mark's pensieve

Washington D.C. Day 8: Air and Space Museum Annex and Flying Home

2011-08-19T08:48:00.000-04:00

Thursday was my day to fly back to California. Before my afternoon flight, my parents and I decided to explore the Air and Space Museum Annex (officially: the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center), conveniently close to Dulles Airport.

The size of the center is astounding. There are very many planes inside! They're all full-size, real vehicles. Plus there's space stuff too: satellites, rockets, etc., including the space shuttle. Yes, it fits in there without a problem. And there are air-related items (engines, airplane machine guns, etc.) and air-related memorabilia: aerial photographs, food cans used by Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, medals, and even antique dinner plates with a painting of a hot air balloon.

The center does a great job in the design and arrangement of all these displays.

I took pictures. I'm sorry the pictures don't have detailed commentary--we were short on time so I didn't take many notes. We did, however, manage to see almost all of the complex. The only thing I know I missed that I would like to have seen is the air traffic controller simulation/model.

Getting to my flight was easy. There was no line to check-in and security was pretty fast. The only delay was that I had to take a shuttle to my gate/terminal. I didn't have to do this when I landed the week before.

My seat had a surprisingly large amount of legroom, no discernible reason why.

I transferred in Salt Lake City before completing my journey home to San Francisco. In Salt Lake City, I wandered the terminals hunting for food. En route, I saw art; for details see the pictures. After seeing many restaurants I wasn't in the mood for, I was happy when I spotted a Quiznos on a map. But this Quiznos only sold regular sandwiches, not small ones, and I didn't want a regular sandwich because I was still somewhat full from lunch in Dulles. Instead, I grabbed a nostalgic pepperoni slice from Sbarro. I say nostalgic because I often got a slice from Sbarro when my mom brought me to the mall when I was a kid. Sadly, this slice wasn't as good as the memory of my halcyon days of mall wandering.

Update: My parents tell me that what I used to eat in the mall was from a place called Luciano Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria. If only I knew at the time, I wouldn't have stopped by Sbarro!

Washington D.C. Day 7: More Parts of Capitol Hill

2011-08-18T08:40:00.000-04:00

We awoke to a bright and clear day. After a late start (or later than planned), we took the metro to the capitol. Once there, I began taking pictures. I also recorded our walking route for posterity.

After walking around the capitol, we explored the Supreme Court building and took a tour of it. It has many gilded things (elevators, window frames, etc.). Photographing was prohibited inside the courtroom, which is sad because it has some neat features. The courtroom, with seven rows of pews, four in each side, was smaller than I expected. Above the room are Greek friezes: some allegories, some symbols, and some simply references to great lawgivers from history. For details, see these two PDFs from the Supreme Court's website: one, two. Above the bench is an intimidating clock with a second hand; I'm sure it puts lots of stress on the lawyers who come to argue before the court.

During the tour I learned that guests are seated in order of their host's seniority (the person who invited them). The press, sketch artist, marshal, clerks, etc. all have assigned seats.

The Supreme Court building had a good exhibit on Thurgood Marshall and court history. There was also a nice display on the lower level.

I didn't get to hear oral arguments because the Supreme Court wasn't in session this time of year.

We emerged from the Supreme Court to discover a bit of drizzle and lots of thunder. Unlike the previous day, this time we had umbrellas. We trotted to our next destination, the Folger Shakespeare Library. Beside its areas for educational and research work, it has a small, multi-level theater that was set up for The Tempest. The displays intrigued me enough to later look up the three-part documentary on Shakespeare in American Life. I listened to all three parts, enjoying the second episode the most. Give it a try if you're vaguely tempted.

We swung by the main Library of Congress building but found it had a huge line. We didn't wait. Instead, we looked at one adjacent building and then another, the James Madison building. My "off the beaten path" guidebook suggested going to the top to the Madison building's cafeteria. The book was right--the trip was well worth it. Though the cafeteria seemed closed, we went in anyway and found what we were seeking: panoramic windows (facing south). I didn't take any pictures because the sky was overcast, but it was still pretty cool.

In the Madison Building, we also found exhibits from the Library of Congress. Maps in our Lives showed the kind of maps we used in elementary school: for instance, a map of the world in simple colors wherein each country has a few icons for the kind of things they produce. There was also a holomap of Manhattan (subways, streets, neighborhoods) and maps of airline routes, ethnic distribution, fire control, natural gas pipelines, and even a cultural map of Wisconsin. All these map me think back to Tufte. (I read his books about how to present information visually.)

My parents then indulged me, letting me go back to the National Gallery of Art to see the rooms I missed on my earlier visit. I got to see Manet, Degas, Vuillard, a whole room of Picasso, and some other notable artists as shown in the pictures.

When we left the National Gallery, the sky was clear and perfectly sunny again. We walked to the Federal Triangle Metro, passing many marble-plated buildings on the way, but were in too much of a hurry to take pictures.

We took the metro to Foggy Bottom and walked to the Kennedy Center, passing George Washington University and the Foggy Bottom Farmers Market on the way. I recorded our route from the Foggy Bottom metro station to the Kennedy Center.

The Kennedy Center is a large, respectable-looking performing arts space. See the pictures.

While at the Kennedy Center, we found the Millennium Stage, a performance area that puts on free shows nightly. We happened to be there during a show by Tiny Ninja Theater. The artists used dime-store figures to perform an abbreviated version of Romeo & Juliet.

For dinner we headed to Herndon for one of our favorite restaurants, The Tortilla Factory. My parents have been going there since before I was born. They brought me there in a baby carrier after I was born. We've been going regularly ever since. It serves a kind of Mexican food that's so Americanized, I can't find anything like it in California (not even in the Americanized restaurants there). We returned on this trip and were satisfied.

On our way home, there was a steady rain with thunder.

Washington D.C. Day 6: Dupont Circle / Embassy Row

2011-08-17T11:19:00.000-04:00

Since we returned to our hotel after midnight the previous night, we got a late start on this day, sleeping until 10:30am. We therefore decided it'd be better to eat in Northern Virginia rather than starve until we made it to D.C.

For lunch, we went to the Einstein's near Reston Town Center, at which I had the same quality bagel (with lox) I've learned I can consistently expect from Einstein's. The sandwich was perfect -- exactly what it should be. We also shared some fresh orange juice. It was obvious it was squeezed recently. In all, a very satisfying meal. I'd give it a 4? on my rating scale.

As we left the area, I declined to see the Reston Town Center again. I'd seen it many times while growing up and didn't feel the need to see it again; I remembered it well enough.

Then, a drive, a Metro, and a long escalator ride later, we found ourselves in Dupont Circle. We'd spend the day visiting a museum and walking Dupont Circle and Embassy Row in particular. The route we walked and the pictures I took serve as the primary documentation of what we saw.

When we stopped by the National Geographic Society, we briefly explored the museum inside. It's a small, fairly traditional science museum. We were really looking for a giant glass globe of the world which only one of my guide books (published in 2007) mentioned. When we inquired, the staff said the globe hadn't been there for six years. Ah well. We did find some nice topological maps.

When in the vicinity of Scott Circle, rain started coming down hard. We jumped into the lobby of a Marriott Courtyard, oddly the same chain in which we were staying in Virginia. The rain quickly departed, so we hurried onward to the museum I wanted to see so we could see it before it closed. Because of this need for speed and worry about the return of the rain, I didn't get to photograph Scott Circle. I would've liked to as it had three sections, each with a statue. (Zoom in the Google map to see the different green parts.)

As we walked down Massachusetts Avenue to the Phillips Collection, we realized why the part of town was called Embassy Row. (Well, it actually houses more than just embassies. But it does house many embassies.) Within two blocks we passed the embassies for Australia, Trinidad & Toboga, and Uzbekistan, along with buildings for the Congressional Black Caucus, IEEE, the Brookings Institution, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

We stopped to explore the Phillips Collection. It's one of my favorite museums. It mainly shows art that I like (impressionist and other art from late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) and not much else. It thus has a high density of enjoyable art, yet is small and therefore unintimidating. I took more pictures than I'd expect for a museum this size. In addition to the artists/works represented in the pictures I took, I noted rooms devoted each to Cezanne, O'Keeffe, Rothko, Klee, and Arthur Dove, as well as paintings by Mondrian, Pollock, Miro, Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, and William Scott, and photographs by Stieglitz.

We left the Phillips Collection to continue walking the neighborhood.

When rain approached, the park we were in at the time emptied. Even the chess players disappeared. We heard it coming as well--the thunder is a give-away--but later than the locals. I guess the natives have a better sense of impending weather than us tourists.

We retreated to Kramerbooks, an independent bookstore. It's a small place but has a good selection. We browsed for while. It has a bar/cafe, Afterwords Cafe, but the cafe is for sit-down restaurant dining; it doesn't serve snacks like Starbucks.

Hence, we went next door to Starbucks. We sat in the corner by windows looking out onto the nearby circle and people-watched. We ate a Go Raw Banana 'Bread' Flax Bar that, while walking around D.C. earlier in the week, someone gave me as a sample, and also ate a brownie and an oatmeal raisin cookie, both from Starbucks. My mom liked the banana flax bar.

I wrote in my notes at the time that Seth would like this area because it has many young women. A bit after this trip, he moved to Washington D.C. and I learned I was right.

Somewhere along this walk, by the way, we found a nice field of day lilies. "Oh, I love it," said mom.

We didn't make it to Adams Morgan--I hoped we would--before needing to turn back to head to dinner.

For dinner, I took my parents to Restaurant Nora, allegedly the country's first certificated organic restaurant. Basically, it's the Chez Panisse of the east. The menu notes that everything they use is organic except for certain types of food (foraged mushrooms, some seafood, some wines and spirits) that have no certification body. The back of the menu has a statement of philosophy and a long list describing how and from whom they source every ingredient and how each of those farmers does his or her own thing in an organic, sustainable, healthy way. I think this disclosure is the opposite of many restaurants, who are tight-lipped about who their suppliers are for fear that disclosure will reveal to competitors where to get the best quality ingredients.

We enjoyed our meal. The dishes were all fresh and creatively put together. The portion sizes were good; after the main course we had room for dessert. Later, we left dinner not overstuffed, "very comfortable."

After dinner, we had a long train ride home with lots of waiting for trains, sitting at stations. Actually, today was a slow day for the metro overall. I love the your-train-will-arrive-in-x-minutes. Usually x was less than ten except for this day.

Washington D.C. Day 5: Art Museums and Part of Capitol Hill

2011-08-16T10:50:00.000-04:00

I ate the free breakfast at the hotel: cereal and a bad (sweet) bagel. Then I met up with my parents and we dropped J off at the airport.

We ate lunch at Chipotle. This was my first Chipotle experience; my parents at this point in time went regularly. I thought I'd be snobby and disappointed given my experience with Mexican food in California. Nevertheless, I thought my burrito was good though not well mixed. It was also messier than most burritos. I particularly liked the cilantro-lime rice--I could eat it by itself; it didn't need to be mixed with other ingredients like most burrito fillings.

We took the metro downtown. Washington D.C. was warm in the sun and nicely green. I took out my camera and began to seriously take pictures. I also recorded the route we walked from where we emerged from the metro station to where we re-entered a different one in late afternoon

We first visited the Freer Gallery. Its collection ranges all over Asia: Moghul knifes, Indian religious objects, Islamic art, Japanese screens, Vietnamese ceramics, Korean ceramics, Chinese bronze, Chinese scrolls, and various Daoist and Buddhist objects. Oddly, it also has American landscapists such as Whistler. There were explanations of every piece in the gallery. I love it!

Next up: the Sackler Gallery. It was pretty similar, with more, say, southeast Asian jugs and more Whistlers. The only thing I have to say here is that I wrote down we quickly visited the Clash of Civilizations exhibit, and also wrote a note that we saw something (sculptures?) made using models with very detailed hands, real dirt, and real hair. I don't know if these two notes are related, nor can I find any reference to an exhibit by that name on the web.

We stopped in the Smithsonian Castle to get a snack. The Castle has a nice garden with many labeled flowers.

Next up was the Hirshhorn Museum, with its good amount of interesting, modern art. We saw Mondrian, Bolotowsky, Calder, Willem de Kooning (he's still bizarre), Clifford Still, Max Ernst, and Georgia O'Keeffe. We saw a funky multimedia installation about presidents. We visited an exhibit (perhaps this one) about lighting.

We saw the special photo exhibit on Wolfgang Tillmans. It included recent political news clippings, a whole gallery of pictures of bent paper, and a series of black squares, Memorial to Victims of Organized Religions. I don't think I need to say more about this wide-ranging, sometimes strange, artist.

The Hirshhorn's Sculpture Garden was unimpressive. You know de Kooning--the guy who makes weird paintings. Well, the garden has several ugly, mangled sculptures by him. It also has a Rodin and Picasso's famous Pregnant Woman sculpture.

Incidentally, the Hirshhorn Museum was really efficient at booting us out at closing time, even shepherding us out of its outdoor sculpture garden.

The National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden was much better than the Hirshhorn's. Almost every piece was worth talking about, most in a good way (though it too has its weirdness, such as Miro's sculpture).

From this Sculpture Garden, we headed north to Metro Center, from where we took the train to Union Station. I stopped recording my route when we entered the metro station, and re-started recording the route on a new map when we emerged from Union Station.

Of course, I continued taking pictures within Union Station. By the way, Union Station has a big food court. I continued taking pictures as we walked south from Union Station through Senate Park to and around Capitol Hill. This area has nice green spaces. One parent said, "the weather's great," but the weather was only great because we started walking after 6pm. The rest of the day was pretty warm.

As night fell, we caught a metro to Eastern Market station. I stopped recording our walking route. From the Eastern Market station, we walked a block to eat dinner at The Old Siam, a Thai restaurant. The Eastern Market area has homeless people begging; they're more noticeable there than the ones downtown (who I don't recall seeing). As for dinner, it was fairly good, a 2+ or 3- on my scale. After dinner, we took the metro and returned to our hotel.

On a future trip, I'd like to visit Eastern Market and its farmers market after they've rebuilt. We didn't bother going this trip because the market recently burned. I first heard about it when an NPR commentator profiled the market after its fire.

Washington D.C. Day 4: National Gallery and Ballston (VA)

2011-08-15T13:50:00.000-04:00

I took a good number of pictures this day.

After brunch in the hotel, some friends and I took the metro into D.C. It was a comfortable, overcast day, warm in the sun.

Our destination was the National Gallery of Art. It's a respectable museum though I was disappointed there are few to no explanations of pieces.

The West Building has traditional art up through the nineteenth century, mostly Italian (some religious), French, and German. This building has all the good impressionists: Pissarro (who I like), Monet (who I like) (including The Houses of Parliament, Sunset), Gauguin (who I don't like much), and Cezanne (who's somewhere in the middle). Also, I enjoyed paintings by Canaletto (incredibly detailed), Turner, and Thomas Cole (except for the religious parts).

The National Gallery also has an exhibit of medals (a la coins) from the Renaissance. In addition, it has an exhibit of sketches that wasn't my thing.

The special exhibit on early photography (Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945) showed photographs that look like they were taken by people who just discovered the camera. Most were experimental, some were activist, some were montages, and some were surreal (but the surreal photos at the Mountain View festival I attended shortly before are better).

In order to spend time in the East Building, we didn't view the north side of the ground floor of the West Building.

The East Building has modern art. We saw Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Ruscha, Pollock, Calder (his pieces make awesome shadows), Jasper Johns, and O'Keeffe, among others. Sadly, we didn't have time to finish exploring the building. I'll have to come back sometime.

We spent several hours at the National Gallery.

During the trip, I heard about an art project to photograph pay-phones (before they disappear). Sounds neat!

Upon leaving the museum, we happened upon a gay street festival: Capital Pride. The shop booths sold colorful glass items in the shapes of hearts, stars, etc. The food booths sold crab cakes, gyros, crepes, fajitas, funnel cakes, etc. Sadly, most booths were closed; we stumbled upon the festival too late in the day.

We headed to Ballston, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, to meet a friend of one of us (E). Downtown Ballston, located next to the metro station, has a nice four-story mall. There are also bars around. The area was fairly empty when we visited. Away from the main drag, Ballston is pretty bland (like the rest of Arlington). Lots of brick buildings and houses.

With this friend, we went out for Afghani food at Bamian in Falls Church. The menu explained Afghanistan: "Afghanistan has occupied a favored invasion route since antiquity and was known as Ariana or Bactria in ancient times." Sounds a bit politically-loaded given the times.

Our waiter was funny. For instance, when asking him about a Afghani "dough" drink, he asked us about a different drink (a lassi I think): "Tried that? Liked it? Don't get this! It's an acquired taste."

Over dinner E's friend told us about bar tricks and about his drinking kickball league, which apparently is very popular in the area.

How To Give A Best Man Toast / Speech

2011-08-14T09:19:00.000-04:00

I recently had to give a best-man-type toast/speech. While there's a wealth of advice on this topic on the web, it takes some time to get past the useless (to me) lists of two-sentence pithy / memorable / funny / touching / famous / witty / etc. quotes to get to guidelines on how to give a toast that is more like a speech. Here are the sites I found useful in no particular order:

Aragia

Wedding Speeches. Includes many pages with suggestions and guidelines.

The Perfect Toast

Wedding Toasts and Speeches. Similarly good; has many advice articles and allows one to pay to have a toast written.

About.com

About.com has many pages about giving toasts. Most are useless. Here are the good ones:

Newsweek

I Rise to Toast the Bride and Groom. Has honest, personal opinions (with which I sometimes disagree).

Squidoo

Introduction to Wedding Speeches and Wedding Toasts. Has an interesting list on how toasts vary depending on the speaker's relationship with the couple.

Despite practice, not surprisingly I got a little tongue-tied during the actual event. Still, I think I managed to get across everything I intended to. Your experience may vary.

If you attended the B and C's wedding in 2007 and want a copy of my speech (or at least the written copy of what I intended to say), just ask.

Addendum: I later found another useful advice column: Modern Manners Guy's How to Make a Wedding Toast. This should go in the list above but I prefer to keep separate the list of columns I read before my speech and after.

Washington D.C. Day 3: Clarendon (VA) and a Wedding

2011-08-13T09:44:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, we had some time to kill before the wedding. Some friends and I went to Arlington for brunch. In particular we went to the Market Common in the Clarendon section of Arlington. On the way we got lost around the Dolly Madison, Chain Bridge area, names of roads of recognized from my youth (but that didn't help getting us un-lost).

I discovered Arlington is nice, quaint, and manicured. The retail area puts its parking above the stores, allowing for nice views of shops' facades to remain unblemished by visible large expanses of asphalt.

We ate in Harry's Tap Room. I started taking pictures at this point. Harry's specializes in local, organic, natural food. I'd give it a 3 on my rating scale (which is pretty good). For details see the pictures.

After lunch, we walked around the area. The temperature was in the mid-80s, which was actually surprisingly pleasant in the shade or when clouds covered the sun.

We then returned to our hotel to prepare for the wedding. I don't have much to say about the wedding; it's a private affair. Where it was held, the atrium in Meadowlark Botanic Garden in Vienna, is a lovely setting for a wedding. I wrote down at the time that I wanted to comment on the vows, toasts, icebreaker (!), seating arrangements, and the style of wedding. However, as I'm writing this years after the time, I don't remember anything in particular I wanted to say. I think by "icebreaker" I might have been referring to a crossword puzzle they handed out. Entitled "Fuzzy and Techie", it was a neat combination: every answer was clued twice, once using fuzzy (humanities-oriented) hints and once using techie (science-oriented) hints. These reflected the background of the couple. Many fuzzy clues centered on the law and many techie clues on chemistry. I did a run-through of the crossword for the groom to verify everything worked and made sense. As an example of one of the wittiest clues, the same answer was clued both by "group lawsuit" and "taking a test." I think I called this puzzle an icebreaker because it got people to talk to each other regardless of whether they spoke the same academic language or not and help each other answer questions.

I participated twice in the wedding events, once reading a cute Ogden Nash poem (Reprise), and once giving a best-man-type-speech for B. The Nash poem was even funnier in the context of the ceremony because it immediately followed the reading of one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Ogden Nash, by the way, is a witty poet; I like much of his work.

On the way back to the hotel from the wedding venue, we crossed over a nice river. I guess I didn't notice it on the way.

Washington D.C. Day 2: Holocaust Museum

2011-08-12T11:24:00.000-04:00

Last night, I stayed with my parents in the Fairfield in Chantilly, near Dulles Airport. I had a decent continental breakfast from its lounge, well stocked with donuts, muffins, bread, waffles, toast, yogurt, fruit, coffee, juices, etc. After breakfast, my parents dropped me off at the Tysons Corner Holiday Inn to meet some friends. I stayed at the Holiday Inn for the next two days with everyone else attending the wedding.

My friends and I took the metro downtown. Emerging from the station, I took out my camera. I took only a few pictures this day. I also recorded our walking route from when we appeared downtown until we re-entered the metro after dinner.

Walking around downtown, we sweltered in the 90-something degree heat. We quickly headed to our intended destination, the Holocaust Museum, stumbling on the small USDA farmers market on the way.

The Holocaust Museum's lobby is a bleak brick train station, yet it has hopeful tiles with messages from children (ages 6-15) on the wall. This made me wonder at what age kids should learn about the Holocaust. By the way, the wall is also known as the Wall of Remembrance.

The exhibit on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was interesting and detailed. I learned that The Protocols was plagiarized largely from a French work that didn't mention Jews. I also learned that in the 2000s, despite being fiction, it's still being published as if it were true. And, of course, it's in many places on the internet.

The children's exhibit was clearly for kids. The diary entries of children from the Holocaust began as full-page entries and later were mere dirty fragments. The museum does a good age-appropriate job in this exhibit.

The special exhibit on the ghetto in Lodz (the second largest city in Poland) portrayed how the community managed itself: its bureaucracy, currency (yes, it has its own), its stamps, its hospitals, its schools, its cultural and social life, and even how it strictly rationed itself. The community chose who received the limited supplies it received, and how much. All of this was to try to make as normal a world for the children as possible, but the fundamental message I got from this exhibit was that scarcity makes life difficult no matter how much you try. Governing is even more difficult when no one knew what was going to happen next or where people forced into vehicles were going. Incidentally, the presentation space was good at separating the sounds in this exhibit from the sounds in the neighboring exhibit.

The extensive permanent exhibit, though crowded, is powerful. Something about the displays reminded me how recent this horrific event was, made it feel closer than it did before. I had a similar reaction when I toured Martin Luther King's Historic Site in Atlanta.

The first section in the permanent exhibit, on the rise of the Nazis before the war, discusses the science of race and how the Germans defined someone as a Jew by the number of Jewish grandparents. This reminded me of how black was defined during the days of slavery and reconstruction in the United States. This section of the exhibit shows how the Germans, besides prosecuting Jews (even trampling Torahs), prosecuted Jehovah's witnesses (none of whom recanted), Poles (who the Germans viewed as being racially worse, though they had trouble distinguishing them from Germans), and even Freemasons. There was a backlash against targeting certain groups; for instance, people protested killing handicapped kids.

I also learned that the Evian conference, an international conference in 1938 intended to convince countries to let in more (Jewish) refugees, was useless. The conference, combined with reading the display on the ship St. Louis, vividly illustrates that immigration policy is always relevant.

In the section that covered WWII, I learned a lot about the Warsaw ghetto. I learned about the Warsaw ghetto revolt and how the rebels were valiant to the end. I learned there were footbridges for Jews over the non-Jewish parts of ghettos. (Basically, if some parts of a neighborhood weren't Jewish but divided the Jewish parts from one another, rather than make the non-Jews move, the Nazi built bridges connecting the Jewish parts so the Jews wouldn't have to leave the segregated part of the ghetto.)

I'm amazed that the museum has so many pictures of the Warsaw ghetto, even pictures of the rebels. The museum also has a wall from the Warsaw ghetto.

About the Kovno ghetto, I learned that the popularly-elected leaders of the ghetto rebelled. That takes chutzpah--the Nazis knew who the leaders where because they coordinated with them on ghetto rules. In rebelling, the leaders knew they would be killed.

Halfway through the permanent exhibit, there's a room by the stairs without any information; it's simply meant for visitors to refresh themselves before they continue on.

The museum has physical artifacts: shoes, hair, and other belongings. It also has a photo-montage of arms showing tattooed numbers.

I (re-)learned that the Allies didn't bomb Auschwitz because they wanted to see first-hand the conditions there.

Also, the museum tells stories about how Bulgaria, Sweden, and Denmark protected Jews, and describes how Norway became cleansed.

There's a four-story tower of family pictures of residents from a town, Eishyshok, that the Nazis destroyed.

Most of the last floor of the permanent exhibit is devoted to protests, rebels, and individual and group actions of resistance. The nearly final room is about war crime trials. Not enough people were convicted.

The last room is video interviews with survivors.

Like all visitors to the museum, I was given an identity card with the biographical information of a real person who lived during the Holocaust. In my case, I was an Italian Jew who was a lawyer turned pianist (after he wasn't allowed to practice law). Eventually he was deported to Auschwitz and, there, committed suicide.

In better news, The Hall of Remembrance is a beautiful sanctuary.

We spent several hours in the museum. I'm glad I visited with someone who knows much history and could answer the questions I had that weren't answered by the displays.

By the way, I was surprised the museum said practically nothing about Israel.

After the museum, we were hungry. It was a bit early for dinner but we decided to go for it. After wandering a bit, we found a random Italian place downtown, Finemondo. For the somewhat shocking details, see the pictures.

In the evening, we had a pre-wedding gathering for the groom in O'Malley Irish pub, conveniently located in our hotel. It was nice to see long-lost college friends again. But, O'Malley didn't treat us well. The waitress wasn't competent. She didn't really ask whether we wanted anything. If she had, I'm sure we would've ordered so much more that our tab would've been at least double. Also, she wasn't good about cleaning off the table. Finally, to top off the experience, at the end of the night, at closing time the bartender simply said, "Get out."

We retired to a sitting area in a nearby hallway to continue our conversation.

Washington D.C. Day 1: Travel

2011-08-11T07:30:00.000-04:00

My journey began on June 7, 2007, with some uneventful train rides to the airport followed by an uneventful cross-country plane flight. What little I saw of Salt Lake City's airport during my brief stopover seemed decent enough. I flew Delta, giving the opportunity to compare its snacks with those served on United, my frequent carrier. I rediscovered how chompable Sun Chips are. :) I also had a boxed snack of havarti-flavored processed cheese spread, whole grain crackers, and Oreos. Considering the creaminess of the cheese and the richness of the crackers (they were so buttery as to be like Ritz), I wonder how many people are tricked by the whole grain label into thinking they're healthy. It's a high-fat, high-sugar snack. The Quaker Oatmeal Apples & Cinnamon Breakfast Bar I selected later on that flight wasn't much better. I had high hopes because I like Quaker Oats, but this bar was too cakey for me, both in texture, sugar content, and sugar topping. It wasn't actually that sugary (22 grams) according to the label, but it sure tasted like it. I think I prefer United's little bags of pretzels, nuts, and cheese-flavored sticks.

Oddly, when I landed, my bag had on it someone else's luggage tag--you know, those little pieces of paper with name and address. I can't easily imagine how it happened. Judging by the phone number's area code, the other person was also from the bay area; maybe she took the same flight.

As you've no doubt already guessed, I didn't see anything this day and hence was grasping for straws of things about which to write.

Washington D.C.: Overview

2011-08-10T10:14:00.000-04:00

[Note the dates in this post. This is a trip report from a trip long ago. Most of this post and perhaps a slight majority of the later posts were written soon after the trip. The remaining 40% of the text was filled in years later from my notes.]

A friend of mine got married on June 9th 2007 in Northern Virginia, not far from where I grew up. I decided to use the wedding as an excuse to explore Washington D.C. Although I was raised in the vicinity, I haven't often been there since elementary school. I figured it deserved another look. I stayed in the D.C. area on this trip from June 7th through June 14th.

I suppose I should summarize my impressions of Washington.

D.C. provides an intellectual and cultural smorgasbord through its many government offices and innumerable free, quality museums. Having already visited many of the most famous attractions (the Capitol, the White House, and museums such as the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, and the Air and Space Museum), I presumed I'd be able to explore the rest of what I was interested in and some of D.C.'s distinctive neighborhoods on a five day trip. I soon learned I was very wrong. Although I managed to see many attractions, I could easily spend weeks if not a few months exploring D.C. It's got enough cultural attractions to rival New York City.

D.C. feels different from many other cities. Partially it's because the skyline is clean -- D.C.'s regulations force all buildings to be short (i.e., no skyscrapers). Partially it's the tons of marble used in building many institutions. Partially it's the presence of quiet, uncrowded streets, often with single family houses, mere blocks from major sites, such as the streets three blocks east of the Capitol.

The metro system feels like a good version of those in most cities. It's clean and generally efficient; one doesn't have to look at the schedule and plan around it.

I'd forgotten how temperamental the weather could be, changing from blue skies to rain within two hours and returning to blue skies two hours later. As long as one is prepared, this variability is not a problem. Indeed, it can even be a blessing, reducing the temperature to a more comfortable amount for a few hours. Each day during this trip was usually in the 80s and humid. Because of this, after day two I avoided the peak unpleasantness by planning major walking excursions only in the late afternoon or evening.

While reading guide books, I observed the city is constantly under construction and renovation. Union Station fell into disrepair to the point of having its roof leak, causing chunks of plaster to fall from the ceiling, until it was renovated in the 1980s. (It looks great now.) The Botanic Garden was closed in 1997 for renovations due to, as one guide book called it, "general dilapidation," reopening in 2001. The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, colocated in the Old Patent Office building, recently reopened after a six-year renovation. The National Museum of American History is currently closed for renovation. Meanwhile, several new museums and other sites opened in the last few years. Amusingly, the guide books I borrowed from the library, all published in different years within the last four years, all said the Capitol Visitors Center, being built underneath the capitol, would open the following year.

My home region, Northern Virginia, is as lush and green as I remember it, with many two-lane roads winding through forests. (Well, at least areas that look like forests. There can't be large forests so close to D.C.) The trees are tall. The highways, however, vary in pleasantness; many have tall, ugly, sound-blocking walls.

Incidentally, all the national museums searched our bags upon entry. Once inside, some (but not all), let us keep our bags with us.

I'll conclude with an interesting thing I learned: I was surprised to read that the metro system was built mostly in the 1970s and 1980s (see Washington Metro Area Transit Authority: Metro History (PDF) and George Mason University's Center of History and New Media: Building the Washington Metro). This is surprising because most cities' subway systems were built before cities became too developed, before property rights and people density make it difficult to build without running into lots of opposition. By the way, though both web sites have interesting tales about Metro's history, GMU's online exhibit also explains the architectural design of the stations and the construction techniques for the lines, among other things. For instance, I learned that the yellow line's Potomac crossing is a tunnel that was built above ground, floated to the right place, then sunk.

S.F. Moma

2011-07-30T21:44:00.000-04:00

I have lived in the bay area for more than a decade, yet never visited San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art: S.F. Moma. This year my employer became a corporate sponsor; as such, all employees get free admission. This was the impetus I needed.

On Thursday, July 21, 2011, I took a day off work to visit S.F. Moma. (Yes, I registered it as a vacation day--I didn't use my corporate benefit while simultaneously playing hooky.)

