Good Asian Drivers Tour

Here’s the latest video of our adventures in Chicago and Wisconsin. Please continue reading below to get all the detailed notes and commentary on this video!

So I thought Rihanna’s “Shut Up and Drive” would be appropriate, but once I started editing I realized the song is kind of raunchy, no?

The opening scene is the Chicago skyline while driving to our hotel at the University of Chicago. Our host, Yennie Lee and Sarah Bouchat, were kind enough to adjust our accommodations after they found out that we had been placed in extraordinarily small dorm rooms with communal showers. We had more video on us being upset, but it didn’t make it to the video. 

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Here are 10 reasons why The Good Asian Drivers Tour should have stayed a national tour:

10. We got held up for a good hour at Customs and Immigration at the Canadian border because we didn’t lie and say we were “tourists”.

9. Emily, our GPS, would not let us type in “No. 3 Road” no matter how hard we tried. 

8. At a Canadian TV studio while filming a segment of “Urban Rush” (which is the Today Show of Vancouver), two words in Kit’s poem “Queer Nation” got bleeped out. One was “fag”. The other was “cock”.

7. We couldn’t find food in Vancouver or Richmond that took credit card. We didn’t have any colorful Canadian currency. 

6. After driving around for almost an hour, we realized we could get cash from the ATM. What an idea.

5. We couldn’t figure out if it was customary to tip in Canada. (Kit said, “Don’t the French not tip?”)

4. We asked for good local Canadian beer at a Chinese restaurant. 

3. We looked around for a Bank of America.

2. Kit thought that “131.1″ at the gas station meant $131 per gallon.

1. When we crossed the border, Kit said, “Why is everyone driving 60 when it said 100?” 100 kilometers, Kit. Kilometers.

Greetings from Vancouver, Canada!!!

Currently, we’re sitting in a large and beautiful but empty luxury condo - we still can’t figure out how it is that we end up in these random places, but let’s just say that every day is pretty much a surprise on this tour!! Before I go to sleep tonight, I wanted to share with ya’ll some pics and update you on what life has been like on the road this past week. Keep reading to see more pics!!

Our friends from Billings, Montana:

So the last you heard from us, we were in the Cheese State. From Wisconsin, we drove to Minneapolis where we got funky haircuts from a punk salon. Kit said that they cut out all the “asianness” in my hair. Whatever that means. Then we performed at the Pi Bar and Restaurant, a lesbian owned venue that REALLY rocked! Shannon Blowtorch, our host, fed us SO much food and gave us so many drink tickets Kit was red from the Asian Glow within the first 45 minutes of stepping foot into the establishment. 

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Week 1 - Swarthmore, Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. to Columbia, Maryland to Ann Arbor, Michigan to Chicago, Illinois. The Good Asian Drivers spend their first 6 days on the road performing for a energetic crowd at Olde Club (Swarthmore College), eating vegan desserts at Sticky Fingers, and hitting the stage at a cozy coffeehouse Savor the Flavor in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago Part TWO will be coming soon…

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Here’s us with the folks from the Japanese American Citizen’s League, who all came out to support us and watch our performance at Savor the Flavor cafe. Kit had to keep it PG-13 for the first half of the show (while the cafe was still open to the public) so that was a little tough for him. :)

For me, it was just nice to be playing in a setting that I’m most comfortable in - reminds me of Club Passim and Herrell’s Renaissance Cafe back home…

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Good Asian Drivers pull up to Boston College, where they fed us till we almost exploded, University of New Hampshire, where there are hotels in the forest, and Tufts, where we had more Chinese food than we’d ever need.

Between getting up on that stage, driving, planning our fall tour schedule, and corresponding with all of our next stops, we have not had a single moment to devote to blogging. Yes, it’s so sad!

My video files have been backlogged to no end. Since we are always filming, there is always more to edit and it’s driving me crazy!

Things aren’t much easier for Kit. He’s been struggling with financial software, planning, and finding things to eat in this predominantly non-vegan friendly country.

So please excuse us for being a little out of order here (in couple of days you will see another video of something that happened before), but in an attempt to keep ya’ll up to date, here goes nothing:
We currently are sitting in a cafe in Chicago after dropping our car off to the Toyota dealership to get the 20K mile service. It’s twice as expensive as Boston and doesn’t have wireless internet. What is that all about?

Speaking of expensive, gas prices are out of control here. Regular is around 3.89 per gallon. I think we have enough in our car to last at least till we get out of Chicago. Last night, we hung out at Savor the Flavor cafe again where we saw this man with a guitar sing with his 10 year old daughter. It was so cute and she sounded so good even though she was young. Then we hung out with my friend Cat and her band the Dollheads and played some music together. Cat is a pretty awesome composer and we shared material.

Before that, we hung out with Pat Yuzawa-Rubin, one of the board members of the Japanese American Citizens League, who is totally awesome!!! She let us stay in her coach-house and showed us around Wilmette and Evanston. She even bought us breakfast, vegan pastries, and gave us lots of goodies from her friend’s wacky novelty store, Beat Street. Continue Reading »

So everyone’s been telling us to go to Ann Arbor because it’s this amazing city. I don’t doubt it, but unfortunately, we were only there for one evening. Mainly to sleep before our drive to Chicago. 

We stayed with my friend Kimberly who is the cutest ever. She is in love with the Food Network, so Kit and Kim got to bond over talking about which shows are the best. I didn’t even know there were so many different shows on the Food Network. But then I started watching it and I have to admit, I got a little hooked. I like the italian lady that was cooking salmon fish sticks. She’s hot.

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