On Sunday during our visit to Shanghai, Tawn’s cousins arranged for us to drive to West Lake, a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, about a two-hour drive from Shanghai. Hangzhou is a city of almost nine million people located on the Yangtze River Delta, famous for its natural beauty.

Our first stop was the Lingyin Temple, a Buddhist temple that dates back almost 1700 years. It is a wealthy temple, with many buildings and famous stone grottoes that include religious rock carvings. Being a Sunday and the weather being pleasant, the temple grounds were full of worshipers and other visitors.

The smoke of thousands of sticks of incense hung heavy in the air, a perfumed fog through which the strong morning sun filtered. 

Devotees lit handfuls of incense, not the mere trio of sticks common in Thai Buddhist temples, and every so often an uncle or auntie, waving their still-flaming incense with abandon in an effort to extinguish the flames, would nearly set another person alight. 

The temple grounds were full of striking images and saturated colors – brightly painted buildings, monks in vibrant robes… 

…and the rich reds associated with good fortune in the Chinese culture.

The Hall of the Five Hundred Arhats features a complex floor plan laid out like a Buddhist swastika. Along the arms are bronze statues of the arhats, or Buddhist spiritual practitioners who have been liberated and attained nirvana. Each of the statues is unique, as are the seats upon which they rest.

We founds one statue which Tawn thought resembled his father’s grumpy frown. 

Escaping the crowded, smoky temple, we drove a short way to the shores of West Lake. Our lunch was at a restaurant owned by the son of Hangzhou’s mayor, a friend of one of Tawn’s cousin’s colleagues. Because of these three-degrees of separation, we were seated in a small dining villa that offered a lovely view.

Hangzhou is known for a variety of pan-fried green tea known as longjing, which we were served at the restaurant. It is very gentle, almost sweet tea and pleasant to drink.

One of the highlights of our meal, beggar’s chicken. This famous dish is a bit complex to make (see here for one blogger’s attempt) but it is basically a marinated chicken that is stuffed, wrapped in leaves, then covered with clay and baked. The clay seals in all the moisture so you are left with a very tender, juicy bird. It is presented to the table unopened and the server asks whether you want them to open it or whether you prefer to do it yourself. We let the experts crack the clack.

The second dish to arrive (sadly, I didn’t capture the name) was this cold gelatin-like lotus root. The sauce was sticky and sweet and it seemed more like a dessert than an appropriate second course.

Another stand-out dish was the “gold medal braised sliced pork” or, as I like to call it, the ziggurat of bacon. The thin slices of braised pork belly are wrapped around a mold to create a delicate pyramid that you slowly unwind, slice by tasty slice. 

The inside of the ziggurat is stuffed with fermented greens (lotus root, maybe?) that are a wonderful compliment to the rich pork. Combine that with some of the steamed bok choy and you have a balanced meal.

The pork arrived with green crepes in which to wrap the pork and fermented vegetables. Add a dash of sauce and you had a burrito of porky goodness.

An elaborate dish that didn’t live up to its promise was the crab meat steamed inside an orange. As the plastic bag was unwrapped, the aroma or orange was mouth-watering and the exquisite carvings on the orange were beautiful, but the sweetness of the orange overpowered the crab meat and one or two bites was sufficient.

Getting full, the dishes continued to arrive. This was a tasty dish of greens and tofu, something simple but refreshing. 

Shortly after we thought we could take no more, a huge bowl of noodle soup arrived with hand-pulled noodles and bitter greens. It was very tasty but I couldn’t manage but a few bites before I had to be rolled out of the restaurant, too full to walk.

After lunch, we did end up walking to burn off some of the calories we had consumed. The scenery around West Lake is beautiful. Ah, tranquility… looks like we are there by ourselves, doesn’t it? But that’s not the whole story.

As you can see in this brief video, there were hordes of tour groups from all around China, each of them with a group leader waving a flag and amplified with a portable speaker that echoed their explanations and instructions across the lake.

Walkways were full of tour groups, moving like the packs of zombies in The Walking Dead. It was fascinating to watch as groups from different directions would converge, the tourists jostling through each other like salmon swimming upstream.

While walking, I heard the chirps of birds only to discover that vendors were selling bamboo whistles to visitors. None of the bird chirps were real! 

Still, if you turned and looked the other way, you could block much of the din of the crowd and enjoy the beautiful scenery, sights so beautiful they deserve to be painted and perhaps have been hundreds of times.

There were even some spots where couples could enjoy their own private moment, something that must be a rare commodity in such a crowded city.

On the western side of the lake, the trees were starting to show some autumn colors and the lotuses turned their leaves to the sky.

Tawn’s cousins Paul and Nicha pose with us at West Lake. Interestingly, I was approached by two teenage girls who wanted to take their picture with me. Paul took a picture of that and I’ll have to see if I can get a copy to share with you. They either thought I was someone famous or, more likely, were from somewhere in the country and don’t see white people ever. Anyhow, it was an enjoyable trip!

President Obama was in Bangkok Sunday as part of a three-day tour of Southeast Asia. The primary purpose of his visit is to attend the East Asia summit in Cambodia this week, but he is fitting in short visits to Thailand and Myanmar (Burma) as well. As coincidence would have it, I was crossing Ratchaprasong intersection on the way to lunch at Central World Plaza just as his motorcade left the Four Seasons Hotel.

The thing that struck me as most interesting is that the police put fewer restrictions on traffic (see that commuter van hanging in the middle of the intersection, waiting to turn right) for President Obama’s motorcade than they do for the motorcades of some members of certain Thai VIPs. In fact, pedestrians are usually not allowed on the bridges when those VIP motorcades pass. That said, the entire block around the Four Seasons was full of Thai and US security personnel and there were checkpoints on the road heading both directions.

My friend Doug de Weese received an invitation to the reception and dinner for President Obama held last night at Government House. These pictures are courtesy of him. Here we have the President and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra posing with the performers from the reception. Notice how the children in the front row are dressed – it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

In this picture, the President is greeting the performers. Oddly, the caucasian students are dressed as Thai farmers and the Thai students are dressed, I guess, as how Americans children are perceived to dress. The boys are dressed as punks (along with the one boy wearing a “I heart Hugs” shirt). In the pervious picture, you will see that the girls are all dressed in some vaguely 1980s Cyndi Lauper / Madonna look. Curious.

As I mentioned in my previous entry, a large part of our trip to Shanghai was focused on eating. Let me share some more of our delicious discoveries with you. (When I say “our delicious discoveries,” I really should credit the friends and family on whose recommendations we relied.)

The Grumpy Pig

Located on Maoming Luu in the Jiang’an district, the Grumpy Pig features a pork centric, pan-Asian menu that invites you to nosh, chill, and enjoy the hip vibe.

Pork steamed buns were a winner with fluffy buns, braised pork belly, and a cucumber and red cabbage slaw. The pork was sweet, sticky, and tender.

Pork street toast, a play off the shrimp toast snack food common in Thailand and elsewhere in east Asia, features pork and grated sweet potato slathered on baguette toasts which are then battered and fried and then topped with sweet chili sauce. Good, but a little underseasoned.

Several dishes are served over rice, making for a perfect meal for one. This was the teriyaki pork neck rice bowl with flavorful pork neck, sweet peppers, cabbage, and sansyo (the ground, dried leaves of the prickly ash tree) with a nice, tart teriyaki sauce. 

