Thursday, January 31, 2013

Unfinished business

Back in late December, Amber and I took a long walk on a very cold and windy day through East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., finishing up at the Jefferson Memorial. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died before we reached that Washington landmark, and I was unable to take any pictures to post on this here blog. So this afternoon, with some free time and nothing to do (other than study, but there's always time for that later), I returned with a spare battery in tow to complete the task I set out to do last month. Mission accomplished, despite the bad cold I've been suffering from the past few days. Feel free to admire my dedication.



The Jefferson Memorial


The weather today was cloudy, with rain falling later in the afternoon. The temperature, however, reached the low seventies Fahrenheit (!), quite a change from the cold of last week. Winter, apparently, will be back at the end of this week.




Inside stands a 19 foot (5.8 meters)-high statue of the third president, along with selected quotes, including his famous words from the Declaration of Independence.


Near the Jefferson Memorial George Mason sits and ponders the writings of Cicero, Locke and Rousseau.


The memorial sits by the Tidal Basin, where Washington's famous cherry trees will come to life sometime around April.



I also walked for a while along the Washington Channel, across from the Washington Marina. It was just me out there...and a lot of geese. 



Also on the opposite side of the channel is Fort Lesley J. McNair, with its Generals' Row of brick houses and the National War College building.



On the way back to the Metro station, I snapped a picture of the outside to the very sobering United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I visited last November.







Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Of Kings and Wizards

It's been a while since I've attended an NBA game...a long while. So long, in fact, that I can't quite remember when, though if I had to place a more exact time frame on it, I'd say it must've been during Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's first season with the Los Angeles Lakers. I recall going to the game at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, CA with my friend Steve Nash and his dad, and seeing the bald patch on Abdul-Jabbar's head as he ran up and down up the court. In any event, that was a long time ago.

Will my daughter's recollection of her first professional basketball game be any clearer than her old man's? Time will tell, but she definitely had a good time last night (Monday), as the three of us (Mom included) rode the Metro to the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. to see the host Washington Wizards take on the visiting Sacramento Kings. It was hardly a marquee match-up (both teams are in the second division), but it was most certainly an exciting affair, with 11 lead changes and 16 ties before the Kings' Isaiah Thomas made the winning shot with one second remaining to give Sacramento the victory, 96-94. You can read a write-up on the game here, and watch some video highlights on the NBA's website here. It was a contest definitely worth seeing, even at the risk of aggravating an already troublesome cold.

Did I go home feeling like a winner? You betcha! Having attended high school and college in the greater Sacramento metropolitan area, it was the Kings I was rooting for, and the game took on an added poignancy with the knowledge that this is most likely the team's last season in Sacramento - they're in the process of being sold to a group of buyers from Seattle, who will move the team to the Pacific Northwest and change the name to the SuperSonics. Sacramento has never been much of a major-league sports town - other than the Kings, the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs played at ARCO Arena from 1997-2009, and the Oakland Athletics' Triple-A affiliate Sacramento River Cats ply their trade at Raley Field in West Sacramento. For most of the 28 years the Kings have played in Sacramento, they've been a terrible team, but the fans always came out to cheer them on - I never got a chance to see them when I was still living in the area due to the difficulty of acquiring game tickets. The glory days of the Chris Webber era, 1998-2005, when the Kings won their division a couple of times and came so close to beating the Lakers and going on to the NBA finals (curse you, Robert Horry!) happened while I was in East Asia. But while the supporting fan base has always been there, the Maloof family ownership hasn't, backing out of a couple of arena deals at the last minute and frustrating Sacramento Mayor (and former NBA player) Kevin Johnson's heroic efforts to keep the team in town.

So it's farewell to the hometown team - at least in my case, they went out on a winning note.


Pre-game introductions



The view we had from our seats during the first half. Even the nosebleed seats at the Verizon Center, where we sat, weren't far from the action.


DeMarcus Cousins, the Kings' troubled young star, gets ready to shoot a free throw. The team was only 15 for 25 from the free throw line.


The girls at the start of the halftime break


Underway in the second half. An usher let us move to another section with a slightly better view of the action on the floor.


The Wizard Girls


The scoreboard shows the final score. 10 of Thomas' 22 points came in the fourth quarter, including the game-winner, of course. Francisco Garcia had 17 points, including four clutch three-point goals.




Monday, January 28, 2013

That other Asian country


Those who are acquainted with me, or who occasionally take a look at this most humble of blogs, know that I'm very interested in most things Japonais. I lived and worked in the country for a number of years, and have frequently traveled throughout the archipelago. Though I'm married to a Taiwanese woman whom I met on the island of Formosa, have a child who can speak Mandarin Chinese and carries a Republic of China 中華民國 (Taiwan) passport, and am currently in Hell class torturing myself learning to read and speak 普通话/ 國語 in preparation for our supposed planned move to Shanghai 上海 this April, I've always felt more comfortable with Japan and the Japanese, be it language, culture or ways of thinking. So it was with nostalgic anticipation that I, along with Amber and Pamela, attended the Japanese New Year Celebration in Washington 2013 ワシントン新春祭り2013 this morning and afternoon at the Washington Plaza Hotel.

Thanks to Asami, a friend of my wife here in Falls Church (they met in a local English class), her husband Nori (who's working in Washington on assignment with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication  総務省) and their two young children Towa and Saya, I was able to reintroduce myself to Japan for a few hours today. It took a while to readjust thanks to the damage I've suffered all the things I've been learning in class at FSI - when first reading the Japanese signs, my brain was coming up with the Chinese readings of the characters - but it wasn't long before that old familiarity had returned. It was almost like being at a local festival in a Japanese neighborhood...if such matsuri were held in swank hotel lobbies, that is.


