"Can I have the one in middle? No, not that one... one more up... the one next to that..."

You know how it starts getting warm and sunny out, and maybe you've just had lunch, and you could really use a nap, but you're at work?

Make your work work for you.

(There's no good way to segue from the tragedy of yesterday's earthquake, but I don't have anything useful or profound to add, nor do I feel comfortable exploiting it here. You are all welcome to comment if and as you see fit, but in the meantime, I'm going to go back to some general lighthearted musing.)

I try to carry my point and shoot camera with me whenever I go out here, because you just never know what you're going to see. Part of this has to do with the fact that among a lot of locals, public and private life blend together -- they have small houses or rooms in which to sleep, but conduct their business (selling vegetables, for example), hang their laundry, eat lunch, play cards or Chinese chess, or generally sit around and gab on the adjacent sidewalk (more on that some other time, because it's a topic I find very interesting).

So it was that I was strolling along the other day and happened to pass a woman sitting on the sidewalk in a folding chair, soaping up her cat. I was a little amazed that the cat was taking this so placidly, as I have vivid memories of a moment in the late '80s when my cousin declared that my family's cat was dirty and needed cleaning. He and my father foolishly began to draw a bath, took the cat to the upstairs bathroom, and proceeded to try to sit it in the tub. My mother and I maintained our distance from this entire scenario, so I can't provide eyewitness details, but suffice it to say that therein followed a very loud yowl (cat), some equally loud yelps and yells (humans), a black-and-white blur streaking down the stairs and into the basement, and several severe forearm scratches.

In any case, the woman on the street clearly had a better approach, because her cat was for the most part sitting quietly while she gave it a moderately vigorous rubdown (honestly, it was even better behaved before I snapped this; she had just repositioned it when I clicked).

Until, that is, the tub of water made an appearance (note the spillage in the street). 

Yeah, that's more like it.

May always makes me think of moving, even though it's been a long time since I had to move every school year. Maybe it comes from living in Boston, where there are so many students that sidestreet traffic comes to a standstill on May 1 and 31 because of all of the moving vans hogging space.  Anyway, I don't know if any of you are moving anytime soon, but the next time you do, take a moment to be thankful that you're not using this method.

As you might guess, parking in China -- or at least in Shanghai, which is a high-density, land-at-a-premium city -- tends to be a little different from in much of the US.

This (left) is the most common form of parking lot. It usually (but not always) includes someone "official" wearing a crossing-guard vest to take your RMB1 and ostensibly make sure no one else takes your bike. Motorcycles sometimes park in these lots too, which fits with the generally-shared delusion here that motorcycles are really just like bicycles.

Note that most of these bikes are not locked to anything; there's just a lock that clamps around the wheel and prevents someone from riding it away. Kind of like The Club for a bicycle. I guess the assumption is that if someone has the means to cart your bike off without riding it, they don't want your stinky bike anyway. Or maybe those locks are just a lot better than I think.

There are pieces of land that the average American could identify as a parking lot. But at least in downtown and the nearby vicinity (the suburbs are a different matter), they tend to hold only a handful of cars, and are frequently accessed by driving up onto the sidewalk. I'm not kidding.

More common are the garages that I like to think of as car apartments. I know there are some of these in NY, SF, etc., but can't think of any in DC. I still think they're nifty.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, these garages maximize space by getting rid of ramps... and drivers. You pull your car into the elevator, step outside, and watch it get whisked away to an unknown floor. I've heard some people dislike them because (as with valet parking) you have to wait to get your car back. Frankly, I think it'd be worth it to not spend time trying to find an empty slot.

I wonder whether the military has to pay for filling up. For that matter, if a US Army truck is in danger of hitting empty before it gets to a base, what happens?

...in a family vehicle?

One of the things I did while in Hong Kong was check out their Avenue of Stars, the equivalent of Hollywood's Walk of Fame.  The Avenue is actually on the Kowloon side, right by the river (like Brooklyn-Manhattan, but if you want a geography lesson, here's a map), so you can get a nice view of the Hong Kong skyline.  When it's not foggy and overcast, that is.

