Lunch with the Chef

Through a series of interesting intersections, I had lunch on Sunday with one of the top chefs in the Chinese military, at the training restaurant at which he is a general manager. The visit started with a friend and me having tea in the chef's office. In his bookcase were pictures with him and President Hu, China's first astronaut, and various other high-ranking military and governmental officials. We spoke awhile there with the chef's friend (a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine), and one of the chef's students.

After that, we were taken on a tour of the kitchen and the rest of the restaurant before being brought into a wonderful dining room. It was a fantastic meal, consisting of food that would be served to the aforementioned people or perhaps visiting dignitaries.

I was also fortunate enough to be allowed to take pictures of both the meal and the food preparation in the kitchen.

Here are links to the pictures on flickr and facebook.

Some notes:

The turtle soup was absolutely fantastic. I found myself getting upset that cultural bias had kept me from tasting it until now.



The shark-fin soup was also extremely tasty. I'm glad I started to eat it before being told what it contained. As a guest of such a fine cook at his restaurant, I wouldn't have refused to eat it. Still, I felt uncomfortable doing so.



In any event, I'll try to let the pictures do the rest of the talking... please feel free to leave comments in this blog, on facebook, or flickr regarding the ingredients... I'm an absolutely horrible cook, and would really like to have a better understanding of the food that comprised this wonderful meal.

Beijing Marathon 2009

I participated in the Beijing Marathon this year. It was a last-minute decision... I found that there were some tickets left and figured I might as well try. I do about 6K on a treadmill in the gym five or so times a week, so I thought I could at least do the 9K. To be clear, I'm certainly not a runner. My pace is just a crawl above being a walk.

The day started with me catching the 13 at Wudaokou at around 6 am, meeting-up with Zhongyuan at Zhichinlu, and then transferring a couple times before ending up outside a very packed Tiananmen Square. We then went down into a subterranean passageway with thousands of other runners to get to the square itself (only authorized people or people with tickets were allowed into the square that morning).



We emerged into a throng of people, bombarded by the noise of the crowd and a public address system blasting house music as instructors clad in yellow, red, blue, and white led the runners through warm-up exercises.




When Eric met us later in the day, the trainers became good location markers. We met 'under the trainer in white' who was next to the starting line.

Here are some shots that I took as Zhongyuan and I walked around the square:




Yep, the Beijing Police actually have a Prius being used as a police car. Talk about a forward-thinking idea. I've included a picture of the bathroom facilities, which were horribly lacking, for a reason which I'll mention later in this post.

Eric, Zhongyuan, and I started the race together, but I quickly dropped back and went into my jog. Both are a lot better runners than I, and I was more concerned about about getting some sort of distance rather than rabbiting.

Here are two photos from near the beginning of the race:



Notice the sanlunche driver standing on his bike next to his load of styrofoam to get a better view. Now, one thing that you won't see in this post is a picture of a multitude of male participants relieving themselves on the red wall of a compound close to the Forbidden City. Nor, will this author confirm or deny that he took part in said activity. All that I will say is that it is much easier in these instances to be a man.

In any event, things were going fairly well through the 9K. I had a slight cramp in my right calve, but figured I could just run through it and target the 20K. My pace was ahead of the 'broom bus' (caravan of pick-up buses to get the stragglers) until after the 15K mark. At that point, both calves were cramping really bad, and I decided to make use of the one of the two porta-potties provided. Quite honestly, I think that the broom bus came way too early... there were a lot of people still on the course both in front and behind me...

I decided to keep going, sometimes jogging, sometimes walking, but definitely in pain during the whole thing. Added to the fun were the vehicles sharing the road with us now that the broom bus had passed:



In any event, as evidenced by this photo, I made it 20K:



Yeah, that smile is *soooo* fake!!!

I hobbled to the nearby station, took the subway to Wudaokow, and walked very slowly to my favorite American breakfast cafe. Going up the three flights of stairs was comical even to me... kinda a side shuffle or something. When I finally got to the top, a waitress asked me if I were okay, to which I replied simply, "no".

