Days 201-202: Bangkok--Days 5 and 6

Friday I did my lecture on transgender issues. I had a crowd of about 25, and it went over pretty well. I got to walk around this time--I wasn't sitting at a table. I was introduced by Kaia, an Australian faculty member in gender studies. Folks were attentive--mostly Kaia's students--and they asked good questions. After doing some packing, we had a very late lunch/early dinner at a Korean grill place in the mall--they cooked a lot of our food right at the table, and they had us get sides (like garlic rice) and vegetables on a buffet. They grilled lots of proteins for us: Australian steak, salmon, BBQ chicken. Good stuff! We then tried the Baskin Robbins there: Kerry had chocolate chip ice cream; I had one scoop of their Love Potion #32 (I think that's what it was called--white chocolate and raspberry). Later in the evening, Kerry and I ventured back into the seedier part of town. First we went back to HUGs. It was much more crowded this time, and we even got some pleasing looks. But we didn't stay there long--it was mostly guys drinking and singing Thai karaoke. We headed to The Stranger bar around 10:40 for a drag show. It was even more crowded in there, and sweaty. The show was ostensibly "free" but they also required a "two drink minimum." For awhile we were sort of trapped under the stairs, beneath the stage on the upper level. You had to look up to see the drag queens perform. I saw Whitney, Christina Aguilera, Rhianna, Beyonce, and then the emcee herself did a number. I thought they were pretty good, but Kerry decided to leave early to return to HUGs; he couldn't take the crowd and the heat. Afterwards, we decided to head home. Kerry, of course, found some cats on the way: we saw a woman who had a mama cat who was licking a kitten, and Kerry gave them some money. We found a cab back to the iHouse, and turned in soon after that.

Friday fun photos:

Me posing with the poster advertising my lectures.

Dressed up for last lecture.

Close-up of the poster advertising my lectures!

Giving my last lecture.

Saying goodbye to Dari.

Korean BBQ--with cheese--cooked at our table.

Whitney drag queen at The Stranger.

Kerry communes with a cat and a kitten, on the streets of Bangkok.

Before we left on Saturday (our flight was 4:45 pm), we decided to walk to the nearby mall again to see if we could find any other clothes, since they had our sizes. Kerry found some stuff--underwear and shirts--and we found some gift shirts for others. Then we had some Thai food at a place (originally named) "Thai Restaurant and Bakery." We saw a cockroach on the floor, so we had second thoughts about eating there, but we decided to take our chances. I had shrimp pad Thai; Kerry had pork congee. Then we returned back to the dorm to finish packing; we left around 2 pm for the airport. The checking-in process was easy--we were glad we reserved seats by phone a few days ago, so I got my window seat this time! We noticed that the security in Bangkok was more similar to the USA than Chinese security is: you have to go into this enclosure and raise your hands, just like most (if not all) the airports in the US. In general, the airport was more Westernized, like Hong Kong's, with more places to eat than Chinese airports. Once we got to our gate, they wanded us again (which was different), and then we had to show our boarding passes FIRST and then wait (usually it's done the other way in the USA and China). Once boarding began, we just walked into the plane. It was a pretty good ride--I slept a lot, and the sweet and sour chicken they served wasn't bad. I got some reading done: almost finished The Scarlet Letter. And we got through immigration REALLY fast when we returned. However, it took like 30 minutes for our bags to show up. Our cab driver was nice, but it cost 250 RMB--probably because we arrived home so late, after midnight on Easter Sunday. But we are back in Shanghai!

Our departure day:

View from our balcony, CU dorm room.

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Thai restaurant we went to at MBK mall, where I got Pad Thai with shrimp.

Our one and only tuk tuk ride.

