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| First things first - chili. |
What a whirlwind of activity this has been!
So, Ella and I have spent roughly the last month in America. It's actually been quite a stressful experience - job interview after job interview, and lots of getting ducks in a row before our move. Compounded with an unfortunate laundry-passport interaction, I think this month is doing its best to kill us. But, at long last, I can announce Ella and I are both moving to...
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Guangzhou, China!
So a few of my friends have said, "Isn't that where you used to live?" First, thank you for being super observant. But I lived in Hangzhou. Believe it or not, they're pretty damn far apart. Guangzhou is a massive city surrounded by massive cities, just a short distance away from Hong Kong and Macau. So it's a sort of 3-for-one-sort-of-countries kind of deal. Not to mention, we're near Taiwan, Japan, Ella's hometown, and a bunch of other places to visit. I'm especially excited that we both got jobs at the same place. I applied first, and then I mentioned Ella. Turns out they were interested in her as well, so we get to be coworkers. We're going to work at a school attached to Guangdong University, so that's pretty cool overall. Plus, we'll have an apartment on campus. Overall a pretty sweet deal. Let's hope it's actually as cool as it sounds.
As far as America, it's mostly been a lot of eating. We haven't been super adventurous, usually picking 1 or 2 places a day in Cincinnati to hang out at. It's been really fun for me to introduce Ella to all sorts of American food and drink. So far the winner for best meal has been the little old Knuck n Futz in Taylor Mill (really?). If you all are not familiar with it, and I am sure you are not, it's a tiny dive bar/restaurant in a very suburban area. But hey, to each their own. Also Taco Bell, and more authentic Mexican food in general. Asia is a Mexican desert (for shame), so I personally have been eager to fill my quota.
Oh, and the beer. So much beer. We did some bar hoping, and I think Ella is a little overwhelmed at all the choices. She seems to enjoy hoppy beer, so IPAs are consistently winners. I legitimately will miss all the beer options we have in Cincy, but I am sure we'll be able to rustle some up on occasion.
Other than that, what have we been doing? Seeing Cincinnati sights. Some expected, like the zoo and OTR. But we also did some more unusual ones, like horse racing at Belterra (Ella won $1), and the Sign Museum. Ella also found some really off the wall places I had never heard of on a Chinese tourism website. That lead us to the Lucky Cat Museum which was... odd but overall worth the trip. We also went to the Police Museum, which I had not heard of but was really impressed by. Just a bunch of retired cops showing us how things "used to be done", with a lot of local history. It's totally free and next to the casino, so I highly recommend it.
But alas, Cincy is too small to keep one occupied for a month. First we went on a family trip to Central Kentucky. We saw some stuff like the capitol, Shakertown, and Woodford Reserve Distillery. I remember liking the capitol as a kid, and I still do. While I'm sure out of 50 states Kentucky's capitol is not the most impressive, it beats the one in DC IMO. Speaking of DC, with our flight out in July, we decided to take a diversion. That diversion happened to be to Washington DC. First was to visit my cousin Laura and friend Aaron. But also I had not been in a long time, and what better way to experience America than go to the capital - except New York, but that will be for next time.
We did pretty much what you would expect in DC. The Smithsonians, Lincoln Memorial, and all the regular tourist sites you'd come to expect. So instead I'll talk about the more unusual stuff - we visited the-unfortunately-my-Senator's office, ol' Mitchy McConnel to get a gallery pass to the Senate. And when we arrived, wouldn't ya know it, he was speaking about how Obamacare is going to eat our children and lead to armageddon. We had to go through about a billion security scans to get there, and they had very strict rules about no talking, no pointing, no anything. They did not say anything about shoe throwing, but I'd rather not end up on a no-fly list a few days before I leave for Asia. After, Chuck Schumer came out to respond. So we accidentally timed things amazingly well, and saw both speeches later on the news. It was an interesting experience, although I will say the Senate is really tiny. You don't get the same impression on TV, but it's honestly the size of like 2 living rooms.
So for other unusual stuff, we visited the Mexican Cultural Institute. It's definitely not in the tourist part of town, and used to be the Mexican Embassy. Now it's just a really impressive English style house, with even an organ in one of the rooms. We also visited some giant Masonic Temple, which was impressive given that it was entirely made out of stone. The girl who gave us a tour was very eager to point out that we weren't "Illuminati, or some kind of secret organization". Which is exactly what a secret organization would say.
Hmm...
She was very friendly though, but almost too friendly. Like, later she is going to introduce their multi-level marketing sales pitch. Anyway, cool looking place.
The other place of note, and by far the most impressive, was the Society of the Cincinnati. The name was an accidental discovery, as Ella's Chinese website had it listed as The Anderson House. Which, it was, but then the society inherited it. It has no connection to the city, rather just the common root of Cincinnatus. The society itself is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Revolutionary War, and ol' Washington started it. Cool, I guess. I had never learned that. But boring history aside, the house itself was like, ripped straight out of Beauty and the Beast. Massive, 40 bedroom house full of European decorations, with some Asian stuff thrown in (Mr. Anderson was an ambassador to Japan). Certainly a surprise, to say the least.
It's been a while since I toured around DC (I think I was a teenager?), so it was fun to get to see things I hadn't seen in a while, like the Air and Space Museum. But overall, I find that DC is pretty similar to Cincinnati, if you added better infrastructure and more monuments. It feels like 90% of other American cities, and made me think that we really need to get back to New York sometime.
But for now we're looking ahead to Guangzhou. I hope people will get a chance to visit, because it really looks like a cool town to hang out in (if you consider a 'town' a metro area of about 50 million people). I'm excited to start the next chapter of my life, with my best friend along with me.
