicle for the weekend, to escape the mundane life and to be free of weekday worries.

Of course, there is a new(ish) car to take over that role, so it's not as though I’m really losing something. In fact, objectively speaking I should be more excited, since the new(ish) car is so much younger than the old Civic. But for now, it’ll be those deadly adjectives New and Different—something my routine-loving personality will chafe at for a while. At least until it too becomes Old and Familiar. And someday I’ll write a fond homage to it, just like I'm doing now. Assuming that we still have the internet, of course.

A few words about apples

It’s apple season, and I got a few opinions about apples.

What I like in apples: I like tart, and crisp, with additional aspects of flavor a close third in terms of criteria. A long shelf life and consistency across individuals also helps guide me. So if you like soft, sweet apples, this list will at least help you learn what to avoid.

Another note: I’m assuming that most people are familiar with Granny Smiths due to their ubiquity, hence they get mentioned a lot for comparative purposes. Heck, if you’re not amid the New England bounty of apples like I am, maybe that’s all you’ve got besides Red Delicious. If so, I am deeply sorry.

Anyway, let’s get to the part where I do some blathering about varieties.

Ambrosia: I tried one of these for the first time last winter. The name conjures an image of either Olympian pinnacles, or that freaky gelatin, canned fruit, marshmallow, and coconut salad that people always made for potlucks. Unfortunately I was kind of underwhelmed by the lack of a tart counterpoint to the ingratiating sweetness. Potluck, not pinnacles.

Braeburn: Tastes just like “apple.” Which is good. Very crisp, quite tart. Similar to Empire in its straightforward appleness (by which I mean no overtones of honey or exotic fruitiness as in Honeycrisp or Pink Lady). I ate my first one late last winter and I’m definitely pleased. It’s very high on the tart scale without the brutal characteristics of the Granny Smith (see below).

Empire: Back when I first opened my eyes to the crazy variety of apples and struck out from the familiar land of the Granny Smith, this was my next apple of choice. This is another variety like Braeburn that just says “apple” to me: crisp, slightly tart, and straightforward. Empires also seem to keep forever in the fridge. Ultimately, I’ve eaten so goddamn many of these that I’ve been off them for a while, thanks to taste fatigue. But this is a strong choice. In fact, here’s a not-great glamor shot of one I took last spring.


Ginger Gold: last fall I bought a 3-lb. bag of these out of curiosity, which is something I rarely do because I like to pick my victims by hand. Also unusual was the size of each apple: rather than the typical baseball size, these were small, maybe 2 inches in diameter. I ate them in pairs. Woe to anyone who cored or sliced them en masse, what a chore for the reward. Anyway, these were definitely outside the box in terms of what I usually like: not particularly crisp, with skins that were fairly soft rather than shiny. The taste, though, had a very pleasant spiciness that I liked a lot, and I forgave them their noncrispiness on the strength of the interesting flavor. Apparently the flesh browns fairly slowly, too, not that I spent time testing that theory. This fall I bought another big bag of GGs that were a more typical apple size, and I did enjoy them all over again. And despite my tales of excess, I recommend getting fewer at a time than I have, so you can eat them when they’re freshest.

Granny Smith: one of the year-round stalwarts, although it’s often hard to find a good one. Definitely avoid any that are shaped more like cylinders than the stereotypical heart shape—they tend to be mealier in my experience. Often too damn tart, with tough skin. My last resort apple. I heartily recommend slicing these before eating—I always feel like I’m getting a periodontal scaling when I try to bite into the skin, and slicing mitigates the amount of work your teeth have to do. This is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of apples: indestructible but in no way subtle.

Honeycrisp: If this is among my apple choices, then hands down I buy these over all the others. The name says it all: these are super-crisp and tangy, with an overlay of honey sweetness that offsets the tartness perfectly. Maybe I love these because the first one I had was at an actual orchard, but I haven’t been disappointed by ones at the store. The real tragedy is that they’re often a dollar a pound more than the other, lesser varieties. Bah. This must be Bill Gates’s apple, dude.

Macintosh: I love the taste of Macs, but dammit they aren’t crisp. The flesh has a fabulous perfume and subtle tang, but the skin is very soft, and did I mention they aren’t crisp? They don’t seem to keep as well as Empires, either, so I very rarely buy Macintoshes. If I were to see a particularly spectacular specimen that I knew was fresh, well, then I would probably buy it. Otherwise, eh, it ain’t worth it.

