Dispatch from China: Summer Palace

Written by Andy

On my last saturday in BJ I went on a tour with Cindy. Cindy is a friend of my host Andrew. She grew up in Haerbin but has lived in BJ for some time. She actually never had been to the Summer Palace before so I thought where better to visit. I have to say, traveling with a native speaker is much easier than not. After the palace she took me to the hutongs in the Dongcheng section of town.

Lily pads in Lake Kumming

my generous host, Cindy, being surprised by a photo. I said I'd delete it, whoops :)

The summer palace and lake kumming

Lake kumming. the summer palace photo before this is taken to the right of this shot.

Lily pads in bloom

The island in the middle of lake kumming.

The long corridor.
read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Corridor

The famed marble boat.
read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Boat

I forget the history and name of this bridge. I just sort of like how it had this massive arch in it.

summer palace from the other side of kumming lake.

Our rickshaw driver in the Dongcheng hutongs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong

tight fit

a very old building in the Dongcheng hutong.

The more commercialized hutong streets. They've turned the streets into trendy restaurant, bars and clothing stores. Also, they have tones of chinese "crap" stores. these are the stores that sell random cheaply made Chinese souvenir and junk stuff.

Beijings Drum tower

Beijings bell tower.

Cast Iron, the choice of real men and grandmothers

The facts on Cast Iron, it's awesome and cheap. There is no denying this. Cast Iron pans are like the cockroaches of cookware. Think about it, did Viggo Mortensen cook his last can of beanie weenies in All-Clad in that horribly depressing movie before eating his son? Of course not, that crap isn't going to survive a nuclear fall out. (was any of that a spoiler?)

The Circumcision Post: When You Talk About Penises, You're Gonna Meet Some Assholes.

Several weeks ago I posted a note to twitter that I was in the process of making a decision about whether or not to circumcise my son. Admittedly, by writing on twitter that it was on my mind, I put it into the public arena. What I was unprepared for was the speed at which people who were not in my friend graph appeared and tried to influence my opinion. Within seconds, I had messages from @circinfo and @intactbydefault, for and against. So what exactly does that mean? It means that these dudes were sitting at their computers, or more likely ipads searching for the word circumcision on twitter, and probably myspace and facebook.

I thanked them both politely for expressing interest in my sons penis, until the douche canoe calling himself @intactbydefault had the nerve to quote Gandhi by way of comparison to what he perceives as his own struggle for human rights. motherfucking Gandhi. My response was: "Yes. You are exactly like Gandhi, if Gandhi spent all day trolling the internet for mentions of baby penises and giving unsolicited advice. ass".

So here's the decision I made.... Just kidding. That will never happen, because frankly, it just isn't anyones business outside of your family. Not your Rabbi, and certainly not the creeps out there wailing over foreskins while people starve in the streets and hundreds of people are maimed every day by roadside bombs. My advice to you is that when you make your decision, go no further than your own conscience, culture, and family for your answers.

Dispatch From China: Trans-Mongolian Railway

Written by Andyfatherfolk

Andy blogs at http://herenow-nowhere.blogspot.com/

Though I wasn't fortunate enough to make it into Beijing via Moscow on the Trans-Siberian route, I was able to take the train from UB to BJ on the Trans-Mongolian line. I had read about how it was a social train and it sounded like many other like minded travelers would be on it and endless fun would ensue. You may have already guessed this, but this was not the case. Passengers mainly stayed in their rooms and the cafe car that I had read was a hotbed of social interaction was actually a restaurant car where people got food but did not really communicate. I did meet a few other travelers who had had similar thoughts and were surprised at the sterile like environment of the train.

Thanks to my local government we got to worship the devil, twice!

Kids accepting sugar bombs from mostly strangers happened over the weekend, you may have heard of it and may have even participated, on a Sunday no less!

This was not to be in our county, which apparently decided about a month ago that celebrating this day of cavities and pudge on the day of his almighty wasn't in our best interest. Boy did we get the last laugh.

We saddled the horses, hitched up the wagon and made our way all the way across the county line on the 31st of October. We spent a long night imbibing, chanting (imperial march for every plastic Vader mask), pentagram drawing (it just happened to appear as hopscotch), candle burning (we burned candles) and shuffling around a 16 month old lion cub from stranger to stranger.

