Montreal since September

Montreal has been treating me decently since September. It's less Chinese than Chengdu, but still French and fabulous, so I can't complain. Other things I can't complain about (at all):
-my cute little 1,1/2 apartment on Saint Denis, coin Duluth. It's jungle-themed, and it's on the street level, so people can just knock and come right on in through the window. Very sitcomlike.
-Laura has an (awesome) apartment, 10 minutes away on Saint-Dominique. So I just spend all day walking back and forth on Duluth, which is nice.
-Steph, Brendan, Alexia, Nicholas. Montreal friends.

I've been up to Ottawa a few times now, to visit my mom and some brothers. The thirteen pictures in this album are from either my apartment, or my mom's house in Ottawa, with Laura, Benjamin and Alan. The pool pictures are from a cold autumn day when we dared each other to jump in the pool. Work takes up a lot of time, but in between, Montreal is still a party.

Family Camp 2006

This year, like every year since 2001, I made it to Harrison, Maine to work at family camp. And this year, like every year, it ruled. The difference was that this year I was coming straight from China. Laura and I flew from Hong Kong to D.C. and I took a plane to Boston and caught a bus to Portland.
Laura couldn't make it, but Benjamin showed up for the second week, Nate Frederick was stirring things up both weeks after another whole summer at camp, and there were a whole lot of others, old and new. Speaking of which, props (propositions?) go to Evan B, for being totally new and totally... fantastic. Some combination of Lizzie L. and Liz T. convinced him to come up from NYC, I can't remember exactly. Sunny days on the dock, boat rides with kids, and more shenanigans than you can shake a stick at. Too many fun people to mention, so all the pictures are here. Ashley Penrose, who hadn't been seen in those parts since 1999, even made an appearance near the end, to top off 2 weeks of hilarity and hijinks. At close of 2nd week, travelling Cam Martindell went up to Grey Knob hut to be a mountain man, Benjamin drove me to Montreal which I hadn't seen in a year, and Laura met me there the next day, which is where we both are now. Posts from here on in will be Montreal fun in the autumn sun.

Pillow Fort

Douglas, pillow fort
Originally uploaded by miaowmatthew.

Ain't nothing wrong with pillow forts. And by that I don't mean they're just okay. I mean there's nothing wrong with them. They're entirely good and right, to make, to crawl into, and later to break by jumping on.

In this photo from March 2006, my friend Douglas models a living room structure in Chengdu, complete with tastefully contrasting red drapes and yellow pillows.

Hong Kong with Laura

My last stop in Asia was Hong Kong. I flew down to Guangzhou, took the train across the border, and spent 10 fun-filled, well-fed, brightly-lit and occasionally awestruck days being shown all around Hong Kong by Laura, who had been working there for 2 months and rooming at Hong Kong Chinese University in the New Territories. One of our highlights was hiking out to a secluded beach in 大浪灣 Tai Long Wan (pictured right). I know - I wasn't aware there were secluded beaches in Hong Kong, either, but the New Territories hold many secrets for the intrepid. Language points: I was all messed up while I was there. Almost everybody I met spoke Cantonese as a mother tongue, but I always had to guess whether their second was English or Mandarin, because a lot of times they knew one but not the other. In the end, they seemed to be about equally useful, English for stores and restaurants, and Mandarin in taxis, small shops, and off Hong Kong island. You know... rule of thumb. I didn't take that many pictures, but the ones I have are all here on Flickr. You'll see that they're a little more quiet-Hong-Kong than skyscraping-metropolis-HK pictures, but if you want those, Laura took plenty of beautiful ones, here.