Bristol Ha-bah Mermaid

Lovely afternoon on a second floor deck overlooking the harbor, SWI (sketching while intoxicated). The mermaid seems to have rather big hair (and small tail). Perhaps she is just dried out.

Safe Harbor

Sitting in the darkened waters between two piers, this small but elegant boat is a link to larger ships that sail at sea. Wood on a boat, either shellacked or painted, seems to resonate in a harmonious manner with the turbid liquid below.

Not Bristol Palin

You cannot see Russia from here, but you can see some mighty fine buildings in this harbor town in Rhode Island. Born out of a desire for freedom (at the expense of the natives - King Phillip's War started here), raised with tasteful affluence (on the back of the slave trade), and experiencing a long somnolence of middle age, Bristol today is sprightly mix of WASPs, Italian-Americans, and Azoreans - historically sailors all.

This sweet Greek Revival is but a small sample of the tasty treats this town has to offer.

DinTaiFung

DinTaiFung, which means.....DinTaiFung (a mashup of two previous stores) is a famous Taiwanese Soup Dumpling Restaurant. A soup dumpling, or Xiaolongbao, is not a dumpling in soup. It is a transcendent dumpling that has soup in it, along with pork or crab or both.

The meat is combined with soup that has been gelled with agar-agar and this soup/meat combination is put into fresh thin dumplings, twisted and the steamed in a bamboo steamer.

Oh. My. God.

I ate at the branch in Beijing and will eat at the branch in LA at Xmas. But for now I am going to lunch at a local place, which is not as good, but will suffice.

The second drawing is of peanut ice, with peanuts on top. Yummy.

Houhai? You High.

Wandering around the Houhai area of Beijing, bustling with shops, traffic and hordes of non-Mongols, I came upon this coffee house, an island of calm located in a western-chinese hybrid building from the 1890's. The coffee house is in the second floor with exposed beams 'n stuff. Originally these buildings were used as guild houses or brothels and were a mash-up of the grey chinese brick and details with western arches and columns.