The pork rice bowl features the same pork belly as served with the fluffy buns, served over rice with a poached egg, bok choy, and roasted onion. Mix it all together and you have a healthy and happy meal.

Di Shui Dong

Our first evening in Shanghai, Tawn and I were left to our own devices as Tawn’s cousins had to go to a social event. We wandered to the French Concession, another district in Shanghai, and ended up stumbling into a Hunanese restaurant that we later discovered is written up in Lonely Planet. Turns out that the recommendation was well-deserved.

As you can see, the restaurant is popular with a mixed crowd of people. Many of the foreigners appeared to be expats, which I take as a good sign. Hunanese food is similar to Sichuan foods in terms of spiciness, but instead of relying on the tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorns, more traditional chilies are used. 

The “Shef’s Special!” (per the menu’s spelling) was the Hunan style cumin spareribs, which were so good that my mouth waters just writing about them. The pork ribs are grilled and finished with a healthy dose of chilies and spices, mostly cumin seeds. The flavor is spectacular and they are not as spicy as you might expect. Cumin is one of my favorite spices, so I was in heaven. Almost ordered a second plate.

The balance out the meat, we ordered a dish or stir-fried eggplant and French beans, which in addition to some chilies had some smoked pork belly. The little bit of bacon elevated the dish. If your children don’t like to eat vegetables, may I suggest you add some bacon to them?

Since there were just the two of us eating, we ordered only three dishes, settling on something the menu called “distilled water egg”. We assumed this was a custard similar to the Japanese chawanmushi and were correct, kind of. The egg itself was flavorless and the dash of soy sauce didn’t season it sufficiently. Worst of all was the film of vegetable oil on top, which made the dish unappetizing. Two successes and one failure, but overall we were very happy with the food and service.

More Di Shui Dong

As coincidence would have it, we ended up eating at another branch of the same restaurant two days later, when Jason and his husband Daniel took us to lunch. It wasn’t until we sat down and I looked at the name of the restaurant on the hand wipe packets that I realized we were at the same place. The good news is that we had a chance to further explore the menu.

Hunan original bacon and smoked tofu spicy hot pot (“Recommended!”) brought together all the flavors we associate with Hunan cuisine in a single dish. It was tasty but seemed like a large portion for four people and I soon tired of it.

An excellent, if simple, dish was the stir-fried cabbage with cayenne pepper. The cabbage was very sweet and despite the chilies, was a refreshing counterpoint to the other dishes.

Mr. Mao’s favorite fried shrimps are small shrimp fried in their shells, covered in a mountain of fried garlic and chilies. Such a tasty combination. My only complaint was that the shrimp were not very large so the effort of peeling them was not rewarded with a lot of meat. I ended up eating the shells, which were crispy, but you still end up with the pieces that need to be picked out of your mouth. Not very graceful to eat!

A steamed fish head, split open and topped with two types of chilies. The green chilies were pickled and had a nice vinegary flavor. The red chilies were fresh. Fish head is under appreciated in the west, but there is some really tasty, firm meat to be had.

A soup made with pork bone and wax gourd, a flavorful, clear broth that made for a nice break from the spice of the meal. After two meals at Di Shui Dong, our appreciation for Hunanese food was even more solid than before.

Xin Ji Shi

One evening we went to the Xiantindi branch of Xin Ji Shi, a well-known Shanghainese restaurant chain. The restaurant, located in an upscale dining and shopping district, has a quaint interior that was formerly a row house. The modern exterior doesn’t prepare you for what might best be described as a step back in time, and a tasty one at that. 

This is one of several “new” branches of the original “Jesse” (an Anglicization of “Ji Shi”) restaurant on Tianping Luu. Since the original is too small to reliably get a table in, the owners have opened these other branches. Depending on whom you speak to, the branches serve food that is as good as, or a close approximation of, the original.

Before ordering, you are served a few small dishes of appetizers - pickled vegetables and spicy roasted peanuts. Enough to whet your appetite.

A specialty is the crispy dried fish. Exactly as described, it is a dried fish that is then deep fried, making almost all of the bones edible and adding a nice crunch to the concentrated fishiness.

The hong xiao rou (red braised pork) is perhaps the most famous dish in Shanghainese cuisine and is certainly the restaurant’s showstopper. Simmered for hours in a sweet soy sauce, the pork belly turns into a meltingly tender mass of goodness, a flavor that appeals to everyone except vegetarians. 

Another very typical Shanghai dish was the bean curd skin with crab meat. This dish is deceptive. It looks unassuming at best and, more likely, unappetizing. It is profound, though. The thin strips of tofu are scrambled with crab meat. The first taste, before adding the all-important condiment of black vinegar, is relatively bland. But the vinegar unlocks so many levels of flavor and the dish is elevated to something much more than the sum of its parts. 

A very simple dish of broccoli fried with garlic provided a nice serving of vegetables, helping to ensure a healthy, balanced meal lest we fall too into temptation with the pork belly.

The most beautiful and extravagant dish, the toasted deep water fish head in a nest of fried shallot greens. The fried shallot greens hide the fish head when it arrives and the water carefully parts the nest at the table.

The fish head, which is served split in half to make the meat readily accessible, is tender and succulent. The shallots prove the point that aroma is an integral part of flavor. You don’t eat the shallot greens but their perfume adds an earthy depth to the fish and fills the air.

Xin Ji Shi was a special meal and reinforced my love of Shanghainese food.

Qian Xiang Ge

Our final evening in Shanghai, Paul and Nicha took us to Qian Xiang Ge, a Guizhou style restaurant in Pudong, the eastern side of the city. Guizhou is a province in southwestern China that is relatively mountainous and one of the most ethnically diverse in China. It borders Sichuan province but has its own distinct culinary style, known as “Qian” (which is the Chinese diminutive for the province’s name). The food is known for its sour flavors and a distinct condiment, zao pepper, a fermented chili pepper paste.

The interior of the restaurant is beautiful, with graceful courtyards and many seating areas for casual relaxing before, after, or during a meal.

Sadly, despite most Shanghainese restaurants no longer allowing smoking, the common seating areas between the dining rooms was open for smokers, filling the room with the unwelcome scent of cigarette smoke. I’m fine with people making the decision to smoke, but when their smoke impedes on my enjoyment of a meal, that’s where I get upset.

The highlight of the meal was a wujiang fish hot pot. A staple dish of Qian cooking is this fish in sour soup. Chunks of firm white fish are simmered in a spicy-sour sauce tableside for several minutes, before being served. The dish was similar to the Thai gaeng som, but without the tamarind flavor. It was enjoyable, but I think anyone trying the Thai dish might find the overall flavor of that to be richer and more satisfying.

Seasonal greens stir fried with pork and an egg yolk. Served hot off the wok, you mix the egg yolk into the greens to create a pleasing sauce.

Guizhou style fried chicken with cashew nuts in chili sauce. This tasty dish wasn’t as spicy as you might think, but had enough chili to get your attention and keep your taste buds awake. This dish is similar to one you might recognize from Chinese restaurants in the west – kung pao chicken – a dish which originates in Guizhou.

I didn’t make note of the English name of this shrimp dish, which Google translate spits out as “Dushan hydrocloric acid flavored shrimp.” Appetizing, huh? It was shrimp in the shell with a garlic and chili sauce, very tasty and neatly arranged on the plate.

