I heart Beijing.

The thing is, most of this picture are kinda silly and sub par because i was shooting them as an after thought, mostly i was using the holga so these are kind of just for documentation...so no judgment. This was at the lama temple...i know this is totally politically incorrect to say in china but i realllyy wanna go to tibet now...and will..someday. This place was just goregeous, and prince sized city filled with Buddhas and the largest figure in the world carved from one peice of sandal wood into a lama...holy cow it was ginormous. And all these temples...glittery gold and green and red, and in front, throngs of people gathering burning incense for the new year and good wishes, and bowing. Buddhism is cool. I left with ash all over me, this was the highlight of the day.

hmm, not sure, we saw so much today, this is another Buddhist temple, its hard to pick just one. I ended up meeting these two really nice gay boys from LA on the tour, and hanging out with them later, also with nikki, my cousins roommate from college who is studying mandarin in Tanjing to further her Chinese roots. All really cool people, especially Mike and Mike, hehe, from LA who are the sweetest couple in the world. Mike works for an animation company out here, and his boss got drunk and bought us all shots, then we talked about Atlanta for a while, and boston, and all of our respective and various cities.

Another part of a princes palace, in a corridor, in some really good morning light. Nothing too special, just some pretty arches. Architecture Architecture Architecture, mmmmmm. Mike Mike Nikki and I left the bar we were at to find some dancing, and witnessed a street fight where a guy knocked out. Ive seen some fights before but this one was pretty brutal, kinda effed if ya know what i mean, the weird thing these guys were friends, so as soon as the guy was knocked out the other one ran over to make sure he was breathing. Yeesh, wherever that guy is, he is in a significant amount of pain. Tough cookies these Chinese, gotta say i felt like i got smacked watching it.

Mmmm Panders. Did you know there are like a thousand something living pandas? They are endangered because they kill each other off...crazy huh, kind of relevant to my last story, anyways, these are babies so no need to worry. Super cute, every bit as fat and lazy as you would imagine.

The temple of heaven. Gotta love all these palaces. So after we left the bar, we went to get some street food, which is really good because its just vegetables and meat on a stick, grilled in front of you. I dont know what the meat is that i was eating, but it was speculated that it was tendon from some animal, which tastes, just about how you would imagine, really chewy and not too much taste save for the crazy amount and degree of spicy that was slathered all over it. yow! I can add that to the list of weird things ive eaten...I also got a corn on the cob. Alright i have to go hike the great wall...i finish this later.

The temples of heaven. everything is sacred here.

This rock supports this pagoda, and is pretty, and is imported and expnesive..that is all.

The entrance to the forbidden city, just near tian'anmen square. Commies, ps, that square is huge! and controversial, meh, it was interesting, at least i can check that off my list of things to do in life now.

Just a close up of the gorgeous colors on all these things, ahh royalty, it must be nice to live in art.

Ohh valentines day, dont get me started. basically i felt realllly alone, more alone than usual because it was the first day of a family holiday (chinese new year) and valentines day, and im alone in a place where i cant speak the langauge. So...what do you do in this situation? you. go. shopping. I bought some hot new red nikes which i will post later, and a great dress. I got dolled up and went to dinner, this is my desert, vanilla rose ice cream. I was of course, very drunk when i took this picture as everyone in the restaurant was a couple and then the one closest to me got engaged to Leann rimes crooning "how do i live without you" with a follow up by gabriella from high school musical singing "the veiw' these two songs and a few others of similar quality and content were on a loop. oh valentines day. As sad as this day sounds for me, i actually had a lot of fun. I love you self. Thats whats important right?


I snapped this on the way to the airport to beijing, of pudong, i love this area i just miss being closer to puxi so i can get to my freinds easier, but still, at least ive got the better buildings on my side of the river.

Ill post about the great wall later..

Gan Bei!

j

The new year is upon us...Im a rabbit

Ill finish explaining these later as i am currently waiting on a taxi to the airport so i can drag myself to beijing. As much as im sure it will be cool, i sort of wish i was staying here now so i can spend well needed bonding time with my new friends. Fiona (fifi) and Andrea Go (just "go") have become my closest friends here. Its funny how you can immediately feel so close to someone under the right circumstances. We went to a place in town called magas last night to get this dee-lishhhh-us salad filled with snap peas edamame chicken beets pumpkin slices and grilled chicken.ooooo. ahhhhh. Im sorry that this blog is habitually about food, but its such a large part of my life now. I miss Go and Fifs already :) see in a few days gals!

