China - 2019

We spent 4 days in China, a new supplier this time but still in Huizhou where I've been on most of my visits.  Before we get to the travel-blog section, I have a few random quotes from my notes about the food: 

"Today I ate loofah. Yeah, like the shower thing. Apparently if you harvest them before they become desiccated and stringy you can have a tender zucchini-like vegetable. Slimy, but unobjectionable."

"Anne explained the rules about eating dog on our walk tonight. A stray dog 'belongs' to everyone, therefor anyone is allowed to eat it. However, since it belongs to everyone, whoever cooks the dog has to share with anyone who asks. Even if the dog does belong to someone, if it bites you you are allowed to eat it. I love that, sort of a karmic justice to it..."

"There was a fad around 60 years ago of injecting chicken-blood. It was said to get you "High" - which in Chinese means stronger, more aggressive, motivated to dive into tasks or fights..."

"I'd never had Foi Gras before, but if there is a food so good it's worth torturing animals over I'm definitely going to try it. The taste was unobjectionable, but the texture was, as expected, quite gross."

"The shrimp, prawns, and oysters were great, and then we had cervical vertebrae from chickens. As you would imagine, there isn't much to a vertebra, meaning that they had to kill at least 10 chickens to fill the skewers they brought to the table. I don't recommend it. They roast them long enough to soften them, but you're still just crunching through cartilage and bones while pretending to like it."

Our last day in china was (finally) not at a factory!

I have no idea who she is, but her photo turned out great!

We woke up early to have breakfast with Anne before her flight, and then our hosts picked us up for a trip to the mountains. It was brutally hot - I tried to buy a fan, but they only accepted WeChat (Chinese messenger app) payments... Luckily our hosts were quick to jump in and cover the costs. I was the only man with a fan there, but if there's one thing I've learned from the Chinese it's a lack of shame in social situations. They are much less inhibited... the girls are (adorably) happy to wear overalls, flounce their skirts, skip, or hold hands with one another.  The men are loud, quick to joke, and not shy to lift their shirts in the heat, regardless of the size of their stomach. So I fanned myself with impunity and told myself all the kids were staring at me because I was the only white person on the mountain, not because of my fan.

Instead of hiking up the mountain, we took a cable car! Not actually, we were told it was a cable car, but it was actually a ski-lift. The longest ski lift in Asia! Not that you can ski there, as it never snows. Even a thousand miles north in Suzhou where Anne lives, snowfall that accumulates is a once-a-decade experience. We criss-crossed over a rivulet cascading down the mountain, took in the views, and enjoyed the 10 minute ride to the top. I constantly expected to see dinosaurs or something crashing through the forests below us, but there were only park employees, presumably searching for a dropped cellphone...


At the top we set off up the hiking trail. It was quite hot. Quite ridiculously hot. And I'm out of shape and hiking in my dress shoes. Not that that's anything new - we'd been doing about 7 miles most days - but it does wear on your calves. Note to self: Stop being lazy and take the huge suitcase next time.  About halfway up the trail, we took a wrong turn. There was a staircase that quickly crumbled into disrepair and the trail broke up. We turned around to take the trail, but our host asked if we wanted to take the vanishing trail. I was of course down for it, but the ladies thought we were crazy. So we broke the first rule of horror movies: we split up. The guys took the ever-worsening trail while the ladies took the official footpath. The trail was a washed out streambed in some places, a sketchy mule-trail in others. It was great. It topped out at the service entrance of a restaurant, which we cut through to rejoin the main trail near the peak. After several more staircases we finally made it to the top! 

It always feels great to summit a peak, even when machines do 90% of the work for you. But there were more peaks! I, acting "high", sarcastically suggested we go for the next peak, a mere 3km away (and straight uphill the whole way). They surprisingly agreed to it, so I had to start backtracking. Even though I was up for it, I could tell the rest of them really didn't want to. Going back and forth with my coworker we politely deescalated and chose to put it off until our next trip, and turned off down a side trail back to the lift. Going down offered even better views of the valley, and a bit of excitement when the lift suddenly stopped before a peal of thunder echoed across the mountains.  I was figuring out my odds if I had to escape (~80% chance of crippling myself) when the lift restarted and we were carried back down. The coming storm and approaching sunset cooled off the temperature appreciably though.

After we left the park, we went to a historical village. We drove through a half-vacant town past a number of modern abandoned villages, and eventually made it to the historical village. This village is also mostly abandoned, and right up my alley. This was an 18th century village, or maybe a recreation of an 8th century village. It had old halls and small canals, and I darted ahead like an excited puppy, pausing at corners to make sure the group was headed my direction and wouldn't worry about me too much. I walked brazenly into dark stone rooms, searching for interesting architecture to photograph. Unfortunately, with the fading light almost nothing turned out, so all my work framing courtyards and sunsets through ancient doors was for naught. Oh well, still had a blast taking the photos!

