December 31, 2012

According to my daily pre-trip To Do list, today is packing day. And since today is Monday and we're not leaving until Friday, this is uber pre-trip planning. As per usual Jim has assembled his 40-day wardrobe in about 4 minutes: shorts, golf shirts and sandals for day, khakis and sport shirts for dinner and blazer, slacks, dress shirt and shoes and ties for formal nights. It took me two days just to organize toiletries and beauty aids. The eternal question: how much shampoo to take for 40 days?

Meanwhile I've downloaded countless books to my Nook and assembled knitting, needlepoint and quilting projects for the twenty sea days. Jim has a couple of books. Do we notice a pattern here?

This is a test blog to see if I can post it myself or will have to email it to son Jay to do the honors. Shipboard internet is notoriously expensive and slow. EVERYbody complains about it but at 25 cents/minute it's quite the profit center for the ship. Ditto laundry service, but better than spending hours doing it yourself in the self-service laundry. Plus the little elves carefully put the hanging stuff in your closet and the folded stuff is ironed (including socks!) and wrapped in tissue in a willow basket placed on your bed. Worth every cent! (editor's note: I'm doing the last loads of laundry before packing and the 18-year-old Maytag dryer is making a very funny noise. Just in case I'm ready with a bag full of quarters to dash over to the most-unglamorous Kennesaw Coin Laundry to use their dryers.)

Well, this is not getting that packing done, so au revoir for now. The next message will be from the ms Amsterdam, departing Fort Lauderdale at 5 pm on Saturday, Jan 5. I've scanned the itinerary and will endeavor to post.

Susan

Hard Beds, Big Noses and Cow Oil

Hard Beds, Big Noses and Cow Oil
 (this is the final posting for this trip.)
  
Tuesday evening On board UA 436 five hours from Shanghai somewhere over the Aleutians  

Just as I was falling asleep last night my eyes snapped open as I thought, "I've packed all my shoes!" Thank heavens our luggage wasn't to be picked up until the next morning so mini-flashlight (thanks, Cass) in one hand I frantically dug through my bag with the other until I managed to unearth two matching shoes. Oh, yes. It's time to go home.  

Instead of just taking our trusty bus to the airport, the tour company (in other words the Chinese government) decided to have us take the MagLev train (magnetic levitation) to the airport instead. This is a 30 km route built as a show case for the world's fastest train. So they put our checked luggage on the luggage van to the airport and us and our carry on onto the bus to the MagLev station. It's a big (what else) modernistic building that serves just two trains that go back and forth to the airport. The trains run precisely every 15 minutes. You stand by a gate on the platform and suddenly, swoosh! There it is. The arriving passengers leave through doors on the other side and then attendants open the doors and gates on your side and on you go. Two minutes later, you're off and the train goes faster and faster until it reaches 300 km per hour (there is speedometer in each car so you know when it's hit 300). The scenery is just flying by and 7-1/2 minutes later the train glides into the airport station. It seemed like a Disney ride.

 Even more miraculous: the bus w/ our carry on was at the curb alongside the pile of our checked bags. I have no idea how this worked but it did. Then it was good bye to Kevin and Alex and hello check in. Once through immigration and security (I was prepared to have them search for that stupid invisible knife again in my purse, but evidently it had vanished) we dedicated ourselves to spending the 84 Yuan we had left, about 16 bucks and managed to unload all but five Yuan bills and two 1 Yuan coins, about $1. Even in China you can't get much for a buck.

 I've enjoyed writing about this trip. It's helped me keep track of what we've seen and done each day. As I look back, we really covered a lot of territory and checked off a lot of those bucket list items as we encountered some interesting, amusing and just plain crazy things.  

Even though you see lots of short dresses and short shorts on young women, the Chinese culture prefers a more modest, covered look, even in their food. Our local Shanghai guide Alex said that while we put our toppings on top of our pizza, the Chinese prefer their fillings hidden inside their dumplings.

 They consider English the common language of the world and study it from early childhood yet they readily admit that although they can read and write it most don't speak it well at all. The Chinese characters on store signs, billboards, street signs are spelled out in ABCs. The guides were constantly spelling out Chinese names and words. Kevin taught us a new Chinese word or words every day but it works both ways; some words we just could not pronounce. Like school kids we gleefully cried out "knee-how" to greet him every morning. Yup, after two weeks, Hello was the only word we could say with confidence.  

And now for hard beds, big noses and cow oil:  

The Chinese like hard chairs, hard beds, hard pillows. In fact, throughout their history they've used "pillows" made of wood or ceramic, even jade. While we get "into" the bed they go "on to" the bed. At our last hotel the beds were so hard they had special soft  mattress pads available for westerners.  

The Chinese generally have round, flat faces without much of a nose. They think westerners have 3-D noses (much better for keeping glasses on) thus the nickname, Big Noses.  

One day Kevin was explaining the difference in the preparation of some foods. One was made using peanut oil and the other...he stopped, searching for the word and finally said, "You know, cow oil." For ever more I will see butter and think cow oil.  

When you go to China and you really should, train hard running up and down steps and pack lots of kleenex (Thanks, Chris) and Wet Wipes. You can never do too much of the first or have too much of the latter.  

A big thanks once again to Jay for posting all the blogs for me.  

I'd say good bye in Chinese but I just realized that we never learned that!        

Plum Rainy Season

Monday, Shanghai

Looking east across the river from the Bund to 21st century Shanghai

A headline in this morning's Shanghai Daily announced: "Plum Rainy Season Begins Today." You got that right. From our perch on the 17th floor of the Sofitel Hotel all we can see is grey and gloom. Oh, well. It's our last day in China and we have sights to see.

We all broke out our rain gear and hit the road running. Our first stop was the beautiful Jingan Park right in the center of Shanghai. I think the rain made it lovelier. Like all the parks in China, it is at the core of socialization for seniors. Despite the weather, some were strolling, others doing Tai Chi. And like all proper Chinese gardens it contained rocks, water, plants and a gazebo. And like the others it seems to have been there forever instead of designed and installed within the last 100 years.

Next we visited the Jade Buddha Temple named because it contains a six foot tall Buddha carved from one piece of white jade. The Buddha was brought from Burma in the early 1900s and has survived wars, both military and cultural, often through the cunning of the chief monk. The Temple is a strange combination of religion and tourism.  While the devout are praying, the visitors are taking it all in. Our local guide, Alex, did a wonderful job explaining the religion as we admired the Buddha and other icons. And now to reach enlightenment...

There are so many dying arts in China and too often because of the physical toll they take on the artisans, such as the silk rug makers. Our stop at the silk factory was one of those items on the itinerary that turns out to be so much more than expected. I had no idea that a single cocoon yields 1,000 meters of silk thread. The cocoons are separated into those containing either single or double worms. The singles are put into water and swished around with what looks like a little whisk broom until the end of the thread appears. The cocoons stay in the water while the thread ends are attached to what looks like big bobbins...the number of threads per bobbin depends on the end use of the silk thread. For instance, a scarf uses fewer threads than a pillow cover. Anywho, the cocoons bob away in the water while the thread spins onto the bobbins overhead. They know how many cocoons it takes to make a scarf or garment or pillow case.

