IvanEwert.com

It’s 11:45 PM on a Sunday night in Hong Kong. I think I’ve slept 1.5 hours out of the past 28. I’ve been crammed into an airborne cattle car, denied access to expected pleasures, fed two airline meals on a 16-hour flight … and God help me, I’d do it all again to get back to this city.

There are some temptations you should know not to return to. Hong Kong is one of mine. The minute we could see the low mountains rising out of evening mist, swathed in a lusher green than any northern climate can grow; the minute the blast of sweet and welcome humidity plastered itself against my face like the touch of a long-lost lover; the minute I hopped into a red cab for Kowloon with a man behind the wheel to equal all the other maniacs in this spinning, burning city, I was grinning like a madman waiting for the straitjacket.

Night is more … night here than anywhere else I’ve been. It’s close, and sweet, and heavy. It makes your eyelids droop and your tongue instinctively lick at your lips. It’s bright as day is back home from the neon and headlights and gaudy, tawdry invitations. It’s miles high, either in high-rise buildings covered with bamboo scaffolding or mountain peaks too fierce and wild to be graded, paved and built upon. It’s stories deep, beneath subways and subterranean restaurants. It’s the highest of divisions between the immacultely coiffed Chinese ladies in rabbit jackets and leather boots swing by the myrmidions of watch-sellers, massage artists and veiled beggars seeking alms. It’s culture and noise, chaos and structure.

It’s the tricky bastard stepchild of Monkey, Jack o’ Tales and Coyote. It’s a dream given weird shape that’s lurched to life all around its dreamers and outgrew them, outpaced them, outgreened them, outlived them.

I knew I’d missed Hong Kong. I didn’t know how much.

The airport was surprisingly simple, though considerably bureaucratic. It seems to me that the real reason for all the extra security may be the government trying to solve the unemployent issue, given how many hands were on my person and luggage over the course of a half an hour. Laptop out, turn it on, turn it off again. Wave the magic wand across me. Etc etc etc. One nice thing I found is that my rings and belt no longer seem to trigger the metal detectors, which is great.

The strangest bit, though, was what we decided must be THE DEADLY UNDERPANTS CHECK ZOMG. The “suspicious” line is divided by gender. I assume this is for searching purposes, but no. When I am escorted to my female agent, she asks me to put my hands fully in my pockets. I comply, and then she says “Rub them up and down.”

To say this surprises me would be a bit of an understatement. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Rub them!” She put her hands on her hipbones and made a wiping motion up and down. I’m afraid I probably laughed but I complied, after which she swabbed my hands with some kind of chemical detector cloth, put it through the official-looking machine, and told me to move along.

Amanda didn’t get the same treatment. I guess the logic is that … women bombers wouldn’t be willing to wear bulky underwear? I mean, that’s all I can think of, when I try to think like a fear-obsessed bureaucrat. “Ladies love silky things and don’t want to ruin their figures, so let’s just check the Y-fronts.”

Not, you know, that I wear Y-fronts.

Training is essentially at an end. I’m sitting in the back of the room, waiting for the Canadian staff to ask me questions or call me over with some difficulty. I’ll pop up again in about half an hour to answer final public questions and then we’re off to the YYZ, yo.

The oddest thing about the trip to Canda has been how much my schedule is changed, even though I’m only one hour ahead on the internal clock. At home I’m up very early and in bed at a reasonable hour, here on the road it’s been reasonable mornings and late evenings.

Part of that is due to my dependence on the group as a whole – the office is a good distance from the hotel, and as one of the designated drivers I can’t leave until everyone’s ready to go. The fitness center in the hotel also doesn’t open until 7, which doesn’t give me enough time to work out in the mornings – and by evening I’m so hungry that working out before dinner isn’t a very good option. As to working out after dinner, well … I’m not just running on salads this time around.

