tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56658282011-08-01T17:36:41.706-05:00Dakotanoreply@blogger.comBlogger3931100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-91673703301973111102010-07-14T12:57:00.002-05:002010-07-14T12:58:24.628-05:00

So, the blog isn't dead. It's just been recreated for a new assignment. Let's get started:The Afghan Plan.http://theafghanplan.blogspot.comLet's get started.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-20604691613623302922009-08-07T23:47:00.004-05:002009-08-08T10:27:29.525-05:00

I got a flat tire about seven miles outside of Portland, with a three-inch rust-covered nail crucifying the back tire at two separate points. I had already gone 63 miles and was all but done: legs killing me, knees inflamed, and ready for a hot shower and a cold beer. I had put on my iPod, because the stretch from the Washington border to Portland is pretty boring -- 40 miles without much

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-85006778384485475772009-07-11T19:37:00.002-05:002009-07-11T19:47:07.100-05:00

Out of Beijing as of July 11. Home leave schedule is as follows:July 11 -- 24: Caribbean. Antigua, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad. Will traveling in obscure caribbean nations revitalize this blog? Hopefully.July 24-26: Atlanta. Packing up the ancestral home: mom and dad are threatening to throw out all of my high school note books. They have so little respect for the

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-8168501965361818202009-05-05T11:10:00.000-05:002009-05-05T11:11:33.632-05:00

1:00 on a Tuesday, and I standing outside of an embassy killing time before the meeting I arrived half an hour too early for. Two guys, early twenties, passed by wearing shorts and t-shirts. "My first year of Chinese," the one guy said, "really focused on -- I mean, the primary thing that we focused on, I guess, was..." "I can't tell you," his friend interrupted, "how little I care."

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-74286447583832031532009-04-23T17:39:00.002-05:002009-04-23T17:43:53.971-05:00

Normally the smog in Beijing is a thick grey haze that makes the city look out of focus, like the problem is perhaps caused by your eyes and not by the thousands of coal-fired power plants that ring the city. This morning, though, the sunrise light is catching the pollution in just the right way, and it's making the entire view out my bedroom window glow red, like an orange filter has been

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-79607594742229922452009-04-02T01:20:00.003-05:002009-04-02T01:23:31.549-05:00

I'm packing to leave China. That is, I'm doing the pre-pack sweep to begin finally ridding myself of some of the years of crap accumulated through an unrelenting packratism. The fact that the US Government will happily cart around some 7,000 pounds of stuff on my behalf provides no incentive to throw things out, and I'm ankle deep in crap that I barely recognize.I just found a cache of

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-54172651281666503852009-02-27T06:19:00.003-05:002009-02-27T06:21:57.095-05:00

I prefer the term "punch it out," but Obama uses "fist bump," so that's what I went with. "Madame Secretary, can we fist bump?" "Oh YEAH!" she responded, with great enthusiasm.And the rest was history.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-51421171737519377822009-02-14T02:57:00.006-05:002009-02-15T04:42:54.778-05:00

Last night I met up with some people from the Polish Embassy for drinks. There was a Cypriot and a fistful of Greeks there as well. About halfway through our time together, one of the Poles excitedly asked -- do you know who you remind me of?"Matt Damon?" I responded hopefully."No, no no no," she said. "You are JUST like that squirrel from Ice Age -- the one who is crazy about getting acorn!"

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-50841892715196779362009-02-10T08:29:00.002-05:002009-02-10T08:34:02.874-05:00

In preparation for my grand return to the United States in a scant six months, I've begun updating my internet dating portfolio. Doing so naturally involves a lot of "research," which itself involves obsessively reading other people's portfolios and then whining to my friends that I'm not attractive enough. But with six months to hammer away on the portfolio, I'm hoping I can make it brilliant

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-87469200899217740092009-02-09T09:47:00.002-05:002009-02-09T09:49:42.755-05:00

A quick post, on the off chance there's any concern, to say that the massive, enormous fire (described to me as "seriously like 9/11") currently taking place at the Mandarin Oriental is a full 4 kilometers south of me, and I am thus not affected by it.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-68117647364548378102009-02-06T23:28:00.002-05:002009-02-06T23:30:01.460-05:00

A skippable linguistics sidenote piggybacking off that last post: on the off chance you're wondering where all the extra R's come from -- it stems from British English and their ridiculous spelling habits. Educated British English ("received pronunciation," if you will) is technically non-rhotic; that is, r's aren't pronounced unless they come before a vowel. Think of the British pronunciation

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-40550657592142073752009-02-06T23:14:00.002-05:002009-02-06T23:28:09.486-05:00

Here's something unexpected: the Burmese language lacks the letter R. Odd, since it seems to crop up all the time in place names like Burma and Myanmar and the Irriwady delta and Rangoon. But no, no R to speak of. Burma is actually Bamaa (so named for the Bamaa majority -- the name fails to take into account the other ethnic minorities who live there) while Myanmar is really Myanmaa -- the dodgy

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-91974087429718347312009-02-06T03:20:00.000-05:002009-02-06T03:21:53.998-05:00

The Burmese Embassy in Beijing rejected my visa application because I had no Chinese visa in my tourist passport, and as such they couldn't be sure I'd come back. They offered me a tourist visa in my diplomatic passport, but required a diplomatic note (which is a pain in the tail) and four days processing time, which I didn't have to spare. On my Burmese visa application in Bangkok, I listed my

