Afghan Boys

Here we have more pictures of me and kids who don't speak english!!!!

This is the next wave of Afghan acting talent. They haven't learned to smile at the camera yet. Its a cultural thing. They didn't grow up saying "cheese" to the camera at birthday parties. I doubt anyone makes cheese within 5000 miles of Kabul, where they are from. Great kids, I wish I could have spent more time with them so I could have taught them some card games. Then I'd beat them, because I'm the best. Uh, back on topic. They are roughly 10-11 years old. They were born during the Taliban's rule, when it wasn't customary to issue birth certificates, so their exact age is heresay. And these are their guardians/extended family members with them.

Shanghai #2: Posting from Santa Monica

Wow!! This city was amazing.

I'm very glad I checked out Shanghai. And Derya is a great hostess. If you're lucky enough to get the chance, be her friend!

This first photo is us at the base of the Jin Mao tower, the tallest building in China. 5th in the world by floor height, 7th by pinnacle height (thats counting the needle they put on top to cheat the height). Its 88 storys high, with an 8 corner design. 8 is a very lucky number in China. And 4 is a very unlucky number, because it rhyms with the word for 'death'. Therefore the floor numbers skip, not only 13, but also 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, 64, 74, 84, and 94. This is how we had dessert and drinks on the 97th floor of an 88-story building. Click the link for info on the building, which is half a Hyatt Hotel.

This photo is of the new skyscraper, which is going to be even taller than the Jin Mao Tower. Its apparently under construction. Meanwhile, I found an illustration of its final design here. It appears to be about a third of its final height.

Anyways, I couldn't help but thinking that most of China seems to be very poor. Its now clear to me that Shanghai, as well as Hong Kong, and probably a few other cities, is where all the money from the mass of Chinese exports goes. Actually, I theorize that the massive flux of money into China goes into the following places:

1-Building skyscrapers in Shanghai
2-European cars. Virtually all the cars there are European, with a few Hyundai's and a few Jeeps.
3-Sending people to live, study, travel and/or work abroad.
4-Taxes, of which a large chunk of the surplus is invested in buying Dollars.

This buying of Dollars is what effectively allows the US to run such the large deficit that we do. On the one hand, the US needs China to do this, otherwise our economy would fall apart. But on the other hand, China needs the US to not fall apart, because we buy all their goods, and they would otherwise basically fall apart with us.

OH, I almost forgot, the crazy building that looks like a pearl necklace is the "Pearl of the Orient" or as wikipedia calls it, the "Oriental Pearl Tower". Whatever its called, the thing is crazy!! Here is Derya and I posing in front of it after its lightshow turned on. Oh, most of the skyscrapers have a light show that goes from 7:30 until 11:00. Nice. Sure makes the Los Angeles towers look boring. Well, when the "US Bank Tower", formerly the "Library Tower", changes the colors of the 12 white lights for holidays, it can get a bit exciting. Try not to let it distract you when you're driving.

I'm back in LA. Call me up on my regular phone now so I can catch up on everything I've been missing.

Shanghai #1: Pedestrian Freeway

I'm in Shanghai, as you can tell from the post name. After finishing work wednesday, I took the night train down here thursday night, so I could spend the weekend down here, visiting my friend Derya.

On our way to the electronics mall, we had to cross this mega intersection that resembles Times Square. The main difference is there are no cross walks. The pedestrians go downstairs where there is something that I like to call a "pedestrian freeway", but they might call it a underpass, or a mall, or a subway station. Either way, we had to go up at exit 9.

Here is a photo looking down the long walkway with people shopping, looking for their exit, and going to or from the subway. I wish I had a photo from above ground, but I dont, so I'll have to describe it. Its a network of several intersections. With 7 roads coming in, there are isolated lanes connecting certain roads, and the main intersection breaks apart into two or three intersections. Its awesome. I wish the pedestrian section was on top though.

This is Derya and I dancing on the stage at this Mexican/German bar, celebrating the Mexican Independence Day. I say german, because half the people at the bar were germans, no joke. There is a big beer garden outside, which is shared by another restaurant. Perhaps the other restaurant is german? Although I doubt it.

Oh, you've heard of "ex-pat" bars. This entire city is an ex-pat city. Sure, half the people at any given restaurant, bar, or business are chinese, the other half are not. And sure, the service sector is almost entirely chinese, there are a LOT of foriegners. And all of them have decent jobs, because they are here with their multinational companies. Use your imagination: its a party city.

