even though it’s strange to be posting this a million years after the fact, i refuse to abandon my commitment to tedious vacation reportage.

in the morning, we traverse central park from the east to the west. it’s relatively quiet and the earth is moist. sadly, christina doesn’t get to see any of the big landmarks, except for like, some castle and the great lawn

after much deliberation the night before on where to have brunch in the upper west side, i settle on sarabeth’s, famous for their baked goods. here i am enjoying quiet possibly the best cream of tomato soup ever. velvety, indeed.

lemon ricotta pancakes (fragrant and sweet), and a boring farmer’s omelette. the ingredients are great, but they don’t coalesce. also, those are excellent homemade english muffins

excitement mounts as we enter the museum of natural history. this is one of the greatest places in the world. plus, it’s romantic, no? i am thrilled for my sister to experience it. we take about a million photos. it’s enough to warrant its own separate entry

scary how their eyes are closed, but they appear to be slightly smiling. a little too moribund

bats! i love bats! again, strange presentation, especially given how everything else is displayed. this is part of the “animals of new york” installation, in some small hallway connecting the galleries

FIERCE. christina loves owls

hilarious how all the lemurs have the meanest, nastiest faces! they’re about to scratch your eyes out

introducing the surinam toad, one of nature’s ugliest, most revolting inventions. i distinctly remember this creature from my first time here years ago. as much as its appearance will make your skin crawl, its brilliant reproductive engineering will also make you marvel. babymama’s eggs get embedded into her back. when the little dudes hatch they emerge from these pits on her back. disgusting. take a close look

god, who DOESN’T LOVE DINOSAURS?!

cynth asks, “why is his pelvis bone so huge?” guess you could say he’s a well-hung chap

cynthia says, “check out the toupee on that schmuck”

leaves….LEEEEEEEEAVES

move along. no sexual innuendo here, none whatsoever

the hall of biodiversity. basically the coolest thing ever constructed. don’t get me started

for all the shark lovers in the house

battle! i like the scars on the sperm whale

we leave the magical land of awesome and stop by zabar’s, a densely packed market / gourmet food shop. the cheese section is astounding. it’s a tiny space, almost impossible to navigate, so you can sense tensions flaring with all the shopping/foot traffic collisions

still on the west side, heading north toward harlem. channeling peter parker/tobey maguire on the steps of columbia university

something the yin sisters are quite adept at: the awkward self-portrait

taking a break in st. nicholas park

i like this

there’s neat architecture in harlem

here’s astor row. note the patios

taking a well-deserved break

we almost make it into amy ruth’s, our dinner destination, but the gravitational pull of a sneaker store (“training camp”) is too powerful. cynth buys two pairs for a great deal. i spy a pair of alifes — usually not my cup of tea — and fall in love. unfortunately, the $150 pricetag aborts all hope

shoe shopping works up a ravenous appetite, and we are ready to take on amy ruth’s

it does not disappoint. fried chicken with a honey glaze, zesty buttery mashed taters, and mac n cheese (good, but there’s a subtly sweet aftertaste that turns me off)

chicken n waffles with pan gravy on the side. the waffle could stand powerfully on its own. same goes for the flavorful crunchy chicken. PERFECT

at this point, we are ready to die happy and bloated from delicious gluttony

every metro station has its own look and feel. this one has a colorful mosaic mural of historical black figures. of course, christina takes a pic with billie holiday, her all-time fave

a handy legend

a scary ECU of me and ella

we end up back in the upper west side at this irish pub called parlour. cynthia’s friend is having a fundraiser in the basement. we meet some of them

i’d say that makes for a pretty eventful day

i’m irked with myself for constantly sourcing SFGate/Chronicle news (we all know of its dubious quality – for example, big headline today: “Thousands Turn Out For Anti-China Vigil” – what crap sensationalistic wording), but it’s easiest and “closest to home” so i begrudgingly defer to it. um, yeah. guess that’s my way of being apologetic.

as you can tell, i’m pretty much engrossed with this hot topic. i don’t see how you can’t be. as a chinese american, a san franciscan, and someone who was in china while it was ramping up for the olympics, this is riveting and conflicting as all hell.

yesterday, my friend/coworker mentioned the idea of wearing our olympic pins (that i bought when i was there). depending on your perspective, today is the best, or worst, day to don beijing 2008 commemorative paraphernalia. i admittedly wonder what message it sends, whether or not it’s “appropriate.” well. i’m a superficial person. i bought these pins cuz i thought they were awesome, funny, handsome, and straight from the motherland.

