My Shanghai story in Budget Travel magazine
A few weeks ago, the July/August edition of Budget Travel magazine hit newsstands across America and, I’m assuming, some other countries, as well. Page 66 featured a full page, color photo of a 32-year-old American sometime-journalist/marginally-informative-blogger/handbag-entrepreneur. A random reader emailed the guy in the photo and said the “pic struck me as nice” and told him “don’t ever stop smiling!” Meanwhile, an immediate family member told the guy his smile made him look “beaver like.” Well, you can’t win them all.
So anyway, I have an eight-page story in the current issue of Budget Travel. And yes, there is a full-page portrait of me (shot by a New York Times photographer, I might add). And yes, the title of the story is “My Shanghai Is Better Than Yours.” Both the photo and the title were the magazine’s idea — I’m sure your Shanghai is just fine.
The story is split up into three parts — Eat, Shop and Play — and I suggest 15 or so places/activities in each one. It was a little tricky. I had to keep in mind that my readers, and anyone who would actually end up putting my advice to use, would likely be be new to Shanghai and their Chinese would be limited or nonexistent. I also had a word count to stay under. As is my habit, I failed miserably in that task, thus the version that appeared in the magazine was a little less detailed than the one I turned in — but that is my fault. I may post the extended version here sometime after August.
You can read the story at budgettravelonline.com or you can download a PDF of the magazine version here. And you can also download the addresses of the places I mention in my story (in English and Chinese) here.
Also, on Tuesday I played the role of China travel expert (don’t laugh) in one of Budget Travel’s “live” Trip Coach chats. You can find the transcript here. And if you are wondering how I can think so well on my feet, keep in mind that I was sleeping when the chat actually took place.
07.13.2006, 10:19 PM · Best of Shanghai, Culture, Stories, Travel · Comments (6)
This National Day holiday I …
- … flew south to Fujian Province with Bliss — whose ancestors are from Fujian — and her friend Emily, who is visiting from Seattle. My photos from the four-day trip can be found at Flickr. (They can also be found in the Shanghai Diaries photo gallery — I spent a good chunk of yesterday making sure that section of the site was up to date — but, really, I suggest you view the photos on Flickr. Better. Easier. We should be making a total switch to Flickr with the coming redesign of the site.)
- … got a little bit wet thanks to Typhoon Longwang. But was happy to have avoided the flood of people that hit Shanghai. Ri-f*cking-diculous.
- … missed out on the hot springs at Xiamen’s Riyuegu Resort (thanks to the typhoon), but settled for a private room at The Retreat, where I got an hour-long massage, soaked in a hot tub treated with aromatherapy oils … and got my ears cleaned.
- … became an uncle, again.
- … rediscovered the fact that I actually do like Chinese food. Quite a bit.
- … got lost on Gulangyu Island … again.
- … repeatedly bombarded Andrea with questions about what to do/where to go/how to get there in Xiamen. Felt kind of bad, but she is the editor of What’s On Xiamen. Andrea always kindly obliged. I gave her a Shanghaiist t-shirt for her troubles — nothing says “thank you” like a little shameless self-promotion!
- … took a great day-trip into Fujian’s rural Nanjing Province to soak in a little Hakka culture. Was amazed at the size of their tu lou earthen roundhouses. (If you are traveling to Xiamen, I highly recommend a travel agent named Apple. She speaks English and can be emailed at lemon60606(@)hotmail.com.)
- … bought one of these hats for 5 kuai.
- … bought this painting from my friends at oceansbridge.com headquarters in Xiamen.
- … went to a masseuse/chiropractor in Xiamen recommended by Andrea. A burly man, he was unable to crack my back. Is this a good or bad sign?
- … was unable to fit a Blue Frog “Montana Burger” into my mouth.
- … met with a Singapore-based book editor about my book proposal … and received a couple more rejections from the US (news I’m sure Billy Baldwin is very happy to hear).
- … discovered a great new sandwich shop in Shanghai. Very cheap, and near my apartment, too. It’s called Nangka Cafe.
- … listened to Chad Van Gaalen’s great new album again and again and again.
- … confirmed that the pork ribs at Di Shui Dong are among my favorite dishes available at local restaurants.
- … likely gained a few pounds.
- … found out that there is a very good chance I will be playing the role of Santa Claus in an upcoming Chinese Pizza Hut commercial.
