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I slept in for the first time.  Wonderful.  I decided to go back to the hutong by Tiananmen Square to do some shopping.  I discovered that behind the “modern” buildings are several alleyways which have more of a neighborhood feel.  I came across the silk shop that has been there since the Tang Dynasty and a place that had been making handmade shoes for even longer.  I also found a kite shop for you, Sharon! As I made my way back to the hotel, I found a local shopping mall, with a large section of beauty salon products, from wigs to color to scissors to chairs and gowns and the special lights that go outside, kinda like a barber pole in black and white.  It was great.
I have to pack tonight.  I have really enjoyed this trip on many levels.  I’ve seen some beautiful places, met some wonderful people and a lot of delicious meals.  China was nothing like I expected – so modern and so ancient, so friendly and so distant, so polite and so pushy.  I’ve played with babies and petted small dogs, while their owners and parents beamed.  I have even been asked to have my picture taken with some Chinese families – I guess I look exotic?  I would like to spend more time in Beijing and Xian and Langer’s descriptions of his area in the west sounded very interesting.  I’ve made new friends to visit in New Zealand.  Right now I am not sure where to go next, but Chris is interested in Vietnam and Laos, so maybe next year.
I am not sad about going home, which is a first for me.  I’m tired and -- should I say? -- would like to be in a crowd where I know what people are saying!  And it will be nice to be where pedestrians have SOME right of way.  I know wanderlust will hit me soon and I can’t wait to see where I go next.

Temples and Shopping

Langer suggested we check out the Lama Temple on our free day.  Chris and I figured out how to take the subway there.  What an adventure!  There were huge crowds underground, but we figured how to buy a ticket, get on the right car and make it to the temple.  It was a beautiful spot, full of devote Buddhists, but it was hot and humid, so we didn’t stay long.
Our next subway stop was the Silk Market – a 6 story shopping mall, all open stalls, selling anything and everything you can think of.  It was another adventure, walking down long passageways, while the vendors constantly call to you to look at their stuff.  The selling starts in the subway corridors and doesn’t stop.
It was a great day, altogether.  Chris is a wonderful traveling companion, up for anything and ready to have fun.  We have the same ideas about being culturally conscious and try our best to be respectful to things far beyond what we are used to.  She leaves tomorrow afternoon and I will be on my own.
Thursday, June 30
What a day!  Chris and I decided to go to the Cultural Museum, which is across the street from Tiananmen Square.  There were a couple of things we forgot.  Today starts the weekend celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party and guess where the celebrating center will be?  Yep.  After being crushed by crowds, we got in line for the Museum.  We also didn’t know it was the free day for the museum and the line was enormous.  We also didn’t know you cannot bring any kind of liquid or candy into the museum.  After an hour in line, we got to the security X ray area.  The guard took my Smints and TicTacs and another guard started to take Chris’ jelly beans.  Chris is diabetic and needs to carry jelly beans in case her blood sugar drops dangerously low.  I’d had it by then and we agreed to skip the museum and go to a really nice place for lunch – with a bar.
We ended up at the Capitol M, a very nice restaurant, with a great bar and an even more incredible bathroom.  The bathrooms we have experienced on this trip have been pretty basic for the most part – squat toilets where you need to provide your own paper.  This one was magnificent by any standard.
I had a bloody mary; Chris had a mojito.  We had a fabulous lunch and walked back to the hotel, so she could pack.
I spent the night knitting, watching HBO and dozing off and on.  It was delicious.
More photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/shopping-museum/
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/the-last-days/