Di Yin and I drove up to the city before lunch. We parked by S.F. Moma, picked up our tickets, arranged for our timed entry into the special exhibit, and headed out for lunch. I brought a long list of possible destinations, some within walking destination and some across the city. It'd been years since I visited the city regularly; my list of places to try had grown seemingly without bound.

Because it was a beautiful day to walk around, we decided to restrict our choices to those reachable on foot. We began by trotting down Market to Civic Center Plaza. I took out my camera and began shooting pictures. We went to Civic Center because I wanted to check out Off The Grid's food trucks. Off The Grid organizes groups of food trucks to appear regularly at different parts of the city. Every Thursday some appear in Civic Center Plaza.

We inspected the scene and the nearby street market but decided not to eat there. Instead, we ventured into the Tenderloin to hunt for banh mi sandwiches. I had a few Vietnamese sandwich joints on my list.

The Tenderloin was scary at times. After we were turned away at the first joint we stopped by, we headed straight to one I knew would be open and good: Saigon Sandwich.

After lunch, we stopped at Westfield Mall on the way back to S.F. Moma. On the way out of the Tenderloin, we crossed one intersection that had seven police cars around it, most on different sides of the street and facing different directions, ready to speed anywhere as needed.

Although I visited the Westfield Mall few times before (see this report), I forgot how large and modern it is. It has many floors (seven?), curved escalators, and a notably diverse food court.

We returned to S.F. Moma and began exploring. S.F. Moma's collection includes art and design in many styles: bay area figuration, cubism, abstract, surreal, Latin American modernism, and pop art. Notable artists include Warhol, Jasper John, Lichtenstein, Rivera, O'Keeffe, Matisse, and Klee (a whole room of Klee!).

S.F. Moma's photography exhibits are extensive. The main display has photographs mostly from 1850 to 1980, usually of architecture but also of fashion. I didn't like the modern photographs, preferring the old styles. Incidentally, they had some Brassai. Another (?) display shows photographs of bombed out Parisian buildings due to the Paris Commune of 1871.

The special exhibit in the photograph section was a series of rooms on various contemporary photographers (last ten years). One room had Richard Misrach's striking photos of New Orleans homes post-Katrina. Most have graffiti on them from owners telling looters to go away; others have messages stating we are okay and giving a phone number.

We took a break from our viewing of photographs for our timed entry to the special exhibit on the Steins' collection. The Steins (Gertrude, et al.) collected Matisse, Picasso and Parisian avant-garde in general (including Cezanne and Renoir). It also had some art by the Steins themselves and pictures of Michael and Sarah Stein's villa, which was also architecturally news (a la the art they collected).

Although the art wasn't my thing (it was alright), I enjoyed the exhibit. It was done well, covering simultaneously the history of the art and of the family. It also explored the evolution of the relationship between collectors and artists. It told stories about debts, falling-outs with artists, and intra-family squabbles.

The wall labels had quotes from various Steins describing some of the art including this memorable statement: "[It is] the nastiest smear of paint I have ever seen" but "[is] brilliant and powerful" (describing Matisse's colorful Woman with a Hat). Another label mentioned that Picasso, in reply to being told that Gertrude Stein didn't look like her portrait, said "she will." The quotes made the labels fun to read.

We spent three hours in the museum in total. Overall it wasn't bad but wasn't as interesting or extensive as I expected.

On the way home, we stopped by Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous, an oddly-named ice cream joint that's been getting a lot of buzz since it opened the previous year. We tried it; the buzz was justified.

Los Angeles: June 26: Venice

2011-07-03T23:08:00.000-04:00

My photographs cover the day's activities fairly well.

Di Yin took pictures too. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #182). When you see a picture about us stopping by Greg for Burn Notice (picture #213), you're done with her pictures for the day and for the trip. I'll link the other pictures in the album at another time.

The three of us began the day by heading down to Gjelina in the neighborhood known as Venice for brunch.

After brunch, we walked around the area, in particular up and down Abbot Kinney, the main road in this part of town. It's an alternative, off-beat retail strip. I think the name of one store we spotted perfectly conveys the aura of the neighborhood: Mystic Journey Bookstore.

On the way out of Venice, we drove through nearby streets. Some were gentrifying, with new buildings next to old mom & pops.

It was early afternoon. E parted ways with Di Yin and I and we drove north, heading home. This time we didn't take a crazy detour as on our last time. We did detour once from the 5 to get around the one-lane section we observed on the way down, but that worked out fine, probably because it was a detour CalTrans told us to take.

Halfway up highway 5, we passed a cattle farm: thousands upon thousands of cows covering hills made entirely of dirt. It was bigger than the farm near L.A. Scary. I never noticed this one before.

Los Angeles: June 25: A Motley Assortment

2011-07-02T09:41:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, Di Yin and I did a motley assortment of things. I of course took pictures. Din Yin did too. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #133). When you see a picture captioned "Checking out Venice with Edison" (picture #182), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link the following pictures in the next post.

First, we drove across town to Eagle Rock to see C and her new baby. C is a friend of Di Yin's; we attended her baby shower months before.

After visiting, we planned to stop by Galco's Soda Shop because it was in the neighborhood. We enjoyed it on our previous visit to L.A. but had by now drunk the bounty from that visit. C and J, despite living in the neighborhood, had never been to Galco's so they came with us and we showed them around.

I bought quite a haul: various ciders (most from my favorite Vermont cidery), a nice pile of Mr. Q. Cumber sodas, and an assortment of Hot Lips sodas in various flavors, among others, including some for E.

We then headed to Monterey Park to meet E for a late lunch. He'd selected Huge Tree Pastry, a joint he loves for its Chinese breakfasts (served all day). We ordered and ate too much (because it was good). Details as usual are in the pictures.

After a quick stop, we returned to E's place. I like how most of traffic in L.A. was going in the opposite direction both in the morning and after lunch. I guess we have good timing or good karma.

We relaxed for a while at home. Some people napped. In late afternoon, Di Yin and I decided to go for a walk. After a bit of research, we decided to explore Beverly Hills and Beverly Gardens Park, a two-mile-long green strip of park-land along Santa Monica Boulevard through Beverly Hills. E warned that parking might be tough in the area so we took a bus.

We walked alternating between walking in the park and walking through the residential streets of Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is nice. We enjoyed admiring the houses, many of which have wings. The park is also nice. Basically, it's a long promenade interspersed by big green areas. In one of these, I climbed a tree! It was fun; I want to do it more often. There are also a rose garden and a cactus garden.

Once we reached the end of the park, we hunted for a bus back to E's place. It took forever to come. I think the bus that was supposed to come before the one we took had something wrong with it and didn't come. All the passengers were grumbling. By the time we were on our way home, night had fallen, and consequently we missed out stop. By about five stops. Ugh, what an unpleasant bus experience. Finally we got home.

By the way, parking in Beverly Hills looked fine. We should've driven.

You may notice in the pictures a lack of photographs of dinner. This is because we didn't eat dinner. Our lunch was so large that this ended up being a one-meal day.

Los Angeles: June 24: Driving to and Eating in L.A.

2011-07-01T18:26:00.000-04:00

Di Yin and I visited Los Angeles (yet again) from Friday, June 24, 2011, to Sunday, June 26. My main reason for the trip was to play board games with my friend E and to see another touristy sight in Los Angeles. Although I didn't end up really doing either, it was a fun trip regardless.

After an unusually good lunch at work, Di Yin and I drove south. (Lunches at work are usually good, but this was unusually so.) On the way I took out my camera and began snapping pictures. We made good time despite highway 5 narrowing to one lane for several miles, which caused a long backup that took perhaps thirty minutes to get through.

Di Yin, by the way, also took pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #80 in this general album of summer activities). When you see a picture captioned "Visiting Carmel's new baby - Rio!" (picture #133), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link the album's other pictures in other posts.

Immediately before L.A. we stopped for a while at Pyramid Lake, a sight that we've admired from afar multiple times from the highway. For reference, Pyramid Lake straddles Los Padres National Forest and Angeles National Forest. We had time to explore it. We had a good time, partially because it was rather nice in temperature, which was surprising because the valley was 90+ degrees F.

Later, we met E at his place and headed out to dinner in K-Town. For our first stop, we dragged him to KyoChon (which we visited before) to convince him the Korean fried chicken there is better than his favorite place, O B Bear (which he had us visit before). I think he admitted that his previous impression of KyoChon was in error, but he wasn't yet ready to admit defeat.

From KyoChon, we decided to walk a ways through K-Town to get to our next eating place. However, as the place we intended to eat the rest of dinner at was closed, we continued straight to dessert at the third place on our itinerary: Hwa Sun Ji, a traditional Korean tea shop. During this walk we passed a cinema makeup school. Only a few places in the world can support such a place; L.A. is one.

Still wanting more real dinner after dessert, we headed back to KyoChon for more. With food in hand, we returned to E's place.

Martinez BBQ Festival & Regional Shoreline

2011-06-30T09:27:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, June 19, 2011, Di Yin and I drove up to the town of Martinez in the northeast corner of the San Francisco bay for its King of County BBQ Challenge and Music Festival. Incidentally, I was curious and so looked up the county implied in the title of the festival. Martinez is in Contra Costa County. No signs at the festival specified it.

In Martinez, we passed an oil refinery (they're large!) and long trains with many containers on them. We found the BBQ festival in the Martinez Regional Shoreline.

I took pictures of the festival and of the shoreline. Di Yin also took pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this excursion (which happens to be picture #8 in this album). When you see a picture captioned "the beginning of our trip to LA" (picture #80), you're done with her pictures from the festival. I'll link to her L.A. pictures in the appropriate posts.

It was a big festival. We spent a while browsing the booths, which covered the typical wide variety of art and merchandise one finds at a festival. I also tried two of the three BBQ food stands. Details are in the pictures.

There was a music stage with bands that played old-fashioned rock songs. We could hear the music from most places in the festival including where we ate lunch; it was nice. Surprisingly, despite how far it carried, the music near the stage wasn't too loud.

I liked how the whole festival venue was on grass, a contrast to the many festivals on parking lots or streets. It was comfortable (both to sit on and walk on).

Martinez was hot and sunny, 89 degrees according to my car. It was alright in the breeze, though sadly the festival booths blocked the breeze most of the time. It was also alright in the shade.

After exploring the festival and eating lunch, we walked around the Martinez Regional Shoreline.

Counting the shoreline, we spend a bit over three hours in the area.

Carmel

2011-06-20T09:34:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, June 5, 2011, Di Yin, her parents (they were visiting), and I drove to Carmel. The forecast was horrid, predicting rain all day. Nevertheless, Di Yin's parents had already rearranged their schedule to be free this day, so we continued our plan to go to Carmel.

It was pouring during the drive through San Jose. We drove ten miles per hour under the speed limit. The rain let up near Gilroy. By the time we got to Carmel, it was misting.

But this was no ordinary misting. No precipitation fell from the sky. Rather, clouds of mist blew horizontally. One could see the flow of air currents as they sweep around roofs and reflected off the ground.

We parked and trotted over to The Tuck Box for lunch. Di Yin had tried to bring me to this adorable little cafe in a hundred-year-old building on every previous visit to Carmel but it was closed every time (wrong hours, wrong day of week during low season, closed for vacation, etc.). In contrast, Di Yin brought her parents to The Tuck Box on every visit to Carmel, and it was open every time for them. This time, The Tuck Box was open--I guess her parents' luck is more powerful than my bad luck.

As for lunch, Di Yin and I split a turkey sandwich and some scones. The sandwich came with a side of fruit salad topped with whipped cream! How strange. Also, the Tuck Box is known for its scones. They're non-traditional (at least to me), tasting like they're made with buttermilk and corn meal. For spreads, we chose between orange marmalade, some kind of berry jam, and whipped cream. The scones were good with the definitely good quality whipped cream.

By the end of lunch, the weather was rather nice: partially cloudy, no rain. We only needed jackets because it was windy. Despite the clouds, it was bright. I wished I brought my sunglasses (but how could I have known given the forecast?). It was brighter than a cloudless Paris. Is that possible? Maybe it's because of the difference in latitude.

We walked around Carmel. In town, I enjoyed peering through the windows of the many art galleries.

We took a walk on the beach. It was long time-wise but short length-wise because we kept pausing to take pictures and enjoy the sights. We watched dogs playing in the surf, dogs playing for dominance, and even one person kitesurfing.

By the way, Di Yin took many pictures (not just of the beach but also of the town, of lunch, and more) as did her mom, though her mom's photographs aren't online. I didn't bother taking any pictures because I felt that three of us running around snapping pictures like mad would be absurd. The link goes to Di Yin's first picture from this day (picture #6) in one of her albums covering her parent's visit to California. If you're in slideshow mode and see pictures of Di Yin's parents at Google, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are viewing pictures unconnected with Carmel.

We walked through the residential areas and admired houses. We even wandered through a nicely staged open house with four bedrooms, four baths and two half-baths, a fireplace, a garden with a stone plaza patio and a grill, ... Six million dollars.

It was a nice time to visit Carmel. Everything was in bloom (gardens by houses, planters of flowers by businesses, etc.).

On the way home, we stopped by the Gilroy outlets.

Carmel's forecast, like that of the rest of the bay area, was for rain. Carmel's was the only forecast that was wrong. For instance, San Francisco saw record rainfall. (Of course, as a rule it doesn't rain in June, thus making virtually any rainfall a record.)

In conclusion, Di Yin's parents have great Carmel luck. I appreciate it.

Paris: May 24: Flying Home

2011-06-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

We had breakfast in our apartment before heading to the airport to fly home. I wanted my last pastry/meal in Paris to be an appropriately traditional pastry. I selected a pain au chocolat, a selection that I'm surprised I made. (I thought I wouldn't be in the mood for more chocolate after the mousse the previous night.)

Incidentally, I took a few pictures this day. Di Yin took four. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #47). If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of Di Yin mailing postcards, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are viewing pictures from an earlier day that I already linked to.

The streets were empty at 7am. Maybe people in Paris start work later than in the states? The train we took that ends at the airport, however, was rather full, so maybe it's just that people up early for work aren't walking around outside.

From the train, we saw a train fully laden with new cars.

Traveling was easy. We had no problems taking the train to the airport, checking-in, going through security, flying, or getting a shuttle to take us home once we landed. We got selected for a random inspection at customs, but even this luggage search was fast and the inspector courteous and friendly.

We flew home non-stop on Air France. The eleven-hour flight was alright, a surprising fact given that there were no personal, on-demand TVs for each person but only shared screens above the airplane's corridors. I enjoyed the main courses of both our meals. We were a bit nervous about flying Air France given our bad experience on KLM on the way to Paris--KLM and Air France are close partners--but I think the discomfort we experienced on the KLM flight was mainly due to sitting next to a large man who slightly overfilled his seat. On this flight we had no such difficulties; for much of the flight I sat next to Di Yin and a sleeping baby (who certainly does not fill up its seat). Nevertheless, I was still slightly irritated by the fact that the armrests didn't entirely rotate up to disappear between the seats. Di Yin and I couldn't share our two seats as if they were a couch. Regardless, I think the flight was perfectly fine and would do it again.

Paris: May 23: Good Food and Other Stuff

2011-06-14T11:52:00.000-04:00

This day, our last full day in Paris, brought us all over the city. It was a beautiful, clear, and warm day, again hot in the sun. Also, the sun made it difficult to take pictures because the contrast was too high. Nevertheless, I took some. Di Yin took some too. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #1 in this album). When you see a picture of Di Yin pushing a luggage cart (picture #47), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

We spent the morning running errands, mostly picking up gifts for people back home. Our route wandered through the upscale boutique shops in the area north of the Louvre and Jardin des Tuileries. On the way, we also stopped by the post office to mail postcards, a surprisingly fast and efficient transaction. Of course, as we collected gifts for friends and relatives, we detoured to sight-see in the area.

After shopping, we took the metro east past the Bastille (well, where it previously stood) to meet for lunch a coworker/friend, P, who's lived in Paris with his family for the last year. It was a great meal, one of our best on the trip. As usual, for details see the pictures.

We parted ways after lunch, with Di Yin and me walking to the conveniently close Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise. We meandered through the cemetery to visit certain graves, most notable Oscar Wilde, whose grave had a small crowd. Walking through this vast sea of monuments/funerary sculpture was weirdly pleasant. I think the pictures convey the sense. Incidentally, we saw lots of crows.

We took the metro a bit north to Canal Saint Martin. We started our walk along the canal near the stations of Stalingrad and Jaures. This area was sketchy. Because Di Yin and I were tired, we walked only a few blocks along the canal before heading home (doing about a third of my guide book's walking route). I feel like we got the feel of canal.

We rested.

Dinner was at L'Ambassade d'Auvergne, a restaurant literally across the street from our apartment that specializes in cuisine from Auvergne. Auvergne is a rustic central region of France known for its pork. Only two-thirds of the way through this trip did I find out it was a chow-worthy destination. This turned out to be another good meal, with great appetizers and desserts though generally disappointing mains.

With two unusually good meals this day, it was a nice way to end our trip in Paris.

Paris: May 22: Eiffel Tower and the Architecture Museum

2011-06-13T07:45:00.000-04:00

Following K's request, the day's goal was to see the Eiffel Tower up close.

I took pictures. Di Yin took fewer, partially because she didn't take pictures on our late afternoon excursion. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #163). If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of us on a train, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are viewing pictures from an earlier day that I already linked to.

But first (before the real adventures): another day, another pastry run.

After breakfast, we hung out in the apartment until it was time for our early lunch reservation at Breizh Cafe, a restaurant known for its Breton style crepes. (We had an early lunch so we could make it to the Eiffel Tower before K had to leave.) Brittany crepes use buckwheat flour rather than the standard egg crepe batter. Interestingly, the cafe has three locations: Brittany, Paris, and Tokyo. The menu was in Japanese in addition to English and French. We were a bit overwhelmed with the number of choices. For details on the meal, see the pictures.

After lunch, we took the metro across town to the Eiffel Tower, disembarking at the station (Trocadero) just across the Seine from it. We took many pictures as we approached the tower, from beneath it, and as we retreated in the opposite direction. We passed lots of people peddling stuff on blankets; this didn't surprise us much. More surprisingly, we saw a number of card sharks, each with quite a crowd.

Having had our fill of the Eiffel Tower, we headed back to our apartment. (We didn't feel any need to ride up the tower, especially considering the tremendous view we got from the Sacre Coeur the previous day. The tower would've shown Paris from a different side of the city but I didn't care enough.) K had to pick up her bag to head to the train station for her train home.

After dropping K at the station, I advocated to Di Yin that we should go explore more. I felt as if we didn't do enough this day. Happily, Di Yin was persuaded, a good thing because the museum we ended up going to turned out to be one of our favorites on this trip.

The museum we selected, the architectural museum, Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, was back across town, near the same station by the Eiffel Tower that we disembarked at earlier this day.

The museum covers a millennium of French architecture. The bottom level exhibits tons of casts of church facades. It's shockingly extensive. I was impressed with the V&A Museum's Cast Court, yet that's a mere two rooms and this is perhaps a dozen. There must be four times more casts in this museum than in the V&A! It was neat to see these facades at close proximity without crowds (as there would be if we visited the churches in person).

The cast section also has a great 3-d interactive computer system for virtually visiting many churches. One can pan around in any direction and zoom in. The comprehensive imagery (one can look straight up, straight down, where-ever) and the detail (zooming in, one can see more details than one can with the human eye standing in the same spot) makes this an awesome addition to the museum.

An upper level in the museum has lots of models of more recent buildings: houses, sports venues, cultural venues, public buildings, and, yes, churches.

A special exhibit about the creation of social housing discussed each housing project on a theoretical level about its architectural style and about its architectural construction of space and community.

A separate wing of the museum has accurate copies of church murals (complete with the degradations that happened over time). This exhibit is quite an extensive complement to the casts of the church facades.

Not everything was translated into English but enough was that I was happy. Plus, the exhibits are all visual, meaning I didn't feel like I had to read much to get something about of them.

As an added bonus, the museum has great views of the Eiffel Tower from its huge windows. The Eiffel Tower views were arresting. No matter how many times I saw it, I paused every time I passed a window.

We spent about an hour and a half in the museum before they kicked us out at closing time. We saw almost all the permanent exhibits.

I was very happy we went out again after dropping K off, both in terms of seeing more and because the museum turned out to be great--our "delightful surprise" for the trip.

We went home for dinner.

Paris: May 21: Montmartre

2011-06-12T13:41:00.000-04:00

Di Yin's friend K came to Paris for the weekend. We asked her earlier what she wanted to see in Paris while visiting us and we postponed exploring the places she wanted to see until she was here. That's how we ended up exploring Montmartre this day.

I took pictures. Di Yin did too. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #78). When you see a picture captioned "the next morning, we went to a Breton crepes place" (picture #163), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

First, however, I had to have my traditional pastry breakfast. K was as excited about this as I so we showed her a few pastry shops as she selected her breakfast pastry.

After breakfast we took the train up to Montmartre, a lively neighborhood that is so hilly it reminded me of San Francisco. There are lots of pretty houses in the area. Around the Sacre Coeur basilica it's quite touristy, packed with shops, restaurants, and boutiques. There were entertainers scattered around: a capoeira troop, and musicians performing The Beatles (not surprising), Michael Jackson (not surprising), and Oasis (surprisingly universal). Also, the area is still rightly noted for its artists; one neat square was packed with artists selling their wares / hawking their skills. (I say still because Montmartre used to be Paris's artist quarter.)

After exploring some of Montmartre, we headed down the hill to lunch at Un Zebre A Montmartre. We then climbed back up to see the Sacre Coeur and the remainder of Montmartre we wanted to see. We headed down the hill and stairs once again and grabbed the metro to the Latin Quarter, where Di Yin wanted to wander around a bit.

Of course, I guessed her real reason for going down there: nearby, on Ile Saint Louis, is Berthillon, a great sorbet shop that we previous discovered. It remained great. We sat by the Seine and ate, taking our shoes off and draping our legs over the edge (but not into the water; it was too far below us).

We walked home, accidentally passing a environment/green-themed street fair on the way.

For dinner we brought K to our local standby, Les Philosophes, which we visited twice before. The place is good but the menu is limited so it doesn't excite me much. Di Yin likes the place so we keep returning.

Paris: May 20: Versailles

2011-06-11T22:11:00.000-04:00

This day was finally our long-planned day to go to Versailles. After I ate a pastry breakfast at home, Di Yin and I assembled the picnic lunch to bring to Versailles and we were on our way.

I took a bunch of pictures this day. In fact, I took more pictures than Di Yin took. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #1 in this album). When you see a picture of Di Yin holding a book on a train (picture #76), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

However, we got on the wrong train! It took us a while to realize it because we were too engrossed looking out the windows watching the Parisian suburbs go by. They looked fairly English. We enjoyed the journey, though I wish we didn't have this lengthy (two hour) detour that wound around to the north-northwest of the city. Versailles is southwest.

Versailles is a grand royal palace, in the same vein as Hampton Court Palace, on a king-size estate. Because we arrived late, we decided to stroll around the gardens, have our picnic lunch, and only then later in the afternoon explore the palace itself.

The gardens are designed in a very regular, geometric pattern (the French style). Interestingly, Di Yin observed that the width of the paths in most of the gardens implied everything was meant to be carriage roads. Anyway, though the linear geometric pattern of this formal garden style appeals to me (and I think I could be a good designer of French gardens), I find I enjoy strolling and sitting in English gardens more.

I was disappointed that about half the groves I wanted to see (whether for their statues, their fountains, or their design) were closed. Furthermore, the fountains weren't running anywhere. I guess the grounds weren't yet in full force for the tourist high season.

Incidentally, many marble statues looked too new and clean, especially those outside. I assume they're reproductions of the original, though I suppose they could have just been cleaned excellently rather recently.

As for the palace, it was opulent and extravagant (as expected). It was built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries under King Louis XIV, XV, and XVI. We took the audio guide tour through everything. The audio guide was good: interesting and paced well (except for the section on the Dauphin Apartments, but that was probably by necessity because there are fewer interesting things to say about them). Aside from the Dauphin Apartments, we listened to everything, which is quite something because Di Yin normally has little patience for audio guides.

Part of the palace houses the Museum of French History. The museum has many paintings done in the late seventeenth century when the museum was established. It's neat how a contemporary museum becomes a history museum.

In all, we spent 1:45 in the palace. After finishing the palace, we had some extra time so we walked the grounds a bit more. Despite this extra time, we had to skip visiting the palaces of Trianon as well as Marie-Antoinette's estate, all of which are attached to Versailles. Those palaces and grounds are a twenty-five-minute walk each way from the main palace; hence we couldn't squeeze them in despite having some extra time. We had simply lost too much time from our train mistake. Regardless, we decided we got a good feel of the grounds and palaces in Versailles; we didn't feel deprived.

We wandered through the town of Versailles on the way to the train station. It seemed like a nice town/suburb, quite wealthy.

We took the train home (no wrong trains this time), ate dinner at home, and met Di Yin's friend, K, who arrived in the evening to visit us for two days.

Paris: May 19: Musee d'Orsay

2011-06-10T17:05:00.000-04:00

Our main goal this day was to visit the Musee d'Orsay, our last of Paris's three major national museums. We chose this day to visit it because it's open late on Thursdays. Thus, if we liked it and wanted to spend a long time there, we wouldn't have to hurry.

I took some pictures. Di Yin took similarly few. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #296 in the album). If you're in slide-show mode and see a picture captioned "the beginning of a new week" with strange blue things hanging from a shop awning, you've cycled back to the beginning of this album and are back at an earlier day on the trip. If you hit pictures of the bread festival, you've definitely cycled around. I've already linked to those pictures.

After breakfast at home (I dashed out first to buy my morning pastry to get back in my routine), we headed over to the Richard-Lenoir market again to go shopping. (We visited it four days earlier.)

We lugged our market supplies home and used some of them to make lunch.

After lunch, we walked a bit to catch a bus to take us to the museum. We decided we'd ridden enough metros so, as the bus was convenient, we might as well take it.

The Musee d'Orsay covers art from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, thus continuing where the Louvre ends in the mid eighteenth century and ending before the Pompidou begins a third of the way through the twentieth century. I looked forward to liking the Orsay more than the other two museums because this is my favorite time period for art.

The Musee d'Orsay is a grand space: an entirely open former train station complete with an opulent, gorgeous clock. I wish I could've taken a picture but photography was prohibited inside.

The museum has all the impressionists I expected: Renoir, Pissarro, Degas (he liked his woman and dancers; also, early Degas is not my thing), Monet (both early and late; early is not as good), Manet, Sisley, Cezanne, Bonnard, Matisse (during his pointillism days), Van Gogh, and Gauguin. I learned about the rise in pastels, which I didn't realize coincided with impressionism and post-impressionism. I noticed that Henri-Edmond Cross, who I hadn't heard of, was as effective a pointillist as Seurat. I also hadn't heard of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but he deserves to be in the list above. There were certainly artists who didn't inspire me (different styles than the styles I enjoy, but from the time period the museums covers) and whose names I didn't write down. (Except one: I wrote down the name Adolphe William Bouguereau not because I like him but because he makes such weird, large religious paintings (light allegories).)

I realized I went into the museum expecting only paintings, but the museum also has things I didn't expect such as a lot of sculpture, early examples of photography, furniture, vases, plates, and other decorative arts from that time (e.g., pre-raphael, art nouveau).

The museum has an exhibit on Paris's Opera House, with a cool twenty-foot by twenty-foot model of the opera house quarter that was topped with glass so one could walk across. There's also a large model of the Opera House itself (also twenty feet long). Plus, there are full-scale reliefs from its facade as well as sculptures from the building. Di Yin and I had originally planned to visit the Opera House at some point during our stint in Paris but after seeing this exhibit we didn't feel the need to any longer--it was that effective at conveying the sights.

Overall, it is a fairly good museum. We spent about four hours in the museum in total. (I'm not counting the time we left the museum for an aperitif and break.) Like the Orangerie, the building's architecture provides good natural light. There is almost no painting-level commentary, but the room commentary is good (though sometimes in overblown language) and in English, French, and Spanish.

After the museum, Di Yin insisted on walking home, so walk home we did, crossing the Seine, passing through the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, passing by the Louvre, and heading through the Palais Royale and its gardens. Seventy minutes later we were home. Though our feet ached a bit, it was such a picturesque walk that we didn't complain much.

Then we immediately found somewhere to eat: La Fresque.

Paris: May 18: Musee de l'Orangerie, Berthillon, and more

2011-06-09T16:13:00.000-04:00

This was meant to be a low-key recovery day after our previous long days of walking and sightseeing. Di Yin managed our timing this day, and it ended up relaxing and fun. Maybe I should let her control the itinerary more often.

I took pictures. Di Yin of course did too. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #215 in the album). When you see a picture of homeless sleeping on a mattress (with a caption that begins "another day") (picture #296), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

For once, I didn't begin the day with a pastry! Rather, we ate a makeshift breakfast at home: refrigerated supermarket pancakes (good, better than any I've found in the states) topped with mashed sardines ("better than tuna" Di Yin says) or mashed eggplant; a leftover steamed artichoke, which went really well with the sardines; and French yogurt, pineapple this time. I've also had rhubarb and apricot (both of which I preferred because they were less sweet than the pineapple). And, okay, I did have a bite of the previous day's leftover palmier.

We took the metro to the western end of the Jardin des Tuileries, where the Musee de l'Orangerie is located. On the way to the museum we walked through a fraction of the garden-park.

The Musee de l'Orangerie is rightly famous for its huge Monets. They're a striking sight. Di Yin's reaction was "I just gotta say wow." Also, walking the perimeter of rooms with these paintings so that my field of vision was completely covered by these paintings was an entirely different experience than seeing them from afar.

The museum has an extensive impressionist collection. As I walked through a lower hallway admiring the museum's many nice Renoirs and Cezannes, I thought, "this is my type of museum." It also has lots of Rousseau, Laurencin, Matisse (he's into the ladies), Modigliani, Picasso, Utrillo, Derain (pre-cubism), and Soutine (the bridge between impressionism and cubism). There are practically no one-off paintings--the museum chooses a handful of notable artists and focuses on them.

The pieces are presented well under good natural lighting. No paintings had explanatory labels and the room explanations were only in French, but I enjoyed the museum regardless. We spent about an hour and a half in it.

After the museum we headed to lunch at Le Souffle. It serves about a dozen types each of savory and sweet souffles, as well as other dishes. The souffles we had were good, light, and airy. Nevertheless, I think I prefer Cafe Jacqueline in San Francisco (my review), but it may be due to the difference in types of souffles we ordered.

From Le Souffle, we walked over to Paris's most famous avenue, Champs-Elysees. Because it was sunny and warm (hot in the sun), we stuck to the shade. We walked through its garden end and its shopping section most of the way to the Arc de Triomphe. I know Champs-Elysees is famous for its shopping but I found the window-shopping not as nice as the window-shopping the previous day.

A metro trip later, we were on the other side of the Seine in Luxembourg Gardens, below the Latin Quarter. It's a large, pretty, grand, stately, popular park. We strolled around it and also sat at various places in it.