I remember that during my last trip abroad, the time change worked in my favor to a large extent. Waking up at 3 AM local time isn’t that different from waking up at 4 AM at home, and gives me time to either get to the gym or pool (assuming those hours are flexible) or work on writing, design, etc. I got a lot of fiction and game work taken care of in those predawn hours outside the standard box, and I plan to do the same this time around. We won’t have cars in Hong Kong or Frankfurt; and at least in Hong Kong we’re staying in the main downtown harbor area rather than the suburbs, giving me a lot more latitude in terms of travel and sightseeing.

Travelling back to the States should prove interesting – American Airlines has sent out new security restrictions which really impact the way I intend to travel. I use my computer bag as the single carry-on for laptop, camera, mp3 recorder, medicine, books, iPod … the works. Well, I landed in Canada before realizing that AA will no longer let you carry anything but a computer in a laptop bag. You can have a secondary, smaller bag – but of course, I don’t have one.

Luckily, my winter weather coat is a hobo-style coat rather than anything stylish. I got it when I was fifty pounds heavier and carried candy and reubens in my pockets for the commute. As a result, everything I used to carry in the laptop case has fit into the coat pockets without affecting my silhoutte. I feel like a compulsive hoarder; of course, but nobody has to know but me.

One of the things I’ve noticed in Canada is a surprising – to me – amount of nationalism. This isn’t necessarily obvious in speaking with people, but it is when you look around at some of the cherished institutions of the United States which have crept into Canadian culture like Canuckudzu.

I am referring, of course, to fast food.

Canada is not alone in its alteration of the McDonald’s logo, according to logoblink.com, but it’s the first time I’ve noticed it personally. Their ads have also included the phrase “c’est ca que j’m,” which is Canadian French for “I’m lovin’ it.”

I’ve also seen on television that the Taco Bell logo has a silver maple leaf appearing, apostrophe-like, alongside the “Think Outside the Bun” tagline on their late night commercials. I haven’t been able to find photographic proof of that, though, and as I’m flying out tonight it looks unlikely that I will.

It doesn’t bother me in the least – in fact, I rather enjoy seeing how local culture influences corporate culture. However, I’ve got a feeling that slapping a white star or red stripes over a Tim Horton’s logo in Detroit would result in considerably different press from designers and Canadians alike.

No update last night for the simple reason that I was fried eight ways from yesterday, and not much happened to report. The training is great when I’m actually up and presenting, but sitting in the back and just hopping up to answer questions tires me out.

Of course, when I say “not much to report,” I don’t mean not anything …

The consultants wanted to get back to the hotel more quickly than usual to address a few issues that had come up during the sessions, so we agreed to find a place to eat more local to the hotel than the night before. A bit of sleuthing resulted in Amanda suggesting Zen Sushi in Scarborough, and with the Garmin reactivated we set off on our way.

I pulled into the wrong parking lot at first, undershooting by about ten feet, and wound up staring at a combination bowling alley / strip club awash in garish neon and the swaddling darkness of illicit entertainment. The actual parking lot had the restaurant wedged in between a Pakistani video rental storefront and a “spa” which may or may not have offered showers.

I’ll be honest. I was leery.

I shouldn’t have been.

Inside, Zen was a tiny treasure amidst the waste. There were no tables for seven, but we split off into two groups. We were instructed by a grandmotherly woman to remove our shoes before climbing into the booths, something I haven’t done since I was a wee lad at the International House of Pancakes! Jennifer, Amanda and I decided on Sapporo and sake before ordering.

It was some of the best Japanese food I’ve ever had. Wanting to try something new, I decided against the usual nigiri and ordered a combination mountain potato / goma-ae appetizer with a stockpot of sakitori for the main course. I can’t accurately describe the sweetness of the sauce on my dish, other than to say that the tofu cubes with the consistency of custard soaked it up like angel food cake. Combined with slices of lightly cooked beef, firm oyster mushrooms and glass noodles as transparent as fishbowls, I was in a little world all my own – too full by the end of the meal to even consider the traditional tamago end-meal.

I ordered it anyway.

In many ways tonight, I won. In others, I won despite my losing.