That Great Wall

The Great Wall.  We left the hotel around 8 AM for the 2 hour ride to the Mutianyu Section of the Great Wall.  There are several choices about which part of the Great Wall to visit; Mutianyu is a less traveled section with somewhat easier climbs from tower to tower.  (I discovered none of it is easy.)We took a cable car up to Tower 8.  It was another clear day and the view was spectacular.  At Tower 8, Langer gave us a brief overview of the history, and then we began to climb.  I made it to Tower 12, I think, but Chris marched on to Tower 18.  The paths consist of steep steps, flat areas, really steep steps, steep inclines and long flat steps, with towers in between.  As I sat on the side, waiting for Chris, a few people walked by but I was mostly there by myself.  I contemplated on the trip as the bees flew around the lavender bushes and apricot trees.  It was very quiet except for the cicadas chirping away.  I was overwhelmed by the realization I was sitting on the Great Wall of China – what a fantastic feeling.
Chris returned and we set off for Tower 5, backtracking a bit.  The views were stupendous and, except for a couple of unruly French boys, the walk was pretty serene.  With my usual bad sense of direction, I made Chris go one tower too many, down a very steep set of stairs, which, of course, we had to back track.  We ended up at Tower 5, which gave you the option of descending back to the bottom by chair lift or toboggan!  The Germans installed the toboggan some years ago and that’s the way we decided to go.  It is a metal chute that you ride down in little plastic cars with metal runners.  They have a brake (you pull back on the stick) or you can push down on the stick to fly.  What incredible fun!  Except for the two stupid Indian girls ahead of us, who got frightened and slowed down at most of the bends, I flew down through the trees.  It was wonderful.
Down at the bottom, we talked about taking the chair lift back up and tobogganing back down, but decided to get something to drink and go shopping instead.  There are LOTS of stalls selling all kinds of T shirts, stuffed pandas, tablecloths, fans and every type of souvenir you can imagine.  I bought a pair of Chinese slippers (I tried to bargain but I’m really bad at it) and Chris got some more post cards.  Back in Beijing, we all went up the street to have a Peking duck dinner.  It was Carmen, Bev and Jan’s last night with us.  The restaurant is in the hutong closest to the hotel.  Hutongs are the traditional local neighborhoods, full of shops, restaurants and homes, where the people hang out and visit.  China is in the process of demolishing the old neighborhoods and rebuilding new structures that will be too expensive for the people living there to afford.  It’s very controversial.  They have already done that in the area around Tiananmen Square, which now looks kinda like Disneyland.
The duck dinner was wonderful. As we left the restaurant, Langer asked a passerby to take our picture, which he did!  With all 3 cameras!
Tomorrow morning is the end of the official tour.  I don’t want to talk about it…

Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/great-wall/
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/duck-dinner/

The Square and the City

Today was the day to visit the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  Wow.  The Temple of Heaven is located in a local park, where people meet to dance, play hacky sack and badminton and do Tai Chi.  It was wonderful.  The locals can get a yearlong pass to go into the park without having to pay for the admission into the Temples, and they do!  It was great to see everyone out enjoying themselves.  We got to the Temple and I was blown away.  It is so beautiful.  It was meant for the emperor to pray at this temple for a good harvest every year.  You can look in to see the 4 columns representing the seasons, the twelve columns representing the year and the 24 columns representing the seasons of the years.  So wonderful.  We moved onto the Altar, which is a platform with a center stone, nine stones surrounding that and multiples of nine encircling out until it reaches 81 stones at the perimeter.  Nine is the lucky number for the emperor, so many buildings had stairs divided in multiples of nine.
We took a city bus to Tiananmen Square, but it was only 11 AM so we stopped a Chinese fast food place for lunch.  I had beef cooked with carrots, rice and a fruit drink.  It was actually not bad, although Langer was not complimentary about the food.  I think he’s a bit of a foodie.  He wants to learn gourmet cooking on his time off.  The city bus was very interesting and fun.  We took buses to dinner last night.  The bus driver drove very fast and yelled at people who do not get on the bus fast enough.  The bus today was not so frenetic.  It only cost 1 Yuan, which amounts to about 15 cents.  We got off at the square and Langer pointed out the museum and the Great Hall of the People, their Congress building.  We entered the square after going through a metal detector and an X ray machine to check our backpacks.  Langer said disgruntled farmers have come from the country and have set themselves on fire to protest bad treatment from the government in the past, so the soldiers check for gasoline and have fire extinguishers on hand, just in case.
The square is enormous.  It can hold one million people.  There is a huge building for Mao’s tomb.  It was not open, but Langer said we could come back and lineup for 2 hours to see Mao’s embalmed body on display.  I don’t think I will.
It was a 15 minute walk to the other end.  Across the street is the initial gateway to the Forbidden City, the famous entrance with the big picture of Mao.  We crossed the street through an underground passage and made our way through the gateway.  Langer explained much about the Forbidden City:  the emperors who lived there, the changes made by Chaing Kai-Shek and the final ousting of the royal family in 1918.  It is vast, covering over 7 million square feet of living space, plus a huge garden.  It went on and on, pavilion after pavilion, where the emperor slept, where he held court, where the empress slept, where the concubines lived, where Confucius scholars passed their final exams.  You can’t go into any of these pavilions, just crowd up outside to look in and crowds there were.  The Temple of Heaven was easy to get around, but by the afternoon in the Forbidden City, as huge as it is, it was difficult to get by the masses of people, and impossible sometimes to see into the pavilions.  It was a shock to see huge courtyard after huge courtyard, plus the many smaller buildings on each side.  It is said to have over 8,700 rooms.  By the time we got to the garden, I was overwhelmed and just wanted to sit and people watch.  Chris went to the bookstore to find a book for her dad while I sat.  It started out a very pleasant day, but by the afternoon, it got cloudy and very humid.  We caught a couple of taxis to take us back to the hotel.  Gai, Fiona, Chris and I went to an acrobatic show, while the other 3 had a Peking Duck dinner.  The acrobatic show was a local one, full of school kids.  That was an added bonus;  just listening to the kids scream and yell with glee was fabulous.  The show was not as polished, I think, as the ones for tourists are, but it was a lot of fun, all the same. It was like what I used to see on the Ed Sullivan show when I was a kid – girls twirling drums on ropes, guys leaping through smaller and smaller hoops, a juggler who kept adding more and more balls in the air.  The final act was a motorcycle riding inside a big round cage, which was pretty amazing, but then another joined him, then another, then another!  There were 4 of them speeding around, then the lights went out, so all you could see were headlights and taillights spinning.  The kids went nuts and so did we.
Chris and I got back to the hotel, had gin and tonics, discussed the day’s events and then went to bed.  Tomorrow the GREAT WALL.