Fi and I hung at her apartment yesterday for a bit. Her friends Kim and Lou were visiting from england and incidentally will be in beijing at the same time as me so we will try to meet up then. Im kinda nervous about beijing, ive heard its harder to get around there, and less friendly to my kind...o well, que sera sera. She made me organic english tea yesterday, and in the gorgeous day we caught a glimpse of a buzzy city about to basically shut down for a week and a half. This is her counter, pre nuclear holocaust aka chinese new year...... gotta go more later!

okay back...and in Beijing! havent seen anything but my hotel yet but hope to meet up with a mutual friend tonight. Really, mutual friends make the world go round. Anyways the above picture of Dinner the other night with Fi, lou, and kim. yup, we finally did it, we went to dim sum. Now...i cant eat anything at dim sum because its all flour based dumplings...but i had a great pot of jasmine tea...eh, i just wanted to see waht it was all about. It looked beautiful, thats the thing about food, even if you dont eat it, you can still enjoy it on some level. The smell and the look and the texture and quality...maybe like appreciating the way someone looks without haveing sex with them? gah, food and sex are basically teh same thing its ridiculous. i digress..

So Portia and Natlie went to Taiwan for the new year spring festival and I...well i spent some much needed "me" time before shoving off to Beijing this morning. The other day i slept in..yes, you heard it here first, i slept past the hour of 6 or 7 am! and i woke up, slipped into my red robe, and made myself a breakfast that declared freedom. Just eggs and spinach and sesame and fish but simple is hot these days! I sang while making it, and then did the dishes...feeling ever so domestic, i smiled, a big smile.

The more i hang with andrea and Fi the more i find funny little opportunities to photograph. This is just an entire store dedicated to fruit, i just sort of liked the composition here, nothing special, but it jogs my memory of that night.

Ahhh, Miss Go. Andrea Go. She is to die for, like precious gem or something, she is so good to look at and better to talk to. This is her at our "hot pot' meal, which is basically the chinese version of the The Melting Pot, the menu was entirely in characters, (sans pin yin) so it was really fun between Fi and I trying to order for all of us. If only we knew how to say soy sauce...eventually we said something the effect of black salty water or something....i dont know, they got it and liked it. Go is prettiest when shes not looking, shes a force. When i was complaining about having to leave Shanghai for Beijing and missing all the home based fun, she said " fuck jessy, you cant think like that, you just have to look at whats in front of you, get your mind in beijing and have a wicked time...your assignment for tonight is to do something you never thought you would do, then call me, and report it" I swear this girl is ace. You meet the most fantastic people when you travel, its a shame they are always on the go, you can never hang on to them. One day ill track miss go down and fi, and well all live merrily in neutral ground. Thats the thing, all the people i really admire and treasure are kind of dispersed throughout the globe. Now, really this is a good thing because it is kind of what makes all these people so great...at the same time i wish i could just bring them all to the same city and we could live happily ever after. Really, the problem is just that were all out too busy being awesome to try and coordinate something like that. all this to say that i have great friends, and when i make my first million im throwing a party of international friends in which i will pay airfares and hotel fares for all the guests that will migrate to it. wouldnt that be amazing?

okay okay okay so this is hot pot. That molten volcano of metal and water and herbs in the middle flash cooks all the junk we threw in it. so like theres a combination of pork and woo er ( chinese mushroomy fungus thing) corriander and cilantro and shitake and rice noodles and chilies, omg the chilies, my mouth was in pain and it HURT SO GOOD!

so tomorrow im going to either the wall or tiananmen i forget, but im sure ill be stewing and reviewing and working up a great inner monologue that i will then translate to this thingy. Plus its valentines day, ugh, so im sure ill have plenty to bitch about and plenty to praise as well. I think im gonna start blogging about music.

Happy new year my little beans.

j

It's hailing.

Everyone is in taiwan.

very.

very.

contemplative.

missing things tangible and not.



j.

I can sleep when I'm dead.