We decided to walk (indirectly) home from here, taking us past the Pantheon, through the Latin Quarter and the many cafes near its universities, across Ile de la Cite to Ile Saint Louis. At Ile Saint Louis, we stopped by Berthillon for sorbets. They were fan-freaking-tastic, on par with the amazing, memorable gelatos we had in Rome.

After our snack, we finished making our way home. We ate dinner at home this night.

Paris: May 17: S. Le Marais, Ile St Louis, Jardin des Plantes Quarters

2011-06-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

It was another beautifully temperate day to walk around a pretty city, though this day was brightly sunny (in contrast to the others). We spent the whole day walking. Though we didn't do everything I'd ambitiously planned, it nevertheless ended up being a long, exhausting day, and a day on which we didn't see any sights people would consider important.

My pictures provide a sampling of the things we saw. Di Yin also took pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #141 in the album). When you see a picture with the caption "another day" (with the Eiffel Tower in the background) (picture #215), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

We began by walking through the south side of Le Marais, a district we explored the rest of already: 1, 2. On Rue de Temple, we found many necklace shops and handbag shops, often engaging in large transactions only (i.e., buying in bulk).

We crossed over to Ile Saint Louis, explored it, then hopped back briefly into Le Marais, and then strolled over to the neighborhood across the river surrounding Jardin des Plantes. On the island, Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile has many cute shops. We also realized that it's cooler and winder near the Seine, yet another reason to want to be near it. Back in Le Marais, Rue Saint Paul is a nice street. Though I don't like the stores as much as Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile, I think I like the feel more. (See the photograph.)

We stopped in Pavillon de L'Arsenal, which turned out to be the highlight of our day. The main exhibit covers how Paris grew architecturally and geographically. It explores how commercial interests and political will influenced the result, and how the changes were implemented through building codes and zoning changes. The museum has a number of models and videos. Upstairs are pictures and discussions of major new buildings and renovations in Paris in the last few decades.

We then wandered around for quite a while hunting for food, eventually finding Comptoir Mediterranee, an adorable little deli that serves food from Lebanon. The guy running the show spoke French, Japanese, and English with Di Yin and was a friendly hoot. I wonder if he spoke more languages. He ended up showing Di Yin pictures of his Japanese friends' children. I thought it might be a one-man joint--he assembled our sandwiches for us--but someone came in to help him at some point. Also, he played (American) jazz music over the cafe's speakers.

After lunch we explored the neighborhood around Jardin des Plantes. Obviously, we had to go in Jardin des Plantes, Paris's botanical garden. We didn't explore much of the garden but did discover there's a zoo. There were some pens, including one of kangaroos, outside the menagerie proper; we enjoyed the sights (and smells) of the animals. There are also some themed gardens; we spotted the alpine one. Also, in search of the labyrinth (which turned out to be a spiral), we climbed to the high point in the garden (which turned out to be nothing special except for the nice breeze).

In this area, we also stopped by the Grand Mosque, where we sat and rested for a while. We passed near a church with (according to my guide book) a classical (a la Roman) interior, but not close enough to detour to see it for variety.

Heading back toward the Latin Quarter, we made our way to Paris's Pantheon. Built in the eighteenth century, there's no Roman history to it, just Roman architectural style. It's been at times a church and at times not (right now it's not). Sadly, it was too late in the afternoon: the Pantheon was closing soon and we decided it wasn't worth the entrance fee to go in given the time we had.

We walked up and down the noted old street Rue Mouffetard. The southern side is a market street as good as our local one, Rue Montorguiel. We heard more English here than in other parts of Paris. It's a more medieval part of Paris (near the heart of the Left Bank) with correspondingly more tourists.

Here, we ran into a friend of Di Yin who's working on her dissertation while living in Paris. She was sitting outside by a cafe having a drink with her cousin. It was a shock to run into someone Di Yin knows at random in a foreign city. We sat and joined them and chatted for a while.

Later, when they had to run, we took the metro back up to near our apartment to eat at Les Philosophes, the same restaurant we ate at on our first night. It was still good.

Paris: May 16: Ile de La Cite and the Centre Pompidou

2011-06-07T10:59:00.000-04:00

On this day, we slept late, the result of many long days one after another. We decided to make this an easier day.

Nevertheless, I ended up taking well over a hundred pictures, in fact the most I took on any day during our trip. They document the day well.

Di Yin also took many pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture with a caption that begins "the next day" (picture #141), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

After breakfast, we headed south to Ile de La Cite mainly to see the two major religious sights on the island: Notre Dame Cathedral and Sainte Chapelle church. Ile de La Cite is the island in the Seine on which the town that grew into Paris originally started. It now contains many large government buildings and also some narrow lanes.

Our first stop on the island, however, turned out to be La Fete du Pain: the party of bread. This pavilion in the square in front of Notre Dame had many bakers demonstrating their techniques. It was mostly a promotional activity I think--they gave away a lot of samples--but they did have stands on the other side of the square to sell more bread and pastries and sandwiches.

We then explored Notre Dame Cathedral. It took 170 years to build. I always forget that cathedrals take a long time.

After Notre Dame, we stuck our heads again in Fete du Pain, wandered through Marche Aux Fleurs (flower market), and headed over to the next big destination.

Sainte Chapelle is incredible! It's small, but all the more lovely for its size. A brochure calls it "a gem of High Gothic architecture." It's nice simply standing in the compact space bathed in the light streaming through a dozen large, intricate stained glass windows. It's peaceful and atmospheric. I think the candelabras help with the latter.

My guidebook says some windows are more important and/or impressive than the rest, but I don't see how--they're all amazing.

I like how the figures in the stained glass are small--the windows don't bang you over the head with "this is a picture of this particular saint" as some stained glass windows do. If you look closely (but I generally didn't), you'll notice the scenes are actually pictures from the bible, arranged clockwise chronologically around the chapel so that Christ's Passion is above the altar.

I was worried we shouldn't go to Sainte Chapelle on a cloudy day, and this day was cloudy. I needn't have been. Di Yin told me the stained glass will be nice anytime--otherwise the place wouldn't be famous--and she was right.

Interesting historical fact: the chapel was built in the thirteenth century. It was built to house the Crown of Thrones, a relic that the king acquired for more than the cost of building the chapel itself.

By the time we were done with Sainte Chapelle, it was well after 3:00pm. We were so energized by the day's sights that lunch was shockingly delayed. We walked home and composed a simple lunch for ourselves.

After lunch, we relaxed for a bit.

I wanted to do something else before calling it a day. Around 5:00pm, I convinced Di Yin that we should spend the evening exploring the Centre Pompidou, a museum a mere block and a half from our apartment.

Before entering the museum itself, we enjoyed the expansive, tremendous views of Paris from the top of the building. I took a lot of pictures! Those views alone make the entrance fee worthwhile. I just wish they kept the glass cleaner.

The Pompidou is home to the National Museum of Modern Art, one of Paris's big three national museums. It's a big museum: it supposedly has the largest collection of modern art in Europe! I liked the 1920-1960s floor (and especially the earlier parts) much more than the 1960-onward floor. After seeing this museum, I looked forward to the Musee d'Orsay (the only one of the big three I hadn't yet visited) because it focuses on the time period before this museum (and after the Louvre). I think all the art I tend to like comes from this middle period.

The museum has what you'd expect given the period: rooms full of Matisse, coverage of Fauvism (Braque, who I like, his earlier work in particular), Cubism (represented by more Braque), Picasso (in rooms and even so many they're shoved into hallways), Kandinsky (ditto), and Dado. There were also rooms devoted to people who I never heard of but must be important: Georges Rouault, Henri Michaux, Paul Strand (a photographer), Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon. But don't let me mislead you--most of the museum is not devoted to particular artists. I listed those artists above because I find it interesting what artists they considered important enough (and had enough pieces from) to warrant their own rooms. Incidentally, I realized that the term fauvism derives from the French word for "wild beasts." It was applied to these artists because they strayed far from the traditional rules of painting.

My pictures show what I thought was interesting in the museum. Perhaps the most striking piece isn't represented in my pictures: there was a movie by Rineke Dijkstra, titled I Can See A Woman Crying, of British school children talking about Picasso's painting Weeping Woman. It's earnest, intelligent, and mesmerizing in terms of what the students say, how they think, how imaginative they are, and how they relate to each other. I found a copy of the video online (11:52) but it's such poor quality it's hard to make out what the students are saying (especially with their accents) and hence not worth watching. Rather, read the best description of the work (the paragraph "About this work, Rudi Fuchs writes"). Other worthwhile commentaries: 1, 2 (section beginning "Do I see a woman crying?"), 3. I think I got more out of watching the video because I hadn't seen the piece the students were looking at.

The museum is done well: every room has a description; there are a decent number of labels, and all labels are translated into English.

In addition to the permanent collection, we visited two special exhibits. The special exhibit on Francois Morellet displayed funky geometric installations, often with neon lights. Some installations were motion activated. I kind of liked a few of these, or liked the idea behind them at least.

In the special exhibit on Jean-Michel Othoniel, I realized he makes generally weird stuff with lots of types of materials. I like his glass mobiles. He also has some glass structures that it's not clear what holds them up / keeps them balanced. There must be a supportive metal filament inside.

We spent three hours in the museum, after which we returned home for dinner.

Paris: May 15: Les Halles, Le Marais, Jewish Quarter, Latin Quarter, and more

2011-06-06T23:02:00.000-04:00

As usual, I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #219 in the album). If you're in slide-show mode and see a picture of Simon dropping us off at the airport, you've cycled back to the beginning of her album and are back at the beginning of our trip. I've already linked to those pictures.

This post is simply an outline of sights covered in more depth in my pictures.

On this day I seriously started following my policy of a pastry a day for breakfast when in Paris. First, I had to find a bakery open on a Sunday morning. This actually wasn't as difficult as you'd guess; I found one named Beatrix (in some places referred to as Beatrix Sylvie et David) two blocks from my apartment.

After breakfast, Di Yin and I explored more of the Les Halles neighborhood, which we began exploring the previous day. One spot we visited was Saint Merry church. Because it was mass, I didn't take pictures inside, but I do want to mention that the thing in the church that I most wished I could photograph was its large, fancy wooden pulpit. The church also has stained glass and a notable, large, starburst above the altar.

After Les Halles, we ventured again into Le Marais, which we explored slightly a few days earlier. Le Marais is a historic neighborhood with many eighteenth-century mansions now converted into museums.

On the opposite side of the Le Marais, we found (as planned) the market on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. It's a huge market, with dozens of butchers, fishmongers, vegetable and fruit sellers, and cheese shops. It also has regular market stuff (purses, clothes, etc.). It's several blocks long and two or three aisles wide.

After the market, we headed back through the Le Marais, this time taking a route that passed through the Jewish Quarter, a several-blocks region within this neighborhood. We had lunch at a joint in the Jewish Quarter.

After lunch, we briefly stopped by home to drop off our market goods, then took a quick train ride down to the Latin Quarter, the most bohemian district in Paris. We decided Rue Saint Michel, the large throughway through the district, wasn't too exciting. Di Yin and I prefer the tangled, lively side-streets. They have more personality.

We walked around and finished the Latin Quarter, then explored the east side of the neighborhood around Saint Germain des Pres, the neighborhood that we walked through a different part of during our Louvre day. Saint Germain des Pres is an interesting neighborhood; it's like the Latin Quarter (which it adjoins) but less crowded and less dense and therefore with no people on the street pushing us to go in a restaurant. Incidentally, this quarter has some pot smokers. They're noticeable, but certainly not as many as in Portland.

We began hunting for dinner. In addition to the types of restaurants I described on my last visit to the Latin Quarter, we spotted some places serving Lebanese pizza (a.k.a. sajj). Sajj is cooked on top of a hemispherical metal dome, a cooking method I hadn't seen before. We also spotted an intriguing Tunisian sweet store.

Nevertheless, we decided we didn't want to eat in the Latin Quarter: every restaurant seems to be too actively recruiting tourists (the majority of the people around), not depending on regulars.

We didn't like my guidebook's nearby choices in Saint Germain des Pres either, so we followed Di Yin's nose, ending at a North African restaurant, Le Boomerang. Incidentally, it was only during this hunting that we encountered our first cobblestone street in Paris. Given the quantity of walking that we do, I guess they're remarkably rare.

After dinner we headed home.

By the way, Sunday must be the day for movies in Paris: we saw multiple lines for tickets, some stretching more than a block.

Paris: May 14: Market Day, plus Les Halles

2011-06-05T11:51:00.000-04:00

This ended up being a day spent mainly at markets.

We slept twelve hours the previous night recovering from our jetlag. Once up, it was almost time for lunch. We headed to the market that we found closed when we tried to visit it the previous day. This day it was open when we arrived.

At this time, I also opened my shutter and started taking pictures.

Di Yin also took many pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #121 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Sunday morning" (picture #219), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

The Marche (market) des Enfants Rouges is the oldest covered market in Paris, having started in the early part of the 17th century. The market, though not particularly large, has stands of most types: meat, seafood, vegetables, cheese, wine, baked goods, flowers, and prepared/hot food. Our assessment from the previous day that the market has a disproportionate number of cooked food stands for its size was accurate. We decided to have part of our lunch at one of them.

After finishing our lunch, we took the subway north of the city to Marche aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt, Paris's largest conglomeration of flea markets. When I say flea market, don't think junk--many of these businesses sell new products or high-quality antiques. Also, nothing is cheap. The prices are the same you'd pay in a regular store.

By the way, I didn't take any photographs in the markets. Di Yin took a lot though; look at hers.

These markets (yes, multiple markets) are spread throughout a maze of streets. They seemed endless. Some markets were along major roads; other entwined through clearly pre-existing alleys; others were in long, straight lanes designed for this purpose. The businesses in these markets came in various forms: stalls, tents, booths, stands, stores within shopping arcades, or members of long rows of ten-foot by ten-foot shops. Clearly the lowest on the totem pole are the guys who stand under a highway overpass, hands full of stuff for sale: sunglasses, watches, jewelry. "Not expensive, not expensive," they call in French.

The low-end venues sell everything, mainly clothing and accessories. The high-end ones mostly sell furniture and home decor. Often these are antiques (from, according to my guidebook, the Second Empire). A couple shops made me gasp due to their density of impressive, ornate, sometimes rococo, chandeliers. I think these were in the Biron Market. In other markets, some shops have North African goods such as hookahs, tajine pots, carpets, and statues.

Di Yin and I both most enjoyed the tangled, uncrowded streets of the Vernaison Market and its eclectic selection. (I spotted some 100-year-old Parisian newspapers, for instance.)

By the way, the population in the neighborhood around Clignancourt is more diverse than in any other region I visited in the city during my trip. That's probably because it's poorer.

After browsing our fill, we took the train back to near our apartment. We decided to walk around part of a neighborhood near us: Les Halles. I took out my camera again. The pictures document our wandering fairly well. On Rue Montorguiel, a high-quality food shop street, we bought ingredients for dinner and came home to cook and eat. Interestingly, it turned out the fruits we bought--peaches and strawberries--were super tasty. Over the next few days, we got to calling the strawberries super-strawberries because they burst with so much flavor that they dominated the taste of whatever they were paired with. They had more strawberry flavor than anything I've bought from the farmers markets in California.

After dinner we headed out again to do some exploring before nightfall. We explored a bit more of Les Halles as night fell and wandered through Ile da la Cite and the Latin Quarter at night. The Latin Quarter was lively and packed with people. Once it got dark, I stopped being able to take pictures. This wasn't a great loss as I knew we explore those areas during the daytime at some point, and there'd be plenty of opportunity for pictures.

Paris: May 13: The Louvre

2011-06-04T14:10:00.000-04:00

I took many pictures this day. Di Yin also took some, though fewer than usual because her camera ran out of batteries and she had to borrow mine every time she wanted to take a picture. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #49 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day 3" (picture #121), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

A bit jetlagged, we awoke and took a nice early-morning stroll to a nearby market. However, at the time we arrived (8:30am), the market wasn't yet open. Nevertheless, we could tell it had a good selection of prepared food stalls and would be a good destination for a meal when they were open. Indeed, a week later we had lunch at the market. But this time, instead, we ate breakfast at a nearby cafe with a nice Parisian atmosphere.

We decided to use our first full day in Paris to go to the Louvre. Partially this was because people say to get to the Louvre around when it opens (and we were already up early), and partially this was because I knew the Louvre is open late on Fridays (this day) and hence we'd have tons of time of see everything we wanted to see.

The Louvre covers art and antiquities from the ancient world up through the mid/late 1800s. (Other museums in Paris cover more recent art.) Yes, that's a lot of time! It's as big as the British Museum or the Met, and as intimidating to do in one day. Its collection especially includes countless Greek, Roman, and Etruscan statues and innumerable European paintings covering many centuries, and also Egyptian artifacts and European decoration arts. And yes, they have the big names you'd expect in paintings: a room of Rembrandts, another of Renoirs, another of Corots.

The Louvre is notable to me because, of all the museums I've visited, it has the best views as one glances out the windows and glimpses the Louvre's external architecture. It's not notable to me for its collection. The type of stuff it shows is not my cup of tea.

I was warned the Louvre would be crowded. I generally agree the warning was right. And this was on a weekday morning in May! I can't imagine what it would be like on a weekend in the height to tourist season. However, when I later got to parts of the Louvre away from its five or so most famous pieces and away from the routes to those pieces, it became more comfortable, reasonably uncrowded like a normal museum. But those masterpieces were crowded! The crowd around the Mona Lisa was so thick that, even though people weren't supposed to use flashes, flashes went off accidentally regularly and the guards had given up trying to correct people.

Incidentally, the Louvre first opened to the public in 1793, making it older than what I thought was the oldest museum, the V&A Museum in London. I later realized a number of museums in Paris were founded at the tail end of the eighteenth century.

I paid for the audio guide but found it icky. The masterpieces tour skips too much, yet doesn't say enough about the pieces it considers. The other pre-programmed tours are actually lists of detailed things to listen to on particular routes. I wish it was easier to find audio details regardless of any selected tour, but the interface for this was clunky. If I was in a particular place (not intentionally following a route), trying to figure out if any of the tours have information on the room or any pieces within it was nearly impossible. To determine if any of the routes passed through a particular area, one had to trace each route on the device one by one, a painstaking process that I only tried once.

Or maybe all this is just rationalization when my main problem was that I found the commentary uninteresting.

Or maybe my poor impression of the guide stems from bitterness--my audio guide froze twice, requiring long treks to the entrance to get it replaced.

I had a much better experience when I finally gave up on the audio guide and walked around with Di Yin. She's a great tour guide.

The Louvre has few informative signs, and practically none are translated into English. Sure, there were laminated handouts in English for each room, but these were a pain to deal with.

We took a mid-day break from the museum for lunch. We walked over the Pont du Carrousel bridge and into the Saint Germain des Pres neighborhood. We ate at Le Petit Saint Benoit.

After lunch, we stopped by the Musee (museum) Eugene Delacroix, mainly because we got free admission with our ticket for the Louvre. Eugene Delacroix is a nineteenth-century painter. This small museum is housed in his three-room apartment and adjacent three-room studio. Di Yin really liked the space. I thought in retrospect the main justification for the visit was not the art but the attractive small garden in the back.

On the way back to the Louvre, we passed many art galleries on Rue de Seine. The density is probably related to being on the left bank yet in close proximity to the Louvre.

Once back at the Louvre, we explored the two current special exhibits. The exhibit on Rembrandt's images of Christ was not often my thing, but the emotionality of Rembrandt's paintings made them engaging. The other exhibit showed Claude Lorrain's drawings, drawings by "the greatest landscape painter of his era" (the 17th century, when landscape painting was starting to get popular in Rome). In this exhibit I discovered I like Lorrain's paintings better than his drawings. (They had a few paintings on display despite the exhibit being focused on his drawings.) Later in the regular collection I spotted one of his paintings and liked it enough to photograph it.

After the temporary exhibits, we went back to exploring the Louvre.

We ended up spending a ton of time in the museum: we arrived shortly after opening (say, 9:20am), left for lunch and other stuff around 1:00pm, returned at 4:00pm, and finally left at 8:20pm. (We were lucky the museum stays open late on Fridays.) Nevertheless, we skipped some rooms including a whole floor of a wing. We also only visited many rooms by walking through them without slowing.

This was the most time I've ever spent in museums in one day. In this case, basically all the time was spent in a single museum. It was too much.

From the museum, we walked through Les Halles on the way home. The area has some large squares with many people hanging out, but it's less appealing than it could be because of the large number of fast food restaurants nearby and consequently the type of people who choose to hang out there. On another day, however, I walked through the area again and decided it wasn't as seedy as it at first appeared. My impression was colored because I just wanted to get home.

We ate at Le Hangar, a cute bistro near our apartment. It felt like a secret place, hidden as it is down what appears to be empty alley and around the corner so as to be concealed from the street. It homey as well: we were served by a mother-daughter pair. There were other waitresses too. As usual, details are in the pictures, but I should say that it was another satisfying meal. We left full but not stuffed.

And thus concluded a more than 14 hour day exploring Paris.

Paris: May 12: Le Marais, part one

2011-06-03T18:36:00.000-04:00

Di Yin and I decided to explore a bit of Paris on the day we arrived. It would help us get on local time. It was a beautiful day. We decided to look around our neighborhood, Le Marais, a bit as we headed for an early dinner.

I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day after we went out exploring (picture #12 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day 2" (picture #49), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

We found a local grocery and, next door, a beautifully-fresh fruit-and-vegetable market. On another day we'd find a supermarket even closer to home. We also stopped by countless bakeries to admire their remarkably attractive pastries. (I say countless because, yes, there were so many of these that I lost count.) A few of these bakeries would supply my pastry breakfasts later in the trip.

We also found a glass sculpture shop: very pretty. I especially liked the mock aquariums: balls of glass with colorful glass fish embedded within. At 300-500 euros, these were the cheapest items on display in this shop! Other shops, such as jewelry shops, were likewise unexpectedly expensive.

On the walk, we stopped by the only remaining medieval cloister in Paris. It was nothing special, as was the art exhibit it was holding (of sculptures of wild cats). The church next door, though with rather nondescript architecture, was worth the stop because someone was playing the organ.

We ended up having dinner at Les Philosophes. Although we didn't know it until after we sat down, the restaurant emphasizes the use of locally grown, sustainably grown, organic ingredients. We enjoyed our meal, and actually ended up eating there two more times during our stay in Paris. See the pictures for details on the meal.

Paris: May 11: En Route To Paris

2011-06-02T10:25:00.002-04:00

Thanks to S providing a lift, getting to the airport was easy. Check-in was also easy.

We killed a bit of time in the airport by viewing an exhibit on Josef Frank (other links: international terminal exhibits, exhibit photos), an Austrian who lived in the middle of the 20th century and designed furniture and textiles, most with nature themes. I took out my camera to take some pictures and get in the habit of taking pictures for Paris. Di Yin also took pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture of Di Yin lying down to get over her jetlag (picture #11), you're done with her pictures for this post. I'll link her later pictures in the following post.

We got to Paris via two flights. The first flight, on KLM, was brutal. There was a large guy in the middle seat next to me; I thought the stewards kept the plane too hot; I couldn't get comfortable (the seat was poorly designed); I found the personal TV frustrating because I had trouble hearing the actors' voices above the background noise (I think the bass-treble balance was off).

We transferred in Amsterdam to our Air France flight to Paris. This flight was shorter and easier.

Upon landing, we transferred to the metro to get to our apartment. We didn't even have to clear customs--apparently the customs we went through in the Netherlands sufficed. Someone on the train played a violin for our entertainment in a style that sounded like a fiddle.

Incidentally, during our stay in Paris we noticed that on trains near tourist sites we'd sometimes be musically entertained ... usually by an accordion!

Our landlord was waiting for us at our apartment. He turned out to be friendly, and the place was nice. By the way, I took pictures of the apartment; I'll post them with the following blog entry.

Di Yin and I took a nap, then headed out exploring.

Paris Overview

2011-06-01T22:50:00.001-04:00

I spent nearly two weeks with Di Yin in Paris in May 2011, leaving the bay area on Wednesday, May 11, and returning on Tuesday, May 24.

I enjoyed my trip.

There is no feature that always comes to mind when I think of Paris. Rather, my memory of Paris is colored by an assortment of facets that each slightly distinguish it from other cities I've visited. These features are French food (more on that later), the people-watching/cafe scene (again, details later), the Seine, and Paris's size.

When I think about Paris, I'll frequently think of the Seine. It's central to the city. One might guess this oft-encountered geological feature would be an obstacle but it's not. Its countless bridges make it easy to cross wherever you are. Furthermore, it's a pleasant place to stroll along. The Seine always has footpaths on both sides of the river. Indeed, there are often multiple walkways on each side, one at water-level and one at street-level higher above. Thus, in contrast to London's Thames, the Seine is prettier, narrower, and much more welcoming to walkers, picnickers, and whatnot-ers.

Transportation
Paris feels like a compact city. I think it feels small because it invites walking. The Seine is a nice place to walk along on your way somewhere, and it's easily found, whether intentionally or not. Also, in Paris areas with large streets and many cars have relatively wide sidewalks. Areas with narrow streets tend to have no traffic so it doesn't matter how wide those sidewalks are.

I think Paris feels compact because the metro stations are close together. Metro stations are placed about five or maybe seven minutes walking apart. No matter where you are, you can get to a station in a couple of minutes and be rapidly on your way to another part of the city. This also means that if someplace we wanted to visit was two or three stops away, we'll often walk it rather than take the train. After all, we're only talking about twenty minutes and, beside, we'll get to enjoy the weather outside and see more of the city this way.

Nevertheless, we regularly used Paris's metro system. It's every bit as complex and comprehensive as London's. My only complaint about the system is that the subway transfers require a lot of walking, especially in stations where more than two lines cross. Indeed, if we were in a major transfer station and simply wanted to transfer to take the other line one stop, we found it more efficient to walk to the next station rather than transfer and take the train.

Trains run often (every couple minutes). Once, we got off a train at the end of the platform farthest from the exit. By the time we walked to the other end of the platform, the next train had arrived.

Some of the metro system lines use trains but others use vehicles that look and feel like trains but have big wheels. Only at certain stations can you manage to see the bottom of the cars and notice the difference. Regardless, for getting on and off metro vehicles, one has to press a button or flip a lever to trigger the doors to open. The vehicles respond to these actions before reaching a complete stop. That is, the doors can open while the train's still slowing down in a station. It's a bit scary.

I also should say that, though Paris is more pedestrian-friendly than any American city, it's not as pedestrian-friendly as Barcelona. Paris also doesn't have anything like Barcelona's Old Town, a whole neighborhood with a ton of personality and a tangled mess of pedestrian-only streets.

Incidentally, Paris has the same bicycle rental system that I spotted in Barcelona, where one can check out a bike from most metro stations and return it at any other bike station. We saw many people on these bikes.

Paris's Look
Paris has the same predominance of grand buildings as London. At first I thought these buildings tended toward Gothic architecture (I made a note regarding this halfway through my trip) but I realized later that it's a false impression--it's simply that the neighborhoods we tended to be in at the beginning of our trip were built in the Middle Ages and hence had lots of Gothic churches. Other areas in Paris have other types of architecture, including grand Federalist or Roman-style buildings (grand colonnades and all that) and churches in a variety of styles.

Paris has the same wrought-iron balconies that I enjoyed seeing everywhere in Barcelona but didn't see much in Rome.

Paris doesn't have London's density of small, cute squares and parks.

The left (south) bank is livelier and more diverse than the right bank, though the right bank isn't a slouch (I'm just making a comparative statement). Likewise, the left bank has more cultural features such as bookstores.

Regarding bookstores, the book industry in Paris is like nowhere else I've been. Virtually all the bookstores in Paris are used bookstores with a disorganized feel that's somehow appealing. They stock old books (not merely "used" books). Furthermore, the handful of new-book bookstores I spotted are on specialized topics (Tahiti, art, anthropology, etc.). I didn't see any large, clean, modern, general-purpose bookstores like Barnes and Noble.

Sometimes we'd see military men in combat fatigues with submachine guns patrolling the streets. This seemed normal to everyone (other pedestrians, the military men) and did not make us nervous in the least.

Food
Di Yin and I enjoyed the food, though I not quite as much as the food in Rome.

My trip to Paris changed my image of French food; I learned that my image of French food as involving complex, heavy sauces is kind of wrong. We ate often in bistros. The dishes we were served let the taste of the ingredients shine through. There was little to no use of spices or seasoning. Di Yin says Paris taught her the appeal of cooking things gently and of cooking things in generous amounts of butter.

In addition to French restaurants, we often saw restaurants serving food from the south coast of the Mediterranean. I mostly mean restaurants serving North African and Middle Eastern food (especially Moroccan, Tunisian, and Lebanese). Given France's colonial presence in these areas, none of this is surprising. We also saw some Greek and Turkish restaurants as well.

What is surprising is the number of Japanese restaurants we spotted. They're pretty common--certainly much more common than I expected--and they looked respectable.

Overall, Paris seems to be a somewhat culinarily diverse city (certainly more so than Barcelona). Though not common, we did notice other cuisines such as Chinese and Indian. I was surprised I didn't see much Vietnamese, as Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos were former French colonies.

Oh, and yes, you can indeed get good bread everywhere. Or at least baguettes: every baguette we had was good. The pastries varied in quality. While I often enjoyed the various pastries I sampled, the croissants, for instance, were not uniformly better than what one can find in the bay area. The handful of good bay area bakeries make better ones than some that I tried in Paris. By the way, savory croissants such as ham and cheese croissants are an American invention--I didn't see a single one in Paris.

Finally, I appreciated that all restaurants have their menus posted outside. It helped us decide where to eat. Also, it turns out this is dependable--it's the law in France.

People Watching
France is on continental Europe's eating schedule, meaning a late lunch, a visit to a cafe for aperitifs in late afternoon, and dinner around eight or nine p.m. at night. This habit of late afternoon drinks (actually, people-watching, as the focus seems to be) appears to be more evolved in Paris than in other European cities (Rome, Barcelona) I've visited.

People-watching is important to Parisians. In late afternoon, sidewalk tables at virtually all cafes we passed would be filled. In America, people sitting in pairs face each other, or at least mostly face each other. In Paris, the pairs sit side by side, each person facing out to the sidewalk to watch the passers-by.

Furthermore, tables inside cafes were universally empty. It's clear the prevalence of late-afternoon aperitifs is not due to the drinks; rather, they're just an excuse to sit and watch the world.

Language
French is the working language. Di Yin spoke French to people and people replied in kind, not attempting to switch back to English. (Maybe Di Yin looks foreign to them, so they didn't know she spoke English.) Even the few times when people later discovered Di Yin speaks English fluently, they were willing to answer Di Yin in French when she spoke French to them. It's clear everyone we talked to was simply more comfortable with French than English.

By the way, between using my Spanish background, recognizing words corrupted into English, and knowing some Latin roots, I could sometimes get the gist of written French (historic plaques, menus, advertisements, etc.). Di Yin of course was much better at this than me.

Miscellaneous
The weather was great. The temperature was in the upper 60s or 70s during our trip. We walked around without jackets. A simple long-sleeve or, sometimes, short-sleeve shirt did fine. The skies were clear most days and, even when they were not, it never rained.

