6ix ft high and rising

Over there

2008-11-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

Hey all! I may or may not be posting here in the next year...but I will definitely be posting here!:

www.12foot3.com: our around-the-world trip blog

We love you and we'll miss everyone while we're away!

xox,
Hope

Paint Job

2008-11-13T15:50:00.000-08:00

Check out our new house! Of course, they finished painting the day we are leaving on our trip. Of course.

Big huge ups to Jeremy for managing this project while preparing for our trip!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-10-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

This past Monday was our one year wedding anniversary. Jeremy and I both agree that it feels like we've been married longer; and by that I think we both mean that things didn't start feeling different when we stood in front of our friends and family and said our vows, but much earlier, when we stood on a hill above the Salmon River and decided to do this marriage thing. So in a lot of ways our first year of marriage felt very comfortable, like a place we had already been for a while...and it will be really interesting to see how we turn that on its head in our coming year of travel. We're up for the challenge!

To celebrate our anniversary, Jeremy and I headed up to Indian Springs, which is this absolutely adorable resort/spa in Calistoga. Indian Springs feels super retro and fancy at the same time; apparently the place is super old and in shambles in the 1980s when a family took it over and remodeled it. They did a really great job keeping the feel of the place, and you can just imagine families in the 1950s rolling up the gravel-filled driveway in their huge cars, swimming in the pool in wool suits, and playing shuffleboard and bocce at dusk.

Natural spring waters feed into the pool, which means the water is warm during the day and hot at night. More like a hot tub than a pool. It was VERY conducive to relaxation. We also got some treatments at the spa; Jeremy had a mud bath and I got a massage. Afterwards, you can hang out at a private area for spa patrons known as the Buddha Pond, which was absolutely gorgeous:

Indian Springs was so nice that we pretty much only left to eat and drink. We had fabulous meals at Triple S Ranch (VERY off-the-beaten path steak house--it felt like you were driving to someone's house. The food was amazing, the vibe was local, and the decor was fabulous...think taxidermy, checkered tablecloths, and retro boxing posters) and Ad Hoc. We also did a wine tasting at our favorite, Dutch Henry, where we met this little lady:

And of course, we opened our year 1 wishes from the wedding. So sweet, I am loving this tradition. :)

Happy anniversary, my love!

The rest of our photos from the weekend are here.

RTW map

2008-09-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Jeremy geeked out and coded a map of our around-the-world trip route. Click here to check it out:

http://menghermann.com/travel/map.html

For those who don't really care for a visual, here's the route:

New Zealand > Australia > Bangkok (plus Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam) > Taiwan > Japan > China > Dubai > Jordan > Turkey > Greece > Eastern Europe > Russia > Madrid > Ireland > Madrid > Morroco > Tunisia > Madrid > Galapagos > Buenos Aires

We are < this > close to buying our tickets. We're working on getting the necessary visas and shots...wow, we're really going to do this, people!

P.S. We've pushed our leave date back to November 15 (or thereabouts) to allow some breathing room. The time is sneaking up on us!
P.P.S. Photo above taken on the bus trip from Mexico City to Oaxaca.

Portland, you'd think it was middle America...

2008-08-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

The countdown has begun! As I mentioned in a previous post, in the next few months we'll be traveling around to see all the family before we leave on our trip. This weekend we headed up to Portland to visit with Alice and Eric (Jeremy's paternal grandparents) and some more members of the Hermann clan: Jim and Sharon (Jim is Jeremy's uncle...Randy's younger bro), and Jim's two daughters (Megan and Heidi) and their families.

With Alice and Eric:

Portland...now with 20% more Hermanns!:

Alice and Eric live in Vancouver, Washington, right off the Columbia River. They have a really nice little place with a gorgeous view. This house number 50...no joke, Alice and Eric have bought and sold 50 houses in 47 years of marriage. Eric calls it an "Escrow fetish."

They also have a nice little boardwalk where we took a stroll...that's their house in the background, the building in the middle:

We also got to see Jim and Sharon's gorgeous house on the river. This is the front of the house:

And this is view from the back:

Last time we visited Portland in 2006, Jim and Sharon were at their house in Palm Desert. And this side of the family couldn't make it to our wedding because Heidi was due with her first child on the day of our nuptials. So, not only was it my first time meeting Jim and Sharon, but it was our first time meeting Hudson Mac, Heidi and Grant's little man.

We had a lovely dinner out on the Hermann's porch that night and took a beautiful boat ride the next morning. Jim is a big fisherman so he knew his way around the river. Thor, Jim and Sharon's dog, also went with us. Thor was very busy pacing back and forth on the boat, looking in the water for little creatures.

And, I have to show you the ridiculous rental car they gave us...of course when you're driving an electric blue Mustang, you just have to do a photo shoot on the hood of the car...too bad I didn't pack my bikini...

Between the car and the guns, you'd think we visited middle America or something. OK, and for the record, Jeremy was SO EXCITED when Jim brought out the gun. Seriously, he turned into a 7-year-old.

We had a lovely time in Portland...the Hermanns are such a sweet family and it was really fun to hear stories of Randy as a little kid. :) We also got a family history lesson from Alice...here is a photo of her parents with their parents. We think Jeremy looks a lot like Alice's dad (third from the left):

Check out all the beautiful photos from the trip on my Flickr here.

Ketchup

2008-08-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

Not sure why but I just haven't been feeling like posting to the blog lately...writing feels a little overwhelming right now, I guess. But I know a lot of the family stays current on our doings by reading this blog, so I figured I could just let our recent photos do the talking:

Melbabe Wedding: Lots of fun pictures here...the wedding was in Cambria and there was a dress-up booth at the reception! Plus, the girls did a dance for the newly nup'ed couple:

Lucy's 30th Birthday: 80s Party!!!

Lola's 5th Bday (my boss Cinthia's dog): We put a hat on her, she chooses a new toy, and gets to eat cheesecake (her favorite)

Met Millie and Jeff's new baby Anya:

Watching Baker (my co-worker Amelie's baby boy) grow up:

Went to opening night of the SF Shorts Festival (BTW, if you're in SF, check it out! Some great little films. If you're not, just click here. This short about procrastination is awesome!

And, a lazy Saturday at the beach:

We're off to Portland this weekend...hopefully I will be feeling a little more loquacious after that trip!

Lots o' Lakes

2008-07-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, huh? We've been keeping ourselves busy winding up (for our big trip) and down (tying up commitments) at the same time. One of the many things we want to do before our trip is to go around and spend some quality time with all the family, and we did just that over the 4th of July weekend in Sun Valley.

Amy (Jeremy's sister) and her partner Gerry met us there, along with Martina (one of Jeremy's best friends and the only groomswoman at our wedding) and her husband Chris and two adorable daughters Anya (4.5 years) and Taryn (14 months). I didn't really know Chris and Martina very well before this trip so I was very happy to get to know them. Their oldest daughter, Anya, took an immediate liking to me (hint: I had lip gloss) and wanted to be by my side the entire trip. Pretty cute, if you ask me:

As is the norm with all Hermann visits, we spent most of our days outdoors. There was a short walk the afternoon we got in, at the same place we went cross-country skiing just a few short months ago:

The following day, we headed up to Red Fish for a lake day. There were some fires in SV last year and the Forest Service was still clearing some brush from the beach that we wanted to hang out at. So road access was closed to that area...fortunately, industrious Randy found a guy with a speedboat to haul all of us and our kayaks out to the beach, which we had all to ourselves, minus a few really nice Forest Service peeps:

Sweet little Taryn, who has just started walking, had a blast at the lake...though as the day dragged on without her nap she began to get a little loopy. But she still had a big smile for the camera, even when the day cursed her with The Dirtiest Little Face Ever:

The next day we went for a hike up to Silver Lake...it was a big hike but we brought the kids and Anya made it the entire way all by herself. We were all very impressed...seriously, it was a tough one!

We ended our trip with a hike from Pettit Lake to Alice Lake (we saw a lot of lakes)...but we left the kids at home for this one. Though technically a lot easier than the Silver Lake hike, it was a loooong one...we were hiking for about 10 hours! This hike involved two river crossings...

...a couple log crossings...

...and lots of mosquitoes. But we ended up here:

And saw stuff like this:

As always, we had a wonderful, relaxing time, ate really yummy food, and enjoyed wonderful conversations around the dinner table. I was happy to spend some good time with Amy and Gerry and get to know Chris and Martina better. They are really committed to their parenting and it shows in their two wonderful daughters. It was really fun for Jeremy and I to see the type of loving dedication they have towards their family and they are really great models for us when we begin to think about starting our own...

Staycation

2008-06-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Jeremy and I took a staycation (not a "steak-acation", as he had hoped)...I had heard about people doing staycations, where you basically act like you're on vacation in your own city and do things that a tourist might do. Well, believe it or not, even after 10 years of living in the Bay Area, I had never been to Angel Island! So, with the weather gods smiling upon us, we hopped on our bikes and headed down towards the ferry at pier 41.

We stopped first at the Ferry Building and bought some yummy Vietnamese meatball sandwiches, which we ate in the grass:

We were quite early for the ferry, so we rode down aquatic park, and then the Marina green...there were lots of people out and about enjoying the beautiful weather! Eventually we ended up back at Pier 41 to board our ferry. Like our walks, it felt like we were in a different city! The people are just so different in this part of town than in the Mission...makes for some really fun people watching!

We finally made it over to Angel Island and rode the perimeter of the island. First of all, WOW! I can't believe I had never been there...the 360 degree views of the bay are just stunning.

What a beautiful way to spend the day! We love San Francisco! We're totally visiting again!

P.S. I think I'm getting closer to fine-tuning the camera settings...I like these photos much more than the ones I took earlier in the week...
P.P.S. In case you're wondering how the heck I kept up with Jeremy on a bike, he rode his single speed...and he was still faster than me. But it did level the playing field quite a bit. :)

Walk with Me

2008-06-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

I've think I've mentioned before that I really love my job, but lately I have been struggling a bit with the lifestyle of a designer. Namely, that I spend all day sitting in a chair, staring at a computer. I notice often that when riding my bike home, it can be difficult for me to focus on distances further away than 2-5 feet. Additionally, the human body (at least not this human's body) isn't built to sit in a single seat for 9-10 hours a day. Another bummer is that I work quite late, not getting home until 7 or 7:30PM most days (oh how I envy people who leave the office at 5PM!!!).

In an effort to counteract all of these effects, Jeremy and I have begun taking walks after work, which is nice since the sun is setting so late these days. Not only is the light beautiful at this time of day, but it means that we get to explore nearby neighborhoods. Yesterday, I took my new camera out with me (Jeremy just bought me a Leica D-Lux 3!). The walk helps make my body feel better after a long day in a chair, but shooting photos helps counteract the computer-stare I've developed after looking at the screen all day. Plus, it really gets me ready for our trip...looking hard, noticing things I may not notice during our daily routine.

Last night we took a long stroll up and down the streets of Potrero Hill, and it was like discovering a different city! There were a lot of houses and other details that I may not have noticed if passing by in a car, and we wandered down streets we never knew of. Here are some photos I shot last night with our new camera:

I loved how the crack in the sidewalk extended all the way up to the doors:

This one I shot for Kara, who misses beauganvillia:

This was a crazy mosaic on a bench we found:

I love the soft colors and focus of this one:

The light was just gorgeous at this time:

All in all, loving the new camera, though I still need to fine tune the settings. The colors are not coming out as saturated as I would like. You might be thinking, "Uh, are you crazy? Look at photo 1 and 2, Hope!" OK, and I'll let you in on a little secret...I just found out about this tool called Picnik, which is kind of like an online, dummy-proof Photoshop. I don't love the editing capabilities, but their built-in filters are awesome!!! You can add vignetting or make the photo look as if it was shot with a Lomo or Holga. For example, in the beauganvillia image above, I added the "Lomo-ish" filter. Here it is as it came out of the camera:

Same with the image of the doors. I did a bunch of processing on that one...boosted the contrast, saturation, and exposure, then added the vignetting filter. Here's the original:

I'm not too sure if I will use Picnik often with both Photoshop and Aperture at my disposal, but it is a fun and easy way to add effects.

it's burning like a...

2008-05-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

HEAT WAVE!!!

That's right, it's one of those glorious few days in SF where the temperatures actually reach above 70 degrees (actually, a high of 81 degrees yesterday and 88 degrees forecasted for today!!!). Not sure what's going on, but last night produced one of the most beautiful sunsets I remember seeing in SF. Observe:

Click on the photo to view it big...it's worth it. :)

finally, sewing

2008-05-11T17:20:00.001-07:00

Wanna know what I did this weekend? Read it here.

When in Greece...

2008-04-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend K and I met up in New Orleans for a girl trip. In the past year we've only had a chance to see each other at events (ahem, our weddings) so we thought it was time to get away and spend some real QT with each other. Why Nola? Well, the 10th anniversary of V-day was being held there...at the Superdome, no less.

We flew in on Friday and after a quick stop-off at our hotel/condo, we headed out to Port of Call for some burgers and fruity beverages. Here's K in the lobby of our building:

After we were sated, we headed off for a walk around town. We ended up at Jackson Square, where we saw this guy perform:

Scary, huh? Actually Mr. Headstand was just one of four guys, each of whom did flips and spun on their heads on the concrete like it was no big whoop.

That evening we ate at Nola, one of Emeril's restaurants in New Orleans. Normally I wouldn't have been interested, but Eddo said it was good so I gave it a shot. Our take: we liked it but felt it was a little mass produced. Great service, though!

The following morning we got up and had beignets and cafe au laits at Cafe du Monde. YUM!

This was followed by some wickedly good shopping on Chartres Street in the French Quarter and Magazine Street. We got some great deals! And it was really fun to shop with K, as shopping is pretty much a solitary activity for me these days. So it was fun to look at things that I might normally not look at and shop at a different pace than I might on my own...

That evening was the main event, V-day at the Superdome. It was really incredible to be in that enormous space around all those women! Here is a view from our seats before the show started:

We heard readings by Kerry Washington, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Beals, and a particularly heartbreaking piece by Rosario Dawson. I have to say, for a show featuring between one and four women on stage reading, the lighting and effects were incredible! The photos don't do it justice, but here's an idea:

Kerry Washington:

Liz Mikel, she was hilarious:

Jennifer Hudson:

Jane Fonda, she's amazing:

At the end of the show, Eve Ensler has a tradition of asking all women who have been a victim of rape, abuse, or molestation to stand up and break the silence. Kara and I watched as women stood up all around us and a good 85% of the women on the floor (African American women from New Orleans) stand up. It was a really powerful moment and we were both moved to tears.

The next day started with a lazy jazz brunch at the Court of Two Sisters. Here I am eating some crawfish:

We tried to go shopping after that but ended up getting frozen margaritas instead. When in Greece, as they say...

See the rest of our photos from the weekend here

It was a weekend spent eating, shopping, drinking, v-daying, and talking. And talking...in the company of my best gal. What more could I ask for. The weekend went by way too quickly. Ah, K, thanks for the wonderful time spent, I love you and really cherish the memories we made this weekend. Where are we going next year? ;)

i be edumacated

2008-04-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

I just got this in the mail:

This is the most expensive piece of paper I have ever owned.

happy 36th birthday, eddo!

