A few more photos

1. The view from our hotel in Phuket. Gorgeous!
2. Our greeter at the train station in Shanghai. On the left is Trevor; on the right, Jamie.
3. Me inside the Water Cube!

Feel free to email me at elliotjwatts(at)gmail.com
I'd love to hear from you!

Photos from the past few weeks

About the photos above
1. Jay Kim and I at the Beijing Olympic Water Cube (where Michael Phelps won eight gold medals)
2. Julian, Jay Frisby and I at the Forbidden City in Beijing
3. Me at the Great Wall!
4. Casey singing at karaoke in Tokyo
5. The Whiffs singing at an ancient temple in Kyoto

Phuket, Thailand

Tuesday, June 30
In the morning, we said goodbye to Bangkok and hello to Phuket, an island south of landlocked Thailand. Essentially, we left a bustling metropolis for a tropical paradise. Our gorgeous hotel right on the beach agreed to host us for four days as long as we sang one concert for its guest. We happily obliged.

Wednesday, July 1
Rather than motor-biking around the island, I decided to just enjoy the beach resort. I ate the breakfast buffet, got a Thai massage and swam in the pool. In the evening, we sang our concert for about forty of the hotel's guests. Not a bad deal.

Thursday, July 2
Not much to report here: I got another Thai massage (this time with Jesse) and read (I'm currently reading American Pastoral by Philip Roth). Tomorrow, we leave this splendid island for a completely different country, at least topographically: Nepal.

Bangkok, Thailand

Saturday, June 27
Ready to move on to our next stop, we flew from Shanghai to Bangkok that afternoon. Not satisfied with just relaxing at the Siam City Hotel, a five-star hotel that has hosted the Whiffs for the past thirteen years and is owned and operated by a former Yale professor, most of the group checked out Bangkok's clubs and bars.

Sunday, June 28
Exhausted by a long day, Julian, Jay Frisby and I went to the huge market that is only open during the weekend. There, Julian bought some authentic Birkenstocks.

Later that evening, we performed at our hotel for a lively and appreciate audience. Ten or so ambassadors from around the world were in attendance.

Monday, June 29
To satisfy our cultural needs, most of the Whiffs visited the truly incredible wats, Buddhist temples in downtown Bangkok. I had never seen anything like those temples before; the radiant colors and materials had me spellbound.

During the evening, our business manager treated us to a boat ride down a river that runs right through Bangkok. We ate spicy Thai food and enjoyed ourselves.

Shanghai, China

Wednesday, June 24
Ten hours later, we woke up to a new city. Consistent with the amazing treatment we have received on this tour, we were greeted outside of the train station by a representative of the St. Regis Hotel in Shanghai-- a five-star hotel that would host all the Whiffs for the next three days.

That night, we sang a concert for the local Yale Club. Some of us went out to a local restaurant for food, drinks and hookah. After that, about six Whiffs went to a crazy club called Soho. One of the Yalies we met that night had dozens of free drink vouchers. We danced up a storm and then returned to our hotel.

Thursday, June 25
Starting on Thursday morning at around 9:15 AM, we became the property of the Shanghai Expo, the modern-day equivalent of the World's Fair, and its marketing firm. We went on a short tour of the Expo's plans for its debut in 2010. We also had to sit through a Powerpoint presentation that actively criticized the United States for not agreeing to participate in the Expo. Frustrated, I asked, "What would the US gain from participating in the Expo?" The non-answer I received from the official didn't convince me that the US should spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a six-month festival.

Later, we sang for a high school graduation-- a terribly awkward ceremony that we had no business attending.

We also had to rehearse for the next day's gigantic concert that featured around thirty media representatives.

Friday, June 26
I have no qualms about saying that this day was the worst day of tour. I don't blame Elizabeth, a sweet woman from Atlanta who worked for the Expo to plan its music festival. Still, the Whiffs were simply treated poorly.

The plan was for us to sing at the Shanghai Expo's music festival preview show. Rather than show up to a performance an hour or so in advance, as we have for virtually all 150 concerts we have done this year, the Expo sequestered us in the performance hall for hours upon hours. For three of those hours, we were forced to all sit in a moldy storage room. Granted, the Whiffs have been treated exquisitely for most of this tour, but this experience was just ridiculous.

All in all, the concert went well. The Whiffs' Chinese speakers talked to the media folks. Ostensibly, the whole experience was a success.

Beijing, China

Saturday, June 20, continued
After we deplaned, we had about three hours before our joint concert with Whim n' Rhythm, Yale's all-senior female a cappella group, for the local Yale Club. We had a brilliant time singing and partying with them that night.

Sunday, June 21
We visited the Great Wall. Rather than walking up and down, we took a tram up (weirdly, our tram said that President Bill Clinton had ridden that same tram car up to the Wall back in the 1990s) and tobogganed down.

Monday, June 22
We rode around ancient Chinese streets in tuk-tuks during the afternoon. Then, Jay Frisby, Julian and I checked out Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We also bought some authentic goods at a huge market in downtown Beijing. That night, we sang at Yale grad Dionysios Bouzos's house party for about forty of his friends. He has a magnificent apartment there; also, we're apparently going to do a similar at his apartment in Greece. After the show, a few of us hung out with some members of Whim at a bar near a lake in Beijing.

Tuesday, June 23
The Whiffs sang concerts for two different private schools during the afternoon. Come evening time, we said goodbye to the Chen family, our hosts who put all fourteen Whiffs up in their house, and boarded a sleeper train to Shanghai.

Last Two Days in Japan

Thursday, June 18
We enjoyed a free day in Tokyo. Casey, Jay, Jesse, Drew, Yuko, and I walked around the downtown area and sat in a park. At night, after a dinner with our host families, we all went to karoake. I sang Sinatra/Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin."

Friday, June 19
During the afternoon, we sang at an outdoor concert in the business district of Tokyo. That night, we sang our final gig in Japan: a concert at a private club in downtown Tokyo. In attendance: my host mother, her friend, the former CEO of Sony, and about forty others. After the show and dinner, we got to talk with the guests. Jesse and I chatted with the CEO about his children and grandchildren. Fun!

Saturday, June 20
A roller-coaster of a day. At a train station in Tokyo at around 6 AM, we tearfully said goodbye to our caring and generous hosts in Japan. We boarded a train to take us to the airport, where we then said goodbye to our tremendously helpful tour guides, Jody and Yuko. We then left Japan and flew to Beijing, China.