It wouldn't get dark until late (after 9pm), making for long days (sometimes too long) of activities and explorations.

Paris may be as inexhaustible as London and New York City. I'd probably make this comment without the modal caveat ("may") if I could read French. As it is, some of the secondary sights, temporary exhibits, etc. are not fully translated into English and thus might not be worth visiting as an English-only speaker.

A historical fact on the rise and fall of the Jesuits: in 1627, King Louis XIII laid the first stone of a Jesuit church in Paris. In 1764, less than 150 years later, the Jesuits were expelled from the country. How's that for a fall from grace?

Monte Bello Open Space Preserve

2011-05-20T14:48:00.004-04:00

M, on a rare break from medical residency, briefly visited the bay area with her husband J around the weekend of Sunday, May 8, 2011. I attended their wedding two years prior.

I found out two weeks before that M was pregnant. I imagine this was a last-chance trip before they were to have the baby (and thus not be able to travel for a while). It was also probably my last chance to see them without traveling to Chicago.

Di Yin, M, J, an acquaintance of mine whose name I forget, and someone I never met before whose name I also forget all met up to go on a hike. From the few choices I nominated, we selected to hike in Monte Bello Open Space Preserve. It was a great choice--with varying terrain, it was a true sample of bay area nature.

I took a handful of pictures.

As we walked, we talked. I rarely manage to talk on the phone to M and never hear much from/about J. It was nice to catch up with M and J and get the current scoop.

We hiked for about six miles.

After the hike, we drove into town separately, reuniting (along with a few more of M's friends) at the Palo Alto Creamery for dinner.

Los Angeles: May 1: An Indirect Route Home

2011-05-13T20:44:00.003-04:00

After a small snack at home to tide us over, Di Yin and I headed to the day-after-the-wedding brunch at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills. It was a good spread at another fancy, expensive venue. I was impressed they served freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (in addition to fresh orange juice of course). We chatted with all the other guests we'd met the previous night, plus the people in the wedding and the wedding party who were too busy to talk with us the previous day.

After brunch, we began heading home. We drove north on 405 to route 5, but route 5 seemed backed up as it entered the hills so I took the road labeled "14N highway 5 truck detour" under the assumption it would rejoin the 5 later. This was a mistake.

We drove for a while and soon found ourselves in the desert. The landscape was flat, with lots of short, dry grasses and sagebrush, quite a contrast to the green hills one passes through on 5 in the national forest-land north of Los Angeles. We stopped so Di Yin could take pictures of the desert with the San Gabriel mountains in the distance. I wasn't in the mood to take pictures, and didn't end up taking any the entire day. We also passed a field of poppies, the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, as well as multiple orange fields.

At one place we stopped on 138W (on our way back to the 5), we ended up beset by small bugs. We noticed them only after we returned to the car and discovered many on ours pants' legs. We got out, brushed ourselves off everywhere, and got back in. Over the next ten minutes we killed a dozen and a half more that managed to remain on us--that's a sense of how many must've been there originally. Di Yin said they were weevils.

Here are Di Yin's pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #89 in the album). When you see a picture of me in bed, you're done with the pictures from the trip.

Once finally back on highway 5, we headed straight home, stopping for a late dinner in Gilroy (where we discovered a tasty frozen yogurt shop). It appears our detour took an hour longer than the direct route not counting the stops we made to take pictures. Though it was neat to see the desert, I wouldn't have made the trade-off given the choice.

Los Angeles: Apr 30: Encino and Wedding

2011-05-12T22:29:00.000-04:00

This day was allocated to attend a wedding. I took few pictures, mainly because I didn't feel like taking pictures at the wedding. Di Yin took similarly few photos. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #80 in the album). When you've passed the wedding pictures and see another brunch picture (picture #89), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

For breakfast, B, E, Di Yin, and I drove to their local downtown in Encino for brunch at More Than Waffles. Indeed, More Than Waffles serves lots more breakfast items than just waffles, but almost everything is served with a Belgian waffle. And, yes, they make their waffles well.

From the drive, I noticed Encino is a hilly, pretty area filled with large estates (all different) and wide sidewalks. Once back at the house, we took a stroll around the neighborhood and admired the houses and gardening. The weather was the same beautiful weather as the previous day.

As for their house itself, it can rightly be called an estate. B and E invested heavily in the house because they want to raise kids there and eventually grow old there. Everything is 50%-100% larger than a "normal" house. Even the hallways are wider as well. It has four bedrooms plus a "maid's room"/den, a sizable pool, tons of patio plaza pool space, and a huge kitchen (six burner range, large island, large stove). In fact, the pool area reminded me of the pool scene in Octopussy. Admittedly, their pool area isn't as large or extravagant but it gave me the same feeling as the setting in the movie.

I especially liked two features of the house: the plantation shades and the recessed lighting. I hadn't seen many plantation shades, but now I know I like them. As for the lighting, I generally appreciate recessed lighting, but I liked this more than usual because the lights are also skylights. You can't tell by looking at them, but the light coming from the recessed area during the daytime is filtered sunlight. It looks like the lights are on even though they're not.

We hung around the house until it was time to go to the wedding.

Di Yin's college friend B was marrying S in the Calabasas Hills. These hills felt like ranch country. It's almost entirely nature, with cactuses and mountains, and the farmland is bounded by post and rail fences.

The wedding and reception were at Saddle Peak Lodge, a hunter's lodge nestled in the mountains. (This is the Santa Monica chain of mountains, by the way.) A cactus garden served as the immediate backdrop to the ceremony, with the mountains visible beyond.

Ironically (given the setting at the hunter's lodge), there were sushi hors d'oeuvre, plus cocktail shrimp. More apropos, elk was one of the dinner choices. Both Di Yin and I had it. She said it was like seared tuna in the sense of being raw in the center. It tasted meaty, like jerky, but was a really tender version thereof. It came with butternut squash puree, brandied cherries, stuffed mushrooms, and ciopinni onions (I love those).

Along with the main course, we ate asparagus soup, salad, bread pudding, and cake. The salad, made with endive, watercress, and apples, included St. Agur goat cheese, one of the few varieties of blue cheese I like. I didn't like much else about the salad however. On the other hand, I definitely liked the banana huckleberry bread pudding served as dessert.

It was clear the wedding was more for the parents than the couple. Indeed, we talked with one couple who'd only met the bride once or twice and didn't know the groom at all but were there because they're friends of the bride's parents. Also, music and dancing weren't a priority either; the dance floor was small and nevertheless barely used.

After dinner, we enjoyed the photo montage of the bride and groom together. I think more weddings should have one.

Los Angeles: Apr 29: Huntington Library/Museum/Gardens, and Food

2011-05-11T23:51:00.000-04:00

I took many pictures this day. Di Yin did too. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #9 in the album). When you see a picture of us having brunch (picture #80), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

It began with us driving across L.A. to Pasadena. Surprisingly, on 110 near the center of the city, we passed through a series of tunnels. (A hill attempted to block the highway.) Pasadena is pretty, with tons of trees. I say this not in contrast to the rest of L.A.; there's just a lot of trees, period. It's a wealthy area. The residential part of it has fancy single-family houses.

We detoured to the neighboring town, San Marino, for lunch at Julienne. Julienne is in two-block-long commercial street in a residential area. We walked up and down it after lunch. As for lunch, it was very good; for details see the pictures.

From San Marino, we drove to the The Huntington Library/Museum/Garden, passing by/through CalTech on the way.

The Huntington is part botanical garden/park, with many themed gardens. We wandered through many (but not all) of these: the desert garden, the subtropical garden, the rose garden, and the herb garden. They were all very pretty; I took a ton of pictures. The Rose Garden was particularly notable because it was entirely in bloom. It's nicer than Portland's Rose Garden (supposedly world-famous), which I visited last year. We also stopped by the Japanese Garden and the Chinese garden but these were mostly closed.

It was a perfect temperature for strolling slowly with a hat to protect against the sun--a temperature that neither felt warm nor cold on your skin but rather neutral as if it was skin's natural temperature.

After exploring the gardens, we ventured into the Huntington art gallery. It presents European art (mostly eighteenth-century) in the Huntingtons' historic mansion, furnished and decorated according to the period. There was a free audioguide available but we didn't take the time. We were so short on time that we explored only the ground floor of the museum's two floors. We also skipped the American Art Gallery and the gallery housing changing exhibitions, both in other buildings.

We reserved a chunk of time for exploring the Huntington's third major facet: its library. We first explored its collection. Its old books include an old Chaucer, a Gutenberg Bible, a first-edition Paradise Lost, first-quarto and first-folio Shakespeare, early versions of The Life of Samuel Johnson and Gulliver's Travels, Audubon's huge book, various hand-written manuscripts, and much more, including some American documents. For instance, it has some Proceedings of the Continental Congress, a hand-written 1702 treaty between American settlers and the Mohawk Indians, and an original hand-written version of the thirteenth amendment. There was lots of info about each item. The collection reminded me a bit of the British Library (see visit report). Lots of items are the same (Gutenberg Bible, Audubon book, etc.).

We looked at the library's special exhibits. The exhibit on the regency didn't make much sense to me. In contrast, the history of science exhibits were rather good. One presented the history of astronomy through original texts by Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Einstein, Hubble, and others. Another showed the history of biology/medicine through anatomical atlases and many other books, including for instance an early printed edition (sixteen-century) of Hippocrates's sayings. A third room explored the history of light with original texts by Kepler, Faraday, Volta, Newton, and more, and also items such as early light bulbs.

In these history of science exhibits I didn't have anywhere near enough time to read everything I wanted to. We got kicked out because the library was closing. I wonder how much longer we could've stayed in the gardens before being told to leave. (Everything is scheduled to close at the same time, but it looked like no one was patrolling the gardens.)

By the way, Di Yin observed that the organization is so wealthy that not only are its objects of high quality but also is the setting they're presented in. For instance, the astronomy room has constellations painted on the ceiling, the art galleries have period decoration, and the history rooms have numerous animal paintings.

Three hours was too short for the Huntington complex. I probably could spend another three while only seeing things I didn't see before.

After closing, we drove back across L.A. to meet E at his place and began a food crawl! Details are on the pictures.

After the food crawl, we returned to E's, then Di Yin and I left for our other friends B and E to spend the night at their place in Encino.

Los Angeles: Apr 28: To L.A.

2011-05-10T08:12:00.001-04:00

We returned to Los Angeles in late April, this time for a wedding of one of Di Yin's friends. We stayed there from Thursday, April 28, 2011, to Sunday, May 1. This trip didn't change my previous impressions of L.A.; I have nothing to add to that post.

We followed the same route to L.A.--down the 5--as before, though this time it was sunny. Also, this time we didn't stop to enjoy the views (we enjoyed them only from the moving car).

Some observations from the drive down:

We spotted two burning vehicles: a car on highway 152 and a truck on route 5 near the grapevine. The latter burned so hot we felt the heat from it as we passed it three lanes over. Contrast this with the tire tread coincidence from our last drive down.
We spotted the industrial cattle farm that we somehow missed on the previous drive.
Pyramid Lake, just off the 5 in Los Padres National Forest, is pretty. Maybe we'll stop there sometime.

Once in L.A., we detoured to Santa Monica to check my e-mail and to meet a friend of E's, B, to pick up E's keys. We were staying with my friend E that night. B, a TV show editor, seemed like a cool, nice guy; I want to see him more. After meeting B, Di Yin and I headed to E's condo.

There, we relaxed a bit. Then, hungry but lazy, we decided to walk to a restaurant, Nook, near E's condo. It had a long wait; we decided to do take-out. The food we got was good. Di Yin remarked that she appreciates restaurants that use few spices and thereby allow the quality of the ingredients to show through. So do I. For details on the food, see these pictures, the only pictures I took this day.

Di Yin took more pictures during the day. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day one" (picture #9), you're done with her pictures for the day. ("Day one" is the first picture from the following day.) I'll link to her later pictures in the following post.

Eventually E returned home and we chatted for a while before nodding off.

San Bruno Mountain State and County Park

2011-04-26T21:04:00.003-04:00

Wednesday, April 6, 2011, was a beautiful spring day. Tuesday was too, but on Tuesday I didn't get a chance to walk around outside as I'd hoped. I wasn't going to similarly miss getting outside on Wednesday.

I left work early, grabbed Di Yin, and we headed up to San Bruno Mountain County Park / State Park, a large park not far from San Francisco.

We did a stunning hike with views of the bay, the east bay, San Francisco's downtown, the Marin headlands, San Francisco's west-side beaches, and the Pacific Ocean. Because we were more than a thousand feet up, we could see far in every direction. The day's pictures attest. Di Yin also took pictures.

We hiked most of Summit Loop trail and also some of Dairy Ravine trail. We couldn't hike all of Summit Loop trail as we'd planned because one of the creeks was flooded, making that segment impossible to cross.

The most remarkable feature of this mountain park--beside the views of course--is the incredible wind. At times, it was probably above thirty miles an hour. Near the top of the mountain, the wind was so strong that we could lean forward and have it support us in a position that would be unstable without it. Also, the wind was so strong that we could only hear one another if the wind was going in the direction one's voice needed to travel; if the wind was pointing away from the other person, the sound was drowned out and swept away.

Interesting Articles: Q1 2011

2011-04-19T16:40:00.000-04:00

Culture and Media:
* The Formula for a Most-Emailed Story (WNYC's On The Media via NPR). Reports on a study that examined what features make some articles more shared than others. The main factors include the obvious (prominent placement, famous author, usefulness) but also the less obvious (inducing high-arousal emotions, especially awe and anger; also, surprisingness). This pattern holds for every subject area (science, finance, politics, etc.). One caveat, however, that many commenters pointed out: this only measured people using the "e-mail this story" link, not using other ways of sharing articles; this may be an unrepresentative sample of how most people share articles. This story was also reported in the New York Times itself: Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It’s Awesome.

Politics and Psychology:
* Does Metaphorical Framing Really Work? (WNYC's On The Media via NPR). In short, the answer is yes, that how politicians frame a problem influences how people interpret evidence and think about possible solutions. And the effect is surprisingly strong. And people don't know the metaphor has influenced them. There's also some interesting commentary on the failure of the French label (freedom fries, etc.) in this segment.

Culture and Technology:
* Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You (New York Times). A true observation on modern life.

Joseph Grant County Park

2011-04-12T12:35:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, April 2, 2011, I decided to go on a hike in Joseph D. Grant County Park, a huge park east of San Jose. It's the largest park in the county. The temperature was a pleasant sixty-something degrees. I regretted my clothing choice when trekking uphill for long stretches, but when walking downhill I was happy I didn't wear less. I guess it worked out.

The 7.5 mile hike led me up and down grassy rolling hills with pleasing views, as you can tell from the pictures I took. My route took me mainly along Halls Valley Trail, Canada de Pala Trail, and Yerba Buena Trail.

The best views I saw on this trip, however, weren't from the trail at all. Rather, the 8 mile stretch of Mount Hamilton Road leading to Grant Park is about two thousand feet above the valley. From this curvy road, there are great views down onto all of San Jose, the south end of the bay, and even across Silicon Valley to the Skyline mountain range on the other side. I wish I could've taken pictures, but the majority of the road (and especially all the sections with tremendous views) were labeled emergency parking only. :( All I could do was drive slowly and enjoy the vista.

Mar 27: Pismo Beach

2011-04-05T18:50:00.007-04:00

Sunday was a quiet day. We strolled around the hotel, ate a light breakfast (we weren't hungry after gorging ourselves the previous night), then drove to town to stroll around Pismo Beach itself. We walked on the boardwalk and down the pier (which was probably a quarter of a mile long). We didn't see much of the town because Di Yin's legs were still tired from LACMA two days previous so she didn't want to walk much. From what I saw, it looks like a classic California beach tourist town. It has a type of small town charm that feels old-fashioned, reminiscent of an earlier generation of beach communities. Before we left we grabbed a light lunch, then headed north on 101 toward home.

I took an assortment of shots this day, including a full tour of the hotel and our suite.

Di Yin also took pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #147). If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of our apartment's courtyard, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are viewing pictures I already linked to.

Los Angeles: Mar 26: The La Brea Tar Pits, Soda Pop, BBQ, and more

2011-04-04T10:42:00.004-04:00

After breakfast at our hotel, we decided to use the morning to visit The La Brea Tar Pits. Funnily, these turned out to be next to LACMA, where we were the previous day.

As usual, I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #103). When you see a picture of the Pismo Lighthouse Suites (our hotel) in the morning (picture #147), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

The Tar Pits, twelve thousand to forty thousand years old, are the world's richest deposit of ice-age fossils. We wandered around the grounds, finding them a bit stinky (which added to the ambiance), and explored the associated museum. Both were mildly entertaining.

As we walked by the tar pits, I observed that the people inside the nearby LACMA building were viewing art, mainly created by now-dead beings, while we were viewing fossils, another product of dead things. Furthermore, most of the art is made of oil, a by-product of the breakdown of animal matter; meanwhile, the fossils are also a by-product of the breakdown of animal matter.

We strolled through the sculpture garden between the tar pits and LACMA, then entered the Page Museum, which is basically a natural history museum displaying fossils from and information about the tar pits. I learned that over a million bones from six hundred species have been recovered from the tar pits, including animals such as mammoths (with a hip bone more than five feet across), mastodons, dire wolves, horses (an extinct variety of Western horses), and saber-tooth cats. Enough animals got buried that paleontologists have samples of bones from the same species at different ages.

First thing in the museum, we watched the museum's hokey introduction cartoon video. It was overly dramatic with an over-the-top plot, using expressions such as "it was becoming another death trap" and "and then a pack of dire wolves appear." In contrast, the video we watched before we left, a behind-the-scenes movie, was quite well done.

We also played with an interactive exhibit that showed how hard it is to pull oneself out of tar.

After the museum, we headed to visit a baby shower / birthday party for some friends (C and J) of Di Yin. (This was nominally the excuse for our trip to L.A.) They live in a hilltop house by Eagle Rock in Glendale. The house is nicely designed, renovated by a previous artist tenant, and has amazing views of the surrounding valley. Sorry I didn't take pictures. I could live in a house like it.

After staying at the party for a while, we bid our adieu and headed to a place I've always wanted to visit in L.A.: Galco's Soda Pop Stop. The shop is conveniently in Glendale, so we decided to stop by. It's basically a fun market devoted entirely to soda, also with a good selection of beers and unusual alcohol. I bought a lot: lemongrass soda, rhubarb soda, cucumber soda, honey wine, Asian pear sake, and four kinds of hard cider by a manufacturer (Woodchuck) that we tried and liked in Tarrytown but I hadn't seen since.

With bottles clinking in our trunk, we drove on 101 north to Pismo Beach, the town where we were to spend the night. 101 along the coast passes green hills sweeping into the ocean. We also drove along Santa Barbara's waterfront, pier, and beachy park lined with palm trees. We took 152 west from Santa Barbara, which goes through Los Padres National Forest and a vast mountain range. One bridge made us feel like we were driving in the sky. Along the drive, rain showers came and went, and were sometimes heavy. On the other side of the range, we weaved by some hills with trees that seemed artistically scattered. I later noticed these hills were used as grazing lands, and the trees were probably placed so they're spaced evenly enough that the cows wouldn't neglect any of the grass, even on a hot summer day.

Once in Pismo Beach, we checked into our hotel, the Pismo Lighthouse Suites, researched nearby restaurants, and headed out to eat. Our hotel, by the way, was remarkably nice. I'll post more about it in the next day's pictures.

We ended up eating an enormous, terrific dinner at Alex's BBQ (technically Alex Bar-B-Q). Details are in the pictures.

Los Angeles: Mar 25: Santa Monica, LACMA, and Korean (x2)

2011-04-03T11:57:00.001-04:00

This was a big day, during which time I took lots of pictures. The pictures dive into a lot more detail on some things that this post mentions only in passing. Di Yin also took many pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #46). When you see a picture of a Korean taco truck (picture #102), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

First, we headed down to our hotel's breakfast. As we sat in the large eating area over our basic breakfast spread, we planned our day. Then, off we went to Santa Monica.

We explored the Santa Monica pier, its beach, and its amusement park. It was a beautiful day to be outside, if a little cold. I learned the government tried to demolish the pier in the 1970s, but popular opposition to the plan saved it.

We wandered through downtown Santa Monica. I'd previously wandered up and down Santa Monica's main pedestrian street, 3rd Street, before. It's still nice.

We grabbed a huge lunch at Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery in Santa Monica. The sandwiches were tasty enough that we finished them, and so filling that we didn't need to eat dinner until after 8:00pm. It's an extensive deli. In the deli counter cases, I counted seven types of pasta salad and a huge selection of antipastos including four different artichoke ones. Photographs were prohibited inside. :( I guess I can kind of understand: the place was so bustling that it would be crazy if people were stopping at random places to take pictures.

After lunch, Di Yin and I wandered into my company's secondary satellite office in Santa Monica. I knew we had a satellite office in Santa Monica but I didn't know we have a second one. There we met a friend, B, who gave us a short tour.

Finally, off we were to a museum. On the way there, we by chance drove through Little Ethiopia. It has lots of Ethiopian restaurants on its main block. Ah, the diversity of L.A.

We spent the rest of the day at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Don't judge it by its name--it's a shockingly extensive museum that's worthy of any top tier international city. It covers European paintings from the 15th through 20th centuries (including religious art), American art (with a focus on California), Latin American art (covering all eras) (the western Mexico sculptures were especially neat), Pacific islands sculptures/carved art, Luristan art (middle east), Islamic Art, South Asian sculpture (tons of them: Hinduism, Buddhism), including Tibet, Japanese art (drawings, sculpture, ceramics, scrolls, screens), and Korean art. There are Assyrian reliefs, sketches by Grosz, and various Diego Rivera pieces. There are also plates, sculptures, relics, and even axe heads in the art of the ancient world section. *take a breath* Many styles are represented: impressionist (some nice Picassos, Monets, Cezannes, and Renoirs), cubism, the Bauhaus school of art (Klee, Kandinsky), German expressionism, abstract (some of which I like), modern, contemporary (lots of Warhols, Koones), surrealist, and even what's known as bay area figuration. I can still recognize Renoirs from across the room. Also, I noticed Rembrandt is good at 3-d-looking portraits.

Basically the museum has everything from the world over except Chinese art. Di Yin, who given her background and her research knows about the state of museum collections, says that the LACMA has one of the best Latin American collections in the U.S., one of the best near east collections, and also one of the best (and only?) Korean collections. Indeed, LACMA has a whole wing of Korean art, and I can't remember seeing much space devoted to Korean works in any other museum.

The museum is spread over multiple buildings and encompassed by a nice outdoor space. People relaxed there in the sun a la how I saw people relax at the Getty Center.

We also visited the special exhibits: a photography one on Larry Fink, one on human nature, and one on European fashion 1700-1915. The last, covering both men and women, had interesting labels explaining the evolution of style, how technology made fabrics easier to create and manipulate, and how fashion responded to the need of practicality. Regarding the first point, example excerpt from a label: "from the 1860s, skirt volume shifted to the posterior." :) I found the section of the fashion exhibit that discussed textiles and such less interesting.

We spent 4.5 hours in the museum. It has few informational plaques except room-level descriptions; most of the time was spent viewing things, not reading.

Incidentally, Di Yin observed that all the museum guards are Filipino.

It was a good thing we ate a big, late-ish lunch. By now it was 8pm or so and we weren't yet particularly hungry. For the first part of dinner, we drove downtown to rendezvous with one of Kogi's Korean taco trucks. On the way there, we happened to pass through Koreatown. The taco truck was a good (tasting) stop. For part two, we headed back into a different part of Koreatown for KyoChon Korean Fried Chicken. It was delicious--another success! We drove through yet another part of Koreatown on the way back to the hotel. K-Town is large!

Los Angeles: Mar 24: To L.A.

2011-04-02T16:18:00.002-04:00

After eating breakfast at work, we started our drive to L.A. in intense rain. After an hour the rain lessened, allowing us to enjoy the views of green hills near 101 and especially along 152. The wind took longer to let up; it jerked the car around a bit. Incidentally, despite the dampness, Gilroy smelled strongly of roasted garlic.

On the drive on 101, we spotted (and thankfully avoided) a tire tread in the fast lane. Then, 30 miles later, we spotted another one in the shoulder. Then, by a pull-off on 152 an hour later, we found lots of shredded tires. How odd.

The sights off 152 were so pretty that we stopped four times, three times in view of the San Luis Reservoir. This is when I started taking photos. Our last stop was at the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area's Romero Overlook Visitors Center.

Incidentally, Di Yin took more pictures than me this day. The link goes to her first picture from her album for this trip. When you see a picture of me taking a picture of a parking garage machine (picture #46) or of Santa Monica's pier (picture #47), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

Because of the clouds and lighting, we enjoyed the sights not only on highway 152 but along the whole drive. Indeed, as Di Yin said, "It's a good day to drive to L.A. The landscape is fully dramatized."

Once in L.A., we checked into our hotel, Hollywood Hotel, which was perfectly decent.

We headed out again to meet our friends B and E for dinner. The rain returned, dangerously so.

B and E selected Palmeri, an Italian restaurant near them. It was good. I appreciated that the chef was light-handed (i.e., not heavy-handed) in making the dishes. Sorry I didn't take pictures at dinner.

We had good seared scallops and a roasted potato and sausage dish as appetizers. I also tried the fried zucchini flower special; it was zucchini flowers stuffed with lots of creamy cheese, deep-fried, and served in a bowl made from fried parmesan. The parmesan complemented the flowers well, but I was nevertheless disappointed with the dish--I'd hoped for a lightly fried dish of zucchini flowers, not a rich, cheesy deep-fried thing. (I should've tried the other special which also sounded intriguing: a salad of finely sliced raw artichoke.) Di Yin tried the beet salad, which was presented in an unusual form: beets were chopped and pressed in a mass a la pate or cake.

For mains, I had the tortelli, a delicious, light pasta stuffed with pork (technically amatriciana) and tossed with a bit of spinach and asparagus. Di Yin's lasagna special was similarly light. B's pillowy gnocchi special was dressed with truffle oil.

Our waiter was humorous, and gently ribbed us.

Di Yin observed the restaurant was filled with "pretty L.A. people" and wondered if the whole city was like this. We also spotted a group that looked like mobsters.

After dinner we walked to Yogurtland, one of L.A.'s many joints that sell frozen yogurt by the ounce. I tried and liked the vanilla. The pistachio was fairly good too. The devil's food cupcake batter flavor was really chocolatey.

Los Angeles Overview

2011-04-01T15:56:00.002-04:00

Di Yin and I drove to Los Angeles on Thursday, March 24, 2011. We left L.A. on Saturday, March 26, and, after stopping in a central Californian town for the night, returned to the bay area on Sunday, March 27.

I've been to Los Angeles four times before: once on a road trip with B to visit E (2002?) (unrecorded), once with S and Oj in 2005, once on a company trip to visit Disneyland in 2008, and once to again visit E in 2009.

Los Angeles is a city a la how the bay area is a city. (Notice how I said the bay area--as a whole--not San Francisco.) Much of L.A. feels like dense suburbia, not like a city per se. There are corner strip malls packed everywhere. There are also both squat apartment buildings and single-family houses, all placed together with often little space between. Furthermore, Los Angeles is huge, probably the size of the whole bay area.

Los Angeles has a remarkable diversity of tasty food. From my experiences this trip, I have no doubt one can find a good version of any cuisine, any dish, that one wants.

However, my main memory of L.A. will be its drivers. They're aggressive; they drive too fast and don't signal. This really came home to me the times I had to drive in heavy rain (unusual for L.A., I think)--people sped past me as if there was perfect visibility, while I was driving ten (or more) under, straining to see out the windshield. The lane markings practically disappeared.

L.A. tried to kill me twice! Both times were as cars in one lane that were stopped (because someone ahead in the lane was waiting to make a left) jumped into my lane without looking or signaling. Loud honking and rapid braking ensued.

Also, L.A. has many red-light runners. I don't mean the typical thing that when a light turns red the first car will sneak across. Indeed, L.A. is filled with unprotected lefts, but I'm not complaining about red-light runners for those--you need to run those if you're going to get anywhere. But the runners in L.A. take it to extremes, with three or four cars crossing against the red to make a left. This even rubs off on how drivers go straight through intersections; sometimes, cars clearly enter it after the light has changed.

Potholes are a pretty bad problem in L.A., more so than anywhere else I recall. We found a couple so deep (six inches) that they're shocking, and they jostle the car dangerously.

Overall, it felt more dangerous driving in L.A. than anywhere else I've ever driven.

Carmel

2011-03-30T15:51:00.004-04:00

On Thursday, March 17, 2011, Di Yin and I decided to take the day off work to head down to Carmel. I've been there three times before (1, 2, 3). I wanted to get away and relax and read in a different setting.

We chose to go to Carmel this day because the forecast predicted better weather (highs 58 or 60 and sunny) than any other day during the coming week. The weather was great--even better than we planned for/expected! It was beautifully clear and warmer than expected. I sat comfortably in the sun on the beach without a jacket. Also, I got to watch the large, crashing waves. (There was a high-surf advisory.)

I enjoyed the drive to Carmel. After San Jose, 101 passes many green hills. We accidentally took 152 to the coast rather than 156 as would've been faster. Thus, the trip took longer than I'd hoped, especially the last leg as we came out of the mountains. Nevertheless, the long route was alright: 152 travels through an attractive, lichen-covered forest. Also, once we hit the coast, we got to see what artichoke plants look like. (I had forgotten.)

We did an expected assortment of activities in Carmel: sat on the beach, ate lunch in a restaurant, walked a bit around town, and sat in a cafe, whereupon I returned to the beach to read more and Di Yin remained in the cafe. Later reunited, we sat on a library bench for a bit, then walked along the beach and then through residential neighborhoods (commenting on houses along the way), at which point it was getting to be late afternoon and the right time to head home.

I took a few pictures on this trip.

Musee Mecanique, and chocolate

2011-03-23T15:47:00.001-04:00

On a rainy Tuesday, March 15, 2011, I left work in early afternoon, grabbed Di Yin, and headed to the city to visit the Musee Mecanique.

I took pictures on this outing.

On the way to the museum, while driving down Embarcadero in the city we spotted a chocolatier, Tcho, in one of the old buildings on the waterfront. What an unusual place for a chocolate factory! We decided to stop. We explored it briefly--the factory space was roped off so there wasn't much to see beside the small shop--sampled a few flavors, bought bite-sized nuggets of a few flavors we didn't get to sample, and continued onward.

After driving a bit more, we parked and navigated the tourist shops and restaurants along Fisherman's Wharf until we found the museum.

The museum houses a wide variety of mechanical devices ranging from simple shows (e.g., put money in to cause a model of a man to dance for you) to more complex interactive devices (e.g., use a lever to control the direction and strength with which a model golfer hits a ball, trying to get it in the golf hole) to modern arcade machines. It's a neat place, like a really-old-fashioned arcade. Soon after entering, I realized there were many games I wanted to play and machines I wanted to activate. I stuck a twenty in the change machine.