2008-04-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

Ha ha, just kidding, he only turned 26. :) But yeah, my little bro is 26 now! Crazy. It's funny, I expect him to be older, like 28 or so...but when I think back I can still imagine when he wore big glasses and orange shorts and played chess at Halecrest. My how times have changed...

Basically Eddo's 26th bday consisted of several days of activities, kind of like the Olympics only with less torches and more drinking, but just as many Chinese people. We started off with a dinner on Friday night with 30 of his closest friends at PPQ Dungeness Island. Here we are as I try to pry his nose off with a nutcracker and he tries to stab me in the eye with a crab fork. Awww, so sweet:

Note the bibs. Oh please note the bibs.

The crab fiesta was followed up by scorpion bowls at Trad'r Sams. For the first time that I can remember, I didn't scream at his friends to make sure he got home OK. Either he is becoming more responsible (he's not) or I am learning to trust him more (ok, maybe he is becoming more responsible).

Tuesday was Eddo's actual birthday and we headed to The Mint for some karaoke fun. Here's a photo of Mimi, Sarah, and Eddo singing "Zombie" by the Cranberries. They sang this with a full on Irish accent. "...with their tanks and their BOMs and their BOMS and their GONS! Za-am-beh-eh-eh-eh!"

We left before Eddo and I could pay homage to our dad with a duet to Neil Diamond's "Cracklin' Rosie", but not before we saw Maria and Eddo perform "I wanna F* you" by Akon and Snoop. Sorry, but I am having problems posting this video to YouTube. Will update the blog with video as soon as I can! For now here is photographic evidence:

Happy birthday, Eddo! I love you and I am proud of the man you are becoming.

WIWOT*

2008-04-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

Often when I get together with other designers, we'll ask each other what projects we're working on. Right now I'm working on a project that I think even the non-designers will be interested in...I am designing the coffee table book for the new California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park, designed by Renzo Piano (who designed the Pompidou in Paris). The building opens in September of this year and will be directly across from the new de Young museum. It is a dream project and I am so, so, SO excited to be working on it. Since I think the studio signed an NDA or something with the Academy, I can't realy give away any details, but I can repost what has already been revealed on the web. First of all, a model of the building, from bird's-eye view:

And that's pretty much what it looks like from the top. BTW, that's a living roof, made up of over 20 million plants. There was the problem of figuring out how to plant stuff on a sloping surface, so they came up with these trays made of coconut husks and tree sap. Once the plants started to root, the trays were locked together and they will eventually biodegrade. Here's a current view of the roof:

And here is what it looks like from inside the building:

The building is entirely green and energy efficient. Most of the focus right now is on the roof, but the details within the building are quite impressive as well. There are tons more details that I omitting here cuz I don't want to get in trouble. It will definitely be worth visiting when the museum finally opens!

* WIWOT = What I'm Working On Today. I send an email to Cinthia everyday with this subject line, just so we can keep in the loop. She thinks the acronym is hilarious for some reason...

Date Night

2008-03-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

One of J and I's Chinese New Year's resolutions (We were a little late getting started on the resolutions and just decided we would make them CHINESE new year's resolutions so we wouldn't feel so bad being slackers. See, it pays to be Chinese!!!) was to reinstate date night. And we've been pretty good at keeping this resolution! However, after an inspiring conversation with K, we decided that we needed to come up with some dates that didn't revolve entirely around eating and drinking.

A couple of weeks ago, we caught the Olafur Eliasson show at the SFMOMA. WOW! I was very impressed...his work seemed to me all about making us more aware of our environment; in specific, those elements that you don't really pay that much attention to, like the nature of light in a room, or the way the air moves around a space. Our favorite was this piece:

The room was a seamless circle that seemed to glow from the walls, and the color would transition ever so slightly every few minutes. When we walked in, the room was bright white and everyone was chattering away. About two minutes late, the light completely dimmed and all of a sudden everyone became completely quiet. Now that's a successful piece! I love how interactive the show was and I was happy to see the MOMA move towards the contemporary.

A week later, we went and saw the Magnetic Fields (as I mentioned in a previous post), which was a super fun show.

Date night this week involved the opening night the SF International Asian American Film Festival. This was extra fun for me because the Center for Asian American Media is one of Noon's clients and we did all the design for the event, from the trailer to the catalog to the t-shirts to the website. I really like the festival campaign this year, it is very different from Noon's typical super-clean, super-refined look and everyone worked together to make it gel. The concept was "conversations," and Leah did all original illustrations for the campaign. One of the characters is based on me (with long hair)! Here I am holding up the 108-page catalog I designed, the character based on me is the gal with the striped tunic on in the upper right hand corner of the catalog cover:

I also designed the t-shirts and badges, shown on some volunteers here:

The film was "A Thousand years of Good Prayers" by Wayne Wang (director of The Joy Luck Club), and it was a sweet little film about an estranged father and daughter. Wayne was at the opening night gala:

As was henry O, who acted in the film. Here is Do Young getting his autograph. So cute!

Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu was also there, though I don't know who he is. Tomo was quite excited to see him in person, though!

Next week date night just involves dinner plans, but we deserve it! :)

Queen SHRED!

2008-03-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

We spent this weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho, visiting with Jeremy's parents, Laurie and Randy, and their two adorable pups, Aki and Mia. As is typical in the Hermann household, "visiting" means spending all daylight hours outdoors doing some sort of physical activity, and evenings at home lounging with the puppies, eating yummy dinners, and watching movies or reading.

We flew in on Friday and immediately got down to the business of getting our gear (this is another Hermann activity...the acquiring of gear) and headed out for some cross-country skiing:

The next day we went up to Mount Baldy for some downhill skiing. The Hermanns were very sweet and got me a private lesson with an instructor, who worked some serious miracles. Some may know that I have been scarred in the past with bad, bad skiing experiences so he had some physical as well as psychological issues to contend with. At the end of my lesson, though, I felt (for the first time ever on skis) fairly competent. Here's the view from on the ride up. Pretty stunning:

Randy bought me this stylin' jacket as a bday present...maybe he figured that if he can help me make a proper outfit, this skiing thing might just stick in my repertoire. Does he know me or does he know me, people?

Saturday was our "rest" day, meaning we we were ONLY going to go snowshoeing. It was a beautiful day and we actually got quite a workout while we were "resting."

The next day we were back up on Mount Baldy, and I am please to say that I was SHREDDING it! OK, maybe not by most peoples' standards, but definitely by mine! I declared to Randy and Jeremy, "Skiing is fun now!" I think they were pretty happy to hear that. :)

We ended the trip with me taking a walk to shoot some photos while Jeremy, Randy, Aki and Mia went for another cross-country ski. What a beautiful place with beautiful people (and dogs). We love you, Randy, Laurie, Aki, and Mia! Thank you for sharing this time with us!

See the entire Flickr set here

the 411

2008-03-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

Whoa, has it really been a month since my last blog entry? Time goes so fast these days it's getting kind of scary. Here's some of what we've been up to...

Several weeks ago we went up to Tahoe to stay with our friends Susan and Craig (Susan is the one who married us). They recently purchased a beautiful 2-bedroom home in Truckee area and we were delighted to hang out with them, Sacha and Maureen, and Suzy and Jeff. Here's Jeremy enjoying a beverage in their kitchen:

We spent one day downhill skiing at Sugarbowl (sorry no photos--the camera battery was dead), and the next day the boys went back-country snowboarding while the girls did some cross-country skiing (my first time!). Here's photographic evidence (with Maureen's dog Raja in the foreground):

Cross-country skiing is a hilarious sport, especially after getting used to the downhill skis. I have never in my life felt so out of control going so damn slow! Here's a cute thing we saw while on the trail:

The following weekend was Valentine's Day and J and I's 5 year datingversary. We celebrated by eating at Quince. Adam had generously given us a gift certificate there and we loved our meal! The only thing is, if we're ever out to dinner together, please remind me not to get the wine pairing. It's just a little too much for me to handle these days. ;) Here are the gorgeous roses J bought me for V-day:

I also celebrated by chopping off all my hair...don't have any great photos of the new cut yet, but you can get a feel for it in some of the photos below.

This last weekend was my bday and we started celebrating on Wednesday night with a big dinner at one of our faves, Bodega Bistro. Good friends and good food, what could be better?

On Thursday night, we saw a fantastic show at the Herbst Theatre with the Robucy...one of our favorite bands, the Magnetic Fields, were playing as part of the Noise Pop festival. WOW! What an incredible show! Stephen Merritt's voice is even more incredible in real life, and though I've never really loved Susan Anway's voice on their albums, I found her really charming live. While Stephen's voice is all dark chocolate and cigars and bear-skin rugs, Susan's is like that sweet, quiet girl in the back of the class with the heavy bangs and the Trapper Keeper. Beautiful.

On Friday we headed up to Orr Hot Springs for the weekend and spent our days sitting in hot water, reading, and making yummy food. Typically we are one of the youngest couples there, and everyone is making delicious, amazing meals in the kitchen beside us. Well, perhaps because they recently renovated the place to be more modern, there were tons of young people (mostly couples) and they were all eating yogurt and salads as we prepared meals like bacon-wrapped scallops, marinated hangar steaks, egg scramble with mushroom, sausage, and onion atop cheesy polenta. Funny!

We also took a gorgeous hike on Saturday morning in nearby Montgomery Woods. It was a beautiful time of year, as brightly colored green moss was growing over EVERYTHING. We also encountered many, many mushrooms and salamanders. Just gorgeous...

Doesn't this look like a postcard or something?

These don't look poisonous or anything:

OK, just a question, how the heck do salamanders stay alive? They are the slowest things EVER. Talk about an easy meal for some hawk or woodland creature...

And, the requisite "hold-out-the-camera" self-portrait:

So that's what we've been up to these past few weeks. This weekend we head up to Sun Valley to visit with J's parents, where I can put my newfound cross-country skills to use. I promise to update about that trip in a more timely manner. :) 'Til then! XOX

I made my wedding dress

2008-02-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

Yo, I am a bloggin' fool this week! Get me home from work earlier than 9PM and look what I can do! I posted about the process of making my wedding dress at the Stitch Lounge blog here. Check it out!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! (Gung Hai Fat Choy in Cantonese)

2008-02-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hong Bao Na Lai!

Today is Chinese New Year's Eve...which means you gotta clean the house (or at least take out the trash), give or receive hong baos (red envelopes), and eat dumplings. My mom used to make dumplings every year and a few of them got wrapped with a shiny dime inside. Getting a dumpling with a dime meant that you would have good fortune for the rest of the year.

Since blog posts without photos are no fun, here's a photo of Eddo's Halloween costume. He was Chinese Good Luck Fortune Cat. Notice that he spray painted double happiness on his shirt. So chinky!

Good fortune to everyone this year!

New Edition

2008-02-04T19:47:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was back in SD to give a talk to the San Diego Chinese Women's Association, a group that gave me a scholarship back when I was about to go to Berkeley. They invited me back to update them on what I had been up to in the last 14 years (yikes!!!). The speech went really great and everyone was super interested as I told them about Stitch, my graphic design work, my chalkbags, bellydancing...basically anything I had done in the years since high school. Afterwards, a woman who had survived breast cancer came up and told me that I had inspired her to start fitting her own clothes...off-the-rack just doesn't fit her anymore after the mastectomy. It was very sweet!

This trip was very well timed, as Felix and Lily welcomed their second little bundle, Alyssa Kailee Chu, just about a week ago, so I got to see the new baby. She is so pretty! Here are some photos Felix shot:

What a sweetie, huh? Lily is just made to be a mom...she was in labor only 1 hour, no epidural...two pushes and Alyssa was out! Lucky lady!

I also got a chance to visit with Karsten, who was on FIRE! He is growing up to be quite the little man. He showed me his Tickle Me Elmo doll and then proceeded to mimic Elmo as he fell on the floor laughing. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Here he is in action:

I rounded out my SD trip with a visit to Derek, my friend from high school who I haven't seen for about 5 years, and his wife Amy, who is preggers. I can't wait to meet their little one (it's a girl too!).

Chirp Chirp

2008-02-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

The weather has been pretty miserable lately but the other day I looked out the office window to find this little guy singing a song to me. I was quick to the draw and was able to snap a photo of him before he flew away:

J and I both decided that he must have escaped from somewhere because he's too pretty to be a wild bird. Chirp on, little buddy!

In my Eyes and Ears

2008-01-14T22:02:00.000-08:00

This weekend I got an email from K saying that she had started her very own blog (wahoo!). Her page has a section entitled "What I'm listening to", and when I saw that, I thought, "How brilliant!" So I thought I too would share what my eyes and ears have been tuned to recently...

EYES:

The Wire
OK, um WHOA. J and I heard from his friend Nicholas that this show was the bomb. Since we regard Nicholas' opinion highly, we dutifully put the first season on our Netflix. I'll admit, it took a good 6 episodes or so for us to get into it. But once we got there, we were HOOKED. This is seriously some of the best acting and writing on television today. In the past year or so, we've done: Six Feet Under, Weeds, Rome, and Deadwood...i.e., some pretty good TV. The Wire has been by far the show we are most addicted to. It is brilliant. Seriously. I won't lie, though...it can be difficult to get into and follow, but it occurred to me the other day that the reason why The Wire can seem sort of difficult is because the creator/writer expects his audience to be intelligent enough to follow him. And I appreciate that sort of faith in the audience.

OK, also, one of the main characters in the show looks like this:

MEOW! If that's not reason enough to watch, I don't know what is. (BTW, love you, Jeremy!) ;)

EARS:

- Wilco: Blue Sky Blue

You know how there are albums out there that have saved your life? (Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights, I'm looking at you). Well, I haven't listened to Wilco's Blue Sky Blue enough to really know if it is going to do the job, but I'll tell you what, track #3 (Impossible Germany) on repeat might just do the trick. That song is just everything in the world working right together at the same time.

- Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight

Just...HOT. Silver Lining? So dreamy. The Moneymaker? HOT. Under the Blacklight? Just pretty. Love it, love it all.

- Gaucho: Deluxe

I met a friend at a bar the other day for a quick drink and catch-up, and who was coming in to play a show but Gaucho. They describe themselves as a "Django Reinhardt-based gypsy jazz group" (and sure enough, I immediately thought of that cute Woody Allen movie "Sweet and Lowdown" when I heard them start playing).
They are cutest band! I'll admit I may have been swayed by the hard core swing dancers who were dancing their a$$es off in the middle of the bar to Gaucho's music. But you can't help but like their music...I mean, they have an accordion player...who wears corduroys! And a fedora! So cute!

Anyway, let me know what's filling your ears these days...I wanna hear it. :)

Monsoonami!

2008-01-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

Many of you have heard that SF got hit by an enormous storm last week that knocked power out all over the city, uprooted trees, and generally caused mayhem and disaster. The morning of the storm, a bicycle messenger stopped by the office and said that he had to pedal downhill due to the crazy winds (I think they clocked at 50+ mph)?

Jeremy, surfer that he is, was checking the surf report on Saturday AM when he got wind (he he) of the fact that the ocean was going nuts! So we drove down to the beach to check it out. Well, technically, I should just call it the "ocean" because there was no beach to speak of! The waves were going right up to the retaining wall! If you've ever been to Ocean Beach, you know that's a big beach! I am not sure if the pictures are going to do it justice, but the waves were very violent and big...

You can see a little guy on the right side, who was walking his dog (dumb!!!):

Seconds later he had to jump up the hill to avoid the waves...and I was worried that his little dog was going to get swept away (again, WTF was he doing on the beach?!?):

Crazy!!!