Days 199-200: Bangkok--Days 3 and 4

Wednesday, after a quick breakfast in the room, I was driven to go give my second lecture, on diversity in the American literary canon. It was very sparsely attended at first (only about 5 people or so), but then I had about 25 students walk in late. Oddly--and rudely--enough--they all got up and left at once when I was only about 2/3 done with my lecture. This was pretty disappointing, but I got through it okay. After getting back to the room, Kerry and I went to go eat, and ended up at a sushi place (Shoyu), which was outstanding: they had salmon sashimi, salmon rolls, calamari, fried chicken skin, shrimp tempura, and all kind of other good stuff. That was pretty tasty! In the evening, we decided to explore the nightlife of Bangkok a bit more. We first went to a bear bar called HUGs. It was nice, but not much was going on in there, so Kerry and I had rum and cokes and then left after about 45 minutes. The area we were at was pretty seedy. Plenty of women on stripper poles in the bars, and we were constantly asked if we wanted massages, and men kept shoving pictures of naked women in our faces and lists of girls, which were always topped off with "PUSSY PING PONG." One place we saw was called "PUSSY MAGIC," which blared in neon letters. However, Kerry and I really weren't in the mood for pussy magic...but we couldn't escape it. We walked down one street that had hundreds and hundreds of women sitting outside on chairs, with their pimps close by, or else the pimps were trying to come up to us, trying to entice us. "Want boom boom?", one kept asking Kerry. He declined. So did I. Eventually, we used an app called "Grab" (similar to Didi in China) to try to take a taxi back, but the taxi went right by us. As we waited, one little girl came up to us and asked if we wanted to buy some gum, but we declined. We ended up getting a taxi from off the street. Usually they tell us the fare that they want in advance (usually somewhere between 150 or 200 baht, about 4-5 US dollars), and, because it's pretty cheap, we don't argue.

Pictures from Wednesday:

Looking sharp before my second lecture.

Giving my second lecture.

Salmon sashimi at Shoyu!

Me and Kerry at HUGs.

Shrine in the road, Bangkok.

Thursday I had an early lecture, at 10 am, this time on teaching comics in literature and writing classrooms. It went better than yesterday's, even though I had only 15 people. It was a seminar room, very conducive to discussion, and the audience stayed the entire time and asked intelligent questions. Afterwards we changed clothes and went to the sushi place, Shoyu, again for lunch--although we didn't eat as much this time! Avoided the fried foods. They messed up the order a bit and forgot to bring one of the sushi rolls, but they brought more salmon sashimi by mistake instead, which I like even more, so I didn't complain! From there, we went to the Grand Palace of Bangkok. Kerry used the Grab app again. We got an illegal taxi--we know this because the driver kept telling us how worried he was about the police, and insisted we get in and get out "quickly." But we did get there, after a bit of walking. It's a glorious place, probably the most opulent place I've seen in all of Asia. It did cost about 1000 baht (around 32 dollars) for the two of us to get in. The ticket lady was really rude: she let a guy cut in front of me instead of being patient with us when we were slow to get out the money, and then when I gave her the money, she slammed it back down on the counter to me until SHE was ready to accept it. Whatever! One of the places we went to was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, where shoes and hats were not allowed, nor were pictures. In fact, in all of the Grand Palace area, people had to wear long pants, no tank tops or flip flops. Nice short-sleeved shirts were okay, we discovered. Some people had to wear extra coverings in order to enter, so we saw lots of men walking around in silly-looking elephant pants. We took a taxi back (200 baht) and then rested at home a bit. We decided to venture back to the mall near us later in the evening, and we had some good success. I bought two Polo shirts for $12.50 each, and we bought some stuffed elephants as gifts (5 for about $17 total). Both places gave us discounts. We then tried in vain to find something to eat--it was around 9:45 by this point. We went to Burger King, waited in line for 15 minutes, only to be told they didn't have any "regular" burgers. Okay...  So we ended up back at Kerry's favorite place, McDonald's, which was much more fast and efficient, even though this time we had to order at the counter, and they messed up Kerry's order. That's something we struggle with in Asia a lot--order accuracy at restaurants. Sometimes we order something and they don't have it, and then they don't tell you that it's not available, so you keep expecting it (like some sashimi I ordered today). Or they claim that you didn't order it, when you know you did. One of the challenges of being here.