The double worm cocoons are popped open, the worms removed, then instead of unwinding the thread, the entire cocoon goes into water where it is stretched over a small U-shaped bamboo form and then that is transferred to a larger form until the silk is seven layers thick and then it is stretched by four people into a large rectangle and placed in a pile which eventually becomes a silk comforter. They are absolutely light as a feather but as warm as a goose down comforter. And like those comforters, they come in different weights from summer light to winter warm. Nearly everyone, including the Fishers left with one. Less than US$ 150? You better believe we all bought them!

But it was the silk rugs that were the show stoppers. These are hand-knotted from a few hundred to 1,000 knots per inch. The women (men's fingers are too large for the task and it's felt they haven't the patience) sit on a bench in front of a loom following a color chart much like a cross stitch or needlepoint pattern. Their hands just fly but in eight hours they will only finish three centimeters. The high count rugs are tiny, maybe 18 inches square and are done by women in their homes. It will take a master a year to make just one piece. But these women want their daughters to have a better life so aren't teaching them to carry on the art. We learned that they can only tie for so long before their eyes give out. And did I mention that the women tying the rugs do it mostly from the natural light pouring in through the large windows? I counted maybe eight fluorescent fixtures in the entire room, none over the women. And I can't thread a quilting needle without enough wattage to perform surgery.

The rugs cost tens of thousands of dollars, but, oh, do they feel wonderful. No rugs for us, but I did get a scarf or two to remember the experience. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

On our last day we had a detour from the usual Chinese and had Mongolian barbecue for lunch. That even sounds silly as I write that sentence but, trust me, being able to put what we wanted into that bowl was a big deal! And now, only one more Chinese meal to go. I like Chinese food and we've had some fabulous dishes but after fourteen days I'm done with it. The current "parlor game" on the bus as we travel about is what we're going to eat at the airport in Shanghai: Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut or Burger King!

After lunch we went to the extraordinary Shanghai Museum. To begin with, the museum building is a work of art. It is situated directly across the People's Square from the City Hall, yet another example of the banal Soviet Block building from the 50s. Inside are the treasures of China on four floors that wrap around an atrium flood with light from a glass-domed ceiling.(Square building with round dome = earth and heaven) And, altogether now, what is the material used on a every wall and floor? If you answered
anything other than marble, you just haven't been paying attention. We didn't have a long time so concentrated on the bronzes that are thousands of years old and the ceramics that range from BC to the 1800s. Every piece is beautifully displayed and labeled. The museum is only six years old but looks like it opened yesterday. The young women at the entrance are a bit bossy but put a Chinese person in any type of uniform and suddenly they have importance and authority no matter what the level.

The rain eased as we made our final stop of the afternoon on the Bund, Shanghai's grand waterfront boulevard. There is a broad, paved walkway along the river that gives an eye-popping view of the eye-popping skyscrapers across the river. And there is even a railing to keep the people on the dry side of the water. This is not always the case in China. Personal safety is your responsibility. In a whacky way, Libertarians would love this country except for that silly communist stuff about no private property, fixed wages, etc. We all took a zillion pictures of the Pearl TV Tower that looks like an ornament you'd put on the top of the Christmas tree, the Marriott that looks like a giant bottle opener, a "gold" faced tower that becomes a HUGE TV screen at night and on and on. Meanwhile, there is a constant parade of freighters coming and going. Shanghai is now the busiest port in the world.

As we stood looking at the architecture of the 21st century, behind us is a stretch of elegant colonial buildings that house the ultra five star hotels along with Chanel, Prada and the like. Look across the river and it's tomorrow; turn around and it's yesterday. Kudos to whomever for not paving paradise and turning it into a parking lot.

This co-mingling of past, present and future is what makes Shanghai so appealing. Unlike all of the other major cities we've visited, the older, two or three story residential buildings are still in use. This gives the eye a break from the monotony of skyscraper after skyscraper as well as making the city pedestrian-friendly. Every Chinese city has trees on every street, highway and major road. You can tell that this is a major effort because often these urban forests are newly planted. And not little saplings, but fifteen or twenty foot ginkos, magnolias, poplars and on and on. I'm not sure that this air exchange will make a dent in the pollution, but the green softens the cement and, well, it's just pretty!

And now it's time to pack up everything and head east to the Western world. It's still hard to believe that we are in China. It's been an amazing adventure. We've seen so much and learned so much. The wall between China and the rest of the world is still coming down. With television and movies and the internet (despite the blocked sites), there is no way that the leaders of China could keep their people isolated. The younger people seem to accept the system as they work it. They strive like mad for an education which is really their only path to a better life.

Time to go. No wifi right now, but maybe at the airport. I'll while away the 13-1/2 hours writing a final blog about more of the quirks and oddities. Our favorite sign yesterday: "To toilet go downstairs and walk backwards."

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Sunday, Suzhou

Kun Opera singer in a Sunzhou teahouse

Today was a culture day in the most interesting city of Suzhou (sue-chow). We began in the morning with a cruise in a small canal boat on the Grand Canal and then on some of the smaller canals. First you motor by lovely gardens and apartments and then all of sudden the canals are edged by older one or two story houses that look a bit worse for the wear. The residents do their laundry on the steps leading down into the water (brownish, brackish and full of floating debris) and then string the clothes on bamboo poles which are hung outside for drying. Lots of mop buckets being filled from and emptied into the canals as well as a number of little open air restaurants, tea houses and people selling everything from fruit to chicken feet from wooden carts on the canal banks.

Back ashore we zigged and zagged through narrow streets not ten feet wide until we reached the Garden of the Master of the Nets, a perfect manifestation of a Chinese garden first designed a thousand years ago. It's been burned and restored a number of times in the interim but contains the four requirements of a true Chinese garden: rocks, water, plants and gazebo. It's not large by any sense of the word, but is a true gem appreciated by resident and visitor alike.

Then it was off to a silk workshop where artisans work decades to become masters in the art of double-sided embroidery using the thinnest of strands of silk. The prices of the finished pieces reflect the skill and time (often over a year) needed to complete them. I left with a little silk scarf, Made in China...

It started to rain as we walked to a teahouse along one of the canals to learn about and listen to songs from the Kun Opera performed by a woman in full make up and costume who accompanied herself with some antique Chinese instruments. No one was really too excited about this, but it was actually great fun. She first explained the story told in the songs and I swear they could be country songs. The Kun Opera is softer sounding than the Peking Opera which can make your ears bleed.

****

Suzhou train station

It was raining even more as we headed to the train station. It took a solid two hours to go by bus from Shang Hai airport to Suzhou yesterday but today we were making the  reverse trip in just 29 minutes on the bullet train. The train station was just madness. It's a vast open space with thousands and thousands of people milling about and then suddenly heading to gates when announcements were made, only in Chinese. The bullet trains now run to the capital cities of every province in China. They're sleek and white on the outside and like first class airline compartments inside, except with more room. At exactly ten minutes before departure, the turnstiles to the gate are activated.  You feed your ticket into the machine, the little gate opens, you dash through and then grab your ticket as it pops out, much like a subway. Then down an escalator to the train platform where you stand on the number of your compartment. The train comes in with a swoosh, the doors open, you get on and less than a minute later the train takes off again. It was such fun to ride at such speed that we were sorry our ride ended so soon. The station we used in Shang Hai was, of course, vast, but also a well-organized transportation hub for buses, trains, subways and even airplanes.