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-74450589070916229232009-01-28T08:19:00.002-05:002009-01-28T08:39:16.953-05:00

Unexpectedly, the Burmese Embassy called and gave me the all clear: my visa was approved by MOFA HQ back in Burma, and I could come in and pick it up any time: off tomorrow for a week-long furlough in the Union of Myanmar, a country so overwhelmingly interesting that I don't even know where to begin.This is a nation run by a consortium of military leaders who decided in late 2005 -- on the advice

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-78255534996780228922009-01-22T00:31:00.002-05:002009-01-22T00:35:03.796-05:00

My visa to Burma is now on indefinite hold, with a potential answer maybe coming -- maybe -- sometime next week. My hell/high water plan was to attempt to make my way to East Timor in the event that everything with Burma went pear shaped. That said, having now done the research on plane tickets (Bangkok -- Bali -- Dili, in Timor, and then back), I can say that East Timor would be an additional

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-24630580998861724522009-01-22T00:23:00.000-05:002009-01-22T00:24:36.696-05:00

Sometimes I think I can still swing it as part of the grungy backpacker scene, that despite my luxury 3-bedroom in the swank part of Beijing, I can still hack it in 4 dollar hotels and on long and miserable bus rides with livestock as seatmates. I still think of grungy backpacker types as my people, even though the Embassy is largely tasked with taking care of that subset of the population when

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-33117391187130539612009-01-19T07:50:00.013-05:002009-01-19T17:56:20.333-05:00

This much I know is true: I am a wretched photographer. I have a nice enough camera, the digital SLR that I bought used a few months ago, and I make up for my lack of skill by the sheer volume of photographs that I take. This makes my photographs almost impossibly boring to look through, with hundreds of photos of wide open spaces, and I (packrat to the stars) for the most part unwilling to

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-24889218865829296892009-01-16T22:13:00.007-05:002009-01-17T02:24:33.860-05:00

After toying with the idea of killing this blog once and for all, I realized that I like the sound of my own voice far too much to actually do that. Where else can I wax poetic about grammar? Where would people go except my page when using the search query "typical Romanian woman" or "female escorts in bandar sari begawan" or "hooker bars in muscat"?Other nonsexual queries which won't be

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-53084202801892925992008-11-15T01:29:00.002-05:002008-11-15T01:30:54.997-05:00

Lest I lose it, never to be found again within the interwebs, I'm posting here a link to my new favorite website, ever: Forvo.Native speakers pronouncing words. No definitions, no dead weight -- just pure, awesome phonology. Holy cow.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-44039414871611843002008-11-05T01:59:00.002-05:002008-11-05T02:01:03.702-05:00

I was coming in to the embassy from a lunchtime reception, and my pal who was next to me was wearing a gigantic and somewhat ridiculous red-white-blue felt top hat that caught one of the guards eyes. She asked -- "who won?" A person three steps ahead of us whirled around and without missing a beat responded: "America did." He's right, I think.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-54927520313573940572008-09-20T23:34:00.002-05:002008-09-20T23:38:51.641-05:00

I have additional Olympics posts that I was racing to get onto the blog before next Friday, when I leave for Mongolia -- but after the bombing in Islamabad, posting Olympics nonsense feels shallow and worthless. I read the news reports, and then I started looking at pictures and had to stop: I'd spent too much time there. I have yet to see any lists of people killed, and I'm dreading looking

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-67369812284745047412008-09-18T09:38:00.002-05:002008-09-18T09:55:55.129-05:00

After badminton, I dropped by a friend's place. Her parents were in town, and she'd promised the dazzling combination of Thai food and dessert if I could keep myself out past sunset to meet her mom and dad. I was in her living room making small talk while shoveling curry down my gullet when a mutual friend of ours, a journalist who seems to know everyone in the universe, mentioned in passing

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-48298108351309738612008-09-08T08:34:00.002-05:002008-09-08T08:38:23.169-05:00

Next event, chronologically: badminton. Here's the brief synopsis: I have decided to become an Olympic badminton player.I recognize that there are a lot of obstacles to this task. For example, I do not own a badminton racquet. I still chuckle at the word shuttlecock. I have, technically speaking, never played badminton, and most people don't break into Olympic sports they've never played when

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-37810837540480387172008-09-02T09:46:00.003-05:002008-09-02T09:51:58.486-05:00

The vast majority of countries participating in the games had a hospitality house for their athletes and visiting VIPs. The majority restricted entrance to citizens of the home nation; some, like the USA house, restricted access to athletes and their immediate family members, whom the athletes had to escort. (The USA house gift shop was accessible to the Embassy community, and the stuff on sale

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-71723183715691182822008-09-01T03:51:00.000-05:002008-09-01T03:52:29.883-05:00

Judo: my god what an awful spectator sport. Honestly.Judo -- the "gentle way" -- is incomprehensible. Seriously. I slogged my way through 18 pages of wikipedia, only to arrive and not have a clue what was going on. There are apparently 4 different types of moves, ranging from instant victory to one-point minor thumps. There's no telling what those moves actually are, particularly once a match is

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-18113048390782356482008-09-01T03:07:00.005-05:002008-09-01T03:14:07.723-05:00

After more or less years of wanting one, I finally broke down and made the purchase I've been drooling after:A digital SLR camera. Some people would say that I'm an idiot for waiting until AFTER the Olympics to purchase this. They're probably right. That said, I had no idea how affordable SLR cameras are until a friend of mine purchased one, opening the floodgates for me. And here we are.In