After breakfast, I caught a bus home, made it up to my apartment (thank goodness the elevators were working, since I live on the 20th floor), took a two-hour nap, and then headed-out to a local massage parlor for an equally long massage.

Anyway, the pain was manageable enough by Tuesday that I was back in the gym again.

So, there you have it... my first 20K, which is 10K longer than any previous race.

I think I'll do it again next year... maybe perhaps even training for it.

The Boys

It has been awhile since I posted pictures of Clyde and Leo, so here goes:

A Sign of No

Common around Beijing are 'Signs of No'... prohibition signs that are meant to communicate undesirable actions to people across languages. The signs are often a combination of symbols which appear in many different countries, and those with perhaps a more local flavor.

This sign, which I saw yesterday RenDahHuiTang Xi Lu, is perhaps the most comprehensive one I've seen.

From left to right, and top to bottom, here is what I think each of the symbols is trying to convey.

No driving No bicycling No motorcycles No rickshaws No pets No weapons No graffiti (No love?) No littering No rollerskating No soccer/football No spitting No skateboarding (No surfing?) No begging (No praying?) No juggling (Sorry, Dave) No kite flying No camping No parking No fires No food or music

I interpreted the last sign to be one of the following:

• No protesting
• No asking questions
• No gathering with torches to march on Frankenstein's Castle.

Hitler Gave Great Speeches Too!

One of the strangest things I've seen lately are t-shirts and signs akin to the following:



Now, as someone who has just sat through ten minutes of a speech by said person:



I gotta say that, even acknowledging that I don't speak German, this just want moving at all. His mannerisms looked, well, insane. And, my goodness, that mustache... I could only think of Charlie Chaplin or Roger Downey, Jr. And, finally, remember we're seeing something that underwent a hell of a lot of editing.

I actually think it much more appropriate to compare the speaking skills of Mr Obama to the person in this clip:



btw, I also cringe that folks would compare a black man to one who didn't exactly look upto black people. As a refresher on the times:

Three Days in the DPRK - Part I

We're Not Going to Kansas, Toto

The tour was scheduled to take a 2 pm flight from Beijing Capital Airport to Sunan International Airport. I opted not to meet at the tour offices, and instead just catch a taxi to the terminal. It worked-out just fine, and I easily met-up with the rest of the group.

Air travel was to be done via Air Koryo, the state-owned airline of the DPRK.

The first time I noticed things were going to be a bit different was when some fellow travelers went to take pictures of the plane. The reason? Well, we were flying in a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-204-300. I really didn't notice that much difference (either in the exterior or interior) between it and the Boeing offering.

The food was fine. Fruit bowl, bread, some pickled stuff, a meat product, a yellow mix of something... the usual stuff. Sorry that I cannot be more descriptive; I am far from a food connoisseur, and often eat just for nourishment. Hopefully someone can add some more accurate descriptions of what I ingested. Suffice it to say that I ate everything that was placed in front of me.

After the meal, came the in-flight movie. Here are three photos I took of it:



The film, which was in English with Korean subtitles, was a tale of evolution from a distinctly DPRK governmental point of view... highlighting archeological finds from the area, and even going so far as to suggest that Koreans were a distinct human species. I think from the third shot we're looking at Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Caucasian... not exactly sure how folks of other ethnicities would fit into the schema... perhaps the film makers just took a pre-1978 LDS philosophy one step further and excluded them altogether. Dunno.

The only thing that I think could be worse than this would be to sit through a film trying to explain Intelligent Design.

Wait, I just thought of one... somebody doing a Bio-dome with me in the Creation Museum. Yep, that'd be far, far, far worse.

Sunan International Airport (Tarmac)

After a short 90 minute flight, we started to descend into a corn field... actually landing on a strip surrounded by said vegetation. Taxied awhile through a line-up of planes... which, from looking at the Air Koryo site, seems to be the majority of their fleet, and came to rest on the tarmac a few hundred meters from the terminal.

We then disembarked, walked down the porta-stairs, and loaded into two trams which whisked us to the terminal. I really don't know why we couldn't have just walked across the tarmac. It's not like there was any other air traffic. And, it'd probably taken less time than it did to load up the trams.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention that we were greeted by a smiling picture of the Great Leader and a beautiful mosaic, both of which would be constant themes throughout the trip.