i wear mine:

my friend wears his:

busloads of chinese folks are coming up to sf as we speak to show their support. another friend/coworker commutes on caltrain, and she said on her way in there were hordes of mainland chinese all over the place. i really wish i could be out there in the wild to witness all this. i think we’re going to go to justin herman plaza during lunch to check it out.

here’s an article titled “China doctors the news of Olympic torch relay.” it features these interesting quotes:

A middle-age woman surnamed Feng was less optimistic about the U.S. reception and less willing to give her full name…said the tension was noticeable among guards in the embassy district where she walks her dog. She said she expects China’s international reception to continue to be rocky as the torch moves around the world. The (Chinese) government is worried; we’re all worried,” Feng said. “We’ve been preparing for these Olympics for eight years.“

“It’s just bad, bad, bad,” retired army officer Wang Guanghai said of pro-Tibetan demonstrations that marred the torch relay in London and Paris. Wang, who chatted at a fruit stand in a downtown Beijing neighborhood, said he was certain the United States would be more welcoming when the torch arrived in San Francisco. Although protesters had hung pro-Tibetan freedom banners from the Golden Gate Bridge hours earlier, the news had not been published in China.

with that said, here are photos that peg took last night at the vigil in UN plaza. yeah, of course san francisco is more welcoming!

so my friend/coworker just walked by into my area and said pro-tibetans had climbed the golden gate bridge. it took me a while to register what this actually meant, so i looked it up and

H O L Y $ H I T

wow.

i guess i don’t feel so far-fetched for mentioning in my previous post that all this olympics stuff is “history in the making.” i don’t even know what to say, except mutter the word “fierce.” i can hear michael keaton/bruce wayne yelling “you wanna get nuts? c’mon! LET’S GET NUTS!!!” in my head. cuz this is sheer nutty insanity. a quick gleaning of the comments section will show you how polarized people are. some are cruelly expressing their wishes for them to fall, and others are applauding them. here’s some footage, courtesy CBS 5:

i’m really curious to see how the olympic torch relay in SF on wednesday will play out. will it be like the one in paris, where the last part of it was canceled, succumbing to the craziness of it all? will the olympic flame get snuffed out by SF protesters? i wonder…

what do you think? as stupid as it sounds, this is a churning momentous time; history in the making. the china/human rights/tibet problem is a perennial pandora’s box of challenges to one’s morale, ethics, and understanding of how densely complex the world is. it’s like a massive impossible knot that your mind can’t navigate, a rat king, where each rat represents something (historical, social, economic, cultural issues, and so on).

on saturday i was leaving ranch 99 and a young chinese fellow, adorned with beijing olympic pendant and flag, was rallying people to show up in SF. he was handing out fliers that had info on the torch relay route. the print said something to the effect of: “chinese people, stand up bravely and show your support for the olympics.” he anticipated around 9,000 chinese folks to attend. that’s a lot.

tibetan exiles performing a street play during a protest in new delhi on march 31

we hit the ground running! though we are ready at JFK by 4:15 pm for pick up, super shuttle keeps us waiting a good hour. we don’t get to our lodging — cousin steve’s upper east side apartment — til 6pm. we spend enough time there to drop our bags and earn the dog’s trust, then hit the road to hop on the 6 downtown. the metro is only a block away. score. we surface in the east village at astor place exit and hang around the cube (it can be spun ever-so-slowly) waiting for cousin cynthia, a longterm new yorker

an evening stroll down st. mark’s place — a bit reminiscent of haight street — is energizing. cynth said a lot of japanese kids/students hang out on this stretch. this is kenka, a supposedly good, authentic japanese eatery. i like the showmanship (the classic japanese bear with blinking eyes and big balls whose name is eluding me). as you exit they give you sugar so you can make cotton candy with the machine outside

starving, we stop for belgian style fries. the sauce selection ridiculous, the frites satiating

our official dinner is at the mythical and ever-so-popular MOMOFUKU! dave chang, to me, typifies the classic moody, fierce, and passionate pirate chef archetype. i admire him, no matter how outrageously hyped he is

hella crowded. they play good music (like enter sandman). a bit loud, but probably perfect for this crowd and this sort of dining experience

i spied this adorable japanese white ale at blue bottle awhile ago and was curious about it. momofuku offers it at an unspeakable price of $11, but i’m feeling festive and celebrative

reunion with both cynthia AND helene. what a delight!