Happy Independence Day, Viva Mexico!!

Beijing #7: My birthday party!

Hey everyone, it wasn't a pub crawl. And none of my friends from before August of 2006 were there, but I had a good birthday party nonetheless, of course, you know me. You missed out. This was a Thai restaurant. I invited all the compadres I could find to make some sort of festivity out of the night.

AND, I was presented with a, well I an only assume, Thai birthday tradition. It was this eggdrop soup, and a single candle on the side to blow out. The soup had cilantro in it, which for me, overpowers the rest of the taste, with something I can't stand. So, I can't say much about the soup itself.

This was over a week ago, the second night in Beijing, but I finally got a few photos from Jotham, who took these. Thanks Jotham.

Beijing #6: Chinese Lesson 3 - Naming Contest (cont'd)

Here we go again. I have better things to write about, but I need to keep the contest going too.

This time I wanted to open things up a little. I felt wierd about handpicking which ones are to be named. Here I have labeled just about all the characters that are legible, and that I haven't already named.

Actually, I have already named 6 "prisoner and guard". Its there for better ideas.

You certainly don't have to name all of them, just whatever inspiration comes.

Apparently you know you don't "have to" name them. At the time of this post, there was has only been one single entry for the last ones. Come on now, I know you're reading this, step up to the plate.

My favorite, the crying 'L', its been named already, it means heart.

Beijing #5: Chinese Lesson 2 - Naming Contest

Hey friends,

I mean, students. I got a wonderful suggestion from Jeremy, a fluent chinese speaker from Canada. I'm going to let YOU, the reader, try and come up with a name that describes some of these characters.

I'll start with 5 characters. You see I have numbers pointing to them. Please post your ideas to the comments for this thread. The best ones will stick. This character #1 is awesome, I have so many ideas for it, I can't pick one. Thats why I'm letting you decide! (extra credit if you name ones I have not labeled)

Meanwhile, there are a few ones here I want to point out: '4' on sheet music. This one was such a shocker to one chinese girl, she had never looked at it that way, that it caused her to forget the real meaning of it!

Rain drops falling on the roof of a house. That one is simple. But what about these other two??

Check out the one below: its rain bouncing off the roof of a large house. Then the lambda/man. I can't tell which it is. Thoughts?

Now, I have to apologize to all the people to whom I have advertised "the Legend of pi" picture story. It is on its way, but its not ready yet.

Check back soon, and I will have a suprise presentation for all of you. It will be a story that will help you remember a bunch of characters that all include, as a component, and the lead character in the story, the greek letter pi.

Naming contest characters 4 and 5.

Next is a photo from the Beijing studio, where I am working now (notice the giant thumb in the background).

I felt that the characters on this no burning sign didn't need labeling. See if you can guess which ones are which:

1- Birdie Putt
2- Guard and Prisoner
3- Umbrella in Snow Storm
4- Suprised Man

Have fun with the naming, I hope to see some fun ideas!!!

And if you know what any of these mean, PLEASE let us all know! We need to learn their definitions as well as their names, otherwise we haven't really learned anything useful, have we?

Beijing #4: Chinese Lesson 1

Hey everybody, its time for a CHINESE LESSON!!!

I'm learning too here, so we can all learn TOGETHER, even though we are very far apart.

Here are a bunch of photos I've taken, mostly of the basic characters that I'm starting to recognize, and I would like to know what they mean. Some of these, I have found out what they mean, and others not. I'll say what the ones that I know mean, and if you know what the others mean, post it to my comments, or if you want to guess, go for it!

Photo #1:
The one horizontal line means the number 1. Two lines mean 2, and three lines mean 3. I've been told 4 is a little more complicated and I haven't recognized it yet.
I don't know what the other two I've labeled mean.

Photo #2:
Three lines for 3. You already recognize one. GOOD! Pi-bar. Simple enough, the greek letter pi with a bar over it. Thoughts?

The double trident means 'out', and the box means "opening", thank you Jenn. The onramp signs read Lambda Box. So I'm guessing lambda means 'in'.

Photo #3:
Running man, this one is maybe beyond the scope of the beginner class. What do you think? Actually the real question is, what does it mean?

The roman numeral almost definitely does not mean 2. The speared box means 'middle' and when its followed by one I can't describe, which means 'country' the pair means 'China'.