Our final dish was a specialty called “Guizhou native chicken cooken in purple sand casserole.” It is basically a clay pot chicken. The unique design of the vessel allows steam to come up through the hole in the center of the pot, keeping the chicken incredibly moist and retaining all of its juices in the pot. The juices were too good to waste, so we spooned them on rice.

This was my first time trying Guizhou, or Qian, cuisine and I’ll definitely try it again. The food was very flavorful and not as spicy as Hunan or Sichuan cuisine.

Hope you enjoyed the culinary tour of Shanghai!

Shanghai is a city of immigrants and the most international of Chinese cities. This mixture of people and cultures means that there is an opportunity to try many different types of food from lowbrow to high-society. We arrived in Shanghai armed with a list of recommended restaurants and were hosted by people who had their own “must try” lists, so we had more places to eat than we had meals! I’m combining a few different meals into this entry.

Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Knowing that, we wanted to see how folks in Shanghai fuel their day. The morning that we arrived, Tawn’s cousins Paul and Nicha took us to a Kiwi restaurant near their apartment for a satisfyingly typical western style breakfast. On subsequent mornings, though, we went native for our breakfasts.

A common breakfast dish anywhere with Chinese influence: rice porridge, known as jok (“joke”) or congee (“con-jee”). For breakfast, you can also order these “Chinese donuts” which are fried sticks of dough perfect for tearing up and adding to your jok. They are not sweet, though. If you are a porridge sort of person, as I am, you will probably enjoy jok.

Another breakfast snack was what might be described as a rice burrito. Sticky rice rolled around some dried pork and pickled vegetables. This is the exact same thing we had for breakfast when we were in Taipei in November 2009.

Another breakfast item, bought from a Muslim vendor, was this roti – a thin, multi-layered pancake with salt, green onions, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Tasty but heavy.

At the same vendor, we sampled these thin cakes stuffed with black sesame paste. The cakes are griddled and have a very flaky texture.

Detail shot showing the light, flaky texture of the cakes and the black sesame filling, which is slightly sweet. We also bought a hot beverage that was made from blended black sesame seeds. It had a very pleasant flavor.

Lunch

Shanghai is known for its dumplings and everyone has their favorite type of dumplings and their favorite vendors. On this trip, I fell in love with sheng jian bao – a pan-fried pork soup filled dumpling sprinkled with sesame seeds.

We tried sheng jian bao from a few different places but kept returning to the place where we first tried them: Yang’s Dumplings. With a few branches in Shanghai, Yang’s popularity is clear by the queue that stretches from the front door most anytime during the day. You queue up on the left, ordering and paying at the cashier, and then queue up on the right to wait to collect your order.

A view of the cramped but efficient kitchen at Yang’s Dumplings on Wujiang Luu above the West Nanjing Street subway station. The menu has only about a dozen items but these dumplings are the superstar item.

The secret that makes sheng jian bao different from xiao long bao (made popular at places like Din Tai Fung restaurant) is that the sheng jian are fried in a heavy pan and steamed at the same time, a process making them a relative of Japanese gyoza - potstickers. This provides a crispy, crunchy bottom with a tender, steamed top – the perfect combination of textures. An order is four dumplings, enough for a hungry person or for two people to share if you have also ordered some soup or greens.

Tawn and his cousin’s wife, Nicha, demonstrate two techniques for eating sheng jian bao: steamed top up or pan fried bottom up. The trick here is to be very careful because the inside of the dumpling is filled with ground pork and a minor ocean of hot soup. You don’t want to let the succulent soup spill so you have to gently tear the top of the dumpling and slurp the soup out. I found the “steamed top up” technique to be easier.

The sad circumstance that we kept facing throughout our visit to Shanghai was this: an empty bowl, its tasty contents just a fading flavor on our tongues.

Here’s the short email I just sent to my senators and congressman regarding the “fiscal cliff” and the larger budget deficit and national debt issue. All three of them are Republicans.

The election has come and gone and as your constituent, I want to make sure you’ve clearly heard the message: It is time for the Republicans and Democrats to compromise when it comes to addressing our country’s debt and budget deficit.

This means that revenue increases (including both reforming the tax code to close loopholes and deductions as well as increases in tax rates) are necessary in addition to spending cuts. Every reputable economist agrees on this.

I understand that the Republican Party wants to steadfastly hold to its values, but you were sent to Washington to govern, not to stonewall. Please start behaving like adults and work with the Democrats instead of acting like spoiled children who throw temper tantrums if they don’t get their way.

Many thanks. 

Honestly, it doesn’t seem to me that the country is well-served by either the Republicans or Democrats insisting on a “my way or the highway” approach to this issue. (Or any other issue, for that matter.) To tackle such a large issue, there is going to have to be give and take. All of us will have to sacrifice some of what we want in order to achieve a larger goal that we all agree is important: getting our fiscal house in order.

As near as I can tell, the idea that both parties need to compromise is a commonsense position that the vast majority of Americans agree with, no?

Shanghai, with more than 23 million inhabitants, is the largest city in China and the largest city proper (within a single legal or political boundary) in the world. Historically China’s most international city, Shanghai’s growth has exploded in the last fifteen years and it is now more globally connected than ever. It is broadly considered to be the face of China’s future.

Having long wanted to visit, we accepted an offer from Tawn’s cousin and his wife to stay with them at their apartment in Jiang’an, a district in the heart of the city. 

Our five-day trip was a busy one, full of food and activities, leaving our heads spinning a bit and leaving me uncertain of how to write about the experience. Chronological order seemed unsatisfactory so I decided to group my entries thematically. This first entry: Past Meets Future. 

We arrived at 7:00 after a grueling four-hour overnight flight from Bangkok. The first thing to shape my impression of Shanghai was the Pudong district to the east of the city. The rapidly-developing district is home to the largest free-trade zone in China, large industrial areas, and high-tech parks that would look at home in Silicon Valley. Viewed through the hazy air, you can see how much of this area is only recently developed and how much more is being prepared for development.

Pudong is also home to Shanghai’s 13-year old second international airport. It is a large, modern structure that allows for efficient processing of more than 40 million passengers a year through two grand but somewhat utilitarian terminals. 

While driving into the city, and throughout the visit, I was struck by how much construction is underway. The crane must be the city’s official bird, because there are so many of them standing on the skyline. Everywhere you turn, old neighborhoods are being torn down to make way for modern developments and very little appears to be much more than twenty years old.

That’s not to say that everything in Shanghai is modern. We strolled through a weekend market that takes place near Tawn’s cousins’ apartment. The market is aimed at locals – we were the only foreigners – and they sell a variety of things geared towards hobbies such as religious items and paraphernalia used for pet birds – feed, cages, trays of worms, and the birds themselves.

There seems to be a large segment of the population who live more hard-scrabble lives, and in some neighborhoods it is clear that many people have migrated to the city from the countryside and look a bit out of place compared to the very modern surroundings and their sophisticated, chic Shanghainese counterparts.

One aspect of the city’s heritage that is rapidly disappearing is the shikumen, the traditional Shanghainese style townhouses that are set back along narrow alleys that connect to the main street through a gateway.

At first almost invisible to visitors, you catch glimpses of these neighborhoods as you walk along the street, the lives of the residents briefly appearing in your peripheral vision in a gateway that opens between storefronts. Two steps later and their world disappears again as you move on.

The shikumen and similar styles of neighborhood make for an interesting stroll because they let you glimpse everyday life for the large number of Shanghai residents who do not inhabit the highrises that dot the skyline.