- … tried to convince friends and family that China’s new tightened control of the internet likely won’t affect me. Am I being naive?
- … started viewing season two of Lost and still can’t figure out why it won the Emmy for best drama … or why I can’t seem to stop watching it.
- … watched England qualify for the World Cup and realized that my illegal satellite hook-up is better than the one at the Big Bamboo.
- … spent one morning watching the Yankees lose, one watching them win and today woke up at 4 am to discover their game had been rained out.
- … wondered whether American celebrities will hold telethons for the victims of Pakistan’s awful earthquake, the same way they did for tsunamis and hurricanes this year.
10.09.2005, 4:53 PM · Bars, Culture, Diary, Food, Music, Observations, Photos, Sports, Television, Travel · Comments (2)
Cleaning out the attic
And other things I did instead of updating this website during the past few weeks
* Ate barbecue in New York City with Tony, Shanghai native, avid reader of this website and donor to The Trip fund.
* Learned at the SoHo Apple Store that my recent hard drive crash could have been caused by using Poisoned, a file sharing application similar to Limewire. “What about BitTorrent applications?” I asked simply out of curiosity. “Any problems with those?” “We haven’t seen any technical issues with BitTorrent,” my Genius replied. “Only karma issues.” Ouch.
* Attended a charity auction in which someone seated at my table spent around $4,000 for the chance to appear in an episode of Without a Trace. That was minutes after the same guy spent around the same amount of money for Yankees tickets and a baseball autographed by Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson. I thought about bidding on that — and then I remembered that I am a 31-year-old with a four-figure salary.
* Met David, designer of this site’s logo. (Proof)
* Walked past Bob Balaban near Union Square.
* Ate a curiously large slice of pizza in Washington, D.C.
* Attended a Washington Nationals game and wondered why the hell, almost four years after September 11, 2001, we still sing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch.
* Ordered barbecue through bullet proof glass.
06.04.2005, 3:56 PM · Observations, Travel · Comments (1)
I am very, very juicy. (Wait — I mean sleepy.)
So this trip to the U.S. that I only took because I had a ticket I had already paid for may end up costing me around $800. That’s for a one-way ticket. Fun. Here’s the scoop: At the Pudong airport, I was flagged for not having a paper ticket. Now, I knew something like this might happen. I used the first half of the round-trip ticket way back in May 2004. The return flight was originally supposed to be six months later in November, but I was somewhere in Guizhou at the time. My travel agent said no problem — he could change the flight for me, so long as I left for New York before May 8, 2005. After that, the ticket was no good. So I left on Sunday, May 8, knowing that I would likely have to pay a $150 date-change fee. Nothing more. But the Northwest Airlines people and my travel agent apparently disagree about the “nothing more” part. NWA seems to think I should pay for a whole new ticket. They ended up letting me on the flight for the $150, though, and said they would deal with my travel agent this week. So I’m in New York at the SoHo Apple store and I love this city and it’s great to see friends and the weather is nice and the Yankees have won two in a row and it will be nice to see family and even more friends. But paying for this trip defeats the whole purpose of making this trip. And $800 for a one-way ticket is fucking ridiculous. I’ll keep you posted.
So, on the Tokyo to New York flight, the woman — mid to late 30s, I think — sitting next to me watched ballroom dancing movies on her portable DVD player. She was decked out in a pink velour track suit that had “JUICY” printed on the butt (I have since learned that this crap is actually somewhat popular, “especially with jappy Long Island girls”).
05.10.2005, 10:50 AM · Observations, Travel · Comments (4)
Your man in Yunnan
Everything you need to know or Everything I know or Everything I felt like typing
Mediocre things come to those who have no choice but to wait. I am talking about my most recent batch of photos from Xishuangbanna. Not that the month-and-a-half-old photos (all 117 of them) are bad — actually, I think some of them turned out pretty well — but the image quality of the versions I added to the photo gallery is a little subpar, in my opinion. The reason? I started to use this iPhoto plugin called iPhotoToGallery. It really does make the uploading process a lot easier, but the tradeoff is that your photos look like crap. Until they clean up the crap, I won’t be using it again. But I won’t be re-uploading anything, either — just don’t have time. Still, the photos should give you a good feel for ‘Banna, which, after two visits, is one of my favorite spots in China — because the place, not far from Burma and Laos, is like a vacation from China. A slice of Southeast Asia without having to go through an airport security check.