The crying 'L' is my favorite one. I have no idea what it means. And I actually say a lower case crying 'l' as well, with only two tears. Oh, and the picture of legs, yikes, I lost my train of thought.

Photo #4:
Hole in one. Its a bit small, click the photo for a bigger view. Its a pole, with a small line to the side on the top, sitting on a flat line. There is another one I've seen a few times that I call 'birdie putt'. Thats the same as this, but with another slightly shorter vertical line without the flag. Its really close to the flag.

The man, with arms, means 'big'. The Santana 3000 does look pretty big. And Santana has been big in the states for a few decades.

Umbrella with raincloud. I don't know what this means, but when it is paired with the 'highway crosses river', they mean Beijing. This is basically the initial for Beijing.

Photo #5:
OK, this is taking longer than expected. I'm going to have to make this the last one for the post, and continue with lesson 2 another time.

Here we have the two that mean Beijing, 'Highway crosses river' followed by 'umbrella with raincloud'.

Capital 'I', simple, this is the first letter our languages share.

And I suspect thats the 'one' at the bottom, even though it looks like an arrow pointing to the left, that could just a pseudo brush stroke.

Thats the other thing, chinese characters, "Han Ze", as they call them, are traditionally written by hand, with a stylized, artistic stroke. Nowadays, a lot of them have been standardized like a font. As a result, people try to escape the standardization with what is sort of like a font with serifs. OK, I'll do one more.

Photo #6:
OK, this is an important one. Here is the one I can't describe, next to the speared box. I said what this one means earlier, do you remember? (Or if you're clever enough, maybe you figure it out?) Extra credit if you can describe the second character here.

And finally, another one, perhaps beyond the scope of this lesson, a good one to finish on, because it can be a transition into the next, more advanced lesson, the 'double shelf/umbrella'. This isn't really fair, because we didn't do the double shelf yet (or the triple shelf, for that matter).

Beijing #3: Beijing driving

Lets talk about the rules of the road and roadway etiquitte. Lets also discuss what "good driving" means exactly in terms of efficiency, safety and ease of mind for the drivers and passengers, and pedestrians and bikers who share the road.

Here are some Kashgar photos to distract you from the fact that I haven't uploaded any since arriving in Beijing.

Here is a scene from the Beijing freeway:

MORNING RUSHHOUR TRAFFIC-
We are in the middle, of five lanes going about 40. A small van in the lane to the left tried to cut into the far left lane, but moved in too late, and the car in that lane passed him before he got his nose in. (I assume it was a man driver. I've never imagined women driving like this.) The next car also rushed to pass the van and not let it in. The same happened in the lane it was coming from. The Beijing drivers are the opposite of courteous. One time we were honked at by a mercedes which cut us off. He honked at us, as if to say, "COMING THROUGH!" So this van hit brakes, between the two lanes, and the flow of cars from both lanes continued at 40mph around him. The van must have dropped back about 5 cars before it could get back into the flow. Absolutely amazing!!! In LA, both lanes would have been stopped in their tracks, causing a ripple of brake lights across all five lanes, and back through the nervous drivers for a half a mile. Thats if nobody crashed. Imagine the confidence neccessary to steer around a slow van half in your lane without slowing down yourself. Every driver here seems to have that confidence and finesse.

As a system in its whole, I have to say the Beijing drivers seem to have more skill than the LA drivers, and are more effiecent. However, to LA's credit, the freeways might be safer? I'm not sure one this one. For the beginner driver, it's probably easier to get around in LA than in Beijing. I imagine it can be very frustrating here. Also, to LA's credit, it might have a LOT more drivers to deal with than Beijing. Wikipedia doesnt work in China, so I can't use that, but this one shows that while the cities are roughly the same in population, LA has about 4 times the population density. And, as we all know, people in LA are in their cars WAY more than people in any other city in the world. In other words, its possible Beijing can get away with its crazy drivers because the traffic is ultimately not that bad. Perhaps it would be an absolute disaster if everyone in LA drove like this.