As it was now dark, we headed to dinner, and back to the hotel, exhausted. Time for an early night to sneak in 4 hours of sleep before we start heading home!

Thailand - King Rama IX Park

On Sunday we woke up early to have breakfast with Anne, before her flight to China to get a headstart on our next build. Meanwhile, we would clean up loose ends on the current build in Thailand. Our other coworker went back to bed, which left me alone with an entire day to relax.

I decided I'd set out to King Rama IX Park.  This was the only park near the hotel, but it was still large enough to offer plenty to see. The hike there was just over a mile and then I set about wandering around the lake, taking breaks at convenient places to photograph or read.  The park celebrates King Rama the 9th's water aerator. This is the only international patent ever issued to a monarch, and you can tell he's very proud of it.  The aerator increases available oxygen for fish and improves water quality, plus it's a nice background noise in the park.

Cacti from America!

There were a number of gardens throughout the park - including one just for medicinal and poisonous plants.  There were also greenhouses for jungle and desert plants. I particularly enjoyed the forest / stream built into the park. Mangrove trees and bamboo enclosed a series of artificial waterfalls, so I hiked the entire length of the waterway and decided I definitely need to buy property with a stream on it so I can play these games.

Also gave me a chance to play with the slowmo option on my phone... 

There were a few vendors selling old bread to feed the fish / birds, which is always fun. I grabbed some bread the birds missed and fed some fish myself. It was fun at 1/10th my age, still fun today...

Speaking of wildlife, there were a few monitors, including this one massive dude. He was pretty chill, content to let me read a few feet away from him as long as I stayed on my side of the tree.

But then the sky started to darken... I figured it was probably time for me to head back for dinner anyways, so I started back towards the markets. They sky went from hinting at rain to downpour within minutes.  I barely made it out of the park before the sky opened up.  Since I had no hard schedule, I took refuge under a canopy on the side of the road, where I was joined by a couple and their toddler. Eventually the rain stopped and I made my way back to the night market, taking several shortcuts that looked promising on the maps that did not work out at all.

I made my way back to the Night Market, which was just opening up. On my own for the first time this trip, I indulged all my vices. Which meant I bought a cigarette, a beer, and a switchblade. Actually a pair of switchblades, since when I asked my girlfriend if she needed a banana cat or a switchblade she said she needed a banana cat switchblade.

I eventually made it back to the hotel for dinner with my coworker, which featured all-you-can-eat sushi. It was a good day. Ended up walking about 10 miles.

Clearly custom, and clearly a work of art.

Thailand - Bangkok

This year, the company sent me to Thailand! Typically our team worked 14+ hour days, but on the weekend we finally had some free time and we were determined to make the most of it! By sleeping in!

Sleeping in accomplished, we met up around noon and grabbed a taxi to Central Bangkok. Despite being just 15 miles away, the cab ride took an hour.  Our host told us the southern side of the country is a short one-hour flight away! Or an 18 hour drive. That tells you almost everything you need to know about the roads in Thailand. That's not to say it was a boring drive. The highway was built over a river, providing all sorts of hydrological engineering to decipher, and the architecture in Bangkok is great as well. There was a building wearing a necklace that looked like a racetrack, a building with a claw on top, buildings that looked like boats, all sorts of weird stuff (in the best way).

Finally arriving in downtown Bangkok we were dropped off by the Grand Palace (est 1798). We were immediately greeted by a kindly local who warned us our female coworker's clothes were not conservative enough to get into the Grand Palace, and advised us on a wonderful tuk-tuk route we could take instead.  We ignored him, and went to the Grand Palace, where Anne's clothes were fine.  You could see the spires poking over the walls of the temple area, but it didn't really prepare you for the full tableau that strikes you when you walk through the gateway. The temple complex was packed with buildings, each of them tessellated in mirrored mosaic tiles. Except for the reliquary which is leafed in gold. Not accented or highlighted, the entire shrine was an unbroken layer of gold. We weren't allowed in, but apparently that building is where they keep a lock of hair from Buddha.

The wall bounding the temple complex tells the story of Ramakien. I can tell you the high points include making friends with monkeys, fighting dragons, fighting or possibly befriending mermaids, definitely fighting giants, building a temple inside another giant? climbing some clouds? it got weird.... to be honest I'm gonna have to read the book, it looked like a lot of fun.

There was even a scale model of Angkor Wat.  Angkor Wat is enormous, and so this model was also enormous, at least 30' on each side.  If anyone out there wants to go visit the real thing let me know, I'm absolutely down.

Angkor Wat chockablock with two other temples, renovation, and Japanese
 tourists posing. This is a 100% accurate experience.

