Impressions: slc

much more liberal than I expected (tho, really, it is the biggest city in the state, so of course it's going to be more liberal?)

people are very friendly!! and seemingly genuinely so!

so many big letters in mountains (usually first letter of neighboring city)

actual spring weather lol (rain, big swings in temps)

few porch lights

half basement homes (i'm guessing to keep warm in the winter, and cool in the summer)

south of slc, it's new tract housing as far as the eye can see in the same four shades of gray, ugh

many headstones are trapezoid in shape

can wave at pedestrian crossings instead of pushing the button

many personalized license plates

flashing yellow for left turn yield lights

no glass recycling in residential collections, instead has dedicated drop off locations

not many people bring own reusable bags, etc.

lots of local artist sticker [gumball] machines 

 

lots of [city sponsored] murals

 

lots of free, local print publications: slug mag, utah voices, etc. 

 

great street naming system (as least in the center of SLC because of the church, which is the center of it all)

 

love how the state capitol building is situated in the city. it's on top of the hill, at the very top of state street. when driving up state street, for at least a couple miles, you can see the capitol building and it's such a lovely view.

 

also love the general view from the city. it's in a valley and when looking around, about 85% of the time you can see a backdrop of mountains

 

love the beehive iconography all over the place :) including it being used on their state higshway signs! (speaking of which, did you know that the california state highway shape represent the spades / shovels used by miners during the gold rush?)

2025 donation list

my giving list for 2025 is like last year's, in that it reflects some of the places we've lived this year. i've skipped a couple because my finances aren't looking so great (nearly $2k hospital bill was not helpful, plus taxes, and so many flights!), but I may go back and donate regardless.

january - prisoners literature project
february - pbs
march -  soft paw vintage
april - various national parks in hawaii
may - npr
june - molokai heritage trust
july - 
august - 
september / october - algalita and moore institute thru long beach gives
november - ywca south florida
december - east jesus

2024 donation list

2023 donation list

2022 donation list

2021 donation list

2020 donation list

impressions: Europe

countries we visited:
no menstrual products in restrooms 
few usb charging ports
each person gets their own pizza
fork and knife pizza

Barcelona
primitive graffiti
catalan is #1
no announcements at airport

Vienna
no customs entering
quiet transit (trains, "buses")
honor system transit
bathrooms like germany - top to bottom doors, toilet brush
bathroom door / occupancy are an issue lol
no menstrual product dispensers
un-obvious sidewalks, so low
blind accessible crosswalk
expensive, $ even for some churches

clean

Bratislava
lots of youth out at night
different architecture
wery walkable old town

 in hotel room
frequent transit at least on old town
more uphill than downhill, lol
restaurants open at noon
self seating at restaurants
portion weight, drink size in ml
salad comes after pizza
bidet / towel warmer in hotel room
sanitary bags in restrooms, even hotel restroom

clean

Budapest

baths

bit more run down
mostly honor system transit
more pressed penny machines
more panhandlers
more smokers
many trash cans
narrow transit seats
paid restrooms - can use cc

Croatia

Very salty breads

Fluffier pizza dough / crusts

Actual queen beds

   Split
   rubber ducky shops (whole shops! why?!)

   electric cart things that people stand in the front of to maneuver 

   Dubrovnik

   super clear water

   too many tourists, sheesh

Ireland

roundabouts everywhere

friendly

   Belfast
   yellow light flash before turning green
   walk indicators on same side street

   Dublin

   lots of immigrants, but still very predominantly white

   all double decker buses

   a lot of puke in the ground

   towel warmer in hotel bathrooms

   more homeless

   beer culture

Commonly advertised drinks everywhere we went (ireland excluded, lol):
Aperol spritz, campari, hugo
tequila sunrise, negroni, cibra libre, gin tonic, long island iced tea, mojito,

impressions: hawaii

speed humps and speed tables (longer humps, like a mesa)

speed table and intersection painted "warnings" of jaggedly lines on the ground

wobbly striped roads, lol. so few lane lines and dashes

well paved roads (so few potholes), and quite a few road closures due to either construction, or more often, tree trimming

fewer street lights and sometimes very yellow ones, to create a more dark sky environment

many 2 lane roads with 1 lane bridges

fewer asshole drivers when merging (either ending lane or merging lanes) 

slower speed limits (nothing higher than 55mph!) and people pretty much respecting them. ...also speeding tickets are only like $137, ask me how i know, lol

very few official police cars (most are personal vehicles with a blue light bar on top)

many abandoned cars on the side of the roads

corrugated metal roofs in hilo

so many small churches with very pointy steeples

glass shutters instead of paned windows to help with air circulation during rain

has something like 10 of the world's 14 climate zones (unclear how many climate zones there are, and even less unclear how many hawaii has, lol)

more local ads on tv and radio (fewer "big box" stores, after all)

island music on the radio. many stations.