Beijing #2: Labor day

Hey everyone. Yesterday, Sunday, was a full day off. I ate, went back to sleep, went shopping at a 3-story electronics mall. An entire mall with only electronics. I was in heaven. No Sephora, no Victoria's Secret, no Banana Republic, no annoying kids, no long walks between stores that sell interesting stuff. Man, I went to town. I checked out the latest MP3 players, which have screens to play videos as well. Probably in a few months that will become the new DVD player. I didnt find any cell phones with keyboards and MP3 that seemed reasonable. However, I got an earpiece with microphone that plugs into a computer, so if you have iChat with audio chat, hit me up when I get back to the states! The second floor had a lot of internal computer stuff, like memory cards, video cards, desktop computers, in addition to the ubiquitous stuff like monitors, stereos, cameras, etc.

Then I went to the main square (Tiemnamen square, i think its spelled something like that. I guess it doesn't matter since its really spelled with chinese characters, which are called Han ze.) Missed the forbidden city again, got there too late, met a nice Chinese woman who wanted to practice her english with me, so I got a free tour around the old city, and a free chinese lesson, and a translator as I continued shopping for silk goods, then I bought her a dinner at a hot-pot restaurant in a back alley behind the old town. It was very Chinese. Actually, so Chinese, that they are destroying those alleys for the olympics in 2008.

Thats all for now. I think I caught a cold yesterday also, so today has been slightly less than pleasant. Although the production is really ramping up, so there are lots of new people, including craft services. Yum!! I had an apple crisp with cinnimon whip cream. Be sure to check out the photos linked from Jothams blog...I'm too lazy to post the link here, so scroll down to the first post, and click around.

Beijing #1: Last Kashgar story

My last night in Kashgar was the best one, by far. At around 8:30pm, I was walking out of the hotel/villa/office complex to do a few things, and the water delivery guy slowed down driving alongside me and smiled. He was driving one of those, very popular, motorized tricycles with the flatbed in the back. he seemed intrigued by me and offered me a ride, so I hopped on, and off we went!! He didn't speak a word of english. And his chinese was very complex. I pointed to where I wanted to go, as I said it, and thats were we went, right out of the hotel, right at the intersection of chaos, where there are no lights. It was like a theme park ride! bikers, taxis, cars, motorized tricycles coming at us from all direction, I'm hanging on with my feet hanging off, everyone is looking at me, because I look like an alien to them.

Anyways, he dropped me off at this square where there was some strange, Chinese traditional dance with old women in either green or blue silk dresses and one man, with dyed white hair, eye brows and beard, with the opium pipe dancing around like an emporer. Oh, I tipped the guy who drove me, and he was wholly offended by the gesture, but i forced the 20rmb ($2) in his shirt pocket and ran. Hopefully he understands I mean it only in the best of ways. Kashgar is a very poor city, and I like to reward friendly behavior like that. I was just trying to do my part. He was probably so offended that he'll never look at a red head again.

Got 12 more shot glasses and some juice from the grocery store, getting some laughs from a Uyghur woman. I guess they don't have a university nearby and aren't used to kids buying alcohol and random things late at night.

Then I was hungry. Oh, the first 4 shot glasses were left behind on different nights. The bar could use them, I think. The Uyghur kabob street cafe that caught my attention was being visited by one of Uyghur the PA's or janitors, I'm not sure the difference at this point and two of his chinese friends. I heard, by the way, that the racial tension between the Uyghur and the Chinese is not as bad as the cultural tension between the traditional, local Uyghurs and the slightly more cosmopolitian Uyghurs, namely the camera crew that was flown in from Urumqi. Urumqi is by the way pronounced "oo-room-chi" by the Uyghurs, and pronounced as I described in a previous post by the Chinese. That, and the chinese traditional dance event, and all the chinese grocery stores and shops are signs of the Chinese cultural invasion. Its probably a source of some of the racial tension. They have the same problem with the Chinese in parts of Latin America too, of all places.

I was hungry. One of the Uyghurs, who I hear is illiterate in his own language, and doesn't speak english (I won't say his name, in case he reads this) , and his friends invited me to join them. Very friendly guy, always with a big smile, but also always carrying a mop around the office. I pointed to the dish I saw someone else have, and he ordered it for me: mentai and neo row, thats how I thought it sounded anyways, thats spicy noodles and beef. They gave me a bunch of beer, even though I tried to explain that I would be dirnking Tequila later, as its my birthday, and beer before tequila is a recipe for feeling sick. They didn't understand that. It was awesome. It took a while for me to simply communicate that I wanted to learn some chinese. This was done by pointing to my food and saying the word I heard them call it, then pointing to something else, and they would say the word for that. Via pantamiming and the words "action" and "cut" one guy communicated that the other was a director and he is a DP. Interesting, I wish I could have found out more about that. They are not on the crew, so they must be up to something interesting in Kashgar. They insisted on paying. When I attempted my wallet, the director waved 'no' then gestured with his fists that he would fight me, if I paid. Then he pulled out a 100 rmb note ($12) with a grandiose, not so charismatic gesture for the waitress, as if it was a $1000 bill.

