Fall is Here! October and early November in Beijing

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all for returning to my Astronomer in Beijing blog. I hope you’re all safe and healthy and enjoying November and that you all have a lovely Thanksgiving this Thursday. As I’ll be spending another Thanksgiving away from family, I hope all of you get to spend it with loved ones and give them an extra big hug! It’s hard to be away from family, especially with all that’s going on in the world. Here in Beijing, the fall/winter has finally set in after an abnormally warm October (we had high temperatures in the 70s for most of the month – now they’re in the upper 40s and lower 50s). However, the colder weather isn’t the reason that this blog post is a bit later than usual (Sorry about that!). As I mentioned in the last couple of posts, my time in China will come to an end in June, so I’m applying for new postdoc positions now. As such, I’ve been VERY busy writing and reworking research statements for the different applications and I didn’t get a chance to write this blog post until now. Just for scheduling purposes, you can expect the next post to be around mid-late December as well (I have a TON of applications due December 15).

Before I dive into what I did over the last 6 weeks, I do want to address the current situation in Israel. It’s hard to believe that when I last wrote you all, the Hamas attacks had just happened and we were all still in a collective daze as to what was going to happen. While I don’t want to turn this post into a political soapbox about Israel and Palestine, I do want to say that I find the increase in Anti-Semitism in the US and the rest of the world to be abhorrent. While I am fine with people disagreeing about Israel’s actions, seeing people celebrate the massacring of innocent Israeli civilians and then turning anger at Israel’s actions into full blown hate speech toward all Jewish people is unacceptable. In some regards, being in China has created a weird bubble when it comes to this. While I have yet to see any in person anti-Semitism here (or any protest or rally in regards to anything here), Chinese social media has been flooded with posts praising Hamas and more concerning, spreading radical right-wing nonsense about Jews controlling the world and being generally horrible people. To me, given that most Chinese people probably have never (and will never) meet a Jew, it’s concerning. I remember people trying to write off the very stereotypical way that some Chinese people view Jews as being “smart, well-educated, & good with money” since these are all positive stereotypes. However, it’s very easy for the flip to switch and narratives to change when everything is built on stereotypes and not actual relations and understanding. Thankfully, the Kehillat Beijing community has been both a safe space and a supportive community for all of us during this time, especially as the world is feeling a little colder and less friendly. I hope that everyone reading this is doing okay and has a community there to support them.

Although I’ve been very busy working on postdoc applications, I did do a few fun things since I last posted (though most of these – outside of Shabbat – were in October). I hope you enjoy hearing about them.

October Vegan Market

In October, we had another amazing Vegan Market. There was a mix of new and returning vendors, as well as lots of puppies available for adoption. Although it was a bit quieter in terms of attendance – at least when I was there, it was a lot of fun and made for a very delicious afternoon. For me, one of the highlights were a new tofu vendor, who sold some delicious tofu skewers, as well as a really yummy tofu burger (pictures of both below) and some delicious crepes! The tofu vendor also had some amazing tofu skin rolls (almost like a nugget made out of tofu skins) and soy milk that I bought, too!

As I mentioned above, I ate well thanks to the vegan market! Outside of the tofu skewers and tofu burger, I got two delicious crepes from my friend Lionel. He made a delicious savory crepe with his vegan mozzarella, pepper sauce, eggplant, and pesto, and a delicious vegan “notella” crepe! Both were amazing. I also got a large haul of food to take back, including lots of tofu products, vegan cheese, dried mango, and energy balls.