And this one, just cuz I like the photo:

FYI, all photos taken with our fancy new lens, which rocks!

forgot to mention...

2008-01-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

...that I've posted all our professional photos shot by Jennifer Kloss Heffner on our Flickr site here, so you can download as your little heart desires!

She took so many amazing photos; the emotions she captured were just incredible. Here are some of our faves...

The couple shots:

This one deserves to be seen very very big:

She made me look really good:

And Jeremy even better!:

I adore this photo of my mom and Jeremy's mom when they first saw each other at the tea ceremony:

And Kim, Jen's assistant photographer and best friend, caught Jeremy's reaction the first time he saw me that day:

Here's my dad losing it (one of many times that day!):

And this one of my momma watching me and my dad come down the aisle just melts my heart:

I loved her unique way of capturing the wedding party:

And this one of Kara helping me into my Chinese dress...oh, the beauty:

What a night, you guys...

See the entire Flickr set here.

XOX!

The Stats

2008-01-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone!!! Sorry I've been a little late on the posts...I have a bunk version of Flickr uploader and had some problems uploading all our photos from the holiday season.

J and I headed down to SoCal this Xmas (as we do every year) to visit with family and friends. We decided on a more circuitous return route in order to break up the drive. We were away from home a total of 7 days and here are the stats:

- 4 cities
- 5 different beds
- 10 dogs
- 3 hikes
- 33 family members
- 6 friends
- at least 5 super delicious dinners

We started off our trip on the Saturday before Xmas, when it took us 12 hours to get down to SD. Y.U.C.K. From there it was a whirlwind of cooking, family, friends, and eating. Here's me and my momma in front of the flowers Laurie sent her:

On Xmas day, it was off to Jeremy's grandparents' beautiful house on the beach in San Clemente, where we finally got to see the puppies again!!! It's been a while and they are really growing up. I took a walk on the beach with Laurie and Grandpa Bob (amazing man...he is 91, I think?) while Jeremy, cousin Frisco, and Randy went for a surf. I almost forgot it was Xmas day...the weather was so gorgeous:

From there we were on to visit with Robert and Lucy in Montecito. Robert had been talking about an amazing seafood restaurant in Santa Barbara called The Hungry Cat. It was gooooooood! We also got to take a little hike in the hills behind Robert's house:

The next day, we were off to Jeremy's Uncle Stan and Aunt Sally's house, where they had hosted 18 people and 7 dogs for dinner the night before! Needless to say, the dogs were in heaven.

That night, we drove to Solvang, where Jeremy's sister Amy lives with her partner Gerry and their two cats (Gustavo and Maizey) and chihuahua Mocha. It was funny seeing the tiny little dog try to figure out whether or not big ol' Aki and Mia (Randy and Laurie's dogs) were a threat. I don't think all 3 dogs ever got off leash in the same room, but given time I am sure they will be the best of friends. :)

The next day, before we took off for home, we took a nice hike in the Santa Barbara hills near Midland (where Jeremy grew up until he was about 8). There were some big, beautiful oak trees on that hike...

Here's the entire Flickr set from our trip here

Getting married this year made us realize just how lucky we are to have such amazing friends and family. While it was tiring to be traveling to so many places in such a short amount of time this Xmas, we really felt lucky to have so many treasured people (and dogs!) to spend time with over the holiday.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We love you. XOX

Napa Valley Crazies Tour

2007-12-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

This year Jeremy and I going down south for the holidays and pulling the whole "xmas eve with one set of parents, xmas day with the other." So we decided to do a little xmas getaway just the two of us, taste some wines, and finally use the gift certificate that Eddo got me for my bday to Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller's lower-rent version of The French Laundry.

We decided to do our tastings up in Calistoga in an attempt to avoid the annoying crowds on Saturdays in the wine country. We made it up to Napa late Saturday afternoon, which was actually quite nice because all the bumblies had already had their fill and gone back to their hotels to sober up before dinner. We chose a few wineries off the main drag for our tastings, and boy were we happy we did!

Our first stop was Frank Family Vineyards, which has two tasting rooms: one for sparkling wine and one for regular wine. We liked the sparkling wine alright there, but the other stuff just wasn't our cup of tea. Our wine jockey at Frank Family was totally crazy.

Me to Jeremy: "Do you think he's drunk?"
Jeremy: "I certainly hope so."

Our next stop was Dutch Henry Winery, which we absolutely loved! Their tastings are in an actual functional barrel room and there are photos of all the winemakers dressed up like they are in the old west.

Everything we tried their was ultra interesting and different. Their tasting notes said stuff like "Hide the women and children and grab some t-bones!" Anniko, our WJ, was totally crazy (are you sensing a theme here?). After she poured us a taste of the Cabernet Franc, she kept saying, "Franc is my good friend. He is always welcome at my house. Do you like Franc? Franc likes you." Yeah, certifiable! We loved her!

Our final destination was Cuvaison, which was located on an absolutely beautiful plot of land:

The wines here were a little more commercial, but still we found a bottle that we liked. Our WJ here was also completely insane, but in a way that we didn't like. They had these ultra tall wine glasses that were kind of ridiculous:

And now, for the main event: our dinner at Ad Hoc. YUM!!! Our first course was a BLT: Butter Lettuce salad with pork belly (it was supposed to have Tomato vinaigrette to put the T in BLT, but instead it came with a buttermilk dressing which was fantabulous).

We had our meal with a 2005 bottle of The OG Grenache by Betts and Scholl. Our waiter, Nessim, who was also completely insane, described it to us as "kind of unusual." Not sure what happened this weekend, but we seemed to be attracting both people and wines by that description. But yo, we absolutely loved that wine.

Our main course consisted of braised short ribs with roasted winter vegetables and mashed potatoes (described by our waiter as being made of "cream, cream, butter, cream, butter, butter, cream, cream, cream, butter, butter, and then some more cream", while he was making karate chops with his hands). Look at how excited I am!

This was followed up by a cheese course and apple pound cake, neither of which we could finish because we were too stuffed. I have to say, the cynical me thought they were taking the "low rent" thing a little too far, but when it comes down to it, they were giving us a 4 course menu with absolutely ginormous proportions for $45. Can't really fault that.

After dinner we went back to the hotel, where I gave Jeremy his new Wii. WHEEEEEE!!! He is sooo excited about it. In fact, he's playing right now as I type these words.

Jeremy: I can't believe you gave me a video game console! I've never had one before because I don't trust myself enough to have one.
Hope: Well, don't make me regret it. ;)

It was a quick, wonderful weekend getaway...check out all our photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157603476419945/

Eye Candy

2007-12-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

Leah, one of the gals I work with at Noon, went to the EG conference and she loved it! Apparently it's kind of like the TED conference, where the greatest minds in the world come together and, uh, confer. Actually, after hearing about all the cool people and awesome stuff she did at the conference, I was kinda jeal that I didn't get to go!

One of the speakers that she told us about was the guy who put together this website: http://www.wefeelfine.org/. Basically, this website searches the entire Interweb for the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling" and records the sentence that this phrase is found in. It them compiles data on the writer of the phrase and organizes that info in a number of ways, all of which look effin' cool!

This is a truly excellent example of gorgeous and well-communicated information design.

Click here to open up the site. I promise you won't be sorry. It's gorgeous!

I heart Erika

2007-12-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

Our favorite Miss Erika is moving back down to LA, so two Melissas and a Hope, heavily aided by the planning talents of Tickled Pink Events, threw her a party she wouldn't soon forget. First of all, the party was a wine tasting event, complete with ballots, dresses (and corsets and tube tops) to mask the wine bottles, and a winning prize for the best bottle:

It also happened to be a wig party, 'cuz you know we like to get our costume on:

For the record, Jeremy's wig was a purple and black punk rock mullet WITH FIBER OPTICS (his hair flashed red at the tips).

And it was a karaoke party...the inflatable instruments that Erika bought for our wedding made a comeback. Apparently I thought it would be really funny to have the giant inflatable microphone in the foreground of every photo, cuz about 2/3 of the 200 photos I took feature this composition:

Good thing I took so many photos, cuz now we'll definitely remember it. ;) Catch the entire Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157603404567316/

We really love you Erika! Though I'm pretty sad to see her move away, I also kinda like that Karl guy, so I guess it's for the best. :)

Karlika, come visit often, please! That goes for all of yous that moved away (ahem, Katrick and the Lichis), and some of you who never lived here (I'm looking at you, Jenny and Dan). :)

XOX, Hope

Gobble Gobble

2007-11-25T12:02:00.000-08:00

Jeremy hates traveling on Thanksgiving weekend and will do anything to avoid it. Thank goodness I married him! I LOVE the city Thanksgiving weekend. It is dead quiet, there is tons of parking, and no one is working so you don't feel guilty neglecting your to-do list.

This Thanksgiving was all about catching up on our housekeeping and dealing with the wreckage of Burning Man and the wedding. It has been a crazy few months! But we also had some time to make some good food, drink some good wine, and do a few social activities.

We started off Wednesday night on the right foot...with a couple glasses of Selim, a sparkling wine from Italy that MR and I tried at A16 (and then, like a good binder girl, she immediately found the following day on the Interweb). And yes, that's the flower arrangement that I made in class with the Melissas! Still standing!

For eatings, we made roasted squash stuffed with lentils, sausage, and kale. YUM!!!

On Thanksgiving day, in lieu of a turkey, we made horseradish and salt encrusted prime rib. Again, YUM!!! We cut up a bunch of veggies (sunchokes, cauliflower, parsnips, celery, carrot, and onion) and placed the meat directly on top of the veggies so they could soak up all the meaty goodness:

We also made some brussels sprouts with bacon, and some brown rice stuffing with pecans and dried cranberries. Here's my plate after it was all said and done:

And here are our happy faces as we prepare for the feast!

But wait, there's more! On Friday night, we went out to dinner with Eddo and Chris. Afterwards we ended up at The Mint, Eddo's favorite dive + karaoke bar. Oh my gaw, it was SO. MUCH. FUN! And actually, everyone there was really good! I kept telling Eddo that I thought we accidentally crashed the annual LGBT Choral Ensemble's Thanksgiving outing. Here's Eddo working "Chop Suey" by System of a Down:

Afterwards, Eddo and Chris and I sang "Waterfalls" by TLC, and then Eddo and I tried to karaoke "The Final Countdown." Turns out there's a lot more words in that song than just "It's the final coutdown! doo doo doo doo". Who knew?!?

Saturday we finally went with tradition and roasted a whole turkey. After our bellies were filled, we went and saw Beowulf in digital 3D. Not the most substantive film making, but it sure was fun to see on the big screen!

What a nice way to spend Thanksgiving...if only there were more 4 day weekends in our lives. :)

Inspiration

2007-11-23T13:36:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love my job as a graphic designer...sometimes as I'm sketching ideas for a new logo or poster, I pinch myself because my job is just. so. COOL! I truly feel like one of the lucky and privileged because my work doesn't feel like work.

But just because I love my job doesn't mean I don't have bad days...sometimes I just don't feel creative, or I am feeling drained, or I don't want to work on a particular project...any number of things can happen which cause me to feel like the inspiration well has dried up. In moments like these, I've learned that it's a good idea to turn to books, magazines, websites...any sort of visual stimulation that will get the ideas flowing. In the past few weeks, I've run across two designers, both women, both extraordinary. Check it out...you won't be sorry.

First off, Tauba Auerbach. I have to warn you that her website is kinda...harsh on the eyes. But click through to her work: http://www.taubaauerbach.com/works.html. Maybe it's because I am a type nerd, but her work is just so lovely to me. Most of it is ink or pencil on paper, and in some way relates to type. I mean, how can you not love this, her study of the letter K:

Or this, which is the entire alphabet, broken down into strokes:

Or this piece, which is composed of 10,000 pieces of cut letters on paper:

I mean, WOW.

Courtney Skott is a furniture designer; she actually went to my school and I first encountered her work when she won the annual Ronald & Anita Wornick award (a scholarship that is awarded to two student furniture designers every year). The following piece is one of those things you just never forget once you see it:

Yeah, that's right...they are little tree stools with zip-up bark jackets. Brilliant!!!

I also really love this piece, her thesis project. It is an alcove bed and the pattern is a pixelated image of clouds.

It is absolutely insane how she made this...you can see a step-by-step of her process on her Flickr set.

Check out some more of her work here: http://courtneyskott.com

Thanks for the inspiration, ladies!

K + P

2007-11-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

I realize that I am massively late on this, but I didn't want to neglect posting about Kara and Patrick's wedding. It happened a few short weeks after we returned from Huatulco, and its proximity to our wedding brought up so many surprising and unexpected feelings. I felt so honored to be by Kara's side during this truly special and meaningful day in her life, especially after meeting all the people who love and care about these two wonderful people. I kept thinking, "Why me? Why am I so special that I get to stand next to these two as they make this incredible commitment to each other?" Seriously, I hear people all the time b*tch and moan about being bridesmaids...being forced to wear ugly dresses with dyed-to-match shoes. These people clearly don't know what it's all about...I would have worn a burlap sack with some potatoes (???) on my feet for these two. I really can't explain the feeling other than to say that I felt so HONORED. I think that really says something about the couple when the "Best Babe" is eternally grateful just for being included!

Kara was such an amazing Mistress of Honor for me that I wanted nothing more than to do the same for her. I wanted to be there to take care of all the loose ends the day of; I wanted to take photos during all the non-photo ops so she would have a memento of the times when the pro photog wasn't there; I wanted to make sure my toast was incredible and memorable. Kara did all these things for me and I felt like I couldn't express my gratitude in words so I tried to do it through my actions.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite images from their wedding:

Kara's wedding gift to Patty was a set of Scrabble tiles...the letters "K" and "P". I took this photo on the bus to HollyHedge:

It's hard for me to pick which of the next 2 photos Kara looks prettier in:

Once I gave my toast, I was free to catch up with the other Party Poodles and shake my ass on the dance floor with my man:

The bride, having said her vows, also felt free to work the dance floor like she owned it (and she did):

The next day, our flight left late so we had the time to take a nice, leisurely walk along the towpath, where we took this photo:

See my entire Flickr set of photos from that weekend here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157603065974879/

I love you, Kara and Patty. May you always rock on with your cocks out.

Luna de Miel (Moon of Honey)

2007-10-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

When I was in Oaxaca, Mariana (our TA), mentioned that she and her family stayed at the Quinta Real in Huatulco, Mexico, and she recommended that we go there on our honeymoon. At that point, Jeremy and I were thinking about going to the Galapagos or Greece, but we cut the Galapagos once we heard that it's not very romantic...in fact, we would have to stay on a boat (in bunk beds, no less) for several days with a bunch of strangers in order to see what the islands had to offer. It sounds great, but maybe not so much for a honeymoon. And, I talked Jeremy out of Greece...actually I am DYING to go to Greece, but not for a short trip like 1.5 weeks...some of you will recall that when we went to France for Brad and Jacqueline's wedding, I cried the whole 6 hour flight home from NYC. We had been traveling for 30 hours by that point and my seat was broken and didn't recline. I just couldn't sleep all hunched over like that, even though I was exhausted and was desperate for some relief. I think that was the trip we decided that we were never again going to go for the cheaper ticket that had layovers and connections. It took us 36 hours to get to the south of France (where Brad and Jacqueline were getting married), and just about the same to get home, and again, I CRIED the whole way home...just miserable.

