Museum of Sex, New York

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Museum of Sex, New York - Animals & What They Teach Us

I went to the Museum of Sex in New York. It has a section on animals with videos. Taken by zoos and animal parks, some of which are trying to breed animals. Lots of surprises: Some animals are gay or bisexual. Some animals like group sex. Lots of animals masturbate. Some animals like sex with partners of ay age - including those too young to have offspring - so forget the breeding to survive theory. Some females can be seen sending out streams of liquid - female ejaculation. Some females interfere when their male has intercourse with another female - jealousy - which the commentator from the zoo / park thinks is to stop the male using up all his semen and having none left for the female who interrupts. Have you been there? Did you enjoy it? Did you learn anything? Has it enlightened you about human relationships?

Museum of Sex, New York

New York's Museum of sex is quite different from the one I visited in China. (The latter was in Shanghai but has moved south to bring fame and fortune to another location.) The Chinese version about sex in China began with objects from the stone age, progressing through pillow books, pictures of geisha girls and prostitution.

The American version is in the all-moving city of New York and relies heavily on movies. I really liked the downstairs introduction which was the exhibition on the sex life of animals. Although most of us have been embarrassed by pets such as cats which lick themselves when the whole family is watching, and dogs which do things doggie style in front of the children, most of us don't have access to wild animals any time, let alone when they are being amorous. The amazing thing is the diversity of animals' behaviour.

Many animals seem to be clueless as regards the sex of the others and are bisexual, with little regard for the age of their partners. However others are very jealous and some females chase away rivals of their own sex or even interrupt others' who are - ahem - coupling. One animal is trading sugar cane for sex.

Upstairs are analyses of the kinds of sex shown in movies. Robot sex. Sex machines. And couples demonstrating massaging the female g-spot and sexual intercourse positions.

The shop has books such as fairy tales. One on making your own sex toys. And they sold chocolate covered condoms. If you haven't tried them, I'm sure you will like them. Do not use them until you have left the shop. Signs ask you not to touch or mount any exhibit.

Museum of Sex

233 5th Avenue, NY 10016

Tel: (212) 689 6337

Entry cots $14.50 plus tax.

www.museumofsex.com

Alexandria, Egypt, The Alexandrian Quartets and Jewish Justine

I just read in the TLS (Times Literary Supplement) on line an article about Lawrence Durrell. The author wrote the novel Justine, named after the main character in that book and others in The Alexandrian Quartet, his series of four linked novels set in cosmopolitan Alexandria, Egypt, telling same story from the viewpoint of different characters. Justine was based on his friend Eve Cohen, who seems to have been one of his girlfriends or partners because they went to Israel. Durrell's equally famous author brother wrote My Family And Other Animals, a cute book short and easy reading, about the family in Greece. This brother went on to found the Jersey zoo.

Apart from a statue mentioned in the book, there are no very visual and appealing landmarks, but the article does do a fairly thorough analysis of Alexandria then and now, so do have a look at it. The article was in August 2008.

Why I never buy black suitcases

Why you should never buy a black suitcase

I have had black suitcases. They are a disaster.

Take these cases – sorry about the pun.

a) Husband and wife go to the airport with matching suitcases. Great idea. All my life I wanted matching suitcases. So smart. Never again. My husband arrives at his conference in Italy with a lady’s underwear and bikinis, as if he’s a closet transvestite. Not a single pair of socks. Just pink bras. I arrive for a press trip run representing Brides magazine and all I have is huge men’s shoes and bow ties like Marlene Dietrich in a musical.

b) I arrive at an airport and check in my black luggage. When I land at the other end of my journey in Florida, it has gone. My group is delayed waiting for me. I am not popular. Grand dinner - but I have no evening clothes. I am at reception trying to talk tohe airline. My black suitcase has been picked up by somebody else with identical black luggage. They are 100 miles away the other end of Florida. The airline won’t return my luggage until they have received the other person’s which they can collect next day. But I’m off on a day trip with the travel press. Half my luggage is the fancy dress costume which I hope will win me the prize of a free trip to the USA. My costume does not arrive until after the fancy dress competition.

