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my father is going with me to china. my mother called me up yesterday to ask if it was okay, and said my father was complaining he wanted to go but she wouldn't let him. naturally he's not coming with me for the entire 3 month duration (that's not something he can do nor is it something i'd want): only the 3rd and 4th week of my trip (the start of august) when i'll be in southwestern sichuan to see the litang horse festival and partake in the scenery that inspired tales of shangri-la. before he can buy his plane ticket we had to figure out my itinerary (at least for the first month) so i went to the cafe this afternoon and over a calendar and several maps, i plotted out my course. for the first two weeks i'll be traveling from shanghai to chengdu (via plane, train, boat, and bus); chengdu (the capital of sichuan) is where we'll rendezvous, and from there we'll begin our 2 day road trip to litang, hoping to adjust to the altitude change in time before we arrive. we will continue as far as the yading nature reserve, where we'll then part ways: my father returning to chengdu (a 3 day journey at least), to fly back to boston, while i continue exploring the rest of southwestern china for 7 more weeks (yunnan, xishuangbanna, guizhou, guangxi).

i left the cafe with a bag of homemade zongzi. it started to rain again and by the time i got back home the front part of my body was completely soaked. another package from amazon.com was waiting for me on the front door: my silencer (1992) dvd finally arrived! has anyone else ever seen this movie before? it's sort of a low-budget made-for-cable ripoff of la femme nikita (1990), but a precursor of shows like alias. angel (lynette walden) is an assassin who gets her assignments by playing a videogame called "the silencer" at an arcade. some creepy guy is narrating the movie (her handler?) and seems to be stalking her. the film is shot in the classic erotic thriller style, with painful early 90's references (the wardrobe alone will induce involuntary cringing). the movie is entirely bad (though perfect for movie marathons) but has someone stuck with me all these years. i was surprised it was out on dvd, and had it on my amazon wishlist for a long time, and only bought it to push my recent purchase over $25 so i could get free shipping.

julie came over for zongzi in the evening. the red sox yankees game was a bore, but things got exciting when the red sox finally found their offense and put up some numbers on the scoreboard. and is it just us or does coco crisp have the most embarassingly ugly and weird stance in MLB? the man literally rests his chin on his shoulder in order to hit the ball.