chickens everywhere, and rooster farms!

affirming signs: smile, enjoy life, you rock

lack of 18 wheelers

trash / transfer stations / stores

bilingual announcements in hawaiian language / most road signs and place names in hawaiian

asian influence - food, snacks, 7/11!, language (auntie / uncle)

lots of thai food. outside hawaiian, american, and japanese food, it seems like the most popular cuisine 

sweeter foods (including bread), plate lunches, heavy, dense food without veggies

roadside fruit / food stands. many of which are outside homes, in little wooden stands, and a lock box for the honor code

ridged aluminum cans (article about why)

screened lanais

kapu signs all over

irregular business hours

lei fridges in almost all big grocery stores

tsunami warning sirens

foot push pedals at some crosswalks

kauai - "try slow" hand-painted road signs

impressions: stockton

we spent about 3 months in stockton. j picked it cause it paid well, was close enough to home so we could easily go back for the holidays, and (we thought) it was close to a lot of things in norcal: bay area, napa, tahoe, yosemite, etc. 

the first thing i noticed about stockton is that it was so many big beautiful trees! i kind of couldn't believe we had spent so much time fawning over the new england foliage when it was just as gorgeous here, and maybe even more so since it had the deeper reds of japanese maples and the bright yellows of ginkos. new england mostly has a narrower range of colors, tho it has many many more trees. 

i didn't mind stockton at all, even tho it ended up not being as close to things as we had thought. socal coastal weather privilege means that we didn't realize so many roads would close due to weather, lol. other than it's beautiful trees , stockton is kind of just any other californian city. i joked that it's the norcal bellflower or stanton. we also joked that it's "a plain woman who is past her prime." but seriously, it was fine. it also had a river running thru it, which, of course, i liked tho actually spent zero time at. we had a really lovely two bedroom house with a huge yard and a big ole pecan tree in the front yard. it was all very nice.

so many big leafy trees!

lots of sweet gum trees (look kind of like maple leaves), japanese maples, oaks, ginkos

big piles of leaves in the street waiting for "the claw"

big lawns

slanty residential sidewalks (so you can park half on/ half off)

more tailgating drivers

so many panhandlers...

(popular stockton trees list, and official stockton tree list as planted by the govt)

impressions: road trip

i have ALWAYS wanted to do a cross-country road trip, and i finally have! with my parents, as a kid, we did many almost cross-country trips: OC to vancouver, OC to nola, OC to yellowstone. but this fall, j and i actually drove from boston back to OC. that's almost as nearly cross-country as it gets! we spent about 8 days on the trip, but someday I'd really love to really be able to take my time with it.

some impressions of a few of the cities we passed thru:

pittsburg
people park on sidewalks / very low curbs
windy, narrow streets / hilly
feels very working class
smoking permitted indoors
lots of trees!
mostly two story houses, which are narrower than I'm used to seeing

columbus
a real college town

indianapolis
no charm :(

st louis
so many empty buildings
city itself is very empty

tulsa
will have to return!! lots of fun route 66 stuff here

impressions: boston

minivan school buses (rather than the usual yellow school buses)

so many colleges and universities; few locals. also so many hospitals.

radiator in every room, even a mini one in the bathroom!

lack of parking lots, very few drive thrus

streets are rarely on a grid. so many curves and offshoots and rotaries (roundabouts) 

so many toll roads, but at least they aren't expensive

both more aggressive and more courteous drivers

quick to honk when light just turned green. but also a lack of honking cause they seem to get it when you fuck up cause it's difficult to navigate here; people are happy to just drive around you

often inaccurate google maps

scooters and motorcyclists regularly run very red lights. wear very little protective gear either.

cops seem particularly inept

differently colored emergency vehicles (orange striped ambulances, highlighter yellow tennis ball fire trucks)

rains pretty much every week

top down bottom up windows, but only one window screen which is damn hard to maneuver