The bullet train

Of course we had to ride another hour through stop and go traffic by bus to dinner and our hotel. I'm sure we could have taken a subway and gotten there much sooner but it took four local guides and two AAA reps from the US to make sure all forty of us got on the right train going the right direction. No way were they going to tempt fate with the Shang Hai subway!

So now we've traveled by jet, bus, pedi-cab, cruise ship, pea pod boat, canal boat and bullet train. Tuesday we're going to take the world's fastest train, the MagLev, to the airport. It makes the 20 minute if-there's-no-traffic trip in 7 minutes! Would that the airplane could MagLev it's way to Chicago as fast. It's 13-1/2 hours from here to there and then another couple of hours to Atlanta. Tuesday is going to be a long, long day AND we go back across the international dateline so even though we leave here at 4 pm on Tuesday, we arrive there at 4:30 pm on Tuesday. The day that will not end.

****

Aboard the bullet train en route to Shang Hai

We're all about ready to finish this adventure. It's been a fabulous trip, but frankly, we're pooped! Our wake up call comes at 7 am every morning and we're rarely back to the hotel before 8 pm at night. Oh, does that make us sound o.l.d.

We're also counting down the number of Chinese meals left--just two more to go. Each lunch or dinner has had at least one dish that was just delicious but we're all about riced out. Today I found myself wondering what United would serve us on the way home...please, God, nothing stir fried.

Back To The Future

Saturday in Xi'an

We checked out of the Golden Flower and then headed to the airport by way of a lovely park surrounding an ancient Buddhist pagoda. The Chinese are not stingy with urban parks. They are everywhere in every city from little vest pockets to huge meandering acres of green. And the parks are used for Tai Chi, walking babies, or just enjoying a cool respite. There are also trees along every road, street and highway. The city buildings are pretty gray and ugly with the occasional spectacular architectural feat.

There is a museum in the park and for the life of me I can't remember the name but there's a good chance the words "revered heritage" would be in there. We strolled by some statues from various dynasties and then went down to the research level. We sat around a large table covered with red felt and then the young professor in charge gave us each a pair of gloves with pebbly palms so we could handle some of these antiquities. We passed around a selection of items of bronze and even a very old and very rare ceramic box. Kevin is such an archeology buff that it seemed he knew as much as the professor. It was a rare treat to actually touch things so old and we got to keep the gloves as a souvenir. I think they'll be perfect for to use while machine quilting.

I did learn that during the Tang dynasty the standard of beauty did a 180 from the willowy creatures of the Hans. The most beautiful and prized women were plump with round faces and double chin. Hello????? Tang princess right here.

And then it was time to leave the ancient city of Xi'an to head into the future: Shang Hai.

At the airport the Chinese TSA guys once again rifled through my purse looking for the knife they see on the X-ray screen. And once again, I have no knife. I must say that the TSA-ettes have a much lighter touch than their Atlanta sisters when it comes to the pat down. Our plane to Shang Hai was only 30 minutes late which is as close to on time as it gets in China. A 737 this time and the usual lovely box with unidentifiable snacks inside. We must have taxied for ten minutes from runway to gate and then the endless march through the concourse in Shang Hai (we landed at gate 220. You do the math.) All this walking and climbing is starting to weed out the weak ones in our group. One of the Dragons went down in Xi'an. A few of the other LOL's (in this case, Little Old Ladies) are slowing down quite a bit but are still hanging in there. One of our Panda group is pretty much staying on the bus at every stop. Then waddles to a snack stand for a Coke and M & Ms. No sympathy for that doofus.

Contrary to popular belief, everything is not free in China. The government picks up about 30% of medical costs once you wait in line for whatever procedure. There is no social security. You must buy into a pension plan while working and then the pay out is about 100 US$ per month. Remember, people must retire at 55 and 60 and then their children are responsible for their care, thus the multi generational living. The parents work while the grandparents keep house and watch the child. Education is free only for the "minorities" who make up less than 10% of the population.

Ah, but there is a vast underground capitalist system in play. For instance, teachers who earn a set amount (500) per month supplement this income by tutoring their students after class. The grandparents minding their grandchild (remember the one child policy) will find somewhere to plant a garden and then will sell the produce themselves by just throwing a blanket down and hawking their vegetables or will wholesale to little produce markets. And then there are the street vendors...

We rode a bus for two hours through Shang Hai, the financial and shipping center of the country, to Suzhou, the Venice of the East, a city of only 8 million. We didn't arrive until dinner time. Our hotel, a Holiday Inn, is a high rise right smack dab in the middle of the action. Jim and I are on the 24th floor in a corner suite. Great view and wifi. Too bad we're here for only 13 hours.

Tomorrow we're seeing whatever Suzhou has to offer and then will take a train back to Shang Hai. We've picked up a local guide, another 30-something year old named Alex. He's already told us that the traffic is so bad in Shang Hai (as to differentiate it from every other car clogged city????) that the government discourages private ownership of cars within the city limits. Public transportation is prolific and cheap (2 Yuan, about 20 cents fare on bus or subway) while parking is very expensive as is the license plate fee---thousands of dollars. Only the very rich can afford to own a car. We've already determined that you have to be nuts to drive here. Someone asked why there aren't endless traffic accidents and was told, "They don't go fast enough to cause any damage."

Another Fun Fact: There is only one time zone in China. They call it MST, Mao Standard Time. Dawn and dusk are the usual times in Beijing. It gets more interesting for those who live in the far west.

Hello and Goodbye

Atop the inner city wall of Xi'an

Thursday

As promised, in Chongqing (pronounced Chong-ching) we literally walked from the ship to the bus and then were driven straight to the airport. Well, it wasn't THAT easy. We sailed up river all night in pea soup fog as opposed to the usual grey mist. We tied to another pontoon dock and as the fog lifted to a thick grey mist, we discovered we were two pontoon boat docks and about 100 yards of floating pathways from The (inevitable) Steps.

The "bang bangs" are porters who look like they're anything from 20 to 100 years old. They put a heavy bamboo pole behind their neck and over their shoulders and then hang baskets, bags or whatever from the end of each pole and start walking or climbing. They schlepped our big checked bags across the floating pathway and then up the 100+ cement stairs to the baggage bus. We each grabbed our carry on and followed suit. By the time I reached the top of that endless flight of stairs I was sucking wind and wishing Mr. Otis had made his way to the exotic East to teach them about the elevator.

This was taken about 8 AM just before we left the ship.  We had to walk across the pontoon path and then up the flight of stairs to the bus.  This is about as bright as it gets in this city.