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-31326871269120620412008-08-31T04:49:00.001-05:002008-08-31T04:51:00.994-05:00

I bought Olympics tickets shotgun-style. I tried to get something for more or less every night of the competition (aiming for evenings so as to avoid time off during the work day). I had high hopes for some events (gymnastics, beach volleyball, table tennis), and low expectations for others. Handball assuredly fell into the latter category.I was thus pleasantly surprised when it blew my

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-34869396648510903932008-08-29T07:58:00.003-05:002008-08-29T08:01:53.433-05:00

This is supposed to be a chronicle, but I feel I've already talked to much about gymnastics (and there's plenty more where that came from), so I'll just mention in passing that Sunday night we hit up women's gymnastics quals, and our seats were 5 rows off the field of competition, and indeed, it completely rocked. Overall awesomeness factor: high to very high.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-12423032225433931852008-08-29T07:55:00.003-05:002008-08-29T08:02:44.437-05:00

In related news, I got called out of town just after the Olympics ended, to the Land of No Internet Access. I kept faithfully blogging, emailing things to myself from my blackberry, and I'll now go back and add them in one at a time over the next week or two. The first is below; apologies for the absence. Responses to emails: likewise coming.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-47004554532187588962008-08-29T07:22:00.000-05:002008-08-29T07:24:15.595-05:00

Shortly before gymnastics, a buddy of mine called and asked if I had plans for the evening. "I'm going to men's gymnastics," I told him. "Will it last all night?" he asked. "Hopefully," I responded."Ok," he said. "So -- you don't want to go to the MTv red carpet event at Club Bud, then?"Wild horses couldn't have made me pass up the opportunity. The degree to which I'm not into clubs cannot be

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-63225164579297410672008-08-12T10:42:00.003-05:002008-08-12T10:55:04.145-05:00

Saturday, August 9, 8 pm: men's gymnastics. My first event of the Olympics.Some people would perhaps say that my first event was the first tranche of men's gymnastics, which was shown at noon and included team USA, and which I watched with great enthusiasm by myself on my couch. But the first event I saw live was the third tranche, which included teams from Belarus, Germany, Romania and South

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-38625685469195589242008-08-11T08:46:00.002-05:002008-08-11T08:50:05.642-05:00

I watched the opening ceremonies at a rooftop bar with a projection TV. We watched it on South African television, which was the only English language live broadcast available -- CCTV was Chinese only, and NBC was delayed by 12 hours. If there's one thing I can recommend, it's that you watch the Procession of Athletes broadcast by a nation that has absolutely no sense of political correctness.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-85292037178950204312008-08-11T08:45:00.000-05:002008-08-11T08:46:38.970-05:00

One final sidenote on the President before I move on with my life. While I was working on the recording with the WHCA guy, I was asking questions about the President and his habit of assigning nicknames. The President and the current Ambassador have known each other for years -- they were fraternity brothers -- and I'm dying to know what the President calls our Ambassador. The WHCA guy didn't

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-33971196344889724532008-08-10T10:45:00.003-05:002008-08-10T11:25:54.277-05:00

Aside from recording the intro for the President, my primary task at the ribbon cutting was to push people through the courtyard. People coming in would pass through the central gate into a large open space at the front of the embassy, and the organizers were worried that the gigantic US Seal and lovely Zen garden atmosphere would make people stroll at too leisurely of a pace, thereby delaying

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-70420234464020506732008-08-09T13:14:00.000-05:002008-08-09T13:15:07.599-05:00

Jordan Jovtchev! Jordan Jovtchev!!More tomorrow.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-85194659755403718282008-08-07T18:24:00.000-05:002008-08-08T05:24:40.758-05:00

Dateline: Thursday, August 7We've got a new recording on the main number when you call into the Embassy. It's a pretty standard message: You have reached the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China... and then the same again in Chinese. It's a step up from the old recording because the guy who did it has great Chinese -- certainly better than the last recording, which left a bit to be desired. But he

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-91080677182323642602008-08-07T06:30:00.002-05:002008-08-07T06:36:06.194-05:00

I was planning to attempt a post every day of the Olympics starting from yesterday and going to the bitter end, even on mundane days when I don't do much or see anything. I've got tickets to 13 events, so that in and of itself should be enough fodder. But what happened today can't be posted until tomorrow, which wrecks the entire concept of post-a-day, since it means tomorrow I'll be posting a

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-26136105639085909222008-08-06T07:12:00.002-05:002008-08-06T08:01:05.586-05:00

Last night I had a dream that I ran into Team USA Gymnast and high-bar genius Jonathan Horton on the street near Worker's Stadium, about three kilometers from my house. I said to him: Hey, you're Jonathan Horton, Legendary High Bar Athlete. And he replied: uh... who are you are? And it was SO. AWKWARD. And then I woke up, and I felt HORRIBLE for the rest of the day because I had just blown my

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-43094974767436023862008-06-27T07:45:00.004-05:002008-12-11T12:48:24.900-05:00

A few notes on my onward assignment:I'm now tenured, which means I'm "mid level." That is to say, in order to get my onward assignment, I had to lobby for it and convince the people making the assignment that I'm great to work with, bracingly competent and happy-go-lucky to boot. We all know that I'm none of those things. The whole process has been nervewracking beyond any speaking of it.The

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-56089626382297860852008-06-01T01:06:00.002-05:002008-06-01T01:09:25.330-05:00