Thursday pictures:

Before my second lecture.

Giving second lecture.

Detail from a building at the Grand Palace.

Statue, Grand Palace.

Shrine, Grand Palace.

Kerry at Grand Palace.

Me at Grand Palace.

Detail of building at Grand Palace.

One of many guard animals.

Kerry and a statue.

Nice view of palace.

The Thai flag at night.

Days 197-198: Bangkok--Days 1 and 2

We didn't have to get up too early to leave for the airport to go to Bangkok, which was nice, and we didn't have any drama getting there. The bad thing, though, is that I couldn't get a window seat, and they stuck us way back in the plane again: last row. So every time someone had to go to the bathroom, they'd brush past me, and pretty much everyone on the plane went to the bathroom during the flight. One lady went back to my area four times, twice with a thermos of hot water in her hand. And the food wasn't great--just a seafood dish. When we got there, we couldn't find the young woman who was supposed to pick us up at first, but eventually we located her, holding a sign that said "Dr. Brian Lewis." She introduced herself as Dari, and we followed her into the school van, which, thank goodness, nicely air conditioned--it was about 85 degrees when we arrived around 6 pm (their time...we lost an hour). The ride to the CU International dorm was long, and we were hungry when we got there. We noticed that they didn't have regular bar soap, and only two pillows were provided. We complained about this, and they just provided more body wash (which I guess was supposed to be hand soap), and Kerry was told that it was "against the rules" to provide more than two pillows. So I went and made more of a fuss, explaining about my sleep disorder. Soon, not one, but two pillows materialized, from a female security guard who glared at us the entire time, but I still smiled brightly and said "Thank you!"  After all this, Kerry was in the mood for good ol' Dominos at the nearby mall, so we indulged. We got two medium pizzas, chicken wings, and soda all for only about $16.  PRICES HERE ARE INSANELY CHEAP. The cost of living is only about one-third of what things are in the USA. We got a 1.5 liter bottle of Aquafina at 7-Eleven, for example, for 16 baht, or about 50 cents.

Pics from our arrival day:

Art from the airport.

Very strange toilet--and bathroom--in our dorm. Reminded me of a hospital bathroom.

The next day went better, but there was still a snafu at the beginning. We got up early because we thought Dari told us to be ready at 11:15 to have the car pick us up. She didn't show, so I emailed her. It turns out she meant 11:50, and she just didn't understand...so we just waited longer. Dari (Suradech's assistant), the Assistant Dean (Nirada, who studied in Wisconsin for a bit), and the Associate Dean (Suradech) all showed up to greet me, and they took me and Kerry to lunch with genuine Thai food before my lecture--it was fanstastic! We had pad thai, fish, catfish, lemongrass soup, chicken satay with peanut sauce, and an ice cream cake. Wonderful! Then they took me to the room to lecture on online learning (the same lecture I gave at Soochow U and Jilin U)--I had an audience of about 20, mostly teachers, and it went well. They asked good questions afterwards. I was then driven back to the dorm, and Kerry and I relaxed a bit. We later checked out the local mall and the night market nearby, where we bought some things. I like shopping in open markets--it's so much fun to haggle and get interesting things! One noteworthy purchase was a faux-vintage photo that we had taken of ourselves with royal objects--I wore a crown and held a sceptre. It was just for fun, but I enjoyed it. We had a bite at McDonald's (again, blame Kerry!), but we noticed that they had ordering machines and place to pick up the food. It was all very systematic. There were all kinds of people speaking all kinds of languages there. Nicely organized--very different from Chinese fast food restaurants. There's really not much need for the cashiers to speak English because we've punched in our orders, so it makes everything easy for everyone. Nirada told us that "No one will expect you to know Thai," but it's really true. Everyone speaks to us in English, pretty much, or doesn't speak at all. Whenever we make a purchase, they give a slight bow with their palms pressed together. It's amusing to us to see the cultural differences between China (where a mere "Xie xie" works), Japan (deep bow), and here.