Chongqing is monstrous, or what we could see of it. Imagine a San Francisco built entirely of 30+ story buildings; hundreds and thousands of them. The visibility was maybe a mile. Maybe. The combination of humidity along the river, pollution and 32 or 33 million people makes for air you can chew and no sun. Kevin told us that girls from Chongqing are thought to be the most beautiful in China because they're never in the sun and thus their skin is like porcelain. It might make for lovely skin but this gloom is not so good for those of us of Scandinavian descent who are always looking into the
abyss.

We took a one hour flight to Xi'an and then walked and walked and walked through the endless and wide and empty concourse to baggage claim. Chinese airports are enormous and as far as I could tell, underused. And in every city they seem to be building more terminals. The international side of the airport at Beijing (as a opposed to the domestic side) has three HUGE terminals, A, B and C. However, only A and C are used. B was strictly for the athletes to use during the Olympics and was closed after the Games.

The afternoon was spent at the Han dynasty tomb and museum. The emperors built entire cities in their tombs for their afterlife. These underground cities have mountains and lakes, armies and animals, chariots and wagons. The figures in the Han dynasty tomb are small, a bit smaller than half life size. These tombs look like hills from afar. The tomb was excavated (they are referred to as pits), everything put in a series of rooms and then completely covered with earth. There has been a good bit of tomb raiding and destroying when enemies attacked or the peasants revolted, but hundreds of the terra cotta  figures have survived. Xi'an was the capital of China for hundreds of years and many dynasties so a lot of emperors' tombs are in the area which is now farmland. The famous Terra Cotta Warriors were not discovered until a farmer was digging a well in 1974 and hit antiquities instead of water.

Besides the historical center of China, Xi'an is also the dumpling capital of China. Dinner that night was a feast that featured 20 different types of dumplings, all about bite-size. Vegetable, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp, abalone and even a couple of sweet ones. The dumplings are shaped to look like the ingredient inside: ducks, pigs, fish, etc. All are steamed and just delicious. And as at every meal so far, slices of watermelon for dessert.

Street traffic in Xi'an

Xi'an "only" has four million people but it is bustling. We're starting to look forward to our bus rides here and there if only to watch the bicycles, scooters, cars, buses and pedestrians jockey for position on the roads. It seems that the biggest has the right of way, but that doesn't mean the smaller vehicles won't challenge this law of the pavement jungle! The drivers change lanes at will and without warning and will straddle the white line to get "there" first. Pedestrians will cross multi-laned roads at corners, in the middle of a block, wherever, dodging the cars and buses and scooters that do NOT stop for them. And the roundabouts are an E ticket ride at Disneyland! The centers are beautifully landscaped with trees and flowers, and the cars treat the road like a race track. No one stays in his or her lane. They all want to be closest to the center and then they cut wildly across traffic to drive on another street. And then there is always a pedestrian or scooter or delivery bike (a three wheeled bike with a flatbed over the back wheel for freight) going against traffic to liven it up a bit. And seat belts or helmets? Fuggetaboudit.

We're staying at the Shangri La Golden Flower Hotel. It's lovely, the staff is gracious and the rooms are huge. Our local guide, this itty bitty creature named Coco, has told us that it was built on the site of a palace an emperor built for his favorite concubine, the Golden Flower. The emperors each had one wife but hundreds of concubines. They were forever building palaces for the latter. The empresses knew what was going on but that didn't mean they were going to tolerate having these women in THEIR palace. There are endless stories of the craftier concubines bribing the eunuchs who guarded them to put them at the top of the emperor's list. There are eunuchs among the clay figures in the tombs. All the figures were once clothed in silk robes which have rotted away. As Coco put it, you can identify the eunuchs because "they don't have parts down there." Like a big ole pile of Ken dolls!

Tomorrow the big event.

It Takes An Army

Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an

Friday in Xi'an

Xi'an has loads of tourists along with its citizenry. Tourism is a big part of their economy so they make it easy to access the interesting places and keep them nice and tidy.  Way back when, the city had three walls: inner, outer and second outer. Over the  centuries they've been burned and then rebuilt during the Tang and Ming dynasties.  Today only the inner wall is still standing and surrounding the original city. It was first  erected using mortar made from kiwi juice and mushy rice. You use what you have. It has been resurfaced with more modern materials. The wall is a square with big guard houses at every corner. There is a moat adjacent that is now a series of parks. You can walk, bike or ride in a golf cart along the length of the top of the wall, 14 km. It's only 76 stone steps up (we're all counting steps by now) to reach the top. Once there it's a nice, smooth surface maybe 50 feet across. Inside the wall there are height restrictions for the buildings but outside, anything goes. (more on that later)

A special welcoming ceremony had been arranged for us at the North Gate. We had no idea what to expect and were speechless when we were each given a key to the gate of the wall, a passport to meet the emperor and then an honor guard of soldiers dressed in Tang era gear to escort us through the gate and into a large parade ground where we were entertained by dancers and drummers all in gorgeous costumes and then met the emperor and empress. Quite a way to kick off the day. Those peons on the top of the wall were looking down, taking pictures like mad and wondering who in the world we were to rate this big hoo-hah.

And then by bus (same crazy street madness to entertain us en route) to the main event: the pits of the Terra Cotta Warriors. There is a big (toll) highway leading out there past farms and wheat fields and then, through the gate and into a three ring circus of shops and vendors and restaurants and flags flying and noise. Always in China, noise. We got a ride out to the pits on trams, about half a mile or so and then into the building housing Pit #1. I'm typing this on our flight to Shang Hai so can't look up the exact dimensions of this building, but it is at least as large as an indoor football stadium. There is an elevated walk way around the perimeter where you can look down on the Terra Cotta Warriors. It is an astounding sight. So much so that the visitors are almost quiet. The soldiers standing in ranks were all in pieces when uncovered and have been put back together. Ditto for the horses. The chariots were wooden so have long rotted away. Every person and animal is life size and distinctive. It took 700,000 laborers four decades to create all this.

There are two other pits also covered by buildings. The archeologists have been able to determine which figures were infantry or archers or officers or generals. In many areas of the pits, the broken pieces lie in situ so you can see what they looked like before restoration (a big jumble of broken pieces covered by yards of dirt). The Chinese government doesn't have the funds or knowledge to uncover, protect and restore any more. The figures were originally brightly painted but that fades quickly when uncovered and exposed to the air.

There is quite a complex of buildings and museums and shops around the site of the tomb. As one guide book I read put it, at last a destination in China that really lives up to the hype. It was quite hot (there is sun in Xi'an!) and we walked a lot (for some reason, the trams that take you TO the pits return empty leaving you to hoof it back to the entrance) but it's definitely the highlight of our trip. And everyone likes the city of Xi'an.

Back to the hotel for 45 minutes to rest and regroup for the Tang Dynasty Dinner Theater. Much to our surprise, the food was excellent and the show was spectacular. A 30 piece orchestra playing strange and old Chinese instruments accompanied a troupe of 30 or so singers and dancers in fabulous costumes recreating dances once performed in the Tang court. It only lasted an hour or so which was just right.

Tomorrow we're finishing up in Xi'an and then flying to Shang Hai and on to Suzhou, the Venice of the East.

