Blondes are popular

Julia looking gangsta Chinese.


This picture could use some explaining.

After Tuesday's pickup Ultimate we went (for the second straight week) to a small eatery just down the block. As we were readying to leave, a group of Chinese guys approached one of our tables and asked Lincoln (not pictured, sitting to my right) if they could get a picture. Lincoln, who is Chinese, thought they meant if we could take a picture of them. Little did he know, they wanted a group photo with the two blondes at the table.

"Well, that was new," I said at the end of the photo-op.

"That?" Lauren replied. "Nope. It happens all the time."

Watch as the Chinese guy next to Lauren expresses surprise that the blonde can speak English...


At the end of the video Lauren asks, "Are you this place's boss?" The guy says, "No, I'm just here to eat," to which Lauren nearly jumps out of her seat: "Really? Me too!"

The subtlety of that little dig is genius.

POSTSCRIPT: Bonus video and picture, taken from Deshengmen, one of the city's northern gates.


The dancers are all elderly men and women -- mostly women -- and the music is, to say the least, entrancing.


POSTSCRIPT 2: From Wikipedia:

The Deshengmen (simplified Chinese: 德胜门; traditional Chinese: 德勝門; pinyin: Déshèngmén; Manchu: Erdemu i etehe duka; lit. "Gate of Virtuous Triumph") is one of the few surviving city gates in Beijing, China, located at the northern tip of the 2nd Ring Road. In old times, the army would leave Beijing from Xuanwumen and re-enter the city, triumphant, at Deshengmen.

The city's 2nd Ring Road is speckled with "gates," which used to be, literally, gates into the city, back when a great stone wall surrounded the heart of Beijing. The wall was taken apart in the middle of last century, when Mao came to power, and rebuilt underground as part of a labyrinthine bomb shelter to protect against possible Soviet nuclear strikes.