Laundry dries on poles, bicycles are locked to walls, and residents share a common space that creates time for conversations and a sense of community. I imagine that people living in these neighborhoods see them as a retreat from the hectic world outside the gateway, one that is every bit as busy as in New York, London, Tokyo, or Mexico City.

These traditional neighborhoods are rapidly being cleared out by construction, with residents reimbursed (often at a princely sum) for their valuable land. In the place of these shikumen, high rise complex are built, often a combination of commercial, residential, and retail space. While there seems to be an effort made to preserve at least some parts of Shanghai’s architectural and cultural heritage, much of it still goes the way of the bulldozer and earthmover.

Despite this rapid development, some neighborhoods are still full of local shops, mom-and-pop types of operations where a simple meal is prepared, hardware is sold, or the ubiquitous battery-powered motorbikes are repaired.

Other parts of the city, though, are full of modern shopping malls and promenades with name brands and luxury outlets: Apple, Prada, and Louis Vuitton each have a trio of stores and there are at least a dozen Cartier boutiques. Even without the western brand names, modern shopping centers and department stores proliferate. Nanjing Road East, pictured above, is a pedestrian mall featuring Chinese department stores filled with domestic tourists. 

Above, a pan past the flashy Hong Kong Plaza mall on Huaihai Road with one of the three Apple stores and loads of cool LED lights.

The large story in Shanghai is one about the future. While there is heritage being lost, it seems that most people are looking towards the future and appreciate the tremendous economic opportunities that have come with progress. Maybe that is a naive outsider’s view, but it is the impression I’m left with.

The advances in infrastructure are amazing. The world’s longest metro system features 11 lines and 278 stations covering 434 kilometers (270 miles) with additional lines being built. There is also the only commercial mag-lev
(magnetic levitation) train in service, bringing you between the airport and the eastern side of the city in about eight minutes at a speed of up to 430 kilometers per hour. We rode it to the airport and I’ll share some pictures and videos later.

An extensive network of roads, expressways, and bridges have been built and despite being such a large city, traffic seems significantly less congested than in many other large Asian cities. If Shanghai is anything, it is easy to get around.

While in Shanghai, we had a lot of different experiences and spent a lot of time walking around and seeing at least some parts of the city. Reflecting on the trip, it is easy to see Shanghai as a city in which past and future are crushed against each other and, without a doubt, the future is wining.

Well, they pushed it nearly to the last minute – about 36 hours before my flight’s departure – but the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok finally approved my tourist visa. We leave tonight at 2:00 for Shanghai.

The irony was that after we applied, the embassy approved Tawn’s visa (in a Thai passport) with no difficulty, charging him only 1500 baht (about US$ 50). My application was initially rejected because of their concerns that I could not demonstrate sufficient funds to travel. That was funny, considering I’m the one who bought our plane tickets!

After providing additional documentation, my visa was approved. The charge for me: about 9000 baht (US$ 300). The real kicker? Tawn’s visa is good for up to 30 days of travel. Mine is good only for 7 days of travel. Ouch.

While in Shanghai, we will stay with Tawn’s cousin and his wife. We’re also looking forward to spending time with Jason and his husband. I suspect I will not have Xanga access while there, so may have to be away for the next week or so. I’ll be back, though!

Would you believe that it has been seven years since I moved to Bangkok? Sure enough, Halloween marks the anniversary of my one-way THAI Airways flight from New York to Bangkok (a nonstop long since discontinued), and 2005 was the departure date. Now I look at New York, cleaning up from severe flooding, from an ironically dry Bangkok.

It is hard to believe that so much time has passed but at the same time (and I know it is a cliche) it seems like the time has flown by. I was having lunch yesterday with another expat, a Chinese one, who commented that most foreigners living here don’t last that long. Then he told me about another guy, an American, who has been here for something like fifty years. Maybe he was trying to tell me that seven years really isn’t so long! 

In either case, Halloween marks a milestone and Tawn and I are at a point in our relationship where a decisive majority of our time together has been spent living in Bangkok. I’m sure this has had some effect on it, although I would have to think a lot harder to identify what that effect is. Topic for a future blog post.

In other news, we are scheduled to fly to Shanghai for five nights starting Saturday. The Chinese embassy has approved Tawn’s visa but, strangely, has rejected mine citing lack of proof of financial means to travel. Say what? I suspect they are just yanking my chain because I’m an American. Have sent the travel agency back with a raft of documentation proving that I will not under up on the Communist Party dole while traveling there.

When it came time for my return flight from Seattle to San Francisco, I thought it might be interesting to try public transit to the airport. I was staying with a friend on Capitol Hill, just northeast of downtown, and a short bus ride to the Central Link light rail that runs to Seattle Tacoma International Airport, about ten miles south of the city.

The first step of the journey involved taking a seven-minute bus ride down the hill to the Westlake station at Fourth and Pine Streets. The bus stop was just a block from my friend’s house and a handy free iPhone app called OneBusAway (developed by the University of Washington) let me know exactly when the next bus was coming, minimizing my waiting time. The ride ended up being free because one of the other waiting passengers had accidentally been given two transfers on his connecting bus, so he gave one to me. Normally, it would be a $2.25 ride.

The Westlake station will be the northern current terminus of the light rail line until 2016 and announcements on the bus made it easy to tell which stop to alight at. Going down two flights of escalators, I found a small ticketing lobby with easy to use self-service ticketing machines. The machines take both cash and cards. “Orca” is the name of the multi-modal fare card in the Seattle area. It stands for “One Regional Card for All” and is, of course, the proper name of the killer whales found in nearby Puget Sound - clever.

From the ticketing lobby I descended another level to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. This 1.3-mile tunnel opened in 1990 and provides a convenient, congestion-free path for buses and light rail trains through the heart of Seattle while also providing passengers protection from the elements while waiting. It seems to be a useful piece of infrastructure.

My adult ticket – $2.75 one-way to the airport. Travel time to the aiport from downtown is 36 minutes, not much longer than what a trip by car would be, without the worries of traffic – and in Seattle, there is usually traffic.

Signage in the station was clear – different bus lines stop in different sections of the platform – and there were staff members present to answer questions. Frequency of the light rail runs from every 7.5 to every 15 minutes, depending on the time of day. I had less than a five-minute wait before my train arrived.

Many passengers boarded at this first station, including several who were clearly going to the airport. Average weekday ridership for the 15.6-mile route is about 25,500, growing at a steady but modest pace.

The two-car trains have a capacity of 74 seated and 126 standing passengers, although it would be hard to imagine that many people standing in this train, especially with the number of people bringing luggage aboard. With the airport as an important destination, there is a surprisingly small amount of storage space for luggage.

Leaving Westlake station, the line passes nine stations at a pretty quick rate, stopping at a station every two or three minutes. The final two stations, though, are much further out with nine minutes between the tenth and eleventh stations. This is a long distance for light rail to run with no stops and as far as I can tell, the route includes no provisions for in-fill stations to be added. 

Two minutes afer leaving the second-to-last station, you pull into the SeaTac Airport station. This neatly organized station has a view of the north end of the airport terminal and signage directing you to the airport is clear. Unfortunately, it is an open-air station and I imagine that it gets very unpleasant waiting for a train in the winter. It looks, though, like the usually have an outbound train waiting in the station so passengers do not have to stand out in the elements for long.