Paula Red: I tried these for the first time last fall, buying a bag of them at the actual orchard. Apparently they have a very short season, so I’m not sure they’re worth getting in the store, since you might not be getting them fresh. But I was very pleased. They’re nice and crisp, and have a solid apple flavor that I liked a lot. When I see these in late August or early September, I definitely buy them.

Pink Lady: When the Honeycrisps are unavailable, this is my go-to apple at the moment. It’s got a blazing tartness, but there is a slight sweetness to offset. Also, the skin is more forgiving than Granny Smith, though thick enough that they keep well in the fridge. All around I dig this one a lot. It also looks nice in decorative fruit bowls, if you're trying to sell your house or are featured in Architectural Digest or something.

So that’s the lowdown on the Apples I Have Known and Formed an Opinion On. And what’s in the fridge right now? Two Honeycrisps and, uh, an Anjou pear.

Scotland recap, at LAST

Well, I must apologize for the month of August—life has interfered mightily with my duty to report on our trip to Scotland. And that created a logjam that led to a whole lot of not posting. So here, at last, is the scoop.

Once again I had a great time on a tour run by Bike Vermont. Seven days of touring, with six of them spent more or less on the bike, four different inns in four different regions, great food and some serious scenery. The two guides, one a Vermonter and one a local Glaswegian, were fun people and awesome leaders through everything. Just about all of the inns were top-notch too, although there are a lot of weird ideas about showers in the Old Country. The concept of the full shower door or curtain doesn’t seem to have caught on there. On the other hand, the electric towel bar is a grand thing—why don’t we have these in New England?

As for Scotland itself, I was impressed. Glasgow was a great little city, with tons going on and easy navigation. I really dig that you can order glasses of wine in two different sizes. Yeah, I’m easily wowed. The landscape, though, that’s the real star of the place. We saw the rolling lowlands of Perthshire, cycled our way up the River Tay, took a ferry from Oban to the Isle of Mull, and came back via the truly highland moors of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. Pictures of each below, respectively. For the full spread of photographic record, see my Flickr link on the right over there. ->

Photo 1: Perthshire fields as viewed from the battlements of Huntingtower Castle

Photo 2: The River Tay, outside of the village of Murthly en route to Dunkeld

Photo 3: The port of Oban

Photo 4: A view of Duart Castle from the Oban-Craignure ferry

Photo 5: On the Ardnamurchan Peninsula

The cycling was a little nuts, I have to admit. I don’t think the terrain was significantly tougher than what I’d seen in Vermont (except for the day on Ardnamurchan), but there were fewer little towns to take breaks in, and most of the roads on Mull and in the highlands were what’s breezily referred to as single-track: in other words, a strip of road just one narrow lane wide, but used in both directions, with occasional tiny semicircles of shoulder where two vehicles can pass each other. That was quite nerve racking. But having a half pint of cider at lunch usually restored the courage.

In general I also thought the food was first-rate. Maybe that’s because we were always staying in swanky places, but I really ate and drank well. I also had haggis for the first time, which is very tasty! It’s funny that it has such a reputation. I ate weirder things in Manila, that’s for sure, heh. I also tried a couple of different single-malt Scotches, although hard liquor isn’t usually my thing. For the newbies to Scotch, I’d recommend the Tobermory 10-year, and if you’re into peaty, funky Scotch, the same distillery also makes Ledaig. Both were distilled at this here spot on the Isle of Mull.


So to sum up, it was fantastic. I was impressed by how beautiful the country was, with some very stark landscapes and amazing views. And the people all seemed incredibly friendly, too. Definitely worth a long visit, and I would go back in a second!

I'm a winner

Unlike LeBron James, I won something last weekend: a USTA tennis tournament! Okay, it wasn’t exactly the French Open, but it was pretty tough. I prevailed in fairly straightforward fashion on Saturday (6-3, 6-2), then managed to win a real battle on Sunday against a very tough opponent (7-6, 2-6, 6-3). It took about 2.5 hours and man, did I suck in the second set, as you can see by the score. The prize was this exceedingly cheesy trophy, you’ve got to love it. Boo yah!

Car pr0n

As promised, some lovely photos of the new ride and one of the old one. Note that it took less than 24 hours for the new car to get covered in tree schmutz. I think I need to fire the chauffeur, he is a slacker!

Next, here’s a closeup of the cute little decklid spoiler and one of those rad alloy wheels.