Vegans of Beijing Cooking Class

The following week, I went to the Vegans of Beijing Cooking class. As always, Chef Chao does an amazing job teaching the class and showing us how to make the dishes. He really is a great teacher. And you don’t need to just take my recommendation. When my friend Daniele’s girlfriend visited in early November, they signed up for a dumpling class with him (unbeknownst to me), so when I heard that he was looking for a class, I recommended Chef Chao, only to find that they’d already found him! This month, we made three delicious and very different dishes. We started with sauteed eggplant and green beans. I’ve made similar dishes before, but this time we used the longer “sword bean” variety and Japanese-style eggplant (and a few chilis for extra heat). I really liked using the Japanese eggplants (I think this was the first time we’d used them – we’ve used the bigger, more European ones before), making sure to give them a quick blanch so they cook a bit quicker. This dish was a lot of fun to cook (we had to cook down the eggplant for a while – the beans were much quicker), but it was so tasty! And the sauce was really simple. Just a bit of soy sauce and vinegar! Also, check out Chef Chao’s new cutting board! So cool!

The next dish we made was possibly my favorite – and one of the most unexpected since I really had no idea what it would be like going in. We made fried tofu balls! While I’m still a bit afraid of deep frying – I’d either bake or pan-fry them when I make them at home – this dish was both amazing and pretty easy. We started with softer tofu (not silken, but just medium firmness) and added scallions and carrots and mashed them together (with a bit of flour and cornstarch) to make small little fritters. We then fried them up and topped a spicy chili powder (that we made! – see the last dish) and a little bit of Chef Chao’s own chili oil. Somehow, the tofu balls were both crispy on the outside and amazingly light and airy on the inside. I’ve never seen these before and they are immediately one of the favorite things I’ve learned to cook!

The last dish we made was a Chinese spin on mashed potatoes. While you may be thinking that mashed potatoes are super European – and they are – Northern China also has its own spin on the dish. Specifically, we started with boiled potatoes – ok, this is pretty standard – but instead of adding butter or cream, we just added water, so the mash is really pure potato. However, the added flavor came from the amazing array of roasted chilis and peanuts that we blended together. This chili powder was so good (as were the mashed potatoes – if anyone is looking for a different version for Thanksgiving)!!

All in all, this was another amazing Vegan cooking class! I don’t know when the next one will be (there was not one in November due to the surplus of Thanksgiving related events), but I already cannot wait!

A Visit to Beihai Park

Immediately after my cooking class, I met up with Richard, Tom, Daniele, Teppei (a new postdoc in the department from Japan), and two of Pablo’s friends who are from Mexico at Beihai Park. Beihai Park dates back to the 12th Century and was originally part of the larger Forbidden City complex, meaning it was only open to the royal family. While the lake aesthetically looks a lot like Houhai and Shichahai, the two lakes that are near my apartment that I run around (Beihai Park is also near me, it’s actually at the south end of Houhai), unlike those two lakes, Beihai Park is closed off from the city and includes a lot of temples and palaces that look like the Forbidden City. While I’ve been to Beihai Park before, it was in early March, so it was lovely to enjoy the day with everyone. One of the cool things at Beihai Park has is a ton of self-steering boats that you’re allowed to rent. Given our group size, we rented a large Lotus looking boat and spent about an hour slowly going around the lake. It was so much fun! Of course we had to play some pirate themed music while on the lake.

After we got off the boat, we made our way toward the Jade Flower Island, the home to the White Pagoda (I also got a strawberry popsicle – it was pretty hot). As you can see from some of the photos of the lake, the White Pagoda is enormous – it stands ~ 40 meters high – and it one of the first things that you immediately see when you enter the park. While you cannot enter the inside of this pagoda, it does look really amazing when you climb up to the top! Additionally, the island includes a number of other temple grounds surrounding the pagoda, too! While these temples aren’t actively being used (at least I don’t think they are), they do aesthetically look similar to some of the temples I’ve seen in Beijing and Shanghai and I always love seeing the different statues and architecture (so many dragons for the emperor, too!).

Because Beihai Park closes early – around 5:30 – we made our way to Fu Hui Ci Yuan – the Vegetarian Restaurant near the Forbidden City – for a lovely meal afterward (see the More Vegan Food section). However, on the way, we walked by the Forbidden City and I wanted to share a few very picturesque views of the outside of the Forbidden City!