A view of the airport light rail station, which is built northeast of the parking garage and is connected via a pedestrian bridge and walkway that is partially protected from the elements. Sound Transit, the light rail operator, says it is a four-minute walk to the airport terminal. That would be a brisk four minutes, especially if you have luggage, and would only get you to the northernmost corner of the terminal. For most people, especially those not flying Alaska Airlines, ten to fifteen minutes would be a better estimate.

View of the hometown airline, Alaska Airlines, from the light rail station.

I’m a fan of public transit and am glad that one more city in America has made its airport more accessible via transit. The Central Link light rail is convenient to use, reasonably comfortable (of course it was unseasonably pleasant weather when I rode it), and offers a good return on money for time. If you live anywhere near downtown (or along the light rail route), it is a compelling alternative to a taxi or private car. Of course, not everyone in Seattle lives near the light rail, which is always the challenge of public transit. Still, my overall impression of the Seattle light rail is a positive one.

While in the United States, I had to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles for a work event. Deciding to try something new, I booked a seat on the Coast Starlight, the Seattle to Los Angeles train operated by Amtrak. 

While I’m an aviation buff at heart, travel by train also interests me. I have used Amtrak several times on the Capital Corridor route, which runs from Sacramento to San Jose, and when I was very young my family traveled from Denver to Salt Lake City on the California Zephyr service. That’s the extent of my travel by train in the United States and I’ve longed for years to try Amtrak for a long-distance trip. 

The Amtrak website was easy to use and I was able to book San Francisco to Santa Barbara one-way for only $50. The only downside was that the journey would take more than nine hours, door-to-door. Compare that to my experience on Taiwan’s high speed rail last year, covering a similar length journey in less than two hours!

The first segment of my Amtrak trip started with a ride on San Francisco’s MUNI rail system, from the Church Street station to Embarcadero. At about 6:30 am, the train was not too crowded and there was room for me and my roll-aboard bag. 

Amtrak doesn’t have a rail station in San Francisco, operating all its trains from the Emeryville and Oakland stations on the east side of the bay. They do provide bus service from several points in San Francisco, though, connecting to those stations. Above, the historic Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street.

The Amtrak website identified the one San Francisco bus stop that allowed for checked baggage as being at the Ferry Building. As you can see in the picture above, the Amtrak office (left) is not connected to the Ferry Building (right). Thankfully, I went to the Ferry Building the day before to make sure I knew where the Amtrak office was – a search that took about fifteen minutes.

The inside of the Amtrak office is pretty plain, although reasonably clean. The staff was friendly and helpful, checking my bag all the way to Santa Barbara and explaining that I had about twenty minutes until the bus arrived if I wanted to walk to the Ferry Building for coffee.

Gorgeous sunrise behind the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. One of the things I miss about living in San Francisco is the waterfront, which is one of the nicest features of the city.

Right on time, the Amtrak bus arrived. The staff loaded checked bags onto the bus and the driver took half of our boarding passes (the same as on airplanes) for the San Francisco to Oakland portion of the trip. In the background you can see the Financial District.

Only about ten passengers made the journey on the bus and the Ferry Building was its final stop in the city before heading to Oakland. We departed at 7:15, on schedule.

View of San Francisco, with the famous Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower. Bye, bye San Francisco! See you in a few days. The drive to Oakland took only about 25 minutes, although 40 was scheduled. At this time of the morning, the bus was traveling against the prevailing traffic, as evidenced by the long lines at the toll plaza on the westbound end of the bridge.

We arrived at the Oakland station, which is in Jack London Square. The station itself looks pretty new although it has a classic railway station aesthetic. While we waited for the train, which was scheduled to arrive about 8:00, a couple of Capital Corridor trains stopped on their way to San Jose.

Our train arrived on time, leaving about twenty minutes for a crew change and for cleaning crews to service the train. I checked in with a conductor, who tore my boarding pass and then assigned me a seat. I asked to a window seat on the righthand side so I would face the ocean later in the day. We departed on time at 8:25.

A view from my coach class seat. While the name is the same as on airplanes, you would recognize this more as a first class seat. The seating is two-by-two with wide seats and generous legroom. Later in the trip, I had a seat mate and the only complaint is that there is no armrest between the two seats. For strangers traveling next to each other, the American sense of personal space is lost.

The conductor came through the train and put a seat assignment card over each seat. This way you could get up and move around, comfortable in the knowledge that your seat would still be free when you returned. Initially, I was apprehensive about leaving my bag unattended, but eventually decided that since we make so few stops, I would have a chance to spot anything that was missing before arriving at the next stop and inform a conductor. Yes, a little paranoid.

Our progress down to San Jose was very slow, with the train crawling along at just a few miles an hour. Here, a view of the salt evaporation ponds near Hayward. They were harvesting the salt before the autumn rains arrived and the view reminded me of those I’ve seen in Samut Songkhram province here in Thailand.

In Santa Clara, we passed the construction site for the San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium. It seems that even though they will play 40-some miles south of the city, they will maintain their name. Shouldn’t it be the Silicon Valley 49ers? 

Once we left San Jose, I went to the lounge car to take in the view and buy a bite of breakfast. This “oatmeal kit” (which came with a cup of hot water and a container of milk) and an orange juice cost me only $5. The list of ingredients on the oatmeal package was shocking, though. Dried oats and a pinch of salt would seem to be enough, but they have all sorts of other things including dried apples and a cinnamon-sugar packet.

The lounge car features tables and then sofa-type seats and swivel seats that face the windows. I should have spent more time here since the views are quite nice and the atmosphere is brighter than in the coach cars, but some of the passengers seemed to be escapees from the Greyhound bus.

Sorry, that isn’t really fair to characterize people who travel on Greyhound in a negative light. What I should say is that there were several people traveling by themselves who were sitting in the lounge car, muttering to themselves (I checked – no bluetooth earpieces), and drinking beer at way too early in the morning.

Instead of staying in the lounge car, I returned to my coach seat and took out my iPad. The coach seats include a handy electrical plug in the wall below the windows, so it is easy to use electronic gadgets without fear of running out of battery.

View out the back of the train. There were many areas where we would slow to a crawl and several more times when we came to a complete stop to wait for a freight train to pass us. Amtrak doesn’t own its own tracks so they have a lower priority than the trains belonging to whatever railroad owns any particular stretch of tracks.

According to the conductor, the fastest speed the train can go is 79 miles per hour (127 kph) and that is for a limited section of track. Compare this to the Taiwan high speed rail, which runs a top speed of 186 miles per hour (300 kph), and you have a pretty severe indictment of America’s railway infrastructure. Adding a second set of rails and upgrading tracks so more of the distance is rated for 79 miles per hour, would increase the average speed on the route from approximately 35 miles per hour to something more respectable.

Passing through the Salinas Valley, all around were reminders that agriculture remains and important part of California’s economy.

The conductor took reservations for lunch, which is served in the dining car. Reservations, which are in 15-minute increments, are taken to ensure that everyone who wants to eat, has an opportunity to do so. The dining car looks similar to the lounge car, with tables that seat four diners. If you are traveling in a group of less than four, you can expect to be seated with strangers.

I was looking forward to this, as it seems that part of the adventure of train travel is to meet new people and have conversations with your fellow travelers. In this case, the three other solo travelers at my lunch table were resistant to my charms and every attempt at casual conversation was met with monosyllabic responses. As we ate in silence, everyone stared in a different direction to avoid eye contact. I could imagine the lines from our eyes looking like spotlights swooping across the sky but never connecting. 