http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/tianamen-square/
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/forbidden-city/

Beijing -- Summer Palace

Yesterday we had a bit of free time before we left on the train, so Chris and I went back to the Muslim Quarter to see if we could find the mosque.  We did!  It was tucked away down some alleyways, but it was worth the search.  It was so serene and quiet.  It is like no other mosque I’ve seen (and I’ve seen quite a few!).  It is definitely Chinese, pagodas, dragons and all.  We walked by a room with a group of men praying (in Chinese) and sat in the garden to relax.  After the bustle of the city, it was wonderful.  After we left, we went down some back alleys and I found a couple of women knitting!  I took a picture, after asking permission, of course.  It is strange to see Chinese women wearing head scarves.
After leaving the train station, we headed off to the Summer Palace.  It was unbelievable.  An emperor from the Ming Dynasty created the Summer Palace as a present to his mother for her 70th birthday.  There was a lake there, but it was dredged up to make it bigger and in the shape of a peach – meaning long life.  The park is beautiful, and the lake is amazing.  You can walk along one bank under a long painted corridor – the longest painted corridor in the world, according to the Guiness Book – and it is lovely.  At the end we caught a ferry to the other coast.  The lake was full of boats, canoes and paddle boats – everyone was out to enjoy the good weather.  We crossed over the 17 arches bridge.  It is made of marble with small lions on each post.  It was time then to board the bus to the hotel.  We were all sticky, smelly and tired, so Chris and I took showers and relaxed.  Some of the others on the tour got massages in the room, which they said were fantastic, so I may try that before I go home!  We went to dinner at a local place and the food was, as always, fantastic.  The group then left for the Kung Fu show;  Chris and I passed on that.  We spent the next few hours drinking with Langer, telling jokes and having a wonderful time.  Chris and I took a little walk when we returned to the hotel, met some local kids and ended up watching some women dancing with fans on the sidewalk accompanied by a couple of guys banging on drums.  It was great.  We got back to the hotel just in time to meet up with the others and toddled off to bed.
Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/summer-palace/

Warriors!!!

Terra Cotta Warriors!!  After an hour on the tour bus, we arrived at the factory where they are the only licensed firm to create the reproductions of the warriors.  They use the same clay; they have made molds of the original figures.  Most of the warriors were badly damaged when they were discovered, so at the excavation site there are a lot of reproductions for people to see.
The first emperor of China united China under one rule over 2000 years ago.  He was powerful; it was under his rule that the Great Wall was built.  He also built an enormous tomb; one part of it contained life sized figures of his army made of terra cotta.  A farmer discovered them in 1974 while digging for a well.  They have found over 3000 warriors so far, each with a different face.  It was a startling find for the world of archeology and they are still excavating.  Besides the figures, they have found 2 bronze chariots and many bronze birds and pots.  They have not excavated his actual tomb yet.
At the factory, they explained how the figures are made, showing us the molds and kilns.  They also make reproductions of antique Chinese lacquered and inlaid furniture and porcelain statues.  Of course, there is a huge showroom where you can buy these things.  I picked up a couple of jade lions for my patio.  The price included shipping, and, boy, am I glad.  Each one weighs about 8 pounds!
Then, off to the museum/excavation site.  It is very large, surrounded by 100’s of shops selling souvenirs.  When we finally got to the site, it was getting pretty hot.  There are 3 pits you can visit, the first being the largest.  They discovered most of the warriors at this pit.  It is overwhelming.  You can walk all the way around it and even see the figures that they are still piecing together.  Fabulous!
The crowds were beginning to gather when we left the first pit.  We watched a movie explaining the Tang Dynasty, then went to lunch.  The tour guide told us we would be having the “best noodles in China”!  In the north, the staple is noodles, while in the south it is rice.  In the dining room, you could watch guys making noodles, one stretching and pulling until the noodles were angel hair thin, and the other slicing off chunky noodles into boiling water.  They both put on quite a show.  The food was very good, but I’m still holding off claiming that they were the best in China!
After lunch we went to the last two pits.  Pit 2 has some whole figures in it, while pit 3 has mostly broken pieces.  Although in pit 3 they have on display four of the most impressive figures:  a kneeling archer, a standing archer, a general and a cavalry guy and his horse.  The last building houses the chariots, which are half size.  It is the most popular building and was so crowded and noisy; I gave up after pushing my way to the first glass case.  I retreated back to the outside, where I met up with everyone else in the group.
Tonight is the last night with Bob and Kathleen.  They have already been to Beijing, so they are finishing their trip in Shanghai.  I will be very sad to see them go.
Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/terra-cotta-warriors/

