Cat or delicious snack? You decide.

If I were going to have a cat for a snack, I'd certainly want one at least as cute as Dublin.  But I don't eat cats, so she's safe as long as she doesn't get back in that elevator.

Cat in a scary Chinese elevator

     Several months ago, I decided it was time to get a cat.  I was turning 40, I’m single, I didn’t have a cat, it only seemed logical.  And for the most part, I have enjoyed having a fuzzy little friend around the house.  We are still working on a few things such as not treating the furniture as scratching posts and learning appropriate places to take a little kitty tinkle (i.e. not in my bed, especially not in my bed while I am sleeping in it).  Overall, it’s been mostly a success and I have not made good on my threat to turn her into a cat-skin rug, even when she probably deserved it. 

     So, I ‘ve gotten used to having Dublin (because she’s a girl and I couldn’t name her Larry Mullen Jr. after the drummer in U2) around.  Even though she often attacks my toes for no reason and wakes me up before 7:00 a.m. on weekends, I’ve grown accustomed to having her around.  So, you can imagine my horror last week when Dublin decided, against her better judgment, to go for an unsupervised ride in the elevator. 

     I live in a 29-story apartment building on the 29^th floor.  I had gone grocery shopping and my hands were full.   So, as cats do, Dublin darted into the hallway when I opened the door.  I dropped my bags on the kitchen table and went out to fetch her.  Mysteriously, I heard meowing, but saw no cat.  And then the meowing grew fainter and fainter.  Down she went, in the elevator, into the vast recesses of my huge apartment building.

     Panic set in.  I speak a bit of Mandarin, but my cat only speaks meow.  She also doesn’t read numbers (that I know of) so if she did manage to meow in Mandarin or Cantonese, she wouldn’t have known which numbers to meow.  Plus, I’ve heard that some people in this region of China think cats are tasty snacks.  I don’t know if any of those people live in my building, but I didn’t want either us to find out the hard way. 

     I saw that the elevator had descended to the 26^th floor.  I got there as quickly as I could, but she was nowhere to be found.  There is a large open area on the 4^th floor of the building where people go walk around and vigorously slap themselves (a Chinese method of improving circulation and health) so I thought I would check there.  No cat.  By this point, not knowing what else to try, I went outside to the guardhouse, hoping that someone had picked her up and taken her to the guard.  I am sure the guard didn’t know what to do with a flustered foreigner speaking in rapid and broken Mandarin trying to relate what had happened to my cat.  It went something like this (with frantic hand motions implied):

Me:  “My cat went electric thing (I could only remember half of the word for elevator at this point). I’m looking for my cat.  Have you seen my cat?”

The guard looked confused but he started calling people on his radio.  I walked him back over to the building and he asked me to wait.  At this point, I was sure someone had the wok fired up and the filet knife out, so I wasn’t about to wait.  I told him as much and started climbing up the stairs.  On every floor I checked for a lost cat, but none was to be found.  Finally, after a bit of climbing, I found her crouched in the stairwell on the 9^th floor.  How she got there and what she had been up to she didn’t say, but I was very relieved to see her.  We had a serious talk about riding the elevator alone, about learning her address and phone number in Mandarin (and Cantonese) and strategies for looking less delicious.  Hopefully she’s learned her lesson, but I’m a bit wary as she keeps wistfully eyeing the door.  You know what they say about curiosity and cats.  And elevators.    

Images from Alaska

What to do in Ketchikan?  See a lumberjack show, of course!

If I ever own a popcorn store, I'm going to call it Orca Corn too. 

A shot of the Space Needle from the Chihuly Glass and Garden Museum in Seattle.

Glacier bay.  Pretty mystical.  And cold.  Let's not forget cold.

My good friend Sarah who was kind enough to put up with me for a week and I in front of a glacier. 

It's not Alaska if you don't see a couple of totems. 

Aaaaahlaska

As someone that works in a school, I get asked a lot “What are you doing for your summer vacation?”  This summer I was excited to report that I was taking a cruise to Alaska with my good (and very patient with me) friend Sarah.  Her husband Wayne was kind enough to volunteer to babysit her two-year-old for the while we cruised north. 