korean rice cakes with oxtail ragu, pine nuts, chive. this is the kind of inventiveness that put dave chang on the map, i’m sure. a bold and delicious dish, its quality is best summed up by helene’s immediate primal, guttural response: “OOOHHHHHNNNNNNNNNGGGGHH”

expressing a ravenous appetite through performance movement

perfectly poached egg in the pork neck ramen. the white is a bit translucent, revealing a low-viscosity yolk lurking just beneath, waiting to flow. all good, but nothing measures up to my all time favorite ramen joint in durant square during the old college days

doing what we do best. overall, i am thrilled to check out the “very new york” momofuku. the food isn’t necessarily perfect, but it is of a top-notch caliber. a great way to kick off our first night in NYC

april 5 marks a chinese holiday — qing ming jie — the clear and bright festival. aka tomb sweeping festival, all souls day, festival for tending graves, grave sweeping day, chinese memorial day, tomb sweeping day, spring remembrance.

my mom adheres to this age-old tradition, so we’ll be going to skylawn cemetary tomorrow. ever since my popo (grandma) died in 1997, it’s been a custom we’ve observed. with my gong gong’s (grandpa’s) somewhat surprising death a few years ago, ma’s tenacity to stick to the ritual picked up ten-fold. she and my sis can tell you how difficult it is to get me to participate. it’s like pulling teeth, or dragging a pet into the vet’s office. even though i respect the idea behind qing ming jie and it appeals to my gloomy sensibilities, it’s depressing as hell!

first, christina does a bang up job on cleaning the gravestones. she uses elbow grease and car cleaning agents to get them nice and glossy. garden shears are used to trim the grass encroaching upon the stones. i wish i was a trooper like her

lookin good

ma treats her parents to their favorite meals, canned drinks, and snacks. she usually picks up these vittles from ranch 99 on our way to the cemetary, which is nestled on a hill between san mateo and half moon bay

with incense in hand, ma recites a medley of buddhist prayers and personal, heartfelt salutations. she asks grandma and grandpa to watch over the family and friends, to ensure we do well in life, thrive on good health, and of course, find good husbands. basically she reminds them to have our backs

of course, the deceased need to live it up too! so we burn joss paper — “ghost money” — for them to party it up in what my ma endearingly calls “happy land.” it’s like wiring $crilla to them but in a parallel universe, supernatural sort of way. it’s not just money; there’re paper/cardboard articles of clothing, houses, cell phones, credit cards, and almost anything else you can think of. i once saw a joss specialty store in chinatown, and was stunned by the massive selection!

this is a cool and clever concept, to take care of them by sending them materialistic goods so they can enjoy their afterlives. but it’s also the most heartbreaking and salient reminder of the fact that our loved ones are gone. i think i can partly attribute my nebulous belief in “spirits” to this

awww yeah. flossin’ with “hell bank notes”

we can’t help but monkey around. we don’t think grandpa would mind

it’s a nice view from atop skylawn cemetary, and it’s close to the ocean. i have to say, my mom did a good job finding a resting place for her parents

now that i’m older (though certainly not mature), i have learned the importance of taking this stuff more seriously. i’m making an earnest effort to tone down the stubborn “why do i hafta?!” behavior when mom says it’s time to go visit the grandparents. i often wonder if i can maintain the tradition and do the same for my mom as she has for her parents. my selfishness renders me incapable of conveying this kind of devotion and love. regardless, it’s something i’ll have to do. and if i ever get lazy about it, christina will surely get my butt into gear.

**ps – according to wiki, this year is the FIRST TIME the people’s republic of china can celebrate qing ming jie! it wasn’t allowed before because the chinese communist party had classified it as a superstition.

THANK YOU DEREK FOR FIXING MY SITE!

and thanks to those who have shown an interest in our whirlwind NYC trip. it was intense and jam packed. i can’t wait to post here and there about it, but work is all up in my grill and i owe it to myself to get all up in work’s grill too. again, thank YOU for reading and commenting!

ps – the olympic torch route has been announced. activists are chomping at the bit to get their groove on. i even saw an ad on the side of the bus today promoting the protest this saturday. things are really heating up. i can feel the molecules in the air starting to sizzle…