Pics from our first full day:

Flyer advertising my first lecture.

Selfie before first lecture.

Beginning my first lecture!

Pad thai from our lunch!

Gift from CU given to me by Nirada, after my lecture.

Folks eating outside in Bangkok.

Days 194-196: Hong Kong

We spent the weekend in Hong Kong with Zach. Our flight on Friday, fortunately, was pretty drama-free. Right away when we arrived in Hong Kong, we noticed how nice and polite everyone seemed in the airport. For example, they have us a little slip of paper to show us the estimate of what the cost would be for our ride. And they had people to translate for us, so we had no trouble getting to the hotel. The staff at the Hotel Stage were EXTREMELY nice and friendly, answering all of our questions. We had lunch in the hotel (Kerry and I split a Napoli pizza), and then we decided to walk around a bit. There was a small temple near our hotel that we briefly explored; it was part of a park. We also went over to a Jade Market, but the salesladies were WAY too high pressure and we were turned off. So we decided to follow Zach to the Bruce Lee statue he wanted to see. However, we got a bit lost--and our feet got tired--walking around, so Kerry and I went back and Zach kept walking. On the way back, I found a beautiful red flower blossom that came from a tree just sitting on a ledge--I decided to save it because it was so beautiful. Kerry and I rested for a while and waited for Zach to return. Fortunately, I found TCM in our hotel and was mesmerized by all the Joan Crawford movies they were showing: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Susan and God, Ice Follies of 1939, Hollywood Canteen....near the end of the evening, I saw the whole thing of Grand Hotel, with Greta Garbo. When Zach returned, we went to Tai Ping Koon Restaurant, a couple blocks from our hotel. I was feeling very experimental and got a set menu: bird's nest with cream of chicken soup, a whole pigeon, Portuguese-style chicken with rice, and a Napoleon. It was pretty good overall. Kerry got a steak and Zach just got noodles. Afterwards, he was tired, but Kerry and I wandered around the Night Market nearby--we got some good stuff, including a jade lion and a peacock fan! I enjoyed it!

Some Friday pics:

Pretty red flower I picked up from our walk.

Zach eating noodles at Tai Ping Koon.

The pigeon was I served, Tai Ping Koon.

Night market in Hong Kong, near our hotel.

Saturday we did a Big Bus Tour of Hong Kong most of the day. We began with a really nice breakfast in the hotel: they served eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a sausage and the let us choose salad, fruit and pastries on the side. Nice! We missed the 10:35 start time--Zach led us on a wrong turn--but soon enough, another bus came along at the Temple Street stop, where we were supposed to be. We rode around on the top of a double decker bus for a bit, on the "Blue Line" in Kowloon, but we had to get an actual paper ticket at one point, so we had to stop to get off and do that. Then we got onto a ferry to go to the other side of Hong Kong, where we rode the "Red Line" for awhile. Mostly, we saw a lot of skyscrapers--not a lot of monuments. We stopped for lunch around 2, at this western place--I had steak, fries, tomato mozzarella salad, and chocolate mousse. Quite good!  Soon, we had to take the ferry back to Kowloon, where we eventually took the "Blue Line" to the Sky 100 tower, where we had an AMAZING view of Victoria Harbor and Hong Kong in general, This was a highlight for me. Zach didn't want to come, so he rode around without us. We had to wait a LONG time for the bus to come back, and then it stopped after....but the woman said we could take the night tour to the Temple Street Area. That took awhile, so we didn't get back to our hotel until almost 8 pm. We had a very late dinner in the hotel with Zach (I had linguini with clams--not very saucy), and then we went and explored the market some more. Got a box of UNO cards, some more fans, some beautiful cards with pop-up designs, and a panda scroll. Kerry even got some luggage. It's fun to haggle as well!

Some Saturday pics:

View from our hotel window, morning.

Kerry with a cat mural.

View of Hong Kong's skyscrapers, from the Big Bus.

View from the ferry.

Zach and me, post-lunch selfie.

View from our window at night.