Anyway, on to happier thoughts. HUATULCO! I posted our entire Flickr set here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157602425714917/

We have been thinking about getting a new camera, and we settled on the Nikon D40X. J was trying to decide between the Nikon and the Canon Rebel EOS series but ultimately decided on the Nikon for its interface. Whatever, I was just happy to have a nice camera! I am still trying to figure out how to manipulate it...I finally figured out how to take nice photos on the Powershot, but I still need some more time with the new duds. Anyway, here's what we were able to manage...

We had a really ugly flight in...we left SFO at 11:30PM, flew to Mexico City (a 4 hour flight) and had a 5 hour layover until our flight to Huatulco). But one we got there, this is what we saw from the plane:

When you get to the hotel, the "doorman" (I put this in quotes because there are no doors) greets you with two towels soaked in ice water so you can wipe your face, and two little teacups full of some house-made ice cream (made from local fruit). Now that's what I call service!!!

This is what our (first) hotel room looked like:

And here's what the pool looked like:

When you're standing on the pool deck, you can see the beach...

J wasn't sleeping well in the first room because the mattress was kinda saggy and soft, so he complained at the front desk. Since they couldn't get us a new mattress before we left, they decided to upgrade us to a nicer room. Eff yeah!!!

This is our second room:

And here is the view from our deck:

Yeah, it was really too much. So pretty there!!! We spent most of our days reading (2.5 books for Jeremy and 1 for me, plus every single New Yorker we had, cover to cover), relaxing by the beach or pool (J said he now knows he can lay on the beach for 10 days with nothing to do--I could have told him that!), and eating (though getting here was pretty cheap, eating in Huatulco can rival SF prices). We also went diving one day (our first dive was preceded dramatically by me having an asthma attack) and snorkeling for 2 days. Our favorite beach was San Augustin, which had an abosultely AMAZING coral reef system) much of it was in bad condition, but WOW! the fish were in great abundance. Here are some photos from that beach...some taken from under Charly's palapa:

There were soooo many fish under the water at San Augustin...as well as eagle rays. These creatures were truly beautiful and very curious about us weird humans. Here is a photo I took of them from shore. They were huge!!! In the background of this photo is this crazy guy we met from Slovakia named Jan.

It was a really wonderful trip, and perfect for our honeymoon, as we had to work our A's off both before and after the 'moon. In closing, I leave you with two more photos on things we got really comfortable with in Huatulco...

J really loved the whole fried fish they served up there...

And I really got to know the in-pool chaise lounges...

Mah-wage

2007-10-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

So, I went and got myself married. Yeah, I can't believe it either! Actually, it's not really that different than "living together" life, other than the fact that we get to wear some new rings, we spent a few weeks working our a$$es off planning this huge event, and we got to take a nice vacation. I think it was a bigger deal for Jeremy to change his email "from" name than to actually get married. :) Speaking of which, we haven't legally changed our names yet but I think we're going with "Menghermann" rather than "Meng Hermann", since everyone seems to be into that version of the spelling and most people are already using it. Plus, it's funny. :)

OK, so first off all, we had a fairly non-traditional wedding as far as weddings go (I think, it's really hard for me to tell at this point since I'm still too close to it) and to pull it off we had A LOT of support from our family and friends. I don't really want to get into some sort of Oscar speech here and have the powers that be start to cue the music before I'm ready to get off the stage, but to my momma and my auntie Ann and Vanessa, THANK YOU. Actually, I can't really say "thank you" enough...I could say it a million more times and still feel as though I am short-changing your efforts. It was a beautiful day and I don't think I (we, actually) could have imagined a more perfect experience.

Alrighty, less words, more pictures. :) Here are Brad's...he came in first (quality over quantity here, people):

Click here for Brad's Photo Set on Flickr

And for a more comprehensive set, by my cousin Felix, click here (click on Galleries [on the right hand side of the page] > Weddings > Hope and Jeremy). Felix is starting a photography business. He took some beautiful shots, though many of them are "unprocessed" right now and I think he is embarrassed to show them in this state. But honestly, if we think they are great right now, then how awesome are they going to be when he get around to running them through Photoshop?!! :) Here are some of my faves:

I'll update as more photos roll in...and stay tuned for our photos from the honeymoon in Huatulco!

So like I was saying...

2007-09-06T21:41:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry guys, I suck! Sort of dropped the ball and left you all hanging, huh? Well, it's just that I've been kind of busy with this and that. But I promise to be back real soon...with posts on all kinds of fun stuff, including but not limited to:

1. Burning Man!
2. My wedding dress (which I was crazy enough to try to make!)
3. Our honeymoon!

For those in the know, we'll be heading to Huatulco, a beach town in Oaxaca state. That's right, going back to Oaxaca! Only this time, we'll be staying here, instead of in atiny room with two other people:

Eff YEAH! I can't wait, people!

Serious Doubt

2007-08-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone pretty much spent Sunday recuperating from the previous night's activities, but I decided I wanted to go to the market in Tlacolula since it would be my last chance to check it out. The market in Tlacolula only happens on Sundays and the class had gone the week before, but I stayed at home to rest. The cool thing about the market here is that all the local vendors and shoppers come to the market dressed in their wonderfully colorful local dress. Most of the women wear a dress with an embroidered apron over it, ribbons braided into their long hair, and silk scarves. It's quite beautiful.

The nice thing about Tlacolula is that it is a little smaller than Abastos (which I visited the previous Saturday) and therefore more manageable. Plus there are a lot more artisans selling here, so you can get rugs, embroidered tops, pottery, etc. in addition to veggies, bread, and other household items.

We got back to the house pretty late in the afternoon and rested up to prepare for the writing class later that evening. After class, Raul wanted to have a quick meeting with Team Leather, as we were heading out to San Dionisio Ocotepec the following day and he wanted to make sure we were prepared.

First of all, a little bit of history...Don German and Dona Clara have 5 daughters and 1 son. One of their daughters is named Sarahi, and she is involved with the program, as an assistant (she lives at the house and all). Last year, Sarahi and one of the other daughters worked with the class as artisans. This year, we are working primarily with Don German. Raul is very involved with this family and he cares deeply for them, and as I mentioned before, they are at a serious turning point financially. Apparently Don German is always flip flopping on whether or not he will go to the States. Adding to this somewhat complicated situation is the fact that Don German is a very difficult man. There are many different issues at play here...first, the leather group is composed of four women (me, Katy, Adrien, and Lindsey), and this is a man surrounded by a family of women, and pretty strong women at that. It seems sometimes that he is just trying to keep his head above water and maintain his power as head of the household. Every time he comes to our house, he is dying to talk to any of the boys--Raul, Tomo, Josh. Secondly, he is a pretty proud man, and it seems that he is always testing us, making us prove ourselves. I think he was pretty disappointed in our performance the first day we worked together (when we all made huaraches)...like he expected us to be perfect cobblers our first time. Don German is a man who makes you earn his respect...the hard way. Finally, he, unlike his daughter Sarahi, is less comfortable with experimentation and the process we are advocating...I think he finds it all very weird and has a harder time making the leap from a form experiment to product.

So, you can see this is kind of a hairy situation...on top of the design challenges, we also have a lot of interpersonal challenges to work with. Raul had a short meeting with us to make sure everything went smoothly with Don German this week.

The aim of the class is arrive at a mutual understanding of each others' processes: the artisans share with us their mastery of a certain craft, and we share with them our design process (which involves experimentation, prototypes, etc.--things that are completely foreign to them). This is to result in a hybrid process wherein we collaborate on new designs together. Well, as you can see in one of my previous posts, I created a bag and a shoe. Apparently I wasn't supposed to do that...instead of making a bag, I should have just cut slits into a piece of leather and taken it to Don German and asked, "What should this be?" I've found that often, communication of the class objectives and processes are not very clear, and I did not realize that what I did (i.e., create a finished product) was not ideal. Raul pointed out that the last thing we wanted to do was to go to the artisan and say, "I designed this, now you make it." I was kind of freaking out a bit that I had messed things up in terms of the collaboration, but I was able to calm myself down a bit by realizing that: 1. Raul freaks out for no reason all the time (really, he's pretty dramatic), and 2. We had a pretty wide range of stuff in the group, from finished products to form experimentations, so there was still room for collaboration with Don German. In any case, the discussion on Sunday night left me pretty nervous about the meeting the following day.

We headed out to San Dionsio Ocotepec the following day (Monday) with Mariana (the class TA) as translator. I think we were all on edge a bit from the previous night's discussion, but we agreed amongst the four of us in the car that it was OK that we had a few finished products because Don German is a man that wants to be impressed (remember the whole earning his trust thing?) and also because he has a harder time looking at the result of an experiment and being able to see where we might be able to push it. For these reasons, we decided it would be a good idea for me to present my stuff first. I had woken up that morning feeling kind of weird (I would find out later I had an amoeba) and I was really nervous presenting my shoe and my bag to him.

Well, I am happy to say that he was ecstatic with our designs. He kept asking if all of this had come out of my brain, and saying that our heads should be smoking because we were on fire. SCHWOO. He wanted to start making stuff right away, but we kept telling him that we weren't ready for that--we still wanted him to take our ideas and see where he could take the concepts. He was pretty reluctant to do any experimentation--he just wanted to start making stuff, but we felt it was important if we were going to try to collaborate. We spent the rest of the day explaining our concepts and showing him how we had made everything, and we decided to leave his house early so he could spend the rest of the day experimenting with our ideas (plus, I was feeling pretty sick by that point so I wanted to head home).

Looking back on this day, I think this is the point when everything changed...we had earned his respect and he was finally ready and willing to do all the silly exercises and experimentations that we were advocating. It was a great day. :)

Poetic Moments

2007-08-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of updates...I will definitely be posting about my last week in Oaxaca (cuz it's too good not to write about!) but my computer has been back at Apple getting serviced so I've been a little debilitated since coming back to the States. In the meantime, amuse yourself with Tomo's photo set of our Poetic Moments (click on the photo below for the full set):

HA!!!

Tomo's Oaxaca Photos & Video

2007-08-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

Tomo has done it again...here are is is Flickr photo set from Oaxaca. If you look closely you can catch all of our "Poetic Moments."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackitbaby/sets/72157601261710006/

Also, here's his personal project "Back to Oaxaca," which I filmed!:

HOME

2007-08-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yay! I made it home! Four of us in the class booked the same flight back from Oaxaca and we had to SPRINT to catch our connecting flight in the biggest airport in the world (Mexico City). Luckily, the flight was delayed, but even still, we barely made it. There was no way I was going to spend the night in DF! The bad news is that they lost my bags and my computer is messed up, but I sure am happy to have spent the night in my own bed. :) Here are a couple of other things I am really grateful for (in no particular order):

- Brushing my teeth with water that comes out of the sink.
- Throwing toilet paper in the toilet.
- Actually understanding (fully) what people are saying to me, rather than having to figure out what they mean from the 3 words I understand in the sentence.
- Seeing my man.
- Seeing my kitties.

I'll be posting this week to update you all on the last week of activities in Oaxaca, so stay tuned. It was an amazing, difficult, beautiful, challenging experience and even though I was probably crazy to do it so soon to our wedding, I am a better person for it. :)

Personal Work

2007-08-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

I've finished my personal work, letterforms that I found in the covered up graffiti in Oaxaca. Some of the local students that are working with our class said they really liked my piece, because (intentionally or unintentionally), there is a political component to it (most of the graffiti is political in nature, and therefore covered up by the powers that be).

I also wanted to share Tomo's personal work. There is a little boy who plays the accordion (and begs for money) right in front of Santo Domingo church, in the same place every day. In the middle of the night, Tomo went out and did this tape painting on the wall, right where the boy sits. That's right...he put up long strips of masking tape and cut the image out, then peeled it off. Everyone has been walking by taking pictures of it and I think the little boy has made out like a bandit. :)

Daily Life Part II

2007-08-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

Mayates

Mayates are enormous beetles that live underground, eat shit, and come out from under the ground to die. They are EVERYWHERE in Oaxaca and they are huge. I took the photo above for scale...you can see they are about the size of your big toe. It's kind of sad and poetic that they only see the light of day when the are going to die, and finding them everywhere is kind of a daily reminder of the cycle of life.

Taxis

Taxis in Oaxaca are kind of weird...there are taxis that drive you to places withing the city limits, and then other taxis that take you from city to city, so if you want to leave town, you have to take a taxi to the taxi stand so you can get in another taxi. None of the taxis have meters...usually you just hop in and the guy tells you how much you owe him at the end of the ride . Typically it's about 30 pesos in town, so split amongst several people it is really cheap. The taxis that take you from city to city are sold by the seat, so you pay about 20 pesos for your seat and they cram a bunch of people in there to make the drive worth it. It's best to get in the back because they sit 3 people in the back and 3 people (including the driver) in the front and if you are the person caught in the middle of the front seat, it's a tight squeeze. I had a man pretty much crawl on my lap on the way back from the market in Tlacolula. Also, the taxis drive really, really fast and there are no seat belts. Lindsey, one of the gals in our leather group, is usually very tense on the ride home from San Dionisio Ocotepec.

Dogs on the Roof

In Oaxaca, nobody walks their dog. Instead, dogs are kept on the roof to "protect" the house (i.e., bark at you). They are usually very mean, and that was the case with these two guys above. It's kind of interesting when you take Walter (Raul's dog) for a walk, as people are very afraid of him, and they think he is kept on a leash because he is dangerous. Also, everyone thinks Walter is very fat. If you've ever traveled in Central or South America, you know that the dogs are pretty much emaciated down here, so a healthy dog like Walter looks like a fatty. I always wonder if the Oaxacan dogs look at Walter and think, "fat, rich American dog!"

Sabado Sabado Sabado

2007-08-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday was my one and only TRUE day completely off, and had a blast. It was one of those wonderful days that makes you so happy to be alive and interested in the world around you.

Raul had arranged for an optional tour of Santo Domingo church (by the man that restored it) that morning, and though it sounded interesting, there was no way I was going. I needed a REAL day off to recharge (and rest up for the night's festivities...more on that later).

I started off the day by heading to yoga...I've been to a few classes and they have always been pretty interesting. As if doing yoga in Spanish weren't interesting enough, it's, um, different here. In the first class I went to, after we om'ed, we had to sing. For a long time. I kept wondering when the singing was going to end, then realizing that thinking that wasn't very zen, and then finding myself wondering again when the singing was going to end because it had been going on for a really long time. Also, about half way through the class, the instructor makes us do these weird lion's roar/freaky/barbaric yawp sounds. It's very strange and it's all that Adrien, Katy and I can do to keep from cracking up.

I followed up yoga with a trip to the organic market for some breakfast. I met Tomo there and we ate and agreed to work on our personal projects together later that day. As part of the class, Raul is asking us to do personal work, something that makes you interact with the city, or involves your response to this place.

Something I really love about Oaxaca is all the colorful walls and the street art. But what really makes this place special and endearing is how people paint over the graffiti and street art with any random color paint they find. This would never happen in the United States...people always try to match the original color of the wall, almost erasing the act of vandalism, trying to pretend as if it never happened. In Oaxaca, they will paint over a yellow building with some green paint. There's something really charming and honest about that, like they are honoring experience, or the past. For my personal project, I walked around the city photographing these walls and finding typographical forms in them. Ultimately, I am making a typeface out of my images. Here's what I have so far (I am missing several letters still, like G and Z):

I am naming the typeface Fantasmas (ghosts). The extra bonus to this project is that I got to walk around the city, on streets and blocks I hadn't traveled yet, seeing things that weren't on the "main drag" in Oaxaca.

