It's nice to have a pet when you are lonely.

Is what I said tonight when I was over at Reid's place for dinner.

Reid laughed at my comment, but he seems to agree with me.  Everyone needs to be loved, and it was Jake's turn tonight.  He kept me nice and warm when we watched Seven Years in Tibet.  It was a win-win situation.  Except that he purred so loud at times that I couldn't even hear the movie.

I'm not a big cat person, but Jake was adorable.  So I didn't tell him that I prefer dogs (in case he understands and scratches me in my face.)

Tonight was one of Reid's first time grilling, and it turned out great.  I always appreciate a great meal with a great friend.  I think he is also practicing his skills on me in preparation for the future when he needs to impress the ladies ;)  We had some BBQ marinated chicken, corn, and zucchini from Whole Foods.    I tried to take a photo of the dish (now that I got my iPhone back!) but it turned out blurry.  However, I do have a photo of Reid in action on the grill.  It's also a bit blurry, but that's mainly because Reid always comes out blurry in images.


I'm glad that it's Friday.  It's always difficult to get back to work after a nice vacation.  I also worked extra long this week.  Today, I stopped by the ex-restaurant Banq for some acoustic testings.  I can't say too much about it, because if I tell you I will have to kill you.  But this is what it looked like when it first opened in the South End a few years back.  It was one of the coolest looking places in town, and it got a lot of press.

Today, the space is no longer occupied by Banq, and it looks like this.  Pretty sad.  I talked to the management company about it.  Once Banq moved out, it was impossible to move the ceiling along with them.  Each piece of the 'puzzle' is rigidly attached somehow to the structure, and difficult to detach and move to another space.  In addition, it's plywood, which is not worth much.

In the end, this half a million dollar ceiling creation was chopped up in pieces and thrown away by the contractor.

The Banq tenants also left all the dining tables and chairs there, which the landlord plan to get rid of for the future tenant.  They are nice Italian chairs and bar stools.  The table is a bamboo finish supported on a single or double metal let depending on the size of the table.  For a couple hundred bucks, you can probably own a few of the pieces (for any of you looking to update your furniture.)

Everything is transient.  

If there was a heaven on earth...

it would probably look like this.

Photo by Adrian

I've been back in the US for about a week and a half now, and it sure feels great to be home!  I flew back to the US from Taipei via LAX, and got to see Seb and Caty again for a couple of hours.  Apparently Caty had been on a boat circling around the Pacific for about the same amount of time as my Beijing trip, learning about microbes in different areas of the ocean.  I can't imagine being out at sea for more than 30 days though, I would probably get really seasick.

Following LAX, Max and I had planned to meet up at the DEN airport to go climbing in Utah.  I had no phone with me, so we had to rely on a little bit of luck and our reliable flight schedules.  We were glad to have found each other within the hour.  I was somewhat delirious when I first saw him.  Aside from speaking to Caty and Seb for a few hours, I really hadn't spoken in English for a while.  Plus, I was jet lagged from my trans-Pacific flight and didn't sleep much in Pasadena.  Caty and Seb even wanted to take me to the climbing gym that night, but I had to politely tell them that I was REALLY tired.

How tired was I from my flight?

Well, I passed out like a sack of potatoes the instant I sat in the rental car.  The drive to Moab was around 6 hours, which Max did on his own.  I really didn't remember a thing.  One time, I woke up briefly, and mumbled something to him.

Did you just talk to me in Chinese?  He asked.
Oops, I totally did.  I'm glad I didn't even remember what I said.

The first night, I went to bed at sunset (around 8:30 or 9), and Max still managed to get up before me in the morning.  He likes to sleep outside just in a sleeping bag, while I snooze in his tent.  (This also coincided with the one time that I dutch-oven-ed him in my sleep while we were sharing a tent last summer).  Regardless, what we woke up to in the morning was a scene so beautiful, it looked something along the lines of this.

Photo by Adrian

You will get to see more of the climbs from our trip in the slide show that we are having this Sunday at his place.  So I'm not going to get into all the details of what we climbed.  I just have to say that the first day we climbed a 4-pitch tower at Castleton (North Chimney, 5.9-), and I was REALLY winded just from the approach.  Apparently Max timed us and said it took us about 30 min., but it felt like 2 hours to me.  Despite of making a lot of effort to stay alert, I almost nodded while belaying Max on the second pitch of the climb.  My body was screaming for rest and I resisted.

The second and third day, we climbed at the famous Indian Creek.  People are really friendly at the crags and would lend each other trad gear, because one would need somewhere along the lines of seven BD #1s just for one crack climb.  I couldn't really practice crack at the gym in Beijing, so I struggled up most of the climbs that Max cruised up (since he would do 10 laps around the one at Metro crack, crazy).

We also met up with my buddy Adrian and his friend Carlos on the third day at the Creek.  Adrian came all the way from Oakland and met up with Carlos in Colorado and drove down on the awesome 1989 Hwanda Civic.  I had told Max about Adrian from a long time ago, and he was really looking forward to meeting him in person.  I had also seen photos from Adrian's climbing trip at Bugaboo with Carlos, and was looking forward to meeting another fellow trad climber.  My little circles of friends seem to be slowly becoming a bigger circle.  I should make a diagram out of it. 