The temple of the Emerald Buddha was the focal point of the complex. After taking our shoes off we shuffled in to check it out. Like everything else, it was overwhelming. As much gold, inlay, and mosaic as they could physically fit in to one building, with an enormous altar summited by a jade Buddha 4 feet tall and clothed in gold (There are multiple sets of clothes, and rituals to change them every season). Honestly, it's overdone. It could be much more beautiful if it were less extravagant and slightly restrained, more like the rear doors to the temple. These doors were some of the most beautiful craftsmanship I've ever seen - black enamel doors inlaid with delicate mother-of-pearl dragons writhing across the entire panel. Unfortunately the full panel doesn't photograph well since part of it is always in glare, but I found this sample.

And throughout the complex were statues of monkeys (who looked like demons), demons (who looked like the monkeys with larger fangs), half-man-half-rooster soldiers, half angel-half-rooster ladies... it was bizarre. In a great way.


When we finished with the temple complex we made our way to the palace itself (the ceremonial home of the king), which is remarkable for being western architecture with an eastern roof. Unfortunately it is only used for state functions and is not open to tourists. It looks like a classy place to have a swanky party.  We admired a few more impressive buildings and toured the on-site museum, which featured older parts of the temples, now replaced. The entire site is constantly under renovation and improvement, so the museum featured replaced portions of the temple, old thrones, gifts to the king and to the Emerald Buddha, even some elephant bones were featured here. Oddly, some parts of the museum were also shoe-free zones - but at this part of the trip it took far more than that to phase us.

By this point (4pm) we were worn out and ready for lunch, so we wandered towards a likely-looking market trying to find a nice sit-down meal. We saw a lot of foods for sale, but nowhere to sit, and when we rounded the next corner we were suddenly on a dock. Hey! In the (literally) 10 minutes of research I did on Bangkok I'd read that the ferry is the best way to cross the river and get to the other temple I was interested in seeing! And it was fifty cents. For the three of us.  So we took the ferry!

It was chaos. The ferry clipped the dock, hard, trying to spin around. Nobody really reacted, so it must be a normal thing. Another ferry was trying to slip into our berth as soon as we were moving, and fast boats were weaving between the larger ferries, so we were constantly cutting through/over chop.  There were two or three times where I legitimately thought there was a chance of collision with other boats. In short, it was great.

On the other side of the river the ferry emptied into more markets, more cramped and more eclectic, and more food! We ducked down an alley to a riverside cafe where we grabbed a table on the water.  Fancy soda drinks and a chance to get off our feet were both great. Eventually, we had pizza. Margarita (which tasted as expected) and Mexican Chicken (which was good, but tasted like an eastern approximation of dimly remembered tacos).  Unfortunately between slow service and the temples closing around 5pm we weren't going to make any more tourist destinations, so we strolled through the market. This market has cats - some scrawny and suspicious, some fat and happy... Eventually the market ended at another temple! Here service was underway and the temple was full of chanting worshippers. There were even a few overlow worshippers outside random windows, chanting along with the congregation.

It was now 5:30 and the shops were closing, so we made our way back through the market, back across the river, and back to our starting point.  From there we caught a cab and made the (now 80 minute) short drive home. Interlude! Time for ibuprofen, a huge bottle of water, and a bath.

We reconvened at 8:30 to find dinner. The in-house food wasn't all that appealing, so we went to the mall next door! We found a Sizzlers that let us pretend we weren't in Thailand for one meal this trip (the food here is never simple. I don't even bother asking what I'm eating. I know I've had a lot of shrimp, squid, and mushrooms, and I think I've had jellyfish and tripe as well. Not that it's bad, some of it is amazing - they're very happy to add sweet flavors where I'd never expect them - it's just complex and you can never let your guard down) I had a really good steak and a pretty weird seaweed salad.

Around 9:30 they started turning the lights off. I guess it's time to go! Leaving the restaurant we found they were turning the lights off in the mall as well. And the escalators (but as Mitch says, escalators can never break. They can only become stairs.).  The hotel had recommended the mall or the night market for dinner. What's a night market? No idea! But it's behind the mall, so we decided to find out.   It's a huge market that /doesn't/ close at 5:30 like everything else. Pop up bars, restaurants, clothing shops, tattoo parlors, it was enormous. We spent over an hour wandering, and at one point we stumbled into 1950's America. An old diner, a garage full of vintage American cars... it was bizarre.  But also very cool.  And also amazing people watching, since the younger generations were out in force, in every possible style.  On the way out of the market we found the coolest store ever. Switchblades, airsoft guns, plasma lighters...  I loved everything there. Unfortunately the rest of the crew was tired so we headed back to the hotel via 7-11 (I bought some milk candy. It's as bad as it sounds.)

And now it's midnight, and I have no idea what adventures tomorrow will bring. G'night!