Sunan International Airport (Terminal Interior)

The interior of the terminal reminded me of a smallish Chinese train station. This is a shot of our first stop along the way. Interesting to note the signs are only in Korean and English.

We went quickly though, and into a line for metal detection and to x-ray our baggage. Customs had no problem with any of the gear that I was carrying... the only glitch was that I'd forgotten to remove my laptop from the kit, and had to do so once the kit had cleared the x-ray machine.

Sunan International Airport (Parking Lot)

Once we cleared the last security checkpoint, we walked out the terminal and right into the parking lot. That's it. No tram, no motorized walkway, tunnel, or anything like that.

Some random notes... looks like there was someone of importance on the flight since an older Mercedes Benz was waiting outside... the Arrivals and Departures signs were a bit unnecessary since it was the same entrance... the parking lot was a just a tad overbuilt for the amount of cars it held. (Overbuilding also to be a recurring theme for the trip.)

Here are three shots from the parking lot:





Additional photos from this part of the journey can be found here.

Three Days in the DPRK - Introduction

I returned yesterday morning from my whirlwind tour of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). During the three days spent in Pyongyang, I saw a large share of the places listed on Pyongyang wikipedia page, attend the Arirang Festival, visited a stamp shop, ate at a couple restaurants, toured the Korean War Museum, saw but declined to board the USS Pueblo, gambled away ten euros in a slot machine located in the (foreigners only) basement casino of the hotel in which we were staying, bowed to a statue of Kim Il Sung, drank from a well outside the childhood home of the same, shopped at a couple of gift stores, and was subjected to a large amount of state-sponsored propaganda.

Along the way, I also saw a very beautiful city, had good talks with other tourists, the guides, and even some words with the locals, took over 700 images, and got a glimpse of a people and culture that is now a bit less enigmatic.

I'll be adding to my blog and posting pictures over the next couple of days.


I must say that the tour was expertly organized and run by Koryo Tours, and was certainly worth the 750 Euros. (In case anyone might be interested, they have a similar tour scheduled for 24-26 Sep... an overview of the tour is located here.)

btw, Nick Bonner, the founder of Koyro Tours, told me that less than 1,500 from the United States had made the trip to the DPRK since 1953, with less than 2,000 people from Western countries making the journey annually.

Ready for the Hermit Kingdom

Well, I'm ready for my trip to Pyongyang at the end of week. Eric and I made a run over to Zhongguancun on Thursday to pick-up a new lens (85 mm, 1.8) and get some of my existing equipment (including my D50, which a had a spec of dust on the CCD) cleaned. Simon had found the place to purchase the lens online and already had set the price (with 360buy.com as a reference) so it was nice not to haggle about that purchase. I did decided to get a lens filter whilst there, and did have to bargain for that, but the attendant was nice and it was kinda fun. Likewise, Zhi-Qi had located the Nikon service center online as well. They did a good job with the cleaning, although their service was a bit on the slow side. I'll definitely use both shops, which were conveniently located in the same building, again.

Here is a list of the camera and audio equipment that I'll be bringing on the trip:

• Nikon D300 camera body
• Nikon D50 camera body
• Nikon SB-600 flash (two)
• Nikon 14 mm 1:2.8 D ED lens
• Nikon 85 mm 1:1.8 D lens
• Nikon 18-55 mm 3.5-5.6 G ED lens
  
• Nikon 70-210 mm 1:4-5.6 D lens
• Canon IXUS 980 IS
• Olympus LS-10 digital sound recorder
• Various memory cards (including a 16 GByte 45 MB/sec Extreme IV)
• Various batteries and battery charges

I was told that North Korean airport security might have a problem with the 70-210 mm, but if they do, they'll just save it for me and give it to me when I return. I could also have the option of leaving my cellular phone with them, but have decided to leave it at my apartment instead... just don't feel comfortable with them having the opportunity to poke around my Nokia E90.