c) On 9/11 I am in Singapore. After a bomb threat all the luggage is taken off the plane and spread out on tarmac safely away from the terminal. We are sent out in the tropical sun surrounded by the army with assault rifles and sniffer dogs, to identify our black suitcases amongst 500 other black suitcases. Not until the suitcases have all been identified can we return to the terminal.

d) My son has injured himself skiing and is in a wheelchair. The person looking after him has to fetch the luggage from the carousel. What does the luggage look like? It’s black. Yes, really helpful.

e) I am tired of black luggage. I arrive at an airport and wait by the carousel. After half an hour I spot it at the other side of the airport. I saw it only because it was bright pink. If it had been black I would have spent another anxious half hour, running up expensive time on the hire car waiting outside.

Now you know why I never buy black luggage.

Damaged Suitcases On Airlines - Advice

I just had a suitcase damaged on a flight from Singapore to London.
One wheel ripped off. Various other bits of damage.
They want to know

a) Why did I not report it at the airport?
I didn't notice. Just put the luggage onto a trolley and raced off. I had a hire car waiting.
Next time I shall inspect my luggage on all six sides at the airport.

b) As soon as I got home I found the problem. I had trouble opening the case. I photographed it with my mobile as evidence of the damage and date.

Next time I'll photograph my luggage as I check it in. To prove it was fine when it was put on the plane. And to show what it looks like if it goes missing.

Jews in China: Kaifeng, Shanghai before WWII and Beijing in 2008

BEIJING
I've recently visited Beijing and with the Olympics being held there later in 2008 many of you may be either visiting China or watching it on TV and reading about it.

KAIFENG
You probably already know about Kaifeng where a Jewish community existed in previous centuries but died out. The little that is left forms the basis of tours for visiting Americans. In London, England, a Chinese kosher restaurant was named after Kaifeng.

SHANGHAI
Beijing and Shanghai have Jewish communities. Shanghai's Jewish Museum in the former Jewish quarter has a permanent collection, temporary exhibitions, and can send you on a walking tour. In Shanghai if you contact a community group you can have a kosher meal at a group get-together.

The best known historic building with Jewish origins is the Peace Hotel on the bund (waterfront). It had a well-known Jazz bar for years. It's Chinese style restaurant featured in films.

A smaller - fewer than fifty bedroom and suites, but equally architecturally stunning hotel, is the Hengshan-Moller Villa, once home of Eric Moller, a British Jew. His daughter dreamed of a fairytale castle, so he built this romantic house to realize her dream. Outside it has gables and a tower with two levels of gables. Rather a surprise, alongside skyscrapers. I found it by accident. When our hire car drove past it, I insisted on stopping to take a look.

The family was originally in shipping so it's full of ship symbols. Later Eric owned a successful racehorse. You see a copper racehorse statue in the garden. I'm checking the facts from the hotel brochure. I brought the brochure back to England.

I had tea in the hotel with an ex-pat friend who has been living in Shanghai. Her American husband was working there.Shanghai has lots of buildings which were former homes of Jewish people or were built by them.

BEIJING
In the hotel I visited in Beijing was surprised to find on the Executive lounge a small library containing a handsome large hardback picture book about the Jews of China. It didn't tell me much I didn't know, although it had lots of good pictures.

You'll find lots of fascinating information if you do an on line search.In Beijing a kosher restaurant recently opened.

If you know any more about the past or future of Jewish communities in China or what tourists can see please let me know. Thanks.

CHINA - BEIJING - GREAT WALL - SHORT WALK

Big Beijing
Beijing is big, huge. Ten lane highways leading to Tian An Men Square. Skyscrapers all the way from the airport to the centre, racing along the overpass into the evening traffic jams, or taking the modern toll road, through a gate which has a temple type tiled winged roof. That was the big surprise in January 2008. All modern. Yet so Chinese. Giant skyscraper with what looks like little ancient Chinese temples perched on top.