Build It And They Will Come

More musings...

I cannot put into words how much construction is ongoing in this country. It is said that
the national bird is the crane, the construction crane! You look out over the skyline in
any city in any direction and you literally cannot count how many cranes are on top of
how many buildings. The Chinese don't build out, they build up! In the cities the routine
seems to be to relocate people living in old houses or apartments or anything low rise
and replace what was there with a 30 story (at least) apartment building. And not just
one building but a cluster of four or eight or a dozen or even more.

When you buy an apartment in China you are buying a cement box. There is no
privately owned land in China; it belongs to everyone so you are actually buying a lease
on your apartment. It comes with nothing. No flooring, no wall covering or paint, no
appliances, heavens to Betsy, no plumbing!!!! You have to furnish everything from the
toilet to the doors and windows. Lemme tell ya, they've got some HUGE IKEA stores
over here!!!

Besides apartments and office buildings, there are new bridges and highways being
built absolutely everywhere. And I'm not talking little foot bridges and two lane roads.
I'm talking Golden Gate Bridge sized expanses over rivers and valleys and multi lane
interstates. But here's the irony: in the cities there is constant gridlock on the streets that
are way too small for the volume of cars but outside the city where there are huge new
highways? Barely a car or truck. Ditto for these giant bridges.

Cruising up the Yangzi we saw hundreds of small freighters and almost all were hauling
sand or gravel for all this building. I don't think you could count the number of dump
trucks and bulldozers at work along the river.

The young people in the country continue to move to the cities. In China the farms
are very small, usually two acres per person. The farmers work very hard with rather
primitive methods (haven't seen a tractor yet) and barely make ends meet. A farmer is
viewed as a peasant by the general populace. It's quite impossible for them to improve
their lot. Thus the migration to the cities and all those roads, bridges and apartment
buildings.

1.4 billion people! They've gotta live somewhere...how about a sweet four bedroom in
Kennesaw?

What's the Catch, 22?

Cruising up the Yangzi

I grabbed two twenties and one ten, folded them and put them in my pocket then trotted
down to the front desk to exchange them for yuan. Chickie behind the counter informed
me that it was not good money and she couldn't exchange it. I'm sure this would be
a surprise to the Wells Fargo on Barrett Parkway. Turns out that "not good money"
means the appearance: the bills have to be new, crisp and unwrinkled. The Chinese
money I might have received in return I guarantee will be old and tattered beyond belief.
I explained to the girl that I was now going to tip the staff in "not good money" and they
could all pound sand. I also opted NOT to go to the pearl shop. Like Julia Roberts'
character in Pretty Woman said to the clerk who snubbed her, "Big mistake. Big, big
mistake."

We're now headed to Chongqing, the largest city in the world with a population of 32
million. Or is it 32 million!?!! Besides having the population of Canada within it's city
limits, Chongqing is noted for it's extreme heat, lack of bicycles because the streets are
so steep and horrendous air pollution. According to our itinerary, we will step off the ship
after breakfast and head straight to the airport for our flight to Xian.

There is now a typhoon approaching Taiwan. No word yet if it will get to Shang Hai, our
final stop in China. About the weather in China. We have been here over a week and
have seen the sun just once on the morning we left Beijing. The country seems to be
constantly cloaked w/ mist, fog or pollution. It was fairly pleasant in Beijing; hot but not
terribly humid. No surprise that the humidity is with us on the river. It should be 90-ish in
Shang Hai. All hail air conditioning.

Wimp Day

This is a picture of the intrepid peeps who are

crossing the mud flats to The Steps.  It's pretty foggy, 

but if you look closely you can make out those 

who are climbing that Stairway to Heaven

Wednesday on the Yangzi Explorer


We traveled all night, mostly in pea soup fog, to reach Fengdu. We're now moored to the Yuantong Tourpontoon No. 1. The 30 to 50 meter possible change in the river depth means that there aren't any permanent docks attached to the river bottom. There are these big ole floating docks everywhere. First boat to arrive ties up directly to the pontoon boat, second boat rafts (ties up to the first boat) to first and so on. When people from the second or beyond boats want to go ashore, they walk through the other boats between them and the pontoon boat. Some of the gangplanks that are used from boat to boat look like some flotsam picked from the river.

An aside: as far as we can tell, there isn't much oversight in the realm of safety. Our safety drill on the boat was held on day two and boiled down to, "If something happens, the captain will just drive over to the riverbank for us to disembark." I was ever so
relieved that night at the Captain's reception to see for myself that he appeared not to have a drop of Italian blood in him! No one's really sure if the world's largest dam can withstand a major earthquake. We've decided it's just better not to think about it.

So back to Fengdu. It is called the Ghost City for something that happened in the
Eastern Han Dynasty. Flash forward to current time. Prior to the river rising, the
abandoned city of 60,000 took on the personality of a Ghost City. Shore excursions
today were either to visit the Ghost City Tour which visits some temples up on the
mountain and involved hundreds and hundreds of steps up and then down. Only one
intrepid soul was up for it. The other excursion is to a Relocation Village to get an idea
of how the rising river affected the relocatees.

We were all up for the Relocation tour until the fog lifted this morning and we realized
that the river is quite low here so we would have to cross the mud flats over a series
of temporary wooden walkways complete w/ street lights and boxwoods. No problem
with that. Jeesh, we got on an off those wooden pea pod boats yesterday, so how
hard to walk on a stationary boardwalk? Then the fog lifted a bit and we saw..... THE
STEPS. One has to climb at least 150 cement steps to reach the road and bus. Out of
44 people, 18 sucked it up and headed off the boat. Since I am typing this ON the boat,
I'll concede to Wimpdom. I'm saving my strength to learn how to play Mah Jong this
afternoon.

I'm going to send along a picture I took from our stateroom of the hundreds of people
from another boat or ferry behind us heading across the boardwalk and then up those
steps. Lemme tell ya, if you can't climb stairs without a railing don't come here. There

aren't many accommodations for disabled either. In fact you never see a disabled
Chinese person. Someone asked one of the Chinese guides and was told, "Oh, we take
very good care of them." Uh-oh. I'm thinking they're probably not living in a villa in Sun
City Far East.

Tonight is the Taste of China Farewell Dinner. The food on the Yangzi Explorer is
the best I've ever tasted on any ship. The executive chef is from Hong Kong so I'm
expecting a big show tonight. Plus the service. A band of delightful young women who
make it their business to learn all of our names and somehow pull out your chair for you
every time and heaven forbid that you should put your own napkin in your lap.

And have I mentioned the laundry service? I'm pretty sure it costs more to wash my
socks than I paid for them, but putting out that laundry bag before breakfast and finding
that wicker basket of ironed and folded clothes in the stateroom before lunch is indeed
priceless.

I'm going to need that 23-1/2 hours from Shang Hai to Atlanta to come back to the real
world.

But I'm not there yet so I think I'll meander over the the pearl shop in the Wu Deck and
see if anything calls my name. Jim has found a secret hidy-hole somewhere to finish
reading the last Dragon Tattoo book and will no doubt to reappear for lunch.