Okay chinese new year is rapidly approaching. I leave for Beijing on the 13th and get back on the 18th, although the holiday extends beyond then. I feel kinda sneaky, I got two holiday seasons this year. I wonder if someone will deduct it out of winter holidays next year :) Anyways these mandarin orange trees are being sold on the side of the road as a seasonal thing....kind of like poinsettias during christmas. But these are better, you can eat them and you wont die, althought ive heard that's an old wives tale. Who knows...dont risk it. I thought these were pretty.


I have friends! sort of. One of my favs is Fiona, or fi, but most affectionately Fi Fi. She is the tops. I learn great brit slang from her all the time. My favorite is "proper ____ (insert adjective)" Like "wow mate, you look proper sexy tonight"....the best. I went over to Fi's new apartment on friday becuase she was moving house and officially finished right before i got there. So in an eighties sweat shirt and take out we christened the new place...and it couldnt have been better. Great freinds, great food, great view. There was Andrea go...my dancer friend from the phillipines, shes beautiful and talented to boot. Fi, who is just, ah fi, how do i describe her? Just trust me shes great, and intense, the best thing about fi is that when she's talking to you, she makes you feel like the only god damn person in the room. Incredibly attentive, incredibly sharp this one. Then theres Ivan, who lives in shanghai because he attended university for computer science and has jsut bee here ever since. He helped me figure out my phone, he speaks and read chinese well. He's also Bulgarian... add that to the news list of nationalities of friends. He also informed me that yougurt was not infact invented by the greeks, but the bulgarians. :) It was awesome because i LOVE talking about food, and especially foreign food at that.He explained in detail how to make amazing yogurt at room temp and I told him that his country must have great digestive health on the whole. This guys has got some style, and some class, much more than most people.
another thing, its really comforting and really good to meet bisexual people in different places, and to talk about sexuality in a way that is not threatening, I love the US but in terms of this we are light years behind.So anyways, this picture is of all of us after we ordered greek food on her balcony overlooking a christmas-light-littered skyline, rocking and floating to the constant flow of honking horns and bicycle chains. Its a little blurry, and it doesnt capture teh skyline, but sometimes i use that as my gauge. The shittier my pictures, the more fun im usually having. In the best times in your life, you shouldnt have the time or the frame of mind to be photographing it. right? Anyways, everyone left slightly early from Fi's becuase they had to work and stuff so Fi and I stayed up, walked downstairs to the tiny market and bought another bottle of red and three bars of chocolate. A couple tummy aches and love stories later, we were listening to cat power and i had a new friend in Fi. Stories of love lost and gained and England and atlanta and whatever else. It felt really good to hang out with people in double digits. I gave her a huge hug goodbye and told the cab driver jin qiao, yunshan....and he understood me, then i realized, holy shit...i can speak a little chinese. And i felt comfortable, and tired, really really really tired.

Okay Okay i know i talk about food all the time but I cant help it, its got to be in the top 5 things about travel. So just bear with me. This is dinner that jane made. Just for the record, chinese food as the US knows it is in know way like for real chinese food. Omg oh mee gosh no no no...everything ive had here as been very fresh and made of rice. This is some seasoned steamed broccoli, shaved cumcuber and slices of pork in a vinegar broth, and some fish stick type things ( that i helped make) consisting of baked white fish, rice flour, and covered in both black and white sesame seeds. mmmm. The amount of leeks and spinach ive been eating coupled with rice though...oh my gosh, ill probably go through withdrawls when i leave. But still....pretty loyal to element fresh. Oh dong! speaking of food.....We went to this place in the hotel Shangri-la in Pudong, on the top floor they have a bunch of restaurants. The one we went to was called Yi Cafe...basically the classiest, most amazing, most ridiculously expensive and beautiful food ever. It was buffet...full of things like.....oysters, crab legs, sushi, Mediterranean food, Moroccan food, salads, the cutest little deserts ever, ahhh im getting hungry just thinking about it!! Basically a buffet on crack, lots of crack, lots of reallly expensive reallly good crack. I stuffed myself and was actually mad that i wasnt hungry anymore because it all tasted so good. And it was so gorgeous and coloful that i didnt have time to take a picture before i dove in. Luckily Portia said she goes there every so often so ill get to take one at a later date so you can understand all the pretty that is cafe Yi.