View from the sky100 building.

Sunday we had breakfast in the hotel, and soon we were off to the airport. We saw Zach off, and then waited around until they announced which gate we had to go to in order to check in. When we got there, it was quite a long line--about a 25 minute wait. Still, things went smoothly--they didn't even use the wand on us at security!  They had a "e-customs" thing, where the passport didn't scan all that well, but we eventually got through. We had Popeye's chicken for lunch--because we NEVER find it in Shanghai! The flight home was very weird: I slept the first hour, but there was an OBNOXIOUS little child in front of us, constantly talking and screaming, and even playing with the seat in front of him. He wasn't buckled him, and his mother goaded him on. When he turned around and said "Hi" to me, I replied, "You need to turn around."  He was about three or so. The father was no help at all. What an obnoxious, hyperactive little brat! Thank goodness they served Haagen-Dazs ice cream on the flight. Unfortunately, I dropped mine, but they gave me another one (vanilla). I found the one I dropped, but it was already kind of melty, so I let Kerry have most of it.

And.....a couple Sunday pics, for good measure:

One last view from our room.

Breakfast at Savvy, the Hotel Stage restaurant.

Finally, we picked up our bags, got in a taxi (the roads were good), and made it home. I did some packing for our trip tomorrow.  Out on the road again...to Bangkok!

Day 193: 4th Day with Zach

Thursday we got up and had bacon for breakfast...a bit unusual for us, but it was tasty! In the early afternoon, we took the subway to the Oriental Pearl Tower. The plan was to go to the Tower and also the Museum that's there, which focuses on the history of Shanghai. It didn't exactly work out that way. Zach sort of wanted to do his own thing, so he went off by himself while Kerry and I went to a restaurant within the Tower, a buffet near the main observation deck. It was a huge buffet, and it was a "revolving" restaurant, which was interesting. But we took a bit too long and didn't really have much time for much else. We briefly went to the main observation area, but we didn't see much that we couldn't see from the restaurant. Then we tried to go to the "bubble" on the very top, but it turns out that we didn't buy the right ticket for that. We quickly tried to go through the museum, but we had to meet Zach around 2:30, so we really didn't have much time for that, either. So the entire trip was frustrating, and we didn't get done what we wanted to.

A couple Pearl Tower pics:

Pearl Tower from the outside, on the Bund.

View from the revolving restaurant, Pearl Tower.

However, we had better luck at the Aquarium next door: we saw not only lots of fish, but jellyfish, sting-rays, spotted seals, sharks, and even PENGUINS!  They were so cute, swimming, walking, and avoiding two women who came into their cage to check the temperature. I wasn't feeling great while we were there, due to my hurting feet and the fact that I banged my head on an enclosure. But I did enjoy the trip.

A couple Aquarium pics:

Penguins!!!!  The Shanghai Aquarium.

Shark at the Aquarium.

This fish managed to get my attention....

Afterwards, we went to Hongkou Plaza for another dinner. This time we went to Grandma's, a place Richard recommended. We arrived early, and fortunately they gave us a table for nine (with the help of a couple younger folks who interpreted for us), but the menu was all in Chinese....and no pictures. Luckily, my grad students arrived shortly and they even brought me a cheesecake (from the Lillian Macau Bakery) and an apple! We let them make the menu selections; Richard, who arrived a bit late, was also fine to let them do this. They ordered some good stuff: chicken, pork with some fish, tofu, shrimp, green tea cakes, ice cream with bread. and green beans. Then I shared some cheesecake for dessert. We got into a good conversation about American versus Chinese education; I could chat a lot on the topic and really enjoy discussing it when I get into doing so. But soon enough, it got to be about 9 pm or so, and we all took the subway home. Richard followed us, obviously, since he lives in our building.

Dinner pic:

Outside Grandma's: (front row, women) Lydia, Leona, Yinming, Cora, Katniss; (back row, guys) Zach, Kerry, me, Richard

Once we got in the apartment, we had to do some packing for Hong Kong, and then we went to bed.