I don’t have time to the write the long, vivid travelog that a trip to Xishuangbanna warrants (my time is currently occupied by a longer, hopefully vivider[1] travelog), but I would like to leave you with a few brief Yunnan travel tips:
Tip one: Go to Yunnan. You will love it.
04.12.2005, 9:50 PM · Observations, Photos, Site News, Travel
Great Wall hike leaves me at a loss for words
A little more than two weeks ago, I hiked a five-mile stretch of the Great Wall, from Jinshanling to Simatai, with my friends Brian and Jill. And boy, it sure was great. It was rather cold and had been snowing and, in fact, our trip had been canceled twice by the friendly people at the Beijing Downtown Backpackers Accomodation due to inclement weather conditions. But after I explained to them that Brian and Jill traveled all the way from a small southern town called Atlanta just to see the Great Wall — and I think at that moment cute little Jill mustered up a tear or two — they relented and agreed to take us on a private trip … for the same price we would have paid had we gone with a group. I thought that was great of them. We paid 155 yuan per person, which included one entry ticket and round-trip transportation for the journey, which was 2.5 hours each way. I thought it was a great deal.
We pretty much had the wall to ourselves, which was great. The sky was great, clear and a perfect blue, which meant visibility, too, was great — we could see snow-covered mountains for miles. Just great. The locals who live near the wall are great. They’re willing to walk the wall with you, and they’ll even offer to sell you things — books, postcards, T-shirts and the like — along the way. They ensured us that their prices were great. (Actually, given the slippery conditions on the wall that day, it really was great to have some people familiar with the route along for the hike — someone had to catch Jill when she fell. If she would have gotten injured, it wouldn’t have been great.)
So, here they are. My 41 photos from the Jinshanling to Simatai hike of the Great Wall. I think that they are … um … hmmmm, what word could I use to describe these photos? … uh … I think these photos are OK.
Also, Brian and Jill will likely be using one of these Great Wall photos — one of the ones featuring them — as their 2005 Christmas card. If you could help them make their choice by commenting on the photo you like best … um yeah, that would be great.
03.13.2005, 9:49 PM · Diary, Observations, Photos, Travel · Comments (1)
It’s the Great Pumpkin (head), Chairman Mao
The first batch of Beijing photos is in the Gallery.
I generally don’t go out of my way to see dead bodies. In fact, over the course of my life, I have tried to limit my encounters with corpses as much as possible. I don’t attend viewings. And if a funeral happens to be open casket, I try my best not to look. So, I haven’t seen many dead bodies in my life. In fact, I only distinctly remember two — and they were both spied, on separate occasions, through windows of Shanghai taxi cabs. Unlucky bicyclists. Heavy heaps on black streets, glowing red and blue from the lights of a nearby police car. Dead bodies. Or at least very, very sleepy ones.
Thus, I have a hard time explaining my eagerness to see a dead Chairman Mao. Perhaps the impulse is fueled by the same deep down demons that, each and every day, lure me to read the latest developments in the Michael Jackson case. (He licked the kid’s head!) Regardless, on my second day in Beijing last month, I made a B-line for Mao’s big mausoleum in the middle of Tiananmen Square. Brian, Jill and I checked our bags and cameras and froze in line with dozens of others, followers and freak-show enthusiasts alike. And let me tell you, it was worth the price of admission.
03.11.2005, 10:10 PM · Diary, Observations, Photos, Travel · Comments (2)
Shanghai —> Beijing —> Yunnan —> Shanghai
Ever since The Trip, I’ve been getting a lot of emails looking for advice on traveling in China (which reminds me … I need to respond to some of those). Now, I’d like to turn the tables and get some advice from my readers. I get back from Honolulu on February 16. And then, on February 20, these freaks — Brian and Jill — fly into Shanghai from the Dirty South (Atlanta, not Guangzhou). They’ve got a little less than two weeks in China, and we have decided to fly all over the place. Here is a look at our itinerary:
Feb. 20-22: Shanghai
Feb. 23-25: Beijing
Feb. 26-Mar. 4: Yunnan
Mar. 5: Back to ATL
My questions to you are:
- In Beijing, we will do some of the obvious things: Forbidden City and The Great Wall. But what section of the wall do you recommend? I went to Simitai back in August because I thought it was one of the less touristy sections — and then I found out that it had a cable car. Also, this time of year, I suppose weather will be an issue … so keep that in mind.