Hmm how do i explain this picture? okay this is me in the door jamb of my room. Mei Ling's daughter came over during the day last week and she was so cute i almost stole her. She was ridiculously tiny and smiley and thought that everything i did was the funniest thing she had ever seen. I started taking pictures of us making funny faces and showing them to her on my black berry. Then she took this one of me...and i kinda like it. eh? Its blurry so that means somehitng...

Also i should mention that the weekends are hellishly busy for me because natlie is home from school so i spend all day with her, but my friends are off work so i just push and push and push to try to do both. I got about 8 hours of sleep total this weekend. So this would explain the drunk skyping. yeahhh... sorry about that ( cuteish smile with prompt for forgiveness)

So this is kinda cool...basically the chinese alphabet as 30 000 plus characters or something. So in a sense, writing the language is not really phonetic other than the fact that this character A, means this sound B. Essentially its memorization. So I realized that when I bought a red stamp, that i cant remember the name of, but basically its a square red stamp this is a signature, the merchant was able to write my "name" is chinese on it. I was really confused at this because I thought....how can there be a chinese symbol for an english name? Okay so i asked portia..like i always do. Apparently there are chinese symbols only for phonetics, so the phonetic to sounds for my name are actually either chinese words or they resemeble chinses words. So its kind of like jibberish to the chinese that kind of sounds like and occasionally overlaps actual words. And so, my name, in chinese phonetic is " Jei - Xi" pronounced "jay-shee" which isnt exaclty jessy but its as close as we can get. Anyways....In chinese context and tone completely determine the meaning of a word, so like Jei can mean 4 differnt things depending on if the tone is rising, falling, falling rising or flat. And then it varies depening on what youre talking about. So...may name can mean several combinations of different words...but the best ones i can come up with are..."Clean West" or "Excellent Relationship" Ill take either of these....at least its not something weird like running cat or jumping cup or something. I think ill sign all my letters with this now.

Had a scare where i thought I lost my purse, but felt very grown up about the way i handled it. Gave myself a silent gold star and realized..when life hands you lemons, take a deep breath, ask for you friends for help and improvise. And try not to cry, it doest solve anything- something that is becoming very apparent to me as i watch children every day. At some point you just grow up and put your big girl panties on. At some point, life is no longer about yourself, and some turn somewhere along the way, you make a mistake and you take responsibility and you learn to the best with what you have, where you are. You learn that pain is just pain, and tired is just tired, and poor is just poor and it doesnt really change the fact the world keeps turning and people keep loving you, and taking a few hits to get to something doesnt seem so bad anymore because thats just life and for me, at least, so far so good.

When we went dancing, there was a scrolling sign in chinese and englsih lighting up the perimeter of the room that said basically no violence or drugs or anything bad yadd yada...but also "please respect your body and do not use drugs" not..you will be prosecuted or absolutely no tolerance...just please be healthy. awe. I felt all warm and fuzzy. If i were a junkie, I would have quit then and there. What a nice scrolly sign.

After a while you start to insert your own understanding of overheard dialogue into the spit fire, but also slightly comprehend. !contact! The characters that are just empy pictures to me are starting to morph into meaning, slowly, but surely. Eventually, you learn what you want, and you learn what you need, and decide to stick it out anyways, and forgo what you need so that you can learn. And sometimes you just say fuck it and go to Hawaii to see people you love, or you spend your last Hundred quai getting to Italy to see your family. After all, what is 'need' really anyways?

"So I think im gonna catch a cab home, i have to be in up in 5 hours, and ive slept about 4 in the last 48"

"oh c'mon Jessy, you're already out"

"ehh i dont know i really need to sleep something awful"

"okay we'll were going dancing then.."

"I can sleep when I'm dead..."

Baila!


Yours,

Clean West.

BABEL!

Another thing i love learning from travel, is slang in many languages. Especially exclamations! Zut Alors! Mamma Mia! Aye oh! Dios Mio! Oh my gawd! Fun little interjections in any country. These simple things amuse me. And then the ever so smutty...Vaffancoulo! (which is not how you spell it) Basically...you can stick it where the sun dont shine in Italian....Merde! Che Cazzo Fai! Smut is even more fun when no one can understand it :) Also....apparently the word "fanny" does not mean what you think it means in the UK...i settled this with brit over a game of rock paper scissors...or...Shin tao, Jin to, pu! Roh Sham bo! I love this game.....

chocolate is a good word to know in every lanuage as well as "coffee" and "water" because really the three are of equal nutritional importance, Hello and thank you are useful as well. And for some reason I always seem to lean the word butterfly in a ton of languages and really love it.