Oh, those were the days, when a meal was $2 each. In Beijing prices are about half of those in Los Angeles. Still cheap, but the 300% step up seems dramatic still.

Then after the Uyghur meal, which was my best one, I had a little celebration back at the office cafe, Kwami's. Good times. Two of the shot glasses broke on the flights, so I'm down to 9 now. And there is a reason we don't have kiwi juice in the states.

next post: Beijing Birthday party.

Kashgar #8 (final): Sunday Bizaar 2

Here I am, about to pack up the office in Kashgar, as we fly to Beijing tommorrow morning for the second half of my China trip. Its been fun. We've done some site-seeing, shared a few laughs, ate some good food and some bad food, had a little party, the Director hosted a power game, some of us got sick, learned some Uyghur and Chinese, and now its time to move on.

In spite of that, my tequila bottle is still not empty. It always seems to scare people away more than it attracts them. Seeing that most of us has worked 7 day weeks, waking up with a hangover hasnt really been that appealing to anyone. Sure, whatever you say.

Back to the stories, after the Bizaar sunday, we got split up at the mosque. One person didnt want to go in, then two of us didn't want to take our shoes off to go into the main area. So it ended up being me and me and Tadadji. He was effectively my tour guide, which was awesome. We did some shopping on our way to the old town. Oh the mosque, you ask?

I was honestly not too impressed with the mosque. It was sort of like a low budget Japanese palace. A lot of courtyards, and roofed walkways, but without much decoration. And not much interior space, and definitely no zen gardens.
In fact there was a scum pool, with a bicycle pedal hanging over the water.





Nevermind the mosque. Old town has been around for over 2000 years! They have these walkway roads between buildings. Traditionally everything is done out of adobe, although recently some are done with brick. Here are a few photos from various things in the old town: A mosque, the entrance to another mosque, grafitti that advertises camel milk, call the number (you will need to add a +86 in front).

Soon, hopefully we'll have faster internet in Beijing, I'll upload more photos.

Kashgar #7: Orchard Dinner

Friday, yes the Friday before the Sunday of the Bizaar from post #6, was a night those of us not scouting in Tashkergan went to a NICE dinner. The restaurant is Orchard style. It seemed sort of like a summer in Vermont, outdoor dinner party. Where we went on a walk through the orchard to pick fruit...well, grapes and apples. Dylan found a pumpkin/gourd of some sort, he called it "friendship gourd". He danced with it when the music came on, but I'll save that for later.

God, I'm a dork, here I am after a dinner banquet, back in the office trying to figure out how to do a "batch export" in photoshop so I can scale all my photos down. Got it. Sweet...10 minutes later.

OK, back to the story. Lets see, I did this thing with the camera, where it gets passed around the table, and each person takes a photo of the person to they are about to pass it to. So now, I have this series, 29 photos long, which actually has some motion to it like you are flying around the table and everyone is smiling at you. Click the photo to get into my new online photo collection. It should bring you to kashgar.shutterfly.com. (Nice little online photo album site huh? You can even add your own photos if you feel so inclined.)

Click this link to view a little video I took with the digital camera of the musician playing midi keyboard and singing, with some background music. This is as close to Uyghur music as I've ever been aware of. OrchardDinnerDance.mpg It was a little dark to really see much. The audio is more valuable in my opinion, enjoy.

As usual there was lots of Lamb/Mutton. I always thought lamb was baby sheep. However, I think they use the words "lamb" and "mutton" interchangably here. Basically mutton is to the Uyghurs as pasta is to Italians. And its uh, slightly revolting. No more, absolutely no more. And I, by the way, am one of the few people who hasn't gotten sick yet. Exciting! I'd like to keep it that way. Man, I miss Sushi and Alfredo, yes those are intentionally capitalized. Beijing will probably bring me the goods. Oh speaking of which, Pub Crawl birthday party for me in Beijing Friday night. If you're in Beijing this weekend, join in the festivities!!!