I also helped Tomo with his personal project. He had me videotape him as he was walking backwards through the city. Afterwards, he reversed the tape. it turned out SUPER cool. I'll post it at some point if he ever gets it on YouTube or something. We got a lot of strange stares from people on the street.

After walking through the city, I was pretty sweaty, so I went over to the hotel to go swimming. It was nice to cool off for a bit and relax in the sun, and that's pretty much how I spent the rest of my afternoon...resting up for the evening's festivities.

As I mentioned in some previous posts, the Oaxaca class is like a big happy family. There are tons of people who live in Oaxaca who just sort of orbit around the program. Well, two of these people are Luisa, an artist from Colombia (I posted a picture of her glass piece--the one I saw at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City), and Gustavo, this guy who owns a small boutique/gallery in Oaxaca that carries some really interesting pieces (usually they are an intersection of design and local artisanry...right up our alley!). Anyway, Gustavo just moved his store to a new location, so he had a grand opening party at the new location. We hung out there, drinking mezcal for about 2 hours, then it was on to a show honoring Colombian artists (where Lusia was showing). They were playing Colombian music at the party and it was super fun! We were all dancing and drinking and just having an excellent time.

OK, the next thing we did...might just rank up there with Lucha Libre as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In the south of the Oaxacan state, some small villages throw a huge ball (I believe in conjunction with the guelaguetza, though I could be wrong about that) called a vela. They elect a queen, and that queen has attendants, etc. Everyone dresses up in their traditional garments and it's a huge deal. Well, in Oaxaca, the most progressive and gay-friendly states in the country of Mexico, this custom also gets practiced. With drag queens. And they are FABULOUS!!!

Here is this year's queen, right after she got crowned:

And here is last year's queen:

Here I am with the queen from two years ago (center), and her partner:

One really funny thing about the vela is that with your entry fee of 150 pesos, you also get a case of beer. Here is Luisa and her friend, carrying in their cases of beer:

The dresses and hairpieces are just gorgeous:

It was a BLAST. We danced all night to traditional Mexican music, drinking beers and getting hit on by both men and women alike. What can I say? WOW.

Los prototipos

2007-07-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

Thursday and Friday of last week were spent at the house, taking our form experimentations from Monday and Tuesday and either pushing them further or turning them into products that the artisans could produce. We got a very late start on Thursday, as we were waiting for someone to show us where we could purchase some vinyl/fake leather in order to make our prototypes. And, as I've come to learn here in Mexico, if you think something is going to take about 3 hours, it will actually take 6. If you think someone will show up at noon, they'll actually be there around 2PM. We really have very little control over our schedules, and in some ways, that's a good thing for me. I've found that I can be a lot more wishy washy here (and without guilt!)...in the States, if I commit to doing something, I will do it, even if I don't want to anymore. Here, I can say I'm going to go to yoga at 6PM, or to the market at 2PM, or maybe I'll meet someone at the club at 2AM, and I can just flake on all of it without a worry. Maybe that's the nature of traveling, or maybe it's just Mexico, but either way, it's a huge pressure off my back, and I'm enjoying the freedom because I know I won't be able to behave the same way once I get back to the States.

In any case, a little bit of background about our project. As I've said in some previous posts, our artisans are very poor and the head of the clan, Don German, is staring down a lot of pressure to migrate to "el otro lado"--"the other side", i.e., the US, in order to make money in order to feed his family. Huaraches are not as popular with the locals anymore, and tourists don't like them either. In addition, the materials cost a lot. So, here's a peek into the mind of a designer: the first question I ask is, "What are my constraints?" As I see it, we have a several:

1. Create a product that can be sold to tourists or at galleries for a good sum of money. This actually creates a number of other constraints:

Create something that is beautifully designed (of course). :)

Create something that has beautiful craftsmanship. This one is a little more difficult, as the artisans are supposed to make the final product, not us. And quite honestly, Don German and Dona Clara do not yet have the sensitivity towards craft that is necessary to sell, for instance, a purse for US$100.
2. The product must maximize use of materials and minimize waste.
3. The product must be remain true to the nature of the materials. In other words, there should be a reason we are using leather to make the product. Leather has certain properties that other materials do not. We should be exploiting these properties to their maximum effect.
4. This one is not really a constraint, but it is in the back of my mind: build upon the legacy of the artisan's product in some way. In other words, if they make shoes, we don't want to design houses for them to make.

With these constraints in mind, I created the following:

Handbag at rest:

Handbag when there is weight placed inside the bag. The exterior of the bag (which is shown in vinyl but will be made out of leather) is cut with several rows of small slits. The interior of bag is longer than the leather portion of the bag, so when weight is placed inside, the exterior leather portion will stretch to expose the contrasting lining:

Personally, I think the bag meets most of the constraints I listed above. It is interesting both from an aesthetic and functional aspect. It uses less leather than you would need for a bag of that size (due to the stretch), and it stays true to the materials (leather will maintain it's shape even when sliced; no other material would work quite as well as the leather with this design). The only thing I am worried about is that the construction is somewhat tricky, so I might need to make some changes if Dona Clara and Don German are to produce this design.

I used the scrap pieces from the bag to make a pair of earrings (sorry, no photo), so there really was very little waste in this design.

On Friday morning, I took a break from working to go run some errands. I was itching to get out and we needed some more supplies anyway. On my walk, I saw some shoes out of the corner of my eye and thought about them the rest of the way home. They inspired me to make these:

I don't know why, but I love them! I can't wait to get home and make a pair for myself. :)

Another experiment I did...I'm not quite sure yet what this will be:

And, an experiment that Adrien did. We think it might be a lamp:

Day Off

2007-07-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday, we were finally given a day off (and by day off, I mean "there are still activities going on but it is optional to attend"). Since I had ducked out of the Sunday market trip, I decided I had it in me to take part in the optional activities, which involved touring the town of Etla, and boy am I glad I went.

We started our day in Etla by touring a paper workshop, where they make handmade artisanal papers. The workshop was up on a hill in Etla, and the view was absolutely stunning. I shot the photo above from the outdoor deck where they were airbrushing stencil designs by Francisco Toledo (the most famous living Oaxacan artist) on kites made of handmade paper. Not too shabby, huh? The workshop only uses natural fibers for their papers. Here is our cute tour guide showing us all the fibers they use:

He demonstrated how they make a sheet of paper for us. This is the "chop"/watermark that gets printed into their papers:

After the tour, you can browse through their gift shop. And, as you can imagine, a bunch of art students in a handmade paper store is like a bunch of kids in a candy shop. Plus, they make jewelry out of their papers! Super interesting and creative:

Yes, those are just rolled up papers strung up as bracelets and necklaces! They also had earrings.

After the paper workshop, we walked around the art school in Etla, whcih was just stunning. It used to a be a textiles factory and it was converted to an art school. WOW. The place was amazing. I would love to take classes there!

We had lunch at a cute restaurant in town and headed over to a glass factory, where they make ear plugs like these:

The owner of the place, Jason, was from the States. He was super nice and gave us a pretty extensive tour of the facilities. We learned a lot about glass and its production. Jason is really great to his employees, training them and giving them pretty extensive benefits.

We walked from Jason's workshop to another glass studio run by another American, except this time, the studio specializes in using recycled glass. Apparently glass blowers don't like to use recycled glass because it can be difficult to work with. Xa Quixe (the name of the studio) has perfected a technique and formula for working with recycled glass, and the studio was also very green compared to many other studios in the states, capturing heat from their furnaces for the kiln and other small refinements that reduced their energy use to approximately 40% of the usage of an equally sized studio.

One of several ginormous piles of used glass:

That gets turned into these, artisinal mezcal bottles. The top row is populated by their "warped" bottles, which are also very popular.

We also got to see one of the employees blowing glass, a really fascinating process:

I had been waffling back and forth about going to Etla because I sort of wanted a day to myself, but in the end I was glad I had the chance to check out this beautiful town and meet a couple of really interesting artists doing fabulous things for their adopted country.

Mis Amigas las Amoebas

2007-07-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

Alrighty folks, it has finally happened. I have amoebas. I thought I was going to make it, too! Oh well. :P

The doctor prescribed some pills for me and I came home early today from Don German's house to recuperate. So, stay tuned for a bunch of updates (finally), as I'll be resting at home tonight.

Exploracion

2007-07-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

So far my posts have been about all the different places and activities we have been doing, and not so much about the nature of the class. I suppose that's because the first week, while dense with activities, is not as academically heavy as the following two weeks. The structure of the class is as follows:

1st week: Meeting and choosing the artisan groups
2nd week: Concepting and collaboration
3rd Week: Production and preparation for our show

We started off our second week in Oaxaca by inviting the artisans to our house to play around with materials and brainstorm new designs. For those of you who wonder what exactly it is we do in art school, pay attention here. Randy (J's Dad) is always asking me how it is that people in creative fields stay fresh and generate new ideas on command. Well, I definitely run into walls and feel lethargic at work from time to time, but exercises like the ones we did on Monday and Tuesday with our artisans (which may seem like a colossal waste of time) do help generate inspiration and reroute my usual creative process.

I should probably mention that the artisans NEVER do anything like what we did on Monday and Tuesday (and, I promise, I'll get to explaining what we did in a minute here). They see their trade as work, not as play. Huaraches, woven palm baskets, candles, fireworks, and red clay are a way to feed their families, not art. In particular, Don German and Dona Clara and the palm weavers are living just a bit above the poverty level. I think candles and fireworks are a little more stable financially, but not rich by any means. The one exception is the red clay lady, who is pretty well off. But even she got a lot out of the exercises because we started at a very basic level, just playing with materials without any preconceived notion of right or wrong. This is very much the opposite of what they do. Before she begins working, she thinks, "I will make a cup." She never thinks, "I have no idea what this piece will look like. I will just start doing it." Which is exactly what we did.

When we met downstairs on Monday morning, we were greeted by a table full of raw materials that we purchased at the Abastos market on Saturday: foam blocks, straws, banana leaves, wool sponges, loofahs, etc. We were told to choose one material that we wanted to play with. I chose plastic straws (along with Dona Clara and Dina). Once we got settled in our material groups, we were told that we would be doing a series of 5 minute exercises. The intention of these exercises was the see how far we could push the limitations of our materials. For example, in the first exercise, we could do anything we wanted to our materials as long as we were subtracting from the form: burning, cutting, stretching, whatever. The point was to see how far we could push the material before it started to change in nature. At what point does a straw lose its "straw-ness"? Here is an experiment I did early on in the day. I like how the straw ceases to look like a manufactured material and starts to take on properties found in nature. It kind of remind me a little of an agave plant:

I know all of this sounds a little crazy to people who don't go to art school, but we do this kind of thing all the time. Not only does it allow you to understand your material fully, but this kind of intellectual engagement is precisely what keeps you interested in the project. Well, it's what keeps me interested, anyway.

After we subtracted from the material, we were allowed to add back in with the pieces we subtracted. Next we were to add in other materials; and then to interact with fixed objects, like the table, or a tree, or the wall. Again, I know this all sounds very weird. Here is one of the pieces I really liked. I love the contrast of safe (the foam) and dangerous (the nails and staples). I also like how the addition of the extra materials really brings out the spongy properties of the foam:

Finally, we were told to take 5 minutes to walk out on the street, in the back yard, or in the house, and find an object that interested us: a leaf, a flower, a pine cone, whatever. The point was to stop us from thinking of the material for a minute and look to nature or our environment for inspiration. When we returned from our object gathering, we were instructed to use whatever material we wanted to capture the poetic qualities of the object we chose. We were not to recreate the object, but for instance, if we the object we chose was a flower, what did we like about the flower? the way it opened? the way its petals curled? And how could we transfer that concept into our material? The artisans had a very difficult time with this assignment and most of them just recreated the object in another material. Here is a good example of this concept. See the little nubs on the leaves? These get translated into foam and string:

The following day, we did some similar exercises with our actual materials, but this time working in our artisan groups. Basically, the point was to explore the material and see what kind of shapes and forms we could come up with that were interesting. At the end of the day, we had a critique of our work to see what sorts of things we could make out of our explorations if we changed the scale, or twisted it, or folded it, etc. Some really interesting things came out of that experimentation. The experience of working with Don German was somewhat difficult. In addition to the language barriers, we felt that he was being very stubborn and making the same shape over and over again (the same shape from last year's collaboration--one which we did not find successful). But, when we critiqued with Raul, he seemed pretty pleased with all the forms that we made. Problem solved. :)

Our First Weekend in Oaxaca

2007-07-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

I was really looking forward to the end of our first week in Oaxaca, as it was packed with activities and utterly exhausting. I needed some serious downtime! Well, it turns out that weekends are not off limits from this class, and we had activities planned for both Saturday and Sunday.

We started off on Saturday by heading over to the organic market, which is only a few blocks away from the house. As I mentioned in my previous post, the organic market is the one place we can feel safe eating any of the food. So, I kind of went to town. :) I started off with a delicious horchata drink with berries and walnuts. YUM. Let me say it again, YUM. Wow, I am in love with this drink:

I followed that up with a tortilla wrapped around this egg thingy with chiles. Yummy and spicy. Of course, I couldn't just stop there...I had to go and get chicken mole enchiladas. I was pretty stuffed at that point, though, and could only finish one of them. I am deifnitely going back to this market this Friday and Saturday.

Our big class outing for the day was to Abastos market, which is an absolutely enormous outdoor market about a 20 minute walk away from the house. Seriously, you could probably get lost in there and not find your way out for several hours. Five of us (Adrien, Katy, Tomo, Josh and I) decided we were going to walk there rather than drive with Raul (Raul thinks everything is too far to walk and insists of driving everywhere). Anyway, we headed out to the market, and as soon as we got there, the Torrential Downpour started (see my previous post). Wow, I haven't seen rain that hard in I don't know how long. All the vendors were covering things up, throwing tarps over other tarps, setting buckets in the middle of the sidewalk, sweeping water towards the drains...clearly they were pros at this sort of situation.

It was a crazy situation in a crazy place (really fun, though!). There are tons of vendors selling all kinds of stuff. I mean, there is an egg vendor:

A yarn vendor:

A chile vendor:

A candle vendor:

I think you get the picture. :)

We were pretty exhausted when we finally got home, and unfortunately, we were out of gas for our water heater, so we went over to the hotel to shower. I hung out and watched a movie with Tomo and josh as Katie showered, and decided to head back to the house after a couple of minutes. I walked out of the hotel and there were about 15 tour buses lined down the street, with music and fireworks going off. It was the guelaguetza parade!