11pm to 7am noise ordinance

lots of red brick buildings

lots of pedestrians and bicyclists

single windmills

very large black ants! weird silverfish looking guys in more of a flesh-tone than silver. also HUGE centipede/millipede guys

cherry blossoms, dogwood flowers, and so many varieties of hydrangeas

yellowish tap water / toilet water

dumb alcohol laws, even grocery stores don't always sell wine / beer. obviously liquor is more tightly regulated.

expensive produce. $7.99 a lb or peaches in august!! $1.29 for a single lime!!! 2 regular sized kiwis for $5!! (these are not the prices at every grocery store, but each of these WAS the price different stores. and these aren't like erewhon type grocers, just regular places like h-mart)

more bland (under-seasoned) food

so much history all over the place. so much city pride too.

 

funny story. j and i were at a pool party and there was a kid called ethan there. someone said they call him ethan allen sometimes. i was like "like the furniture store!" and they were like "no, like the revolutionary."

impressions: montreal

bad roads, but also a lot of road construction

so many parks

so many mosquitoes :(

residential trash bags, but recycle and compost bins

citywide system of paid parking

lots of murals / art. even in fonts and signage. also a lot of graffiti tagging

large abandoned buildings

brick buildings (not all red)

residential architecture!! large windows, windows in nearly all front doors, metal staircases and many balconies, double staircases. 1st story no stairs, with exterior stairs to 2nd story. interior 3rd story stairs

seems like relatively few single family homes. mostly triplexes.at least in the city proper

french everything, and not everyone is fully bilingual in english either

lots of trees and hollyhocks (and also hydrageas)

so many bicycles and cyclists

liquor only sold at SAQ store (which is owned and run by the govt, and also has less extended store hours than govt law permits, lol)

impressions: maine

freeway center rumble strip (rather than on sides of road)

lobster everywhere in everything

ice cream everywhere

absolutely do not know how to navigate 4-way stop intersections

impressions: japan

radio: much talking, less music, weird variety of music on same station

few actual raised sidewalks, more like raised curb that separates street from sidewalk which is same flatness

ped xing sign man has a hat one, and crossing signs have a countdown of sorts

little school aged kids in yellow hats!! and other random fancy school uniforms

the salary man unifirm is a real thing. only navy and black. very little grey or any deviation. women have more variation (cream) but it's also very very standard and uniform

everyone backs into parking spots

no farm animals in the countryside? not even chickens?

no trash cans, but very clean streets

van life is easier here (assuming you have a shower system), because of the plentiful and clean michinoekis

gas stations (not sure about major cities) close at night and don't open super early

dead quiet on public transit

people stand outside convenience stores in groups drinking beer at night

self bag groceries tho there are assisted checkouts

lots of clear umbrellas (personal, not rentals)

so much chinese food influence: gyoza, different noodle dishes

so much chinese writing (makes road trips easier, that's for sure)

lack of napkins, even in restaurants. the napkins they do have are the small weird plastic feeling ones

much longer tp "squares" 

lots and lots of beverage commercials on tv

everything has a mascot

laundromat doesn't sell extra laundry powder, tho they do sell dryer sheets, etc. shoe cleaning and drying machines that work super well! safe enough to leave stuff there for hours

bidets everywhere, even at michinoeckis and konbinis

very small establishments of few seats and/or little navigational room / the SMALLEST of bathrooms 

go to places VERY EARLY to avoid crowds (like before 7am)

osaka is noisy and dirty

kyoto is overcrowded with tourists

impressions: nola

few window screens (which is weird cause they have lots of flying bugs)

few freeway sound blocking walls, and the ones they do have are very low (so not good at blocking sound)

freeway merge lane is like the ones in tennessee so you gotta follow the right stripe, not the left one or you'll run yourself off the road

very quiet at night; no frogs or crickets or birds, tho we live right next to the water?

more dramatic thunder and lightening storms

fan heater in the bathroom!! love love this feature

]automatic car washes have an attendant to help you at the initial machine, and there is a bug wash trough and broom

they don't pull over for emergency vehicles

there seem to be more hit and run car accidents (including one that happened to us!!)

a ton of roadkill (even an alligator or two!)

loose alcohol laws: no last call, can do take away alcohol, even have drive thru daiquiri bars!

have to show / upload? id to access online porn sites

food is more salty 

shrimp does NOT equal gulf shrimp. regular shrimp generally sucks. gulf shrimp is great.