Oh, and I've been meaning to post this for a while now. The map in post #0 doesn't show up on my screen. I can't get it to load, its just a blank rectangle. Am I the only one? I'm pretty sure its the Great Firewall of China blocking wikipedia.com. Rather than uploading the map to my own site, I simply linked to it on wikipedia. Neither Wikipedia.com nor news.bbc.co.uk will load at all, I've tried many times. Interesting, everyone loves sensorship, right?

Kashgar #6: Sunday Bizaar 1

So I missed a few posts over the weekend. Thats O.K. I've been getting a hard time for the "Random Neighborhood" post. For the record, the neighborhood under discussion, was not pictured in those photos, I had just walked through it, without taking photos. Therefore, you don't know what it actually was.



Note on the time zone: I'm in China-time. Thats 12 hours ahead of the East Coast. Take New York time, and swap the am/pm, its very easy. But, China-time is based on Beijing, which is 30 degrees east of Kashgar, so the sun rises and sets two hours later here. The local Uyghurs actually set their clocks behind by two hours to an unofficial "Uyghur time". We don't do that, we're on Beijing time. And I want to say this: I like the sun rising an hour before I wake up. In fact, its perfect. Then I get two hours of sunlight after work. I'm just north of Los Angeles, but not by much, so the amount of daylight is pretty much the same as in the States. Its like, anti-daylight savings time, double. Awesome. What I've been wondering for a while, is why do we do the Daylight savings time at all? It takes an hour of sunlight from after work, and puts it in the morning before you wake up. Double anti-daylight savings time is much better, I get to wake up just after the sun rises, and i go to sleep just after it sets. It seems a lot like the way its supposed to be.

So these are photos from the Sunday Bizaare. The first two from the van before we got out. Here is me with the boys, Tursajan and Iksajan, with their matching outfits. I couldn't resist. By the time the photo was taken, there was a crowd of about 10 people circled around us watching.

I'll post more soon. I promise. And the next post will include me with the girls. Oh, in the meantime, check out Song Zi's (Scarlet's) blog. I think I figured out how the navigation on her site works. Click the items in the short scroll section under the slideshow, and there are more slideshows. After you click that, there are more photo album links on the left.

Kashgar #5: correction

It was brought to my attention that the "shantytown" that I walked through might have actually been quite a nice neighborhood. Of course, some are nicer than others. The crew got a tour of someones house in the "old town" before I got here. Hopefully I'll get to see the old town before I go, although that might not happen, as I'm working 11 hour days until I leave for Beijing on Thursday. I heard, that the old town is like the neighborhood I walked through, with adobe walls and roofs, and tiny alleys between the houses. But, once you go through the entrances, into a house, things are much nicer than the alley. The house they went into is around 600 years old. The granite floors have big wear from people walking on them over the centuries. His family has been there for 300 years, and its furnished nicely with carpets as well as having a open air courtyard in the middle.

While the open doors I peaked into made things look pretty shanty, given that the neighborhood is near the center of town, and near the lake, also considering the outfits worn by people in the alley and the top row of gold teeth on the old woman, I am changing the title of post #4 from "shantytown" to "random neighborhood".

Kashgar #4: Random Neighborhood

This mornings job brought me to an opportunity to explore a random neighborhood. I simply walked down the narrow alley, in my tank-top and jogging pants. I went up traffic, as people were walking out for work, some dressed quite nicely. I didn't take any photos until the end of the journey, when it came out onto another main road.

Also right there, was a construction site where a big truck turned up the alley, barely fitting, and I knew I would have to wait for the truck. This Uyghur guy had to wait as well. Uyghur is a race and a language, by the way, both of which are related to the Turks. They are usually muslim. And its promounced "we-ger".

Note the women working on the construction site. Not sure how they feel about the heavy lifting. I can't tell if its a progressive society where women are equals to men, or if life just really sucks, and everyone has to work hard. Plus, the communism thing tries pretty hard to give everyone jobs, no matter the demand for them. Thats part of the reason the streets are clean by the way, people water them down.

Kashgar #3: morning jog

So the morning is a perfect time for quick explorations, in addition to exercise which gets the blood going so my body knows its morning. By the way, until today, my body seems to have thought that my night sleep was a long nap, and being awake during the day was staying up all night. In other words i've been tired during the day, and not getting very deep sleep at night. Stupid jetlag.
Here is a photo of the big intersection in front of the hotels main building. We are staying in the smaller buildings in the back, not that one. Take a look at how the traffic functions in this intersection. The lights clearly haven't worked for a while. There isnt enough traffic for it to be very complicated, so cars, tractors, bikers and pedestrians can simply move freely across the interection with their own caution whenever they want. I personally like this.