Photo by Adrian - Carlos leading Coyne Crack (5.11+)

I really welcomed Adrian and Carlos's arrival.  Carlos brought a Coleman stove and was making breakfast burritos in the morning.  I drooled all over their food until they got uncomfortable and kindly asked me if I wanted some.  So shameless, RM.  What can I say, we ate PBJ for the last few breakfasts and lunches.  They also made a yummy dinner at the campsite that night, which I was grateful for.  Dinner was an amalgamation of nutritious deliciousness: sauteed asparagus and zucchinis, spicy sausage from Colorado, and pasta coated with some scrambled eggs.  Add a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper:and there you have it - it was definitely the best meal I had for the last few days. 

On the last day of our climbing trip, we parted ways with Adrian and Carlos and headed over to Ancient Art at Fisher Towers.  Max is becoming obsessed with spires and I was glad to go along with it, though I seem to be a bit afraid of heights.  Not for Max, he climbed buildings before he climbed towers.  The higher, the better. 

Google search Ancient Art at Fisher and you will find a series of images with people on top of the 'corkscrew.'  The experience, even from a belaying perspective on my end, runs a gamut of emotions ranging from being cautious, nervous, fearful, somewhat nauseating, almost close to death, then exhilarating.  This is because before going up to the corkscrew, one must pass over the 'diving board', which is a long, skinny traverse with steep drops on both sides.  Imagine being on a gymnastics beam except that the ground is at least 500 ft. below you on both sides.  Max thought that he was going right across the diving board, but I saw he instantly sat down  and humped his way across.  I don't think I have never been so nervous for him before.

Then from the peak of exhilaration while standing at the top of the corkscrew, you come back down to fear very quickly when the wind picks up a few knots and it feels like you are about to be blown off the corkscrew with a few old pitons and slings holding you, and possiblly a pendulum fall with at least a 40 ft. swing.  Mind you, I watched all of this from the belay anchor on the 'safe end' of the diving board, I didn't even want to toprope the last 30 ft.  I was empathetic enough from watching Max's movements that the climb was scary as shit.

After rapping down to the ground, Max and I gave each other our usual 'yay we did it!' hug.  I gave him a long, tight hug.  I was sincerely worried for his safety, and was glad that he was unharmed.

It was all going to be fine again. 

Tomorrow, we will forget the fear we had up at the tower.  It will become memories of accomplishments.  And we will continue to experience new forms and textures, new emotions, and greater heights.

Special edition

I've been blessed with great company at the hostel.  Sometimes it only takes one person to make a place that much better (or worse).  Junya, a Japanese law student studying in Tokyo, has kept us all entertained with his humor and stories.  He has traveled to Europe and other parts of Asia, and is relatively fluent in English.  The great part is, he is not really the stereotypical Japanese men (reserved and polite), and there was definitely no hesitation on his part on telling us about what him and his 20-something friends do during their free time.  Or what he appreciates.

"You know, I think Taiwanese women are more attractive than Japanese women."  Junya said. 
"Why?  Because we have better teeth than them?"  I asked, since it is relatively typical for Japanese women to have somewhat crooked teeth.
"Haha, not just that.  I think they have bigger breasts"  He said to me as he forms two cups with his hands in front of his own chest. 

We all broke out in laughter. 

I was starting to think that he would fit right in with Michael and Sarah. 

The other Japanese traveler, who is clearly older and more reserved than Junya, shakes his head and tells us "it's not like this with all Japanese."

There were two other exchange students from Germany and Poland studying in South Korea also in their early 20s, joining in on Junya's conversation.  Somewhere along the line, the conversation of breasts turned into prositution.

This is what happened:

I asked him whether it was true that old men would mail order used teenager underwear in Japan.  I was aware of this from Taiwnese news many years ago, but I wasn't sure if it was true.  Unfortunately, they confirmed that this was true. 

Junya started talking about how one of his teachers turned out to be "buying" teenage services, and had to go to jail. The German guy started talking about Berlusconi, noting that he was no different than the dirty Japanese old men.

Junya told us more stories about his trip to Paris, where he wanted to "buy" some services from prostitutes but did not end up doing so for whatever the reason.  We were cracking up so much that we didn't really listen to his reason.  He just looked
awfully young, and it sounded so innocent you didn't think that he was serious.

Then from the topic of prostitutes, we moved on to the topic of love.  Junya's French teacher told him that for any language, he should just remember three phrases:
Hi, how are you?
Thank you.
and I love you.

Except that he said that I love you doesn't work in Japan, since Japanese men are typically not this direct and would say something along the lines of, "Look at how full and beautiful the moon is... and so on"

I cannot imagine what is like to date a Japanese man that would say such thing.

I'm about to board the plane to go back to the US!  See you guys soon!