We began our journey in Seattle.  While I was upgraded to first class on my flight from Denver (full reclining bed, in-seat movies, a meal and hot roasted nuts delivered to my seat), Sarah was unfortunately delayed in Albuquerque, and didn’t make it to Seattle until 10:00 p.m.  I was left to my own devices and took a really expensive taxi ride to the mall, about $15 each way, which is so much more than China, and saw a movie. I don’t see a lot of movies in China, so it was a treat.  I returned to the hotel, met a very tired Sarah in the lobby and we retired to our room for some girl chat and sleep.  We arose the next morning and opted to skip really expensive hotel breakfast in favor of a much cheaper meal at Denny’s across the street.  Denny’s was packed as all of the other departing cruise passengers had the same idea.  After breakfast, we headed into Seattle, checked in for our cruise and headed to Pike Place Market so that we could see the guy throw a fish.  Once the fish was thrown, we got out of there, as the cruise passengers that weren’t at Denny’s were all at Pike Place Market.  After stocking up on supplies at Target, we headed for the boat. 

We had booked ourselves on the Norwegian Pearl and arrived to welcome high fives (kind of weird, really) and our tiny cabin.  We booked an inside cabin, knowing that no one really spends time inside of their room on a cruise.   We headed off to explore the ship and to find food, as one knows that food must be consumed approximately every 45 minutes when on a cruise.  We headed for the Summer Palace dining room.  Now, I’m not a cruise ship designer, but as a student of history I know the story of the sad demise of the Romanoff Dynasty.  They all got shot in a little room.  It didn’t end well.  So, sitting in a dining room surrounded by pictures of frolicking Romanoffs enjoying the last years of their lives was just a little weird to me.  But, no one asked.  I digress.  Lunch was good.  I had the Vietnamese summer rolls, black bean burger and raspberry sherbet.  Sarah had the chicken sandwich.  We ate many meals at the summer palace, despite the creepy Romanoff portraits, as the food was decent.  And no one trampled us, like they would have in the buffet line. 

The Pearl had lots of amenities including a gym, a theatre, lots of restaurants, a casino, a zumba class, bingo and a cruise director named Pedro.  Sarah and I took advantage of as many of these amenities as possible, as we had already paid for them.  Plus, we were trapped on a ship for almost two days before we actually arrived in Alaska.  Our first night on the ship caught the Frankie Vally tribute band.  These guys were excellent singers but, I felt kind of bad for them that they had 60 year-old ladies throwing their panties at them during every show.  But, I guess if you choose to be part of a Frankie Valle tribute band on a cruise ship, you kind of know that is going to happen. 

After a very long time at sea, we arrived in Juneau.  We hopped on a tour bus with a crusty Tlinket guide named Ben.  He told us stories of the tribe.  We saw a glacier.   I practiced my Mandarin, as many of my Chinese friends were also onboard the Pearl.  We tried to order items on the menu at a Russian restaurant, but almost everything was sold out.  We looked at tacky Alaska souvineers (reindeer poop candy, polar bear poop candy, moose poop candy, necklaces shaped like whale tales…you get the idea) and headed back to the ship. 

Alaskan ports unfolded before us in a very similar fashion.  In Skagway we hopped on a three hour train ride up an narrow gauge railway build during the Klondike gold rush in the 1880s.  We took pictures, we got mooned by a guy on a passing train.  After the excitement of the train ride, we walked around Skagway, which took about 15 minutes and ate Indian food for lunch.  For some reason, Sarah wasn’t keen on visiting the museum of prostitution (apparently it was really big business in Skagway as there was nothing else to do there 100 years ago too) and we headed back to the ship.

Our next day was spent in Glacier Bay.  I must admit, Glacier Bay was really cool both literally and figuratively.  We found a good spot on deck (remember, inside cabin, perhaps not the smartest move in retrospect on an Alaska cruise) and waited on a deck chair for Glaciers.  Glaciers we saw.  There were glaciers on the tops of the mountains, there were glaciers fed by the sea.  We even saw the glacier calving.  There’s noting like an ice cube the size of a Mini Cooper falling off of a glacier into the sea.  Believe me, I’ve seen it.  As we travelled out of Glacier Bay we were visited by a pod of whales.  There were at least 20, and they were there to frolic.  I’ve seen a lot of things, and I must say, frolicking whales are pretty awesome. 