So I jogged along what is a nice singletrack mt bike path/foot path around the lake. Here are some fishermen and a close-up of the bait they use. (thats some sort of granola ball and a grape)

Click for a huge panorama photo I put together with photos I took from a good vista point along my jog. What you see is the main part of Kashgar where the ferris wheel is. Thats the neighborhood where the giant statue of Mao is.



Speaking of Mao. I jogged by a guy from Urumqi, whose name is Mao, and his english was quite good, and he wanted to practice. He is in town for business as a mt climber instructor. He has been west of here sending people off in the big mountains. He taught me a few Uyghur words too. Hello is "Salamaleyqu", which I think might be arabic, its the name of a Ziggy Marley song. Oh, I mentioned that to Mao, that Ziggy is the son of Bob. He has never heard of Bob Marley.

*pause for reflection*

He's never heard of Bob Marley...Anyways, the response to hello is is "maleyqu salam". And goodbye is "Hosh".

Kashgar #2: No cheese

Maybe some of you remember a few months back, I went four weeks without cheese. It was a test to see if my stomach and hunger issues would go away: they didn't. I went back on cheese with a big alfredo plate at Barneys. Apparently the Uyghur's, in addition to every other culture within 5000 miles of here, don't eat cheese. Actually it freaks them out. To the jealousy of my co-workers, that is a slice of cheese you see melted onto my noodles, which came with a spicy vegetable and meat sauce, a la pad thai. The cafe that the production created next to the office attempts to serve a few basics that americans would want: croissants, fruit, yogurt and granola, coffee and sandwiches, some of which come with cheese. So I asked for just the cheese, that I would mix with my leftover noodles from the chinese lunch. The noodles are served cold, by the way. Actually, I had just done a shopping run where I bought 4 shot glasses for 50 cents. Then I bought the slice of cheese for a dollar. They were very confused at the cafe. So they served the cheese on a small plate with a knife, fork and a napkin. It was beyond their imagination what I would do with the cheese besides eat it straight.

Its from Australia, and the cafe bought it in Urumqi, then flew it out here. The one who spoke english said even in Beijing or Shanghai its very difficult to find cheese. So it looks like I'll be going another month without cheese.

Kashgar #1: I'm in Kashgar

Hey everyone, I made it!

Three plane rides, three times checking bags and going through security, and three in the morning is when I woke up, having gone to sleep around 10, my first night in my hotel room.

The crew out here is great, everyone seems happy to be here and inspired by all the differences in...well just about everything really. There are almost no stop lights, the freeway from the airport had bikers, pedestrians, a rikshaw, and many donkeys pulling wagons with cargo usually sheep, goat or logs. One, led by a young boy had logs, and he was leading the donkey in the wrong direction on the freeway, in the middle. The thing is, there isnt much automobile traffic, so its pretty simple for everyone to get aroudn eachother without causing trouble. The freeway had a left side exit, that crossed over the oncoming traffic without any lights or signs. We just breezed across it without slowing down. Again, the one or two oncoming cars were far away enough, that it wouldnt cause trouble.

The second city I transferred in was Urumqi, which is the capital of the XinXiao province (not sure how to spell that, but thats how it sounds. Urumqi is pronounced "oo-loo-moo-chi", however everyone on the crew pronounces it "oo-room-kee". I'm torn between saying it properly and saying what people will understand, i might have to intentionally mispronounce it in certain situations. We'll see.

Kashgar #0 - Preparing

Its Tuesday and its official: I'm going to Kashgar, China for four weeks to work on a film. Kashgar is located at the far west tip of China, just across the border from Kyrgystan. Yikes. Central asia here I come.

Check back here often to see my updates, and if you leave questions or comments, I'll respond to them.

As for the plant animation, compositing the stills will have to wait. I can tell you though that the flower was like a mini corn cob, and it smelled. Both of them, that is. And they were short lived, about 3 days each. But now its doing GREAT! Has babies growing out of the ground, and the new leaves are HUGE.

Also, check out my co-worker Jotham's Blog!!! He has a bunch of photos and stories, since he's been there for a while already.