- What is worth checking out in Beijing that’s not mentioned in the guidebooks? I’m talking about stuff that only the locals — and local expats — know about. We’ve only got two-and-a-half days.
- If you only had six days in Yunnan, what the hell would you do (after you got done crying about the fact that you only had six days)?
- My friends have shown an interest in Zhongdian, because they would like to get a Tibetan feel without actually entering Tibet. So, we might head straight to Lijiang and spend most of our time in Yunnan’s northwest. Weather-wise is this a wise thing to do? (Looks like it gets pretty damn cold there at night.) Any suggestions for getting away from the hordes in that part of the country? Any Zhongdian-specific suggestions?
- Or should we just say f**k it, head to Ruili and shoot up every day?
Thanks in advance for your help. You can either leave you comments down below for everyone to see or, if you are shy, you can email me privately at dan @ danwashburn.com.
Also, let me know if you happen to be where we plan to be. Maybe we can get together.
See you on the road … again.
[My apologies to Rick Lacey, whoever you are. It’s late and your book cover was the only image I could find to go with this post. And yes, I am aware that an “RV Adventure Across America” has very little to do with a plane trip through China. As I said, it’s late. Sue me. Wait … don’t sue me.]
02.03.2005, 7:25 PM · Travel · Comments (11)
Southwest Guangxi: The good, the bad and the beautiful
This story is not part of The Trip series. It is based on a previous trip to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
by DAN WASHBURN
There were times during my pursuit of the world’s second-largest transnational waterfall that I began to wonder: Just how many transnational waterfalls are there in the world anyway? What if my trek through the rarely visited southwest section of China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region led me to a trickle instead of a fall? What if Detian Waterfall, which straddles the Sino-Vietnamese border, earned the “second-largest” distinction by default? What if the list is Niagara and not much else?
There are a lot of what ifs when traveling in this often ignored corner of China. Most people who visit Guangxi stick to the well-worn paths of the northeast. There, the city of Guilin has long been a popular tourist destination — Chinese, who visit by the busload, describe the city as “famous” — and the nearby village of Yangshuo has evolved into one of China’s only legitimate backpacker havens, with a decidedly “un-Chinese” feel. The region’s landscape is truly breathtaking. But its popularity has spawned an atmosphere heavy on touristy kitsch, in which every foreigner — and there are plenty — is a walking mark, a dollar sign in the eyes of some budding entrepreneur.
Travel southwest a couple hundred miles and the dollar signs are replaced by question marks. Stares are long and hard. But then they end, and no one has tried to sell you anything. They’re too busy wondering what you are doing there — in these parts, you can go weeks without seeing another foreign face.
mmmmmmm. georgia.
and i’m tired.
so feast on these georgia photos until i wake up.
it could be a while.
goodnight.
05.11.2004, 12:33 AM · Georgia 2004, Photos · Comments (2)
‘we just got hitched!’
this new album features more than 125 photos from brian and jill’s wedding weekend in albany, georgia.
and these pics will do nothing to disprove the notions that americans love shooting guns, getting drunk and making babies.
i’m in jesup now. heading back to atlanta later this afternoon. then it’s off to gainesville mid-week.
(note: you can leave comments on photos if you feel the urge. just click on the photo you’d like to comment on and then click the “add comment” link below the photo.)
05.05.2004, 1:43 AM · Georgia 2004, Photos
in america
greetings from the apple store at the lenox mall in atlanta, georgia. i’m in the states for a very important wedding (not mine) and will be back in china may 10.
it was wednesday morning and light outside in shanghai when i left. it was wednesday evening and light outside in atlanta when i arrived. and i got to spend 26 hours in taxis, airports, airplanes and rental cars in between.
first stop after i arrived should probably have been a bed, but instead it was a bar: trivia night at the local on ponce de leon. so, in that spirit, i offer a multiple choice question for you:
Q: it took dan less than an hour to realize what he has missed most about america. what was it?
a. diversity
b. old drinking buddies
c. good beer
d. laid back bars
e. barbecue sandwiches
f. breasts
g. all of the above
oh gee, i wonder what the answer is.
i’ll check back soon. picking up mom at the airport in a couple hours. then driving deeper into the southland for the wedding.
bye, y’all.
