Yep, that's the great thing about travel, how it exposes you to new cultures and traditions. Educational and all... y'know. 

Last night expanding my horizons involved combining cards AND billiards, which must give me something like a use-two-sins, get-one-free option.

My friend Valerie and I took a 2-night trip out to Halong Bay, the second night of which we spent hanging out with our small tour group. Just up the street from our hotel was a local pool hall, by which I mean two small tables in an open-front concrete space, outfitted with a couple of swivel fans, a few stools, and -- because the 90F air temperature wasn't enough -- a small firepit with glowing-red coals, for boiling water. This was the segue point to a small kitchen (and small-child-bathing area) at the back of the room (imagine a garage with a workspace at the back, and you should have a pretty good idea of the atmosphere). The family that ran the pool hall also sold beverages out front... none of them cold, of course; wouldn't want to counteract the effect of the coals! Needless to say, it was a little warm in there.

But we were there to play pool, so we remained undaunted in the face of heat, humidity, and general stickiness. The first table was occupied, but a kid who appeared to be one of the owner's sons was alone on the second table (next to the coals, hurrah!) and stepped aside to let us take it. We were still standing around trying to decide whether to play Elimination with all 6 people at once (!) when our Vietnamese tour guide showed up. Since he made 7, he decided to teach us a form of Vietnamese pool that uses a deck of cards to determine which balls each person should try to pocket. It's pretty fun, and is probably better suited than any other pool variation I know to such a large group (although it would probably be better still with 5 or fewer). I happened to win all three games, more likely through luck than any particular prowess on my part -- but I had to mention it in a no-doubt-vain attempt to convince my pool captain that I've been "practicing" while I'm over here. 

I don't know if this is an up-and-coming trendy field, but they do some quirky-cool things with escalators over here. In Hong Kong, there are the outdoor commuting escalators, and some half-spiral escalators in at least one mall (I know, San Francisco also has the latter). Other features I've seen in a few places (Beijing, Singapore, possibly here in Shanghai) tie into a question my friend Philip asked a while back -- the most common are energy-saving escalators that shut off when not in use, and activate when someone approaches. Sometimes these are even two-way escalators -- the same escalator will go up or down, depending on the direction of approach (that one was obviously not a particularly heavily-used escalator, and although I wanted to do a trial run to see what happened when two people walked up on opposite ends simultaneously, it didn't happen. Hopefully it's programmed for that eventuality so that it doesn't blow a schizophrenic fuse). Anyway, I think these are all really neat, because I am a nerd.

This is my latest escalator find -- an escalator with a landing! I've decided to name it the "double hill" escalator, after a similarly shaped hill we used to sled down at my old high school. This one is at a new downtown subway stop. It starts out normally, then flattens for the equivalent of about five stairs, then picks back up. The person I was riding with didn't even notice the change until I pointed it out.

Nifty.

Well, I've made it out of China; in a couple weeks, we'll find out whether they feel like letting me back in again.

I've spent the last 12 days hitting the big sights (and some smaller ones) of Yunnan province. I've seen a lot of yaks, cows, yak-cow hybrids, snow-covered mountains, and mountain "highway." Pictures forthcoming if and when I can upload them from the road. I know you've all been feeling neglected (ok not really, but I like to think so), so I'll try to write a bit more about Yunnan in the next few days, but right now I'm a little tired -- and a power surge just forced me to reboot and rewrite this post. In the meantime, I have some older material that never made it online to share so that you have a little bedtime (lunchtime?) reading.

Oh, right -- where did I leave China for? I'm in Hanoi, catching up with old friends and preparing to meet up with newer ones for two more weeks of travel. I'm looking forward to new sights, sounds, experiences, and of course... the food.

Well, I've found internet, but the connection appears to be pretty poor, so this will be a short post in case it never makes it.

I'm spending about a week and a half traveling around Yunnan province, which is in southwestern China -- east of Tibet, south of Sichuan, and north of Vietnam/Laos/Myanmar. There's been some amazing scenery, and even Kunming, the largest city, is markedly different from Shanghai -- more relaxed, less honking, less construction and therefore better air, and not quite as dense (although the city is still 2.5million people, plus 2.5M again in the suburbs).

But never mind the city -- I've been logging some serious highway time getting shuttled from city to sights to city. This is helped by the fact that buses can only go about 60km an hour on the highways, so that a 330km trip today took us about 5 hours. This is normal.