In Xian

The train ride was not as smooth as the previous one – lots of stops with jerky brakes – but I slept most of the night and we arrived in Xian around 7:30.  We finally saw a blue sky!  It is much cooler here than the south, but still pretty hot. The hotel is beautiful!  Xian is a very modern city with the original fortress wall still surrounding a part of the downtown area.  The population is around 8 million and it is the jumping off point to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.  I’m very excited about seeing them. I remember when they were discovered in 1974 and they have fascinated me ever since.
Tonight we went to the Shaanxi Grand Opera House to see the Tang Dynasty Paradise Show.  It started with a dumpling dinner – around 18 dishes.  I ate too much at lunch and couldn’t eat any of it, except for the tomato dumplings, which were delicious.  The show was an extravaganza – dancing, music, colorful costumes and scenery.  I enjoyed it very much, even though it was a tourist place.  I really loved the music, all original instruments with lots of cymbals and drums.
Tomorrow the Warriors!

I forgot to add that our first day in Xian, we went to the Large Goose pagoda.  It is a monastery with around 30 monks still living there.  The pagoda is 7 levels high and you can see it from anywhere in the city.  We got a tour and an explanation of the changes in Chinese calligraphy from ancient times to the present and looked through a gallery of beautiful paintings.  Chris bought one – a gorgeous long painting of a flowering plum branch.  I saw one that I almost bought – a crane flying away with a happy monk letting it go – but I stopped myself.  I have soooooo many things to hang on the wall now; I really don’t need one more.  I did get my own chop – a square stamp carved out of stone with my name in English and in Chinese.  I watched the guy carve it in 3 minutes flat.
After the tour, Chris, Bev, Gai, Carmen, Jan and I climbed the stairs to the top of the pagoda.  It was an incredible view with the clear blue sky.

More Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/dumpling-dinner-and/
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/xian-email/

Dams and Trains

This morning we went to the Three Gorges River Dam.  I’m not all that big on dams, but this one had the locks and that was interesting.  They also had a big shop that sold everything from jewelry and T shirts to snacks of all sorts, including dried fish.  It was a very popular item with the Chinese tour groups.  There have been many Chinese tour groups on this cruise.  We were told the government encourages travel through China for its citizens and they are taking advantage of that.  The Chinese we have encountered have been very nice, but very pushy.  They don’t get into lines for anything, but all crowd around the desks or counters.  I feel justified in just pushing back, although it is contrary to what I feel.  They don’t mind at all.
We’ve met a lovely couple from Germany on the cruise.  They are on their honeymoon and will be living in China for 6 months.  Benno, the husband, works for Bosch and Vanessa, the wife, is taking 6 months off of her job to go through this experience.  We exchanged email and Facebook addresses, so I hope we can stay in touch.
We got off the cruise boat in Yichang, a big city that is primarily a hub for getting somewhere else. We did some grocery shopping at a huge supermarket – soup, cookies, crackers and water for the train, then boarded that evening.  Same set up as the other train – 4 bunks to a room.  Langer said we had to try the train dining room; it was an experience not to be missed.  Chris, Fiona and I sat in the dining car with Langer, who ordered all the food for us, as we couldn’t read the menu.  A group of scruffy looking men sat at the table across the aisle.  They were drinking the local drink, a type of grain liquor, clear and about 70% alcohol.   They were pretty drunk and one was quite enamored with Chris.  He kept wanting to clink glasses with her.  They behaved themselves, probably because Langer was sitting with us, but it was funny.
Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/river-dam/

Three Gorges -- Gorgeous!