friendly, talkative southerners

very few latinos in the city. all labor service people are black. very weirdly racially segregated. more latinos in the burbs tho

can park on the opposite side of the street facing the wrong direction

often park with half the wheels up on the grass (to be more out of the way of traffic)

lower curbs, but also not much of a slope so that they're very bumpy! not nice for wheelchair or strollers

few locals. and it also seems like everyone has lived in california for some time

very obvious divestment in city: so many abandoned things, terrible road conditions

funniest moment: j's brother n and i were in a small bar/restaurant for lunch. we were the only non blacks. a fellow patron at the next table asks us "where y'all from?" we answer from california. and without a beat, she asks "when y'all leaving?" it was pretty great, lol.

mardi gras

some major misconceptions i had about mardi gras:
- i thought it was a one day or maybe a weekend thing. hell no!! in fact, it's many weeks to a couple months long! it starts on three king's day (jan 6th) thru fat tuesday (which is what mardi gras translates to). so it ends the day before ash wednesday, which starts the beginning of lent. because the day before lent, you gotta eat up all your goodies so they won't go bad (cause traditionally you gave up meat etc. for the approx 40 days of lent), hence it being called fat tuesday. so depending on when easter is, mardi gras SEASON can literally be two months long. it was a short season in 2024 (feb 13th), but in 2025 it'll go until march 4th.
- mardi gras IS carnival! there are SO many traditions relating to mardi gras and many of them are specific to the region where it's being celebrated. in the american south, we call it mardi gras, and there are A LOT of different celebrations throughout the south, but the most popular one is the one in new orleans. but nola wasn't even the first in the states, that was in mobile, alabama.
- i thought it was all boobs and butts. not so!! in fact it's very family friendly! the raunchiest stuff in on bourbon street, which is easily avoidable since none of the major parades go thru there.
- as you can imagine from a multi-week event, there are lots and lots of celebrations, mostly in the form of parades. and there are multiple parades every weekend, with escalating numbers leading up to the big day. 
- many nola adjacent towns also host a parade or two
- there are many types of parades! from those on land, to the ones on boats in the water. there are those with floats, those without, and those FOR dogs. they all have their own flair, and are all special. regardless, they all have music and "throws" (free stuff given out to the audience).

i was very thankful for all the parades i was able to attend! all told, i went to 17. 17!!! this must be some type of record lol. i wonder if i would have seen more if we'd done this trip in 2025 when i assume there may be more parades, considering carnival is several weeks longer?

krewes i saw (cause sometimes two of them would be in the same parade):
- bilge: in slidell on boats
- poseidon: in slidell
- excalibur: in metarie
- dionysus: in slidell
- mystic krewe of music: in westbank
- driods: in uptown
- nyx: in uptown
- selene: in slidell
- bacchus: in uptown, they had the best throws, lighted up beads themed to the floats!
- red beans: in uptown, a walking krewe, one of my favorites
- proteus: uptown
- orpheaus: uptown
- zulu: uptown, zulu warriors! coconuts!
- st anne: french quarter, also a walking krewe that i really loved, really beautiful costumes
- rex: uptown, with the prettiest japanese themed floats! (i also feel like they really did their homework for these? definitely appreciation, not appropriation)
- mardi paws: dog parade in covington

january 2024 donation

this month i donated to grounds krewe, who's mission is "to promote waste prevention, recycling and sustainable products at new orleans special events."

being in louisiana has been a bit of an eye opener. j came first and said that we didn't have a recycling bin, only a trash bin. i arrived and saw, actually, we only had a recycling bin? i figured this because it's blue. but in looking around, all our neighbors had green and black bins only, no blue? then i noticed that many of our bins had different waste collection agencies printed on them, so i think they're just... randomly distributed? i haven't been able to google anything solid on when trash pickup day is, or what they collect either; it's a mess.

speaking of mess, i've been going out to some mardi gras parades and they amount of waste is astonishing! float people throw stuff out at the crowd and, since it's free stuff, it's poorly made stuff. most times, people to catch the stuff, but often times, it hits the ground first which means that it breaks. and since there's constantly free stuff being thrown out, no one really cares for the broken stuff. here in slidell, parades are fridays, saturdays, and sundays. with one or two parades a day. for the regular parades, they city does NOT supply extra trash cans (or even port-o--potties), and neither is the stuff cleaned up after each parade. it is mostly picked up by monday morning though. storm drains are generally blocked, so stuff is mostly prevented from getting in there, but for the BOAT PARADES, people also just throw stuff up at people on land so A LOT of it ends up in the water! I did not see a boat with a pool net picking stuff up either...

