1. UW
Update Saturday Feb. 21: A trip to Chinatown!
a. Woke,
breakfasted, and headed down to lounge to meet with Xin, Brandon, and Demi for
a trip to Chinatown. Xin didn’t show up for 20 minutes, in which time I enjoyed
the glorious sunshine on the balcony behind Haggett and read the latest
Ribbonfarm article.
b. Met
my companions and hiked to the Ave to catch the 71 Express.
c. The
bus was packed to the gills.
d. “Deboarded”,
as the bus driver put it, in the International District. We waited for Demi’s
friend (Alyssa?) for about 20 minutes while listening to this guy play an Asian
instrument that at first sounded like a bagpipe but looked like an upright
violin. I taught Xin and Brandon Banana Tag, and Xin tried to show me how to do
an armlock (his biological Chinese father was a cop).
e. Then
we headed into the throngs of people celebrating the Lunar New Year. We grabbed
some bubble tea and waded our way to the front of a crowd surrounding a stage
and watched first some dancing dragons, then a kung fu school demonstration
that turned out to lack the demonstration aspect, since the long-winded master
burned all the time talking about the benefits and chi/physiology of kung fu.
Then a Wushu school fielded a bunch of kids who demonstrated forms. A few
individuals did some really neat forms with nunchucks and various different
types of swords. It was pretty cool. Finally, a Filipino “drill team”, a group
of women doing semi-martial exercises/dances with staffs to a military beat,
came out. They were extremely well synchronized.
f. We
headed out to try to get some lunch. One restaurant had a 45 minute wait, so we
returned to a place Brandon and I had spotted. However, Xin insisted that we go
to a dim sum place instead, so we went to a restaurant, the Purple Spot Café,
that Demi and Alyssa had spotted. Dim sum is like the Asian version of tapas.
We sat down at a table and alternately ordered specific dishes and requested
dishes off passing carts. Xin, Demi, and Alyssa did all the ordering in Chinese
(although Xin’s grasp of the particular dialect used was apparently weak) A
paper sheet associated with our table kept track of our consumption. It was
really cool; I ended up being very happy with Xin’s insistence on Dim Sum.
Among other things, I ate a chicken foot, which had the consistency of
extremely soft, uniformly fatty meat, a rich, mild flavor, and lots of little
bones. I ate radish cakes, sweet buns, shrimp dumplings, some crazy cut of pork
simmered in spiced sauce, and finished the meal off with mango pudding.
g. We
walked around other random streets. In response to a long conversation in
Chinese, I asked Xin for the word for “What?”, approximately “shee-maa” with the
ee raised pitch and maa flat. Xin taught Brandon and I a few other words as we
walked.
h. We
returned to the UW around 5. Xin and I jogged to the IMA and played some
badminton, first crushing two players that we challenged, then playing three
games against each other which I won by a slim margin.
i. I
grabbed pizza on the way back and planned to Skype with Ian, but it turned out
neither of us had specified the day in our emails, so I had assumed today while
he assumed tomorrow. Instead, I read some more for Cows.
j. Went
down to lounge and watched the musical Chicago with a group. It was pretty
neat, really theatrical. The floormate, Gracen, who set up the movie brought an
obscene amount of snacks, and I walked away with excess hummus and pita chips.
k.
Did more reading, physics hw, laundry. Wrote
this log and went to bed.
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