The Chinese Mountain Dew label looks way cooler than the English language version. Something abut the shape just totally works. On a similar topic, I love Japanese “genki drinks” and had sort of hoped there would be a Chinese version of these vitamin fortified turtle blood and caffiene laden bombs but so far I’ve had no luck finding any super powerful Chinese energy drinks. One convenience store did have a couple of warm bottles of Lipovitan-D but I can get that state side. Â Anybody got ideas on this? I was hoping to bring some samples back to the lab.
This corn drink I saw in a supermarket near the hotel looks interesting. I really liked the corn flavored kit-cat from Japan so I’m really wondering what this corn drink tastes like. It only came in large 1 litre bottles. If there was a small one I would check it out for sure. I wonder if there’s any of that fake margarine flavor in there?
Pictures of my doggies remind me of home while travelling. I got a big smile on my face finding these in my e-mail box after waking up obscenely early once again.
This min-pin looks kind of stoned.
Experiment #44 shows that canines dislike adhesive backed paper stuck to their heads.
I'll bet you didn't know that dogs lay big white furry eggs.
Don't forget Bob.
Ding Cong's portrait of Honoré de Balzac
This is Ding Cong’s portrait of Honoré de Balzac. I never realized how much he looks like American porn icon Ron Jeremy. I tried to download an image of Ron Jeremy to put side by side with this photo I took at the Ding Cong museum but I was thwarted in my search by the Great Firewall of China and I’m feeling too lazy to attempt to tunnel my way under just to  snag a headshot of Ron Jeremy looking surley. I will update this post later with that image.
Update: A concerned reader sent me ta snapshot of Mr. Ron Jeremy for inclusion in this article. Thanks Jeff!
Today a group of us including a couple of comic book artists from Portugal and G. Scott Owen, the President of ACM SIGGRAPH, took a field trip to the home of renound Chinese cartoonist Ding Cong. Along the way I got to wondering just what in Odin’s name an Ewok is doing standing guard over this Taoist temple in Fengjing?
Pie For Breakfast
Who knew they served pie for breakfast in Shanghai? I don’t know how to read Chinese, so at first I guessed  that the asterisk looking symbol divided into eight wedge shaped slices was the character for “pie” but as it turns out that’s actually the character for “rice”.
Shanghai at 5am
Slept well after my flight to Shanghai. Woke up a bit earlier than I would have liked, but it’s 2pm in California right now. I took this shot of the sunrise out of my hotel window this morning.
We’re enjoying a wonderful Saturday tasting wine at Sullivan Vineyards with Canadian sportscaster Matt Cauz and Sean Sullivan. 2005 Coeur De Vigne in our glasses.
Corn Flavored Kit-cat
Last night after a wonderful tasting of Laphroaig, my friend Chris busted out with some amazing Kit-Kat bars he brought back from Japan. My personal favorites were the baked potato and buttered corn flavors but we also had soy flavor, mango flavor and green tea flavor kit-kat bars. Oishii!
Somehow I just don’t think this would fly in California.