Up at 5:30 so I could get a shower in before heading to the bar to look at the entrance of the Three Gorges on the Yangtze.  The Gorges are enormous rock formations on either side of the banks.  They form a channel that, until the dam was built, was too shallow to bring boats through.  There used to be men with ropes on their backs dragging the ships though the channels.  We disembarked at Wushan and got on a smaller ferry type boat to take us through the channel.  There are three main areas and the Chinese have named them by the way they look.  The Wu gorge is the gorge of witches, Xiling Gorge is the longest and Qutang Gorge is the shortest.  There is also a Goddess Peak that, according to Chris, looked like a rock.  It took about 3 hours to go up and back.  It was very foggy and misty, so it was difficult to see further ahead, but it was still very impressive.  And there were no stairs to climb!
Back on the ship, the river guide, Leo, offered to teach Chris and me Mahjong, for a small service change (for both of us, $20).  It’s pretty complicated, more like a card game than dominoes, although you use tiles.  It is unlucky for Chinese not to play for money, but since we were learning, it was OK.  I enjoyed learning – I think I might play on line to get better.  Chris did not have a good time, but she hung in there with me.  Did I mention we were drinking Tequila Sunrises? (It was the special drink of the day.)
We are now going through the locks at the Three Gorges Dam Project, which we will visit tomorrow.  It will take about 3 hours to go through all the locks, so most of night will be spent doing that.  We are accompanied by two other cruise ships and we are very close together, so, after waving at two guys in pajamas on the boat next to us from our cabin window, we decided we better close the curtains.

Cruising on the Yangtzi

We are on the cruise ship on the Yangtze. It is so much more luxurious than I imagined!  There is a beautiful bar on Deck 5, a huge dining room on Deck 2 and we have a private cabin on Deck 4.  And, Alyson, we have a tiny balcony!  In my mind I thought it would be more like the felucca in Egypt, and, boy, am I wrong.  I slept in this morning while the group went on a tour of the “Ghost City” on shore.  I may pass on the afternoon excursion, too.  It’s so nice relaxing and being out of the humidity.
The afternoon excursion did not happen because they didn’t have enough people wanting to go.  The ship is not that full and I think most people only would go on the trips that are included in the fare.
Tonight is the Fashion Show that Chris volunteered to be in.  She felt sorry for the river guide – he was getting only refusals from the women he asked.  She looked beautiful in a sky blue dress from the Tong Dynasty and did very well walking around the dance floor.  Off to bed now because we need to be up by 6 AM to see the entrance into the Three Gorges.
Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/2011-06-21-china-1/
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/china-river-cruise-2/

Chongquing

We arrived in Chongqing – a city built on a very hilly site, surrounded by mountains.  The streets are reminiscent of San Francisco – up and down, curves instead of long streets.  The locals don’t give directions like east or west; it is “up right” or “down left”.  There are porters everywhere in the city to carry your things from groceries to building materials.  They carry long sticks wrapped in red rope and are called “stick-stick men”.  There are lots of cars, buses and trucks, but no bicycles!
On our first night here, we all split up for dinner after a basic tour of the city.  Chris and I were ready for a break from Chinese food and went to a “Western style” restaurant, C Stairs (?).  There were very few people in the dining room, which had a large mural of the pilgrims celebrating the first Thanksgiving.  We had bacon wrapped steak with a fried scallop on top – it was delicious!  Our waitress was charming, trying her best to speak English.  We got a 40 %“discount” on the bill (we never figured out why), so it ended up costing about $28 each including a bottle of wine!
This morning Chris and I ran to the local shopping center (this place is lousy with shopping centers, all at least 6 stories high) to look for film for her camera.  Yes, film.  She doesn’t have a digital camera yet and it is becoming almost impossible for her to find film here.  She slipped on the wet pavement and twisted her ankle, but was a real trooper and did not complain about it all day.  I wanted to suggest putting ice on it, and then I realized, she’s the physical therapist!  She knows exactly what to do!  We had no luck finding film and raced back to the hotel to be on time to leave for the rock carvings of Dazu.
About 20 different sections of carvings from Buddhist to Tao to Confucianism are represented in this last surviving area of this art form.  Huge god, goddesses, Buddhas and stories of damnation if you don’t live a good life are carved into the side of the mountain, some brightly colored and all very impressive.  Our city guide, Tommy, had to tell a very detailed story about each section, and in the heat and humidity, it was getting to be a LONG walk up and down the hillside.  But it was amazing. During the Cultural Revolution, when Mao decreed that all signs of religion and history should be destroyed, this place was protected by the local farmers who hid it by planting a lot of trees around the site and confusing the Red Army.
After lunch, where we met a bus load of American tourists, average age 75, we went back to the city to a beautiful park.  It is a cultural center where anyone may practice singing, dancing and playing instruments.  It was landscaped as a traditional Chinese garden with lots of pavilions.  Up the hill was the former home of Chiang Kai-shek, who left China after World War II to escape Mao and establish the Republic of Taiwan. There is a wonderful view of the city from this point, although it is always foggy here so you can’t see much.
Next stop was Huguang Guild Hall.  Well preserved and restored, hundreds of years ago it was headquarters for immigrants from outside provinces.  They have set up rooms with life size figures depicting trading, handing out food for the poor and a fellow being congratulated for passing his exams, while his bride-to-be looks on behind a screen.  We saw a rehearsal for a performance with singing girls – I don’t know what it meant, but it looked traditional.  In the gift shop they sell items donated by local artists and I bought a lovely jade bracelet and pendant of the Buddha.  It is good luck here for the women to wear a jade Buddha; the men wear a Goddess of Mercy figure.
We met the rest of our tour here: 3 women from Darwin, Australia.  So again, I am the token Yankee.  They seem like they will fit in just fine.  The tour so far consists of me and Chris, Kathleen and Bob – dairy farmers and race horse owners from New Zealand (they are terrific!), Fiona and Gai from New South Wales, Australia , and the new group, Bev, Carmen and Jan – Jan and Bev are sisters and Carmen is Jan’s daughter.
Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/2011-06-20-china/ 