Amber prepares to dig into some takoyaki たこ焼き - the small balls of octopus covered in batter are a favorite of hers.


For some reason, this photo didn't focus very well, but it shows osechi お節料理, traditional Japanese New Year's foods.



There were demonstrations of rice-cake pounding 餅つき実演, in which my daughter enthusiastically participated.


There were also examples of traditional games. The people above are playing karuta かるた, a Japanese card game involving poems or proverbs.


Amber tried her hand at calligraphy, opting to write the character tori 鳥, meaning "bird". She finished off by writing her Chinese name, Lee Chih-hui.


Origami 折り紙


One game where my little one excelled at was the activity pictured here, super ball scooping スーパーボールすくい. The idea is to pick up as many balls as you can from the water before the paper scooper brakes apart. The game is most commonly played with goldfish as the target, where it's called kingyo-sukui 金魚すくい, and is popular with kids at Japanese festivals. It can also be seen at night markets in Taiwan, which is Amber honed her considerable scooping skills - she picked up eight super balls before the scooper broke on her third attempt.


A performance of drumming from the Ryūkyū Islands 琉球太鼓 was given by a local troupe called Chin Hamaya Daiko.


Former Transportation Secretary, Commerce Secretary, U.S. Representative and Mayor of San Jose, CA Norman Mineta spoke briefly at the event. Not many people get airports named after them while they're still alive.



A comical samurai sword fight 侍殺陣 was part of the entertainment


Amber seemed to enjoy the performances of traditional Japanese dance 日本舞踊 as done by a local dancing troupe, the Shizumi Kodomo Dancing Team 静美こども舞踊団.


A good time was had by all this afternoon, with a sincere どうもありがとうございます to Asami and her family for inviting us along today. Washington, D.C. has a surprisingly small Japanese community - there are no large Japanese supermarkets like Seattle's Uwajimaya, and the nearest Kinokuniya Bookstore is in New York City - so it's nice to be able to take part in activities like the New Year celebration. But as the folding screen painting in the background reminds, it's time to return to the Chinese world.


















Sunday, January 27, 2013

Enjoying the cold

After a long spell of unseasonably warm weather for this part of the country, winter finally arrived in the Washington, D.C. area last week. Temperatures have been cold, dipping into the low 20's/high teens Fahrenheit at nights, and in the low-to-high twenties (F) at times during daylight hours. And we've had snow on a couple of occasions - not enough to close the schools or shut down the government, but sufficient for some of the kids in the apartment complex to do some sledding down a short hill (as well as being cold enough to freeze over part of the swimming pool). With the forecast for Saturday calling for slightly warmer temperatures and sunlight, I decided today would be a good one for getting some fresh air and exercise. And to my daughter's surprise, her mother decided to join the two of us as we drove into Maryland to visit Piscataway National Park - Accokeek Foundation, located across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon.


The Potomac shoreline was covered in sheets of ice. The temperature as we entered the parking lot was 33°F (0.6°C). Things warmed up a little as we moved away from the river.


Mount Vernon, on the opposite side of the Potomac. Congress established the 5000-acre (2023 hectares) Piscataway National Park in order to preserve the view George Washington enjoyed from his estate (which we visited earlier this month). The Accokeek Foundation manages 200 of those acres (81 hectares) in conjunction with the National Park Service, and it was this section that we visited today.


It was cold this afternoon, especially by the river, but methinks my significant other is exaggerating the effects of the chill somewhat. Either that, or she's Taiwanese.


Amber stands over a fallen scarecrow at the Museum Garden, a small enclosure dedicated to raising colonial-era crops, though it didn't come as a surprise that there wasn't much to see there in late January. I pitied the poor chickens, who didn't look like they enjoying the weather much.


This building, located in front of the caretaker's residence, had a sign out front saying it was established in 1772.



The frozen Conservation Pond. The girls had a great time skipping rocks across the icy surface, and using sticks in an ultimately futile effort to break through the ice and let the trapped pockets of air beneath escape. For Pamela, this was the first time ever to see a frozen body of water (Amber encountered her first a few weeks ago).


Most of the snow that had fallen this week had already melted, leaving the trail a muddy mess in some places. Only a few patches remained.



We walked on several trails today, going from the Potomac through the woods, past open fields and up small hills.


Geese were wintering in many of the fields that we walked by. Their tracks could be seen on the ice covering the pond above.


A Milking Red Devon bull at the Colonial Farm (see below). They were once common in the American colonial period but, along with the three Ossabaw Island Hogs we saw today, are very rare these days.




The National Colonial Farm is a living-history museum that attempts to recreate a middle-class farm of the kind that existed around the time of the American Revolution. Outside of the winter months, guides in period clothing provide historical interpretations to visitors. The building in the middle photo is an 18th-century tobacco barn.



Posing by the frigid waters of the Potomac River once more as the loop we took brought us back to our starting point, the visitor center. 


We saw a large woodpecker at work in the frozen-over freshwater tideland area (it didn't stay still long enough for me to take its picture, unfortunately). In addition to the aforementioned (and photoed) geese, we spied a couple of bright red cardinals during our walk.


Where we stopped to pick up some dinner before heading home, and the real reason I suspect for my wife agreeing to walk four miles (6.4 kilometers) in close-to-freezing temperatures in the middle of winter.