Butterfly
Farfalle
Mariposa
Woo Dieh
Papillion

Chocolate
Chao ke Li
Cioccolato
chocolat
chocolate (with an accent)

Ni Hao! Shei Shei
Hello! Thank you
Bonjour! Merci
Ciao! grazie
Hola! gracias
Habari! Asante.

Coffee
Cafe( win several differnt accents dependant on where you are)
ka fei
kaffea

some things translate. Glad to know a slightly psychotropic bean in one of them.

someone must have gotten together at the primitive UN or something and made sure the word for butterfly was beautiful in every language. I dont know what im talking about...

Its also fun to know drinking expressions...

Cheers! ( for most people i know)
Salute! (for josh and lou)
Salud! ( for andrew)
Gan Bei! ( chug it.. basically..for me)
Prost! (for my german friends)
Okole Maluna! ( for morgan )

i love language. i seriousl love this stuff. ugh...pour on the guilt now...continuing to try to make a decision....

Anyways...

Bye!
Ciao Ciao! ci vediamo! ( my favorite)
Au revoir!
A hui huo! aloha!
Hasta luego!
ZiaJian!
Sayonara!
kwa heri!

Ti Amo
Te amo
Je t'aime
Wo ai ni
Ninapenda wewe
Ma armastind sind
Mi amas vin
I love you

I love you I love I love you guys. F'real.

feel free to add to this....I love collecting, you can accomplish a lot in many places by committing to memory just a few quick words and addresses. If anyone speaks Gaelic or Arabic or Esperanto or Cherokee...those would be ideal :)

if you want to have your brain massaged :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121140347.htm

more later Im sure.

survival survival!

j

coeur de corps.

I dont know why but there is something very regal about tiny women. They just seem so sacred or something. Fragile, like you need to put them on a velvet pillow and let them breathe. Sort of like they know something i dont. But still somehow there is a different allure to figured women. They are, cascading and rich. Ive been thinking a lot about body type lately and what it means, where it means it. I feel like i take pretty good care of my body, and generally i like it, sometimes love it, at least respect it. Its funny though coming here and realizing that the concept of beauty is different. Beauty on the whole here means very slender, girlish, and fair. Im not really sure i embody any of these fully. So its strange to notice the slight shift in my confidence when i walk down the street. Im not the fattest person on the street by any means, or really tragic looking or anything. Im just becoming hyper aware of the fact that my body type does not mean the same thing here as it does everywhere, its kind of awkward. I sort of feel like im going through puberty again. Sure I have my moments of self doubt anywhere, but Im assaulted suddenly by unfamiliar feelings of self consciousness. I think its so interesting how much stock we put in our bodies. Ive heard of body worship in Rio, and foot binding, and lobe stretching, and exotic forms of circumcision, and lotions with bleach in them. Its crazy what people will do to make their bodies more "functional" in the society they are in. It kind of makes me want to reject it, but im so weak to not fall subject to it as well, im such a product of where i come from, but constantly trying to look beyond into and around that. My definition of beauty is health i think, and i have to learn to accept that more readily when little voices creep in the moors of my brain, whispering that I dont look right. What is that? Is it evolutionary? Life is weird, and life is interesting.
I mean clearly I want eyes like alicia keys and have always wished for an elegant body like cate blanchette, or wanton sexiness like either of they gylenhaals or even some of my friends bodies. That envious eye though always create unhappiness, and I can also think of times when I have wanted to be no one in the room but me. And there have been times when i revel in my completeness and my health, and feel incredibly confident. Its just a push and pull i guess. I dont really know what I am trying to say, I guess im just exploring the unfamiliar feeling of physical inadequacy that has suddenly found me here, half a world away. But...
I really think that the best way for me to make sense of this is to define beauty as health, coupled with the ability to realize your own beauty. I mean, beauty is just cultural definition of proportion, or so im told, so i think there is something beyond that because I still think that Sandra Oh is gorgeous although so many people think she isnt. And i still find so many differnt types of people physically appealing. Im always going to be a little be curvy, and have weak hips, and stubby fingers and a slight slouch and goofy walk and a nasal tinge to my voice when speaking without thinking. But Im also sure that I will always love the way i feel right before i get in the shower and i realize this is the exact state i was born in. And im also sure that my life will be a long effort to respect my body as a magnificent tool, and an interesting and mysterious addition to my existence. Im pretty sure, even with age, I will take a few seconds in front of the mirror, bare, and think, hell yeah. I will breathe for as long and as deep as it will allow me, and run for as long and as hard as it will allow. I totally understand body worship, the meaning of it, I mean if you think about it, bodies are just amazing things, and WE ALL GET ONE! It does so many awesome things that are the ultimate form of sophistication and of puzzlement. Everything is so intricate and minute and instant. Thinking, breathing, feeling, understanding, and communication. Adrenaline, and fullness, and touch, and sex, and choice and pain and illness and sleep. Gah the brain! the brain is just amazing in itself! Its probably why i like senses and clothes so much..clothes! they are like art! Something to make more beautiful the body, and give it even more facets that it already has. Art for art! Without a body, Im not really sure what i am in this lifetime. Whatever state its in, it still gives me a tangible form of existence. I dont know what it is, or where it came from, but i love it, and i need it, and i deeply deeply appreciate it. Anyways i could go on...but i wont. I guess what i mean to say is.. respect your body eat your vegetables, drink water, get sleep...but use it too! have a drink or a smoke or an all nighter or some chocolate on occasion, and realize its potential. Take a swim or a jog and don't be so hard on it, it works twenty four hour days, with little thanks, and looks good doin' it.