PANDAS!

We have left the Panda Reserve and are on the train to Chongquing where we will spend the night before getting on the boat down the Yangtze.
What can I say about the pandas?  They are just what you’d expect – beautiful, funny, slow, sleepy and hungry.  There was a huge crowd of people and you could always tell where the pandas were from the mob gathered along the fence.  The Reserve is a wonderful place with long walkways meandering through the forests of bamboo.  When Langer asked if anyone wanted to hold a baby panda, I said, “Me!”  It cost about $150, called a “donation” to the reserve, but where was I going to have an opportunity like that again?  I stood in line to wait, got my plastic booties and gloves and walked in to an isolated spot with a bench and THE BABY PANDA!!!  Someone took my camera and when it was my turn, snapped away.  The baby was pretty big and heavy, with coarse fur.  He (or she?) was happy to sit there as long as there was a piece of bamboo to chew on.  He really didn’t pay much attention to me at all, even though I buried my face in his fur.  He didn’t smell like anything.  I got my minute or so, and then he was passed to the next guy.  So well worth the money!
Just got in the room in Xian.  And just got to the Internet for the first time in 4 days.
Photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/2011-06-18-china/

Onto ChengDu

The Giant Buddha

Today was a quiet day.  After breakfast, Chris and I took another stroll around town.  We found a shop run by the Miao people, who are famous for embroidery and metal work.  The girls in the shop were all in traditional dress – really beautiful.  There were tapestries of every size and the work was so intricate and amazing.  The girl said her grandmother still could embroider like that, but the she was only able to do simpler pieces.  Chris bought a lovely crane surrounded by a lot of design work.  After shopping, we stopped at Minnie Mao and had a specialty, pineapple beer.  It was really good, especially in that hot, humid weather.  We had to catch a plane to Cheng Du at 11 PM, arrived at the hotel around 2 AM and went straight to bed.
Friday June 17
After not much sleep, we got up early to see the Giant Buddha of Leshan.  It was a long bus ride there (about 2 ½ hours) but the climate here in Cheng Du is much less humid than Yangshuo and, with the windows in the van down, it was a nice ride.  We arrived in Leshan and got in the 2 hour waiting line for the Buddha.  The Buddha was built from 718 – 900 AD as the project of a traveling monk, who believed that doing so would combat the annual flooding that happened in the region.  When a magistrate wanted to tax the project, the monk told him, “I would rather poke out my eyes than pay you”, the magistrate called his bluff.  The monk asked for a tray and gouged out his own eyes and the magistrate was defeated.  The monk died before the statue was finished.  It is carved out of a mountainside and is the largest seated Buddha in the world, rising about 235 feet.  We walked all the way down to his feet along the path the stone carvers had used which are now very steep steps, but I made it! When you get down to the bottom, of course you have to climb back up!  Whew.  I was very pooped and sweaty by the time I got back to the top, but I had a chance to rest up before we walked back to the van.  Langer said the food in Leshan was “horrible!”, so we drove back to Cheng Du for a traditional dinner.
The food in Cheng Du is Sichuan and very spicy, but Langer ordered some mild stuff for us.  It was a local spot – we were the only Westerners in the place.  We had pork and seaweed (delicious!), chicken and mushroom, green beans, black mushroom with walnuts and rice.  It was good, but rather bland.  I guess you get one or the other, spice wise.  There was also a small dish of chopped up cucumber and chilies, so I tried one piece.  It about took my head off.  I can’t imagine what the regular dishes taste like.
After dinner, Chris and I went for a stroll through the city and ended up, wouldn’t you know, in the shopping district.  We went from stall to stall, looking at flip flops, t shirts, hair bands and bows, cheap jewelry and wigs (!).  It was fantastic!  We stopped to get an ice cream and ended up in Starbucks, had a cappuccino and headed back to the hotel.
More photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/2011-06-17-china/

China Bike Ride

Me and my ride.

