Zipcar

Zipcar's having a contest to win a free ZipTrip and a foldie bike.  Ryan reeeeeally wants a foldie bike, so I figured I'd try to win it for mah mayun.  They're asking people to plan a trip involving the car and the bike, and write an email in, so that's what I did.  And here's what I wrote:

So my boyfriend had this excellent idea.  We were sitting on the A train, heading home after a long day of auditions -- we're both NYC actors, and this particular day was a doozie.  (Doozy?  Doozee?  Doosie?  Whatever.)  We had both been thinking that we need a little refresher, a day out of town, or just a break from the gnarliness of the city.  ANYway, there's a stop on the A (42nd, to be exact) where my Blackberry gets service for about two seconds, and it was fated that I should get your sweet little Zipcar email just at that moment, inviting us to plan the perfect trip for a Zipcar and a folding Montague Bike.  Um, HELLO?!  He's been wanting a folding bike forever, and we love Zipping.  We were stoked.

After a few admittedly lame ideas not even worth recapping, Ryan hit on this:  "What if you just drove me upstate and dropped me off and left?"  Well when ya put it like that, it doesn't sound so great, but the refined version is much better, and here she is:  We take a spring drive to upstate NY for a couple of hours on a sunny day when the leaves are starting to pop out, pick a cool spot, and stop.  Ryan pops the Boston bike out of the trunk and we say goodbye.  He toodles off to explore, and I find a SPA for a couple of hours!  Seriously?  How perfect is this?  I'm thinking a mani, pedi, and a facial should give my sweetie enough time to tire out.  So freshly primped, I'll pick him up, pop the bike back in the trunk, and off to home on our merry way we'll go.

Tell me that doesn't sound great.  I mean, the only way it could be better would be if Zipcar sponsored the spa visit...  (Insert sly smile here.)

xoxo

Bei-to-the-Jing

After much trial and tribulation, a few of us decided to head to Beijing (and get the heck out of Shanghai) for our 3 days off. A little tricky, seeing as how we only have a week's worth of pay left, and the holidays are coming, and some folks in the cast are straight up broke. But the bottom line is that a trip to China without seeing the Great Wall is total bunk, right? Right.

So we hopped in a cab, then in a plane, then in a bus, then in another bus, and we were in Beijing. We stayed at Beijing Downtown Backpackers' Hostel, which I totes recommend for all you future Beijing-ers. It was fantastic, and in such a cool part of town. It's on a hutong, which is an alley that's packed with cool little shops, bars, and restaurants. Do it.

So the Forbidden City was awesome, the pandas at the zoo were awesome, Tiananmen Square and Mao's embalmed body were (totally creepy and weird...) awesome. But the Great Wall was something more than awesome. Awe-inspiring? Amazing? I don't know. I guess I overuse awesome and amazing, because the Great Wall was both, in their literal meanings.

Anyhoo, we hiked the Jinshanling to Simatai section, which is the hardest section open to the public near Beijing. It's unrepaired, so it's pretty treacherous, and it's about 7.5 miles of either extremely steep stairs and ramps going up, or extremely steep stairs and ramps going down. Which is almost worse than going up. Ouch, my knees...

But in spite of the tough hike and the (ridiculous!) cold, we made it. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had, and I was so proud of us all by the end. It's such a feeling of accomplishment, and it's so inspiring to be all up in the middle of all that history. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Turning Japanese

It's kind of a cop-out, but Japan can best be summed up by copying and pasting an email I sent to my parents. Ta-daaaaa!

so here's the deal. japan is waaaaaay cooler than china.

first of all, it's cleaner. china is smoggy and messy and always under construction because they just want everything to be bigger and better. also, there's this huge Architectural Expo in Shanghai next year, and they're rennovating all of these buildings, even ones that are old and beautiful. did you know that almost a quarter of the world's construction cranes are in shanghai? there's a crane everywhere you look. but in japan, the air is clean and the streets are clean, even though there are no garbage cans anywhere. people don't eat or drink on the subway because it's impolite. and they certainly don't litter. (there's not a lot of litter in shanghai, but that's because they have street sweepers everynight. everyone has a government job, even if it's dusting the shelves in a tourist souvenir shop.)