Although chock full of antiques, it's hard to call this a museum. Few machines have informational signs about them. There is a number of large (poster-sized) information signs scattered through the building, but these aren't connected to the actual objects in the museum. Rather, they're mostly about the history of amusement (as in the history of amusement parks, world's fairs, etc.). In fact, the vast majority of the signs never mention mechanical machines like these. It's almost like the big signs and the physical artifacts aren't connected! Some of these signs had a local bent, describing large recreational facilities on the west side of San Francisco. These are now all defunct, but learning about their rise, their heyday, and their fall was interesting.

Regardless, the focus of the museum is clearly on the machines themselves. For details, refer to the pictures--I took a lot in order to capture the breadth of the collection.

Interesting Articles: Q4 2010

2011-03-14T15:36:00.004-04:00

Investing:
* I spotted a Vanguard Blog post, Emerging markets: Innocents abroad?, that points out that something I always assumed was true is actually a fallacy: that emerging markets' higher rates of growth naturally mean their stock markets provide higher rates of return. The Vanguard Research article, Investing in emerging markets: Evaluating the allure of rapid economic growth (PDF), has the argument that there need not be a relationship between these two things. Indeed, it has evidence that there is no correlation between them!

Medicine:
* Sugar Pills Help, Even When Patients are Aware of Them (ABC News). The placebo effect is even more powerful than previously thought.

Media and Social Change:
* The Future of Gaming (WNYC's On The Media via NPR). Beginning at 4:35 in this segment, two enthusiastic speakers present their views on how video games can change people and change the world for the better. It's a powerful vision. I hope it comes to pass.

Cultural History:
* Fallon and Timberlake give rap history lesson (NBC Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) (copy on youtube). Okay, this isn't an article and not really intellectual in any way (unless you want a pastiche/history of hip-hop music), but it cracked me up and I wanted to save the link for posterity.

Picchetti Ranch Open Space Preserve

2011-03-14T12:33:00.002-04:00

On Friday, March 3, 2011, Di Yin and I went on a short hike in Picchetti Ranch Open Space Preserve. I didn't take pictures, but Di Yin took a goodly number.

It was a nice hike, cool (60s) and clear. We hiked through plains, forests, and by gullies. Occasionally we got glimpses of the nearby Steven's Creek Reservoir and the more distant bay. The two most notable aspects of the hike were the sporadic views of the exposed mountainside of a nearby quarry--Di Yin called this a dystopian vista--and the peacocks and roosters by Picchetti Ranch itself. (Picchetti Ranch is a small, historic winery in the preserve; it has various animals running around its historic buildings.)

New York City: January 2011

2011-02-07T15:09:00.002-05:00

From Friday, January 14, 2011, through Saturday, January 22, 2011, I went to New York for reasons that shall remain undocumented. I visited Di Yin and her parents, staying at their apartment in Forest Hills, Queens.

During the visit, I always ate at their house, eating Di Yin's mom's home cooking, which was definitely good stuff but she always cooked too much. Eating with Di Yin's dad is funny--no matter how long we sit at the table, he often forgets to eat.

Before my flight to New York City, I had time to wander around the part of SFO's Museum in Terminal 3. The main exhibit in this terminal was Second Chances: Folk Art Made from Recycled Remnants. It was neat: wire sculptures, dresses made from Tootsie Roll or Mary Jane candy wrappers, a chair made by weaving together aluminum from cans, and duck decoys made from painted milk cartons and cardboard.

My flight to New York was one of the easiest flights I ever took. I barely felt the landing. I grabbed a taxi to the apartment. The taxi had a GPS in it so I could watch where the driver went and make sure he took a reasonable route. I wonder if these are standard in taxis nowadays. (I generally don't ride taxis.)

Di Yin and I flew home to California in first class, perhaps the second time in my life that I've ever been in first class (and the first time that I paid for it). I was looking forward to the 180-degree recline seats, but the airline swapped the plane out at the last minute and I ended up with normal business class seats: spacious but not much of a recline. Ah, well. :(

At least we got good food. In fact, the airline even gave us a printed menu. My meal included: mixed nuts, shrimp accompanied by soba noodles, a salad (choice of dressing), bread (choice of type of roll), an entree (four choices; I selected the cheese ravioli in tomato cream sauce; the entree turned out to be lighter than I expected), and an ice cream sunday (choice of topping). The last was enormous and too much to finish.

San Jose Museum of Art

2011-01-27T21:08:00.003-05:00

After brunch on Saturday, January 8, 2011, I drove down to San Jose to see the San Jose Museum of Art. I figured if I explore museums in other cities, I should explore them when I'm in the bay area as well.

I took some pictures on this excursion.

I first visited the special exhibit on Leo Villareal. He builds luminous animated light sculptures. Some look like softly changing abstract paintings, others like the vision test for blind spots, and still others evolve like Conway's Game of Life. Some of his pieces are mesmerizing.

The museum also had a regular exhibit on photography and an exhibit of photographs connecting the viewer with people/things one doesn't ordinarily see. There was also an exhibit of modern art exploring life and breathing. I enjoyed more, however, the exhibit on art with a retro look. It included things from pedal-powered juicers to a video of a man in Turkey using bagpipes to inflate a flat tire. For this exhibit's highlights, see the text in the pictures.

Also, there was a tiny, neat exhibit in the museum's cafe about stroboscopes, high-speed cameras that can capture events such as bullets through apples.

Overall, I found the museum disappointingly small for such a large city. It effectively has only five large galleries. I spent a bit over an hour in it. I saw some neat stuff though (and quite of a bit of non-neat stuff).

Because my visit was faster than I expected, I trotted over to The Tech Museum, kitty-corner across a park. I wandered around the outside, looked at the brochures for its advertised exhibits, examined a map, and browsed the gift shop, but decided not to pay the entry fee to see the displays. I headed home.

Maine late-December 2010

2011-01-07T16:48:00.001-05:00

After leaving Chicago on Tuesday, December 28, 2010, I stayed with my parents in Maine until January 2011, when I could move into my new apartment in California. I flew to California on Sunday, January 2, 2011.

Nothing much happened during my time in Maine. I didn't take any pictures. I mostly spent the days at the mall taking advantage of post-Christmas sales to restock my wardrobe. The most exciting part of this visit was Sunday, the day I attempted to return to the bay area.

Sunday
The flight I booked was supposed to take me from Boston to Chicago (with a brief stop there but no transfer) to Los Angeles to San Jose. But not everything went as planned. My Boston flight left late because someone who checked a bag didn't get on the plane. It took the baggage clerks half an hour to remove the baggage, find and remove the person's item, and reload the baggage. Then, because we landed late in Chicago, Southwest re-arranged the plane assignments so I had to transfer for my continuation flight to Los Angeles, which was now ninety minutes delayed. After I boarded that flight, it was then further delayed by another thirty minutes while we waited for baggage to load. The baggage carriers must have been short-handed in Chicago; there was only one loading baggage onto our flight instead of the usual two. Meantime, the captain entertained us by running a name-that-song contest over the announcement system. :) He'd play stuff from his ipod and the first person to identify the band would either get a fresh McDonald's cookie or a free alcoholic drink.

Eventually, we landed in Los Angeles under heavy rain. Obviously I missed the flight I was supposed to be on (which was scheduled to leave more than an hour earlier). I got myself rebooked on the next flight to San Jose, a flight on which I had to sit next to a sick baby. Luckily, after coughing a while, the baby slept most of the flight.

Finally in San Jose, I picked up my baggage and took a shuttle to my new apartment to meet my new landlords. They and the apartment are nice. The apartment in particular surpasses the expectations I formed from looking at the pictures.

This trip may sound like a horrible day, but things could've gone much worse: I might've not been able to check my bags originally (the self-help check-in line at Boston was so long that I thought there was a chance I'd miss the bag cut-off time; obviously I didn't), my bags might've been misplaced during the complicated journey, or I could've been stranded in Los Angeles. (When I talked to a gate agent in Chicago after I realized I'd be missing my flight from L.A. to San Jose, she said all the later flights to San Jose were fully booked. Being stranded in L.A. was a distinct possibility in my mind.)

Earlier Week
After eating relatively large, heavy meals in restaurants with my grandma, upon our return to Maine my parents and I wanted lighter meals. Hence we mostly ate at home.

On Wednesday for lunch I had leftover red chili chicken rice. For dinner we ate scallops (that tasted metallic) in a butter sauce with onions, tomatoes, and garlic, and served over pasta.

On Thursday, I made myself a turkey and avocado sandwich for lunch. For dinner we ate pork chops with an apple-onion gravy, roasted brussels sprouts, roasted mushrooms, and leftover pumpkin pie (which apparently freezes well!).

On Friday, New Year's Eve, I had a turkey and bacon sandwich for lunch. Our large dinner spread included brisket, kugel, potato pancakes, peas, carrots, and, for dessert, brownies.

Saturday lunch was leftovers from previous meals. Dinner was a roasted chicken from Market Basket, plus an Ethiopian cabbage, potatoes, and carrots dish that I made. As for dessert, my mom had made three different types of brownies. We had a brownie tasting! :)

Chicago December 2010

2010-12-29T11:34:00.000-05:00

I meant to spend Sunday, December 19, 2010, through Sunday, December 26, in Chicago with my parents, my grandma, and (for some of the time) my aunt S. We were there to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday (!) and Christmas. Thus, we spent most days hanging around the condo, not doing much other than being in each others' presence. At times I tried to work remotely using my cell phone as a modem--this worked surprisingly well.

I stayed in Chicago two extra days, through Tuesday, December 28. A blizzard on the east coast on the 26th caused our flight to the east coast (to Boston) to be cancelled.

The weather in Chicago was gentle during our entire stay: various minor snowstorms, mild cold (30s).

We generally ate either in the condo or at whatever restaurants my grandma was willing to tolerate. Here's the list:
19th dinner: Macaroni Grill (also with grandma's nephews and nieces) (I had the pasta milano, which was so garlicky I could barely eat it)
20th dinner: Outback Steakhouse
21nd lunch: Cheesecake Factory (the usual eggplant mozzarella sandwich and kobe beef burger)
22nd lunch: Pita Inn (without grandma) (the usual lamb pita)
23rd lunch: Portillo's (I had a grilled vegetable sandwich)
23rd dinner: Thai takeout and Chinese takeout (forgot the names of the restaurants, and what we ate isn't important)
24th: didn't leave the condo
25th (Christmas dinner): Johnny's (I had ribs)
26th dinner: India House (vegetables!: spinach and mustard greens, cabbage and spices, tandoori roti)
27th lunch: a Chicago-style pizza place (I forget the name). It was okay. Even my parents admit that it wasn't as good as it should be. They've ordered from this place before and thought it was good before.
28th lunch: Kentucky Fried Chicken

Flying east on Tuesday, December 28, was easier than I expected. Grandma drove us to the train station. We took a train to the dedicated airport bus to the airport tram to our terminal. Our flight's airplane was changed at the last minute to a 777 that just arrived from Shanghai! That meant there were many more seats than originally allocated, and we got upgraded to premium economy. :) I bet you I know why they used a larger plane: due to the numerous cancelled flights to the east coast, 150 people flew stand-by on the flight!

Once in Boston, baggage claim took a while so we missed the bus we wanted to take and had to wait for the next one an hour later. That bus--a pleasant ride on C&J--dropped us off at the bus station in Maine around midnight. We were anxious about cleaning off the car from the large east coast snowstorm, but I guess it didn't hit Maine much--there was nothing to clean! :) We were relieved.

Incidentally, in the Chicago airport, I discovered I like the smoothies I make better than Jamba Juice's--Jamba Juice's smoothies taste too sweet for me nowadays.

Maine mid-December 2010

2010-12-23T18:21:00.001-05:00

I returned to the states from London on Wednesday, December 15, 2010. I stayed with my parents until Sunday, December 19, when we all boarded a flight to Chicago to visit my grandma. Di Yin, who returned to the states via New York on the 15th, came up to Maine on the 16th to stay with me and my parents until the trip to Chicago.

Sorry, I didn't take any pictures during this visit to Maine.

I didn't do much during these couple of days other than to rest and recover from the flu I caught the previous weekend. Thus, we ate at home a lot. Here are my notes:

On Thursday, we had bean soup for lunch and quite a spread for dinner: lamb chops, kugel, potato pancakes, and vegetables. I had pumpkin pie for dessert.

On Friday, for lunch Di Yin made us all sandwiches of fried pork, bok choy, and cilantro on baguette. Di Yin also cooked dinner: udon noodle soup, plus more pork, plus her oyster sauce eggplant dish that I love (this time it included pork). We sometimes ate the eggplant straight and sometimes ate it on toast. For dessert, we split some baked goods (a chocolate cake, almond macaroons) that Di Yin brought from Clear Flour in Boston. I was reminded again that although it's a shockingly expensive bakery, it's nevertheless worth the price. It's certainly the best bakery in New England.

On Saturday, we headed to a pizza joint, La Festa Brick & Brew, in Dover. I keep thinking this is the misspelled name of a Mexican restaurant, but it's correct. The decor feels like Round Table. The restaurant sells pizza by the slice in a large variety of styles. The pizzas are made in a brick oven. I tried the plain cheese, the bbq chicken, and I think something else, along with the (intense) garlic knots. The pizza, made in a doughy style, was respectable.

Afterwards, my parents showed Di Yin and me the most remarkable place in Dover: an amazing waterfall and rapids in downtown Dover! They're near an old mill. It's a shocking sight. We heard it before we saw it. I wish I had my camera. I'd have photographed especially the rocks with ice crystals that looked like fractals.

By the way, I looked for pictures of the waterfall on the web. Of the few I found, fewer still were taken during the winter, and none show the ice crystals. I would've been the first person to visually record the phenomenon! But I did not... :(

For dinner, we had more pork, eggplant, and another vegetable soup from Di Yin.

London: Dec 12-15: Sick Last Days (Kew, Chiswick, Flying Home)

2010-12-18T08:28:00.001-05:00

I was sick with the flu my last few days in London, from Sunday, December 12, 2010, until I left on Wednesday, December 15. As such, I didn't get to do any of my regular outings. I also stayed home from work. In addition, I missed my company holiday party. I didn't even bother bringing my camera on the limited things I did do. This entry is the abbreviated, picture-less notes about my final days in London.

Sunday
Our big activity on Sunday was switching apartments because we didn't have our apartment reserved for the final few days of our stay in London. Luckily, Di Yin has a friend in London, A, who let us crash with her and her husband for those days. In fact, during most days we had their townhouse to ourselves--A had already left London for the holidays and her husband left the day after we moved in.

On Sunday, we dragged our luggage (dragged is the operative word) across London to Kew, near Kew Gardens (which I still haven't visited). Their townhouse was cozy. Also of note are its great appliances. It has one of the best gas stoves--powerful flames with even heating--that I've ever used. One day I made an omelette without trying. (This should also be taken as a compliment to their pans.) The townhouse also has a spacious dishwasher and heated towel bars.

The neighborhood, however, leaves something to be desired. There's not much in it. There's even less in it than in Southfields (!), the area in the suburbs that we lived in during the summer of 2009.

We met A's husband S for dinner at a local restaurant/pub, The Inn. I ordered the night's special, pheasant, for which my reaction was meh. I tried Di Yin's and S's food too; their dishes were a little better but still only okay.

Monday
On Monday, lacking any food in the place we were staying in, I dragged my sorry self along with Di Yin to a restaurant about ten minutes up the road. The restaurant, Kew Greenhouse Cafe, was adorable. It's over a hundred years old and family owned. Though inside had lots of character (art from local artists on the walls, funky trinkets hanging from the ceiling, and lots of plants), we decided to eat in the glassed-off patio/greenhouse, a leafy, garden-like space with small tables and, naturally, also lots of plants. I ordered the English breakfast and, after a while, managed to eat most of the toast, the tomato, the mushrooms, and a bit of the eggs. I had enough trouble with those; hence, I avoided the meat.

For dinner, we cooked and ate in the townhouse.

Tuesday
On Tuesday, I ate lunch at the townhouse we were staying in.

In the evening, we headed two underground stops northeast to the town of Chiswick. There, were ate at Cote, a U.K. French brasserie restaurant chain. It's a cute bistro. I had a good (pureed) mushroom soup and, as a main course, a French take on fish and chips. (It looked fancy. :> ) Both the fish and chips were remarkably fresh, and the tartar sauce was tasty as well. I think the fish and fries were unsalted, but that may just have been my illness speaking. We arrived early enough to do the early-bird set menu, making the restaurant a notably good deal for London.

After dinner, we strolled for a spell on Chiswick High Road. It's a long high street--we walked for a while in both directions and didn't see the end of it--and fairly nice. I appreciated the band of trees lining the sidewalks. There were definitely more trees here than on most high streets. They made strolling (even in the cold and dark while sick) more pleasant.

Wednesday
On Wednesday both Di Yin and I flew back to the states (she to New York, me to Boston). We shared a taxi to the airport even though my flight left a few hours before hers.

On my flight, I had an aisle seat at the end of a middle row of four seats where the middle seats were empty. I spread out, making the flight more enjoyable. Furthermore, Virgin Atlantic was willing to put my dinner on hold and heat it up when I asked for it. (I did this because I was sick and wanted to time my meal in order to better manage my blood sugar.) By the way, the food was pretty good.

I watched lots of tv and a movie (Toy Story 3). Virgin has a pretty good selection of videos. I listened to podcasts when my eyes got tired. (I didn't want to sleep much because staying awake would help me get onto east coast time.)

Neat observation: my flight left a bit before sunset and kept up with the setting sun most of the way.

London: Dec 11: Imperial War Museum

2010-12-17T09:03:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, December 11, 2010, Di Yin and I headed across the Thames to the Imperial War Museum, a place she wanted to visit on our first trip to London but only now got around to visiting.

I took pictures.

The museum's lobby, overflowing with military vehicles, reminded us of the Air & Space Museum.

We spent a while in the special exhibit on The Ministry of Food, about food and rationing and production during WWII. The modest exhibit mostly comprised photos and posters (mostly propaganda ones such as "dig for victory" promoting growing vegetables), accompanied by wall labels of quotes and statistics and also short propaganda films. It was only about eating, getting food to, and growing food in Britain, nothing about the front lines. I learned a couple things at the exhibit. For instance, rationing lasted from 1940 through 1954! Kids received special dispensation not just of orange juice but also of cod liver oil. There were communal eating places during the war known as "British restaurants" that were designed so that people can go there and eat without worrying about rationing cards.

We also glanced through the museum's section on war art, and wandered through the exhibit on WWII through children's eyes (evacuation, etc.).

There was one other exhibit I wanted to see in the museum, saving the rest of the museum for another visit. This last exhibit was on the Secret War. I wanted and expected a James Bond thing, as conveyed by the advertising, but was disappointed. I was hoping for cool technology, but the technology in this exhibit was invisible ink, wireless transmitters, and an enigma machine. There was a bit about undercover agents who sabotaged things overseas, and about secret forces behind enemy lines, but everything lacked the 007 flair.

After the museum, we ran some errands near Oxford and Piccadilly Circus then headed to dinner. Di Yin picked Koya, a Japanese udon noodle shop. It's a cute, spartan canteen that feels authentic. (Most of the customers and all the waitstaff speak Japanese.) The food felt clean, making me feel more righteous than eating ramen. It was good all around.

London: Dec 10: V&A Museum (again)

2010-12-16T14:30:00.003-05:00

On Friday, December 10, 2010, my outing was once again to the V&A Museum, a museum I've visited numerous times before. I was there to see its new displays. I want to comment on two of them.

I took some pictures in the museum during this outing.

I went to a cute exhibit on Charles Holden and on the many tube and rail stations he designed in the 1920s and 1930s as chief architect for the Underground / London Transport. He was a prolific architect; the exhibit proclaimed he probably designed enough buildings in London to rival Christopher Wren.

The other interesting exhibit was on Isotype, a method to "present social facts [statistics] pictorially" in a way young and old and even people who don't read the language can understand. I liked this exhibit because I'm always interested in how to present detailed, complex statistics in clear, elegant ways. Maybe Isotype over-simplifies at times--one practitioner said that "to remember simplified pictures is better than to forget accurate figures"--but it's still commendable for its clarity. (Besides, maybe precision isn't as critical as people make it out to be.) Also, this exhibit showed examples of using similarly simple, Isotype-like presentation methods to teach (e.g., science) and to convey instructions (e.g., in case of disaster do this).

This was a fun little outing.

London: Dec 8: Saatchi Gallery, Theatre, and more

2010-12-15T13:35:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, December 8, 2010, was a great day. Every place I went for both day and evening outings was fun.

First, I stopped by Leicester Square to pick up theatre tickets from the discount theatre booth there. I like walking by Leicester Square because many blocks surrounding it are pedestrianized. I continue, however, to think that the "Chinatown" one block away is an embarrassment to real Chinatowns everywhere.

Next, I trotted over to the National Gallery to see two small, new displays. Both turned out to be pretty cool.

One showed works by Ben Johnson. His pieces, actually paintings, are photographic but linear. He converts everything in his original photographs into line stencils, then spraypaints through them. It's a unique look in the full meaning of the word.

The other exhibit showed works by Bridget Riley. Most of her works play funky optical effects on your eye. For instance, Composition with Circles 7 (note: not a repeating pattern) makes one see weird bumps in the wall and double-vision in places. Meanwhile, Saraband looks like it has depth and that the lines wiggle. Similarly, Arrest 3 looks like it's moving, like waves, and has depth.

After these two exhibits at the National Gallery, I was in an exuberant mood and craving additional high-quality art. I headed over to Chelsea to visit the Saatchi Gallery. I loved it, actually more than almost all museums I've visited in London. It reminded me that some contemporary art truly is amazing. I took a picture in every other room. Here's a link to the pictures. In addition, the gallery space is open and welcoming, and, best yet, some art pieces have a sense of humor--admittedly a raunchy one--but one that nevertheless livens up a museum visit.

In the evening, I was to meet Di Yin at Waterloo Station so we could grab dinner and see our play. (Yes, our play's theatre was not in the West End, a.k.a. the theatre district.) We couldn't find each other at the station for a long time--Di Yin forgot her phone and our meeting location directions weren't clear enough--so we didn't end up having dinner together, but we found each other in time for the show.

We saw A Flea in Her Ear at The Old Vic theatre. Built in the early nineteenth century, The Old Vic is (naturally) an old building with an ornate, pretty interior. The play is a fun farce, a madcap romp of mistaken identity and comically disastrous rendezvouses. The plot revolves around a wife trying to trap her husband into revealing an affair (which doesn't exist) at the same time as other members of their household staff attempt to meet up (for their own affairs) at the same hotel.

The case of mistaken identity--the husband / master of the house, and the hotel's bellhop--were played by the same actor. This was an impressive feat that meant frequent changes in voice, physical habits, and costume. The actor did it seamlessly.

Beside the absurdity of the situations, many jokes come from pronunciations: the guy who drops his consonants, and the Spaniard (who speaks Spanish and also English with a Spanish accent). Sometimes I understood enough of what was being said to get the joke; other times I did not. Most laughs in the play, though, come from the situations.

The play is much in the style of Moliere. (An additional connection: the play was written in French.)

London: Dec 7: Cartoon Art Museum & British Museum

2010-12-14T09:36:00.000-05:00

My Tuesday outing, December 7, 2010, brought me first to the Cartoon Museum.

One room in the museum traces the history of cartooning from Hogarth in the 1700s to modern day, mainly through political cartoons, many using caricature and satire. Another room follows British cartooning in particular. The third room contained a special exhibit on cartoons about drinking. I found I liked those cartoons that connected to historic or political events such as showing particular pushes by the temperance movement or reflecting changes in licensing laws.

The entire museum has a British orientation, meaning that I missed many references to people and events and also wasn't familiar with some particular comic strips and magazines. (Sure, I could read the labels that explain the cartoons, but needing to do this made them not hit home for me.) Given this bent toward cartoons with a message, I found the pure humor of a book I spotted in the gift shop more entertaining than anything in the museum.

The museum took me less than an hour to see everything at the level of detail I wanted.

Because I was in the area, I headed to the British Museum. There I browsed three temporary exhibits, two of which aren't worth mentioning (they turned out not to be interesting to me). The third was a tiny but eloquent display of money and stamps African countries issued after their independence, showing their nationalism and celebrating their heritage.

I also revisited the British Museum's rooms on money and on Greek & Roman life, two rooms that I regretted when I visited last summer that I didn't have time to examine in detail. Now I have. The Greek & Room life room covers topics ranging from games and theatrical festival to exercising and household design. Not for the objects but for the information, I think both those rooms are my favorites in the museum.

I took two pictures at the British Museum.

London: Dec 6: Tate Britain

2010-12-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

My afternoon excursion on Monday, December 6, 2010, was to the Tate Britain. I'd visited it twice before (1, 2); this visit was to see the new displays and special exhibitions.

I took a few pictures on this excursion.

One special exhibit I visited showed the contestants for the Turner Prize. As it turns out, I wasn't excited by any of the artists in the running. The neatest thing about the exhibit was actually outside it: a scrolling display of recent tweets about the competition. The winner was to be announced that night, so there was a lot of chatter.

One special exhibit I planned to see was closed--inclement weather over the last week caused such an increase in humidity in those exhibition rooms that they had to close them to do something to the rooms to fix the problem.

I wandered through the Turner section again and found a painting of someplace I'd seen recently in person: the Roman forum and Arch of Titus.

In one display, I spent a while watching a re-enactment of a 1963 interview (printed in Playboy) with Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke about what life would be like near the end of the century. I wish I could read/watch the whole thing. I don't see it online.

I wandered through all the new or reconfigured displays (a substantial chunk of the museum), but found only one that interested me this trip: the room contained paintings so heavily painted that they became three-dimensional. Neat stuff.

On the walk back to work, I happened to pass Westminster Cathedral (not the same thing as Westminster Abbey). It was so stunning at night that I had to go in. The inside was respectable but paled in comparison to the churches I saw recently in Rome. The cathedral's most notable feature is that the upper levels (the giant arches, the ceiling, etc.) are made of dark brown--almost black--stone so that it's almost impossible to distinguish the building from what would be a pitch black night sky. It's an odd feeling, looking up and sometimes being unable to determine if there's a roof over your head.

London: Dec 5: Lazy Sunday

2010-12-12T14:21:00.000-05:00

I had a lazy Sunday, December 5, 2010. The only thing I went out for was food, as documented in these photographs and described a bit below.

For lunch, I headed to Gail's, a high-end bakery/cafe chain that I've been to before. I ate at a small set of tables in the back, a place I didn't know existed.

For dinner, we headed to Betsy Smith, the local quirky pub we visited before. In spite of the large number of pictures I took on my previous visit, I nevertheless spotted some new picture-worthy oddities this time.

London: Dec 4: Wellcome Collection (again)

2010-12-11T12:20:00.005-05:00

On Saturday, December 4, 2010, I had a slow-moving museum day, over which I took half a dozen pictures. I spent an hour in the British Library exploring its special exhibit on English (see the previous day's entry for details), then met Di Yin and one of her relatively new but close friends for lunch, M, who, like Di Yin, also works at the British Library. After lunch, I spent another hour and change at the special exhibit, then headed to the Wellcome Collection for its special exhibit. I'd previously visited the Wellcome Collection, a museum about medicine and the culture surrounding it, but the special exhibit wasn't open yet.

For lunch, Di Yin and M led me to Drummond Street, a street that's a short walk from the British Library and that's famous for its many Indian restaurants, especially buffets. After some discussion between them, we settled on Raavi Kebab.

Lunch was respectable, though nothing inspired me much. Di Yin was more enthusiastic about the dishes, saying everything was good or very good.

Incidentally, it's amazing how balmy 4 C is when you're used to -2 C. Yes, it was a cold week.

After finishing the British Library after lunch, I walked the short distance to the Wellcome Collection. Its special exhibit on mind-altering drugs (both legal and illegal; the exhibit shows that these lines are poorly drawn and highly culturally relative) was punily named High Society. The exhibit ranged widely (as I expected given the rest of the collection). The exhibit showed lots of documents written by explorers and scientists as they first discovered/saw the effects of the drugs. I learned Sherlock Holmes was originally a cocaine addict! It also showed art about the drug trade and its effects. In addition, the exhibit discussed historical uses of various drugs (mostly about opium, I guess because it had worldwide impact and had lots do with the British empire's ascendancy), and how their use has changed through education, criminalization, and medicalization.

The coolest display (besides the ones shown/described in the pictures) was the one showing how spiderwebs look different depending on which drug you give the spider.

By the way, I noticed the Wellcome Collection's cafe, located in the lobby, was hopping and lively, just as it was last time I visited. I wonder why it's such a hip place to be. The scene--the crowd it attracts--is nothing like the cafes at other museums or the nearby British Library.

London: Dec 3: British Library

2010-12-10T10:29:00.001-05:00

On Friday afternoon, December 3, 2010, I stopped by the British Library to explore its displays. In effect, it's not just a library but also a museum with exhibits on old books, on famous books, and about language. In the two and a half hours I spent in the library this afternoon, I finished most of it except for the large special exhibit on the English language. I only managed to spend forty-five minutes in the English exhibit. I returned the following day, a Saturday, and spent another two hours at the English exhibit, finishing it completely. Rather than divide my impressions of British Library over two blog posts, I'll describe everything in this post.

I took some photos on this excursion.

The British Library's permanent display has an incredible quantity of old works. I especially enjoyed the hand-written ones; they feel intimate. Items on display included:

old books, including Shakespeare's first folio (and similarly old books about Shakespeare's works) and a book of fonts from 1500.
old letters (in original hand-writing) by famous people such as Darwin, Ada Lovelace, Samuel Johnson, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf.
illuminated manuscripts, mostly religious but from a variety of faiths and from all over the world.
sheet music in books from the 15th century and later. Some of these, including Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Ravel, have annotations hand-written by the composer.
maps from every century over past millennium.
original copies of the Magna Carta. (There was no canonical version.)
Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts.
various illustrations of Alice in Wonderland--I didn't know so many different people illustrated this text--including one by Salvador Dali.
Auburn's huge book of birds. When I say huge, I mean it: the birds are drawn life-sized! (Pages measure 100 x 67 centimeters, more than 3 feet by 2 feet.)

A multimedia display, Turning the Pages, allows one to flip through digital copies of all the pages of many works on display rather than only view the pages each physical book in the display cabinet happens to be open to. I flipped through some of Leonardo's manuscripts.

The British Library also has a huge philatelic collection. Given the number of sliding cases, I can believe its claim that it's the best and most comprehensive collection of stamps in the world. As support, it appears to have every country stamp issued from 1840 to 1890. I looked at and read about some of the collection's stamps, including some stamps from countries that no longer exist (e.g., Bechuanaland, the Confederate States of America). Many stamps on display are rare--many labels I read say that less than ten copies are known to exist, or even that no other instances of the stamp are known to have survived.

There was a small exhibit on how the library conserves books (rebinding, etc.) and recordings (tapes, etc.).

I walked by a special exhibit on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It was roped-off, so I saw what I could (a little). I only mention this exhibit to give a further sense of the kind of exhibits the British Library tends to have.

I spent a large chunk of time over the course of two days in the special exhibit on the evolution of English. Wide ranging, it started from the Germanic and Scandinavian migrations to England and traced English through the evolution to Old and Middle English. There were old books, including early dictionaries (Caudrey's, Johnson's), an early edition of The Canterbury Tales, and a 1440 cookbook.