Thursday June 16

Yesterday was a very full day.  The bike ride to Moon Hill was scheduled in the morning.  I explained to Langer, the tour leader, that I was not comfortable on a bike and that I had been having a very hard time with the humidity.  He arranged an electric scooter and driver for me!  The bike rental place is run by a couple and the wife insisted on driving me, instead of her husband.  I don't know what she was afraid would happen, but she was very capable and nice.  We all took off in the rain down the main streets to the highway.  I'm so glad I took the motorbike option -- the traffic is really crazy here, between the cars, bikes and motorcycles.  We arrived at Moon Hill around 10 AM.  Langer had warned us about the fan ladies -- women who wait at the bottom of the hill and offer to fan you on the way up the hill.  They also sell drinks from a little foam cooler and postcards.  You are expected to buy something from them for their service.  They started running towards us as soon as the bikes pulled up and these little tiny women in their plastic flip flops accompanied each of us up the slippery steps to the top of Moon Hill.  My lady was very good, fanning me constantly.  The humidity was almost unbearable for me -- I only made it up halfway.  My lady was so helpful, holding my arm so I wouldn't slip, even breaking off a piece of bamboo for me to use as a walking stick.  As we waited for the others, I bought a bottle of water and some postcards.  She also offered me a piece of cake made with rice flour that tasted really good.  I admit, I was a mess.  Chris said I went completely white, rather that the beet red I'd been in the heat the day before.  My lady continued to fan me the whole time and I was very grateful.  I followed the others as they returned to the bottom of the hill and bought a can of mango juice from her cooler.  I gave her about $30 -- a huge amount for her, but worth every penny. They are all farmers' wives with children, trying to earn some extra money and I was glad to help.  I got back on the bike and we took off for our "farmers lunch".  We ate on a terrace with an amazing view and the food was fantastic!  Chicken and vegetables, beef and vegetables, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs with tomato, another dish of chicken with carrots and a plate of eggplant.  And rice, of course.  The countryside in Yangshou is famous for the karsts: hundreds of huge rock formations covered with bushes and trees.  They also grow a lot of rice and vegetables, using water buffalo to pull the farm equipment.
As we returned to the bikes, we headed though a more scenic route and I was never so happy NOT to be riding a bicycle.  We traveled down muddy, rocky roads with huge puddles from all the rain,  sharing  the paths with cars, tour buses and other bikes, motorized and not.  The road in some places was only a bus width wide and we saw a stand off between two tour buses, face to face.(One of them finally backed up.)
We stopped at a lotus farm in full bloom, just gorgeous, then made our way back into town.
Some of us went from there on a long van ride to a harbor, where we picked up a raft to cruise down the Li River to see more beautiful views of the karsts.  The banks of the river were packed with bamboo trees, which reminded me of Side Show Bob's hair on "The Simpsons".  We stopped briefly on shore, which was made up of large rocks in various colors of blue, violet and light brown.  Chris and I spotted the tiniest frog, about an inch long, and Chris taught one of the local  women the English for "Frog", which she wrote with a limestone rock on another rock!
When we got back to the hotel, we had an hour or so before we left for the famous Yangshou "Light Show".  It was directed by the guy who put on the opening show for the Beijing Olympics (He also directed "Raise the Red Lantern" and is very famous in China.). It was like the opening ceremonies -- epic with 600 performers, staged on the river with the karsts lit up for a backdrop.Quite an amazing spectacle although we couldn't understand a single word.
Today is a day to recover from all the activities.  It is nice today, a cool breeze, overcast sky, but still hot and humid.  I've been told this is the worst area for that, so I'm hoping I'll have more stamina for activities later on.
Every once in a while, I realize where I am and how wonderful it is.
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/china-bike-ride/
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/2011-06-16-china/

My days in China

I was unable to log on to Facebook in China. It is banned, along with Twitter and IMDB. These are my adventures, day by day, along with a link to photos. Please enjoy!

Chris, me and Julia

Monday 6/13

I finally feel like I’ve started my vacation. The airport bus that I took last night first dropped off a little boy and his parents at Disneyland Hong Kong. There were fireworks as we drove up and I got to see a bit of the resort – looked just like home. Then into the city where the bus dropped me off at the wrong hotel! They got me a cab and I got to the Stanford Hotel about 9:30 PM. Chris met me in the lobby and we had a beer and a good laugh about the whole thing. I found out that the tour consisted of us two and a couple from New Zealand, although there was some talk of us joining up with another tour on the mainland. I met everyone this morning, took a taxi to the ferry building and am now on the ferry to mainland China. They are showing “Karate Kid” on the monitor. Weird.