so they don't seem to recycle here (tho there are drop off locations for recycling, which, let's face it, very few people will do), aren't particularly mindful of litter, and i don't think i've seen a single person use a reusable bag (I have not noticed about water bottles or reusable cups). ugh. nola DOES have a refill store tho, which we visited earlier this week, and I did pick up a few non-plastic sponges and a brush. (I messed up and didn't buy the dish soap, bah).

anyway, so i donated to grounds krewe because they're trying to do something about the incredible waste that comes with mardi gras.

tj

it was t's 35th birthday last week and she wanted to go to tj on saturday in celebration. she didn't have a particular destination or activity in mind, she just wanted to visit. friday night, after getting back to my parents house, i realized my passport wasn't there tho i had already checked my apartment before leaving where i thought i would have left it. i texted t to let her know that there was a possibility i couldn't join them saturday. i drove back to lg and did end up finding my passport so i spent the night and rushed back to la palma by 8:30am saturday, when she said they would be coming to pick me up. e had overslept to about 8am, then texted t later to let her know that he had forgotten his passport back at his place. we ended up not leaving my parents' until almost 10am. btw, he didn't apologize for being late.

e's family is from tj so he knows the city well, which is great, because we had nothing planned. we went to a nice restaurant for lunch, and after, we went to a supermarket then costco, per t's request. following that, we went to avenida revolucion where all the touristy clubs are where we had a drink and a snack. then we went to pick up tacos, waited like 2 hours to get back over the border, and came home. clearly, i'm glossing over a lot of the details, but that was the gist of it. basically, we went to... america, and not even a good or particularly interesting section of it. t seemed happy with it tho. she wanted to visit the grocery store and costco. the lunch restaurant was nice but certainly nothing special. we were too full to eat actual dinner so we got the tacos to go and had churros in the car in the border line. i felt like i'd wasted my day.

and i was consistently annoyed throughout. we left way later than planned so we didn't get to go to rosarito beach but we stayed in tj. tho thankfully e made good time and, again, he knows tj well and has internet over there so we navigated easily and pretty efficiently. but, honestly, his company leaves something to be desired.

he's racist. but i guess both he and t think it's cute and endearing? at every opportunity he makes lame racist jokes. these aren't even good racist jokes. they're incredibly simplistic, stuff a 6 year old would say. i think every time we see each other he asks if i've dog meat. he tells t to open her eyes bigger. he calls her panda and chun li and thinks it's hilarious when street vendors say ni hao ma at us. i don't think he dislikes asians, and i doubt he thinks he's being offensive, but wtf man, grow up. get clever or be pc, but at the very least, have some depth.

ugh, while i'm glad i went in support of t, tho i do almost wish i hadn't been able to find my passport.

spain

they say you never really know someone until you live with them. or travel with them. which, if the trip is long enough, can be akin to living with them.

anyway, j and i went to spain for his spring break. fully 6 months ago we looked for cheap flights, with no specific destination in mind, and barcelona came up for his free week. which happened to also be our one year (the day we flew out) and my birthday (our first full day in spain). i was very nervous booking the flight. we were only 6 months in, making plans for 6 months later. crazy! but i figured that even if we split up, i'd go to spain anyway. i also forecasted that if we broke up, it wouldn't be an angry someone fucked up thing. it would be a sad we just couldn't make it work thing. so we'd still be friends. and anyway, i'm used to traveling alone. (tho it would've been a hell of a lot harder since i don't speak any useful spanish, save el baño and uno cervesa por favor tho i don't even like beer, lol)

so what do i know now? i learned that we stress about different things, which is good. i stress about timing, he about food and crowds. and we don't rile each other up, which is important. overall, we're both chill, which is really good. we compliment each other. i planned our itinerary, but he was the one who pushed to book hotels and get tickets. i got maps, locations, opening times, and he got a phone card and currency. we both brought plenty of snacks and to-be-thrown-away travel clothes.

in some ways i knew we would be fine. we haven't fought our whole time together. and i've tried hard to apply what i've learned, not only from my previous relationships, but from those of my friends and parents, even.