However, I’m not sure frolicking whales beat a Lumberjack show.  After Glacier Bay, we headed for Ketchikan, home of the Great Alaskan Lumberjack show.  That was impossible not to check out.  But first, we breakfast to eat and totem poles to see.  After a big plate of chocolate chip pancakes and hash browns at the Pioneer Cafe we got a tour of Ketchikan and a visit to a state park and totem museum.  After wandering through a garden of totem poles in the rain, we returned to town for the Lumberjack show.  I must say men wielding chainsaws, axes and decked out in flannel are kind of a turn on.  There’s just something about a burly guy with a chainsaw.  You know what I’m talking about.  Two hours later, Sarah and I got back on the boat and headed for our next port, Victoria, British Columbia.

By this point in the trip, we were both a little tired of beautiful nature so a city was right up our alley.  If you’ve never been to Victoria, you should go.  It’s lovely.  But go on a vacation, because unless you bought a house there 30 years ago, you probably can’t afford to live there.  It is a charming town full of beautifully constructed Victorian buildings, great shopping and a wide array of restaurants.  We ended up at an Irish Pub because that was just the kind of mood we were in after 7 nights of cruise food.  We wandered into a street festival, looked at really expensive artisanal jewelry and took a Pedi cab back to the boat (if you ever want to get in really good shape, become a Pedi cab driver.  That guy was ripped.  I guess hauling oversized cruise passengers around all day will do that for you). 

Sadly, as most things do, our cruise came to an end.  We arrived back to Seattle.  As we hadn’t eaten much all week, we decided to find a Seattle landmark breakfast joint.  Back at the airport, we picked up a rental car and hit the road in search of breakfast delights.  We weren’t disappointed by Voula's Offshore Cafe.  I try to live a pretty meat free life, but the pulled pork eggs benedict was too tempting to pass up.  They were delicious and I thank the pig that sacrificed it’s life to become my breakfast.  You were delicious.  Sarah had an early flight back to Albuquerque, so I took her back to the airport.  Once she was safely on her way (I had about 12 more hours to kill before my flight) I decided that I could stand to see another movie.  If you didn’t notice, the summer of 2013 was not well know for its movie greatness.  I settled on Superman.  It was solidly mediocre.  However, the movie chair was really soft, which made for a great nap during that one fight seen that lasted for about 45 minutes. 

Once the movie was over I decided to take full advantage of having a rental car by driving out to see Mt. Rainier.  I started driving and noticed it was a little cloudy.  That happens sometimes in Seattle, I have heard.  I drove and drove and drove.  The clouds failed to part.  By the time it was within about 15 miles of Mt. Rainier, I knew it was a lost cause.  The clouds were soupy thick and I was tired of driving.  So I turned around.  I was hungry and there was a Panera on the way back to Seattle.  China doesn’t have Panera, so giving up a chance of seeing the majestic Mt. Rainier in trade for soup, a sandwich and an apple isn’t as lame as it sounds.  Funny thing.  After dinner, it started to clear.  Probably enough if I would have waited another 30 minutes, I may have seen that mountain.  Oh well.  At least there will be something new to see in Seattle when I return. 

All in all, not a bad trip; definitely go to Alaska.  Definitely.  Whales, glaciers, poop shaped candy.  What’s not to love? 

Scenes of the Philippines

 Just a few pictures from my trip. Warning this may induce jealousy and the desire to head for a beach right now. 

 I know that the water looks astonishing clear, but this picture really doesn't do it justice.

 The latest fad in the Philippines - kittens as jewelry!

 Yes, those are sea urchins.  They may look heart shaped, but I am pretty sure they don't love you. 

 Aah...such a great picture.  Wish I were there. 

This was my favorite beach of the trip.  The water was calm, clear and there was no one there but us.  We slept in the little huts you can see in the background.  It doesn't get more perfect than this. 