And the interior, where you can see the heads-up display above the very sportay steering wheel and the gearshift (MANUAL TRANSMISSION BAYBEE):


Finally, the beloved old Civic, still cranking at 184K miles!

Batting practice

Well, during this long week off (not long enough, actually!), there’s been just a little bit of time spent playing Halo 3 online. Just a little bit. I figured out how to take screenshots, so here are a couple. You can either shake your head and wonder what the heck this silliness is all about, or if you’re kaskasero you can feel incredibly jealous!

In the first one, I am actually missing the target of my gravity hammer strike, but the ensuing effect was cool so I took a pic of it.


In the second one, well, this is what happens when you actually make contact. Whammmm!

Hello

Whoops, I promised myself I would keep up the blog, yet here I’ve been lax for all of December. Here’s a photograph of a chandelier made of shattered plates that I saw at MOMA in New York over Thanksgiving, as a gesture of apology.


Tomorrow we head to the family holiday festivities. Wish me luck. Otherwise, no news to report: no offers on the house, no more crazy neighbor encounters, no decent weather for cycling, nothing going on but the daily slog. I promise the next post will be more interesting. :)

Vermont kicked my ass

Well, I’m back from my not-quite-a-week in Vermont! Just to start the bragging up front, I cycled for five days in a row for a total of 162 miles, completed in 13 hours and 38 minutes. That adds up to a whole lotta riding. And you dear readers might not know this, but it’s kind of hilly in Vermont.

The tour started in Stowe on Sunday evening, where we met the two tour leaders and the other people crazy enough to vacation in this manner. It was absolutely pouring rain down in buckets, which is good because we didn’t ride the first day. So the recap is as follows: Monday morning we rolled out ridiculously early to head to Montpelier, which was about 38 miles of back roads away. Monday and Tuesday night we stayed at the Inn at Montpelier, which was really nice (and the rooms had TVs that got the Tour de France coverage, yay). Tuesday we did a 36-mile loop from Montpelier through a few minuscule towns and lots of fabulous countryside, hills and bucolic settings galore. Here’s a shot of a friendly goat—no moose spottings, though.


Wednesday we packed up again and headed from Montpelier to the Highland Lodge in Greensboro, about 33 miles away. There was a damn serious hill we had to slog up to get to Greensboro, let me tell you. Actually, the day started with a miserable hill but I took the van for the first three miles. Hey, the van is there, why not take advantage! Swami took the macho route and sweated up the hill. Thursday was a loop from Greensboro that included a visit to a little town called Marshfield, where there is hidden a totally awesome pastry shop and cafe called Rainbow Sweets (see photo below). Best damn spanakopita I have ever had. I cut that day’s riding a little short at 23.4 miles, and Swami did about 33 just to show off. That gave us a little time to check out Caspian Lake, a beautiful blue lake just across the road from the Lodge. (Somehow I neglected to photograph the lake, whoops! But here’s one by someone else, and here’s a site with a lot of cool aerial photos.)


On the last day, even before I got out of bed I could hear some ominous rumbling outside. And a peek out the window revealed some seriously black clouds. But hey, there’s breakfast to get before we have to worry about the weather. During breakfast we got to experience a pretty spectacular mountainside storm: first we noticed that we couldn’t see the lake anymore, then we noticed that we couldn’t see the road just outside the lodge. In a final dramatic flourish, the power went out. Fortunately the breakfast food had already been cooked—at that point I was guarding my potential calories pretty intently! Although as time went on, it was looking unclear whether we’d even get a final day’s ride at all—riding in the rain is doable, but not in a ridiculous thunderstorm. But either by van or by bike we were heading back to Stowe, because it was checkout time.

Finally after breakfast the sky cleared, and we started to get our stuff together. Everybody’s luggage got loaded in the van, and a couple of people who were fed up with cycling got in as well and started back to Stowe. Then, as Swami and I were headed to the shed to get our bikes, another storm blew up and stranded us in the shed for about 20 minutes. Were we going to end up riding or not? Weirdly, after four straight days in the saddle I was feeling like I needed another!

Fortunately the storm did blow through and for some reason the tour leaders thought it would be okay if we got on the bikes. So ride we did, kicking up spray and generally getting wet and gritty. And the rain did stay off in the distance, for the whole 32.6 miles back to Stowe.