what else did i learn from this trip? to not depend too much on others. i don't mean that in the way it sounds. but once we were in spain i took a step back from everything. he did all the ordering, talking to strangers, figuring stuff out, etc. yes, he speaks spanish but i could've done more. halfway thru our trip i happened to see him google something like "why is my relationship so ___." i didn't catch the last word but i immediately started freaking out (to myself). you don't google good things, you know? but he knows me well enough to recognize that i was freaking and called me out on it and told me what he was thinking about. (turns out i had read the search wrong) but he was stressed. from school, work, his accident a week prior that he was still injured from. we talked a bit and he said he felt much better. not knowing how to actually help I tried to be more helpful on the trip. i screenshot maps when i had wifi and just tried to pull a bit more weight. i dunno if it did anything, maybe i was relieving some of his stress? he said after our talk he finally got into the vacation mind frame. so maybe i did nothing. either way, I shouldn't have burdened him with all the work.

next time we should go somewhere neither of us knows the language. where we're on a more level playing ground. that being said, I've definitely taken a back seat in this relationship. more than I have with anyone in any relationship, I think. i'm not necessarily aggressive, but I do have ideas on what I want. this time I feel like i'm very content to let him lead us. he seems so capable in his own life, I guess I feel more secure? whatever. all I know is that i'm happy. and that we're still together. and that after a full 9 days together we saw each other again Monday night, and it didn't feel like too much.

china notes 3

Gender parity - there are a lot of women doing what in America is generally considered men's jobs. Lots of ladies on the airport tarmac, in Security, and doing construction jobs, even carrying heavy loads of rocks in straw baskets on their backs. 

Minorities - cool that they highlight them but it seems a little exploitative too. 

Tibetans - that yak butter tea isn't bad and I love their traditional clothing, those simple robe-like things and long skirts? I wish I could've bought one tho really, where would I wear it?

Clothing - the women here dress so femininely. Dresses, skirts, and blouses with flowers, lace, and ruffles. After coming here I always think i should dress a little more girly, especially this year, what with the short hair. Still, there are a lot more women in sneakers now, and shorts are shorter too, tho tank tops are still uncommon. I actually went into a store with the full intention of probably buying something but just could not find anything I wouldn't feel stupid wearing. I need to satorically branch out...

Cute guys - almost a complete lack of attractive men here. And it's not just where I traveled to this time. I've thought this every time I've come. A big part of this is probably because I was brought up in a western society so my tastes skew away from east Asian guys, but a lot of the men on their TV and advertisements are good looking so where are they irl? Their clothes don't help tho, lol.

Tattoos - way more now on the young people, even the women. Still rare tho, and very few big pieces like half or full sleeves. Very little color, and mostly abstract pieces. 

Smoking - less than before, but still a lot. Don't think I saw a single woman smoke tho, interestingly enough.

I'm tall! Not by a lot, but a couple inches than most of the women here, old or young. Imma keep visiting south China, lol.

Grooming - lots of guys with long fingernails with one super long pinkie fingernail. They openly use toothpicks and also clean their ears at the dinner table. Females rarely shave. 

Kids - the little emperor thing is real. But I did see multiple families with more than one kid, which was always surprising.  

On my 6th trip to China I'm a little surprised by how easily I become Chinese again: jaywalking, cutting lines, verbally snapping at randos, I rarely even take photos of bad English signage anymore. I've been assuming this is going to be my last trip for a while. No longer being safety director likely means no thank you china trip. on paper I'm still the head of the uscdbc so who knows, tho I can't be bothered to try to earn this trip anymore. Honestly, I've seen so much of China I can't believe it. I've really tried to pack it in each time (excluding my first icdbf trip) and I'm so thankful for the financial gift of nearly every flight, and especially for the highlights of china tour in 2005 from my parents which has proved invaluable for time saving in all my subsequent trips. Coming back to xian was a bit like coming home, and that it may serve as the book ends to my China travels is so fitting. of all the cities I've seen I feel like I've done them all thoroughly enough I don't need to visit them again (excluding chengdu, which I've passed thru four times already but have yet to spend a full day there). I've seen the best of the historical, cultural, modem, and now natural side to China and I'm ready to finally cross it off my bucket list. ...tho having said that, I'd still love to return :)

china notes 2

Post office - international mail (postcards anyway) confuses them. Last year the post office didn't even have enough stamps for me. And the really old school is that the postage needs to be stuck on using separate adhesive. forget sticker stamps, you can't even lick these! I hope the more international cities are different. 