The training went very well and the students were very responsive to my own peculiar brand of heavy metal tutoring. Extra points for having to adjust my spectacles to peer at my boss and the consultants and ask them to keep it down in the back of the classroom, making me the clear authority figure you all really wish me to be. The glasses may stay on again tomorrow for this express purpose.

After class I suggested we head downtown to get some good dinner and hang out by the lakefront, having found an Indian restaurant called Aroma which was highly recommended by various guides. We drove the forty-five minutes down from the hotel and enjoyed a fantastic meal, from shared platters of vegetable pakora and mint naan to my seekh kabobs, several vindaloos, and a few Kingfisher and Cheetah beers. Amanda, our youngest member, had never had Indian before – turns out she lives in the neighborhood now! We shared some local information and everyone had a good time.

After that … well, I give you the listing from eyeweekly.com for this week at the Orbit Lounge in downtown Toronto:

Note that the Sisters Euclid are due to play at the Orbit Room tonight.

We wrap dinner around 8:30, and proceed to shuffle our feet another half hour or so. I’ve already advanced the idea of the Orbit Room, but that I’ll understand if people are tired. Nobody wants to be the one to make a decision regarding what to do next. Finally, as we huddle in a bus shelter, I ask if there are two people who really want to outvote me and go home. There are not, and as such we proceed.

OR DO WE?

Harry’s Garmin has lost its mojo at the least opportune time, responding neither to tears, threats, nor recriminations. We are forced to follow Norb, who is being directed by Amanda using Google Maps on his Blackberry. Amanda is young enough to not fully grok the idea of a non-touchscreen telephone, which proceeds to lead us through an area I will lovingly refer to as Lower East Crackton in search of the aforementioned club. Eventually they turn a 180 by Lower East Crackton’s Civic Centre and go backwards,  PAST the Indian Restaurant by a good ten minutes before we find the Orbit Room.

Which is closed.

For the evening.

As the kind gentleman sweeping the stairs informs us.

Am I disappointed? Well, yes and no. I would have loved to see the band and spend some time listening to good jazz, and I’m a little disappointed that I chose against the Retribution Gospel Choir. On the other hand, I DID get out of the hotel and led us somewhere, and there’s no promise that Eyeweekly wasn’t lying about the Choir as well as the Sisters. The fact that the end result wasn’t what I expected doesn’t invalidate the journey itself.

We begin to head home, which takes another hour as Norb and Amanda lead us on the Arduous March Redux for about thirty miles on Yonge Street to find the expressway. After the second emergency anti-merge, Harry, Jennifer and I decide we can afford to let them lose us and dope it out on our own.

Wound up back at the steakhouse for a nightcap with Norb, Nitin and Tony; enjoying a scotch and getting only a tiny bit of it spilled on me by our waitress. It is the end of the evening, and I am proceeding to get to bed. It’s past time to put a capper on a day that was good by any measure.

Note: Across the street from the shuttered Orbit Room was an ice cream parlor presumably run by Ben and Jerry’s less respectable acid-dropping brothers. It took all my willpower not to go demand a hemp sundae.

One of the things I’ve found in my short exploration is that there seems to be a sharp dividing line between daytime activities and nighttime activities in Toronto. I’d love to see one of the following exhibits or museums, but they – along with most of the art galleries – seem to roll up their doors around 5:30 in the evening, which is going to make it nigh-impossible to go: 

Design Exchange – Celebrating industrial design.

Bata Shoe Museum is showing a special on the history of high heels, which sounds really weird, but they’ve got a collection of 15-16th century prototypes that look like good research stuff for swashbuckling and costuming alike.

Casa Loma – been there once before but it’s such a cool architectural place, and hey, secret passages for the win!

The Royal Ontario Museum has tons of cool stuff, but again, they close at 5:30. I begin to suspect collusion against me by history.

So instead I took the advice of the divine Miss Missa and started looking into the famed local music scene. There are two places that are attracting me for very different reasons.

The Orbit Room is a jazz club down between the U of T and Little Korea. I have a feeling I’ll be able to get my boss to visit with me at some point, since Alex Lifeson of Rush is a part owner. Just dangling the word Rush in front of him generally gets things moving in the right direction, and the club looks like an absolute blast.