Tuesday June 14

After landing in mainland China, we had some lunch, then off to the train station. It is so hot and humid here -- and I HATE to sweat, so I'm having a bit of a challenging time. The witing room was pretty comfortable and, after downing a bottle of Gatorade, I felt much better. We spent the night on the train, which was quite comfortable, and arrived in Guilin. We immediately got in a van and had an hour ride to Yangshuo. It's a lovely little city, made for tourists, but charming all the same. The hotel is very nice, though traditional. We are meeting the rest of the group and our new tour guide tonight, but in the meanwhile, I'm taking a Tai Chi lesson! I'm looking forward to it.

The tour leader we are losing was delightful. Her name is Julia and she is so bubbly and sweet. I will miss her. Kathleen and Bob are the New Zealand couple and they are a lot of fun. I hope the rest of the group will be as much fun.

I strolled around the shopping street and picked up a few things. My impressions of China are quite different than what I anticipated. It's a much more sophisticated place than I imagined with very comfortable hotels and restaurants. We go to the country tomorrow, so that may change my mind, but I am enjoying it all so far.

mj
More photos:
http://public.fotki.com/mjlang4952/china-1/

Sissy and the lobster

IMAG0037, originally uploaded by mjl4952.

Sounds like a kid's book!

Sissy and her new toy

Rosalie sent this toy to Sissy. I think she likes it.

I'm learning!

I have completed my course on travel writing. The instructor, Tiffany, and I have become friends and have talked on the phone a couple of times. She is terrific!! I have learned so much. She has been very encouraging and is on me to try and publish. I am flabbergasted. I have been drafting a query letter to send to magazines and web sites. She told me that I should first try for publications that pay. I can't believe I'm on the road to being an actual published journalist. It's a long held dream of mine to write about my travels and I'm now taking the first step. I will announce when and if it does get publish, I promise.
On another note, I have signed up for the Revlon 5K walk for women's cancers. I've never done anything like that before and I am in awe of the response for donations from my friends. I have the best, generous, most wonderful friends in the world. I am almost up to raising $1000 in 3 days. People who know me know that I am known to say "People stink!", but I have to exclude every one of my friends from that assessment. I love you all!!

A new start

I've received my first assignment for my writing class. I've been procrastinating doing my "homework" because ... I'm scared! I know it's important to me because of that. The instructor is sooooo nice -- I really have nothing to be afraid of -- , but there it is.
I'm also seeing the doctor today to check on my surgery. I'm nervous about that, too. I just want to curl up on the sofa with my knitting and my cat.


OK, I did it! And it was fun! Hurray for me!

Free Time

I have been home for a week now and have gotten a lot of knitting and crochet done! I finished a couple of bibs and am almost finished with a sweater for Tatum's birthday, started a oversized pullover for me and finally finished up my Christmas presents for my knitting buddies. I've also caught up on watching the best picture nominees for the Oscars and mailed my ballot.
After my trip to Egypt, I got a lot of positive responses to my emails and photos. I've decided to sign up for a travel writing course and found the perfect one through Rutgers University Extension Program. It's an online course and I have already corresponded a bit with the instructor. It is a one on one course, tailor made for me. I received my first assignment yesterday and I'm a little nervous about starting. It's one of those things I always thought I could do, but was reluctant to do it for real. Tiffany, the instructor, seems terrific and I just have to hold my breath and take the plunge!
Tonight is Bunco night with my friends -- my first social event since my surgery. I am really looking forward to being with people! (Not to diminish any of my quality time with my new love kitty, Sissy...)

Up until now

I realized I hadn't written in my blog for over 6 months. So much has happened since then. I'm still knitting things for Tatum, who will be a year old in March. I visited Egypt over Christmas and New Years and, evidently, got out at the right time! I had no idea when I was there that such a thing was brewing. But I am glad I got there before the riots, as I am sure, it will be a different place from now on.
I also had a scare a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know it, but my appendix was getting ready to burst. After a useless visit to an urgent care center (who sent me home with a prescription for nausea, which I told the doctor I didn't have), my best friend, Alyson, took me to Huntington Hospital ER here in Pasadena. They took a CT scan and during surgery, they realized my appendix had burst. I stayed at the hospital for a week and am now home recuperating.
The most important thing I have learned in all of this is that there are a lot of people who love me. I know that sounds silly, but I have always felt that I was, when all was said and done, alone and on my own. I have learned that I have more wonderful friends than I could have ever hoped for and (most importantly) to rely on these friends for help. I have been overwhelmed with the affection and concern people have shown me and I feel like a real dope for not realizing it before.
So, to all my friends, thank you for everything. I am a lucky, lucky girl.