04.29.2004, 11:29 AM · Georgia 2004 · Comments (5)
what happens in moganshan, stays in moganshan
beer pong.
hiking.
dancing.
football.
flowers.
frogs.
moganshan.
movin’ on up … to moganshan
heading off for a weekend in the mountains with some friends. it’s supposed to rain, so we’ve packed plenty of beer pong supplies. be back on sunday.
moganshan links:
mountain retreat (ctrip.com)
twists and turns on the tourist trail (guardian.co.uk)
castles in the clouds: ghost hunting on moganshan (chinanow.com)
a refreshing blast from the past (thatsmagazines.com)
04.16.2004, 10:44 AM · Moganshan
A traveling man in need of a plan
i’m planning a cross-country trip of china this summer … wanna help out? ok, here’s the plan:
well, that’s the problem. i don’t really have a plan. i know i want to start somewhere in the far northeast, perhaps near the north korean border. i know i want to end in tibet, somewhere pretty damn close to mount everest. and i know i want to write and blog from the road (or trail or rail or river) as much as possible.
04.13.2004, 1:35 AM · The Trip, Travel · Comments (7)
where the hell have i been?
in a cave? well, yes. but only part of the time.you know it’s been a long time when you start getting text messages from your students telling you to update your website. so here you go, bonny.
over the past several weeks, i chose to concentrate on money-making ventures — you know, freelance writing and standing next to cars — instead of this website.
03.11.2004, 1:06 AM · Guangxi, Movies, Observations, Photos, School, Sports · Comments (4)
cambodia :: day four :: part one :: boo from bokor
the man took center stage in the crumbling palace and proceeded to pantomime. he bent his legs and faked a strong grip on a big imaginary machine gun. and then he started shooting, fueling his fire with the cops-and-robbers sounds that kids make, shaking his body and turning from side to side, spraying his made-up bullets through large windowless openings, flying them over the thick jungle and in to the distant waters of the gulf of thailand.
then the man brushed his hands clean and laughed. without speaking a word, he had said what he wanted to say: not too long ago, the guns and the bullets were real. not too long ago — as recently as the late 1990s — the vast jungles of preah monivong national park were home to the last remnants of the khmer rouge.
12.16.2003, 9:34 PM · Cambodia
cambodia :: photos :: the faces of cambodia
for all of dan’s cambodia photos, click here.
cambodia :: day three :: monks taxi, too
“are you going to kampot?”
“yes.”
“me too.”
and that’s how i learned i would be sharing a three-hour taxi ride with a buddhist monk. well, a buddhist monk and five other people. in cambodia, that taxi stays parked until it’s packed.
11.26.2003, 7:27 PM · Cambodia · Comments (1)
cambodia :: day two :: keep smiling
cambodia’s political history is confusing as hell. it twists and turns like the murky mekong river, which cuts a mysterious path right through the heart of the country. cambodia goes through regimes, its leaders go through shifts of allegiance, like rural khmers go through kramas.
this much is clear, however. cambodia was home to the most murderous revolution of the 20th century. between 1975 and 1979, nearly 20 percent of the population was killed, either by execution, starvation, malnutrition or lack of medical care. these were the most lethal years of the khmer rouge’s bloody reign. led by the hitler-esque pol pot, the “revolutionists” eliminated nearly 2 million cambodians in a radical social experiment aimed at restructuring the country into a maoist, peasant-driven collective.
11.24.2003, 10:52 PM · Cambodia · Comments (2)
cambodia :: day one :: hello moto
prostitutes. drugs. guns.
i learned all i needed to know about cambodia during the short ride from the phnom penh airport to the last home guesthouse. well, this was all my moto driver bunyong thought i needed to know. don’t think he’ll be getting hired by the cambodia travel bureau anytime soon.
11.20.2003, 10:56 PM · Cambodia · Comments (4)
my uncle olaf used to say …
… whenever you finish four mind-numbing days spent grading 400 final exams (which require students, among other things, to “write two examples of a swear word”) …
… go to cambodia.
well, i’m taking ol’ ollie’s advice. i’ll be in cambodia until nov. 28.
how do you say “happy thanksgiving” in cambodi … um … cambodianese? (i really should have read up on this place a little more. cambodiahua? cambodinglish?)
[olaf also used to tell me never to mention stories i have promised to readers, but, for whatever reason, haven’t written yet. so i won’t mention the xinjiang stories that i owe you, among others. i won’t apologize. i won’t blame the the fact that they’re not written on 400 final exams … but i could.]
see you in 10 days!