One section showed books from the last two centuries describing how pronunciation reflects social class. It was an interesting presentation, and interesting to see how this changed over time.

Actually, large parts of the special exhibit explored pronunciation, dialect, and word choice. For instance, there were recordings of how Shakespeare's works would've been pronounced in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In addition, I found a copy of the BBC pronunciation guide, and learned that George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion / My Fair Lady) helped establish the committee for this. There were also recordings of people talking about expressions. I found this part great because I enjoyed hearing people's accents and manner of speaking. This multimedia display also had songs sung in different English dialects: Caribbean, Nigerian, Valley (as in San Fernando valley, Southern California), Appalachian, etc. Another multimedia display had more entertainment value: it showed a series of television skits that played with language (e.g., Abbott and Costello's baseball skit, Monty Python's argument sketch) from different eras. My favorite skit in this line-up was by a group I never heard of it. The sketch is The Two Ronnies spoof of Mastermind. The guy answers not the most recent question but the one before it, yet the answer is often incredibly funny when applied to the most recent question. Good scripting, brilliant and witty.

Another section looked at the creation of words and phrases, and included a list of common expressions that came about from their appearance in the St. James Bible (which, incidentally, was on display). But, this section didn't simply cover old words; there was a bit of information on modern text messaging.

Other sections looked at language used in propaganda, and at the evolution of poetry.

Other things I spotted worth noting:

the riot act actually exists. It's Great Britain's The Riot Act of 1715. It's meant for dispersing groups; once the riot act has been read to the crowd, the group must disperse within the hour under penalty of law. Incidentally, the sign explaining this in the exhibit accompanied a big newsprint-like poster that reads: "THE RIOT ACT HAS BEEN READ."
Alaric Watts' alphabet poetry
the library has a copy of the original "It was a dark and stormy night" book, and described the author's background and how the phrase evolved into its current meaning.

In the evening, Di Yin and I had planned to go to Betsy Smith, our local pub, but we discovered it was really loud so we redirected ourselves to our local Indian standby, Spice Grill. I had sag aloo, which was good and also spicy. Di Yin had chicken kirahi, which was also good and in fact better than I remember when I had it before. Roti were good as usual. Sorry I forgot to bring my camera to dinner.

Rome: Nov 30: Departure, and snow

2010-12-06T10:45:00.000-05:00

We flew out of Rome on Tuesday morning. It was an uneventful day in Rome: breakfast at the hotel, train to the airport, and waiting for our plane, which was delayed a bit more than an hour. The plane was delayed due to weather at Gatwick, where it came from. This was the first hint that the day would be exciting.

Indeed, we landed at London Gatwick in the snow. Customs was a cinch. We caught a train to Victoria, stopped by work for a late lunch, and grabbed a bus home. Gosh, it was cold. And our apartment was cold as well; it took many hours with our heat on full blast to return it to a pleasant temperature. Six hours after we got home, we were still in many layers of clothes and often walking over to stand next to the radiators. By the next morning, however, the apartment was comfortable (we kept it so the rest of our time in London).

Incidentally, the flight was mostly full, but Di Yin and I managed to claim a row to ourselves.

It was lucky we returned when we did: Gatwick airport was closed due to the weather the following two days. It kept snowing on and off during this time. (The storm wasn't actually bad in my mind; it's just that the Gatwick is a smaller airport and also I don't think Great Britain is used to dealing with snowstorms.)

I took some pictures this day, mostly of the snow. Di Yin also took a handful. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #465). If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of people Di Yin recognized on the overland rail or pictures from Thanksgiving, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are viewing pictures unconnected to our Rome trip.

Rome: Nov 29: Vatican, Saint Peter's, and more

2010-12-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

On Monday, unlike our day exploring Ancient Rome and not wanting to wait in line at the Colosseum, I planned ahead. I bought tickets online for the Vatican. Hence, after breakfast and the metro ride to the Vatican, we got to skip the lines! :) Lines or not, I was disappointed the Vatican doesn't stamp passports.

I took a lot of pictures in the Vatican. They provide a good sense of the place. The Vatican Museums are vast, probably equal in size to the British Museum, which took me three visits to explore. We spent over 3.5 hours in the Vatican, and saw some of the museum only perfunctorily. Their collection is large and not limited to religious oil paintings, altarpieces, iconography, and religious artifacts. They also have an astounding amount of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan items, sculptures by Bellini, and numerous reliefs, tombs, and tapestries. Furthermore, offshoots of the museum have exhibits on Australian aborigines (!), the Vatican mail system, the Vatican monetary system, the pope's vehicles, and recent art. In terms of recent art, they have 19th and 20th century art and modern art, including Max Weber, Diego Riviera, and Salvador Dali, and also cubist and abstract pieces, all with varying obviousness of connection to Christianity.

In the postal museum, I learned the history of the Vatican's mail system. The Vatican issues about half a dozen commemorative stamps each year in honor of popes, saints' anniversaries, international events (olympics, world's fairs, eucharistic congresses). Interestingly and oddly, some of the stamps designed in the 19th century weren't ever used as stamps.

In the monetary section, I learned the Vatican used to issue its own lira (on par with the Italian lira) and now uses and mints Euro coins.

As for the Michelanglo's Sistine Chapel, it wasn't as impressive or awe-inspiring as I expected. Nevertheless, it's commendable for its size--it's a massive undertaking for (mostly) one man. Plus, it's nice to sit and simply take it all in. I was surprised to see that The Last Judgment (on the wall) has a lot of non-Christian-canon imagery. For instance, there are Charon and Minos from Dante's Inferno.

I learned that the Sistine Chapel was restored in the 1980s (yes, that recently) and that the restoration was controversial at the time. After using fancy imaging technologies, the restorers think they identified Michelangelo's original colors, separating his work from those of later restorers, and returned the frescoes to their original colorings. These tones were quite a bit brighter, more lustrous, than people were used to (after looking at the faded frescoes for too long), and many claimed these new colors couldn't have been what Michelangelo selected. The controversy, however, has mostly died down as experts have analyzed the data and techniques used by the restorers and agreed with the conclusions and result.

By the way, I decided I couldn't live in the Vatican. Everything is too heavily decorated.

Incidentally, Di Yin also took many pictures in the Vatican and out and about this day. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #311). When you see a picture captioned "Back at the hotel at last" (picture #464), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

Hungry after our long stint in the Vatican, we hunted for food, eventually selecting Ristorante Pizzeria Porta Castello.

From lunch, we walked to Saint Peter's Basilica, traveling through Piazza San Pietro (Saint Peter's Square) on the way in. I know I've seen pictures of the square full during Christmas, but the piazza seems so enormous to me, I can't fathom how many people it can hold. Likewise, the basilica is a mind-bogglingly large space. (Yes, my mind feels boggled.)

From the basilica, we decided to walk to our hotel, stopping for dinner along the way. Though it would be a long walk (over an hour even if we didn't stop to look at things or eat), at least half of it would pass through parts of the city we never saw before.

We first walked along the River Tevere, which is quite dirty. On the other side of the river, we strolled by assorted sites, most notably Campo de'Fiori, Rome's oldest food market. Although we arrived too late for the market--the vendors had packed up--we saw that the area around it is exciting and thriving. Near the market we found a tasty bakery. After we finished our snacks from it, we decided they were so good that we bought more, planning to eat them on the plane the following day.

In this area, I wish I got to see Borromini's corridor ("perspective gallery") (scroll down a bit). It appears to be a great optical illusion, but Palazzo Spada, which has it, was shut when I passed.

We walked through the historic Jewish ghetto/quarter. The area is more a run-down version of the similarly medieval nearby area Campo de'Fiori but with many fewer shops. There are lots of kosher restaurants, however.

Tired, we stopped by the Pantheon to sit for a bit, then headed home, hunting for food along the way. But, we got lost, were frustrated (it turns we walked in the exact opposite direction we were supposed to for several blocks), found ourselves, walked to the nearest metro station, took it most of the way home, and found food for real.

Rome: Nov 28: Misc Rome

2010-12-04T10:48:00.004-05:00

This day we hit a large number of sites in Rome with no coherent pattern. During the day, I took quite a few pictures (though fewer than on other days of our trip). Likewise, Di Yin took many pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #183). When you see a picture of me putting money into a train ticket machine in order to avoid walking home in the rain (picture #307), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

First thing after breakfast, we trotted down to visit the notable church Santa Maria Maggiore, a church we walked past the previous day but didn't go in. As I read and heard more about it, I realized how prominent it is among Rome's churches (parts of it date to the 5th century, and multiple popes are buried there), and decided I should visit. I'm glad I did; it's an impressive, ornate church, with a nice blend of styles (Renaissance, Baroque, etc.). It's got history, such as mosaics that range in date of creation from the 5th to the 18th centuries. It was an atmospheric place to explore at mass, listening to chanting in Italian or Latin (I'm not sure which).

After the church, we walked to the metro station near our hotel and took it a couple of stops to the Spanish Steps. The area around the Spanish Steps is a nice area for strolling, with more pedestrianized streets than I'd yet seen in Rome. The streets were crowded with shops selling luxury fashion goods.

In the vicinity of the Spanish Steps, we visited another impressive church, Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, though this one didn't look like much from the outside. We also climbed to the top of the Steps to take in our first view of Rome's skyline, then entered the church at the top, Trinita die Monti. Though this church, lacking ceiling murals, was less impressive, it had nice murals/mosaics along the side.

After visiting three churches on this Sunday, I can say I like visiting churches in Rome during mass (if they let you in). They're very atmospheric. The first and third church had lovely choral singing, making the experience more magical. This compensates for the fact that during mass you're not allowed to walk around and look at things up close.

As we left the area, we noticed a model posing on the Spanish Steps. Both professional and amateur photographers took pictures of her. I admit it is quite a backdrop.

We then began walking to our scheduled noontime meeting with a friend of one of Di Yin's friends. On the way we passed the Piazza del Popolo, a large, remarkable plaza. The friend, S, was doing research in Rome for the year as part of an academic exchange program. Once we met him, my picture frequency slowed dramatically.

S brought us on a tour through the backside of Borghese gardens, passing the National Gallery of Modern Art, to show us his residence in the British School. The little of the gardens that I saw were attractive, and the National Gallery appropriately stately, but what shocked me the most was that he was living in an equally-stately porticoed building that could just as well have housed the National Gallery! It even has art on display. (Okay, the building is smaller than the National Gallery of Modern Art, but it's no less impressive architecturally.) He gave us a full tour. It felt like a large mansion/villa. Its central garden felt like a cross between a Mediterranean courtyard and one of the quads in Oxford/Cambridge.

S then led us back through the piazza to a lunch place, then from the lunch place into the old center of the city. Rome's city center reminded me of Barcelona's old town, with lots of cobblestone streets, small, hidden plazas, and no cars. It's cute.

One reason S brought us to the city center was to show us his favorite gelato shop, Giolitti. It was good, exactly on par with the excellent San Crispino from the previous day.

After gelato, S left us, and Di Yin and I continued exploring the city center, beginning with Piazza Navona (said to be the social centre of the city). The piazza has three appealingly extravagant Baroque fountains and a street market.

Incidentally, it had been drizzling on and off for most of the afternoon. We saw lots of umbrella vendors emerge.

After exploring Piazza Navona and some surrounding streets, we trotted over to the Pantheon. Though dating from the first century, it's amazingly well preserved and remains majestic, with something magical and right about its interior dimensions. We sat for a while to rest and enjoy the space. That said, it's not perfectly preserved--for instance, the center of the floor was roped off because the roof leaks. To me, by the way, the Pantheon was even more striking because I didn't think they could build domes that large in the first century CE.

In the rain, we hunted for a dinner restaurant. We followed a zig-zag path (partially because I had trouble with directions). Somehow we walked along Via del Corso, a big shopping street, and also down another big shopping street (Via Fontina?), and also hit both the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. At some point we found Sant Andrea restaurant near the Spanish steps and decided it looked good. Indeed, it was good. By the time we left, the clouds had truly opened and it was pouring. We decided to take the metro to our hotel (even though it wouldn't have been that long a walk), a good decision as even with the metro's assistance my shoes got wet enough that they were still a bit damp the next day.

Rome: Nov 27: Ancient Roman Buildings

2010-12-03T08:22:00.000-05:00

After a late start and a basic buffet breakfast at our hotel, we left to explore Rome. I took a lot of pictures this day, and also managed to record from memory our rough walking route. This is actually the only day on the trip I managed to do it--all other days I either followed someone and didn't pay attention to how I got places or got lost and hence didn't know where I was for a while.

Incidentally, Di Yin also took many pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #15). When you see a picture captioned "Home at last" (referring to our hotel) (picture #182), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

This day, we explored the ancient Roman center of the city, especially the Colosseum, the Forum, and Capitoline Hill, and also Trevi Fountain.

As we walked to the Colosseum, we passed lots of CGIL union marchers, many blocks long. We also saw a few churches. See the pictures for details.

We found the Colosseum, built in the first center C.E., but decided not to wait in the line to enter, instead deciding to find lunch. Before and after lunch, we wandered around the edge of the Forum, a complex built in the first couple centuries C.E. (We tried to find the entrance but never did. It turns out my guidebook was out of date.) After seeing it and other buildings, we didn't actually make it back to the Colosseum in time to go inside.

We walked north-west to Trevi Fountain, an impressive sight (more so than the Colosseum for instance), and stopped at the nearby San Crispino Gelateria, a famous gelato shop. The gelato was perfect! The sorbets were ethereally light yet bursting with flavor. We ended up trying seven flavors.

After more walking and dinner, we returned home. I enjoyed seeing the sites this day, but ended up sad I didn't go in anyplace.

Rome: Nov 26: Arrival

2010-12-02T08:14:00.004-05:00

On the morning of our flight to Rome, a Friday, we stopped by my work for a quick breakfast and to make sandwiches for the plane for lunch. When I say quick, I mean it--it turned out we had only ten minutes to eat. We then caught a train to Gatwick Airport. I like watching the world go by from a train, especially under blue skies like this day. Gatwick Airport's train station is in the airport terminal--much more convenient/a shorter walk than from Heathrow's train station to the terminals themselves.

We flew easyJet, a discount carrier. Our plane was late, which might've been a blessing because when scheduling our timing I didn't realize that gates can be up to a twenty minute walk from the security checkpoint. I wasn't keeping an eye on the time but I think we had enough time that we would've made the flight without hurrying even if it wasn't delayed. Boarding was, as Di Yin described it, "a cattle call." easyJet doesn't assign seats, so once the gates opened, people jockeyed their way forward. It was definitely more polite than it would have been in China but it certainly lacked the orderliness of Southwest.

The flight was easy. As we landed, I noticed Italy near Rome looks like California: sea and ground, hills and plains, and the coloring and style of the vegetation. No wonder people say the bay area has a Mediterranean climate and geography.

We landed at Leonardo Da Vinci Fiumicino Airport, Rome's main airport. It was surprisingly empty on this Friday afternoon. I can't explain it. Immigration/customs was the easiest ever. The staff-person barely even looked to see if my passport had a picture in it, and asked no questions.

We took a train into downtown Rome. I began seriously taking pictures at this point. Di Yin, meanwhile, had been taking pictures since we arrived at Gatwick Airport. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (which happens to picture #4 in this album). When you see a picture of Di Yin posed in front of our hotel window (picture #15), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

Once downtown, we walked a couple of blocks to the hotel where we'd stay for the length of our trip: Yes Hotel. It was a perfectly nice, comfortable place to stay; certainly not luxurious but exactly the level of quality we intended and expected when we booked the hotel. Modern, linear decor, neutral colors, soft lighting. I took pictures of the hotel and our room on the following day.

We left our hotel to walk around and find food. We passed some large, old buildings (ruins?)--they were hard to make out in the dark (I'd photograph them another day)--and a piazza. Eventually we decided upon dinner at L'Angolo di Napoli, a pizzeria/restaurant. The food made us happy; it was a good indication that random restaurants in Rome are good. Details are in the pictures.

Rome Overview

2010-12-01T12:10:00.006-05:00

Di Yin and I spent three full days in Rome, leaving for Italy on Friday, November 26, 2010, and returning on Tuesday, November 30. I liked the trip and the city. Below I summarize my impressions of the city. I often found myself mentally comparing it to Barcelona, but I think that's because it's the only other mainland European city where I spent any substantial amount of time in recent memory. In the discussion below, I'll attempt to explain my impression of Rome on its own terms, not in reference to this artificial comparison point.

Food
First up, the food. I enjoyed all the food: pastas, pizzas, meat dishes (secondi piatti), and gelatos. Even those restaurants that weren't uniformly tasty had at least one dish that was better than simply good, i.e., something remarkably good and certainly better than most versions I've had. Also, in particular, the Romans know how to do sauces such as tomato sauces or wine sauces. Yes, even simple tomato sauce is better in Rome. In addition, I like how the dishes are balanced. Roman chefs know moderation: for instance, in pasta dishes with meats, cream sauces, etc., they don't use too much meat or cream, thus keeping the dish light.

Incidentally, restaurant menus list whether the fish or, often, the vegetables were previously frozen. :)

Getting Around / The Feel of the City
I liked walking along the cobblestone streets and through the scattered piazzas in Rome's large historic sections (just as I enjoyed doing the same in Barcelona). They're atmospheric and, with fewer cars than the rest of the city, nice for strolling. Best yet, the older section of the city is large; it would take at least fifty minutes to walk a straight line across at its widest point. And who walks straight lines in parts of town like this anyway?

Outside this area, there are still many interesting sites (more on that later), but walking was harder: outside the (mostly pedestrianized) medieval section, the streets, all wide enough to have two (or more) lanes, are in use. If you as a pedestrian are at a crosswalk and have the walk signal, the cars keep coming. They don't stop as in California and wait for you to cross the street. You must be fearless and begin crossing at a measured, predictable pace and trust the cars will stop for you. They do. Nevertheless, despite this negative, because there are things to see throughout the city and because we quickly adopted to the crossing customs, we often chose to walk rather than take public transit.

The only form of public transit we took was the metro. It was efficient, but as there are only two lines, it doesn't go everywhere you want to go. In particular, it doesn't go to the medieval part of the city--what I think of as the nicest section--and consequently if you're there and tired of walking, you must take something else (bus, taxi, etc.) or stop to sit for a while. By the way, the metro trains are fine but the stations need polish: they require long underground walks through tunnels that feel like they're still under construction.

Sites
There are old buildings everywhere in Rome, not just in the cobblestoned medieval/Renaissance section. Rome's architecture is the highlight of this trip for me. When I first wrote the previous sentence, I tried following it up with "especially" and then listing some sites I particularly remembered, but I found my list growing to cover pretty much all the famous sites we visited. I decided not to bother listing them here.

It's neat walking around and stumbling upon old buildings, whether from the Italian Renaissance or old Roman ones dating back from around the time of Christ. Colonnaded buildings, fancy churches, ancient temples (sometimes adopted by Christianity and rebranded as a church), old ruins, and historic city walls abound. And it's not just the large structures that make Rome so absorbing but also the flourishes: the odd fresco on the side of a building, the statues in piazzas, the reliefs on street corners and on eaves. I was particularly fascinated by seeing how old structures get incorporated into new, such as how a segment of a Roman wall became part of a building's wall or how the corner of an older flat-stone building got reused as the corner of a not-quite-as-old brick building.

With the Vatican making Rome the center of the Catholic world, churches in particular are omnipresent. Imagine a checkerboard overlaid onto a grid of streets and you'll be an idea of how common they are. Sometimes a church's exterior belies the quality of its interior; sometimes it does not.

Incidentally, I was amused to see lots of hotels, again a higher density than in other cities I've visited. At first I thought this might just have been the section of the city I was in, but no--they're everywhere (though nevertheless not as common as churches).

Language
Language was not a problem. Rome seems to be a tourist-oriented city; most of the people with whom we interacted (hotel clerks, restaurant waiters, and museum staff) all spoke English (or at least enough to communicate easily with us).

Shopping
Rome seems to be a fashion hot-spot. People dress well. We saw a great many clothing shops/boutiques, a higher density than I remember seeing in any other city. Relatedly, Di Yin, who's certainly been shopping in Manhattan, was impressed with the beauty of the shoes for sale.

Costs
Hotels and food are expensive. I can't speak to much else. The clothing covered a wide range, though it tended toward what I would call expensive. The only form of local public transit I took, the metro, was cheap.

Neat Observations

While Euro notes are identical from country to country, Euro coins differ. Here are pictures of the different two-euro coins; use the navigational bar on the left of that page to view other denominations in various countries.
There are sometimes pedals in the floor of bathrooms that, when pressed, turn the faucet on (with pressure corresponding to how hard they're pressed). There is no handle on the faucet itself. In addition to providing the benefit of not having to touch the faucet after washing your hands (to turn it off), this mechanism also ensures that faucets cannot be left running unintentionally.
People here smoke as much (not more) as those in London, but they smoke unfiltered cigarettes so it smells more.
A number of statues throughout the city have wolves in them (certainly a reference to Romulus and Remus).
There are many always-on drinking fountains everywhere.
Rome's postcards are more advanced, more sophisticated, than those in other countries I've visited. I saw two types of postcards that I'd never seen before: panoramic postcards and archaeology postcards. Panoramic postcards are postcards that fold out to 1.5 feet long, yielding a full panorama of a place. Archaeology postcards look like regular greeting cards with some parts of the cover cut-out. Inside the card is an image of what the archaeological site (e.g., the Colosseum) looks like now. If you look at the cover, you see a rendition of the site in its heyday, with the cut-out portions (showing the card's inside) revealing parts of the ruins that remain in roughly their original appearance. These cards put the existing ruins into context. Sadly, I didn't allocate time to shop for/select any postcards of either type, but I'm nevertheless impressed with the designs' ingenuity.

London: Nov 24: Yes, Prime Minister

2010-11-30T10:18:00.004-05:00

I felt sick on Wednesday, November 24, 2010, and hence stayed home most of the day. For lunch, I ventured out to my nearby high street near Queens Park to eat at a decent cafe, Jack's, that I've previously visited but didn't photograph. This time I had my camera and took three pictures.

In late afternoon, I headed down to the office to meet some coworkers for dinner. I had bought Di Yin and I tickets weeks before to join a theatre club outing to see a stage version of Yes, Prime Minister, a 1980s British comedy about politics and civil service.

Some of us decided to have dinner together before the show. We headed to Chinatown, which is in the West End (the theatre district) conveniently close to the theatre, Gielgud Theatre. The restaurant we ended up at was perfectly bleh (typical unflavored "Americanized"-Chinese food for people with no taste and no idea of the alternatives). I wasn't surprised given my impression of London's Chinatown from walking through it before. Nevertheless, dinner was fun, with interesting people and conversation. I was surprised to see that none of my dinner companions were British despite the show being distinctly British. (Everyone at dinner had moved to London within the previous couple of years.)

The show was pretty good and certainly funny. Until I got into it, I was distracted by the beautiful set, particularly the pretty trees seen through the minister's window and also the bookcase. Of course, once I got into the show, I didn't notice the set much.

The acting was good; the actors really played their parts both physically and vocally.

The core philosophy underlying the show is that the civil service is a force to be reckoned with. Bureaucracy has a lot of power.

The show comments on politics, media, morals, civil service, cultural relativism, patriotism, selfishness, and education. Although there were many messages, two statements about modern politics come to mind as I'm writing this post. One, everyone (politicians, civil servants) is happy at the end even though nothing actually has been done. Two, for some large segment of the play, the politicians and civil service work together, spending a while trying to solve a problem that it turns out to be already too late to solve.

Incidentally, I was amused to see that all the people who played media types are really tall. This must've been intentional.

London: Nov 23: The Book of the Dead

2010-11-29T10:05:00.005-05:00

On Tuesday afternoon, November 23, 2010, I escaped from work to see the special exhibit on the Egyptian Book of the Dead at the British Museum.

The first half of the exhibit kept reminding me of fantasy novels and role playing games (RPGs). The Book of the Dead is effectively a spellbook for the deceased. Filled with strange scrolls written in hieroglyphs, they even look like a spellbook from a distance. And, like a wizard in a role playing game, you couldn't bring along every spell that exists. The books weren't big enough for that; people had to select which spells they wanted. Furthermore, in selecting spells, people wrote the important ones on the inside of the coffin--the easiest ones to get to--and the less important ones on the outside.

Spells could do a lot: healing, transforming a lotus flower into a serpent, protecting one's heart, preventing decapitation, avoiding getting caught in nets, creating water, controlling fire, transforming into another animal (snake, heron, benu bird (mythical)), repelling animals (snakes, beetles, crocodiles, etc.), proving certain after-life gatekeepers that the deceased knows their names (and thus has power over them), and more. This naming spell in particular sounds like the premise of many fantasy novels. Also, as in novels and RPGs, spells require ingredients, often very specific and rather peculiar, such as a clay bowl with the image of Osiris, a "scarab made from nemehef-stone, mounted in fine gold, with a ring of silver, and placed at the throat of the deceased", "a knot amulet of red jasper, moistened with the juice of the 'life-is-in-it' fruit and embellished with sycamore sap".

The Egyptians also had wands: a serpent-shaped staff, an ivory boomerang, etc.

The Egyptians believed that after the deceased passed the trials and made it to Osiris, the deceased was judged. His heart was put on a scale; the result determined if he lived forever in the after-life or if his soul got devoured.

The exhibit also explained, with examples, how books were made; the process sounds much like legal documents today. They're created by scribes. Some were custom-made; others were bought off the shelf with names filled in. Some ready-made ones were slavish copies of well-written books; others were copies of poorly-written books or even gibberish. (Not all scribes could read.) There also was a middle ground: one could buy a standard book and have it expanded with additional spells (or whatever). Furthermore, if one commissioned a book and didn't pay, the scribe may simply erase the name and sell the book to someone else.

The exhibit showed multiple books of the dead, including the longest known one. At 37 metres long, it wrapped around the wall, an impressive sight.

Incidentally, the exhibit was held in the so-called Reading Room in the center of the Great Court. It's amazing inside looking up to the central dome. I'm sorry no pictures were allowed. To compensate, I found a decent picture on the web. Sorry, it doesn't capture the full verticality of the room--I couldn't find a picture that did.

Being sick, although there were other sites in the area I wanted to see, I didn't have the energy do much after the special exhibit. I returned to work.

Incidentally, on the way to the museum I took a picture.

London: Nov 21: Sunday Roast

2010-11-28T16:38:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, November 21, 2010, I didn't do anything during the day. For dinner, Di Yin and I went to the pub closest to our house for Sunday roast. I previously photographed the pub's outside; this time I took a number of pictures of its interior because the interior is incredibly quirky and offbeat.

Also, while we were there, they played Nina Simone on the speakers, which I appreciated and which pleased Di Yin greatly. She's a fan. And, she said, "it's very rare I go to a bar and know and have all the songs they're playing." Sadly, near the end of the meal they switched CDs to something not quite as good.

As we left, Di Yin asked why it took us so long to go there. She regretted not going earlier given its location (a block from our flat), respectable food, and fun atmosphere.

London: Nov 20: Hampstead

2010-11-27T16:46:00.005-05:00

On Saturday, November 20, 2010, I left my flat before lunch to see more of Hampstead and Hampstead Heath. I'd visited it once before.

Though in the mid-40s F / 8 C like most of the week, it felt colder. I could see my breath most of the day. Perhaps it has something to do with the humidity and thick cloud cover.

Once in Hampstead, I walked around. I first visited St. John's church, which incidentally happened to have a Christmas fair (small, boring), then continued to Frognal, returned to downtown Hampstead for lunch, then continued up through more of Hampstead toward Hampstead Heath. I recorded the route I walked. I also took pictures.

Hampstead seems to have quite varied architecture, though most of the buildings are average examples of each style. Also, it has twisted streets, which, admittedly, is not unusual for London, though these are made more interesting than usual because Hampstead is built on a hill.

By the time I reached Hampstead Heath itself, I had decided I wanted to escape from the cold. I left exploring the heath for another day, instead retreating to the Kenwood House, an eighteenth-century house converted into a museum (with eighteenth-century art). It sits on one side of the heath.

Once in the house, I decided to take a guided tour. I'm glad I did because the guide was very interesting. He explained and told stories about the paintings, especially the portraits of the original family members who lived there. An example of the shocking, lascivious, and tangled stories he told is the tale of Emma Hamilton. (She's in one of the house's paintings.) He also explained how the Heritage Board decided to decorate the house, trading off between how to best show the artwork and the historic accuracy. Also, in addition to discussing paintings, he talked about the furniture and architecture, pointing out features such as a honeysuckle pattern that appears throughout the house (that I never would've realized was a theme without the guide).

Kenwood House is a neoclassic house with some rococo furniture. There are many friezes throughout, perhaps the most in the particularly impressive library. As no pictures were allowed in the house :(, you'll have to do with the best picture of the library I could find on the web (which isn't very good); here's the best sketch (click on the picture for an enlargement). The library, by the way, has many pictures of Roman gods, muses, and anthropomorphized representations of fields of study. It's neat trying to decode everything. It would make a good Game clue.

The artwork in the house includes a Rembrandt, a Vermeer, a Turner, and several Gainsboroughs, Reynolds, and Guardis. A bit of a variety of tastes.

The house had a good Christmas market going on, with an assortment of neat jams, chutneys, beers, wines, and desserts. Many of these were purely British: e.g., ploughman's pickle chutney, mulled wine, plum pudding. Best, the market encouraged sampling! :)

Kenwood also has substantial grounds (a proper estate), but I didn't explore those. I wanted to be home, warm, and sit on a couch.

Postscript: At it turns out, I came down with a cold soon after this outing. It probably has something to do with being outside for so long on a damp, cold day.

London: Nov 19: Chelsea Part Two

2010-11-26T16:18:00.003-05:00

On a clear, relatively warm Friday, I left work for a shorter than usual outing, returning after only an hour and a half because work was busy. I used the limited time to explore a tad more of Chelsea, a nearby neighborhood that I walked in once before.

This time, I mainly walked through the Royal Hospital (actually a veterans home) and its Ranelagh Gardens. Details of the whole excursion are in the pictures.

London: Nov 18: London Transport Museum Part 2

2010-11-25T16:05:00.004-05:00

On Thursday, November 18, 2010, I finished the London Transport Museum (see first trip). Now I can report my full impression: it's a good quality museum and I enjoyed browsing it. My main complaint is that the museum focuses on the evolution of the transportation system itself and little on how the system changed people's habits and beliefs. For instance, although, for examples, the museum explored how the rail lines sought to get people to move to the suburbs (hence more business) and briefly mentioned the installation of pedestrian crosswalks to simplify traffic, it never really mentioned what people thought of the jam of motor vehicles on the street or, say, how commute times have changed over the years. I also would've liked to hear how the government policies did or didn't affect the evolution of the system. I don't even have a good sense of how much it is currently controlled by the public. Nevertheless, these criticisms are secondary; the museum does well its job of exploring the (generally uncontrolled) growth of London's transportation system.

