Pic test Dubai and food
I finally feel like I'm caught up on the work I need to have done, so now I've managed to get a few useful programs on the fast computer and figure out how to use the Picasa blogging tool. It looks as though you can post four pictures at once, enough to illustrate points, but not enough to use a ton of space in storage.
To test this I grabbed a few representative pictures of Dubai Int'l Airport. Very international, as I may have said before. I don't think I've seen a more evenly distributed diversity in any other airport, with Europeans, South Asians, Arabs, East Asians in fairly equal concentrations and even a few Africans too.
It's a very decorated airport, with touches such as this torch (cloth fluttering above a light) to make it all nicely atmospheric.
It's also a very straight airport, it's pretty much all laid out in a straight line. Riding the bus in from the plane felt like something out of a sci-fi movie, just passing green flood-lit plane after plane after plane, refueling and baggage handling and food service equipment all white, uniformed workers... It was kind of surreal, and kind of deja vu. I think it was used in a movie called Baraka, which was itself just a collection of images from around the world.
There's something strange about how they've organized their display boards, because a lot of flights didn't show up until they were already boarding. I was hanging out by one of the big departure schedule displays, and when the flight for Seoul showed up, it said that it was final call. Fortunately, sort of, when I got there we had some sort of delay, so I still got to hang around and take a couple pictures. Had to wait around for a while actually. Fortunately I was able to sleep on the plane, although my sense of time was completely thrown off. We left in the very early morning and disembarked late afternoon, but it felt like it should just be morning.
Oh right, then it was a challenge first figuring out what bus to take, then which stop to get off at (over-shot by one). Then I had to call and get picked up, but since I didn't really know where I was I didn't give very good directions. After an hour or so Mi Jang (one of the actresses) finally found me. I was so lost. We went back to the studio for a little bit, then went out to a (Korean) BBQ place, where we ate lots and lots of meat and vegetables and drank lots of soju, or rice spirits, like Japanese shochu or Chinese baijiu. I think I've only had beef one time since then, and it was pickled in a spicy sauce and was a condiment with breakfast. Although I think I have had other cow parts, yesterday afternoon we had a snack of various organ meats and Korean-style blood sausage. I discovered that lung is chewy and flavorless. For the most part though, fish is the main meat, with eggs, chicken, and squid rounding it out. Rice and noodles of course, seaweed both dried and not, and lots of different types of pickled vegetables, some of which are good and some of which have little silver pieces of fish mixed in. And yes, this combination of foods applies to Korean breakfast just as much as to other Korean meals. Overall it seems very healthy, although I'm eating/being fed a little too much. That and our schedule often means I'm eating some sort of snack/late night meal like fried chicken, concord grapes, and beer with Chungeuy at 1 in the morning. That or we're at the studio late enough to order a meal for everyone here. Oh yeah, remember how I was kind of shocked that people in China take stuff from the communal dish to put in their own bowl of rice with the same chopsticks they're using to eat? Well here it's even worse: you just eat straight from the communal dish. This even applies to soup, you just take a spoonful from the big bowl in the middle of the table. The only time you get your own portion is if you're going to add flavorings. Okay, that's it for now.
To test this I grabbed a few representative pictures of Dubai Int'l Airport. Very international, as I may have said before. I don't think I've seen a more evenly distributed diversity in any other airport, with Europeans, South Asians, Arabs, East Asians in fairly equal concentrations and even a few Africans too.
It's a very decorated airport, with touches such as this torch (cloth fluttering above a light) to make it all nicely atmospheric.
It's also a very straight airport, it's pretty much all laid out in a straight line. Riding the bus in from the plane felt like something out of a sci-fi movie, just passing green flood-lit plane after plane after plane, refueling and baggage handling and food service equipment all white, uniformed workers... It was kind of surreal, and kind of deja vu. I think it was used in a movie called Baraka, which was itself just a collection of images from around the world.
There's something strange about how they've organized their display boards, because a lot of flights didn't show up until they were already boarding. I was hanging out by one of the big departure schedule displays, and when the flight for Seoul showed up, it said that it was final call. Fortunately, sort of, when I got there we had some sort of delay, so I still got to hang around and take a couple pictures. Had to wait around for a while actually. Fortunately I was able to sleep on the plane, although my sense of time was completely thrown off. We left in the very early morning and disembarked late afternoon, but it felt like it should just be morning.
Oh right, then it was a challenge first figuring out what bus to take, then which stop to get off at (over-shot by one). Then I had to call and get picked up, but since I didn't really know where I was I didn't give very good directions. After an hour or so Mi Jang (one of the actresses) finally found me. I was so lost. We went back to the studio for a little bit, then went out to a (Korean) BBQ place, where we ate lots and lots of meat and vegetables and drank lots of soju, or rice spirits, like Japanese shochu or Chinese baijiu. I think I've only had beef one time since then, and it was pickled in a spicy sauce and was a condiment with breakfast. Although I think I have had other cow parts, yesterday afternoon we had a snack of various organ meats and Korean-style blood sausage. I discovered that lung is chewy and flavorless. For the most part though, fish is the main meat, with eggs, chicken, and squid rounding it out. Rice and noodles of course, seaweed both dried and not, and lots of different types of pickled vegetables, some of which are good and some of which have little silver pieces of fish mixed in. And yes, this combination of foods applies to Korean breakfast just as much as to other Korean meals. Overall it seems very healthy, although I'm eating/being fed a little too much. That and our schedule often means I'm eating some sort of snack/late night meal like fried chicken, concord grapes, and beer with Chungeuy at 1 in the morning. That or we're at the studio late enough to order a meal for everyone here. Oh yeah, remember how I was kind of shocked that people in China take stuff from the communal dish to put in their own bowl of rice with the same chopsticks they're using to eat? Well here it's even worse: you just eat straight from the communal dish. This even applies to soup, you just take a spoonful from the big bowl in the middle of the table. The only time you get your own portion is if you're going to add flavorings. Okay, that's it for now.
posted by Colin at 8:35 AM
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