Service - apparently you can complain about anything now. We were driving to Hukou and at one toll booth was tagged for weighing too much. After getting it sorted out, our driver called someone, who picked up, and lodged a complaint. He got a call back within half an hour too. ...Service still sucks tho. Service with a smile is unheard of and you're likely to get your stuff tossed at you rather than handed to you. 

WeChat - best app ever? Texting, phone calls (video too), file sharing, social media plus you can use it for damn near anything, including paying random street vendors, friends, cabbies, actual stores, etc.

Hepatitis - bejeebus the food was good this time. I love both Shaanxi and Sichuan styles of food. But at most of my meals outside tournament week all I could think while eating was "hepatitis, hepatitis, you're getting hepatitis." Then I go back for seconds, sometimes thirds, lol. I actually bought a bag of red and green peppercorns; I hope someone will make me something! My god I ate a lot here. Even at home, I'm usually the last person to stop eating anyway (since I eat slowly) but here it was cause i always got more did than anyone else. Random side notes: yak meat tastes just like regular beef; Tibetan yak butter tea is pretty good; the fruit here, while plentiful, cheap and juicy, isn't super flavorful; the stinky tofu here is pretty good, ha; the fried chicken is damn good; xian sour milk is good too, very similar to the Peking style, just less less thick.

Loud aF - people here talk loud as fuck. And the Shanghainese speak even louder and so fast too! I don't understand like 90% of Shanghainese. And the car horns, Jesus. I get why they use them (more as a friendly "hello I'm here" and not the American "fuck you asshole") but my god they've somehow turned up the volume. And since they do use them differently, why that decibel level? they EAT loud af too. ugh.

Driving - I like how they drive here, which is actually scary as hell if you've ever seen it. But seriously, they're such efficient drivers! Really regret not taking CJ up on his offer last year to let me drive around Daqing.

Dry heat - I hate humidity. In the hostel the girls wash their socks and under things and hang them up to dry. ...or not dry, lol. Dali was nice and dry tho. My swimsuit and jersey dried each day and I actually had to put on lotion after showering. Juizhaigou too, probably cause it's so high up. 

High altitude - wasn't terribly worried about it until the tour guide went on and on and on about it. I bought a $16 bottle of oxygenated water, figuring it'd do nothing but also knowing I'd feel really stupid if I didn't buy it and got sick. (J later looked up oxygenated water, and yeah, it's bogus.) I didn't get sick, tho about a third of my bus mates did. thankfully no one threw up loudly, tho at my hotel that night I could hear painful vomiting thru the walls. Imagine trying to fall asleep to that... Anyway, good to know tho that 4200k up doesn't affect me besides a slight numbness in the fingers I messed up years ago. I did nearly 13 miles that day too, with a ton of stairs, and no big effects so I guess I'm now ready for Everest?

Food waste - HUGE problem here, omg. at I think every meal I was the only person to clean my plate. I mean, I'm often the only one to do it here too (cause I take food home), but in China the amount of food wasted was pretty crazy. Even those not sensitive to the issue (as I am) would probably notice and be surprised.

china notes 1

Airports

The check-in process at the chengdu and xian airports are the most confusing I've navigated, and I've gone thru quite a few airports, big and small. It's worse than even the train stations.

PEK (Beijing airport) is HUGE. seriously. They have buses to drive you from your gate to the plane. I was on that bus for like 20 minutes, no joke. I mean, we weren't speeding along at 60mph but it wasn't slow either. 

Security - What are all these security checks for? Transferring at PEK I had to go thru another security line were I had to get my passport, visa, ticket checked, toss my liquids (again), walk thru that scanner thing, and get a very thorough pat down. (...I should remember to go back to wearing regular bras [rather than unlined bralettes] when flying in China. They even run their hands down your legs when you aren't wearing pants.) When boarding you get your tickets scanned, as you walk thru the corridor thing to the plane another dude checks it again, and on the plane once more. ...flying out of PEK to LAX, when in the corridor thing between the gate and the plane, they physically went thru my purse (good thing I'd checked my bag) and made me toss my water which I had just filled at the water station at my gate! ugh. such a waste.

The liquid checks are getting ridiculous. They used to just scan or run a metal detector wand thing on you when you entered the subway, but now you have to take out your water bottle and they put it on some machine thing that does something; I'm not sure what. "Good thing" nearly everyone in China has either single-use water bottles or clear plastic water bottles. I think I would have difficulty with my usual stainless steel water bottle.

