Words Fail Me

Disappointed. It was just a bunch of tea cups and soaps and shit.

Some may remember the story of my epic quest to Pudong last year. To this day, the tale of the tubby gringo who braved a 45 minute subway ride and 45 minute death march in 99 degree heat & 99% humidity — just for some Mexican food like home — is whispered over baskets of Mission tortilla chips and pitchers of Señor Discounto margaritas.

Well, a couple of months ago, that restaurant opened a second location a scant four Metro stops away from my new place! Everything’s coming up Milhouse!

In case there was a doubt about whether or not I moved into a cosmopolitan part of Shanghai, I just tried out the gym at my new apartment. It’s directly above an Apple Store and looks out at a Tiffany’s.

Our offices here at work are spread across three contiguous floors: the 12th, 15th, and 16th. In China, buildings usually skip naming the 13th floor (out of general triskaidekaphobia) and any floors with “4” in them because the sound of the word for “four” (sì) sounds similar to the word for “death” (sǐ).

I haven’t worked up the courage to admit to my coworkers that the “IV” at the end of my name is actually a Roman numeral. In addition to chiding me for shaming my ancestors by re-using the exact same name as my father, I don’t want them to start referring to me as “David Death.”

Actually, scratch that. That’s pretty awesome. Everybody start calling me David Death from now on.

Inside there was a tiny chocolate Krampus.

Waiting at the gate for my Christmas Eve flight back to Shanghai. Since being here in China, the ubiquity of decorations and Christmas music has been one of the biggest surprises. But it’s Christmas divorced from its religious roots or even Victorian sentiment, leaving only the crass commercialism.

Yes, that’s a towering Swarovski crystal Christmas “tree”. Linus and Charlie Brown would not approve.

We’re about to board. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

So, I saw The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies with Traditional Chinese subtitles. The translation of some of the dwarves’ names would have horrified Tolkien.

Balin became Ba Lin (巴林) and
Thorin became Suo Lin (索林). “Lin” means forest. No self-respecting, cave-loving, forest-hating dwarf would approve of that.

Which American movie will the good people of Hong Kong connect with better?

They both have exclamation points on their posters, so I guess it’s a toss-up.

Just ate at an awesome dim sum place called Dim Dim Sum Dim Sum. You know, for clarity.

It came highly recommended by both my coworker (whom I trust) and by Newsweek‘s “101 Best Places to Eat in the World” (which I don’t trust as, I assume, the article shares the magazine’s radical leftwing ideology.)

A Tlingit “Blackfish” pole gifted from Canada to Hong Kong in 1991.

As we all learned from the documentary Blackfish, this was the First People’s term for killer whale.

Having lunch at a trendy hole in the wall. Gourmet burger? Check. Duck fat fries? Check. Aerosmith songs blaring? Check. “Just the tip” written on the tip jar. Yeah, check.