Back in Stowe it was time for a quick shower and packing up. A huge storm squall even washed the bikes clean on top of the car on the drive back (although it was actually a damn scary trip—at one point we even had to get off the interstate because there were tree branches coming down around us and it was decidedly Not Safe). But overall it was a great week and I’m proud that I survived. I didn’t even take any painkillers and I still have full use of my legs! On the other hand, sitting at my desk at work doesn’t seem like such a bad thing at this point. Anyone up for a ride next weekend?

Congratulations KG

I’m not a huge fan of the Celtics, but I do loves the Kevin Garnett. So glad he finally got a ring! And it’s just too much to embed the Youtube vid, but I can’t help linking to it: his postgame interview with Michele Tafoya was beyond description. As I was watching it live, I feared for my safety even though the dude was a couple of zip codes away.

Fifty miles

Yesterday I did what was probably the most challenging physical thing I’ve ever done: I cycled a half century (that’s fifty miles to you non-cylist types). It was a crazy day, pretty emotional and not just in the expected ways.

I was really questioning my sanity in the morning when the alarm went off at 7 a.m. That’s an hour earlier than I get up on weekdays, for chrissakes. (I know, I know, I get up super late on weekdays, but that’s just how I roll.) One thing that will forever keep me from being a true cycling geek is my absolute hatred for getting up early, especially on weekends. But this was a special occasion, the Spring Century for the Charles River Wheelmen. And the scheduled start was at 9:30, which meant an early rise.

Now, besides the whole physical challenge, I was pretty concerned about the weather. All week they had been predicting showers, which makes for a pretty miserable bike ride of any distance. But despite the earlier threats, the weather was absolutely perfect. It was totally clear and sunny for most of the ride, and just started clouding up at the end. Thank you, weather gods.

As for the ride itself, it went well except for a some unexpected drama. We were riding along a fairly rural neighborhood road (I don’t even know in which town) when we spotted one of the more dangerous things you can encounter: an unleashed dog. He was running along behind a little kid on a bike. Swami got past the hazard without any trouble, but as I came by I saw the dog start coming right out into the road. I slowed down, but that unfortunately got the dog’s attention and he decided I was something to chase after. And bark at. And growl at. I heard him right behind my back wheel and remembered that it wouldn’t take much to get brought down at that point. Fortunately I had received some good instruction on loose dogs in Vermont last summer: stop and get off the bike, and yell at the dog. Then slowly walk away.

It took a lot of yelling. And I almost forgot the walk away part—my instinct was to just stand there shouting hostile things at the dog, apparently. Fortunately Swami reminded me about the walking. And just as fortunately, I got less interesting to the dog as I walked away. I was shaking pretty hard by the time we thought it was safe for me to get on the bike and keep riding.

The kid, of course, being young and small, was absolutely no help in calling off the dog, and didn’t see any reason to go get an adult to take care of the situation. And that’s who I’m really angry at: the parents who let this young kid go out in the street with an unleashed dog. Yes, even your sweet golden Lab might find a strange person worth snarling and barking at.

But I can’t let that detract from the overall ride. Hey, I survived! And the first 40 miles felt good, too. It was only the last ten that started to seem like a slog. I can actually say that I was sick of being on the bike by the time we finished, which is not something I’m familiar with. And today I don’t feel particularly sore, either.

Now for a bit of time off, including a trip to SF this weekend. And maybe in the fall, we can try for a metric century. Always good to have a goal, right?

Parking enforcement, yo

I made a special trip with the camera to capture this one.

Sometimes I wish I was Catholic

Relax, that’s a line from a song. So I’ve turned the big 35 today, and I got this awesome peep cake from the Swami earlier, so I’m totally jacked on sugar right now. I took the day off work, which was schweet—now that’s a constitutional amendment I could get behind, that everyone should get their birthday off of work. Paid, I might add. Who’s with me!

Buko tarts and final thoughts

I’ve been meaning to write one more post about the Philippines trip, and finally have gotten around to it. Ignoring any sense of narrative, I give you a completely unorganized list of things that I remember the best, now that it’s been a whole month since we got back.

Tropical tennis: One of the most fun things we did while we were there was play tennis with Kaskasero and his parents at their club. The courts were covered with crushed gravel and shell, which was kind of like a clay court in terms of play. It was nice to play some doubles for the first time since last summer, even though my internal clock was telling me it was three in the morning! And as the sun went down, any tennis ball that was hit high in the air was immediately dive-bombed by bats wondering if their sonar was pointing out the biggest insect of all time. So neat.

