Distractions, reflections

With less than two months since Adam had returned from two years studying at Renmin University of China in Beijing, Eric was on his way for the same program of study: immersion in Mandarin Chinese language training.

One of Eric’s friends gave him a last-minute gift: a grille as bling for his teeth.  Read more... (109 words, 4 images, estimated 26 secs reading time)

I first met Apostolos in Crete in 2003, and had a brief introduction to his parents. Four years later, he’s at the University of Toronto. His mother came to visit for a few weeks, so we took the occasion to have an evening out in Little Italy. For a change of pace, instead of Italian food, we thought we would try Peruvian food at El Bodegon.

Apostolos’ mother doesn’t speak English. In the warm evening, we decided to take a stroll along College Street. Diana noted that Apostolos’ mother liked to window shop.  Read more... (164 words, 4 images, estimated 39 secs reading time)

Diana thought that we should have a family portrait, because our family travel rarely finds six of us at home at the same time. We asked Mary to snap the photos, because she’s a professional who is always checking the hair of interviewees on television. She told us to meet at Riverdale Park during “golden hour” — just before sunset.

After snapping lots of photos, the boys decided that they wanted to show more sides of themselves.  Read more... (110 words, 3 images, estimated 26 secs reading time)

Since I travel a lot, I have lot of opportunities for meals on an expense account. I rarely approach the daily expense limits, though, because I prefer Asian and ethnic cuisines over European and western food. In New York, the variety of choice is huge. I like the choice of restaurants in the Murray Hill area.

One discovery that I really enjoyed was Olympic Pita, on West 38th Street. I visited Israel in the late 1990s, so I know what the food should be like. Olympic Pita makes its own pita and laffa — a bread that I hadn’t previously tried — in an oven at the front of the store. The laffa is brought hot to the table as stacks of bread 12 inches in diameter.

Waitresses invite guests to help themselves from salads and pickles at the garnish bar. I ordered a falafel sandwich, and declined to have french fries stuffed into the middle. Even then, the portion was huge.

 Read more... (330 words, 4 images, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Since I had been away for work for an extended period of time, one of my colleagues set up customer meetings in New York City for me. With the uncertainty of appointments due to vacation schedules, the best approach was for me to camp out for a few days in a hotel in midtown Manhattan while schedules firmed up. Staying south of Times Square, I had a little time to explore Manhattan.

When people say Times Square, they don’t really think about why it’s called that. I stopped in the new New York Times Building, where I saw some technicians setting up a wall of video panels in the lobby. This art installation may have displayed letters to the editor … but I couldn’t be sure because of the technicians were rebooting the computers to get the messages into sync.

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This past summer was extremely busy for our family. Adam returned from Beijing just before Diana and I left for Japan. When Diana (via Vancouver) and I (direct from Tokyo) returned home, we managed to link up the extended family with Jeanne and her kids coming in from Houston. Pearl and Arthur’s family also joined us in an extremely informal dinner at Saigon Palace.

We were so informal that we started dinner before Noah arrived, since he was working a shift at the CNE. After Noah and his friend had dinner, we brought out a cake for Adam.

 Read more... (131 words, 3 images, estimated 31 secs reading time)