The food on the train (southbound menu here) was uninspiring, although better than what you might get on an airplane. For $11.75, I had the “marketplace special” which this day was meatloaf and mashed potatoes. It was served with a sad looking salad, dinner roll, and coffee, tea, or milk. The texture was rubbery, although the mushroom sauce helped a bit. Not wanting to spend any longer than necessary with my unsociable dining companions, I skipped dessert and headed back to my seat. 

Heading into San Luis Obispo, we descended Cuesta Grade, losing 1,000 feet of elevation in just 11 miles. Here we see the train rounding one of two horseshoe curves, in which the front and rear of the train get a good look at each other. A few minutes later we passed the California Men’s Colony, a state penitentiary whose famous guests have included Dr. Timothy Leary and Ike Turner.

We arrived a few minutes early into San Luis Obispo and ended with almost thirty minutes at the station. I took the opportunity to get out and stretch my legs, climbing the pedestrian bridge to get some shots of the train.

Smokers taking one of very few smoking breaks between Oakland and Los Angeles. There was a small portion of the city just across from the station, but no coffee shop – something I would have welcomed. Just a few minutes after departing San Luis Obispo, we stopped for more than twenty minutes to wait for traffic to pass, another example of the delays that seem incredible to me.

Not long after we started moving again, we took a turn for the coast and caught our first view of the Pacific Ocean. For the next 100 miles, the track follows the coast line passing Vandenberg Air Force Base and Point Conception.

Beautiful view, turned slightly golden because of the window’s polarizing, of the Pacific Coast. At many stretches, we could view the oil derricks offshore in the Ellwood Oil Field. Interestingly, this was the site of one of only two attacks on the continental United States during World War II. In February 1942, Captain Nishino Kozo surfaced his submarine in the Santa Barbara Channel and fired 17 rounds from his 140mm deck gun towards the oil field. He inflicted little damage in the Bombardment of Ellwood but the attack and resulting hysteria were used to justify the internment of Japanese-American citizens, which began a week later.

The train passes just a few dozen feet above the beach, a beautiful sight that made me thankful I had requested a seat on this side of the train.

I arrived at the Santa Barbara station pretty much on time at about 6:00, nine-and-a-half hours after departing Oakland. My bag was delivered a few minutes later and my journey came to an end.

Overall, the trip was comfortable and easy enough, although it is hard to justify spending so much time unless you are on vacation. Even with the hassles of modern-day air travel, I could have arrived in less than a third of the time for probably only about twice the price. If I was traveling with someone else, the train might be more enjoyable and I would some day like to take my nieces on the Denver to Salt Lake City trip that I took as a child. Until then, I think all of my travel in the US will be by air.

In the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to meet several Xangan friends. In addition to meeting Jason (Wangium) for dinner at Nopalito in San Francisco, I met with Andy (ungrandvoyage) in Mountain View, and Kenny (kenpcho – not really active anymore) in Cosa Mesa. I’ve known all of them for some time and had met them before.

While in Los Angeles, I also had to opportunity to have brunch with Gary (currypuffy – to my right) and Jimmy (Rm2046 – to my left), along with their friends William and Chris. Wonderful brunch at 3 Square Cafe in Venice Beach and I appreciate them making the time to see me. Sadly, Jimmy has been AWOL from Xanga for two years.

After several years of knowing and just missing each other on my travels to the Bay Area, Kevin (Devilgaysianboi) and I finally had the chance to meet while I was in Southern California. He’s every bit as nice as he comes across on his blog. 

There are still plenty of Xangans I haven’t yet me whom I hope I’ll someday meet. These include, but are not limited to, the two Megs (Passionflwr86 and TheCheshireGrins), Val (murisopsis), Sheldon (brooklyn2028), Vivek (Dezinerdreams), Ben (bengozen), Alex (Roadlesstaken), Aaron (kunhuo42) and of course Matt (the appropriately-handled ElusiveWords). Well, I still have my whole life ahead of me, right?

Of course, the trip wasn’t all Xangans. I also met with my high school friends (including their children and nephews, some of whom are pictured above). It was the seven-year-old (in the Groucho Marx glasses) who spurred me to finally cave in and buy a smart phone. During dim sum, the children were playing with their parents’ smart phones. Joaquin asked if he could borrow my phone. I fished out my inexpensive, old Nokia candy-bar phone. He looked at it for a moment, looked at me, and then said, “No, Uncle Chris, your real phone!”

I went to the Apple store that afternoon.

This US trip was also the visit of babies, several of whom have been born in the last six months and all of whom I was pleased to spend time with. None of them starting a Xanga account yet, but at the rate that young people are adapting to technology, I expect they should be ready to blog by kindergartern. 

No sooner had I returned to Bangkok than another pair of Xangans (well, former Xangans – how long can you be away before we give up hope that you will blog again?) came for a visit. Aaron (toypetfishes – the middle of the picture), who was the one who introduced me to Xanga more than seven years ago, and Tae (sagicaprio – between me and Aaron), shown here at brunch along with Tawn and our mutual friend Louis.

I’m amazed how many people from Xanga I’ve had the chance to meet in real life – 32, based on a quick count from my friends and subscribers list. That doesn’t include about a dozen relatives or friends I already knew who post (or used to post) on Xanga. Pretty successful for a social networking site, no?

While in San Francisco, I met up with fellow Xangan Jason to try Nopalito, a Mexican restaurant that made it into the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Restaurants listing earlier this year. The genesis of Nopalito reportedly came from the staff meals prepared by chefs Jose Ramos and Gonzalo Guzman at owner Laurence Jossel’s nearby California-Medierranean restaurant, Nopa. The conceit is that in a city chock-full of taquerias and inexpensive burrito shops, Nopalito delivers Mexican food with an unusually high level of attention to detail and quality.

Located in the Western Addition, close to the Golden Gate Park panhandle, Nopalito buzzed on the weekday evening when Jason and I visited. While the restaurant was busy, we were able to score two seats at the counter overlooking the kitchen with no wait.

The restaurant’s interior has an unfussy, minimalist decoration that is warm and inviting. Tables are close together but the volume doesn’t reach unbearable levels. The staff, including the cooks, are friendly and engaging.

Within moments of being seated, our server had placed a dish of spicy fried corn in front of us, given us menus, and brought water. The menu follows the “small plates” style that has become de rigueur in the San Francisco dining scene, with selections that were inexpensive (about $4.50 to $16) and easy to share. We glanced at surrounding tables and across the kitchen to identify dishes that looked interesting and quickly settled on five.

For refreshment, we ordered a bottle of the house-made sangria. With white wine, Chartreuse, lime, orange liqueur, and thyme, this aromatic sangria was a refreshing departure from the usual red wine version to which I’m accustomed.

Our first dish was ceviche verde de pescado y calamare – fresh fish and squid marinated in a sauce of lime, tomatillo, jalapeno, and cilantro, served with avocado and freshly fried tortilla chips. Ceviche, which relies on the acid of the dressing to cook the seafood, is a favorite of mine and every element of this version was super-fresh. My only complaint was that the verde sauce was so thick that it overwhelmed – masked, even – the flavor of the seafood. There was no denying the quality of the ingredients, though. They were exceptional.

The next dish was tamal de amarillo con calabaza – a tamale of home-ground masa with butternut squash, pasilla chilies, and Oaxacan cheese, with a mole made with dried chilies, tomatillos, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and spices. This was a standout dish with intricate flavors and none of the greasiness I often associate with tamales.