Here's a picture taken of the kit with said Nokia E90:

Foggy Tsinghua University

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Bin and I walked around Tsinghua University taking photographs. We met at Starbuck's at TusPark at noon, talked for awhile, and then headed down the street to the East Gate.

The weather was not good. Very thick fog, the type that stays around all day, and humidity that makes clothes cling in uncomfortable places. Even the occasional showers really didn't ease our malaise. After about only an hour or so, we parted ways, deciding to retreat to the air conditioned comforts of our apartments.

Now, I must admit that I do like taking photographs on foggy days... harsh light is diffused wonderfully in it. (On a somewhat related note, I do question the effectiveness of women here using umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun on foggy days... the way I look at it, the umbrella is probably acting as a collector and focusing the bouncing rays of light onto them, instead of keeping it away.)

In any event, here are 12 pictures that I took (all with the same D300/14 MM lens setup I used in my last post):

Village/Night

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My commute to work is very easy. Ride a brief way to ShuangQing Lu, turn left, and follow it until it ends at the East Gate of Tsinghua University. The complex which contains my office is thus situated.

On my right side as I travel into work used to be rows and rows of one and two-story brick buildings grouped together in villages. Over the last few years, many of these villages have been torn down to make way for large apartment and office builds, a power station, and other buildings which symbolize a modernized Beijing.

For example, the large building shown above occupies a space that had such brick structures even a few months ago.

The area which I frequent (drag the image down until you see an "A") has fared better in retaining the original flavor and inhabitants. Additional stories have been added to the existing buildings, or buildings have been replaced with some upto four stories in height, but the flavor of the area has still been maintained (that said, some of the new buildings are horribly unsafe since they use pre-cast concrete ceilings, but I'll perhaps talk about that in another post).

With my trip to Pyongyang a few short weeks away, I decided it was a good time to purchase a new camera. (I had used this same justification three years ago to purchase a Nikon D50 for my first trip to China.) This time, I went for a Nikon D300.

The camera arrived at my office on Tuesday afternoon. In the evening, I put an SB600 flash on it, affixed a 14 mm lens, and headed down to the main street of the village.

Some of the photographs that I took that night follow.



The smell coming from the food being cooked here is fantastic. Unfortunately, I've not yet been overcome my cultural biases and sample the meat. If you're wondering what it is... well, the resemblance of the items to eggs is not coincidental. They are fertilized eggs (Eric says from ducks) which are cooked soon before the chicks were due to hatch. Maybe one day I will try this...



One of the meat tables along the main street in the village. Tofu is to the right.


One of my regular stops. Various kinds of breads. Kind people. Cannot beat the combination.




One of the vegetable stands along the street. Look like kind people. Food looks great as well. Don't really eat vegetables at home, though, unless my ayi cooks them for me.



Works at one of the four-story buildings being erected. As common in Beijing, they are staying on site until their project is completed. Some folks get temporary housing... not sure if the hammocks here are just for rest or whether they'll used for night sleeping as well. (Seam between the pre-cast concrete slabs is visible above them.)



Family(?) at another meat table on the street... various other sundries are also available.



Cookies, cookies, cookies! Very cheap and very good. Took a lot willpower not to sample the wears that night. A lot.



Back on Shuang Qing Lu. A corner shop in which dough is pealed from loafs and into vats of boiling water. The cooks will often stand a meter or two away from the pots when doing this.



On the way back to my apartment. A pedal-operated sewing machine outside of a clothing shop.

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I must say at this point that I really don't like flash photography. The strobe announces is a blinding way that a photograph is being taken. And, one is obliged to asked if the subject wants to have their picture taken before it is snapped... invariably leading to posed pictures if the subject says yes... which I abhor.

I am much more comfortable taking photographs whilst in quick stride during daytime... with either a medium-sized zoom lens or even my 300 mm affixed to the camera. More chance of catching people just being themselves.

Oh, I am hugely happy with the setup I used this night. The D300 is incredibly responsive, whilst still having a manageable weight. The 14 mm is truly a masterpiece... not only a fantastic lens with which to shoot, but probably one of the most visually beautiful items which I've ever owned.

Much thanks for Manuel for spurring me on to get the D300.