The ring of fire: My number one goal of the trip (besides seeing Kas get married, of course!) was to see a volcano—a trip to the Pacific Rim wouldn’t be complete without that. So the day after the wedding we drove to Tagaytay, a bustling resort town a couple hours’ drive outside of Manila. The town is perched on the ridge of a huge volcanic crater, at the middle of which is a big lake with Taal Volcano in the middle of it. Totally awesome views.

The town itself kind of reminded me of the Cape around Hyannis, with lots of people and lots of places selling stuff. You could get all kinds of food by the roadside; this photo shows some people selling hot corn on the cob.

But the number one thing you’ve got to eat in Tagaytay is the buko tart. Buko is young coconut, and the tarts come packed in boxes so you can grab a stack to go. Definitely tasty. Here’s a fellow blogger’s account of a buko tart from Tagaytay.


The wedding: Of course, the main reason we went to Manila was to see Kas get married. I’m so glad we did, too. The whole thing was really great, seeing him and meeting his fiancee/wife for the first time. They’re really good together and I wish them all the best. Congratulations, you two!

Beer for breakfast, and other indulgences

It’s high time I talked about one of my favorite subjects in the context of the Philippines trip: food. I consider myself pretty adventurous for an American, which I admit isn’t saying much, here in the land where ketchup is considered by some to be spicy. But growing up, we ate all kinds of weird things: tongue, liver, kidneys, and every imaginable vegetable, including the infamous brussel sprout and ones you ain’t even heard of like kohlrabi. So I was well prepped for Filipino food, which seems to consider just about anything edible, including crickets. (Note: it is damn near impossible to Google anything about the eating, rather than the sporting, kind of cricket, so no link for you.)

First off, let me be clear that I did not try the crickets. And I didn’t cross paths with balut, although I admit that after a beer or two I might have actually tried it if someone had plunked it in front of me. But I was spared. Anyway, having said all this, the food was consistently awesome. Besides the daing na bangus I already mentioned, another seafood standout was inihaw na pusit (grilled squid). Just damn good. I was also glad to have tongue again, which I haven’t had in ages. Yay kaskasero for having it at your wedding! Also great was sisig, which is probably best when you have no idea what’s in it. (Everything is chopped up nice and small, though, which helps with any urk factor you might feel.) You can see the squid and the sisig in the picture below: sisig on my plate, and squid two serving dishes away from the camera.

Don’t forget the rice, of course! Rice with every meal including breakfast. And everything is eaten with a spoon in one hand and a fork in the other; you use the fork to push food onto the spoon. And if you’re paranoid about food safety like I am, you wash everything down with San Miguel, which is a pretty good beer considering that I pretty much hate beer. (Even Jet Li and Stephen Chow like it, so who can argue?)

As for nonnative food, well I have to laugh, because there are heaps of American chains in Manila, and I studiously avoided them all just like I do at home. Shakey’s is apparently popular there, which is amusing because I think they have almost no presence in the U.S. these days. And how funny is it that I traveled almost 9000 miles to eat the first Krispy Kreme doughnut I’ve had in a long while?

I leave you with a link: This article has a lot of interesting stuff in it about eating in Manila. And based on my own experience, I have no doubt that it’s all true!

Crowd control

First off, happy new year everybody! And now back to the Manila report.

I should backtrack a bit from the previous post and spend a little time describing our arrival on Monday night. It was a four hour flight from Tokyo, which definitely qualifies as insult to injury. We arrived around 10:30 pm local time, and you could feel the warm humidity from the jetway, of course. It was probably about 75F/24C and balmy, with a strongly funky overtone. Or maybe funky, with a slightly balmy overtone. Anyway, once we slogged through Immigration, waited an eternity for our bags—I think each person on that 747 was shipping eight boxes full of Christmas presents home—and got through customs, I figured we’d see the smiling face of kaskasero waiting to pick us up.

Not quite. I need to provide a little background on the scene, though, and explain about balikbayans and other overseas workers. Lots and lots and lots of Filipinos work outside the country all year, and then come home at the holidays. By lots I mean gazillions. So the international airport around Christmastime is a total madhouse (although for all I know, it’s like that all the time). For a lot of overseas workers, their whole family will come to meet them at the airport, and so there’s an outrageous mob of people waiting for arrivals at any time. So in order to handle the crowds, all the people waiting to meet arrivals are kept in an area away from the airport, behind a big fence and gate. If you’re the one arriving, you follow signs for the family waiting area and then get sorted by last name. Then you come out into an open area where your family can spot you from a distance, and persuade a guard dude to let you through the gate to meet your peeps. Kind of complicated, but totally necessary, I suppose. Fortunately it wasn’t too hard to figure out on no sleep!

