Writes of Passage

25 Sale Pl, Tyburnia,
London W2 1PU, United Kingdom

… more pix on Google Maps, TA, Yelp*

Will not return: decent duck but no alcohol.

We’ve
– Ma Po tofu 麻婆豆腐
– Duck noodle

Both are flavorful but slightly sweet, especially the tofu. The noodles are al dente.

This homey Malaysian restaurant is three minutes away from our hotel. After a long day of travel, the soup hits the spot.

The bonna brand porcelain hand-painted tableware from Turkey is quite attractive.

The restaurant’s reply:

Thank you Irene – we really appreciate your review . Our restaurant is a 100% halal concept therefore alcohol is not served . You are however welcome to bring your own as we do have a regular customers from our neighbour pub

… My bad

My garden has two new plants: one pink and one yellow.

Flushing, New York

The bus ride into Flushing is smooth, although a bit crowded. The fare is $2  ($1.50 for seniors), can be paid with coins and credit card but not bills. However, I only have 50¢ and unfortunately, my two credit cards won’t work – or the machine doesn’t work. The female drive kept on saying, that I might be fined $100 for not paying. Gosh, make your machine work!!! A young woman changed me four quarters.

The seats have charging port, but the one I tried isn’t working. Oh well.

Flushing, is the forever Flushing -:)  nothing changed.

• the bus
• Nan Xiang
• Dumpling Xi
• Bite of Fuzhou
• Lanqi Beauty
• the Food Court on Roosevelt
• LGA

@ Ath, Athens, Greece,
Attiki Odos,
Spata Artemida 190 04

… more pix n videos on Google Maps & TA

Will return.

Airy, light, modern decor, elevator music, the ambience relaxes me immediately.

The three ladies at the front desk are friendly.

Seatings are comfortable. The food is excellent. 

Goldair Handling Lounge is a Greek company. This one at ATH opens ungodly hours, 3:30 am to 12 am daily. 

The bathroom is spacious, no shower tho.

Wifi kicks users off when the lounge gets busy.

300 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55401

… more pix on Google Maps

This is their new central library, opened in 2006. The building was designed by César Pelli (1926-2019), with two levels of underground parking.

Upon entering, the smell of urine greets me. When I brought this up with the librarians, one of them said curtly:

“Library is for everyone.”

Oh, well.

Couple of isles have Chinese language books.

Their Special Collections room is pretty good. Staff member or librarian J is pregnant with her third child and is very helpful. The policy for using their images is generous; most images require only credit to the library.

I also learnt why some of the vintage photos with side-by-side print: it was the earliest version of 3D: “‘old photos’ displayed side-by-side to create a 3D effect are known as stereographs (or stereoscopy). The illusion of a single three-dimensional image is created by viewing two nearly identical photographs, which were taken from slightly different perspectives, through a special device called a stereoscope.”

401 W Kennedy Blvd
Tampa, FL 33606

… more pix on Google Maps, Yelp & TA

I didn’t go into the museum, only checked the building out.

This is a beautiful building, which has been the main complex of the University of Tampa since 1933.

Henry B. Plant (1819-99), a businessman mainly involved with railroads, commissioned this Moorish complex, spent $3 million, and it opened in 1891. 

It was the headquarters for troops going to Cuba during the Spanish-American War (1898), and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt stayed here. 

A Robert Indiana (1928-2018) LOVE pop art is on campus.

I know monks wield enormous influence in China, both before 1949 and after 1979, and monastic temples have become business centers that genearting profit is the only aim, following the economic reform. So the investigation of Shi Yongxin (释永信 1966-) over allegations of “embezzlement” and “improper relationships with women” is of little shock.

Shi was born Liu Yingcheng (刘应成), was abbot (方丈) from 1999 to 2025, and is widely known as the CEO monk. At age 16, he began his monastic career at the Shaolin Temple / Monastery (少林寺), which was established in 1530, in Henan province.

I met a former monk who returned to secular life during my trip to Southeast Asia trip: our tour manager. Apparently, monks returning to secular life (出家和尚还可以还俗) is not difficult. The Vietnam tour manager also mentioned this: switching back and forth is easy.
My few encounters with monks or nuns left me with an unfavorable impression:

• in Beijing
• a nun with yellow robe in New York
• fake (?) money begging monks in NY

还俗: 出家后还能还俗吗 ifeng

。。。some coverage

• ^{7.28 cnn} Money, sex and a Buddhist monk: Head of China’s famed Shaolin Temple under investigation
• ^{7.28 bbc} China investigates head monk of Shaolin ‘Kung Fu’ temple
• ^{8.08 Le Monde} After the arrest of Shaolin’s ‘CEO monk,’ China is cracking down on Buddhist temples

3632 Lithia Pinecrest Rd,
Valrico, FL 33596

… more pix & videos on Google Maps, Yelp, TA

Will return for ambience, food/drinks, and service.

We’ve got four beers, two red wines, and boiled peanuts (the way Chinese like them), which is a surprise because Americans prefer their peanuts crunchy. They’re yummy, salty, spicy (fit me perfectly), and messy: my fingers and nails have black rings.