Pea Pods Anyone?

This morning we left the relocated city of Badong (relocated city means the original was submerged under 100+ meters of water when the "river rose" upon the completion of the Three Gorges Dam Reservoir) on a ferry for the one hour ride up the Shennong Stream Tributary.

Before the river rose, this stream was a roaring beast that tumbled towards the Yangzi.  The home of the Tu Jia people (one of the "minorities" of China) it was accessible by wooden "pea pod" boats which resemble an open skiff with flat bottom. The water
was so shallow in places that "boat trackers" would pull the boats by bamboo ropes scrambling along paths worn in the limestone cliffs along the river. Their clothing was of a rough material that would chafe their skin, so the boat trackers did their work au natural save for the homemade sandals that they still craft from bamboo.

After the river rose, the rapid stream became a graceful, winding waterway with
breathtaking scenery. The original fleet of five wooden pea pod boats is now 200 boats
each manned by four standing oarsmen in front and another man in the rear stearing
with the rudder, much like a gondolier in Venice. They give tourists rides up the stream
that seems like the Chinese version of a Norwegian Fjord. At one point, a couple of
the oarsmen hop off the boat with bamboo ropes to demonstrate how the boat trackers
used to pull the skiffs through the rapids. Since 2003 they now wear lightweight cotton
shorts and vests so they don't offend any unsuspecting tourist.

Each pea pod carried about 15 of us plus an English speaking guide native to the
area. Mary, our guide, pointed out where her family now lives, high up the mountain.
Her commute to work is two hours on a pea pod, then another hour climbing up the
mountain. The guides as well as the school children stay in Badong during the week
and then go home on week ends.

It was a unique experience, especially as these boatmen who are small and sinewy
managed to get us all on and off the tippy boats without losing any of us into the river!
And no one was more surprised at this than we were!

The Relocation

Aboard the Yangze, cruising through the Three Gorges on Tuesday

Before the Three Gorges Dam, flooding along the river was always a threat, even as
far down stream as Shang Hai. A devastating flood in the late 1800s killed hundreds of
thousands of people and kept the riverside cities under water for 100 days. A dam was
proposed by Sun Yat Sen in the 1920s, but it did not become a reality until about ten
years ago.

The entire area is a monument to engineering, determination and a powerful central
government. 30,000 engineers from around the world worked on the project. It took
3,000 days of pouring cement 24 hours a day to build it. It was a trade-off: relocate 1-1/
2 million people now to save untold lives and property in the future. The dam provides
flood control as well as a lot of electricity for the entire country.

There is a series of five locks to move ships and freighters from one side of the dam to
the other. Under construction right now is the "Baby Boat Elevator" (The Chinese seem
to use "baby" as an adjective for small thus baby boats.) which will lift ships under three
tons up and over the dam. Amazing.

But back to the relocation. Everyone living alongside the river and up to 200 meters
above the river had to be moved. This involved moving villagers who had lived in the
same place for generations. The young people took advantage of this opportunity to
head for the bright lights and even brighter opportunity in the big cities. Those who
wished to remain behind had to abandon their farms and way of life for new houses
subsided by the government. One house per family, which means three generations
in each house, if not more. The party line is that the people now have nice houses
with running water and electricity, TV, DVD, washing machines and cell phones. The
latter don't necessarily work, but you can't have everything! The people now have
small gardens to supply their family with corn, potatoes, soy beans, sesame seeds,
vegetables and work as fishermen, boatmen for the tourist industry (more about the
wooden pea pod boats later) as well as gathering the medicinal herbs that are abundant
in the area. The only fly in the ointment is that after the water rose (the euphemism for
opening the flood gates) the people relocated are now isolated. Their only way out is
by boat which means to climb down the mountains to the river which can take an hour
or two. Our guide today shook that off saying, "We're mountain people. We're used to
climbing rock walls."

We took a ferry up a tributary of the Yangzi for about an hour this morning and then up
river another 30 minutes on wooden pea pod boats. I'll write about that next and hope to have a picture to accompany.

Mickey Mouse in the House

Aboard the Yangzi Explorer

Most of the passengers are retired and living either in Florida or Georgia. There are a
few that are still working stiffs including a woman who works part-time at Disneyworld
as, wait for it, Mickey Mouse!

Random Musings

Beijing and aboard the Yangzi Explorer

Email aboard the ship comes and goes depending on the height of the mountains on
either side of the river and the occasional military zone so I've just been jotting down
some random things while waiting for a signal.

The Shangri La Traders Hotel
Our hotel is in the China World Trade Center which is a very modern complex of hotels,
office buildings and retail with an enormous mall, complete with ice rink, below ground
level. The hotel is quite elegant as is the staff. They all seem to be in their mid-20s,
of above average height and look very chic in their Armani suits. Our room was quite
lovely with everything you could imagine or want, even office supplies. Somewhere in
China there is an unlimited source of marble because they use it EVERYwhere: floors,
walls, counters in hotels, shops, airports, even in the mini-marts. The TV receives a lot
of Chinese stations of course that range from news and sports to a lot of soap operas
with a lot of overacting. But we also could watch CNN and ESPN international, BBC TV
and HBO! We had breakfast each morning in the hotel....a series of buffets w/ western,
asian, european breakfast foods. You could have everything from waffles and bacon
and omelets to Chinese congee with pork and onions, rice and a lot of vegetables. My
personal favorite was watermelon juice w/ a splash of orange juice. I'm a cheap date.

Chinglish
There are 6,000 characters in the Chinese language. A university-educated person can
manage to learn and use 1,000. Kevin told us that as a child (he's around 30) they were
taught 20 or 30 characters each day in school and then were expected to write each
100 times as homework.

Now the populace is taught Simplified Chinese or Pin Ying System. Instead of
characters, the words are spelled out in ABCs so there is a uniform pronunciation.
This also solves the mystery of a Chinese keyboard. You type the word in using the
alphabet, hit the button and a Chinese character appears. Instead of right to left or up
to down, the characters are now written left to right. Kevin says this has created a bit of
a communication problem between older generations who know characters, not letters
and the young who don't. As he says, changing thousands of years of a civilization
takes a while.

One Child
Since 1980 the policy is one child per couple. Country people are allowed two. (An
aside: in China you are classified as either city person or country person with different
benefits and privileges for each.) There are some other exceptions, but the policy is firm with serious monetary fines for that second child. If a woman has a second baby in secret the child becomes an "invisible child" with no I.D. and thus no rights for education, health care, etc. If you have twins, you get to keep them both.

Retirement
Women at 55; men at 60. Seniors rarely travel abroad. They stay where they are and
participate in endless senior activities. You see them everywhere in the parks in groups
playing cards, Chinese chess, knitting or dancing. No tai chi. They prefer to do a type of
line dancing done to dance club mix-type recordings. Tai chi is just for foreigners now.

Water
The constant reminder everywhere is Don't Drink the Water in China. It's okay to brush
your teeth or bathe, but cooking, drinking, etc is always with bottled water. Water bottled
in country is cheap, but if you just must have Evian or Fiji or any other imported brand,
you will pay through the nose. I drank a little bottle of Evian from the mini bar at the
Beijing hotel (I was thirsty and it was chilled) and paid 40 Yuan or about six bucks for
that 6 ounces.