j

its all relative.

Something that really fascinates me about language and life is our distinct and undying and universal need to communicate, and to create. Which are arguably the same thing. Which is also the reason im having such a hell of a time trying to choose between the two as a concentration. I wonder, which will i become bored with? Both and neither. Crippling indecision, will always be a problem for me i think. I guess I dont really mind all that much. Anyways, i have this theory...i cant really back it up well, but i just have a hunch that people need to make themselves known, that everyone has a strange and inexplicable desire to make others aware of them and their needs. And yes we are so shamed by our needs, sometimes pushing them to the point of and equating them with vanity.

I dont believe in vanity. I dont think.. Life is vanity, intrinsically. We are a people of ourselves, and therefore of each other. Every endeavor in our entire existence is in ultimate effort understand ourselves or others ( and even then, how they relate to us) self interest is just the nature of things i think. It shouldn't be so negatively connotative, we are infinitely interesting, our own personal puzzle. I choose to embrace it, for study of self is study of other as well. I dont blame myself...we, you, they, I am hypnotically full of study, full of mystery, an every changing labyrinth, a watch with no watch maker, a library, a thousand lifetimes.

I love chocolate and prefer it to almost anything else to eat. On the other hand my taste in food is incredibly liberal and constantly changing, but honestly im happy no being stuffed, and im happy eating only eggs and vegetables for the rest of my life. I frequently prefer a raw carrot or onion, and i dont mind eating them for weeks at a time. Im not sad that im "sick" im happy that im not. I value health with almost a passion, almost a spiritual conviction.
I prefer a good brisk run in 90 degree weather over any travel.
I prefer good friends to any location.
I sometimes feel phony and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Constantly afraid, never a wimp.
thankful thankful thankful.
I love you, yeah all of you, I cant help it.
There is good and bad in everyone, there is alot of both in me.
I cant look at my personal pictures of my life after a certain time, it makes me miss them so much i really feel that ache in my throat like just before you start to cry, but cant, it sucks because I want to.
My favorite music is all music.
My favorite colors are most of them.
I sort of love and hate this about me.
Sun Sun Sunshine, bring it on.
sometimes reclusive, sometimes hungry for contact.
Usually am dying to say what im really thinking, but tone it down quite a bit.
There is value in everything.
Everyone has something in common.
Compulsion to talk about food, music, and human behavior pretty consistantly.
Stifled. Sometimes.
I need space to make my own, its something i have found i have trouble living well without. Not a huge space, nothing fancy, just mine. sanctuary!