Alternately, the Drake Hotel is in a part of town I’m vaguely familiar with already, and is hosting the Retribution Gospel Choir tonight only as part of their world tour. Looks like good stuff all around.

The final option, of course, is just dinner and an early evening in, given how long we were out of pocket for the football games last night. If that’s the case, though, I’m definitely heading out tomorrow.

Lunch is wrapping up, and I’m on stage in ten. See you tonight!

So the first thing I notice on landing is that my touted Verizon Wirelss coverage is set to “Roaming” in the barren wastelands of Ontario, less than half an hour’s drive from the shining Mecca that is Detroit. I adapt, adopt, improve, and decide to charge my wireless data plan back to the company who has decided to put me up in  a Best Western almost as far from Toronto proper as it is from the aforementioned Detroit.

With that said, the flight over was lovely. A plane about the size and stability of a Pace bus running from Howard to 95th Street, during which I was actually served a complimentary sip of ice water. I managed to kill about 100 pages of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, a charming little volume about famine, totalitarianism and the prison terms served by those who managed to survive starvation.

After this we discovered that we had cars reserved for our use. I selflessly – selflessly - volunteered to be one of the drivers, and within moments was lectured about the propriety of turning right in front of city buses. My claim of jetlag from the hour and a half flight fell on deaf ears, I fear, but soon enough it became obvious that this was common practice in the Canadian provinces. Vindicated, I proceeded to run down a few pedestrians, but I don’t think anyone got the license number, so we should be fine.

But with THAT said, our afternoon and evening were fabulous. The work crowd walked a minute down the hill to a steakhouse called The Keg to watch the playoffs, and over a few Canadian beers and martinis we managed to form the tenuous connection that serves as a lifeline between IT and Marketing over the Colts win. Of course, our waitress changed when the Saints game started and thus began the issues.

My boss, Norb, is a Wisconsin man. As such he was not rooting for the Saints to win so much as inflict grievous, career-ending injury to Brett Farve and the Vikings. As I wish to see a full-on Midwestern Super Bowl, we are at odds; and our waitress – who knew nothing of either team – had chosen to support the Vikings as the result of a coin toss with the bartender to see who would support whom. The result was an evening of comedy for me as she entered our table’s frame of reference only when the Vikings had made a play, in order to gloat over Norb’s mounting frustration. In time, the consultants joined us for fantastic steak dinners, and they were split fifty-fifty. This left myself, Amanda and the waitress cheering on the Vikings as Norb, Tony and Harry cheered on the Saints.

We all see how this ended up, but not until after several rounds of drinks and recriminations, culminating in the discovery that the Saints fans were, in fact, picking up the bill – which came as a bit of a surprise to the waitress. Still, all were treated fairly in the end, and we moved on to our hotel rooms to sleep.

In theory.

In practice, I have some photos to look up for work tomorrow and some personal correspondence to catch up on. I miss my hometown and everyone in it more than I thought possible, and I have miles to go before I sleep. Be excellent to one another, and pray for the pedestrians in my path.

Author and blogger Alana Abbot has posted a wonderful review of Grants Pass at the Flames Rising Web site. It’s always good to know that other authors get what you’ve worked to convey, and I remain so pleased to have been a part of this experience.

Triskele Moon Studios V-Day Poster

Leanne’s next show will take place on February 5 & 6 at Evolve. That’s 54 N Williams Street in Crystal Lake, IL, from 10-5 each day.

The posters will be going up this morning around breakfast time. I’ve designed them around the excellent imagery of Italian designer Gabriella Fabri of the Stock XChange, who has been kind enough to create a number of excellent stock vector graphics for use in our projects.

The only thing we disagreed with on this poster was the use of the Samhain Tree necklace (upper left) – while it’s more of an autumnal piece that doesn’t suit itself to Valentine’s Day, I felt the color choices matched so well that we had to use it. We’ll be taking more photos this week to make sure we have a wider selection next time ; )

Hope to see you at the show!