I am currently working on a long post that outlines the woes of bidding and trying to figure out where I want to go next. But in the mean time, I pose the following question:I've been under heavy pressure to join Facebook. I've stood strong thus far, because I'm not an undergraduate or a thirteen year old, and that seems to be the target demographic. But people here are pushing hard. I'm

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-22373166507699812812008-05-12T02:39:00.002-05:002008-05-12T02:42:50.200-05:00

It seems to follow me --Just reported a 7.6 earthquake in Sichuan province. I was (and am) in Beijing, which is about 1400 kilometers (or nearly a thousand miles) from Sichuan. That said, I did feel dizzy briefly in my office, which restrospectively was probably the earthquake. The point of this post is to say: I am fine, and there is no need to worry about me at this time. More updates as

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-21449288335538702822008-04-19T23:49:00.003-05:002008-04-20T00:23:27.921-05:00

So, I've been sitting on that Brunei post for months. Things that have transpired in the mean time:1. The Foreign Service Journal, the monthly publication of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA, the State Department union), listed my blog along with a factually inaccurate description. But I'll take what I can get, even if they think I'm in my mid twenties (I'm rocketing towards 30:

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-58401033415093044482008-04-19T22:36:00.003-05:002008-04-19T23:46:22.395-05:00

I caught a ride from Brunei International Airport to the harbor with the pilot who flew me in from Manila. "Brunei," he told me in his broad Australian accent, "is nice and quiet -- very peaceful." From the harbor in to town, my Bruneian cabbie bragged: "Brunei is so quiet -- we have no nightlife here!" I asked the Chinese-Bruneian owner of my hotel if he was enjoying life in sleepy Bandar

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-63367323330869860152008-02-23T23:08:00.001-05:002008-02-23T23:11:07.492-05:00

The opening sentence of China Southern's in-flight magazine, perused en route from Manila to Beijing: "2008 is doomed to be a year of special and happy."I will begrudgingly admit that it's good to be home. (A few more posts are coming out of this trip; photos to follow).

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-90668356903341031172008-02-21T10:05:00.002-05:002008-02-21T10:19:53.170-05:00

So, orangutans: turns out they're rapidly being driven into extinction by habitat loss. They currently exist only in the province of Sumatra, Indonesia, and in northern Borneo, straddling the border between Sabah province in Malaysia and Kalimantan, Indonesia. Those two areas and a few scattered zoos host the approximately 30,000 orangutans left in the world. One of only five orangutan

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-87033651269694310732008-02-14T05:08:00.000-05:002008-02-14T05:11:26.914-05:00

(Flashback to Manila)The pimps and prostitutes in Manila are aggressive, and I was approached by a woman at 7 in the morning who offered me a beautiful lady. "I don't want a beautiful lady," I told her quite honestly. "Oh," she said, thinking it over. "Maybe you want ugly lady? Yes, very ugly, I can get for you."

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-2754385111614623692008-02-13T03:34:00.000-05:002008-02-13T03:36:00.204-05:00

I went to Indonesia in the summer of '99, when I was 19. I had won a grant through the time-tested method of dumb luck, on the basis of being in the right place at the right time, and they paid for me to go anywhere in Southeast Asia. I chose Indonesia.At the time, I had studied French (old hat), dabbled in Spanish (seemingly exotic for its comparatively complex verbs and optional pronouns),

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-87482351068679535442008-02-07T07:56:00.000-05:002008-02-07T08:11:11.496-05:00

I think it goes without saying that the Siren Song of Borneo was too strong to resist. I left Guam, spent two days lazing around Manila (stopping off to see Mt. Taal, a volcano within a lake, but mostly spending my time eating lumpia and writing about the Pacific). But Brunei was only three hundred dollars away, and there wan no way I could pass it up. I flew in this morning to the capital

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-90069495353443647972008-02-07T07:27:00.000-05:002008-02-07T07:56:29.183-05:00

I was pretty excited for the Superbowl. Not for the football, of course -- I honestly didn't even know who was playing until the morning of Superbowl Monday (kickoff: 9 a.m. Guam time). Football is of religion-esque significance to quite a few of our men and women in uniform so Superbowl Monday is given as a day off for the soldiers posted in Guam, and I was geared up to go to one of the bars

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-88724428756201103312008-02-07T07:24:00.000-05:002008-02-07T07:27:24.057-05:00

(Flashback to Yap)The flight from Yap left at 4 in the morning, resulting in a waiting room full of groggy people anxious to get on the plane and fall asleep. When the announcement for boarding was made -- "we'd like to start by boarding our first class and elite members" -- a voice rang out from the back of the room, adding "and Swedish people!!" on to the announcement.