Traffic
Think of the worst traffic you have ever been in, now double it. That comes close to
traffic everywhere in and around Beijing. And turn signals? Hah! For wimps. Lane lines?
Merely a suggestion. It might be a three lane highway, but it's quite common to see
the cars going all NASCAR and driving four abreast. Kevin told us he owns a Hyundai.
When he bought it a couple of years ago, he drove to work every day. Now he takes the
BMW: Bus, Metro, Walk.

Street Vendors
The street vendors are relentless. If you say, "no thanks," they consider that interest on
your part and redouble their efforts. The trick is to make no eye contact and just keep
walking. You can buy toys, "silk" scarves, kites, rain gear and my personal favorite:
Lolex, as in the wristwatch. Guaranteed to last maybe ten days.

Language
There are 8,000 different dialects in China but the National Language is Mandarin as
spoken in Beijing. The Yangzi is the Mason Dixon accent line of China; above the river
is northern, below is southern. All Chinese use the same characters, but if they are
speaking different dialects, they can't understand each other. Just imagine someone
from Boston speaking to someone from Alabama: same words but no communication.

Politics
The Chinese will "elect" a new party chairman in a couple of weeks. They already know the winner.

Education
The children now begin to learn English in the primary grades. More than one of
the twenty-something Chinese we've encountered has said that English is the world
language, one the must know. Interesting that so many American students are learning
Mandarin for the same reason!

We happened to be in Beijing during the annual two-day exams that graduating high
school students take for college admission. 9 million students competing for 7 million
places. The state universities are the most prestigious. It is assumed that if you go to a
private college or, even worse, abroad for college, you didn't qualify for the state U and
your parents had to buy you an education. This also makes it much more difficult to find
a job after college.

If you join the army for three years, you are guaranteed a job. Of course, it might not be
a job you want.

After middle school students either go on to high school or to a vocational school. If you
attend a vocational school you can't change to a high school program. When you finish
high school, you sit for the two day exam to determine if you qualify for college. The test
is given once a year. You make take it three times. Preparation for the exam involves
going to class six days a week from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm. Makes those SAT prep classes
look simple. Ditto the actual SAT test.

Arranged Marriages
Mark, our guide for the Three Gorges Dam told us his marriage was arranged when
he was seven and his bride to be was five. When he was in college he fell in love with
another girl and they eventually married. "I was very happy. My mother was not." This
all changed when they had a son. "Now I'm very happy as is my mother." And the
arranged bride left in the dust? She, too, fell in love w/ another and married him. All's
well that ends well.

Mystery Meat?
In one week we have not laid eyes on a single school-age child or cat and only two or
three dogs. The children have long school days, but the lack of pets? I'm just sayin'.

Plumbing
Chinese-style facilities: a trough on the floor w/ painted footprints on either side. Don't
know; don't want to know.

Best Laid Plans

Monday aboard the Yangze Explorer on the Yangze River

I'm sitting at the bar (best wifi signal on the ship) after a fabulous lunch. The charming
waitress just told me that the signal will weaken considerably as we enter the locks that
will move us up 330 feet and up river of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest in the world.

We flew to Yi Ching from Beijing yesterday. There was a thunderstorm in Shang hai
the night before and somehow that meant our 1:20 pm flight would be three hours late.
Go figure. Instead of landing mid-afternoon, we arrived at dusk so by the time we were
bussed to the ship, it was dark so we had no idea where we were other than on the
boat! The ship is absolutely gorgeous. It was completely refitted a few years ago with
lots of marble and, even better, lots of room! Our stateroom is huge. As promised there
is western food, ice and laundry service! Life is good.

We left the dock about 8 this morning and headed up river to the Three Gorges Dam
for a short bus trip to visit the site and enjoy the gardens that have been planted
everywhere. This project involved relocating 1-1/2 million people from the villages and
towns and farms that were soon to be under water so there is a considerable effort to
make the new towns along the higher banks of the Yangze quite pleasant.

Jim and I did Tai Chi on the forward deck this morning at 6 am. I felt less than graceful
but it was such an elegant way to start the day and somehow despite all the slow
motion movement, you could feel the burn!

We're about to reach the locks so I'll send this before I lose the signal.

The Great Wall

Juyongguan Pass

We boarded our bus this morning and while the very capable Mr. Summer navigated through the ever-present Beijing traffic, Kevin told us a bit about The Great Wall and a
lot about Chinese life and customs. It was Saturday morning, the most popular day for weddings. We saw several caravans of bright red sedans led by the bride and groom in another flower-bedecked red car (red is for weddings, white is for funerals). Kevin explained that contrary to popular belief, most couples were happy to have a baby girl "because it's cheaper." Evidently it is the responsibility of the groom's parents to buy a house for the newly weds. The bride's parents supply the furnishings. As Kevin said, one trip to IKEA and they're done.

It was very hazy again this morning. It was difficult to see the mountains as we drove, let alone the Wall. But suddenly, there it was, running along the ridge line of the mountains, a lot higher than I had imagined. We went to the Juyongguan Pass access point because it is a lot less crowded. "Less crowded" being quite relative. Compared to the streets of Beijing it was definitely less crowded. Compared to any other city
other than those in India, it seemed darned crowded to us. And a much more varied
citizenship of visitor. I chit-chatted w/ a group of college girls from Scotland, a Malaysian
family semi-adopted another in our group when he took a group picture of them. Even
more so than any other part of the world, offering to take a picture for others is part
of the fun. Lots of Japanese, Indonesian, Koreans touring. Many more Asians than
Americans or Europeans, but then it's an easier and shorter trip for them to get here.

The Wall. Good Grief! The walk up is staggering. Imagine climbing an escalator that
isn't running, except the ascent is 1500 feet or more and a bit steeper and the rise of
the steps varies from 6 inches to more than a foot. Plus the steps are uneven stone
with dips and divots, but what can you expect from slave labor 500 years ago?! In
the interest of full disclosure, Jim and I climbed up the steps to the Wall itself and
did another couple of shorter flights of steps before we called it, took the picture (my
number one goal on this trip: a great picture on the Wall) and then clambered back
down to chit chat w/ others in our group who had also decided enough was enough.
(We were told, walk ten steps, 100 steps or 3000 miles, it all counts as walking onthe
Wall.) Some of the more intrepid made the climb up to the next tower and earned that
bamboo scroll that marked the occasion. I'm going to send a picture of the endless line
of people making that trek.

It was pretty hazy again, still and always so it was hard to make out the mountain tops
across the valley let alone the Wall. The mountains are lush with trees and bushes. That
pass is the only way into Beijing from the north. The Wall may be 3000 miles long, but
was never connected into one solid line of defense so the invaders simply rode along
until they found a break in the Wall and came charging through. I'm sure it worked well
on paper.