Fifteen million people. I can't be sure that number is accurate. When I tried to count, the people kept moving.

Major hotels are near the square. And the underground train goes there. Use your phone to photography the subway map. We asked another westerner to tell us the transfer station. Note the station nearest your hotel to come back. The underground costs two yuan per ticket regardless of distance.

Skyscrapers Replace Slums
They were getting ready for the Olympic Games in August 2008. Around Tian An Men Square the old Hougangs or slums have been moved. You can still see a few. One storey shacks with winding alleys and scarcely room for one person to walk between. Claustrophobic. You can take tours. We just glimpsed them as we passed through the city on a tour bus.

The people have been moved out. To skyscraper cities on the outskirts of the city. Whilst they might prefer a modern building, it must be disconcerting to be so far from the city centre. Would anybody take the time and touble to match them up with the same neighbours? Or, like Singapore, install shops, doctors, nurseries, libraries and all you need on the ground floor of each development, like the old corner shop, to save travelling. To find out you would have to read magazines about the Asian economy, published in other countries in the region.

Hotels
Raffles Beijing Hotel

On Changan Road, which apparently means Perpetual Peace.

In China the media is censored. No time for dissent. It's a society which values obedience. When I researched the story of the Willow Pattern Plate on the internet, I found a collectors site which said that whilst Britain sees the story as one of romantic lovers reunited for eternity as love birds, orientals would see it as a cautionary tale of how the disobedient eloping couple were caught and condemned to an eternity of only seeing each other as birds.

I went on a day tour to The Great Wall and the mountainside Ming tombs.

Ming Tombs

You see a hall made into museum with glass cases showing the emperors' clothes and jade belts and gold money. Real gold reproductions.

Originals in Taiwan? Are you planning to visit Beijing - for the Olympics in August? If so, they are making great efforts to get ready for you. Slums have been cleared. For you, only the best.Huge hotels are being built along highways carrying 8-10 lanes of traffic to Tiananmen Square.

I had coffee and excellent cheesecake in Beijing Raffles Hotel.

But Peking Duck is better in Swan Peking in Hatch End.

THE GREAT WALL

The Great Wall was very steep and slippery. I would have fared better if I'd known it's not flat but sloping. So you need proper gear for walking uphill on slippery stones, with both hand free - quite unnerving. I wrote a poem about it.

CITY SIGHTS

I also saw the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and best of all the lakeside Summer Palace, a long covered walkway looking over the shallow lake where rather incongruously people were walking and tripping over on the ice.

Th Forbidden City was a huge complex. The guide pointed to the new cobblestones in front of us, the old ones to our right. I thought it was a pity not to leave the old ones. Until we walked over the old section. Lots of missing cobbles. In the UK you'd have had glass or plastic sheeting above. Health and safety. Very easy to fall.

What's left to see inside? Wait for the crowd to clear and peer through a glass window and see a red silk draped daybed and a four poster bed.

The Temple of Heaven has a pleasant garden, in fact a huge park. You walk along avenues and activites are taking place on either side. Ballroom dance music was playing and couples were dancing.

Then from another area more rousing jolly choral music. What was that? I asked the guide. Patriotic songs.

In the park was the Chinese restaurant. Big round table with a lazy Susan in the middle. Sweet and sour chicken. Vegetables.

Shopping

Plus stops at a pearl mall, silk mall, and a teahouse selling roses for making tea. The only tea I've ever liked. New discovery.

I liked our hotel, the Jianguo Garden. Such a pretty girl waiting to welcome you into the lift.

The Asia Kitchen had a breakfast and supper buffet. With pickled ginger.

The Chinese restaurant offered steak in sweet and sour sauce.

Another oriental restaurant, Mongolian, had 'ox threat'.

Jianguogardenhotel.com

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