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-11422795870483397592008-02-06T06:59:00.000-05:002008-02-06T08:05:22.658-05:00

On the second go-round, Guam ain't so bad after all. Once you get out of the soul-sapping beach town of Tumon and the soulless capital of Agana, the island starts to have a certain charm. Min you, huge swaths of the island are out of bounds for non-military folks, and I found myself doing awkward U-turns at bade entry points on a surprisingly regular basis, waved off by tense MPs standing bored

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-21548871598335576062008-02-05T19:23:00.000-05:002008-02-06T06:59:33.784-05:00

(Flashback to Palau)I loved Palau, I truly did. I will say this, though: Palau is basically the land that young people forgot. It's only old people here. The bar-hopping twentysomething scene just hasn't made it here yet.There was a woman on my boat on the first day of diving, a corporate lawyer in her late 50s or so, and she and I started talking. One of us (I'm not sure who) brought up the

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-45019422761781500202008-02-05T19:17:00.000-05:002008-02-06T06:58:38.048-05:00

(Flashback to Palau)The Palauan joie de vivre manifests iteslf in a bounding exuberence for life, an enthusiasm even for everyday activities. My kayaking guide, a 22-year old with an easy grin and an encyclopedic knowledge of local fish and World War II history, would respond to every question with "oh, I'm so glad you asked that." You could practically hear the exclamation points in his

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-78622863948189227502008-02-05T19:08:00.000-05:002008-02-05T19:10:08.068-05:00

(Note: This is the longest post coming out of Pacifica; you've been warned).People come to Yap for two reasons. Sort of. The reality of the situation is that people do NOT come to Yap, an island chain in the Federated States of Micronesia of about 17 thousand people, some 12 thousand of whom live on the main island. I flew to Yap on a crowded flight from Palau and was thinking that I'd have to

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-30818426682749239322008-02-05T07:29:00.000-05:002008-02-05T07:33:53.106-05:00

(Flashback to Palau)My kayaking guide introduced himself to the group as TJ. "I always tell people to call me that," he said, "because my Palauan name is way too difficult for tourists." We as a group were unwilling to accept this slap in the collective phonetic face, and clamored to be told his actual name. He relented."My name," he told us, "is ..." And here he pronounced his name. It

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-37093580501878721732008-02-04T18:28:00.001-05:002008-02-05T19:16:43.330-05:00

(Flashback to Guam)Once upon a time, a couple of years ago, I was sharing hotel room in downtown Charleston (South Carolina, not West Virginia) with Quixote and T-rempe. Quixote bolted himself into the bathroom and emerged half an hour later, looking a bit woozy from blood loss and holding a red-streaked towel against his scalp. He'd tried to shave his head using the flimsy single-blade razor

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-40087750158674434202008-02-03T03:51:00.000-05:002008-02-04T18:26:01.330-05:00

I've still got two long blogs to type, but I'm going to start filling in with brief one-to-two paragraph bits from previous places. Some of these will be in present tense (which is how I originally typed them), and to please you tense nazis out there, I'll convert some to past tense depending on how I'm feeling. Let's get started.Flashback to Chuuk, en route to Palau (via Guam):The Chuukese

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-36566263667106613312008-02-02T05:40:00.000-05:002008-02-02T05:45:37.040-05:00

Where Chuuk has failed, Palau has succeeded. Let's start with this: the people of Palau, a tiny Pacific nation of not qute 25,000 people, independent only since 1994, has some of the friendliest, most outgoing people I've ever met.Anecdotal evidence:(This story is a little convoluted; bear with me).So, I was sitting outside the airport in Palau with a Dutch guy I met in Guam, waiting for his pal

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-53117774790672016962008-01-31T01:34:00.000-05:002008-02-02T05:53:55.350-05:00

Chuuk is an odd place.It's often ranked among the best places in the world for diving, easily top ten and almost always number one for wreck diving. It was a massive Japanese base during World War II and was subject to one of the most intensive American bombing campaigns in the Pacific theater, and as such it has over fifty intact sunken ships (boats tankers, airplanes, the whole deal) from the

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-10265581630519702032008-01-30T05:01:00.000-05:002008-01-30T05:10:59.802-05:00

The wreck you are about to dive is the Sgt. Mjr. J. Pugh.When Ferdinand Marcos was smuggling all the gold out of the Philippines, this ship was mysteriously abandoned in Truk Lagoon by its captain and crew while on a return trip to the Philippines from Tinian. Because the ship was learned to be a Marcos ship -- a feared man -- no one would touch it, and it rusted at anchor until years later,

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-9570967441233267292008-01-30T04:57:00.000-05:002008-01-30T04:59:43.351-05:00

Administrative sidenote: There are going to be some out-of-order posts during this vacation. The way I'm writing things down is different than I normally do, so instead of carrying a notebook, writing down bullets and then typing out one massive blog when I find an internet cafe, I'm actually writing bullets and then typing full blogs into my blackberry, whcih I'm basically just using as a very

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-70136671169816061482008-01-27T09:00:00.000-05:002008-01-27T09:02:00.340-05:00

Don't go to Guam, my boss told me -- it's horrible. He used to live in Indonesia, and the cheap flights home routed through Guam from Bali, so he's actually been. This shatters my whole I don't know ANYONE who's been to Guam! rationale for coming here.Why is it horrible? I asked him. It's horrible, he replied. Seriously, don't go there.Other people warned me that it's just like America (so

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-79523948557154398962008-01-26T19:25:00.000-05:002008-01-26T19:34:40.746-05:00

First impression of Manila: on the ride from the airport to my hotel, I passed what appeared to be a high-class fast food joint named The House That Fried Chicken Built. This place is awesome.I'm only here for a couple hours -- basically just an overnight before I begin a series of short-hop Pacific flights. I'm out in two hours to Guam, where I hang out for a day (which by all accounts is

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-84759345541275804792008-01-26T19:08:00.000-05:002008-01-26T19:24:41.956-05:00

I had been under the impression that Tagalog, the Philippino language, was a pretty close relative of Indonesian. They're both part of the massive Austronesian language family that stretches throughout the Pacific, from Hawaii to Samoa to Fiji, bouncing off Malaysia, through Indonesia to as far away as Madagascar. With that in mind, on the plane I tossed on some Madagascaran music I had (ahem)