I hurried back to the hotel to grab everyone to tell them they HAD to come out with me to the parade. Each different ethnic group in the Oaxacan state dressed up in their traditional garb and danced, played music, set off fireworks, and handed out mezcal shots. Literally, within the block we walked, we had taken about 4 mezcal shots each. :) Here are some photos I took...the one immediately following is my favorite photo I've taken so far in Oaxaca:

After the parade, we headed over to the mezcal fair (it is going on right now for about 10 days) with Eberth and Leo to try out some mezcal. Overall, I don't remember trying any fantastic mezcals, but I can tell you that I didn't like the mezcal con crema (kind of like Bailey's but with mezcal--why?!?). Tomo was brave enough to try a mezcal con gusano (with worm), and I was able to document this moment in the following (very funny!) series:

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We ended the night be heading over the El Central, basically the only cool club in Oaxaca, where we danced until 3AM (and I had to fight off a bunch of hopeful latin lovers by telling them I was married). :)

The next day (Sunday), the class was scheduled to go to the market at Tlacolula, where all the different Oaxacan ethnic groups dress up in their traditional garb to vend. Unfortunately, I was a bit hung over from the previous night's festivities and opted to bow out. I stayed in bed all day recovering, and ended the weekend with writing class and movie night. We watched Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It was hilarious! Seriously, if you get the chance, watch this movie...the cheese level is VERY high.

All in all, a great week in Oaxaca... :)

Daily Life Part I

2007-07-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

I realized today that I've spent so much time recapping all of our different activities that I never had a chance to talk about some of the daily quirks of life here in Oaxaca. I love traveling because it makes you see things with new eyes and notice the tiniest little differences from life at home. So, here we go...

Topes

Topes or reductores are basically speed bumps. Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, and sometimes they are just a series of small round object all in a line. The difference is that they are not painted, just marked with a sign off the side of the road (and sometimes not marked at all!), so you can't really see them coming. When we are sitting in the back of the Tanque de Guerra, you basically fly about a foot into the air. It's not that pleasant.

Torrential Downpours

So, I guess this is the rainy season in Oaxaca, because every morning when we wake up, the sky is blue and beautiful. then, around 4PM or so, we get torrential downpours. I'm talking serious rain here. Plus, the drainage in Mexico is really bad, so there are huge lakes in the street after it starts raining and for several hours afterwards. The photo above was taken literally about 2 minutes after it started raining. No joke, that's how hard it comes down.

Limited Water
Despite the rain, the state of Oaxaca actually has very little water in general, much less potable water. The house we live in is supposed to get water three times a week from the city, but last week they only delivered it once. There are rumors that the government is in cahoots with the water company; if you use more water than what is delivered, you have to buy it from the water company. So, the rumor is that the city fails to provide the water, so you have to buy more, and the water company will provide a kickback to the city.

Anyway, we've already run out of water once, due to a running toilet. That means we weren't able to use the toilets, showers, nothing. Kind of sucked. We got water delivered the next day, and thank god no one was sick during that time or else it would have been a bad situation. Also, there are a number of failure points in water delivery. For example, even if we have water in our tank, it needs to get pumped upstairs, where the rooms are. We've had a couple moments were we thought we were out of water but we just needed to turn on the pump. Also, we ran out of gas once in our water heater so there was no hot water for showers. We just went over to the hotel whenever we wanted to bathe. Even when everything is functioning correctly, water is a scarce resource around here, so we take very short showers about once every other day, and we've been "letting it mellow" if it's yellow.

Fireworks and Policia

As I said in a previous post, we arrived just in time for guelaguetza, which is an annual celebration in Oaxaca. It is typically held the last two Mondays in July, and for pretty much a week, there are fireworks going off at all hours of the night. They're very loud so some it's not so great when someone down the street starts setting them off at 4AM.

There is a lot of civil unrest surrounding this cultural celebration because it used to be a celebration by the people for the people, but the government has taken it over and now only the "pretty" cultural groups get to participate and only tourists go to it. As a result, some teachers in Oaxaca banded together to put on an alternative guelaguetza which they call "guelaguetza popular".

Anyway, last year, there was a lot of violence at the government's guelaguetza, and i think it actually got canceled. This is a big deal because this is the single most touristed event in Oaxaca and the city lost a lot of money as a result. So, there are cops EVERYWHERE. And, if you are driving, there are tons of checkpoints going into the city. It's kind of scary sometimes because you are not sure if the loud booms coming from outside are fireworks, bombs (there were bombs last year), or thunder (see Torrential Downpours). I'm happy to report that there was no violence with the guelaguetza this year. in fact, we didn't even leave the house on guelaguetza night because if there was any violence, it was going to be that night.

Street Food and Veggies

We Americans have notoriously weak stomachs. We have to be very careful what we eat here in Oaxaca because not only are we in danger of getting food poisoning, but we can get amoebas. Yeah, I said amoebas. Basically, any vegetables that we buy, we have to soak them in purified water and these disinfecting tablets for half an hour. That means we're not really eating too many salads around here. Also, we can eat street food, as long as all the components are cooked. They put lettuce in the tacos and quesadillas here so we have to ask for our food "sin verduras." Also, we can only eat fruit from the market if it has a skin we can peel off. Otherwise, it gets the same treatment as the vegetables. The one exception is the organic market, which happens on Fridays and Saturdays only. We can eat any of the food sold by the vendors there (like the fruit cups in the photo above) because they go through the whole purification treatment. Additionally, there are all kinds of wonderful aguas frescas at the market, which are also off limits to us, since they usually consist of fruit juice and water...and you know what happens when we drink the tap water here. Our friends the amoebas come to visit. We've had our fair share of aguas frescas, however, and Dona Ofelia makes a new delicious drink every day to accompany our lunch.

It's worth mentioning that when I say "market", I mean a big outdoor market with different vendors selling vegetables, food, and other items. I am not sure where the supermarket is in Oaxaca, but it's nowhere near us. So, we have to buy our food fresh from the markets if we want to cook at home. So far, I only know of the market at Abastos (Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday--more on that in the post about Saturday), the organic market on Fridays and Saturdays, and the market in Tlacolula (about 1/2 hour away) on Sundays only. So, you have to plan ahead if you want to cook at home.

OK, I think that's enough for this post...I will definitely continue this series. Stay tuned for huge beetles and dogs on the roof. ;)

En el Taller Don German

2007-07-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

On Friday we returned to San Dionisio Ocotepec to finally work with Don German making huaraches. His workshop (taller) is basically a shack in his backyard. You have to walk through his backyard, which is more or less a petting zoo. From what I saw, they have a cow, a dog, a pig, two piglets, a goat, several chickens, and two cats.

Don German started off by showing us the tools that he uses in order to cut leather. Mariana, the TA for the class, had driven us out to S.D.O. and she stayed and translated for a bit as Don German went through the basics. As she prepared to leave, Don German all of a sudden got really nervous that we weren't going to be able to communicate (even though Adrien and I have been able to get the gist of most conversations). He kept making her translate one more phrase and one more phrase, and then before she left, he made us ask him a question in Spanish so that he could make sure we could communicate. Kind of weird.

Anyway, Don German has a whole set of tools to make his huaraches. For example, in order to cut leather strips, he uses these tools, which he made:

And he uses them with a knife in the following way:

It's actually a lot harder to use than it looks. I was the first one to try it, and it was really difficult. Plus, everyone was yelling at me telling me how to do it, and I got really overwhelmed and freaked out, especially since I was trying to cut this leather with a knife and I was afraid to slip and cut myself. Anyway, I don't think Don German was very impressed with my skills, and for that matter, I don't think anyone else impressed him, either.

Anyway, Don German went through and showed us all the tools he uses to make the huaraches. He actually has several different styles and several of them were very cute, like this pair:

The issue is that most of his shoes are work shoes, and though some of the styles are cute, they don't all appeal to a tourist market (the people willing to pay the big bucks for this stuff), and the locals are starting to wear things like Carhartts and Timberland boots, so he really needs to do something different in order to continue making a living working with leather. Plus, the workshop is a mess and, quite honestly, though the shoes are sturdy, they are a little rough around the edges. I guess that's why he agreed to do this workshop with us...he and his family are in a difficult position right now.

So, on to the huaraches. Each of us chose a different style to make from leather to shoe, and I chose this pair:

First, we traced around a template for the foot bed:

We cut out the shape using that knife to the right side of the photo. Next, we use a compass to trace around the shape of the foot. This makes an indentation about 1/2 an inch in from each edge. You punch slits and holes along this line and attach the straps through these holes.

You punch holes and slits with tools like these:

Next, you cut all the strips you need in order to make the shoe. To make them more flexible, you get the leather wet first.

You attach the straps through the slits and holes you cut, and then you use a foot mold in order to get the length of the straps correct:

At this time, there are all kinds of other things you are doing: attaching straps to other straps with grommets, braiding the leather, etc. I won't go into details on this part. Finally, after the top of the huarache is all together, it looks like this:

You glue the straps down to the foot bed using some glue (they make the glue themselves boiling down who knows what body parts...it was kind of gross and I'd rather not think about it). :P Finally, you glue the top of the huarache to the sole of the shoe and cut it out:

Here are my completed shoes:

Ok, here's the real story: it took us FOREVER to make our shoes. in fact, I was the only one who completed the shoe from start to finish. I think we were there for like 6 hours, and again, I was the only one to finish the sandals. For reference, Don German can make 20 pairs in a day. Then again, these people get up at 4AM and work until 8PM, 7 days a week. I think he was kind of unimpressed with us. In fact, he told me my shoes were "prototipos solamente...nada mas" (samples only, nothing more). Thanks, Don German. :P

By the way, I documented the entire process in a Flickr set here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157600970912262/

In between making the shoes, and despite Don German's initial skepticism that we would be able to communicate, we talked about politics. Don German is super smart and very well educated on politics, even in the US. He asked if we were Democraticos or Republicanos, and when we told him we didn't vote for Bush, he seemed pretty pleased. Things took an uncomfortable turn when he started talking about how rich we are in the US and how different our lives are...and then asked if we did drugs. He straight up asked me if I had ever done cocaine. Um, NO, Don German. Let's just cut that off right now...we're not going there.

All in all, it was a good day at the workshop and we were exhausted by the time we got home. We made it out for dinner and we tried to go to a club, but when we couldn't find it, we just decided to go home. It had been a very long, action-packed week.

San Dionisio Ocotepec

2007-07-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

We spent Thursday and Friday of last week with our artisans. Raul has a Range Rover and a Suburban (which they call the Tanque de Guerra--"War Tank") to shuttle us around. All of our artisans live between a half an hour to an hour away by car. The leather group is working the furthest away, in San Dionisio Ocotepec, so we jumped in the Tanque de Guerra with Team Fireworks, Team Wax, and Team Pottery. It was kind of nice being the furthest away, because we got to see a lot of the countryside. We dropped off Team Fireworks (Tomo, Naoko, and Carlitos) and Team Wax (Dina and Kim) in Tlacolula, and drove on to the little town where Team Pottery will be working.

Team Pottery lucked out, as they are working in one of the most beautiful places in the state of Oaxaca. The town is nestled in a valley between two gorgeous mountain ranges, and what's even better, everyone in town still dresses in their traditional garments, which are stunningly colorful. Further, the lady running the pottery workshop is pretty successful and has a huge, colorful, beautiful house. Here are a few photos I took while we were there:

A shrine inside the pottery workshop:

Their work:

We headed off to San Dionisio Ocotepec with Raul and as we drove into town, I was immediately struck by all of the wonderful handpainted signs. Graphic designers are total suckers for handpainted signage, and I'm no exception.

Don Germán and Doña Clara live in a cement house with a huarache store in the front room:

The place is pretty big and there are concrete floors, so they are considered pretty well off in this little town, but I won't lie, many people would be shocked by their living situation. I personally wasn't too shocked, I guess since I grew up so close to Tijuana and I've seen pretty extreme levels of abject poverty from a young age. However, Lindsey, one of the Interior Design girls who is working with us, confessed to me that she was surprised by their living conditions.

Our instructions for Thursday and Friday were to document the artisan's process step-by-step: in our case, from hide to shoe. However, I'm not sure if it was Raul's presence or our late arrival--Don German pretty much decided that we weren't working that day. Rather, he was going to take us on a tour of the town.

It's worth mentioning that Don German used to be mayor of this town. In Mexico, this is an unpaid voluntary position lasting three years. I learned about this from one of the articles in our reader. There is a strong sense of civic commitment in Mexico, and it is very common for men to volunteer much of their time and effort towards the good of the community. It's a very difficult situation, however, because not only are these positions are unpaid, but often the man is left unable to work at all due to his civic commitments. This was the case for Don German--he was unable to make a living off of his huaraches for three years. In addition to this economic hardship, the mayor is also responsible for throwing a huge feast for the entire town once a year. In other words, he has to pay to feed from 400 to 600 people, in addition to volunteering all of his time towards his mayoral duties. As we later learned, this has put Don German's family in a difficult financial position, and he is feeling extreme pressure to move to the US to become a migrant worker. We also learned that so many of the men in S.D.O. have moved to the US for work that at weddings, the women dance two to three ladies per man. Don German is a proud man, super intelligent, and very interested in politics (more on that later). Actually, he reminds me a little of my dad. He's in a very difficult position, though...as he does not want to leave his family for the US, yet he feels he is against the wall. I'm still trying to process what all of this means for our interaction and our collaboration together. I'm sure I will revisit this topic in later posts.

In any case, we're recapping Thursday here, so let's get to all of the things we saw. First, Don German took us by a mezcaleria, where they (you guess it) make mezcal. First they take the maguey plant (which is a type of agave), cut and clean the plant, and bury it the ground with some hot coals and other spices and such. There are 4 tons of maguey under the ground here:

After 3-4 days, they pull the roasted plants out and grind them in here (a horse pulls the big wheel round and round):

Then they go through several rounds of distillation (sorry, I didn't get a lot of the details at this point). What's funny is that the mezcal man decorated his little mezcal shack with photos of naked women...and drawings that his little nephew made. Kind of a weird combination:

After the mezcaleria, we headed over to the water treatment plant that Don German built when he was mayor. He was clearly very proud of this achievement and really wanted us to see the thing that he built. On the way, Dona Clara kept pulling on plants and telling us their medicinal properties. Turns out she is an herbalist. These people are super interesting. :)

We made it to the water treatment plant, and I have to be honest, the smell was pretty potent. I can definitely see why Don German is so proud. He motivated the entire town to work on this public works project, which provides water for irrigation. I'm not really sure about all the physics, but a pipe collects rainwater from the mountain and a series of rocks filter the water until it is usable for crops.

On the way back to their house from the water treatment plant, we ran into Don German's grandmother!!! She is 95 and only speaks Zapotec...and she still works! I think she works with a metate, grinding corn and such to make masa. but there were some language issues at play here so I'm not sure if I understood correctly:

We also saw the town's church...and about 150 kids waiting in line to confess. Don German shared with us some of his thoughts on the church...surprisingly, he wasn't too keen on it. He felt that the people in town should be spending their time working or doing civic good rather than waiting in a confession line. And it was easy to see his point...there were a LOT of kids waiting to confess. What's funny is, what do you need to confess when you are 9 and 10 years old? Anyway, the point is, Don German is a pretty progressive guy.

I really enjoyed walking around their town and seeing what life was like in a less touristed area of the Oaxaca state. Here are some of the photos I took around town:

Beautiful mix of colors and textures:

They use flattened bottlecaps as washers. Smart!