In general, Manila is ridiculously crowded. Apparently the hordes are at their height around the holidays, so we saw the scene at max capacity. Besides the vehicle traffic on the roads, there’s also nutso amounts of people packed in the malls, and pedestrians randomly crossing streets whenever there seems to be a tiny break in the cars. (Or no break at all; I swear people were actually nudging pedestrians out of the way with their cars.) Occasionally the government sees fit to try and discourage people from walking across the faster highways; hence this sign:

Roughly translated, it says “Don’t cross here, you will die.” Of course it turns out that others have noted these signs. Funny, and yet not. People actually do cross any road, any time, even the elevated highways like EDSA, and apparently they don’t always make it.

Another thing I experienced that ties in with this theme is security. It was everywhere. You couldn’t walk into a mall or hotel without opening up your bags and often walking through metal detectors, and there were bomb-sniffing dogs and armed security guards in a lot of places, too. It was somewhat reassuring, given the unrest that the country experiences now and then, but also unnerving, since you recognize it’s all there because there’s a need for it. When we flew out, there were three separate security checks to go through at the airport, including one just to get into the building. Although, that wasn’t what bothered me about the departure. What bothered me was that they charge you 750P/$18 cash before they allow you to fly out. What the heck?! Fortunately we were warned at the hotel. Kaskasero, I’ll pay you back, I promise!

Daing na bangus and traffic

I’m back on the blog at last! First, a technical note. At first I thought of methodically going through each day of the trip, but then I wondered whether it might make more sense to do themes instead. In the end it looks like this first post has a little of both. Anyway, over the next several days I hope to post as much about the trip as possible, and if it appears at all organized, so much the better. If not, well, ya got tags you can use to find your way through.

The first full day of our trip got off to a good start, with what’s apparently a typical Filipino breakfast: daing na bangus at a local chain, Pancake House—yeah, quite the exotic name! Anyway, the dish is a fried marinated fish served with a pile of garlic rice that has a fried egg on top. Awesome hangover food, I imagine, and good jet lag food as well. In fact, after just one plate of this I wish I could have it every morning. (Here’s a recipe, here’s a pic.)

The first day also gave us the trip’s theme song, which is good—every trip needs a theme song. Thanks to kaskasero playing it incessantly in the car, it was track 9 from this disc: “Awitin Mo Isasayaw Ko”, a disco song covered by Pedicab. (Not that the band name means anything to me!) The beat moves a hell of a lot faster than the traffic in Manila, believe me. In fact, if you had to choose one word to describe Manila, it’d be traffic. Goddamn, I have never seen such traffic.

It’s hard to describe. Imagine a four-lane road, with at least six cars abreast. Imagine mopeds buzzing in between all the cars. Imagine a huge fleet of these crazy vehicles called jeepneys, full of people and decorated with all kinds of wacky designs. (Pic below.) Now imagine everything traveling at about 5 mph. Oh, and diesel smoke and pedestrians everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there are people who live in their cars permanently, trying to get to a house they haven’t been able to reach in years because of the awful traffic. In fact, traffic is so slow and heavy that vendors just roll their carts of stuff in between cars and hawk everything from peanuts to cigarettes. Totally insane.

Greetings from Narita

I’m currently sitting in Narita airport in Tokyo, operating on about two hours’ sleep, and my internal clock says it’s about three in the morning, just to keep you all informed. The long flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it could be, though. Swami and I snagged one of the rows right at the back of the plane that has only two seats across, so it was nice not to have to share a row with anyone else. I saw a cool sunset out the window of the plane when we landed—picture forthcoming when I get back home.

Edited on 30 Dec. to add: here’s the photo.


Now it’s on to Manila, an additional four hours in the air that’ll probably seem much more like punishment. And the Great Asian Adventure of 2007 begins!

Nice view

Here are two pics from a recent trip to Asheville, North Carolina, both taken from the parking lot at the top of Mt. Mitchell. It’s the highest mountain east of the Mississippi.

How high is it exactly, you might ask?