Asian in a Strange Land

Delicious ribs

We interrupt the D.C. travelogue for this breaking news story: barbecue pork ribs are delicious.  I repeat: barbecue pork ribs are delicious.

With the economy being what it is and since we had a couple slabs of pork ribs in the deep freeze, I decided it was as  good a time as any to barbecue some ribs.  We already had the meat so we didn’t have to spend money on that, and the results go a long way if you don’t pig out (heh) on the ribs. » Continue Reading…

Actual date: August 12, 2009

Part of the appeal of vacationing is seeing new and/or unusual things.  To people from Mississippi, D.C. is full of such wonders, only a few of which I had the awareness to capture in photos.  These aren’t going to be phenomenally wondrous things, but rather a collection of random and unrelated sights that I found interesting as a hick from a small town visiting D.C.

Line out the door at Greek Deli

Greek Deli is another place near Susie’s office we had penciled in as a potential place to eat.  I hesitate to call it a “restaurant” since there’s no indoor seating, and I can only guess that the outdoor seating in front of it is theirs.  We didn’t go because we didn’t think we’d be able to sit and eat, but it’s still on the list for a future visit.  The guy in the dark blue shirt and khakis is in line to order.  Yes, they are lined up outside the store, with quite a few more people lined up inside (maybe about 3 times the length of the outside line?).  That’s how good this place is.  Supposedly they also have their own version of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, albeit kinder and doesn’t sell soup.  You are however expected to know what you want and order quickly instead of dilly-dallying, which is understandable considering the lunch traffic they serve. » Continue Reading…

Ghar-E-Kabab

Actual date: August 12, 2009

Flying, lunch, dragging stuff to Susie’s house, and crashing for a few hours–that’s all we managed for day 1 of our D.C. trip.  After regaining some energy, we rolled out of bed and went to Ghar-E-Kabab for a super late dinner by our standards, getting to the restaurant around 9:30 p.m.  There was only one other occupied table when we entered, which for Ghar-E-Kabab’s sake we hope is because we were so late getting there.  It couldn’t have been because their food was lacking, because I can tell you right now that they serve some excellent Indian food there. » Continue Reading…

Post-it masterpiece

Actual date: August 12, 2009

While at Singapore Bistro, Sofia created this brilliant visual tour de force with a ballpoint pen and a couple of extra wide Post-it notes.  She has matured as an artist, moving away from her earlier primitive yet viscerally powerful and compelling straight-line strokes to a more accomplished combination of straight lines, circles, squiggly curves, and other impressive techniques.

It’s really fascinating to watch her grow and mature.  Simple things such as closing a shape by connecting the end of the shape line to the beginning used to be something completely foreign to her, but now she does it with ease.  Circles were a huge mystery before, but now she can render a reasonable facsimile of one.  I can see why parents proudly display their kids’ “art” on their fridges.  It’s really something to see what new things a child learns how to do from day to day.  Hopefully I’ll never be the kind of parent to blindly think that whatever his child does is superlative, but I can see why it happens.  Thankfully I don’t have to be on guard about that since everything Sofia does is superlative, and she’s perfect in every way.

Walking to Singapore Bistro

Actual date: August 12, 2009

This trip was the first that we had pre-planned around good food.  In the past we might’ve made mental notes of a few places we wanted to go to, but this time we planned every single meal.  We didn’t want to waste a single meal by just going to eat somewhere close to wherever we were when we started getting hungry.  We didn’t completely succeed in that effort, but that’s a story for another post.  We tried to plan restaurants to go with activities, and since Singapore Bistro sounded like a good place to eat and is close to Susie’s office we chose it for our first meal. » Continue Reading…

Way too early

Actual date: August 12, 2009

Day one of our 2009 D.C. trip, and we’re on our way!  We woke up at 5:30 a.m., which is much too early for us, but the only non-stop flight to D.C. is at 8 a.m. so we did what we had to do. » Continue Reading…

The family and I got back from our week-long family vacation to D.C. last night.  Is there any doubt what’s coming next?  A travelogue, of course!  I had briefly considered keeping a semi-live travelogue by doing daily posts, but I didn’t have a laptop with a color-calibrated screen with me (yeah, I’m that picky about my pictures, even family vacation snaps), and after the 1st day I quickly realized I’d be adding yet another to-do item to an already packed vacation, so that idea quickly went out the window.

Look for many posts about our D.C. trip in the coming days and maybe weeks if it drags on that long.  Lots to report back about–such a fun trip!

Dress is an Indonesian batik number, bought by my mom.  Shoes are U.S. crocs (probably made elsewhere though?), bought by Denise’s mom and accented with hand-tied bows.  Model is half Chinese and half Caucasian.  The epitome of Asian fusion?

EF to m4/3 adaptor

Part of the appeal of the Micro 4/3 (m4/3) format used on the Olympus E-P1 is that it’s highly adaptable.  I think it might be the most adaptable lens mount to date, in that just about any lens ever produced can be mounted onto a m4/3 camera like the E-P1 as long as you have the right adaptor(s).

Pictured above is the Canon EF to m4/3 adaptor (taken with E-P1 at 84mm equivalent, 1/2 second shutter speed–thank you, in-camera image stabilization!), which is used to mount Canon EF lenses onto a m4/3 camera.  The label says “EOS-m4/3″, but I believe the correct terminology is “EF” instead of “EOS” since “EF” is the name of the actual lens mount.  Pedantic much?  Why yes–yes indeed.  As a Canon user, I can now mount all of my Canon EF lenses onto my E-P1. » Continue Reading…

Morning workout

Actual dates: October 18-20, 2008

Such a hard life–strenuous yoga and Goldfish crackers in the morning.  We went to great pains to ensure our Indonesian experience was as authentic as possible. » Continue Reading…