Some things I learned that I thought were particularly interesting:

I learned the history of the underground's logo, typeface, and station design (architecture).
I also learned that for some reason boat service never caught on among locals, only tourists. I never thought about the lack of boat transportation until it was mentioned here.
I read about the transition from trams to trolleys (better control, easier to stop by the curb) to buses (cheaper to run, no electricity lines to maintain) (in the 1950s) to the trams' comeback in the 2000s as light rail in the suburbs (primarily to encourage people to use their cars less).
There are new London overground lines designed to reach previously unconnected areas. There was a special exhibit on these lines. I didn't realize rail lines were being actively built. One of these overground lines runs by our place; I've taken it. Also, the trains on it use regenerative breaking.
And yes, there was something about the Thames Tunnel, which I first heard about two days prior.

There are some multimedia displays: a train driving simulator; a huge map of London under a projection display, with the map tracing someone's (pre-recorded) commute route while the display shows the sites the person would see; and more. See the pictures for another example.

The museum has a shockingly extensive gift shop. It's amazing how many books, graphic art pieces, kitch, clothes, ceramics, and knick-knacks there are related to London and its rail system. The breadth is because they have old train ads, posters, informational drawings, postcards, etc., with designs ranging from before 1900 to today. They can re-present these stylish designs in any other form. For instance, they even have old-fashioned cigarette lighters and the 1933 bus map. It's a fun place to browse.

As usual, I took pictures on this outing and later in the day.

In the evening, I met Di Yin near the British Museum to go to dinner. To get to the British Museum, I took a double-decker bus that happened to pass through the glitz and lights of the West End (London's theatre district), and also Piccadilly Circus and Chinatown. I got to sit in the front seat on the top floor of a bus with clean windows on a clear night! I liked the ride. Also, when I was getting off, I noticed there was a monitor downstairs that cycled through views of all the cameras mounted inside the bus. Voyeurs may rejoice but, frankly, watching people sitting on a bus isn't exciting.

I met Di Yin and we took the bus to our dinner destination, Bistrot Passage Cafe, in Jerusalem Passage, a non-descript pedestrian lane. Passage Cafe is a cozy French restaurant with tip-top food, certainly the best meal I've had in London. Di Yin called it scrumptious. Every dish had us wanting more. For details see the pictures.

London: Nov 17: Tate Modern

2010-11-24T15:57:00.004-05:00

On Wednesday, November 18, 2010, I visited the Tate Modern to see its latest exhibits.

Its biggest exhibit (and the only one charging an entrance fee) was on Gauguin. Though showing mainly his paintings, it also covered his other artistic endeavors: sculpting, making woodcuts, and writing. The exhibit confirmed my impression that I'm indifferent to Gauguin's art. I paid for the audio guide in hope it would increase my excitement about his work. Although the guide was good quality, it did not. The only positive thing I want to say about his work is that I like how he sometimes put his own work in the background of his paintings (i.e., his paintings and sculpture in the background of his paintings).

I stopped by a special exhibit on photography. Though I admire the theme of the exhibit--each artist has a framework that every photo he/she takes fits into (e.g., pictures of apparently door-less, window-less buildings)--I didn't much like any of the systems or particular photographs presented.

I went to a weird display that covered a huge swath of the Tate Modern's warehouse floor with things that look like sunflower seeds but are actually made of porcelain.

I also went to an even weirder experimental film exhibit.

By far, the best exhibit I saw was Martin Karlsson's sketches of London. I think it's cool he did sketches in the same places as those in the 1872 London: A Pilgrimage guide book. I recognized a bunch of the locations. All the drawings are done well. Also, they're in an unusual setting. See the two pictures I took of the exhibit.

Incidentally, I still like the timeline of twentieth-century art in the Tate Modern's escalator lobbies.

London: Nov 16: Tower Bridge

2010-11-23T04:23:00.004-05:00

It was foggy Tuesday morning. This made it even more surprising that when I looked outside in early afternoon, I saw a clear sky, clearer than five out of six days in London this time of year. The sun was out and there were patches and swathes of blue in the sky.

Hence, I decided to make Tuesday my Tower Bridge day. I'd been planning for weeks to go to Tower Bridge and was only awaiting for a clear day.

I took many pictures on this excursion. They--not this blog post--have the highlights of the afternoon's outing. Some of the pictures, though they still look decent, are reminders that London doesn't really have a skyline.

The Tower Bridge is a striking neo-gothic structure of granite, stone, and steel, just over a century old. I mainly went to see it and see its views over London from the upper pedestrian walkway. I was sad to find that the walkways were enclosed in glass, but relieved when I discovered a few openings are wide enough to stick a camera out. On the plus side, being enclosed meant that the walkways are heated.

The Tower Bridge walkway contains three exhibits, all of which I liked. One is about the bridge itself; the most interesting sections of this exhibit describe stunts on the bridge (motorcycles over the bridge, planes flying through the bridge) and alternate designs (some normal bridges, some weird ones with elevators for cars or with canal-like locks). Another exhibit shows pictures of and information about other famous bridges (including this one I saw in Shanghai, though most bridges it covers are big, expensive ones). There are many impressive, pretty bridges that I never heard of before. A third exhibit shows other things on the Thames.

I also got to see the bridge's engine room, which was neat because of the size of the machinery within. The signs in the engine exhibit are written as if they're designed to teach physics to kids.

London: Nov 14: Nothing

2010-11-22T16:15:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, November 14, 2010, I decided to stay at home and recover from my continuous daily outings. The only time I emerged was with Di Yin for dinner at our local cheap Indian joint, where I took one picture.

London: Nov 13: The Houses of Parliament, Chelsea, and more

2010-11-21T12:10:00.007-05:00

I took an assortment of pictures on my various outings this day, Saturday, November 13, 2010.

In the morning, a friend of Di Yin's who was visiting us, B, and I ventured out to tour the Houses of Parliament, which is officially called the Palace of Westminster.

Pictures were not allowed except at Westminster Hall, the starting/ending location of the tour. Instead, I took lots of notes about sights I saw and things I learned. Incidentally, there are 360-degree panoramas of every room in the Houses of Parliament online. Not all of the rooms are listed on that page; some you can only find viewing a panorama in one room then clicking on a door to another room.

To enter, we had to go through security like in an airport. The security guards also took our photos and printed them on visitor badges to wear around our necks.

Everything in the Houses is tall, ornate, grand, gothic. The hallways make me feel short, as if they were designed for people eight or nine feet tall. This is a bit of a different feeling for me than in other royal palaces, which are designed to make people feel small/be intimidated as they pass through the larger and larger spaces approaching the king. In this case, I didn't feel small in the same way, just short. Maybe the hallways are narrower?

The complex is strewn with murals, paintings (mostly huge), busts (lots of prime ministers; most of the older busts are of nobles), stained glass, and coasts of arms. Also, on the Lords side, there's lots of gilding. For instance, in the Royal Gallery, there are gold-plated life-sized statues of past warrior kings. Regular kings only get paintings. It also has giant frescos of the battles at Waterloo and Trafalgar.

The House of Lords, which the queen called over-decorated (especially the neo-gothic throne), actually to me felt decorated in an orderly, symmetric manner. (It doesn't feel too busy, as Westminster Abbey does). Although there are more than 700 lords, I'd guess the room looks like it can seat only a third. This is significant because the lords only get paid when they show up.

The Central Lobby has tons more statues climbing up to the ceiling, a notable feat given the height of the room's rotunda.

The House of Commons is nicely done, but nowhere near as extravagant as the House of Lords.

Funky observations:

There are bas reliefs and frescos of King Arthur in the Queen's Robing Chamber. Some convey lessons: generosity, mercy, etc. (The story was popular when the room was being designed in the mid-nineteenth century and made it into the royal mythology.)
Frescos, of which there are many, are a bad idea in cold, wet climates such as London (versus, say, Italy). They take a while to dry and get darker and darker as they do. Once dried, the colors are sealed in and can't be touched up unlike oil paintings.
The Prince's Chamber's paintings demonstrate history and show the Tudor family tree (post-civil-war monarchs) by their order (chronological) and placement on the wall.
The House of Lords side of the complex has red tones and lots of gilding; the Houses of Commons has a green theme and no gold.

History & Odd Facts:

The current palace dates mostly from the nineteenth century, after its most recent fire and rebuilding.
The House of Lords is gradually shrinking as people get kicked out (e.g., hereditary posts get abolished) and as some new people are not automatically added (bishops, judges). By the way, the way people get added to the House of Lords is by getting voted in. This happens to a variety of people, ranging from retired members of the House of Commons to sports celebrities.
When William & Mary were asked to invade England as part of the Glorious Revolution, they had to accept the crown with conditions: a bill of rights. These rights said, among other things, the monarch cannot make or unmake laws, raise an army, or raise taxes without consent of parliament. There's a painting (The Lords and Commons presenting the crown to William and Mary in the Banqueting House) in the Member's Lobby that shows this scene. William and Mary look very unhappy.
Near the start of the English civil war, King Charles I went to the House of Commons to arrest five members of parliament for treason. They escaped the chamber shortly before he arrived. The king asked the speaker of the house where they were. In one of the first major times that parliament has stood up to the monarch, the speaker replied,
"May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."
William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of commons

(As you can tell, I thought the tour was interesting and wrote down a lot.)

After our tour, we found a pub for lunch. After lunch, B and I split up. (He, as a new tourist in London, wanted to see places I've already been.)

Because the day was warm enough to walk around outside, I decided to do so. I chose to do a walking tour of Chelsea. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chelsea was known as the fashion district in London. A well-heeled neighborhood, it retains echoes of its heyday, with many fashion boutiques surrounding Sloane Square and on King's Road. These are mostly clothing, jewelry, and accessories, with names such as Tiffany and Cartier and many others too exclusive and high-end for me to recognize. Along King's Road farther from Sloane Square are some less expensive stores with more familiar names (such as Gap).

During my walk, I stumbled upon a food market in Duke of York Square. Much in the style of Borough Market, it had pastries, cheeses, cured meats, meat pies (even venison, stout, and chestnut pie, and wild boar and apple pie), prepared foods (even Brazilian (feijoada), Thai, and Jamaican), all sorts of stuff. It was a good find.

I made it part of the way through the walking tour before it got dark. I saved the rest of the tour for another day and instead headed home. Having learned from the previous weekend, I'd planned for the planned tube closures. It's too bad I couldn't plan for the unplanned closures. It should've taken me forty-five minutes to get home, but ended up taking me two hours! :( I don't want to bother telling the story here, but at least it had one positive note: I got to walk down Regent Street and Oxford Street at night and took some pictures.

For dinner, B, Di Yin, and I went to a restaurant I spotted in our neighborhood a few days before. Named Kovalan, it's an Indian restaurant specializing in food from the state of Kerala. Kerala is in the south of Indian along the coast, so this naturally means seafood. It also means, by the way, a class of dishes called thoran, which are vegetables stir-fried with grated coconut. They're dry dishes--no curry sauce.

The result? The restaurant was a good find. Details are in the pictures.

London: Nov 12: London Transport Museum Part 1

2010-11-20T09:17:00.006-05:00

On Friday, November 12, 2010, a rainy afternoon, I visited the London Transport Museum. The museum explores how London's transportation system evolved from the nascent state it was in at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the modern day. The museum has full scale models of many of the vehicles used in London's transit system. In the part I visited this day, I saw sedan chairs, stage coaches, horses buses (omnibuses and more), horse trams, coal/steam trains, and electric trains. However, rather than the vehicles, I liked the small things in the museum, especially the transit agency's posters and handouts. There were countless shelves of these, and I smiled wryly at all those promoting that people should buy houses in (or at least go out walking in) the country.

I learned a lot at the museum. Here are some interesting facts, in roughly chronological order as I learned them / as they happened.

Since the beginning, cabbies in London were always licensed and fares were regulated.
There have been toll roads for a long time, often called turnpikes. I learned about them.
In 1843, a company completed building a tunnel under the Thames (the Thames Tunnel)! I had no idea such an engineering feat could be tackled in the mid-nineteenth century. Though it was mainly famous for a time as a pedestrian tunnel, for a long time now it's been used by trains.
Queen Victoria opposed plans to build the Tower Bridge, saying claims it would beautify the area were 'bosh'.
Trams, at least the ones used in London, were symmetric. Rather than turning around at the end of the line, they unhitched the horses and moved them to the other end.
In 1900, the vast number of horses in London's public transit system (mostly pulling trams) produced one thousand tonnes of dung a day.
Terrorist bombings occurred in London's transit system as early as 1883 (Irish nationals).
As in everywhere else in the world, it was mostly lower-class people who were forced to move due to the building of train lines. Parliament, partially in compensation for this disparity, required trains to have special working-class rates. Interesting, but I'm told probably not useful: few of these lower-class people needed to take a train every day.
In the 1907, the tube changed from flat-fare to a distance-based fare.
The transportation system's design changed substantially with the advent of elevators and escalators. I learned quite a bit about how it changed.

I also visited the museum's special exhibit, Under Attack, about London, Coventry, and a bit on Dresden. Although I found the special exhibit "meh", I enjoyed the related part of the regular exhibit: a collection of WWII-era posters praising London tube and bus drivers for doing their duty with bombs streaming down under the blackout. Also, some posters advised passengers on safety: "In the blackout: before you alight, make sure the train is in the station. Look for the platform." Good advice.

Incidentally, the elevator to the museum exhibits was great, playing sounds of transit: "all aboard", trains chugging, horses clopping, and even "one small step for man."

I took a few photos in the museum.

Because I began my afternoon outing later than usual, and because I knew my admission ticket would provide unlimited future visits, I explored slowly and only made it through half the museum before it closed, seeing only the early history of the transit system.

I'm withholding judgment on the museum until I complete my visit.

Later, feeling inspired by all the game for sale in London's groceries, Di Yin cooked three as part of dinner at home: mallard duck, wood pigeon, and partridge (with bacon). I had a frustrating yet entertaining time trying to debone them.

London: Nov 11: V&A Museum

2010-11-19T09:01:00.005-05:00

On Thursday, November 11, 2010, I returned to the V&A Museum. I'd already been to the museum three times before (one, two, three) and seen the whole permanent collection. This visit was to see the latest special exhibits and new displays.

I took a few pictures on this outing.

I first went to a special exhibit titled Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography. These artists create their images directly on light-sensitive paper, either via chemicals, via lasers, by blocking light directly, or by having other materials directly touch or cause a reaction in the paper. They sometimes use positive-color paper. The result is often surreal.

I found a few remarkable pieces:

Breathing in the Beech Wood, Homeland, Dartmoor, Twenty-four Days of Sunlight, May 2004 by Garry Fabian Miller. In general, dye destruction prints can be neat, and they remind me of sun prints I made as a kid.
Susan Derges's River Raw. She put a piece of photographic paper underwater in a river at night and exposed it with a flashlight. It's a neat idea, bringing what one thinks of as sensitive darkroom materials out into the real world.
Pierre Cordier's labyrinthine Chemigram 22/6/87 Dedalogram V (see slide four in this slideshow). In general, I decided chemigrams are cool because they give the most freedom to the artist (he/she can draw on them), especially in rectilinear patterns.
Hebe, photogram after a sculpture by Floris Neususs "(made in collaboration with Renate Hayene)." It's the only photogram, which is created by blocking light, that I liked; I concluded that most are boring because they usually look like silhouettes.

Overall, however, though there were a few pieces I respect, I still feel this art form is in its infancy.

By the way, there was an additional regular exhibit in the photography section on the history of this technique.

I also visited a variety of new displays in the museum:

an exhibit of art inspired by things on display in the museum. It's a neat idea, and I like that each artist explains which piece inspired him/her and how.
an exhibit, Fashion Plates and Fashion Satire, of eighteenth-century printed etchings that show actual fashion at the time or mock the fashion by exaggerating things (women with vegetables in their hair, etc.). They're sometimes pretty funny if you look closely.
a temporary exhibit in the theater section on Edward Gordon Craig, known for his minimalist set designs. It had a neat interactive exhibit with little squares of columns, walls, and people that you could slide around on a special desk and see instantly projected on a large screen what the set you designed looks like.
a small exhibit related to the consumption of chocolate, 1600-2000.
a tiny new exhibit on Walter Crane's nursery picture books.
an exhibit on Beatrix Potter and her most famous work, Peter Rabbit.
the illustration awards. (V&A gives awards for the best illustrations in books.)

London: Nov 9: Wallace Collection & An Evening Outing

2010-11-18T08:41:00.005-05:00

On Tuesday, November 9, I disappeared from work to explore The Wallace Collection.

I took pictures on this day's excursions.

The Wallace Collection is housed in the Hertford House, a sumptuous eighteenth-century mansion. The collection is of a high quality and broad scope, but even if it were not, the house alone would be worth a visit. A masterpiece of interior design, it's filled with elegantly arranged period furniture. Each room and all pieces of furniture have descriptions. The decorations and furnishings, especially the chandeliers and clocks, are artfully arranged and perfectly coordinated with the pieces on display. I found myself examining items and sections of the museum that I'd normally not be interested in simply to see how they arranged the objects and integrated them with the decor.

I'm told the collection of period furniture is the best in the United Kingdom and one of the best in the world. Having seen the V&A Museum's furniture galleries, which is the British government's museum that covers furniture, I can definitively state the Wallace's collection seems better.

The art and artifacts on display, mostly from Europe and dating from somewhere in the range of Medieval through the Renaissance to the 19th Century, are in a variety of forms, including paintings, sculptures (marble, wood, and metal), porcelain, ceramics, maiolica (wikipedia definition), pewter, Venetian glass, gold boxes, and even miniature wax portraits. Regarding painters, I saw a Rubens and several Rembrandts, Philippe de Champaignes, Titians, van Dycks, Gainsboroughs, Canalettos, and Guardis. I also saw lots of paintings of dead game. (I wonder if Sir Wallace had a fascination with them.) There are also four rooms of (mostly European) armor and weapons, a more comprehensive collection than I've seen the likes of before. Like the furniture, it's probably the best collection in the U.K.

I also visited the special exhibit on Poussin to Seurat (i.e., French drawings) but it didn't excite me.

Later, I met Di Yin for dinner at Made in Italy, an Italian restaurant that caught our eyes when we walked by two weeks ago. The Neapolitan was as we hoped it would be and we left pleased. Details are in the pictures. Interestingly, although we were in an Italian restaurant in an English-speaking country, we heard the nearby tables speaking French, Spanish, and (I'm told) Lebanese Arabic.

This area, near Marylebone and Oxford, was prettily decorated at night. I took a bunch of pictures.

London: Nov 7: Hampton Court Palace

2010-11-17T11:55:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, November 7, 2010, I left the house early to spend the day exploring Hampton Court Palace. With a high of 9 degrees C / upper-40s F, it was the first cold day on my trip to London. I dressed warmly.

I took pictures on this outing.

I had thought I'd get to the palace, which is substantially southwest of London, by a straight-forward, long tube ride to Waterloo station followed by an overground ride. I was wrong. My nearby tube line was shut for repairs. Instead, I took a rail-replacement bus to a different tube line to another tube line to Wimbledon station (passing in the process the station near where I lived the previous summer) to catch midway the train that travels from Waterloo to Hampton Court Palace. Despite the crazy route, the journey took about the same length of time (about an hour and forty-five minutes) as it would have if everything were running.

The palace is large, with probably several hundred rooms, though only certain wings are on display. It was originally built by Cardinal Wolsey; desired, annexed, and expanded by King Henry VIII (in the Tudor style); and further expanded by William (III) & Mary (in the Baroque style). Other Kings and Queens resided there as well, though none built as much as those three residents.

There are many commonalities between these palace wings. There are tapestries everywhere, lots of stained glass, many paintings (especially of themselves and other royals), and a good number of huge murals (on walls and ceilings). Lots of the non-portrait images allude to religious events or renowned rulers (e.g., Augustus) -- basically imagery that reflects the royals' divine right to rule or reflecting their intentions for empire.

Exploring the palace and listening to the audio guides taught me a lot about the history of the English throne around this time. That said, I generally didn't like the audio guides. (Yes, I say guides because there were different ones for different sections of the palace.) Half were conversational, often with play acting, but consequently were frustratingly slow, with low information density. (They had a good amount of info, just presented slowly.) Another was simply boring. Only one (on King William's apartments) was good, explaining not just furniture and decorations but also people's behaviors, personalities, and the public opinion on the monarch at various times. Because I felt I got enough history of the palace from my guidebooks and audio guides, I skipped the "Story of the Palace" exhibit.

Some little touches made the palace fun. For example, the palace has hidden speakers playing sounds: horses clip-clopping in a courtyard, meat getting chopped in a kitchen, a ghostly voice in an allegedly haunted corridor. They did similar things with smells, such as fish and meat in different places in the kitchen. There were also some people in costume who gave educational historic talks or put on shows, speaking in appropriate Middle English. Also, the kitchen had "experimental food historians." These people were actively using the Tudor-era kitchen and experimenting with medieval cooking techniques to figure out what people in the time actually did.

Indeed, in the gift shop attached to the kitchen exhibit (as opposed to the gift shop for the palace as a whole), I found many books about the history of English cooking, including The Taste of the Fire: the story of the Tudor Kitchens at Hampton Court Palace (which has old Tudor middle-English recipes along with their translations into modern English), Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking, Relish: The Extraordinary Life of Alexis Soyer, Victorian Celebrity Chef, and The Last Food of England (describing what traditional foods have managed to survive into the supermarket age and what have not).

While at the palace, I tried the famous hedge maze (some say the most famous in the world). It's actually the only part of the Wilderness Garden that remains in its original state; the rest previously contained other mazes and secret walks. Now it's merely a pleasant park.

The maze is small; I have a good sense of direction; and I found my way to the center in five minutes. (Really!) There aren't actually many dead ends, though there is a lot of splitting and rejoining paths, so if you have a good model you can know pretty well what paths are fruitful or not.

I didn't have time to visit everything before everything closed. I skipped most outdoor gardens; I spent most of my time in the palace rather than the grounds because I know I can come back to the gardens/grounds for free, but didn't want to have to the pay the hefty entrance fee to visit the palace again. Also, I didn't get to see the Royal Chapel because it is closed to tourists on Sundays. I didn't even get to see everything in the palace; I ran out of time before seeing the display of The Triumphs of Caesar by Andrea Mantegna (but I don't mind missing this).

Some things I learned over the course of my visit:

In King Henry VIII's time, 600 courtiers lived in the palace. Each was entitled to two meals a day. That's a lot of meals! Two hundred or so people worked in the kitchen to support the courtiers and royalty.
Courtiers ate 4,500 to 5,000 calories a day. They must work hard!
Each year, the palace ate through 600,000 gallons of beer, 200 barrels of wine, 1,200 oxen, 8,200 sheep, 2,300 deer, and 1,800 pigs, as well other animals. (There were people who kept track of inflows and outflows and managed the supply chain.) Can you tell I spent a lot of time in the kitchen section of the palace?
The royalty couldn't live in the palace year-round because it drew too many resources from the surrounding countryside. It wasn't sustainable.
Some think King Henry VIII's diet was 70% meat.

Anyway, come time to leave, I began my long trek home, taking a simpler route back (though not as simple as it would've been if everything had been running).

London: Nov 6: Guy Fawkes Fireworks

2010-11-16T09:50:00.006-05:00

November 5th is Guy Fawkes day, a London holiday celebrated with fireworks. It's in remembrance of the day Guy Fawkes tried and failed to blow up parliament.

But, on the evening of the 5th, the forecast was predicting thick clouds and heavy rain. Di Yin and I decided not to do anything.

On Saturday, November 6, however, the forecast was good, and, as about half the fireworks were scheduled for Friday and half on Saturday, we still had the opportunity to participate in the festivities.

Before the evening, we did one other thing worth mentioning: lunch. We decided to go out for lunch, ending up at a little cafe (sandwiches, salads, brunch), Jack's, on the high street somewhat near us (Salusbury Road by the Queen's Park station). I had a panini with diced chicken, roasted vegetables, and mozzarella. Di Yin said she liked the smoky taste to the vegetables. I thought the sandwich was fairly good. Di Yin had a hot pastrami which, though made with much less pastrami than in U.S. pastrami sandwiches, was much better quality than I expected. The couple next to us had very diverse spreads of English breakfast. Their plates looked good, and didn't appear to be too much food. I would've taken pictures on this trip but I forgot to put batteries in my camera.

In the evening, Di Yin, I, and a friend, B, who was crashing at our place, ventured out to Battersea Park for its fireworks. Though the closest Saturday fireworks to us, it was a bit of a journey to get there. (It's across the Thames.)

It was a fun excursion, and I'm glad I got to participate in this British holiday. Battersea Park was packed with people. There was a huge bonfire (another tradition for Guy Fawkes night), a number of food booths (mostly selling hamburgers and hot dogs), and of course fireworks. The bonfire was so large that at some points we had to turn our backs to it because it was roasting our faces. (This was despite us being more than fifty feet away.) The fireworks show was pretty good and coordinated with music. I particularly liked the fireworks with flares that zig-zagged after exploding.

I remembered to bring camera batteries on our evening outing and took some pictures and movies.

London: Nov 4: Churchill War Rooms & Museum

2010-11-15T09:20:00.006-05:00

On Thursday, November 4, I left work to visit the Churchill War Rooms & Museum. Because it was perfect fall weather, I decided to walk there and back.

I took some pictures on this excursion and later in the day.

I didn't expect the museum to be my cup of tea but I was pleasantly surprised and ended up staying there much longer than I would have guessed. Nevertheless, the excursion still felt more like a way to kill a couple of hours outside of work rather than a destination I'd go out to my way to visit. (I may be saying this, however, simply because I know how good the alternative--a walk in the park in this great weather--could be.)

The institution is divided into two parts. The War Rooms are the underground bunker where Britain's government planned operations during WWII. They're preserved in the state they were in at the end of the war. I found them boring mainly because, as part of a war effort, their design was purely functional: lots of tiny bedrooms, a kitchen, typist rooms, broadcasting rooms, and meeting rooms, all compact and unadorned. Nevertheless, the War Rooms were brought a bit to life with intimate details provided on large informative signs, by the audio guide's interviews with people who were personally familiar with these rooms (and told stories about them), and by the audio guide's re-enactments of events from written transcripts.

Incidentally, I was shocked to learn the War Rooms weren't perfectly protected. Indeed, they were a single flight of stairs underground -- more like a basement than a bunker. Admittedly, there was a two-meter-thick ceiling of steel-reinforced concrete above it, but the most-senior staff knew it wouldn't survive a direct bomb hit. They kept this fact hidden from most of the government workers.

The Churchill Museum, on the other hand, was much more interesting to me than I expected. It was filled with tons of objects and really managed to convey Churchill's style, in both his personal and professional life. I spent a good hour in the museum, which surprised me because I didn't think I was into this stuff. I didn't know much about Churchill aside from his role in WWII and that he was rather witty, coining many now-famous expressions. The museum taught me about the rest of his life, including that he was a war reporter around 1900, a war hero (from WWI and other campaigns) turned politician, a painter, and, late in his life, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I also learned about his politics and policies, including that he laid the foundations for the welfare state and that he changed parties twice (both times opportunistically).

Two particular displays especially caught my attention. One described the rhetorical techniques he used and showed examples of them from his speeches. (He was quite a speaker!) The other showed a collection of witticisms he invented throughout his life. These were great -- I spent quite a while reading them.

Throughout the museum I saw a good number of men wearing suits and memorial poppy flowers in honor of Remembrance Day, a Commonwealth holiday much like America's Veterans Day. Remembrance Day was the following week.

Later, I met Di Yin to go to dinner at a snazzy Indian restaurant, Cafe Spice Namaste, in the East End. I'd selected it not because I'd heard the food was any better than at any other good Indian restaurant in London but because it's one of the few places that purport to serve an authentic vindaloo. I'd gotten the idea in my head that I wanted to try to real thing. The vindaloo was alright, not bad though not something I'd probably order again, but the meal and trek was well worth it for a different dish we were served. For details on the meal see the pictures.

Cambridge England (Nov 3)

2010-11-14T23:31:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday, November 3, 2010, I took the day off from work to go to Cambridge with Di Yin. (This is why I worked the previous Sunday. We were originally going to go to Cambridge the previous Sunday but it turned out part of the train track to Cambridge was closed for maintenance, so we would have had to take a bus part of the way. Rather than do that, we simply postponed our trip.)

Unsurprisingly, Cambridge is much like Oxford (which I previously visited). They're both small and pretty. (Actually, I think they're rather different sizes, but the center of town around the colleges where the students and tourists go feels the same size.) They're both dominated by dozens of individual, attractive, medieval, walled-off colleges, each with its patch of perfect grass in its quad, many with same names as those in Oxford (Saint John's, King's, Trinity, Magdalen, ...). They both have pedestrian-friendly town centers with a diverse array of buildings and shops with personality. Indeed, there are many other similarities both in names and architecture: they both have a similar-looking Bridge of Sighs; both have buildings designed by Christopher Wren; they both have a church in the center of town with a high tower that provides impressive views of the colleges, the town, and the countryside. Also, in Cambridge, like similarly flat Oxford, there are many bikes and bike-riders. Finally, like Oxford, Cambridge has lots of churches, though some in Cambridge appeared standalone whereas most I saw in Oxford were obviously attached to particular colleges.

There are two main features I'll remember that distinguish Cambridge from Oxford. One, in Cambridge many colleges back right onto the canal ("River Cam"). This makes it more convenient (than in Oxford) to get to and see the water and also leads to prettier pictures of the colleges themselves. In contrast, the canals in Oxford are a bit further from the edges of town, and only a few colleges are near them. Two, Cambridge has a top-notch art museum, the Fitzwilliam. (More on it later.) Nevertheless, despite these two features that sound like they're in favor of Cambridge, I'm left with a tad better impression of Oxford than Cambridge. I can't put a finger on why. Perhaps it's simply as mundane that I visited Oxford on a sunny day and visited Cambridge on an overcast day. Or maybe it's that Oxford has marginally more spires.

As in Oxford, there are a number of sites I missed seeing. In Cambridge these include some notable colleges (e.g., Trinity), the inside of King's College Chapel, some museums (e.g., Fitzwilliam, Kettle's Yard), and a walk (to Grantchester). Nevertheless, I feel I got a good sense of Cambridge from wandering around and seeing the good number of colleges that I did. And by the way, as in Oxford, I again didn't have time to go punting. Sorry.

Neat fact: Cambridge students officially aren't allowed to work during the school term.

The Day
I took many pictures. This post covers some topics the pictures don't, and the pictures cover some sites this post doesn't.

Di Yin took even more. The link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #72 in an album that covers other trips as well). If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of us eating Indian food, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are seeing pictures I already linked to.

We got a fairly early start, stopped by our local fancy bakery to pick up pastries for breakfast, and took a London overground train to Euston / King's Cross to catch our long-distance train to Cambridge. Euston and King's Cross had crazy crowds because tube workers were on strike--everyone had to take the overground trains to get around--and this is one of London's largest overground stations.

Our express train to Cambridge was fairly fast--my ears popped a few times. The train passed decent scenery (not as nice as Scotland): green fields, yellow-leaved trees. We also went through some tunnels, which I didn't expect.

Once in Cambridge, we began by walking down High Street toward the center of town. On the way, we stopped in The Cooperative Grocery store. It makes its own breads and sandwiches, and has its own branded milk, meats, and deli counter.

About this time I turned on my GPS device to record my route. I'd leave it on until lunchtime.