A Comic Store in Beijing!

As I think a lot of you know by now, I’m a big fan of American comics. One of the downsides of living in China has been the lack of comic book stores – thank you digital comics! However, last month, a new comic book “store” opened in Beijing and is about a 15 minute walk from my apartment! I use the word “store” in quotes because it isn’t a full-fledged comic book store, but more of a comic book annex at the back of a bar. However, it was still really cool to get to see a comic store again! They had their grand opening the weekend before Halloween – including a small artist market. For those of you who are familiar with comic shops and American comics in generally, you probably know that comics come out weekly, meaning getting new and regular comics into China would be incredibly difficult. Instead, the selection is more of an extended back issue bin, but it was pretty cool! While it was mostly single issues, they do have a lot of stuff! Unfortunately, because of how expensive it is to ship comics in (they weigh a lot), the books are a bit pricy relative to US prices, but it’s still really great to have a comic store in the city!

Astronomy Update – Life at Tsinghua

As I mentioned at the start of this blog post, it’s been a busy month for me Astronomy-wise, and that’s mostly because I’ve been applying for postdoc positions again. For those of you who aren’t in Astronomy, the typical applications consist of a cover letter, 2-5 page research statement, and CV. While that may sound pretty straight forward, I try to customize each application. That means that I spend a fair amount of time looking at the research interests of the prospective employers/research supervisors to see how they overlap with my own. While I don’t rewrite each application, I do tweak them to emphasize different aspects or make different connections (thank you to all of my friends, family, and collaborators who read my statements and offered me feedback). As most of these positions are hiring one or maybe two people, I’ll be applying to a lot of different positions all over the world. Although I’ve enjoyed my time here in Beijing, I’m focusing only on the US, Europe, and Canada. Given how expensive and long flights are between the US and China, I’d like to more easily be able to visit family and go to conferences. Fingers crossed! I’ve currently applied to 14 positions and get a bit of a lull for Thanksgiving this week. As new positions are still being posted regularly on the AAS (American Astronomical Society) Job Registry (which is for any Astronomy job anywhere in the world), I don’t know exactly how many I’ll apply to in the end, but right now, I’m up to 54. It’s still too early to have heard anything back yet (the first application was only due ~ 3 weeks ago), but as I hear things, I will certainly let you all know.

With all that said, I have been working on some other Astronomy work, too! Specifically, I’m making slow, but steady progress on Project Morphology. I have the main plots all made (so I’m hoping to have everything drafted soon – though the applications are definitely hurting my productivity) and have been focused on better quantifying the error measurements for my measurement of the shape of galaxies and error in the density. I’ve got that figured out now (I think), so I just need to implement everything! Also, I’ve been working a lot on Project Low-z, my collaboration with Jesse. That project has come together really nicely, so the last thing we need to do is measure the radio properties of all the sources, which is unfortunately quite time consuming. I’m hoping that for both papers, at the absolute worst, I will power through them and get them drafted early in the winter. I’m also in the beginning stages of a new protocluster project as part of the C3VO survey with my friend Brian Lemaux, which I’ll call Project Pair for now, which will look at the pair fraction (essentially looking for galaxies that might merge) in protoclusters and have two other projects with collaborators here in China that I’ll make more of the priority once I’m done with my applications! Outside of my own work, there was some really cool Astronomy news to share! While JWST is definitely the “hot” telescope right now (I was also a CO-I on 5 JWST proposals and while the science was very good in all of them, reading those and providing feedback took a lot of time!), the European Space Agency released the first images from Euclid, an IR large-survey telescope that is going to observe a large portion of the Northern sky! Above, I’ve included an image of the Perseus Cluster from Euclid (note, the pink/purple is Chandra X-ray emission). Jesse is part of the science team studying the intracluster light in Perseus, which is cool! The Euclid surveys are instrumental to the research I’m proposing to do in my next postdoc, and the data quality is super exciting!