It's More Fun in the Philippines (Trust Me, I've Been There)

Way back in September, I was poking around on Kayak.com looking for flight deals for Chinese New Year.  I regularly look for cheap flights, a little hobby of mine, and my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw a ticket from Hong Kong to Manila for $55 during CNY.  This was unbelievable.  And I immediately booked it.  I figured if my plans changed I was only out $55.  I then started looking around for something to do in the Philippines and found what looked like a great boat trip in a New York Times Travel article.  One of those has never led me astray before, so I booked a 5 day trip from Coron to El Nido in the Philippine province of Palawan with Tao Philippines (www.taophilippines.com).  I contacted a friend in Manila, who graciously offered me a place to sleep while there and my trip was planned.

I gave it little thought until a couple of days before leaving.  I’ve met many people from the Philippines over the years, especially during my time in Dubai, where the majority of employees working in service industries come from the Philippines.  I knew it was a beautiful country with well-educated people and that I should eat mango pancakes while visiting.  Beyond this, I didn’t know too much.

I arrived at Clark airport in Manila and immediately hopped on a shuttle bus to Mega Mall.  The bus ride was fume filled and bumpy.  I arrived at the mall feeling a little car-sick and in need of fresh air.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this mall looked like it had been plucked from the streets of suburban America.  That’s a good thing when you haven’t been home in a while.  I sucked down a Jamba Juice and did some shopping for essentials for the trip. 

I spent two more days exploring the wilds of Manila.  I ate at the exotic restaurant P.F. Chang’s and had dessert at the equally exotic Krispy Kreme Donuts.  I saw a couple of movies.  I did visit Intramuros, the old Spanish colonial part of Manila.  I hired a pedi-cab driver who pedaled me around the place and then tried to overcharge me, which I didn’t have any of.  If you like old churches and forts, Intramuros is a place for you. 

After a few days of Manila, I was ready to get on a boat.  I hopped a flight to Coron and from there made my way to the Tao office.  I was told to come back at 7 p.m.  I decided to return to my hotel for a little nap, which was an essential part of my vacation plan.  When I arrived the power immediately went off.  Coron, like much of Palwan experiences daily power cuts.  I would guess there is too much demand on an overloaded system.  Whatever the case, Coron and El Nido experience power cuts from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day (or anytime, really, just depends on the day).

After meeting my ship-mates, 16 other people that thought a boat trip in the Philippines was a good idea, I returned to my hotel, got a good night’s sleep and prepared to set sail. 

It’s hard to do justice to this experience.  If I told you how blue the water was (turquoise, clear and teeming with  aquatic life) it wouldn’t do it justice.  The pictures sure don’t.  We spent each day pulling up to pristine beaches and reefs snorkeling, beach combing and waiting for our lunch to be prepared by the most wonderful chef ever.  He produced beautiful meals on a hotplate that many Michelin starred chefs would have been hard-pressed to create in their shiny kitchens.  Each night we pulled up to an island with no hotels, restaurants or even roads for that matter.  Most had a beach, a few locals and a couple had karaoke bars.   It is the Philippines, after all, and where would the Philippines be without karaoke?  Most nights we swam to shore from the boats, and the Tao crew would bring our bags and mattresses and mosquito nets ashore while we swam, walked on the beach or sat taking in the beauty of each new island.   Each night brought dinner, lively conversation and star gazing.  The last night as we pulled up to camp, Romy, our guide told us that we could have massages on the beach.  What?  If you have never had a massage lying on a Philippine beach listening to the waves lap on the shore, you are missing out on one of life’s more sublime experiences.

I can’t say enough about this trip.  I met great people, ate great food and saw a part of the world largely untouched by human development.  If you want to experience something authentic, this trip is definitely worth any travel you need to experience to get there.  I spent a few more days in the Philippines, but none as glorious as my five days navigating the beautiful seas of Palawan.  I can’t wait to go back.  I’m keeping my eyes open for $55  plane tickets…

Photos from Beijing

Just a few pics from Beijing.  Yes, we were there.  Yes, it was cold.  Yes, Chairman Mao looked down upon us and smiled.  Can't ask for more than that...