PINGYAO//平遥

Last week, anticipating the need to actually start my research in earnest, I chose instead to flee for a few days to the ancient (Ming/Qing) walled city of Pingyao, located an overnight train (or superfast 3-hour hi-speed train) away from Beijing in the province of Shanxi. It was excellent: restful and cheering. Here are some pictures and notes.

I stayed in a charming courtyard hotel (my room was on the upper right)...

...and enjoyed the coziest of platform beds and the prettiest of wooden screens scattering the sunlight.

Around Town/在城市里

I liked the mural of Snow White and a few of the seven dwarves at this kindergarten.

Fresh 红枣 (red dates), tasting like their darker cousins but with an apple-like crunch. My favorite Autumn fruit.

The Old City Wall/古城

I made a friend at the Northeast tower. Something about him reminded me of someone I know though I can't imagine what.

Shuanglin Temple/双林寺, just outside the city

The Qiao Family Compound/乔家大圆 (where Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern was filmed)

More new friends. We spent some time 在吹牛 (blowing-cow, or "shooting the bull") and then I took their picture in the garden.

DAMN YOU VOLDEMORT

At the end of July I left Indiana for my month of west coast weddings, truly sad to say goodbye to friendly little summertime Bloomington. In the last week of errand running I tried to freeze some of the local characters in my memory – the preternaturally enthusiastic checker at the drugstore, my favorite mailman, the two warm and gregarious ladies that run my favorite café/antique store. I was happy to leave my tiny study tank of a studio but a bit sad to fold up my Murphy bed for the very last time.

It was a sweet and pleasant couple of months, especially considering that summer is usually my least favorite season. I found it hard to complain though, with nothing to do but go places, see people, and read/digest at least two books per day. I planned many a blog post in my head but hardly a one made it onto the interwebs.

August brought weddings and a few panicked weeks of exam-prep wrap-up. In the anti-climactic moping that followed the completion of my written exams on August 19th I picked up Montana’s copy of the first Harry Potter. And so it began. So I’m sorry if I haven’t blogged, or called you, or written on your wall. Blame Voldemort. In San Francisco, Bloomington and Seattle I went to bars/shows/lunch dates/parties or just sat on buses and trains, taking every possible opportunity to sneak away and read.

Here is how the last few weeks looked in pictures and in books:

Riding Seattle's new light rail (book 1):

Rainier Beach station is close to my mother's house in South Seattle and has my favorite public art of all: stele against which one can measure one's height relative to types of horses, neolithic men, or dinosaurs. I am approximately the same height as a Euoplocephalus.

Seattle -> San Francisco on the Amtrak (books 1 & 2):

San Francisco (books 3 & 4):

826 Valencia, home of McSweeney's tutoring center, retail outlet, and pirate store.

Drawer o' serpents

Fish tank viewing room

This is kind of like the lord's prayer, only for pirates

The Headlands, Marin County:

Vanessa-raptor

Mary Stewart Mastercat:

Bloomington, IN (book 5):

Sarah-saurus saying brilliant things at Upland on our last night in town

Graffiti in the ladies restroom at the Vid

Seattle, HOME (book 6):

Laura & Mark get married (and I don't have to go to any more weddings for at least a year!)

Montana + Misty + Me

Book 7 has been obtained and will be accompanying me and my smoked-salmon stuffed luggage aboard a Beijing-bound plane early tomorrow morning. Goodbye lovers. I'll miss you all very much.