Anyway, I deemed yesterday Rural Domesticated Animal Day. On a 40-min drive between two scenic points, I counted no fewer than 7 horses/donkeys, 27 oxen (including a baby with parents), and about 6 dozen goats, plus approximately one herding dog per dozen goats.

Also, I ate peacock for the first time. It was better in kebab form than in the ground-meat stirfry dish.

That's all I've got for now. With any luck, I'll be able to get this post up and another sometime before the week is out.

After a week of more sightseeing and hijinks, my second visitor departed yesterday, leaving me 0 for 2 at convincing people to try the funny drink. Alas.

Anyway, you might think that the fleeing of the guests means that I'll go back to updating the blog more frequently, but you'd be wrong. In fact, entries will probably get even sparser over the next month, as I head off on consecutive 2-week trips to Yunnan (province in Southern China) and Vietnam. I'm pretty excited about seeing all this new territory, but I'm not sure what sort of internet access I will have en route, so the entries may be few and far between. Apologies in advance, but check in now and then; you might get lucky!  (And in the meantime, I'll leave you with some, er, "interesting" food thoughts - below.)

Yes, that really is what it's called (chou doufu, in Chinese). It's fermented, and to call it "stinky" is to be extremely generous.

It had been a while since I'd encountered this stuff in any strength, and my first run-in this time around was in Hong Kong, over Chinese New Year. My cousin and I had turned off of one of the main roads in Mongkok to enter a big outdoor shopping area, and before we rounded the corner, I got a whiff of something that my brain first dismissed as rotting garbage. There was an empty lot across the street to our right, and I figured the smell might be coming from there. But as we made our way up the block toward the pedestrian mall, the smell got stronger, and started to conjure up images of raw sewage. The aroma got so intense that I started to gag, and I finally turned to my cousin and asked, "God, that's horrible -- what IS that?!" She nodded up ahead to a stall with people lined up three deep, and said "stinky tofu."

People who eat the stinky tofu swear that it's delicious. Some of them, despite acknowledging that it smells terrible, claim not to smell it while they're eating it (I have a cousin who falls in this category). I have no idea how this is possible, although I will say that some stinky tofu is much stinkier than others. The batch in Hong Kong was especially potent, at least compared to what I've smelled around Shanghai -- no small feat considering that it was about 50 degrees when I was in Hong Kong, while Shanghai has for some time now been seeing the temperatures at which urban smells really ripen and take on a special full-bodied texture.

I wish I could tell you what those bowls next to the frying tofu in the picture above are, but I can't. Even the stinky-tofu-loving cousins couldn't identify them either; they're not toppings standard in Hong Kong or Singapore. I'm not sure whether they're standard here, or particular to this cart. Sorry.

For those of you who want a more elaborate description from someone who's actually tried it (sorry, smell and taste are far too intrinsically linked for me; I can barely get within two feet of it), I like this guy's summary (do not read while eating!). Also includes references in the comments for any Californians who want to try it out for themselves, although there's no guarantee of currency. I have in fact heard of some places in the Bay Area having to shut down their stinky tofu operations because of complaints (disturbing the peace?  nuisance violations? I don't know).

I mentioned a while back that there is sometimes little distinction between public and private life here. This applies mostly, if not exclusively, to the locals, and by locals, I (and others) refer mainly to blue-collar workers of a slightly older generation, who have roots in Shanghai and whose living habits have not necessarily changed as the city around them does.

While I tend to be either intrigued or amused (or both) by it, this spillover of private into public has apparently caused other city dwellers some consternation, such as over the topic of wearing pajamas in public.

Let me assure you that while you probably wouldn't see it in any of the main tourist or shopping areas, people wearing their pajamas in public is not exactly an uncommon sight here. In my first couple weeks here, I saw a guy wearing what looked like quilted pajamas. They were marooon, top and bottom, with some beigeish pattern, and he was standing near a driveway. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and when I saw a different guy wearing exactly the same outfit in a nearby location a week or so later, I thought maybe it was a uniform. But other sightings since confirm (to my mind, at least) that nope, they were pajamas.

The pajama epidemic seems to be strongest around public parks and among the older generation, but is certainly not limited to those categories. I have also heard that it is primarily a Shanghai thing, although I'm not entirely clear on why the city is special in this respect.

Anyway, my favorites so far have been (a) this guy, whose wheelchair-bound patient/relative is nonetheless dressed "normally", and (b) a woman wearing Mickey Mouse pants that I'm sure Disney intended for home use. To be fair, she was wearing a non-pajamaesque top, so perhaps she doesn't actually consider those nightwear.