Beyond all of that, the Astronomy Department also had a few fun (and one more academic event) this month. Early in October, the department did its second installment of the DoA Astro-Games! You may remember that last year Richard, Tom, and I hilariously competed in a 4-legged race. Thankfully, the games were a bit less balance-oriented this year. Unfortunately, they conflicted with a meeting I had to discuss postdoc applications, so I didn’t get to participate, but I did get to watch the beginning and end (and got some fun action shots of Richard in some kind of version of dodgeball). Richard’s team came in second and they won a bunch of snacks! Beyond that, we continue to have our monthly DoA Special Coffee events where the department gets together and eats cake. While it’s been frustrating that the postdocs are still in a separate building, I’m glad that we can at least do that! Additionally, this month, Richard, Tom, Daniele, Pablo, and I (and other Chinese postdocs, too) all had our annual “Mid-Term” Evaluation. While nobody, including the faculty, really understand the purpose of this, we all had to give 5 minute presentations on what work we did last year. It’s really hard to do a full summary in 5 minutes! It’s a bit odd since we don’t get any feedback, but it’s just part of the process here.

I spent a lot of time on campus this month (I find that I’m more productive at the office, so especially with all of the applications, I’ve spent many a late night at the office – sometimes not leaving until 9 or 10pm – don’t worry, I have an automatic feeder for Goldie). As such, I did get a few photos of the campus that looked nice and I thought I’d share! However, one not so great aspect of the late nights is that earlier in October, when I got back to my apartment, I discovered that I was locked out. You may be thinking, “Emmet, where did you leave your key?” Well, I don’t have a key, only a punch code. Unbeknownst to me, the battery operated key pad had died (and it had been telling me in Mandarin to replace the batteries for months). After messaging my landlord (and help from my friend Kevin), I was able to discover that the key pad has a charging port, so I went to a nearby market to rent a charging cable (given the prevalence of everything being phone based, these chargers are super common) and get back in. Needless to say, I’ve since replaced the batteries, but that made for a not so fun evening!

Additionally, when I was walking around campus this past week, I saw this fun poster for an a capella concert on campus! While I didn’t get to go, it’s really cool to see that halfway around the world, a capella is still popular on college campuses. Being a part of the Alef Beats was a highlight of my time at Brown and I’m glad students here get to experience similar activities.

Jewish Life in Beijing

As I’m sure it has been for many of you, it’s been a bit of a difficult time to be a Jew, so I’m really glad to have a community to turn to. As I mentioned in my last post, the Kehilat Shanghai and Kehillat Beijing came together to raise ~ $41,000 for NATAL an Israeli non-profit focusing on Mental Health related services for people in Israel. It’s really amazing that the community – and many Chinese friends – were able to raise so much money. Because of the situation, Kehillat Beijing had planned to have the first two Shabbats combined with Chabad for a show of unity among the larger Beijing community. Unfortunately on October 13, the boyfriend of an Israeli-embassy worker in Beijing was stabbed (the second foreigner stabbing in Beijing this fall) and as no one was sure if it was Anti-Semitic related, Anti-Israel, personal, or just random, the Israeli Embassy strongly suggested that Jews not congregate in known locations. However, one of my friends organized a small last minute Shabbat at his home and it was lovely. Because of the late notice, I didn’t have time to make anything, but I did get a really delicious and beautiful Challah (see below) from The Bake Shop – a Western bakery (owned by Israelis, which is why they have Challah). The following week, we were able to congregate together at Chabad. That Shabbat was extra special, because we had a Bar Mitzvah! While the Bar Mitzvah was originally supposed to be in Israel and couldn’t for obvious reasons, I’m so glad for the Bar Mitzvah boy that we were able to come together and he could have a celebration. Since we were at Chabad, I couldn’t take photos on Shabbat, but I did snag a quick photo of two delicious babkas that were for the celebration – the photo was taken before sundown!