Kind of random...we got a bag of Doritos at a little store, and they had fortunes printed on them! (With respect you will obtain things):

Miercoles

2007-07-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning, we had a tour scheduled in the morning at the Jardin Etnobotanico (Botanical Gardens). The garden was super interesting, as it had plants from all over the state of Oaxaca. There were ginormous cacti:

Another interesting fact was that the garden was entirely irrigated by collected rainwater. They collect it from the roof:

Which drains to the ground, where the tiled floors are set above the ground floor so that water can collect and nourish the desert plants:

Pretty smart! You can view my entire Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopemeng/sets/72157600973027727/

The day was pretty scorching, and Adrien, Katy and I decided we were going to go swimming. The house is not big enough to sleep all of us, so some of the students are being put up in a hotel across the street, which has a pool. Luckily, even those of us not staying at the hotel get to use the pool, so we decided to take full advantage of that privilege. It was really nice to lay out in the sun, and I almost fell asleep a few times before lunch. Incidentally, lunch was a fantastic vegetarian meal with some noodles in a sauce made from a fungus that grows in corn. Sounds weird, but it was the most delicious thing we've had in Oaxaca. Another semi-interesting fact: we eat corn pretty much every meal. I think there are like 17 million varieties of corn that grow down here and they make all kinds of stuff with it. Here is a photo of Tomo drinking a beverage made of corn and chocolate at the organic market on Saturday. Again, sounds weird but it is delicious:

After lunch, we were pretty exhausted from hanging out in the sun all day, but unfortunately, I had a coffee after lunch which pretty much lasted exactly the length of our siesta time and wore off when we had to go to a three hour discussion of the articles from our reader. Needless to say, I was hurting through that portion of the class.

Tomo, Adrien, Katy, Mariana (the class T.A.) and i met up with Eberth and Leo at the Caffeine (pronounced "ka-fa-een") Bar, a cafe and bar in town for a few drinks. I'll tell you what, I really needed a beer after that 3 hour discussion session.

Eberth and Adrien at the Caffeine Bar:

Los Artesanias

2007-07-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

The second day of class was a big day for us, as we had writing class with Michael first thing in the morning, followed by a meeting with the artisans in the afternoon. We started off the day by meeting at a cafe right off a little square about a block from the house and talked about the writing portion of the class. We were sent off to roam the city and do three small exercises:

1. Sit in a public space and write about the sounds you hear.
2. Focus on one color and see where that takes you.
3. Describe what someone is wearing and imagine how they would describe your clothing.

We were also assigned three 1-2 page papers on our reactions to the different activities in Oaxaca. You can see the result of the first writing assignment below.

I left class with Tomo and we wandered a couple of blocks until we ended up inside Santo Domingo church. This is the biggest church in Oaxaca, and though I had passed it on the street many times, I hadn't been inside yet. When I entered, I was stunned. The church was absolutely gorgeous.

I sat in one of the pews in the front of the church and wrote. It was a nice experience being so inspired by the surroundings...that is, until I felt the first pangs of Montezuma's Revenge. Nothing too bad--a couple of the gals in the class have been laid up in bed so i felt pretty lucky, but I did have to leave the church and find a bathroom. :) Needless to say, i haven't been back to the cafe since.

That afternoon, we had a big meeting with all the artisans back at the house. Each of us was to show 2 images or objects: one that was meaningful in some way to us, and a photo of our work. I showed Sew Subversive, as it gave me a chance to talk about Stitch, and the following image, from my thesis project:

For those of you that haven't heard about it, my thesis project was an installation involving three quilts and three books. My thesis statement was that the practice of contemporary crafts was a response to our technologically driven lives. I made three small books, each of which talked about a different reason for why, as a graphic designer, I also feel the need to craft. The stitching on this quilt shows the mouse movements I made designing the final page of the book (sitting on top of the pedestal). Jeremy wrote a Java program for me which tracked my mouse movements and spit them out in vector format. Then I traced the pattern with a pattern wheel and carbon paper and free motion quilted the design.

It was really awesome seeing everyone's work. I had spent a good amount of time with about half of the class, and seeing their work really put them in a new light. We also met Carlitos and Luisa, two students in Oaxaca who are going to be in the class with us. Turns out, we saw Luisa's work at the Mueso de Arte Popular in Mexico City! She did the following glass piece, which I thought was just stunning:

We also saw the work of the artisans. There were five different groups to choose from:

Fireworks: Yeah, I don't think CCA knows that some of the kids here will be working with explosives. :)

Leather: German and Clara make leather huaraches.

Wax: Crispina makes candles and wax flowers that are used in celebrations and funerals.

Palm weavers: This group of 22 women make baskets, hats, and other small items. The craftsmanship was incredible. These things were hard as a rocks because they were so tightly woven.

Red Clay: The dishes at the house are made by this lady.

There was supposed to be another group: textile weavers, but they didn't show up. I was a little disappointed but I figured I would still be able to work with textiles between the leather people and the palm weavers. The meeting was incredibly long, and we didn't eat lunch until 4:30PM. We were all starving! Incidentally, our lunches are provided at the house, and an incredible chef, Doña Ofelia, who used to cook at Casa Oaxaca (the fanciest hotel in town--the president stays here when he visits Oaxaca). As you can imagine, teh food is fantastic.

After the artisans left, we began the long process of choosing our artisans. I went with leather as my first choice and palm weaving as my second choice. I was seduced by the idea of making shoes. :) In any case, I got my first choice, and I will be working along with Adrien and Katy (my roommates) and Lindsey (Interior Design). Should be interesting!

Writing Assignment

2007-07-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

As part of the class, we have to do a number of writing assignments with Michael, Rauls' partner and a published author. Our first assignment involved writing our reaction to our first week in Oaxaca. This is what I wrote:

********

I never listen.

Our assignment was to inhabit a space in the city and only describe the sounds we hear. I found my way to Santo Domingo church, and drew in a quick breath as I entered, taken aback for a moment by the beauty of the place. Amber vines crawl across the ceiling and I followed both the positive and negative spaces they created against the whitewashed background. Gold leafing covers almost every surface of the church, and the room is immense. Tall columns bend to meet each other in wide arches, cradling luminous windows that filter the diffused light.

I chose a pew near the front of the church to sit down. They are restoring a wall to the left of the altar and I listened closely to the sound of sandpaper moving back and forth over an already smooth surface. Muffled voices and echoing footsteps come in and out of earshot as tourists walk up and down the center aisle. I would never do something like this at home. I have so many commitments in San Francisco that I rarely have a moment to myself unless it is scheduled. I certainly never have a chance to just sit and listen.

Traveling always reminds me what it is like to be a normal person, one who doesn’t work a full-time job, run a business, go to school, and plan a wedding at the same time. And although I can reasonably believe that my life is richer as a result of all the things I do, I also wonder how much I am missing. Even now, as I sit in Santo Domingo, I cannot follow a sound to the end of its echo without being distracted by a new one; and I could more clearly describe to you the scratch of a restorer’s sandpaper against this church wall than I could the rhythm of my kitties’ feet against hardwood, the song of the birds who live in our neighborhood, or the sound of wind rustling the leaves on the aspen tree in our back yard.

It is easy to understand a belief in the omnipotent power of God in a place like Santo Domingo. Even the smallest sound becomes monumental in the nature. I am reminded that there are two paths to a life of richness—the one that I’ve chosen and one that exists within the simplicity of stopping to listen as the world moves around me.

I am listening now.

**********

Santo Domingo, from the outside:

Inside Santo Domingo:

I am not sure if I like the piece--the ending seems a little too "clean". But I think it's good for me to put it out there...just to get over the fear of being too exposed.

Finally, Oaxaca

2007-07-22T22:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to have to start trying a different method for posting, as our days have become packed with activities since we've been in Oaxaca, making daily updates pretty much impossible. I've been here for a full week now and I can't believe how quickly the time has flown.

We started off the class by heading over to Monte Alban on Monday morning, the site of some ancient Zapotec ruins. Zapotecs are a pre-Columbioan civilization, and along with the Mixtecs, they make up the largest ethnic groups in the Oaxacan state. Once again, we had an excellent tour guide (Raul) who filled our brains with fascinating facts. I've found that tour guides in Mexico are very well educated (usually they are graduate students or former anthropologists), which differs quite a bit from the situation in the US. Raul filled our heads with tons of interesting facts about the ancient ruins. For example, we learned that many of the structures on teh outer edges of the city had curved corners so that the god of wind can travel around the structure without breaking. I thought this was a really lovely sentiment. We also learned that the each Mexican ethnic group believes that they descend from and animal, and the Zapotecs believe that they descended from the jaguar. Here is a photo of a jaguar carving. You can see its paws and tail, though the head has been chipped off:

We also learned that the Zapotecs would ritually castrate and then sacrifice people with birth defects. Kinda sucks! Though, I guess it kind of makes sense...you would essentially prevent anyone from passing on these genetic mutations. You know, survival of the fittest and all that. We learned that these people usually had malformed hands and feet, which would be represented in stone carvings by showing a figure with an elongated thumb or toe. You can see this in the figure below. Also, you can see that this person was castrated by the flower near his loins.

After we returned from Monte Alban, Adrien and I headed out to buy some mosquito nets. The mosquitos are pretty viscous around here and I didn't want to take any chances at night. We learned that the Spanish word for "mosquito nets" is pavillones. I think we figured this out after we asked the lady at the store for "circulos...para mosquitos". Luckily, she figured out what we were looking for. The mosquito nets come in all different colors, and I ended up with a mango color. Everyone calls them our princess nets. I sure feel like a princess sleeping in it!

View of our room from the bathroom. My bed is the one with the mango colored net:

When we returned from our outing, the house was empty, as everyone else had left on a walking tour with Raul. Adrien called her friend Eberth, a guy she met last time she was in Oaxaca. He took us out to a soccer game (it was a local leagure soccer game that he played in). They play on cement! It was pretty hard core.

Eberth, Juan Angel, and Leo play soccer on cement in the rain:

We met his friends Leo and Juan Angel and drank a couple of beers with them after the game (they lost). This quickly devolved into several rounds of calimochos, a drink consisting of cheap red wine and coca cola. As strange as it sounds, it's actually kind of good. :)

Tomo's Mexico City Photos

2007-07-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

Tomo posted some amazing photos from Mexico City on his Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackitbaby/sets/72157600929136568/

Sigh...makes me want a nice camera.

FYI, Tomo and I are doing a photo series called "poetic moments" where I try to look really serene. They're pretty hilarious...well, at least we think they're funny! Here are a few from DF:

I'll update soon. Our week has been crazy busy and I haven't really had a free moment to think, much less post to the blog. But I stayed home "sick" from the field trip to the market today, so I have a few moments to myself to catch up. Stay tuned...

Vamos a Oaxaca

2007-07-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to report today (Sunday), as we were on a bus all day. The buses here in Mexico City are sold by class, and you can get first class, super first class, and super duper first class tickets. We got super first class tickets and I am happy to report that the ride was very comfortable (though it would have been a nightmare for those of you that get carsick, as the roads are not well paved here). One thing of interest is that when you buy the super first class ticket, you get a bottle of water, a soda, a tea bag, a pair of headphones, and anti-diarrhea pills. I guess that's all you really need for a 6 hour bus trip!

I tried at times to imagine that we were driving through California instead of the Mexican countryside, and I was more successful at some places than others. At some point, we began to see large, very straight cacti sprinkled throughout the countryside, which made it impossible to imaging that the landscape was in California, as it was so different than anything else back in the States.

I ended up napping towards the end of the trip, and I didn't wake up until we pulled into the bus station in Oaxaca. All of a sudden, I felt really anxious that I had to learn all the little things over again: where the corner store was, how the city was laid out, etc. I had just gotten the hang of things in Mexico City and I was going to have to do it all over again in Oaxaca. It was weird and very unexpected because usually I love exploring a new city, a new place. I blame it on the fact that I was asleep for the transitionary period between the countryside and the city.

We dropped our bags off at the house, which is located in the northern area of Oaxaca City and is big, beautiful, and all white. Raul loves white. We are sleeping three to a room and I'm bunking with Adrien and a gal named Katy who is a grad student in sculpture. I am pretty happy with the sleeping situation, as I would have had a hard time rooming with certain others in the group. We're also pretty lucky because we have the only room with a bathroom attached. Everyone else has to share a bathroom in the hall. There is a big, gorgeous back yard and a deck. Also, Walter, Raul and Michael's dog, is hanging out with us, and there are two beautiful little white kitties that live at the house.

The Kitties:

Walter:

That night, we went out to eat at a local restaurant called El Topil and I tasted mezcal for the first time. Mezcal is a local alcoholic drink that is like tequila, but it is filtered differently. Sort of like the difference between cachaca and rum. It tastes a little smokier than tequila, but I like it! Supposedly, it doesn't give you a hangover but you have weird dreams all night long. Well, I can attest to that...I went to bed with a stomach burning with mezcal and slept fitfully because I was afraid of the mosquitos. Also, at about 4AM, a bunch of fireworks went off because it is guelagetza time right now. I had strange dreams all night long, but, true to rumor, I did not wake up with a hangover. :)

Flickr updated

2007-07-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

I've finally uploaded about half of my Mexico City photos to my Flickr account here. I've also updated my posts below with some of my own photos, so scroll down to check them out.

adios DF

2007-07-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

Today (Saturday) was our final full day in el DF, and although I'm really glad to have gone on this portion of the trip, I am feeling ready to head down to Oaxaca. Mexico City is the largest city in the world, and the air quality betrays that fact. I had a bloody nose yesterday, which, in all fairness, could also have to do with the dryness and the elevation of el DF. And although it's pretty cheap by US big city standards, Mexico City is much more expensive than Oaxaca.

I woke up earlier than the rest of my roomies today. I'm staying in a room with 3 other gals (there are 4 beds in two different rooms and one bathroom), so my earplugs have come in really handy. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and I decided to head out with Adrien and Tomo (a Japanese grad student in design) to run some errands and grab a bite to eat. We found a pretty big marketplace about a block away from our apartment, and went for the first taco stand that had a bunch of locals hanging around it. I had two tortillas again this morning, one filled with cheese and mushrooms, and the other filled with cheese and squash blossoms. I think it was a dollar for each one, and my stomach was pretty much set at least until late afternoon.

We got back to the hotel soon after and found a few people sitting in the courtyard, deciding what to do for the day. One of the girls commented loudly that we were getting a late start because "people kept leaving," a comment that was definitely intended for me, Adrien, and Tomo. Oh well, such are the pleasures of traveling with a big group. It's been interesting traveling with a bunch of strangers and I am slowly starting to understand each person's unique quirks and personality traits. There are definitely some I get along with better than others. Once we get to Oaxaca, we will have much more autonomy, so I am looking forward to that as well.

We decided we wanted to go out to the Coyoacan area of el DF, which has a large outdoor market with vendors selling crafts from different regions in Mexico. We traveled via subway, and one of the interesting little tidbits about el DF is that almost every public sign has both a written and visual (i.e., logo or pictograph) component, as a majority of the population is illiterate. The logo representing the Coyoacan subway stop is a wolf or coyote with a hole in the middle of it, howling at the moon. Some of the logos are kind of strange. I saw another sign instructing people to crawl on the ground in case of fire. Instead, the pictograph made it look like you should lay down and do sit-ups if birds are attacking you.

When we got to Coyoacan, the majority of the group wanted to go eat, but since Adrien and I had already had our fill of tacos that morning, we decided that we were going to wander around and shop. I bought an embroidered purse (which subsequently ended up dying my shirt, skin, and pants a faint mustard color) for about $15. I tried to bargain him down further than that, but we were in a hurry, so I just took the price. Apparently we won't be able to get embroidery like this in Oaxaca.

