Home Sweet Home

Well, I have been home from Asia for a few days now and boy does it feel good! You really learn a lot about the place you live after being away for an extended period of time and looking at it with fresh eyes. For example, the minute I walked into my apartment I was shocked at how clear atmosphere is. I could see small details on the White Plains skyline (yes, White Plains now has a skyline) and lights twinkling in the distance. THIS NEVER HAPPENED IN CHINA. The “polluted” air of New York is like the air at 6am on a spring morning in a remote area of Iceland when compared to China. The air in urban China is EXTREMELY hazy, smoggy, and polluted all the time. We showed some Chinese folks photos of the basketball courts in LA that we will be shooting on and they thought the blue sky was fake – no joke. He said the only time they ever see a blue sky is after a typhoon and within a few hours it disappears. Here is an example of a "clear" day in urban China:

Apparently I brought some of these delicious toxins home with me. Friday night I took a spin on the world famous booze cruise at Graham Hills Park. Towards the end of the ride I was climbing a hill called “friend” when the hacking cough began. Normally “friend” is my bitch and I climb her like a Valkyrie on her way to Valhalla. However, I only made it halfway up when I had to stop to cough up some delicious BLACK mucus. It was quite disheartening, but I settled my uneasiness by making a trip to Captain Lawrence Brewery and filling my growlers. God Bless America!

Homecoming

Well, “Asia Part –1” is coming to an end. I have been here since December 27, 2007 and am finally coming back to NY for a week and a half. I will be eating lots of Veal Parmesan, mountain biking, editing a bunch of photos from Thailand and re-capping that trip. Then I fly back to China, China to Milwaukee, Milwaukee to LA, LA to China, China to NY. Somehow I have to stay sane and keep my lens in focus. Here in Shenyang I have managed to shoot a hip-hop freestyle basketball player who requires acupuncture for his bad hand, a team of players who live in a basketball concentration camp and get up at 5am every morning to jog around the city wearing balaclavas in – 35 degrees, and of course lots of strange food both living and deceased. I will certainly miss all the amazing massages I got here, but I am excited that my next transmission will be from West Harrison, NY WOOO-HOOO!!!!!

Cold + Cancer = Shenyang

OK, so -15C isn't -60 Fahrenheit. That's what I get for using a calculator that was "Made in China." :o But the bad news is that it is -38C here, not –15 like I expected!!! I don't know what that translates to except - REALLY F-ING COLD. I also have a smoking hotel room and my flight was turbulent as holy hell. It was like being in a Baja racing car in the sky. I am going to bed and should have lung cancer in the morning. Cheers.

Greetings From the Land of Dim Sum

Yes, I am in the city where Dim Sum (pictured above) was invented. Aleksandra and I are big fans for Dim Sum back in the states. Dim Sum means “snack” and is sort of like the Chinese version of tapas – sort of. You are usually seated at a large table in an enormous room that resembles a scene in a John Woo film. There are numerous little Chinese ladies that walk around with these rolling carts of food and try to sell you all sorts of stuff like shrimp dumplings, vegetables, beef, raccoon penis, etc… My personal favorites are the BBQ pork buns. They are not pictured above because they were in my stomach when I took the photo.

Well, I just received my "rake up call" and am about to leave the city of Dim Sum and fly to a city in northern China where it is –15 degrees Celsius. That translates to –60 in American. I can’t wait.

"Real" Chinese food is Yummy!!!

The rumors are true. Chinese food in China is much different than the Sweet & Sour Chicken and Won Ton soup we Americans have learned to love. Take yesterday’s lunch for example. It started off with some live fresh water eel in a bucket. Click to play the movie.



Then we moved on to some exquisite freshly chopped dog face on a block.



For the main course I has some peppered carcass that was marinating on a hook on this street corner for 5 and a half days. With a meal of this caliber I didn’t have any room to squeeze in any desert. Aw, shucks!

China Day 1

First, thanks to everyone who let me know that my posts to “The Captain’s Blog” are working even though I am not allowed to read them myself.

I heard from Aleksandra shortly after my last post. As I thought, she missed her flight from Tokyo to Newark. However, she seemed to be enjoying her hotel room and even managed to score some green tea ice cream. Green tea ice cream ranks second only to shopping on Aleksandra’s list of pleasures. I think I am in the top 10, but I can’t confirm that.

