My Halloween

Haidian District October 31, 2007 From both my work friends and my hotel friends, there were a lot of questions about Halloween that I was not able to answer at a deep enough level. Just the cursory stuff that everyone can easily look up. Of course, what everyone was looking for was a way for me to communicate the “experience” of Halloween. To my mind, this isn’t really possible. I hope my reluctance to share hasn’t been taken as rude… it’s just not easy to express…...

4 Nov 2007 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

Food Impressions

Bread I think of bread as being anywhere between San Fransisco sourdough to rye to Wonder white. Potato Bread, cottage, Italian sesame loaf, split top country, English muffins, bagels; hard or soft, biscuits; dropped or cut. Even the low carb options that are not really bread at all would be much appreciated in this place of rice and noodles. Wait though, it’s not that bread doesn’t exist. There’s a lot of bread here....

29 Oct 2007 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

Great Wall Hike

For those who saw the pictures as they were still uploading, they now have more captions, and show up “in order”. 27 October 2007 North East Beijing Territory Some people from work were talking about a Great Wall Hike. I was reluctantly invited to go along, after being told many times that it would be a lot of up and down, and it’s very strenuous… Gubeikou The group starts off at a break-neck pace, and I become winded almost immediately....

28 Oct 2007 · 4 min · Gary Allen Vollink

How Time Does Fly

23 October 2007 8 Gate Shopping Mall So I go alone to the KFC. I look at the choices, and the cashier gets the picture menu that they bring out for illiterates, and I point to it with two fingers and very haltingly say, “Wo You Er…” The kid behind the counter looks at me like I’m an idiot and says, “Yeah, you want two… I get it”, in a perfect ’lost youth’, American accent....

28 Oct 2007 · 1 min · Gary Allen Vollink