(by the way, i got my camera fixed. so expect some pics.)
wild on xinjiang: setting the stage
note: the following is the first of many posts that will document my 10-day stay in china’s xinjiang uighur autonomous region during the national day holiday. now, i’ll be the first to tell you that this introduction has little to do with the xinjiang i saw. but i’ve been doing some research on the topic lately. i find it interesting. and there you go.
the uighurs wobble … but will they fall down?
the place: china might as well add “restive” to its already long and disingenuous name for the xinjiang uighur autonomous region. read a newspaper or magazine story about this vast and mysterious northwestern non-province, and restive will undoubtedly show up somewhere. (see, i’ve already done it twice.) this makes me chuckle. my dictionary defines autonomous like this: “not controlled by others; independent.” and restive like this: “difficult to control.”
11.09.2003, 10:56 PM · Politics, Xinjiang · Comments (4)
finally
photo: shannon shue
(if you care, my camera is currently in the shop right now. this explains the dearth of new photos here recently.)
later this week, i will begin posting my xinjiang travelog. i plan to do this day-by-day, diary style. lots of stories to tell. xinjiang is — um, well — different.
11.03.2003, 12:51 AM · Photos, Xinjiang · Comments (1)
muslims, raisins and knives … oh my!
yes, i’m back from xinjiang. yes, it was a great trip. yes, i will write about it soon. yes, i will post photos soon, too.
but i’m suffering from a cold and a slow internet connection. i hope to have both problems remedied by mid-week.
until then, please enjoy this sampling of photos i culled from the hundreds i still need to sort all the way through.
oh, if you were wondering, the name “good cheap tent” only proved to be two-thirds correct.
10.14.2003, 12:29 AM · Photos, Xinjiang · Comments (2)
i hear siberia is nice this time of year
i’ll keep this short … because i still need to pack. i leave tomorrow — really later today — for a national day (oct. 1) holiday trip to xinjiang, the huge territory that occupies the northwest corner of china. and then i’m heading to the very, very top of it, a lake called kanas that sits close to khazakstan, russia and mongolia.
we’re doing a week-long hiking/camping trip through the altay mountains (a chinese guidebook to the area features the english words “asian switzerland,” so i’m expecting lots of blondes, banks, chocolate and clocks) and eventually ending up at the remote kanas lake. (actually, it’s not that remote. it’s also accessible by a very long bus ride, which no doubt is what almost all of the chinese tourists will opt for. so, i’m expecting this lake in the middle of nowhere to be crowded, noisy and smoky, like everywhere else in china during a holiday.)
09.29.2003, 3:34 AM · Xinjiang · Comments (3)
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)
Mountains Gone Wild
NOTE: An extremely toned down version of this story appeared in the April 2004 edition of that’s Shanghai magazine.
by DAN WASHBURN
Girls! Girls! Girls! — Motley Crue (1981-2000 AD), “Girls, Girls, Girls”
There is a place with no crowds, no skyscrapers, no trash on the ground — and it’s only a four-hour drive from Shanghai. If Hangzhou is Shanghai’s backyard, then Lin’an, with its comparatively organic surroundings, is the city’s secret clubhouse up in a tree. You won’t find this quirky city of 500,000 in any of your guidebooks, and that’s exactly the reason you should go. Located in northwest Zhejiang Province, Lin’an is the perfect jumping off point for a day spent exploring grand and green Tianmu Mountain. Head back into town after dark to take in its curious and compelling nightlife. (There is a disco bar in Lin’an that has a dance floor that glows and bounces up and down … and barely bedraped dancing girls — two of them, at least — who do things that haven’t been done to a pole since Roman Polanski slept over at Jack Nicholson’s house.)
04.10.2003, 10:39 AM · Lin'an, Stories · Comments (1)
hong kong: more than beer and tv
I was sitting alone at the bar of an Irish pub in Hong Kong sipping a pint of Tetley’s Bitter. I borrowed a pen and starting scribbling on the back of my bar tab: “taller, tighter, more tits, less bikes.” Those were the words I started with. Profound, I know. But I also know that I’m not the first person to write such slop after a few pints of bitter. (Enter Ethan Hawke joke here.)
I hate when people visit a new city and immediately try to define it, but after my fourth pint that’s exactly what I did. Hong Kong is like New York City, I wrote, only with more hills … and more Asians. Brilliant.
10.18.2002, 7:26 AM · Hong Kong · Comments (1)