Last night, free of the complications in sharing this day of rampant paganism and devilry with Sunday, we did it all again. Thank you County Council, for allowing us to be our pagan best twice this year.

Homebrewing a Baby is Awesome

Hey all,
I got to catch Judevine Elijah Morgan-Weintraub on Saturday night as he came shooting out of my wife. It was awesome. We have been building towards a homebirth throughout the pregnancy, but the little guy was bumping up against two weeks overdue, which was starting to limit our options.

On Friday morning when we visited the midwife, she told us that the baby was higher up than our last visit. It was pretty discouraging. So we ate mexican food. And Kristen's water broke. Just like that.

I won't go all daddy blogger on you here, but it was a pretty amazing experience. I got to be in the birth pool, catch the little guy when he came out, and cut the chord. No long drive home from the hospital, no intrusive nurses, just me, Kristen, our daughter, my mother, and Judevine. Amazing.

More later. I'm tired.

But seriously, be careful about eating mexican food.

Dispatch from China: The Wall

Written by Andyfatherfolk

Andy blogs at http://herenow-nowhere.blogspot.com/

A week or so I got the opportunity to hike along the great wall. I met up with 4 other couchsurfers, we arranged the driver through the website and met up early in the morning to hit the wall. We did the Jinshanling section all the way through to Simatai. Simatai is currently undergoing construction and we did try to hike a bit but it got dodgy and not everyone was up for the challenge.

We were told it was an 8km walk in whole. The reason we chose this part of the tour was because we were told it was less touristy. This was beneficial in some ways and not so in others. What was nice was that the wall was essentially empty, except for other foreigners. What sort of was not so great is that there was no slide down. Apparently some portions have bungee jumps of sorts and big slides to go down. To me, that sounds pretty fun. But I'm not complaining, we got a good walk in and had a fun time. I didn't end up taking too many photos as they all sort of end up looking the same.

Dispatch from Japan: Climbing Mount Fuji

Written by Andrew Rosenstock

Before leaving Tokyo I was fortunate to find a group on couchsurfing.com that was climbing up to Mt Fuji overnight to catch the sunrise. There was about 50 of us in total, some of us from the organizer of the trips company and the rest were couchsurfers. One of the things that was really nice about going up with a group is the sense of community that we had from the beginning. I originally thought about going this alone and am so grateful that I had the people I had to summit with.

Horrible Parents - The Booger Hookah

crosspost from The Soy Bean

written by Casey

I’m of two minds at the moment.  When I first conceived this post a week or so ago it was intended to be light-hearted.  Now that I have finally taken, uploaded, and viewed the pictures, I feel slightly horrible about what my wife (I’m just the photographer) has been putting our son through.

Ray has had a perpetual hacking cough/endlessly snot-oozing nose since about a week after he started going to daycare.  He doesn’t seem put out in the least about coughing hysterically and spontaneously ejecting copious amounts of snot from both nostrils.  I suppose anticipating this turn of events months ago, my wife was moved to make a preemptive purchase.

Despite decades of simple yet effective use provided by the squeezable booger bulb that everyone, whether you have a child or not, can easily identify, someone in Japan thought they could improve upon the idea by making a booger removal system more complicated, more difficult to use, and most of all far more traumatic for the child. At least it’s cute.  I give you the booger hookah:

The Story of a Shitter

Cross posted from A Boy, A Man, and a Father
written by Judgebrix

One of your less cool and interesting experiences through life, and its weird little u-turns, is visiting the worldwide facility for assisting you with number 1 and 2 – The Cubicle Toilet adventure.  Cubicles have been around for centuries and they are one of the less amazing inventions left by the ancient Roman and Greek civilizations.  I’m sure every great ancient civilisation across the Globe have had their take on cubicle toilets – and neither of them has managed to make this a glamorous event.  Sitting next to somebody pooping, while talking, is not my idea of a friendly conversation.  It’s beyond me, but some public toilets in ancient Rome were designed as a giant bench of stone, with holes that was used by the public.