We were seated right next to the counter where dishes were expedited, so continued to be tempted by all the things we hadn’t ordered. The cook on the left chatted with us several times, answering my questions about the various ingredients. You could sense that everyone working at Nopalito takes pride in the food they serve.

The empanada con deshebrada de res – fried masa pastry with grass-fed beef, tomato, jalapeno, cabbage, avocado, queso fresco, and salsa frita de guajillo. Empanadas, fried meat-filled pastries, can be a pleasant, if sometimes heavy, treat. This version avoided all oiliness and was light and flaky. The filling was tender but the seasoning was underwhelming. There was no doubt it was expertly prepared, but the technique didn’t compensate for the bland flavor.

The next dish visually exceeded my expectations, so much so that when it arrived, I thought we had mistakenly received someone else’s order. The quesadilla roja con chicharron, a crispy pork belly quesadilla, featured a mulato chile-corn tortilla, and salsa made from the cascabel chilies, which have a nutty flavor. Being a fan of pork belly, I was eagerly anticipating this dish. The tortilla had an enticing crunch but the pork and salsa were again underwhelming. Like the empanada, I was left wondering who had turned down the volume on the use of seasonings.

Our final dish was an impulsive order based on what we saw coming out of the kitchen. The carnitas, pork braised in orange, bay leaf, milk, cinnamon, and beer, are served in a brown paper wrapper with a side of cabbage salad and tomatillo salsa. The pork had loads of flavor, but was a bit stringy and tough to chew, almost as if it needed to be cooked a while longer. The accompanying tortillas, which we watched being made not five meters away, were so good I wanted to swear off the store-bought version forever more. 

With the bill (and the box of leftover carnitas for Jason to take home) we received a pair of Mexican cookies, a sweet way to end the meal. Looking back at everything we ate, it is abundantly clear that chefs Ramos and Guzman bring a level of sophistication and mastery to Mexican cooking that I’ve never seen before in the Bay Area. Quality and attention to detail are apparent in each dish.

When it comes to the question of flavor, though, some dishes were more successful and others were less so. That said, I look forward to making a return visit to Nopalito to experience more of their cooking and their staff’s hospitality, and to see whether the depth of flavor is perhaps hiding elsewhere on the menu. 

While in Seattle, I spent a few days with my friend Jack. He’s a fellow aviation enthusiast so we made the requisite “pilgrimage” to two Seattle-area aviation hotspots: the Boeing widebody factory in Everett and the Museum of Flight at the original Boeing site at King County Airport.

Boeing Factory Tour

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The city of Everett lies about 35 miles north of Seattle. Since the late 1960s, Boeing has produced and delivered well over 3,000 widebody aircraft from this factory, which features the largest building in the world, measured by volume. The building is so large that 911 regulation NBA basketball courts would fit inside.

Currently, the factory produces Boeing’s 747, 767, 777, and new 787 aircraft. Viewed above is the delivery flight line, where final systems checks are conducted before the test flights. The near row of aircraft are the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with some Boeing 747-8 freighters in the back.

The factory tour allows up-close views of the different production hangars, where you can see the jets assembled in what can only be described as an example of how manufacturing technology has evolved over the years. Unfortunately, video and still photography (along with all electronic devices) is not allowed on the tour, so I’ve had to borrow some pictures from the internet to illustrate. I’ve noted all borrowed images.

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The first stop in the tour is the production facility for the oldest of the aircraft, the Boeing 747. The first flight of the original version of the 747 was in February 1969. The design has continued to be advanced over the decades and the current version, the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental is larger, longer, faster, and much more fuel efficient than the original version.

The manufacturing process has in many ways remained the same. Almost all components of the aircraft are actually built by Boeing there at the Everett factory. Sheets of aluminum are attached to spars and stringers and each section of the plane – nose cone, tail, wings, fuselage barrels – are rivetted together, piece by piece. It takes four month from start to finish for each part to be made and eventually married together.

With the introduction of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Boeing revolutionized the production process. The Everett factory is now the final assembly point for the airplane, with all of the component pieces being produced at other facilities (by bother Boeing and contractors) around the globe.

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These component pieces are large – lengthy sections of the fuselage, entire wings, etc. In order to transport them from factories in Italy, Japan, and Wichita to the final assembly facilities in Everett, WA and North Charleston, SC, Boeing commissioned four modified B747-400 aircraft, known as Dreamlifters. These ungainly looking aircraft significantly reduce shipping time.

We were fortunate to see a Dreamlifter arrive a few minutes after parking at the tour center. I captured the landing on video, above.

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To remove the components from the Dreamlifter, the tail section swings open. A giant tractor with a head-sized ball bearing is placed under the tail to hold the weight of the tail, preventing damage to the door hinges. It is an impressive feat of engineering!

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Once all the components are delivered, they are fastened together in a process that currently takes about seven days. That rate will increase as Boeing become more familiar with the assembly process, but is quite an improvement over the four months it takes to build a B747-8 from scratch.

Needless to say, the factory tour was impressive. Even though it was Sunday, a relatively slow production day, I could have easily spent much more than the allotted 90 minutes standing there, watching the assembly process.

Future of Flight Aviation Center

The tour begins and ends on the other side of Paine Field at the Future of Flight Aviation Center. Compared to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, which we visited later in the day, the Future of Flight is relatively modest. Still, it provides several displays to help you learn more about aerodynamics and the airplane production process.

Posing in front of the nose section of a former Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 with a cockpit section of a Boeing 737 in the background.

Boeing Field and Museum of Flight

Finishing with the factory tour just about lunchtime, Jack and I decided to drive back to Seattle and visit the Museum of Flight. Located at Boeing Field, officially known as King County International Airport, the Museum of Flight has an extensive display of restored aircraft and many interactive exhibits. It also features the original Boeing factory, a red wooden barn dating from 1909.

A view of the main display gallery, which features a restored Douglas DC-3 in Alaska Airlines colors, a Lear Fan 2100 with its unique Y-shaped tail and push-propeller, and a Lockheed M-21 Blackbird spy plane.

A reproduction Boeing Model 40B, the aircraft that enabled Boeing to win the transcontinental US Mail contract. The plane was able to carry twice the load of its competitors.

A Douglas A-4F Skyhawk II, a combat aircraft from the mid-1950s that was so light and nimble, it continued to be used for 35 years. This particular aircraft flew with the Blue Angels, the US Navy’s aerobatic team. This plane made a special impression on me because in my childhood, I had the opportunity to see the Blue Angels perform several times and this was the type of airplane they used at the time.

A restored Stearman C-3B, a rugged biplane from the 1920s that was used to grow America’s commercial air mail network. This one is painted in Western Air Express colors.

The Museum of Flight also features an outdoor display area across the street from the main museum galleries. There, you can walk around (and in some cases, through) many of the most successful commercial aircraft.

Immediately at the entrance to the outdoor gallery is the Concorde, a limited-edition commercial supersonic jet that shuttled the rich and famous across the Atlantic Ocean for almost three decades at twice the speed of sound. This particular jet is on loan from British Airways and it flew the final commercial Concorde flight.

The plane is on static display and you can walk through its cabin and peer into the cockpit. Here is a view from the front passenger door, looking to the needle-like nose, which was dropped about 10 degrees when the plane of was on the ground, so the pilots could see the taxiway in front of them.

Inside, you get a sense of how cramped the Concorde was. The interior height was only 6 feet, 5 inches and the two-by-two seating was no more spacious than current premium economy seats. That said, flight time across the Atlantic was only three-and-a-half hours, so you arrived at your destination much more quickly than on a conventional airplane.