With joint Shabbats with Chabad, we only had three Kehillat Beijing Shabbats this month. However, they were all amazing, lovely, and delicious. The first was “Challah-ween”, our annual Halloween Shabbat. While I get to see some Halloween decorations around Beijing (mostly at expat bars and markets), this was really how I got to celebrate. Ted went all out with the decorations and the menu! And Roberta made a delicious and super cute pumpkin challah! Additionally, for the one month anniversary of the war in Israel, we had a Peace Shabbat, including lots of singing of different prayers focusing on peace, but also peace related foods (or peace related food puns). This Friday, we had an Italian themed Shabbat, in honor of international Italian cuisine week, which I believe was last week. All of these meals were delicious and more importantly, provide a warm and welcoming community and I’m so glad that this community exists.

Goldie!!

Although I’ve spent a lot of time working on applications this month (and many a late night in the office), Goldie continues to be my constant companion. Whether it’s hanging out on my bed in the morning (and now that it’s cooler, the evening, too!), sitting on the couch next to me while I work (she really likes my new couch cover), or just greeting me when I get home late, she’s so loving and adorable. She’s also been quite sleepy during the day, she definitely becomes a bit more nocturnal in the winter!

Beyond her napping, she continues to enjoy burrowing, whether it is in her tube or under the covers! There are many days where I’ll get up out of bed and Goldie will crawl under the covers and spend 2 – 7 hours curled up sleeping. As long as she’s happy, I’m happy.

Beyond all of that, Goldie has been very interested in the front and side door this month! I think that’s because we’ve been getting some visitors. Here are a few of the photos of Goldie seeing and interacting with some of the neighborhood cats. While I’m never entirely sure if they see her (only once has one come down to the door), she gets very excited. I definitely wish I could give her a friend, but logistically, one cat is enough for now (especially given how difficult it was for Jesse to get Charlie & Scottie to the UK).

More Vegan Food

Although it’s been a busy month, I did get to have some delicious meals! After we went to Beihai Park, we made our way to Fu Hui Ci Yuan for a delicious vegan feast! We got orange juice, tofu with a spicy relish, vinegar noodles, crispy fried mushrooms (one of my favorite bites in Beijing), a spinach filled “cake” – almost like a scallion pancake filled with spinach, fried eggplant, vegetarian duck – which is tofu skin rolls in this case, spicy vegetarian mock fish, mustard mushrooms, fried beans, and fried rice in a banana leaf! It was all amazing! Fu Hui Ci Yuan is my favorite restaurant in Beijing, so I’m always excited to go there!

Later in October and November, I went to Tianchu Miaoxiang, the vegetarian restaurant near Tsinghua, three times with three different groups of people. First, I went there with my friend Mark from Kehillat Beijing. He lives in the area and teaches at one of the smaller Universities near the Olympic Park, so we met up on his daily commute. We got orange juice, a dry pot with mock meats, a tofu skin dry pot, a woody mushroom dish, and taro balls with walnuts & chestnuts. It was all delicious!! The taro balls are one of my favorites (and you’ll see they make a few appearances)!

Later, when Daniele’s girlfriend was visiting from Spain, Pablo, Daniele, Teppei, and two of Daniele’s friends from the Math Department went to dinner and we had another delicious feast! We got military tofu, fried lotus root (Pablo’s favorite), kung pao chik’n, almond milk (quite good, but they like to serve it warm, which is still strange to me), the taro balls with walnuts & chestnuts, flame tofu (Daniele’s favorite), eggplant & chickpeas, vegetarian fish, dry pot with veggie sausage, watermelon juice, stir fried potatoes and mushrooms, spicy tofu “pudding” – a block of tofu in a warm Sichuan pepper broth – really delicious, and roasted potatoes! It was amazing!!

Lastly, in early November, I had a delicious lunch with my friend Miriam from Kehillat Beijing, who also teaches at Tsinghua! We got a canteloupe juice, cold spicy Sichuan mushroom, sauteed bamboo shoots, eggplant & chickpeas, and the taro balls with walnuts & chestnuts! It was another delicious meal!