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-91186742358996339292008-01-25T21:53:00.000-05:002008-12-11T12:48:27.529-05:00

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, there was a fearless blogger named Dakota. Here he is, in all his blogging glory:And here he is in another photo, which is blurry and sort of makes Dakota look angsty, as if though he were in an independent rock band. (He isn't).Dakota had a problem. Specifically, Dakota was planning a vacation, and part of that vacation involved diving. The problem is

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-26551616399096376962008-01-18T22:06:00.002-05:002008-01-22T09:05:22.032-05:00

I've got seven flights booked. I think I'll keep mum on the destinations until I'm actually there. Leaving next Saturday, the 26th.One brief moment of panic: my ATM card expires 02/08. You might know 02/08 as taking place in two weeks. It seems very likely that there isn't going to be time for my bank to get me a new ATM card before I leave, which means about halfway through this trip, my ability

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-51153268423635184532008-01-17T08:46:00.001-05:002008-01-17T09:04:18.666-05:00

I had been laboring away here in the salt mines of Beijing under the impression that I was going on vacation next Friday. Tragedy struck when I realized I had incorrectly counted the number of days in a week (seven), or perhaps had somehow incorrectly added when I combined the current date with the number seven (carry the one). Regardless, I was truly devastated (I mean, truly) when I realized

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-47848569074619921512008-01-09T09:33:00.000-05:002008-01-09T09:38:44.099-05:00

Part of the reason for all this travel -- the bounce from Seoul to Vietnam, two long weekends in a row -- is because I've started to panic about Asia. Asia.This tour in China was supposed to be operation Go To All The Asian Nations I Haven't Been To. And it hasn't been. I made it to Taiwan (the province of Taiwan) during language training, and went to a few places in China proper that I

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-23312286921147692752008-01-08T09:18:00.000-05:002008-01-08T09:20:29.723-05:00

I'd move to Hanoi tomorrow if they gave me the chance. It's perfect: ungodly green (Beijing has been experiencing record-breaking pollution for the past few weeks, so green means more to me these days), set on a small fistful of two lakes (two), with a spectacular old town, great food, low prices and cheap beer. And even though I don't speak any Vietnamese beyond phrasebook pleasantries, I still

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-67843016081463328362008-01-04T07:08:00.000-05:002008-01-04T07:09:45.819-05:00

I’ve always declared myself to be afraid of motorcycles, ever since I was in an accident when I was 19 in the tiny beach town of Pangandaran in West Java, Indonesia. I'm generally unwilling to ride any sort of two-wheeled conveyance that I'm not powering with my own legs. There was a brief moment in Greece when I decided I needed to 'get over it,' and attempted to rent one of the scooters that

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-75933006575715785342007-12-31T04:40:00.001-05:002007-12-31T04:50:29.272-05:00

Last night I found myself in a largely abandoned bar, sitting next to an English teacher whose face was weighed down with an intricate set of piercings, and who was resolutely losing money in a Korean card game that she didn't appear to know the rules to. I ordered a beer and tried to suss out how the game was played, but since the player closest to me appeared to be equally in the dark as I was

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-42058238904757208942007-12-31T03:32:00.000-05:002007-12-31T03:54:24.796-05:00

Last night I was wandering the mean streets when I passed a guy with a deep fryer mounted on a push cart. He was shoving hotdogs on to chopsticks, and then dunking them in a thick batter before rolling them in panko, Japanese-style breadcrumbs. He dropped the end result into the aforementioned deep fryer, and three minutes later out came a Korean corn dog. It goes without saying that I

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-88366004381381436172007-12-30T08:13:00.000-05:002007-12-30T08:14:14.779-05:00

Of all the Asian tourism campaign slogans, my favorite by far is Malaysia: Truly Asia! which has a sort of paranoid, defensive ring to it, even though it would take some truly aggressive cartography to attribute Malaysia to any other continent.Much less compelling than Malaysia is Korea's slogan -- The SEOUL of Asia! which is the sort of pun that even I, a pun-loving fool, think is too easy. A

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-43455937844762578252007-12-20T10:15:00.001-05:002007-12-20T10:21:41.906-05:00

My beloved bicycle (218 kuai, or just over 25 dollars and a rickety deathtrap that I love) ceased to function, the pedals inexplicably locked. On more or less every corner there's an enterprising guy (always a gentleman, never a female) with a "Bicycle Repair" sign, and having nothing to lose I walked my bike to the corner nearest my apartment.The gentleman there looked it over, played with the

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-33627153053699698892007-12-14T22:38:00.000-05:002007-12-14T22:50:23.283-05:00

Osteosarcoma: cancer of the leg that normally starts at the knee and spreads quickly; cause unknown. Treatment, in the late 70s, started with amputation above the knee and moved forward from there.Terry Fox: a Canadian diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 1977; leg amputated that same year. Three years later he began: filled a bottle with water from the Atlantic to carry to the Pacific, dipped his

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-50578238475364113712007-11-29T09:13:00.001-05:002007-11-29T09:13:42.559-05:00

Ways in which my office in the Foreign Service is not like a regular office:When one of my coworkers left a bag of yak jerky on my desk, I had to ask around to figure out who it was from. When another coworker spotted it, she said -- wait, someone brought in more yak jerky?