While Aleksandra was delayed in Tokyo, I decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood where my hotel is located. It is very clean and relatively quiet considering it is in the middle of a city of 20 million people. The first thing that caught my eye was this:


It is a condom vending machine located on the sidewalk outside of a small park. It appears to be made by a company called “Strong Man.” I can imagine many scenarios where this vending machine could become handy ;) Actually, I think I will lobby for one of these bad boys to be installed in the parking lot of Graham Hills (that’s an inside joke for the mountain bikers).

Speaking of bikes, the street I was walking down had a HUGE bike lane with a metal divider to separate it from the traffic. See below:


Biking is a MAJOR form of transportation here. I have never see so many people on bikes and every large building has literally hundreds of bikes lined up outside. Kudos to the Communists for their support of bikes ;)

After observing the condom vending machine and bike lane I decided I had done enough sightseeing for the evening and it was time for a drink. I popped into this little convenience store to buy a beer. As I perused their selection, something caught my eye. It was a short bottle made of smoked glass and a shape resembling a traditional whiskey flask. As it turns out, it is some sort of glutinous wine called “Black Fragrance” which contains honey, ginger juice, wolfberry and other “natural elements.” It is native to this part of China. I took the “Black Fragrance” back to my hotel room and did a number on it. I didn’t see any little green fairies like I hoped to, but I did see Mao Zedong give me the finger as he took a dump in my bath room.

Censored in China

Well, after 17 hours of traveling and 1 landing at an incorrect airport (that was a blast) I have made it to Shanghai, China. I left Aleksandra sitting on a bench at an airport in Bangkok waiting for her flight that wasn’t for another 6 hours. It appears that that flight was delayed causing her to miss her connecting flight in Tokyo but I am not sure and have no way of contacting her. If anyone hears from her, please let me know.

Speaking of lack of communication, it appears that “The Captain’s Blog” is censored in China. I think that is awesome! I guess I am just too much of a wild free spirit for this country. FREEDOM - YEAH!!! CAPITALISM!!! I AM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, CAUSE AT LEAST I KNOW I AM FREE!!!!! When I try to log on, I get an error message, so it could be an internet quirk, but for now I’ll assume it is censorship due to “Extreme Coolness and Freedom.”

Since I can’t read my own blog, can someone please leave a comment or send me an e-mail that they read this post? I think I am circumventing the system by posting through e-mail, but I have no idea if it will work.

Also, if there are no posts for say, 5 days, please call the US military to come rescue me. Thanks.

Thailand Photo Album

Sawatdee Thailand! That means “Goodbye Thailand” in Thai. It was a wonderful trip and we are sad to leave. I will be posting a re-cap sometime in the near future. I have to make this post really short because we are being kicked out of our hotel room. I only had time to post 20 photos, but 20 is better than 0. They are all from our first day in Bangkok and the first 3 minutes of John and Paninat’s wedding. The link is below. See you all in China!

Bill's Thailand Photos

Vacation is hard work

Since I arrived in Thailand it has been a non-stop barrage of sightseeing, shopping, wedding-ing, and TRAVELING. Holy crap. I have been on airplanes, trains, taxis, tooke-tookes (pictured above), boats, buses, and just about everything else EXCEPT a bicycle. Boo-hoo. I think the intense schedule took its toll on me. Last night I was on the beach enjoying an orange flavored hookah when suddenly I got hit with the Montezuma’s Revenge. I did an all out sprint to my room and haven’t come out in 17 hours. In addition to a visit from Montezuma, my body completely shut down. I couldn’t get out of bed and it was extremely difficult even walking to the bathroom. Every step took an incredible effort and my skin felt like it was on fire. This is the third time I got hit with this “extreme exhaustion.” It also happened to me when I was in Poland back in August and when I was working down in Virginia in the fall of 2006. When I get home I am going to have to get this checked out, but the good news is that I am feeling a bit better and I think the worst of it is behind me. I leave for my gig in China in 48 hours. Maybe I can get some rest when I go back to work. :~

Thailand’s Favorite Shopper

That would be my wife. Aleksandra is in shopping heaven buying all sorts of “cool stuff.” In two days she will be adopted by The Thai Royal Family and given the title “Queen of Shopping.” We are with a bunch of other folks from the US who came over for the wedding and they are placing bets on how much Aleksandra will buy each time we enter a shop. This is not a joke – they are really doing this. So far the person with the highest bet has won EVERY time. Sounds like a good bet to me.

As I write this post from our hotel room, she is out shopping. It is the only free moment I have to work on some pictures to share with you. So, I am going to do that now and cut this post short…