Despite all of those meals out, I did do a fair bit of cooking myself, too! I made a delicious lentil curry with crispy tofu, a sweet & sour tempeh, a tofu curry, a chickpea curry, lentil soup, and roasted tomato soup with quinoa! With the cold weather now firmly set in, it’s officially soup weather and I’m enjoying that! I also finished off the last of my vegan Mooncakes from the Mid-Autumn Festival, and made a delicious vegan tofu chocolate pudding (with Oreo crumbs mixed in).

Happy Halloween!

While Halloween is a thoroughly American holiday, there are enough foreigners (or at least enough interest in Halloween), that a lot of the import stores, 7/11, and different bars put up a lot of decorations for Halloween (and Christmas, too). Here’s just a selection of what I saw this month! While my own Halloween festivities were limited to “Challah”-ween, I did get a chocolate Jack o’ Lantern and skull cookies to enjoy!

Exploring Beijing

Although I’ve been hunkered down in my apartment or my office over the last few weeks (basically since applications began), I did see some fun things earlier in the month. Here are some of the cool signs and statues that I saw this month!

While the winter chill has killed most of the pretty flowers, when it was still sunny and in the 70s in October, I did see some lovely flowers (and even some persimmons – if you look closely). While much of the city is grey and concrete, it’s always lovely to see a flower peaking through and add a splash of color.

And of course I saw lots of fun bike decorations, too!

Animals of Beijing

Although Goldie is and always will be my favorite Beijing cat, the neighborhood cats were out in force in October (though I haven’t seen them much since the chill – I hope they all are staying in their homes or have other warm places to spend the day). In particular, the four cats that my next door neighbor has. They seem to lounge all over the neighborhood, on cars, windows, roofs, and even above the awning to my door (I try to give them some treats when I can)! This month, we were again joined by some friendly cats at the cooking class – I think they must have a lot more fun when Chef Chao cooks meat as they can eat the scraps. I also saw some cute dogs and I even saw a few ducks hanging out in Beijing, too!

And of course, no Shabbat is complete without a visit from Mimi & Honey, Roberta & Ted’s dogs. They are so friendly and always find the most comfortable places to lounge while we pray and eat.

What Am I Reading/Watching?

Although I’ve been busy this month, I did finally get a chance to finish reading Anthony Horowitz’s Moriarty! For those of you unfamiliar with him, this is Horowitz’s 2nd Sherlock Holmes novel officially licensed by the the Conan Doyle estate – the first was House of Silk, which was great! This tells the tale of the immediate aftermath of Reichenbach falls and focuses primarily on the supporting characters in many of the Sherlock Holmes novels, while introducing a criminal enterprise from the US seeking to disrupt crime in Britain. While I don’t want to spoil the book, I will say that it was a great read and “wow”, I did not see the twist coming at all! Beyond that, I also read the two volume graphic novel Hero by David Rubin. Rubin’s a Spanish comic artist and he expertly retells the story of Heracles, but mixing in modern pop culture and classic superhero tropes. I highly recommend it!