The Avenue consists of a bunch of stars set in cement squares, featuring names of famous actors, actresses, producers, and directors who've worked in Hong Kong cinema. Some of the squares even have hand (or other) prints, like the Hollywood walk.  

Some of the stars were mainlanders who are/were big in Hong Kong movies (e.g., Jet Li, aka Li Lian Jie here), while others were Hong Kong born and raised (e.g., Chow Yun Fat).  But the biggest, of course, was an American citizen.

What with all of the people surrounding this statue (the only one on the walk) to get pictures, I didn't actually see whether Bruce had a star, but even if he didn't, it seems pretty clear that they love him here.

Then I went to Hangzhou (a small city about 1.5 hrs from Shanghai by train, and by "small" I mean "only 2 million people within the city limits, with another 4 million in the suburbs"), where I came across this restaurant. I'm not entirely sure what the liberal use of Bruce here is supposed to connote (our food is as fast as Bruce?  more likely just flagrant idolatry, I suppose), but his picture is supposedly on everything, even the spoons they use inside.  My mother didn't want to eat here, so I can't vouch for that myself.

Anyway, last night my uncle, who's in town every few weeks for business and checks on me to make sure I'm doing ok, that my apartment's not flooding, etc., stopped by to drop off some stuff for me. Usually this means that he has some English-language newspapers or magazines, maybe some paperwork, new gadgetry, or some tasty goodies from Singapore.  So imagine my surprise when out of the plastic bag he hands me I extract.... Bruce! My uncle apparently likes this chain and figured since he was there, he'd get one for me to try too.

Unfortunately, I was already cooking dinner when he came by, so I didn't get to sample Bruce's beef and rice dish while it was "fresh."  It's possible that something got lost in the reheating process, so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but overall, I'm afraid to say that it tastes like fast food. The rice was nicely done (I appreciated the packaging, wherein the beef sits on top of the rice in a nested container, so as not to make the rice soggy before you actually eat it), but the beef was pretty salty.  Not surprisingly, it was also clearly fast-food quality beef -- edible, but fatty, and not Grade A. I would eat it in a pinch, but I don't see craving it anytime soon; for now, I think I'll limit my Bruce consumption to movies.

These were on sale everywhere in Hong Kong.  I still haven't figured out why; I have yet to see them on the mainland (people playing cards in public is a common sight here -- all normal-sized decks, though).

Maybe this is what they mean in HK when they say "big marketing campaign".  Mr Extra Large Corn here was later joined by Miss Growth Hormone Porkchop (complete with big red lips and eyelashes -- funny, I've never thought of my chops as female).  Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of them working the crowd together.  Elsewhere, I also came across a big inflatable-head chef (for some spaghetti chain), and Geoffrey the Giraffe from Toys R Us.   Pictures of more oversized (but real!) food here.

Looks like strawberry, right?   Nope, them's red beans.

I had a taste of this ice cream (too full from dinner to claim one of my own, and I wouldn't have chosen this one anyway).  It's actually not bad, especially considering I'm not a fan of red bean paste (common in Chinese desserts).  The ice cream itself was pretty plain, only slightly more flavorful than vanilla.  The red beans... well, they're beans -- kinda mushy and bland inside.  Imagine kidney beans in your ice cream, and you'll get pretty close.  Won't make my wish list, but Mom was a satisfied customer.

More food pictures from Hong Kong to come.  In case you've been wondering why I don't have more food posts, the locals (i.e., all street food vendors) here often don't want their picture taken, and will glare sullenly at you even if the camera's only pointed at the food.  Until I grow a third arm or find a willing participant to help me buy, hold, and photograph (not to mention eat) snacks here, food shots may be limited (and/or poor due to their furtive nature).  People in Hong Kong proved somewhat less reluctant, so I tried to stock up.  Those of you looking for non-food posts... it might be a while.