second of all, everyone is so much nicer in japan. they don't shove, they don't judge you for not knowing the language, they smile, they're welcoming, and they just have a much more kind and gentle vibe. chinese people are all about what gets them ahead personally and they don't really care who they mow down in the process.

also, japanese people seem so much more interested in preserving their traditions and cultures. there are still people in the adult generation who wear kimonos on a daily basis, because it's their heritage. we saw plenty of them. (we've never seen anyone in traditional chinese dress.) they don't knock down their older buildings, they let them be or turn them into a museum or whatever. but there are still plenty of new, city-like areas of tokyo. there's nothing old in shanghai. it all got burned down or changed during the cultural revolution, from what i've read and researched. there are a couple of temples left, and a couple of gardens, but even those were burned down and then reconstructed.

also, (and this is totally superficial), japanese people are beautiful. and every last one of them is fashionable. they take so much pride and care in how they look. it was interesting. and the shopping is way better. :)

xoxo

ni hao and zai jian!

off to china tomorrow -- heading from Newark to Shanghai, nonstop. i'm sort of all turned around and not sure whether i'm coming or going; these last 2 weeks in the nyc have sort of felt like i'm still on tour and just waiting to go to the next city. i'm crossing my fingers for drawers in our hotel rooms in shanghai. it would blow my mind to open a drawer and see my clothes in it! drawers and hangers. that's all this girl really needs.

sooo... say a prayer, if you don't mind, that we all have safe travels and take care of each other. this, for sure, is going to be an adventure.

gen wo lai!!

xoxo

the glamourous life.

gotta be one of the best travel day stories ever:

so we all bring our luggage down to load the bus for our travel day from Columbus, OH to Charleston, WV yesterday. there at the curb to greet us are two buses: one that looks like it ferried passengers from California to Tijuana in the late seventies, and one seriously old-school bus (literally, an old SCHOOL bus). the two grizzly dudes who were driving grabbed our suitcases and put them in the school bus, informing us that we would be riding in the other (henceforward known as the TJ bus). we got on the TJ bus and promptly realized that it lacked any sort of air conditioning. being the troopers that we are, we popped the emergency hatches for a breeze and took off.

after having gone about 30 miles over the next hour, we realized that our little TJ bus didn't have a whole lot of get-up-and-go, especially when headed uphill, which is pretty common driving around in Ohio. so our magical company manager starts calling the bus dispatch for them to send us another bus, but none were available yet. meanwhile, clothes start coming off, water gets passed around, and cameras come out to capture us at our sweatiest hot-mess-ness.

not too long after that, our tranny little caravan pulled over to the side of the road. our TJ bus driver runs out, and a few of our crew guys follow. we then get an update from Eric saying that the school bus burst a hose due to overheating, because it had been pushing us up the hills. dudes. the little-school-bus-that-could had been literally nose-to-booty PUSHING US up hills. i mean, come on.

so we make it down the road about a mile to the nearest truck stop, where we wait for an hour or so for a different bus (with a/c, thank you very much) to come and rescue us.

upshot? the company bought us lunch. :) all's well that ends well.

a slice of life from birmingham, alabama.

so during press the other day, we had some time to stop and go to breakfast at a pancake house. i went to use the restroom, where there were two stalls: one was occupied, and one was locked from the inside with no one in it. seeing as how i didn't want to crawl on the floor to unlock the latter, i waited for the first to clear. in came a woman who worked in the kitchen, and seeing that the stall was going unused, she asked if i was waiting. i told her it was locked. she promptly stepped up onto the sink, laid down over the top of the stall, hung her torso down inside the stall, unlocked the door, and slammed it open. she jumped back down, used the restroom, and left without washing her hands.

birhmingham, folks.