We walked to downtown, meandering through various colleges (Peterhouse, King's, Clare) and over the River Cam multiple times on the way. Downtown, we stopped by Great Saint Mary's because I insisted on climbing to the top to take pictures (just as I did with the church in the center of Oxford; Great Saint Mary's is considered the town centre). I'm glad we stopped; the view was spectacular. (See the pictures.) Near Saint Mary's, we discovered an outdoor market that had a bit of everything, including locally grown vegetables.

Eventually, we sat down for lunch, ending up at a respectable U.K. chain restaurant named Strada.

Because my phone was almost out of batteries, I turned off the GPS recording. Later, after I got home, I recorded by hand our walking route from lunch until when we left Cambridge. It was misting on and off all afternoon as we walked.

Soon after lunch we found an amazing candy shop, Mr Simms, and hilarious t-shirt shop, Talking T's. Then, around this time, Di Yin found a store she wanted to spend a chunk of time in, so I wandered off to explore St John's College. Going through the college and out into the Backs turned out to be a longer walk than I expected.

Once we rejoined, we headed out of downtown. On the way, I made us to stop at Fitzbillies, an historic and well-respected bakery, in order to pick up one of its famous Chelsea buns.

We also stopped by the Fitzwilliam Museum. It turns out to be a high-quality museum of art and antiquities, on par with museums in London, and includes famous names such Seurat, Cezanne, Monet, and Canaletto. (Di Yin, who is normally picky about museums, said it has a "fantastic collection.") We didn't have much time to see the museum before it closed; it deserves a return visit and more attention in general. Incidentally, the museum has an impressive, opulent lobby; I could stare at it for a while. Also, I saw a remarkable painting, A Village Festival, With a Theatrical Performance and a Procession in Honour of St Hubert and St Anthony by Pieter Brueghel the younger. The detailed scene, in addition to the festival, shows someone getting bullied, a passed-out drunk, a traveling theatre troop, someone giving directions, and more.

Anyway, after the museum we headed straight to the train, and, once in London, straight home, stopping only at one more place in London on the way. (See the pictures.)

London: Nov 2: Courtauld Gallery

2010-11-13T09:13:00.005-05:00

On Tuesday, November 2, I disappeared from work to explore the Courtauld Gallery. It's housed at Somerset House, a grand building which I previously photographed and also plan to return to again to explore the other galleries inside.

The Courtauld Gallery's works extend from 14th century religious art through the Italian Renaissance and into impressionism, post-impressionism, and some fields of 20th century painting (French, expressionist, etc.). I definitely liked the impressionist and post-impressionist section the best; this also happens to be the section for which the museum is famous. The collection includes many Cezannes, Manets, Renoirs, and Seurats, and also Pisarro, Monet, Rousseau, Gauguin, and van Gogh. It's uniformly high quality; the museum clearly prefers quality over quantity. Elsewhere, I spotted and noted multiple Rubens, Degas, Maurice de Vlaminck, George Braque, Matisse, and Kandinsky.

I took pictures in the museum.

I also went to the Courtauld's special exhibit of Cezanne's paintings of peasants, often playing cards or smoking a pipe. It's interesting to compare his multiple versions of the same scene and the drafts (a.k.a. studies) he did in preparation. (The exhibit displays all of these.) It's clear he likes drawing his peasants as solid, monumental men (or, if you were an art critic, you'd write men with "gravitas and stoicism").

By the way, the rooms in the Courtauld Gallery are worth mentioning in themselves. They're fairly fancy, with elaborate ceiling plasterwork flourishes. If I read a sign correctly, some of the rooms are transplanted copies of Victorian rooms that were originally elsewhere in London.

I spent a bit over one and a half hours in the museum.

London: Nov 1: Canaletto at the National Gallery

2010-11-12T21:43:00.004-05:00

On Monday, November 1, I went to the National Gallery to see its current special exhibits. (I'd already seen all the permanent collection.) The headline exhibit was Venice: Canaletto and his Rivals. It showed panoramic paintings of Venice, showing large scenes and sometimes festivals, most done by Canaletto, Michele Marieschi, Bernardo Bellotto, and Francesco Guardi. I really liked how the exhibit juxtaposed Canaletto's paintings of views with others' paintings of the same view. It allowed me to get a grasp on each painter's style. For example, Bernardo Bellotto put more emphasis on the architecture than Canaletto. (I actually tend to prefer Bellotto's version of scenes.) By the time I finished browsing, I could recognize by styles all the major artists on display.

Although I liked the paintings in the exhibit, my favorites weren't actually done by Canaletto. I liked Michele Marieschi's The Courtyard of the Doge's Palace (for the way the light sparkles), Gaspare Vanvitelli's The Molo from the Bacino di San Marco (so much detail!), and somewhat Luca Carlevarijs' The Piazza San Marco - looking east (for the architecture). The first painting brings up an interesting point. Art critics apparently say Canaletto was better than Marieschi because Canaletto's light is more atmospheric, darker, and more realistic whereas Marieschi's light is brighter, more sparkly, and more artificial. Perhaps I prefer Marieschi's precisely because Canaletto's light is more real, conveying the authenticity of the place, and therefore less stylish, less alive.

I learned some interesting things from the exhibit and its high-quality audio guide. (I read all the plaques and listened to nearly everything in the guide.) For instance, I learned a bit about how the British desire for Grand Tour art influenced the work of the artists and what and how they painted: i.e., the impact of commercialization. A natural consequence is that works painted by Bernardo Bellotto, Canaletto's nephew/trainee, ended up being sold under Canaletto's name. (Canaletto took a long time on his paintings and couldn't satisfy the market demand.)

For reference, the paintings the critics proclaimed as two of Canaletto's masterpieces are The Grand Canal with San Simeone Piccolo and the Scalzi and The Grand Canal from Campo Santa Sofia to the Rialto Bridge.

I spent a bit more than an hour in the Venice exhibit.

The other special exhibit, meant to accompany the Venice one, showed more urban landscapes. In particular, it presented three views of London done by a modern painter, Clive Head. His paintings are almost photographic, yet each combines several perspectives in a smooth way. I look and know they're wrong, but it's hard to put my finger on why. A good description of this technique is on the exhibit's web page.

Incidentally, I took some pictures on the way to/from the National Gallery.

London: Oct 31: Running

2010-11-11T10:28:00.004-05:00

I ended up working on Sunday, October 31.

At one point this day, Di Yin and I went on a surprisingly nice run. Although the sky was slightly drippy, it felt like great weather to run in and a great neighborhood to run through. We ran through Belgravia (passing many consulates) and Green Park. (I meant for us to go to Hyde Park but got turned around.) Belgravia, as I've reported before, has many pretty buildings, and Green Park is beautiful, with nice fall colors.

For lunch, we tried to go to a Turkish place near work but found it closed and instead ended up in a restaurant, Spice World, for an Indian buffet. We had dal, chicken curry, shrimp curry, channa masala, chicken biryani, and naan. Sorry I forgot to take pictures. Perfectly decent all around. I left happily full. Service was non-existent.

London: Oct 30: Hampstead and Hampstead Heath

2010-11-10T10:25:00.005-05:00

I've heard it rains a lot in London during the fall. Hence, when I saw that the forecast for Saturday, October 30, didn't include rain, I advocated to Di Yin that we should use the opportunity and spend it outside. Of the choices I gave her, she selected Hampstead Heath as our destination.

I took pictures during our outing. Di Yin also took pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day, starting with lunch near our apartment. When you see a picture of us beginning our trip to Cambridge (picture #72), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the Cambridge pictures in a later post.

Before heading to Hampstead, we stopped for lunch at Spice Grill's, a hole-in-the-wall Indian joint on Salusbury Road, near the Queen's Park station. This road is the other high street (besides Kilburn High Road) near us. Our meal was respectable; at the time I said I was willing to return (and indeed I did later).

We then took the train to Hampstead and walked around town on the way to the Heath. Hampstead has many architecturally interesting buildings. There are a variety of styles represented. You can tell it's a wealthy area, not just from the houses but also from the number of boutiques on the high street.

We were in the Heath for only ten minutes before it started raining. Given how we planned the day, the rain surprised the dickens out of me. Rather than checking the weather on a random web site, I guess I should've used the most authoritative source. We took shelter with about ten other people under a large tree. When the rain let up, we decided to head back to a pub or cafe to have a snack and to hide from the rain should it come again.

We ended up having tea in the Burgh House's cafe. The Burgh House is one of the oldest houses in town. It turns out the main two floors have been converted into a museum about Hampstead; we explored it after tea.

The Hampstead Museum was surprisingly good, containing more information/material than I imagined it could've had.

There was an exhibit on John Constable, a painter who painted the area a lot. Though all his works shown are prints--he's relatively famous so they're hanging in more prominent museums--it was nonetheless neat to see his perspective on the town at the time.

The exhibit on the Hampstead tube was extensive, explaining how the establishment of the station changed the area. For illustration, it included advertising posters, showing how the London transport organization tried to get people to accept and use the tube. London transport partially did this by promoting the nature you could reach with it.

Also in this exhibit I learned the Hampstead tube station is, at 192 feet deep, the deepest station in the system. Indeed, as we discovered when we arrived, the station has no escalators; it uses large elevators to move people up and down. Another consequence of its depth is that it was used as an air raid shelter during WWII; a substantial portion of the exhibit was devoted to elaborating on this.

This exhibit also included old tube maps. I found it interesting to see the change-over from the old, geographic representation to the modern, diagrammatic one. The shift in font faces was also notable.

Finally, the exhibit also mentioned there's a ghost station between Hampstead & Golders Green--a tube station that was fully built but never opened. You can't enter from the ground level and trains certainly don't stop there.

Another section of the museum covered Hampstead's history from the year 1000 onward, and reflected a bit on how Hampstead, as it was built over the years, has buildings in most architectural styles, from old ones such as the Burgh House to Isokon modernist structures.

There was also an art gallery.

Having exhausted the museum, we left to explore a bit more of Hampstead and then headed home. In addition to residential neighborhoods, we walked up and down the main street, Hampstead High Street.

London: Oct 29: Wellcome Collection

2010-11-09T10:23:00.007-05:00

On Friday, October 29, 2010, I disappeared from work to visit the Wellcome Collection. I'd never heard of this museum before: it's not mentioned in any of my guide books, and I wouldn't have known about it without Di Yin mentioning it. (Perhaps I hadn't heard of it because it's new--it was established in 2007.) Its web page intrigued me so I decided to go.

The Wellcome Collection turns out to be a museum that looks at medicine, science, and health, their history, and art inspired by those things. Knowing this connection to medicine and health, I chuckle as the museum's motto: "a free destination for the incurably curious."

I first explored the exhibit Medicine Now. As you can guess from my description of the museum, the displays cover a rather eclectic range, including:

an interactive exhibit that takes a picture of one's face and compares the features to that of an average face. It was interesting to see the ways in which I differ from most.
a model of the body and a set of buttons for each organ. When you press a button, that organ lights up. I and another museum visitor thought the pancreas light was broken at first because we couldn't see it. It wasn't broken--it turns out the pancreas is only visible from the back.
an interactive exhibit showing videos of fourteen-year-olds side-by-side with videos of the same people ten years later. It was interesting to see how the people changed both physically and personality-wise. (Their personalities came through in these videos despite them not saying anything, just sitting there in the video box doing whatever they wanted.)
(art) a print combining echocardiogram measurements and topographic maps of mountains.
(art) pills cut into the shapes of organs they're supposed to heal.
(art) fMRI patterns put into three-dimensional crystal form.

The feature of this exhibit that I enjoyed the most was the audio recordings. I particularly remember a comedian talking about the changes his body underwent as a result of multiple sclerosis, a humanities professor watching medical students dissect a heart for their first time, and a journalist who got malaria. As you've no doubt guessed, these recordings, which are scattered around the exhibit, range as widely as the displays they accompany.

The exhibit also has sections on obesity, malaria, and genomes.

The other exhibit, Medicine Man, is more historic in focus. It has many objects and curios used historically in the practice of healing (effective or not). These objects range from masks (medical and shaman), glassware, chairs (birthing, etc.), artificial limbs, and old instruments (useful and not) to amulets, figurines, chastity belts, anti-masturbation devices, glass eyes, and memento moris. The curios (as if some of those objects aren't curios...) include a naturally preserved mummy (disturbing) and Darwin's walking stick. There's also an intriguing collection of 18th century (and earlier) medical prints (from around the world) that doctors used for reference. Some have astrological charts (e.g., showing good days for bloodletting).

In contrast to the modern art about medicine in the Medicine Now exhibit, this exhibit has a series of medicine-related paintings (most from the 18th and 19th centuries): physicians and surgeons at work, people giving birth, people being injured, bodies being dissected, etc.

One section of the exhibit presents the history of Henry Wellcome. He built a pharmaceutical empire and started the charitable trust that's responsible for the museum (and also responsible for ongoing grants for medicine). During his lifetime, he collected most of the objects shown in the Medicine Man exhibit.

It took me about an hour and a half to thoroughly explore the regular part of the collection. No special exhibit was open at the time.

On the way back to work, I almost hurt myself multiple times. The down escalator in the Warren Street tube station wasn't working so everyone had to walk down a long series of steps. Along the wall, London Transit had put up an interesting series of signs discussing escalators in the tube system: when the first one was installed, how many there are now, what and where the longest one is, etc. These signs attracted my attention so I didn't look where I was walking; this would've been fine if the steps were regularly spaced all the way down, but they weren't. Every dozen or two steps there was a landing, and when I stepped onto one unexpectedly (because I wasn't looking) I always stumbled.

Incidentally, I took a few photos during the excursion.

London: Oct 27: Sir John Soane's Museum, plus Marylebone

2010-11-08T14:16:00.007-05:00

On Wednesday, October 27, 2010, I left work in mid-afternoon to explore Sir John Soane's Museum. Upon arrival, I was surprised to see there was a queue to enter. The curators control the number of people in the museum/house. I waited twenty minutes. The curators said the delay was due to an event earlier in the day and that there usually is no queue.

I feel weird calling this a museum. Rather, it's a collection. First, there are effectively no plaques/explanations. Second, it reflects one man's idiosyncratic tastes; it's not trying to convey a broad educational or cultural message. Third, it's in his (overfilled) house. Indeed, the whole idea reminds me of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (which I previously visited), where one person leaves his/her collection with the instructions to leave it in the condition it was in at the time of his/her death. Unlike the Gardner Museum, the curators here didn't quite obey. For instance, Soane's private rooms on the second floor were converted into museum offices. The curators obeyed in some parts of the house but not others. Now the museum/collection is trying to raise money to restore the rest of the house to its original state.

The museum has some remarkable sights, its architecture for one. Soane was an architect and designed the house himself, and he apparently really likes his skylights. They're everywhere--a greater abundance than I've seen in any other building. Some use colored glass.

Marble decorations (busts, reliefs) and casts, all Roman, comprise the majority of objects in his house. In some areas, so many are mounted to the walls and piled into overflowing alcoves that it's clear Soane wanted people feel like they were in Rome everywhere they looked. In fact, the wooden columns in the display hall seem flimsy in contrast to the marble.

The picture room is filled almost entirely with William Hogarth's series The Rake's Progress. It also has some hidden doors.

The basement has an eerie Gothic room that, with its mocking carvings, satirizes the style.

I got a taste of Canaletto -- there were two Canaletto paintings not on loan to the National Gallery, which was having a special exhibit on him. (I'd visit the special exhibit later during my stay in London.) The most famous Canaletto was loaned out.

By far the most amazing sight in the museum was from the basement near the Egyptian sarcophagus, looking past the literally countless busts up into the atrium above. This vista alone made the museum worthwhile. I'm sad I couldn't take a picture. This sketch is the best representation of the sight I could find on the web; this picture also kind of captures the effect, though from a different angle. Frankly, I'm shocked and disappointed that these are the best images I could find.

It took me a bit under an hour to go through the museum at a very languid pace. Because the museum was fast, and because the weather was great--I couldn't imagine a better temperature--, I fancied a stroll outside. I walked through Lincoln's Inn Fields and Lincoln's Inn before returning to work. I've previously visited them.

By the way, I took three pictures this day.

In the evening, I met Di Yin and a friend to go to The Golden Hind, a fish and chips shop we've visited before. On the way there (we didn't meet at the nearest station to it), we walked down Marylebone High Street, passing some attractive apartment buildings and doing some window shopping. I've previously walked through this area.

My reaction to dinner was exactly the same as before.

After dinner, we continued strolling down Marylebone High Street. It got nicer, turned into Thayer Street and James Street and got nicer still. Some buildings have such attractive facades, especially on the topmost level, that we stopped to talk about them. At the same time as we talked, I was thinking, "this building is nice, but it's not distinctive for London. London has many buildings equally nice; that's part of the appeal of the city."

Di Yin remarked that James Street was one of her favorite streets in London. I can see why: not only is it cute; it also has many restaurants with al fresco dining on the sidewalk. We passed some that provided good eye-candy: one with large, thin, rectangular pizzas; another with large paella dishes; another with hookahs. The square, St Christopher's Place, off James Street has more cute restaurants and pubs.

Di Yin, I, and her friend split up at Oxford Street, with Di Yin and me heading to the tube to head home, concluding our nice walk on a nice, comfortable evening.

By the way, Di Yin took pictures at dinner. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #77) in her London album. When you see a picture captioned "the pickles were very good" (picture #82), you're done with the day's pictures. I'll link to her other pictures at appropriate times.

London: Oct 24: Little Venice

2010-11-07T10:23:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, October 24, 2010, my first full day in London, Di Yin and I decided to explore the neighborhood referred to as Little Venice. I'd previously read online about Little Venice and seen a handful of pictures and, as a result, had low expectations. Nevertheless, we went. It was a nice day, and the canals we walked along (Grand Union Canal: Paddington Branch; Regent's Canal) turned out to be very pretty, definitely exceeding my expectations.

I took pictures on the way. Also, here's the route we walked. (To explain the upward loop: I took a wrong turn so we ended up seeing more of the neighborhood than I'd intended.)

Di Yin took even more pictures than I. The link goes to the first picture she took this day (picture #23) in her London album. When you see a picture of me in a subway (picture #76), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to her other pictures in a later post.

In addition to the canals, we enjoyed browsing the local high streets: Clifton Gardens and (the smaller) Formosa Street. As you can see from the pictures, this is a relatively high-end area with many upscale cafes (no Starbucks) and organic food shops.

London: Commute

2010-11-06T10:47:00.004-04:00

Sometime I got to work by double-decker bus. (Though slower than the tube, it was more direct.) The route passes through areas I've visited during past excursions. From Kilburn High Road (my apartment area), it passes through Maida Vale, by Little Venice, Edgeware Road, Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner (with Wellington Arch), and into Belgravia to Victoria.

On various days, I took pictures from the upper floor of the double-decker bus. I collected the photographs on one page.

Along the journey I see adventurous bikers. They're allowed to use the bus lanes and play (in effect) a relay race with the buses.

London: Commercial Areas Near My Apartment

2010-11-05T11:06:00.001-04:00

There are two high streets (main streets) near my apartment: Kilburn High Street (near Kilburn High Street rail station) and Salusbury Road (near the Queen's Park rail and tube station). Kilburn High Street is the closest one to our apartment, and the one where I caught the bus to work.

At separate times, I explored these areas with my camera. Here are the photos.

Kilburn High Street is a long, everyday shopping street. I imagine that anything you need to live, you can find on this street. It has grocery stores, mid-range department stores, shoe stores, furniture stores, cell phone stores, banks, restaurants (mostly quick, convenient ones such as fast food joints and cafes with pre-made sandwiches), pubs, and even a dollar store (oops, I mean a pound store). There are also a variety of service shops, including a locksmith, a tailor, a dentist, a dry-cleaner, and a funeral home.

This is my impression from walking two-thirds of a mile from Kilburn High rail station to the next rail station north, Brondesbury rail station. Along the way, I passed a segment with a high density of Middle Eastern shops and restaurants.

Near Queen's Park, our other high street, Salusbury Road, is a bit higher class than Kilburn. I wouldn't call Kilburn low-class, or Queen's Park upscale by any means; it just feels a bit more well-to-do. There are certainly nicer restaurants there.

Salusbury Road is much, much shorter than Kilburn High Street--the commercial section lasts perhaps four blocks.

These descriptions are brief; refer to the pictures for more detail and concrete imagery.

London: Apartment and Vicinity

2010-11-04T14:30:00.005-04:00

During this trip to London, we stayed a bit north of London (in zone 2), in the vicinity of neighborhoods known as Kilburn and Queen's Park. Our flat was in a townhouse that'd been converted into apartments. Our flat was nice and spacious and a very comfortable place to live. Wooden floors throughout. It was basically furnished (not sparsely furnished, but furnished more in the simple way someone our age tends to furnish places). The mattress was on a simple frame on the floor, and the living room had a circular plastic Ikea table for eating. The living room also had a large and comfortable L-shaped sofa, soft enough that one can easily sleep on it (as houseguests sometimes did).

The living room and bedroom were very large (perhaps 400-500 square feet each) and both had lofted ceilings (12+ feet tall) with floor-to-ceiling windows. The living room even had ceiling flourishes near the sides. It also had a gas fireplace, though we didn't touch it.

There was also a TV (which I never figured out how to turn on, though Di Yin could do it without trouble!) and a set of easy-to-move iPod speakers (which came in handy to listen to things at various places throughout the apartment).

The kitchen was long and narrow and more functional than it looked. There was a camouflaged dishwasher; it looked like a regular cabinet. The camouflaged refrigerator--a tall cabinet--had a tiny freezer but otherwise was large enough to serve our needs. There was also a small washing machine hidden in this hall of a kitchen.

The bathroom had its own style, with waist-high tiles on walls, some of which had emblems vaguely reminiscent of coats of arms.

Both the kitchen and the bedroom overlooked a backyard. Though we weren't allowed to go into it--it was property of the tenants below us--we enjoyed the view and also enjoyed watching the antics of the various neighborhood cats that came there to play.

As for the residential area around our apartment, I took a variety of photographs over several days documenting the area. Sorry I didn't take pictures inside the apartment itself.

Di Yin took some pictures in and near our apartment: 1, 2, 3, 4. Those pictures come from her London album. I'll link to the other pictures in the album when appropriate.

London Overview

2010-11-03T16:18:00.004-04:00

I lived in London for about two months in late 2010, from Saturday, October 23, 2010, through Wednesday, December 15, 2010. I wrote about my impressions of London after I lived there the previous summer. This post adds to/updates that entry.

I still have the feeling that London is inexhaustible. Although I left work for a couple of hours most days to go exploring and see something new, my list of things to see in London feels longer than it was when I started. I discover new places to see at least as quickly as I manage to see them.

Also, I again want to emphasize that London has many attractive buildings. I like just walking around this city and looking. Incidentally, local area maps posted throughout the city have a circle labeled "5 minutes walking" -- very handy.

Climate & Weather
London is very far north. During most of my visit, I'd wake up before dawn and the sun would set between 4:00pm and 4:30pm. By the time I left in mid-December, it was almost dark at 4:00pm.

As I've said before, the weather in London is unpredictable, making weather prediction unreliable. It says heavy rain the next day but it barely mists for an hour or two. Again, I learned that regardless of the prediction, I should carry my umbrella. Nevertheless, I found I actually enjoyed London's intermittent rain. It was usually light, and walking around during a shower while being perfectly comfortable under an umbrella made me proud that I was braving the elements. Sometimes the rain was even refreshing.

Britishisms
I think I may choose to keep some of the Britishisms that I've picked up. I like saying "have a think", "on holiday", bill (for check), note (for paper money/bills), and mobile (for a cellular phone). I'm indifferent about saying cheers (for thank you and goodbye), take-away (for carry-out / to-go), lift (for elevator), aubergene (for eggplant), banger (for sausage), jacket potato (for baked potato), biscuit (for crackers or cookies), and crisps (for potato chips). There are some terms I don't think I'll ever get used to: on-lead (for a pet that's leashed), pudding (for dessert), chips (for french fries), chestnut mushrooms (for brown mushrooms / baby portobello), courgettes (for zucchini), and swede (for rutabaga).

Food
I'm left with a better impression of food in London than on my earlier visit. I think I simply had better luck with restaurants. I also have a good impression of prepared foods sold in grocery stores. Grocery stores in London have many refrigerated dishes that you microwave or bake at home, kind of like frozen dinners in the U.S. except these are fresher and go bad in a couple of days if you don't cook them. Marks and Spencer has the best ones, and the best selection. There are also desserts in the same vein; my favorite is banoffee pie, but in general we never went wrong with any of the desserts we picked up. Judging by the fat content, Londoners each have a quarter of their calories in the form of desserts, but these desserts are so tasty that they're calories well spent. Incidentally, as for freshly cooked desserts, I don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of warm custard, which the Brits put on all sorts of bread puddings and cakes.

By the way, I'm amazed how much the Brits mix meats in their meat pies (turkey and pork, game and poultry, etc.).

Misc
I learned it wasn't just Christopher Wren who designed a ton of London. John Nash designed/built a lot as well. (See the pictures, then the long list below.)

Maine Oct 2010

2010-11-01T15:27:00.005-04:00

I was to spend two months of the fall in London. On the way there, I stopped in Maine to visit my parents from Tuesday, October 19, 2010, through Friday, October 22.

Sorry, I didn't take any pictures during this visit.

Tuesday
I flew into Boston on Tuesday. On the way, I grabbed a turkey and avocado sandwich to eat on the plane from Boudin Sourdough Bakery's SFO location. While buying this sandwich, I noticed a woman who wanted rye bread and made a big fuss: "What kind of bakery doesn't have rye bread?" I wanted to shout at her and shake her. The employees, however, were too nice to point out this is a sourdough bakery. It's in the name. That's why they don't have other types of bread.

Wednesday
On Wednesday, my parents proudly took me to Hebert Brothers Seafood, the local fishmonger, where we ate good lobster rolls while sitting on a picnic bench in front of the shop overlooking the water.

In the afternoon, we went to the Wentworth Hotel to stroll through its gardens and along its marina. It's a pretty area.

After that, we headed to Fort Stark, which overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and the Piscataqua River. I guess it's easy to find places that have views of water in this part of New Hampshire and Maine. Incidentally, walking around this derelict fort (much of it was fenced off), we saw places where branches struck out like artillery turrets through the fence around one building. Also, there were some rooms/buildings that I couldn't decide if they were meant to be prisons or barracks.

Later, we drove by more sights, including one place with a metal sculpture of a picture frame (on an easel, with a metal sculpture of a painter nearby) framing a water view. Finally, before returning home, we passed some nice houses in Newcastle, which I'm told is an expensive town.

For dinner, we headed to the York Harbor Inn, which has a prime rib special on Wednesday nights. We ate downstairs, the interior of which was designed to look like a ship and built from nicely glowing red wood. We ate watching the sun disappear through the hatch. We had pretty standard prime rib, not as good as what we've become accustomed to but acceptable nonetheless. The sides were good: mashed potatoes, battered french fries, grilled asparagus, and sauteed brussels sprouts in brown butter. (Yes, I liked the brussels sprouts, a pleasing surprise to me.)

Thursday
After I ran in the morning, we went to Shio in Portsmouth for lunch. It's a perfectly respectable Japanese restaurant; we had sushi (my last chance given London effectively has none) and teriyaki and tempura. I liked the restaurant's varied design, with regular tables, regular booths, and sunken floor Japanese-style booths.

We ate a Thanksgiving-inspired dinner at home: rotisserie chicken from Market Basket, baked sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, peas, and cranberry sauce.

By the way, for some breakfasts in Maine I ate my mom's banana bread muffins. Good stuff.

Friday
My flight from Boston to London left Friday evening. My parents planned to drop me off at the airport and then eat dinner in Boston so as to wait out the rush hour traffic. Happily, it turned out my plane was delayed--a fact we only discovered once we were already in Boston--and thus I got to eat dinner with my parents.

Dinner was an adventure, and we got to exploit all the restaurant research my dad had done. My dad had a number of suggestions for dining options; he was excited when he saw how many good restaurants there were near the airport.

On the quest for food, we spent some time confusedly driving through the mess that is East Boston near the airport (lots of blocked roads and that kind of thing). The first place we stopped at was a pupusaria. From the outside it looked more like a small, corner Mexican market than a restaurant. There were no customers inside, and the neighborhood was scarily empty. We decided to pass.

Our second choice was a cafe in a shipyard. We thought we were in the same situation again when we found the entrance to the shipyard dark (no street-lights) and guarded by a family of skunks. Slightly perturbed, we detoured and drove to the other entrance, which was marginally more welcoming--there was a guardhouse but still no people.

Once in the shipyard, we found the small restaurant we were seeking: Scup's in the Harbour. It's a cozy space with a couple of bench tables inside, that's all. One orders food from the door to the kitchen. It's funky, given character by exposed pipes in the ceiling, by Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling, by the large, fake spider attached to one wall, and by the paintings.

Soon after being seated, we were greeted by and chatted with the owner for quite a while. She and her husband previously ran Emma's Pizza in Cambridge (a shop I've been to before (though after they sold it) and enjoyed). By the way, it turns out they weren't the original owners--they took over from Emma the pizza Nazi. (Yes, she sounded like the pizza equivalent of the soup nazi.) After they ran and sold Emma's Pizza, they lived on a tugboat in the shipyard for a while, then were offered this place in the shipyard to run. (The previous occupants left.) Anyway, we talked about a lot more than her biography, but those are the highlights.

My parents and I split three dishes:

Crab cakes. Decent. The crab was the texture of moist bread crumbs in a white cream sauce. I thought they were decent and relatively unusual; my mom thought they were the best crab cakes she's ever had.
"Ultimate" BLT: house-marinated bacon, cherry tomatoes (sliced in half, which makes them really want to escape the sandwich), greens, cheese, and pesto. (Yes, it's those unusual ingredients that make the chef call it "ultimate.") I thought this was very good, especially when hot, with the bacon being better than most I've had. My mom disagreed, saying the bacon was average. Regardless, I thought the cheese and pesto added a lot, and I think this sandwich will get me to consider ordering BLTs again. (Normally in a sandwich shop my eyes skip over them on the menu because I didn't believe they were something I usually like.)
Chicken rice bowl with grilled chicken, rice, peanuts, shredded carrots, and green onions, all in a funky Asian sauce (sesame mixed with something sweet?). There were also notes of lemon, chili powder, and ginger. Fine. Nice grill-marks on the chicken. Though I usually like dishes with green onions and/or peanuts, I felt there was too much going on in this dish and it didn't manage to come together harmoniously. My mom hated it, but dad convinced her to take the leftovers home. They said the leftovers were much better. Mom "loved" them. I guess I didn't mix the dish enough the first night, or perhaps the flavors blended better overnight.

After dinner, my parents dropped me off at the airport.

As for the flight itself, because it was an overnight flight, I worked hard to get comfortable and sleep the entire way. The Virgin Atlantic economy seat had too much space (!) between my seat and the window -- I couldn't easily jam a pillow in there to lean on, and if my head let the pillow slip, it would fall between the plane's shell and my seat.

It's interesting that this flight was shorter than the flight from San Francisco to Boston, but this flight crosses five time zones, not three. Can you figure out why this is? (I can.)