A small table sits up front, selling cigars. The pretty lady is very personable, trying to remember all her customers’ names.

They’re indoor and outdoor sections. When we arrived around 7 pm on a Saturday, a singer was performing indoors. Two staff members are operating the bar and the fort. Another man is in the green cabboos/kitchen in the outdoor section.

Another surprise is how few drinkers there are: by the time we leave, around 9:30, it’s still pretty empty.

A young family with three kids, one is an infant – not judging, just happy for the parents who have a night out with their kids.
A little gossip: the cigar lady has just married the owner three months ago. She has two, and he has a triplet: best wishes for the union.

Despite a brewery, their wine glasses are decent: thank you!

The only complaint I’ve is their wobbly tables.

Bullfrog Creek Brewing Co. isn’t an Asian eatery but very surprised to find the boiled peanut on the menu (Chinese love this version). It’s delicious, mushy and messy – my finger nails are black.

Have a great weekend!

4545 Airport Way
Denver, CO 80239

… more pix & videos on Google Maps.

Frontier Airlines, Inc. is founded in 1994, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It’s one of the low cost carrier, with 163 planes and 85 destinations, as of 2025; trading on Nasdaq: ULCC, opened at $3.9083 on 2025.6.02. Their tails sport various animals and birds. Ours is two cute penguins.

It’s my first time flying it. Because a tennis partner works for it, I thought why not trying it. I cancelled my AA reservation and switched, then forgot about the name of the airline. When I didn’t receive the checking in email, I’ve to go through my credit card to find the name of the airline.

Can’t download their App because I don’t remember my Apple password … obviously am a very organized person!

It was an A320, leg room is ok. Everything is for sale, which is fine for the short flight. Took off on time, but circulated the destination airport a couple of times to land (this might have been a first too – as the plane was descending, the nose went up twice …), then a bit wait to get a gate. I joked to the Pilot as departing from the plane, “did you guys forget to pay the airport?”

Fort Worth, TX 76102

… more pix on Reddit

2025 competition is the 17th, since 1962 – every four years, (he won International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 in Moscow.) It was held in Bass Hall.

A little yoga during the intermission.

The 2025 competition has 28 competitors:

• the winner is Sham of HK: FW, Dallal News
• the final 3: Sham, Starikov, 30, of Israel/Russia, Evren Ozel, 26, of the United States
• the final 6:
  1. Carter Johnson, 28, Canada/USA √
  2. Philipp Lynov, 26, Russia √
  3. Evren Özel, 26, US
  4. Asisto Sham, 29, HK
  5. Vitaly Starikow, 30, Israel / Russia ^2nd
  6. Angel Stanishlav Wang, 22, US √
• the 12 semifinalists

5.29 Thursday, Semi final #2: two recitals (2:30-5:00)

1. Angel Stanislav Wang (22, US): final 6
2. Jonas Aumiller (26, Germany)

Semi final #3: four piano concertos (7:30-10:00)

1. Philipp Lynov, Russia: final 6
2. Chaeyoung Park, S Korea
3. Vitaly Starikov, Israel/Russia: ^2nd
4. Carter Johnson, Canada/US: final 6

Definitely not a bucket list for me but I did want to come for over two decades: it runs every four years. In the past, either forgotten, missed or Covid… So I finally put this on my calendar last year, voila, there I went.

For the Bass Performance Hall, please see my review on Google – just posted: good concert hall but very silly security process that feels like harassment.

Two semi concerts today (#2 and #3): two recitals in the afternoon (about an hour each) and four (30 min each): happened, all played Mozart’s piano concertos in the night session.

They all played well, polished and poised. (We went to Chopin’s in Miami this past January and the quality of the pianists were not as good – ok, Miami’s was preliminary and this is the final run.)

Between the two in the afternoon session, I prefer Aumiller over Wang: whose pasture is better and plays a little better too. Angel Wang has hunchback (?) which I thought could have corrected early on (his parents are musicians). The four, the lone woman impresses me the most (Chaeyoung Park, 27) who wears a yellow black dress like a bumblebee, which reminds me of Sunja in her youth, in tv series Pachingo.

A thought: did most or all the musicians in the orchestra have gone through this stage – competing to be a soloist? I appreciate them all, virtuoso or part of a team. An elite person in any profession has an exceptional ability and drive but I always consider musicians are tough to be – physical and mental, think of their repertoire – how many millions little notes they’ll have to remember.

Logistic: We stayed in Dallas (Hyatt Regency), took the hour long TRE train to and from. Both ends is less than 10 minutes walk but pretty grungy (didn’t realize). Uber would take about an hour too. I’m a huge train head, would take it over all other types of transportation, whenever possible. Both stations Union in Dallas and Central in Fort Worth are empty, so is the train both ways. I felt I could handle it. (Local friends think I’m nuts …) It turned out, to be very enjoyable rides.

… more thoughts on Van Cliburn – do you still remember him wining the first Tchaikovsky competition, in Moscow, in 1958? And Khrushchev asked if the dammed American was the best (ok, I add “dammed” – it was Cold War era and who knows, maybe he did say it?) Very regretful that he stopped performing publicly long before I came to US.