Outside of books, I also finished a lot of different TV shows. In early October, I finished Almost Paradise on Amazon Freevee. It’s a fun, light-hearted show about a former DEA agent who moves to the Philippines and ends up working as a consultant with the police. While never amazing, it was a lot of fun and it’s by the same people who did Leverage, so definitely in that spirit! I also finished the Netflix adaptation of One Piece. For those of you unfamiliar, One Piece is a manga centered around Monkey D. Luffy on his quest to become the “King of the Pirates” and it is one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. The manga began serialization in 1997 and is still going, having reached over 100 volumes and spanning an anime that has run since 1999 and spans over 1000 episodes, too. While Western adaptations of manga have a long track record of being bad (Dragon Ball Evolution, Scarlett Johansson’s Ghost in the Shell, the Netflix adaptation of Death Note), this was really good! They hit the main story beats of the manga (at least the first few volumes) and did a really good job capturing the spirit of the characters! I definitely recommend it (though maybe only to anime fans). I also finished the Netflix anime Castlevania: Nocturne, the most recent installment of the Castlevania franchise – a series about vampire hunters in 15th – 19th century Europe. I really enjoyed this series, especially the cliffhanger at the end! I can’t wait for more! I also finished watching the anime Gun X Sword, which tells the tale of Van of the Dawn on his quest around a desert planet to defeat “The Claw”. It definitely encapsulates mecha anime (giant robot) on the early 2000s, but it was a lot of fun! I also finished season 3 of Bosch on Amazon (based on the novels by Michael Connely). I’ve talked a bit about this show before, but it’s really a great slow burn cop drama. While not high art, I like that it isn’t a murder of the week show and shows a complexity to the types of cases the LAPD deal with (as well as a bit of the real world complexity of being a cop). I also finished Hijack on Apple TV+, a miniseries starring Idris Elba about the highjacking of a plane going from the Middle East to London. It was a really good show (and I’m glad they did not fall into the trap of the hijackers being Middle Eastern) and full of a ton of suspense and twists and turns! I also finished the 4th and final season The Doom Patrol on Max. This show, about the quirky DC superhero team of the same name, encapsulate the weird and wacky side of comic books (as does the comic) and really does a great job portraying the emotional baggage of being a hero. It really is a fantastic show and I highly recommend it. I’m definitely sad to see it go. Lastly, I finished the anime SSSS.Dynazenon yesterday. A “super sentai” series – the Japanese version of what was the inspiration for Power Rangers – this was a fun anime about fighting giant robots, but like its predecessor, SSSS.Gridman, it does a great job including slice of life elements and highlighting the struggles of teenage/adult life in Japan (or at least a bit of a romanticized version of it).

East Meets West

In my travels around Beijing, I did see a few more signs (beyond Halloween decorations) of the west. In particular, I went into a foreign language bookstore (although I didn’t buy anything since I still have about 15+ books from Jesse), as well as saw a Shaq sign for Papa Johns (I’m sure he’s more recognizable than Papa Johns here), an ad for Titanic the musical (it’s cool that Western musicals are coming here), lots of Tom & Jerry, and even a Rick & Morty and Betty Boop sighting!

And of course, thee was a lot of Mickey Mouse and other Disney paraphernalia, too!

Anime & Comics

Outside of the comic shop, I also saw a ton of anime, comics, and manga stuff this month, too! It helps when you stop by a mall on your way to get a flu shot! I always love spotting manga and anime stuff here, even if it’s series that aren’t my favorite (a lot of Shin-Chan and Doraemon this month). However, I really love seeing all of the statues and the displays, especially for One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Demon Slayer, and and Gundam! I also saw a ton of Avengers stuff this month (although I’ve seen no mention of The Marvels anywhere here – I am hoping Aquaman 2 opens here since the first was a major hit!).

Beyond figurines, I saw a ton of “found” anime & comics – stickers, posters, and random other things throughout the city. My favorite is that Dragonball Z is somehow being used to sell KFC here. I also saw a ton of Mario this month, as well as Pokemon, One Piece, and Doraemon!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading my blog! I hope you liked hearing about what fun things I did in October and the postdoc application process. I don’t know how many fun things I’ll do between this post and the next post (so many applications to write, so little time), but I do have some plans for Thanksgiving and Channukkah, so at least that! For all of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving later this week, I hope you have a lovely holiday and get to spend it with loved ones. For those of you celebrating Channukkah in early December, I hope it is also equally lovely and that you get to eat some yummy latkes. As always, I really appreciate all of your feedback, so if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to comment on the blog here, or write me directly! Have a wonderful rest of November and a great start to December!

In Peace,

Emmet