Since we had our share of the market and we still had some time to kill before meeting the others, Adrian and I ducked into a cantina, where I tried the Mexican version of the black and tan: basically Victoria or Corona with Negro Modelo added. It was pretty tasty!

We met up with the rest of the group and headed towards Saint Angel, where the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo studios are located. Adrian and I decided that we wanted to grab something at the market so we told the rest of the group that we would catch up with them. Ceci, who is Raul's friend and a Mexico City resident, told us that we should turn right at the big cross and we would end up on the same street the rest of the group was on. Uh, yeah. Turns out there are crosses on every block in Mexico. We made our purchases and walked down the street...there was a cross on top of a building, but it wasn't very big, so we decided to keep walking. At the next street, there was an even bigger cross, so we figured we would turn there. We power walked for a good 20 minutes, and then we realized that we were probably ahead of the group at this point (the group as a whole walks pretty slow), so we asked a lady on the street how we should get to El Estudio Diego Rivera. We kept asking directions from people until we got there. I've been pretty impressed by my recall and comprehension of Spanish...though I definitely butcher a lot of the language, I feel pretty confident getting around on my own and have become the group speaker when Raul or his boyfriend Michael are not around.

Adrien and I got to the studios and waited for the rest of the group...and waited...and waited. After about 45 minutes, we figured they changed their mind about going to the studios, so we decided that we were going to do the studio tour and go back to the hotel afterwards. Luckily, we ran into the rest of the group inside the studio. I don't know what happened, but we somehow ended up getting there 45 minutes before them even though we had walked the whole way and they had walked about halfway and taken a car the rest of the way. I guess that's how much time it takes to herd cats.

After touring the studios, we did a little self-guided tour of some of the downtown cantinas. Apparently it used to be pretty nasty and dangerous downtown, but recently there has been a number of renovations on the old buildings by the owner of Sanborns. He is renovating a bunch of the gorgeous, European-style buildings into lofts and fancy yuppie apartments. It's kind of weird to think that there is gentrification in Mexico, too. The first cantina we went to, called La Opera Bar, was absolutely gorgeous. Very art nouveau, with tons of carved wood, luxurious booths, and velvet wallpaper. Wow, this place was stunning! We sat and had a beer and left to check out another cantina. The next one we walked into was considerably more run down, but fantastic nonetheless. I guess it was an homage to bullfighting, with large murals of bulls and glass-enclosed cases with mannequins dressed up in matador outfits engaged in various bullfighting scenes. Everything looked like it had about 10 years worth of dust on it, but the room had that kitschy charm that I tend to like. We sat down to eat and decided it might not be clean enough for our sensitive American stomachs (one gal already had her food poisoning incident come and go on the first day). We walked down the street to check out a restaurant that someone had recommended, and found it to be delightfully non-touristy. The entire place was packed with people drinking and eating tacos. I got a taco al pastor, a taco adobo, and something called salchicha pierna. I couldn't figure out what that was besides being made of beef. The food was outstanding and I think it only cost 70 cents per taco. We had a little bit of a surprise when the waiter came up and told Ceci that someone at the table had a secret admirer and that he was drawing her as we spoke...and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I found out it was me. This old man had drawn a portrait of me, which he very nicely gave to me on the way out. Kind of sweet and kind of creepy at the same time.Apparently I am very exotic here because I am so tall...but also, I look a little like southern Mexicans because of my slanted eyes. It will be interesting to see how confused people will be by me when we get to Oaxaca.

We ended our night by going back to the bullfighting museum cantina and taking tequila shots as we danced to a very eclectic mix of reggaeton, drum and bass, and bad techno. Again, I was amazed at how much we had accomplished in one day. We spend all day on the bus to Oaxaca tomorrow, so I was happy to spend my last day in Mexico City going out with a bang.

Frida y Lucha

2007-07-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

Today was another "hip-hop-and-ya-don't-stop" kind of day, where we were pretty much walking nonstop. It's kind of interesting when you travel--you realize just how sedentary our lives are at home and how little we actually walk and move our bodies as they are meant to be moved. I am pretty much pledging my allegiance to the cult of Keen; I bought a pair of cute mary janes at REI before I left and they are saving my feet from destruction during these long days of constant walking.

We started off our day by getting breakfast at the corner food cart. A senora was making little quesadillas with homemade tortillas, nopales (cactus) and cheese. Yum! I had two since I had no idea when we were going to be eating again. We stood on the corner for almost an hour eating our breakfast. Everything takes a little longer in a big group...as the T.E.A.M. likes to say, it's like herding cats.

After we finally finished our breakfast, we jumped on a bus towards downtown to check out the historical district and its surrounding buildings. We got caught in a bunch of traffic and decided to jump off when we found ourselves at a standstill by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and we noticed that the huge Frida Kahlo retrospective (to commemorate what would have been her 100th birthday) didn't have the rumored 4 blocks of lines. I had been wanting to check out the show, since I really appreciate artist retrospectives...it gives you such a great idea of the artist's true interests, their motivations, etc. While waiting in line to get in, we talked a little bit about why Frida was so popular after her death. Raul says that her work wasn't very popular at all while she was living and that her fame has come posthumously because the story of her life is so vibrant and tragic. I am sure that is partially true, but I am also inclined to believe that her work is of particular interest now because her paintings (from this woman's perspective) alternate between a tender and willful expression of the female condition during the 1940s and 50s. Now that we're pretty deeply past the women's liberation movement, her voice is now, more than in the past, utterly relatable. For example, this piece, to me, was particularly heartbreaking:

Previously, I had only seen Frida's self-portrait painting work, but the show had a couple of her still life pieces and one work of collage that I found interesting. They also had a number of photos of her. I was glad that we got to see the show (i was afraid that we weren't going to go)...though I got the feeling that some of the group wasn't that into her...and I couldn't really gauge whether it was because we had to wait in line for a little while, or if because she was so popular and it was "cool" to be "over" her. Seriously, this show is a big deal...there are posters for the show plastered all over the city, and they proudly proclaim that this a "HOMAJE NACIONAL" (national homage). For those of you that have been to Mexico and know the level of machismo that can be achieved here, you know that it is no small potatoes when a woman is treated as a national treasure.

We walked out of the beautiful art-deco Bellas Artes building straight into a group of naked men who were protesting...something. Nobody--not even the locals--seemed to know what they were mad about [actual conversation: Hope--"What are they protesting?" Mexico City Resident--"I don't know...everything?"] It was the biggest group of naked people that I had seen outside of Burning Man, and strangely, enough, it made me feel really comfortable and at home, as weird as that sounds.

After we got our fill of the naked men, we walked through one of the oldest parks in Mexico City (apparently part of the Spanish Inquisition had occurred in this park) to arrive at the Museo de Arte Popular (i.e, the Craft museum). This was actually a really great introduction to the various crafts from different tribes from all areas of Mexico, and I took some photos of the work that I found particularly interesting (posted on my Flickr page here). Honestly, I was blown away by the craftsmanship and detail of some of these pieces. I apologize for the quality of the images...everything was behind glass, which made it hard to photograph, but in person the work was stunning, and made me even more excited to get down to Oaxaca (where a lot of this work originates).

After recharging with a couple of coffees made by the hardest working man in Mexico City (seriously, this poor guy was running the cash register, making the coffees, making the sandwiches, and delivering all the goodies to our tables), we went downtown to check out the old square and some the surrounding historic buildings. We decided to have lunch in a very fancy cantina, which was housed in an absolutely gorgeous building. I felt like I was in the middle of Provence, as snotty as that sounds. :) I ordered beef with squash blossoms (flor de calabasa). YUM. This place was great! Unfortunately, when the bill came, it was a serious buzz kill, as it's kind of difficult splitting the bill with 9 other people who had varying levels of drink and eat. All of a sudden, I remembered that I was with a bunch of college students, when I kept having to throw down 10 more pesos, and another 10 and another 10.

My harshed buzz was soon recharged with the thought of our plans for the evening. We were planning on attending the Lucha Libre fight that night. For those of you that haven't heard of La Lucha Libre, it is sort of like WWF, but the wrestlers wear iconic masks, fantastic costumes, and, as I found out later that night, have midget sidekicks in gorilla costumes. We really had no idea what to expect. As me and Adrien (one of the gals on the trip that has become my little buddy) are the ones with the most Spanish speaking skills, we were left to try to garner tickets for the rest of the group (we had tried to get tickets earlier that day, but the lady at Gandhi, the local "Tower music", said that they had no more tickets in any price level that were seated together. So, we found a scalper that had 5 seats together in a decent part of the arena Mexico, and after some tough bargaining, we talked him down from 200 to 180, and then down to $900 for all 5 (which, actually, is $180 per ticket). Math is hard...let's go shopping! Actually, I'm not sure that we could have done any better, as it was a serious madhouse there and we could barely make it through the crowd because it was so thick with people. All of that was worth it, though, as we got to see Mistico fight (apparently he is muy popular). It was SOOOO funny...the entire thing was staged and the kitsch level was VERY high. Whenever someone got thrown out of the ring, the entire front row would jump out of their seats to get out of the way because they knew that the next guerrero was going to jump out of the ring to body slam them. One fighter, Alex Koslov, was a favorite with the ladies for his good looks (he didn't wear a mask) and his gyrations. Whenever he made a good move, he would rub himself and rotate his hips, and the girls would go crazy.

All in all, I'm amazed by the number of things that we did in one day, and I am seriously grateful that I got to see la Lucha Libre live.

en el DF

2007-07-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

I finally made it in to Mexico City (called el DF by all the locals--kind of like Washington DC) last night after my flight was delayed about 45 minutes because the pilot thought we were in gate G rather than gate A. Doesn´t exactly inspire confidence in your navigational skills, Mr. Pilot! Anyway, two gals from the trip were waiting for me at baggage claim for over 2 hours so we could take a cab together to the hotel, Casa Gonzalez, in the Cuahtehmoc district of el DF. I felt pretty bad that they were waiting so long, but it was really nice to have someone to find my way with. There are 6 of us students here on the Mexico City portion of the trip, which was an entriely optional extension of the Oaxaca class. So we´re spending our time checking out the museums, the fabulous architecture, and the nightlife.

We got to the hotel at around 7 PM and headed out to get a bite to eat at The Pink Zone (also known as Zona Rosa), :) a pretty hevily touristed area with lots of young people walking around, making out, watching futbol, and making out some more. Seriously, everywhere you turned, there was a couple making out. One of the gals conjectured that it was because they don´t have a private place to make out since the country is so heavily religious...I am not sure if the assessment is true or not, but seriously, it was PDA on display in The Pink Zone. We found a place to eat...most of the resturants were packed because entire families were out watching the Mexico vs. Argentina game (and if you´ve ever spent any time in Central or South America, you know these people take their futbol seriously). Unfortunately, Mexico lost. (Sorry, Mexico!)

We went out again after Raul made it into town and got a couple of drinks at a place called Saltido something something, which was a very cute place in the Contessa district. Apparently this area used to have a racetrack , which they took out, and now huge Victorian-flavored house line the oval that used to be teh racetrack. Saltido something something was a cute little Victorian that had been renovated to be a bar, with an adorable vintage/modernist mix of furniture and wallpaper. Seriously, the interior designers in teh group (who will be meeting us in Oaxaca) would be drooling. I´ll upload photos once we get to Oaxaca and I´m able to have internet access off of my laptop (on the hotel computer right now).

Today was an excellent day touring the Casa Luis Barragan. Barragan was one of Mexico´s most famous architects, and it was easy to see why from this house, which beautifully integrated modernism and an indigenous flavor. The stairs you see above are his claim to faim...if you can see, they have no base. instead, tehy are cantilevered into the wall so they appear to be ¨floating¨. Every room was painted a different, brightly colored hue, and every room contained some reference to his strong taste for privacy, religion, women, and horses. Yeah, strange combination, but somehow it worked. The man was famously a recluse and rumored to be gay, despite his devout Catholicism, though the tour guide didn´t say this. I had never been in a space before that felt so incredibly personal. For example, Barragan was very tall, almost 6´4", but he made all his doorways around 6¨5" so that he would have to bow down when he entered every room, in order to show reverence. Also, his way of framing space was just incredibly different and unique. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside, so here are a couple I´ve pulled off the web:

from: http://www.vitruvius.com.br

from: http://www.esteticas.unam.mx

from: http://www.casaluisbarragan.org

Our visit to the Barragan house was followed by a visit to the Bosque de Chapultepec, an absolutely enormous public park with several museums, including the Museo Rufino Tamayo, which houses contemporary art, and the Modern Art Museum, which houses all the "greatest hits" of the Mexican modern movement. Both museums were gorgeously built and had great collections, though I was especially fascinated by a collection called The Atlas Group, by Walid Raad, which was established to preserve the contemporary history of Lebanon, and not surprisingly, focused a lot of war and car bombings. One of the gals said that the entire project was faked, but I haven´t found any evidence of that, and I hope it´s not true, because the show was incredibly powerful.

Anyway, I´m off to grab a bite after a very deep and satisying nap. I´ll try to post daily, but I won´t really be able to post any of my photos until we get to Oaxaca this Sunday. Until then...

T minus 2.5 and counting

2007-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

We're about 2.5 hours before lift-off here folks, and I'm desperately trying to tie up all the loose ends before I leave. Also feeling pretty guilty about leaving my man and my kitties to fend for themselves. Some peeps have already invited him over for a meal and some company...so THANK YOU to all those who have, and if you haven't, for the love of god, please feed him. ;)

So, we were emailed a reader, oh, about two months ago and of course I don't even open the thing until yesterday. For those of you wondering, the stated goal of the Oaxaca Summer Studio is:

Our class will be an exploration of the possible ways that art and design can serve as tools for cultural and social engagement while generating tangible benefits for those we engage with and providing the artist with new experiences and creative opportunities.

Woohoo, party on, Wayne! Apparently we get paired up with a local artisan in Oaxaca and work together to create...something? The instructor, Raul Cabra, was pretty vague about that. However, he was not vague about the fact that it was more of less guaranteed that we would get food poisoning. Party on, Garth. As such, I talked to Randy (J's Dad--it's nice to have a doc in the family!) this weekend, who prescribed me some Cipro and recommended something called Florastor, which is a probiotic. It's supposed to help develop the good bugs in your body, who will wage war against the bad bugs. Let's hope it helps! If not, I've got a whole load of OTCs to help me out...Immodium, Pepto, Tums, etc. I told Jeremy last night that I can truly call myself a Hermann now since I am traveling with an entire pharmacy in my suitcase.

Yeah, and we also got Skype set up so that J and I can call each other while I'm down south. So holla at me if you're on it...or if not, I'll have email access too. I'll be in Mexico City for the next few days...I'll definitely post pics and more musings when I get there. See you on the other side!

hello world.

2007-07-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yep, here it is...I am finally joining the 21st century and starting a blog, ostensibly to keep you all updated on my wanderings in Mexico these next few weeks but I'm hoping I'll take it a little further than that. So what's with the name? Well, as MR likes to say, I'm everyone's favorite 6 ft. tall Chinese gal. [Full disclosure: I am not quite 6 feet...more like 5'11", but who's counting?] My intention with this blog is to share with you all those little things in my life that make me feel even bigger than my big self: travel, design, art, seamstering, etc. Welcome and thanks for joining me on the journey.