summer

HONG KONG: INSTAGRAMS

since my pops arrived, my dumpling intake has pretty much tripled and it's only going uphill in a downhill/loosen-the-belt way. we take hours to indulge in the wild hotel breakfast that has stations for like every breakfast food imaginable (and non-imaginable), including breakfast noodles and breakfast blue cheese and breakfast bao... and our favorite, breakfast 粽子

last night we had a molecularly gastronomized xiao long bao. ​(don't even. i'll discuss later.)

yesterday we had our first rehearsal with the phil and it went well. it was fun to play with my dad and aziz! aziz has surrounded himself with like a thousand bass drums and if i didn't know him i'd be scared. 

after rehearsal i dragged those two to the street with all of the kitchen supplies stores and it was the most jaw-droppingly amazing out-of-body cake mold experience. hey molly, did you buy any cool things in hong kong?  7,000 beautiful cupcake cups for the price of about two normal vending machine trips.

other enjoyable moments from these past few days: running into some friends from juilliard who were stopping over en route to bali, eating the most fabulous black sesame ice cream with the hugest black sesame seeds and not giving a damn about them getting stuck in my teeth, meeting a giant inflatable duck, and finding soup dumplings at the 7-11.​

​ok, i am off to play more gong!

-yeh!​

HONG KONG: DAY TWO

​the weirdest parts about such intense jet lag adjustments are when dreams feel so real and real life feels dreamy, since those two things actually happen at approximately opposite hours of the day for a few days. for example, last night i dreamt that i was late to today's rehearsal because i was shooting the shit with tyrion lannister. (i'll stop the game of thrones ​references when i'm back in territory that is legal for using hbo go.)

​at about midnight chicago time on monday, i boarded a boat in broad daylight in hong kong's causeway bay with about 20 members of the hong kong phil (i'm playing gong and bass drum and about eight crotale notes with them this week). boating around the green-ish water among plops of land felt a little bit life of pi-​ish. i'd been up since 3am, and now i was to continue to be up in beautiful cloudy daylight with a boat lady who had a sixth sense for when anyone's beers would be remotely close to finished so that she could be on it with the refill. 

partway through we parked it for swimming and cannon-balling and grilled chickens on sweet squishy buns. it was absolutely lovely and topped off with a rainbow at the end.  ​

when i got back i slept a really fantastic sleep. and then last night, my pops arrived! he's playing bass clarinet with the orchestra this week. we're about to head to rehearsal. rite of spring ​is on the program, and today is the 100th anniversary of it's premiere! i hope there are no riots this time?

-yeh!​