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-73158513151757601992007-11-20T09:05:00.000-05:002007-11-20T09:06:38.631-05:00

Today I was strolling in to my office building from across the street, where I went to cash a check to get kuai to pay back my boss for all the money he'd loaned me to purchase losing raffle tickets during a charity dinner to support Africa last Friday. There was a small crowd gathered in the lobby, surrounding our embassy's Nurse Practitioner. She and I are two of about a dozen people who

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-48032610513181563452007-11-18T09:44:00.000-05:002007-11-18T09:45:04.885-05:00

Beijing's in full pre-Olympics blitz mode, and the propaganda is everywhere. The word propaganda in Chinese lacks the negative connotation it has in English, and what's scattered all over the city is all written as I-statements and commands. It feels like I should be documenting it. Welcome the Olympics!Espouse Civility!Usher in a new atmosphere!*I participate!I contribute!I am happy!What's

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-52221105073476159512007-11-07T09:32:00.001-05:002007-11-07T09:32:44.930-05:00

All right, so I'm not dead. I'm not dead, and neither is Face The Sun just yet. Admittedly, it's on life support and struggling day by day, but it hasn't kicked it just yet.I'm not going to Iraq. Should anyone be losing sleep over the future whereabouts of Dakota, there's no need to panic just yet. Despite the press and the horrible words "directed assignment," I'm not one of the lucky ones

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-26010089579606251062007-07-03T14:28:00.000-05:002007-07-03T14:29:53.523-05:00

During my training class on how to process visas, we were shown a video entitled FISH! Set in the Seattle seafood market, the video pointed out that any activity can be made fun, and once you make it fun, you'll sell an awful lot of fish. Now that I've done my tour as a visa officer -- an activity that by its very nature deals in raw human emotion and (since no country that I know of has a 0

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-42700587463897779162007-07-03T14:27:00.000-05:002007-07-03T14:28:26.426-05:00

Three days in Seattle and this much I know is true: it's FANTASTIC here. Looking at real estate fantastic. Except for that whole weather thing (it's the dead of summer and it's freezing), it approaches perfect. Some thoughts:-- People in Seattle do not jaywalk. If the street is completely empty the light is red, they will not cross against it. In this, they resemble Norway. In this, they're

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-75169273090856010242007-06-21T02:29:00.000-05:002007-06-21T02:34:21.791-05:00

So then, it's over. Final score: 3+/3+, well above the State Department's Bonus Money Threshold, and thank god for that: not getting it in Urdu STUNG; not getting it in Chinese might've resulted in sniping off the roof with a high-caliber slingshot. I was definitely trying for the 4 in reading, and was very sad to miss it -- I could definitely feel it slipping away from me as I read (and failed

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-39337621313836324932007-06-19T21:25:00.000-05:002007-06-19T23:14:23.023-05:00

Lucky boxers: check. (Scooby-doo, ensconced in cartoon hearts and surrounded by the words "Lover Dog").Lucky t-shirt: check. (White, technical fabric, soft from a hundred washes, and one of three t-shirts that accompanied me to Eastern Europe).Lucky shirt: check. (Maroon, tailored by my boys at Wazir's Tailoring in Islamabad, and which my boss declared as "an attempt to look like a mafioso."

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-7914453644970951572007-06-18T08:32:00.000-05:002007-06-18T08:41:55.608-05:00

Homeward bound: my final exam is on Wednesday at 1:00 Beijing time. And I am FREAKING OUT. And then I'll be running (sprinting) to a bar to have a celebratory or consolatory martini, and then I'll be packing, to get on a plane on Thursday evening to come home for my mandatory month in America to re-adjust to Americana and remind me why it's home and why it's wonderful.So then, my home leave

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-80387994808543533232007-05-27T09:44:00.001-05:002008-12-11T12:48:28.649-05:00

Flash back to two months ago: the Tiananmen 10K, marking the 500th day before the olympics. Blue skies, cool breeze and flags blowing around the forbidden city; perfect weather for a race, with a turnout of maybe 500 people, about a third expats.Word is circulated: the Tiananmen 10k is actually only 9.2k; don't hold your breath waiting for that final .8 k, because it ain't coming. Casual running

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-47243162483820607182007-05-21T08:20:00.000-05:002007-05-21T08:23:25.632-05:00

With great indignity, I announced that I cannot stand -- cannot stand -- when people add an extra S into the middle of Fudgicle, making it Fudgsicle.But just now I googled it: wrong, for all these years. Am I the only one shocked by that sneaky S? I mean, can we discuss? In related news, I remain convinced that you're all incorrect.For the record, should anyone be wondering: I have no intention

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-34739108102628494552007-05-19T21:39:00.000-05:002007-05-19T21:42:51.891-05:00

A good handful of Western companies in China have gone to great lengths to add products to their sales line that specifically target the Chinese market. KFC offers original recipe and extra crispy, but they've also got a Peking Duck wrap -- a chicken finger, a whole grilled scallion and a ladle of plum sauce, wrapped in what appears to be a flour tortilla. McDonalds carries the McKorea (god

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-79646360162869213422007-05-14T08:56:00.000-05:002007-05-14T09:03:11.499-05:00

Every year on new years, Quixote asks the same questions; almost against my will, I've taken it up as my rallying cry as well: it's 2007! Where are the flying cars? Why can't we control the weather?This morning, the China Daily featured a color-glossy insert covering All-Olympic news. Noteworthy things: Dashan, a Chinese-speaking Canadian white guy who's achieved uber-celebrity status on the

