Buddies come through Chengdu.

Last week Nathaniel and Forrest, two Alaskan brothers, came to visit me in Chengdu, on their way from, get this: Alaska to India to Nepal to Tibet to Chengdu to Shanghai to Hong Kong to Beijing to Mongolia. They ended up spending a whole week here, which, in short, was fun.
Among other things, we went to a park called Ta Zi Shan and had shao-kao (barbeque) in the disgusting public barbeque pits (soiling your own nest is the Chinese way)
Played frisbee, did karaoke, had a halal dinner with Reshalati (Uyghur friend) and her oil-baron uncle from Xinjiang and his underlings (see dinner photo). Actually, he's not her uncle. But the actual link is way complicated. And he's not an oil-baron. But he is a big shot in the oil company and party member. And he did have lots of underlings.
Basically, having those guys here was awesome. They're sweethearts for visiting, and Maria's a sweetheart for being such a good roommate about it. Nathaniel's blog is here. A lot of these pictures are his, since he's a freelance photographer. Dig it.

More pictures than I know what to do with. And more to come!

Bei Hu and brickyards today

Today my friend Michelle (Jiang Ying) called me up and suggested we go visit an old school friend of hers who lives in the rural outskirts of Chengdu and has a one-month-old baby. I agreed. The village was centered around a brickyard where two guys were packing bricks one by one with a hand press that resembled a huge waffle iron or play-dough kitchen. At the new mother's house, chicken plucking and fermented rice were on the menu. I avoided both, but had fresh eggs and a nice visit. Michelle brought her a breast pump. Later, we walked out to Bei Hu (North Lake), where we boarded a raft and punted in the mud to our hearts' content. Dinner was rice porridge, some fabulous eggplant and gross bitter melon. The End!

Oh, also, a picture from the fall on Flickr.

Keepin' it masculine at the barbershop

Oh no I didn't! ...................Oh yes, I did.