Trash / recycling - I didn't see any single bins, they always come in a pair. However, people don't recycle properly anyway. I often times saw single-use bottles in the non-recycle bin. I think because China has to employ sooo many people, a lot of them are trash pickers. So the regular person doesn't have to take personal responsibility for their waste. Probably why there's so much littering also, because you know that within half an hour some street cleaning person will be along to pick up after you. It's not that they think about the street cleaner, but when you litter but are rarely confronted with the consequence of it, you stop thinking about it as a negative act.

Also, I was hoping to find and bring home some leashed bottle cap / single-use bottles (as M saw in Japan). Unfortunately not only did I not see any of those, but many of their aluminum cans don't even have pop tops; they're still pull tabs!! I wish I had paid more attention to the brands, but I tried to use as little single-use anything as I could, which was NOT easy. 

They use inch-long pins instead of paper clips. Seems dangerous

Dogs - so many now! Even saw a dog park in Chengdu. Lots of weather inappropriate dogs tho, poor over-heated things

Way more fat people, obese even. 

Bathrooms - ugh. I figured out a couple years ago that handicap stalls contain a western toilet. This year I did a lot of traveling to remote scenic places tho so I knew I couldn't expect that. Still, I wasn't expecting so many of the trough style toilets. And ones with only half tall walls and no door either! Funny thing tho, from the stains on the walls, it's clear that Chinese women haven't figured out which way to face either. UGH

menstual cup - update

i finished my second cycle using the cup and yeah, it was better this time round. not perfect tho. i spent a lot of time stressing about leakage since i still haven't been able to rotate it 360degrees. but, overall, i do like it better. same complaints as before, but at least it's easier to get in now.

interestingly, i feel like my period was somehow shorter this time too, as it was last time. but i think that's cause i was traveling and traveling always screws me up. which makes for two consecutive travel periods so imma probably get real fucked up in December. =/

menstrual cup

I Spent My Whole Period Using a Menstrual Cup for the First Time, And Here Are All the Gory Details
   and
An Ode Of Hatred To My Diva Cup

after learning about menstrual cups a couple years ago i finally got one. what took so long? i like to stock up on tampons when they go on sale. i still have a fucking hundo of them, in assorted sizes, sheesh. so why finally switch? i was going to china. i didn't feel like bringing a couple dozen tampons and i know they're more difficult to buy in china. (plus, i generally insist on using cardboard applicators, which are harder to buy even in america). so anyway, i got one before i left, looked up how-tos, and even solicited advice from friends i knew who used it (turns out there are a lot).

improperly wearing my diva cup

i didn't actually try the thing out till sf tho. the morning before heading off to the airport, annie pressed up against the frosted glass window of her bathroom and read me directions as i struggled to push a silicone cup up my cooter. annie was the absolute best tho, even offering to come and personally help me, lol. luckily, it didn't come to that.

i practiced it a couple more times before actually starting my period tho i never left it in for long. come period time tho, i finally committed.

the issue i have with the cup is that it's big. i even got the smaller size! (diva cup recommends women over 30 or those who have given vaginal birth to use size 2. i bought size 1 anyway [why? honestly, because i'm asian. and we generally have have smaller coochies, lol]) so you fold the thing then shove it up your vag. which isn't easy. (tip, moisten with water [or whatever] before inserting) then after you get it in, you're supposed to turn it a full 360 degrees, which i still haven't ever managed to do. partly because 1 there just isn't much to hold onto to get a firm enough grip and 2 i'm not used to putting fingers up my snatch.

once in, it feels fine. like a tampon. like nothing. i didn't have any major problems with leakage tho i never did fully rotate the thing. getting it out tho, ugh. did NOT like that. firstly, the cup has who knosw how much liquid, so you have to be careful how you angle it out. second, the thing is open, so like, it feels fucking weird when you take it out. like, really fucking weird and uncomfortable. blegh.

all in all, i'm ready to give it a second go. but i don't think i'll ever feel comfortable taking it out when i'm not able to immediately rinse it off. i wouldn't want to wipe it off then put it back in. it's pretty interesting tho. i've never had such a good look at my menstrual blood. it's actually quite different that i thought. hahaha, which is fucking embarrassing, really, having had a period now for over half my life and not ever really paying attention to it. but i feel like that's in direct correlation to how our society is hush hush about menstruation, except to use it as a put down when women are expressing their emotions.

anyway, final final thoughts. i don't love it so much that i've fully switched over. i think i'll likely alternate between the cup and tampons