The museum also has the first “Air Force One” – a Boeing VC-135B, the military variant of the Boeing 707. This particular aircraft was delivered when Eisenhower was president and was replaced just three years later by a more advanced version.

The aircraft is also open for walk-through tours, giving you a sense of how the presidents and other VIPs traveled when conducting government business.

Compared with the current fleet used to fly the president, variants of the widebody B747, this older Air Force One looks very small. Above, you can see staff seating with the presidential conference room in the background. 

Behind the cockpit and front galley is a communication station which enabled the president to communicate securely from his airborne White House.

The cockpit of the Boeing VC-137B, which looks primitive with all its dials and gauges, when compared to today’s “glass” cockpits with their screens and video monitors.

The museum also has the first flight-worthy Boeing 747. Named the City of Everett in honor of its birthplace, this Boeing 747-121 served as a testbed for Boeing over the years and is sometimes open for display. Unfortunately, the day of our visit, it was closed.

The final item of interest was a Lockheed 1049G Super Constellation. This piston-engined aircraft was one of the most graceful airplanes ever designed and the “G” version first flew in 1954. By that time, it was clear that airlines were moving in the direction of jet planes and the Constellation was one of the last piston-engine planes. This particular plane was delivered to Trans-Canada Air Lines.

View of Mount Rainier in the hazy distance from a control tower exhibit in the museum. You can listen to the radio broadcast from the Boeing Field control tower and watch airplanes (mostly general aviation) land and take off.

It was a full day of aviation geekiness, probably more than most people could handle but, in my view, a day well spent.

While flying from Seattle to San Francisco, we approached over the west side of the city, giving me a great view on this almost cloudless day.

Golden Gate Bridge with the Marin Headlands to the left and the Presidio to the right.

Downtown with Treasure Island, the Bay Bridge, and Alameda on the top side of the picture.

The final portion of my trip to the US was for work, meeting colleagues in Orange County south of Los Angeles. We had decided beforehand to extend the trip for an extra two days as a few of my colleagues had been to Catalina Island before and wanted the rest of us to join them for another trip.

Relaxing with colleagues after a long week. We went to a nice resort in Laguna Beach called Surf and Sand, arriving just at sunset to enjoy a few drinks (I was designated driver) and to nibble on some food.

The sunset view from the outdoor lounge, just about the most beautiful sunset photo I’ve ever taken. It is now wallpaper on my phone.

We left the following morning for a day trip to Catalina Island, which is about an hour’s boat ride off the Orange County coast. This is a view of the pier at Newport Beach, near where we departed. I’m of mixed opinions about the panorama mode on the iPhone but think it does capture the sweeping views pretty well.

Because one of my colleagues did not buy her ferry ticket online early enough, we had to arrive at the pier at approximately 7:00 so she could put her name on the wait list. Too early for a Saturday! I did get this nice view of some locals fishing in the harbour across from Balboa Island, though.

The Catalina Flyer, the catamaran that took us across the channel and to Catalina Island. It held several hundred passengers and was a smooth ride.

View of the harbour in Avalon, the only town on Catalina Island. There are many boats anchored in the harbour although I don’t know if they are people who live on the island or people who have sailed from the mainland.

At the far end of the harbour, kind of hard to see in this picture, is a lovely Italianate style building called the Casino. If I understand correctly, it used to be a ballroom.

The Casino is pictures on the right side of this picture. The view is of an area known as Descanso Beach, just to the north of the Avalon harbour. We staked out a table with a view over on the left side of the picture and spent a few hours drinking (again, me sticking to iced tea) and nibbling on food. There was also a fair amount of shopping, all of which seemed to be for ticky-tacky touristy items. Not my scene, but that’s okay. 

The ferry home. Many people were drunk and talking loudly. The ocean breeze felt lovely, though. In the evening, we went for dinner after stopping in to visit another colleague who had been hospitalized during the week with pneumonia. Thankfully, she is recovering.

While visiting Seattle, my cousin suggested that perhaps I would like to cook dinner for the family at her new house. Of cousre, who am I to pass up an opportunity to cook in someone else’s kitchen?

The spread – couldn’t get everyone at the table at the same time since my cousin’s three-week old daughter was demanding personal attention the entire time.

Homemade kalmatta olive and rosemary bread.

Grilled tri-tip of beef, marinated with soy sauce and ginger and served with two sauces, a Thai style green chili sauce and a tamarind sweet and sour sauce.

Shredded Brussels sprouts with bacon and walnuts.

Black beans with sofrito.

Roasted yams with red onions, garlic, and rosemary.

For dessert, a plum claufoutis, a French style baked fruit pancake.

The base for my Seattle visit shifted from the mountains of Snoqualmie to the urban vibe of Seattle’s Capital Hill, a bohemian neighborhood east of downtown. After a fantastic dinner at Michael Mina’s RN74, I spent the night at my friend Jack’s place as we have an early tour scheduled this morning at the Boeing factory in Everett.

Woke up bright and early and went for a walk in nearby Cal Andersen Park, where I witnessed this gorgeous sunrise.

Am taking a few days out of my US trip to stop by Seattle to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousin, who gave birth to his child three weeks ago.

Beautiful weather here. Spent an hour at Centinnial Park, which has a great view of Mount Si.

On an episode of Top Chef Masters, chef Hubert Keller prepared a dish called baeckeoffe, an Alsatian baked stew. It had an interesting back story and I decided to try making it.

As he explained it, baeckeoffe, which means “baker’s oven” in the Alsatian dialect, was a traditional dish prepared on Sundays by the women of the village. They would marinate meats and potatoes overnight in white wine, juniper berries and herbs. On Monday morning, which was washing day, the women would drop their ceramic pots of baeckeoffe at the baker’s who would seal the lids with a strip of dough and then put them in the oven after he was finished baking the bread. The women would return after a day scrubbing clothes in the river and pick up the cooked caserole.

While the traditional recipe includes beef, pork, and lamb, I made mine with only pork. I then brought the caserole to my friend’s house and used her oven to bake it. The video showing the breaking of the bread seal and the opening of the pot is above. The opening was more of a challenge than I had expected.

The end result was very fragrant and the meat was tender. The bread seal was flavorless, though, and overcooked. As I understand it, though, it was never meant to eat; instead, it was designed to provide a tight seal to hold in all the moisture.

A serving of pork baeckeoffe, salad, and homemade black olive and rosemary bread. Tasty meal!

Many Americans (most, perhaps) are unaware that citizens living abroad still have the right to vote. They can register with the last state in which they resided, or if they are only overseas temporarily, the state of their residence. A useful website, VoteFromAbroad.org, provides a handy resource and will help you will out the correct absentee voting application. Unfortunately for the November election, the deadline to request absentee ballots in most states has already passed.

As luck would have it, the day before I left for the United States on business, my absentee ballot arrived. Convenient, since I won’t have to pay postage if I mail it from the United States! I have to credit my county’s election department. Many expats I speak with have problems getting absentee ballots in a timely fashion, but the team at my county’s election department do a great job of responding to questions and getting the ballots out well in advance of the elections.

While I don’t vote in the local races on my ballot – judges, county commissioners, etc. – since I don’t know any of the candidates or most of the issues at stake, I do appreciate being able to raise my voice for state and federal level matters because they still affect me, even all the way over in Bangkok.