u.s. tour complete!

the final installment of pennsylvania photos takes you in and around philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. and fittingly, it starts off with photos of my college friends — brothers, of sorts — getting really, really drunk. and then you’ll see all that historic crap … and chinatown, of course. click here

then we head to montana — big sky country — where the big sky was full of smoke and my longtime friend justin married laura, who, by the way, hails from mongolia. (they met at montana state university, where they both are getting doctorate degrees in subjects far too complicated for normal folk like me.) expect to see lots of drunk people — do you see a trend? — and horses and mountains and bison and elk. took a side trip to yellowstone and the grand tetons. click here
for all of my not china photos, click here.
09.14.2003, 11:35 AM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (1)
new york stories

“excuse me. could you please tell me how to get to chinatown from here,” i asked the young waiter at the italian restaurant.
“just walk that way,” he replied, pointing down a soho street. “um …”
he paused, and looked slightly troubled by what he was about to say.
” … keep going until you start to see lots of, um, chinese people. you’ll know when you are there.”
09.10.2003, 10:08 PM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003, Video
i hope the movies on the airplane don’t suck
in case you cared: i arrive in shanghai in approximately 24 hours.
shortly thereafter, the shanghai diaries should start arriving again, too.
08.29.2003, 8:30 PM · Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (1)
in NYC now
loving the diversity.
photos coming soon …
07.30.2003, 2:02 AM · Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (1)
yeah, it’s got a hemi

click here for the first installment of pennsylvania photos, featuring, in order of appearance, hirefrank.com, audrey, a lady with a microphone, sam, ansley, a guy with bad jokes, big ass trucks, lots of people hanging out in, on, in front of and — more commonly — underneath big ass trucks, fat kids in an inflatable truck, fat kids in an inflatable pool, a fat guy who probably isn’t a professional, one very lucky chocolate-covered banana, a smelly baby and some crazy guys on big bad bulls.
07.24.2003, 2:03 AM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003
it’s real good

good friends. good food. kick-ass southern rock. big-ass tattoos. a newpaper-reading cow. and a statue of a confederate soldier who is really a rough rider from the spanish-american war.
what more could a person ask for from four days in georgia?
click here and you will see:
07.21.2003, 1:25 AM · Audio, Music, Photos, Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (2)
dc talk

but that’s not what i’m writing to tell you about. i’m writing to tell you to look at the 39 photos i uploaded from my recent visit to my nation’s capital. click here and you will see:
07.18.2003, 4:09 PM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003, Television
i’m still alive

click here to see the new photos.
07.17.2003, 6:29 AM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003
aloha … again!

06.19.2003, 6:35 PM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003
aloha!

06.17.2003, 5:54 AM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (1)
culture crock
reverse culture shock. people have tried that phrase on me a lot recently. they warned me about it. said i should prepare for it. i’ve been back in america for a week now, and the only thing shocking is how little shock i have felt. from the moment i landed at jfk, everything has seemed normal and natural. it’s been just like returning from a two-week vacation. very strange. i was expecting to feel out of place … but it just feels like home. the key to my car still works and when i press my foot on the gas it goes. it’s been a smooth ride so far. which leads me to believe that shanghai is even more westernized than i had originally thought — or, more likely, nine months in china really isn’t all that long.
06.09.2003, 4:02 AM · Observations, Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (2)
aloha means hello and goodbye
Not sure what to announce here: the fact that I’m leaving China … or the fact that I’m coming back.
I’m leaving in five days. I’m coming back in three months. I have signed another one-year contract to teach at Shanghai University.
05.28.2003, 3:46 PM · Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (3)
