textures | tones

Today may be the first day I’ve been in New York that I don’t make it down to Wall Street, although I guess it’s still early. Instead, I’m being sort of domestic: I’m making cabbage, just like in BJ (I’m drinking real Diet Coke with it, though, so by no means is it the same). I’m also doing laundry, which entails leaving the apartment, and doing hand-wash in the sink, doing some dishes, and planning trips to the grocery store and the dry cleaner. Kind of mundane, eh? Expat life is clearly much fancier.

Yesterday I went to see a friend in New Jersey, touring through the charming neighborhood where his house is located. We had sushi, went to a bar; I rode some trains, took the wrong train, saw some sights, had a good time. In New York I ask for directions and understand the answers. I chatted with a random local in the elevator this morning; we high-fived because we agreed on our mutual awesomeness at being up and productive on a Sunday morning.

I miss China, though. Some of the guys in the office are Chinese, and we talk about food and the absence of open-container laws and Chinese people. Although I still have a lot to do in New York in the next few weeks, I’m looking forward to going home.

Sad to report that this post represents an expat blog fail. I’m in my home country, even though it’s a new city to me. I’m a little homesick for Beijing, and I miss the Sean. At least there’s street food, and cats. I’m also a little allergic to the latter, but they seem to be tiring of their formerly favorite game of jumping on me in the middle of the night. Progress.

NYC reminds me of LA in some ways. I run in the morning, I wear a suit, I have an office. People give me orders, which I sometimes understand. It’s similar, but not the same: the weather is hot, I commute via subway, my office is shared, some of my coworkers are much younger, and, unlike in my former law office, there’s a distinct paucity of women. Like Beijing and unlike LA, there are a lot of Asian guys, some of whom invite me to practice my Mandarin.

Work is interesting. There’s a lot of it. A lot of it is fresh-snow-new to me. It’s a good use of my time. Business in Beijing continues to grind forward, and I turn my attention to it from time to time, less often than I should.

I like New York. It’s cool enough in the morning to run outside, and it’s beautiful and green and there are rivers and ponds. I met Central Park yesterday, which was lovely. I met up with some friends in the past couple of days (other than the ones I’m staying with). I had some Cuban food. I had a Sam Adams on tap. There will be more outings. It’s good.

I enjoy listening to Sean’s songs. I wish we could talk on the phone more. I wish I could see him.

Whirlwind tour!

In order:
Jiuguloudajie (Old Gulou Street)
Gulou (Drum Tower)
Dianmendajie (Peace on Earth Door Street)
Jinshan Park
Tiananmen/Gugong (Peace in Heaven Door, Old Palace, otherwise known as Forbidden City)
Tiananmen Square, with National Museum of China, Hero’s Monument or something, some other massive government building, Mao Zedong’s mausoleum
Qianmen (Front Gate)
Qianmendajie (Front Gate Street)

10.6 miles, 7 hours, including a lovely lunch of traditional Chinese food a.k.a Vegetable Fried Noodles and Egg and Tomato Fried Noodles and Tsingtao beer. Also had milk tea for snacks/breakfast! Also lots of shopping including:

Panda backpack
Light up and music playing “dreidel” is the best word for it I think
Packs of cards with top sites of Beijing printed on them
Scarves, scarves, and more scarves
Lots of tiny little embroidered gift bags
Yet another pair of gloves for Maria since it was much colder out than we thought it would be…
Porcelain container set
“Cereal” (puffed corn and rice)
“Golden Brick” (wonderful chocolate bread) and pre-sweetened/pre-creamed coffee and “chocolate” sticks

Photos to follow!

Most arrangements have been made, and we head off to Carmel in a couple of hours. (Long-awaited!) I have heard such wonderful things about our destination, and nothing sounds better to me than a long car ride. I’ve also been advocating for a bagel breakfast as our first stop on our route. We made a special effort to charge the camera batteries, so I am ready to go camera-happy.

Sean is sleeping still; maybe I’ll go for a jog before finishing packing. This morning so far I’ve done some research on language schools in Beijing, some random Beijing-adjustment blog reading, and bagel-place research.