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-43461004141329597642007-05-13T10:35:00.000-05:002007-05-13T10:36:58.446-05:00

2002: I exited Georgetown with a bachelor's degree in worthless, and moved into an adorable rowhouse with Adelmank, nee Mageek. The rowhouse, at 2228 12th Place NW, was an overpriced unheatable shitpit, with an unresponsive landlord and an infestation of slugs in the backyard. But it had it's perks -- proximity to Ben's Chili bowl, a planter box with competing ferns named Joe and Little Steve-o

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-56187506359040815522007-05-10T11:37:00.000-05:002007-05-10T11:40:01.698-05:00

There's something about language training that saps my will to blog. This has always been the case -- the blog entries from Urdu training are sparse at best, and while the last time I was in China was pre-blog, the emails home were still few and far between.But I genuinely like having a blog and having the ability to look back and see what in god's name I've been doing; whenever I go back and

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-54249838661988946422007-04-29T06:55:00.000-05:002007-04-29T06:59:38.945-05:00

There's so much to say -- there was indeed a date although nothing particularly blog-worthy, and then I jaunted off to Hong Kong for the HK International Film Festival, which made me feel very jet-setter, and then there's the upcoming Great Wall (half) Marathon and an awful lot of what have you.But for now, it's the May holiday -- Happy May Day! (and if you can avoid chanting mayday!mayday!mayday

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-71242820238558433542007-03-20T06:18:00.000-05:002007-03-20T06:28:03.872-05:00

A poll:I'm considering leaping back into the world of internet dating. Who doesn't love internet dating? It's glorious. A coworked pointed me in the direction of a website that services Beijing, and then tossed out a cautionary "but god knows, I wouldn't put a picture on there." I opposed: I mean, what? No picture? I mean, god knows of course nothing scandalous, but just a picture of my face

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-1148096685701014682007-03-20T06:16:00.000-05:002007-03-20T06:17:56.688-05:00

My interest in Qinghai (and later Gansu) was largely logistical: I had some serious questions regarding the day-to-day lives of Tibetan monks. (I recognize that going to Qinghai and Gansu rather than Tibet seems illogical, but it was necessary. Moreover, only three of the six major monasteries of Yellow Hat Tibetan Buddhism are located in Tibet. One's in Gansu, one's in Qinghai, and a

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-18943787591006747892007-03-13T04:25:00.000-05:002007-03-13T05:12:27.068-05:00

Note: is seems upon reading that this post, more so than any other, is CRAZY reminisce heavy. For that, I apologize. Enough pontificating: Qinghaiward! Train departs from Xizhan on Saturday at 2, and I in standard fashion get to the station exactly 8 minutes before departure. I'm off to the frozen northwest, and having left myself exactly 9 minutes to pack, have forgotten hat, scarf, gloves,

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-64937428018471885432007-03-13T03:48:00.000-05:002007-03-13T04:24:49.257-05:00

Further updates on India will have to wait: the notebook containing my notes on India is in myat-home-office. I, in the mean time, have been given a week off by my language training program to head off to anywhere-I-want China, to stay in Chinese hotels and chat up real-live Chinese people and in general put the ol' Chinese into action. And so I'm in Qinghai, on the outskirts of Tibet,

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-63975204905444877712007-02-21T05:09:00.000-05:002007-02-21T05:13:35.581-05:00

Friday, 8:30 in the evening: flight from Beijing International to New Dehli, direct, on the Chinese national carrier. I'm seated next to the reincarnation of a bobblehead doll, who throughout the flight swings his head from left to right in a long sweeping motion, until he notices me looking at him, at which point he sheepishly stops until he thinks I can no longer see. But the seats in economy

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-61035192235182486372007-02-19T07:36:00.001-05:002007-02-19T08:05:52.448-05:00

Everyone who has ever come to India -- every single person in the long history of India who's paid a visit here -- has described it as "overwhelming" and "sensory-overload." They usually fail to adequately describe exactly what it is that makes the place so sensorily overwhelming. They don't mention:Every waking second of every day is spent slogging through excrement-laced mud that's flecked

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-28622892394005412012007-02-16T02:34:00.000-05:002007-02-16T02:37:21.457-05:00

Blogger just forced me to upgrade to The New Blogger. Being a luddite, I feared that my entire blog would go away, egads! So I copied and pasted the entire thing into Word to save it. I can now say on good authority that I've written 193 pages about absolutely nothing. Happy Chinese New Year: it's the year of the pig, starting tomorrow. As such, I've got the week off (three days off, two

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-13740865942568167802007-02-16T02:32:00.000-05:002007-02-16T02:34:01.110-05:00

Minimum fare in Beijing Taxi is ten kuai, a buck twenty-five even. Maximum fare on a Beijing bus for those wielding a transportation card: eight mao, or one thin dime. This is the explanation I use when people ask why it is that I've become engrossed with the Beijing Public Transportation system, but it fails to fully explain the reasons behind my obsession. In short: the Beijing bus system

Dakotanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5665828.post-1169470784675839562007-01-22T07:57:00.000-05:002007-01-22T07:59:44.693-05:00

In October, I flew to the city of Yanji in frozen Manchuria, with a small herd of people from language training on a mission to meet up with a tuberculosis-curing Doctor's Without Border's doc who, in a fit of boredom, had invited us to join her. The trip, in the bracing cold of early winter in Jilin province, was overwhelmingly blog-worthy. Briefly, in bullets: -- The trip started on

Dakotanoreply@blogger.com