I had not seen anything worth buying on the trip, just street vendors with an endless
variety of junk until, ta dah! The Jade Factory. Jade is the national gemstone of China
and is carved into everything from earrings to immense screens, lions and cabbage.
Evidently the Chinese word for cabbage sounds like the word for financial success
(each Chinese word has four tones and four wildly different meanings. Kevin teaches
us a few words everyday but I still wonder if I'm saying, "Good morning. How are you?"
or "Good Morning. Your sister is a slut.") so any Chinese business man has a sculpture
of a cabbage on his desk. Their cabbage looks much more like a slightly open and more
ruffly head of Napa cabbage rather than the round green cabbage destined for cole
slaw.

But back to the Jade Factory. We had the usual tour led by a charming young woman
who works there (The Chinese are taught to read and write English, but not so much the
speaking. For some reason they usually scream while speaking Chinese, but if they do
speak English with you, it's in a soft, modulated tone.). Then we had lunch...as always
the endless number of courses, one glass of water, Coke, Sprite or beer and this time,
Jasmine Tea. Always a fork along with chopsticks, just in case. Group consensus was
the soup was the best. Frankly, we're starting to find it hard to remember the individual
dishes. And, yes, there are people on the tour that don't, won't or can't eat Chinese food
(I can't imagine what they thought they were going to eat for two weeks). Geez. Just
take a spoonful and try it.

But back to the Jade Factory. Big Factory, Big Store! We learned how to tell the
difference between jade, glass and marble. (Jade "rings" when tapped) A Chinese bride
is given a jade bangle bracelet by the groom's mother (talk about "issues"!) to wear
on her left wrist rather than a wedding ring. Boy oh boy did they have jade bracelets.
To find your size, make a fist and hold the bangle over your knuckles. A bracelet with
a diameter three and a half knuckles wide is your size. Learn something every day.
Our tour guide-ette must have intuited a buyer, because she immediately grabbed a
velvet tray and we were off and running! In four days I didn't spend a single euro on
anything other than Le Metro and cafe creme in Paris, but trade imbalance be damned,
in 40 minutes I dropped a wad of yuans in that place. I wandered from case to case
(and there were dozens of cases) picking and choosing and trying on a ton of stuff
until that tray was full of "possibilities" and the manager was now part of my entourage.
(Lordy I would have been a great empress. It just seems to come naturally) After much discussing, culling and choosing, the calculator came out and the negotiating began.
Even after I had made my choices and handed over my Visa card, various clerks were
still running over with other treasures and trinkets for me to peruse. (By now I was
starting to think that maybe I WAS an empress living my life incognito) My purchases
were put in little (and not so little) red boxes (Remember, only the emperor was allowed
yellow anything) and then came the complimentary trinkets and bowing. What a great
day!!!

A little bit of a karmic bitch-slap later that afternoon when we were back in Beijing and
wandering around the Olympic Park area staring at the Water Cube (the aquatics
stadium, now a giant and very popular indoor water park) and the Birds Nest stadium
now used for soccer matches, big concerts, etc. The Chinese love soccer but never
have a good team. Kevin says the common complaint is how can a country of a billion
and a half people not be able to find 11 guys who can play world class soccer? This
being China, the "Olympic Green" is an immense open and paved (!) area surrounding
the event buildings. By now we had meandered at least a mile away from our bus when
the skies darkened and the thunder boomed. Everyone scattered and found shelter
under a row of temporary canvas pavilions that shaded the seating areas. The rains
came and as day follows night, so did the street vendors with five dollar plastic panchos!
Pretty soon there were more vendors than tourists. We waited until the big drops had
eased up and then began the puddle jumping trot back to the bus. Karma. Gets you
every time.

And for dinner? More wok food. Each restaurant has specialized in a different type
of Chinese cuisine but always little plates, little napkins and one glass each of water,
Coke, Sprite or beer. Kevin says that the Chinese do not think you should drink liquids
with your meal, that it's not good for the digestion. Soup is always the last course. Only
non-Chinese drink beverages, even tea, with dinner. And always, always, thin slices of
watermelon for dessert. Back in the hotel that night we hit the mini-bar for Oreos and
COLD beer!

It's now Sunday morning and we're leaving shortly for the airport and our domestic flight
(I can't imagine) for the two hour trip to the city closest to the river cruise. The boat will
be about an hour's bus ride from the airport.

We're all ready for a slower pace, western food, ice and, most importantly, laundry
service!

I'm not sure if there will be internet access on the ship, so this might be it for a few
days. I'll keep typing away on board (loving my new iPad and especially the wireless
keyboard) so prepare for an onslaught from the next hotel.

Which reminds me, I'll have to write about our hotel. and 50 cent water and NASCAR on
the highways and "lolexes" and one child policy and college entrance exams and, and,
and ...

Palaces, We Got Palaces

Beijing

Friday was spent visiting various temples and palaces built during the Ming Dynasty
about the same time and obviously with the same architect and same set of plans.
If you think cathedral crawling in Western Europe gets old, these Chinese palaces/
temples can make your eyes cross. I downloaded pictures last night and they truly all
look alike. We've started to absorb some of the mythology and beliefs as interpreted
through the buildings. Lots of round shapes (heaven) within squares (earth).

I guess I don't have to tell you the scale. The Temple of Heaven is in Beijing and has
the vast parade grounds like the Forbidden City's but the Summer Palace outside of the
city is 600 acres and has the longest outdoor corridor, over 700 meters long and really
quite nice, in the world along the lake front. Usually the palace roofs (like Spanish tiles
except ceramic) are the Imperial Yellow that only was used on the emperor's palace
roofs, but the Summer Palace was his Camp David. The roofs are green. The palace
relocated there from April to October. He received important people and papers there,
but was not working. It was a place to get away from his enemies and chillax.

Emperorhood had its perks. Snap his fingers and it was done up to and including
building hills and lakes where there were none. He never walked but was carried
everywhere in a sedan chair. Hot and cold running concubines. But, paranoia also came
with the position. The possibility of an uprising was always in the air not to mention the
rogue assassin around every corner.

The temperature at the Summer Palace was quite pleasant with a lovely breeze off the
lake (manmade) and the mountains (natural). It's a favorite spot for locals and tourists
alike. The courtyards are much, much smaller but for some reason every tour guide felt
it necessary to break out their portable PA systems. Oh, the din. As I mentioned before,
the Chinese don't seem to have or use their "inside voices" so amplification was hardly
necessary. One wished for the church ladies that constantly shhhh cathedral visitors.
The ride across the lake in a dragon boat (passenger boat w/ big dragon-decorated
bow) was blissfully quiet. Plus we met some people who were with a different tour
company but were going to be on the same river cruise boat and an Irish couple who
had been to the Wall the day before and said it was worth the money and effort.

Peking Duck for dinner. Meh.

Some of the group opted to go to a performance of the Peking Opera. We did not so
opt.

Tomorrow, The Great Wall and then back to Beijing to the Birds Nest and Water Cube
built for the Olympics. An aside: I knew Shang Hai had wild and weird architecture but
there are some odd buildings here, too. And they all have nicknames: Short Pants, Big
Egg, etc.
General discussion amongst our group: no facebook or blogging spot access. Thanks to
Jay for posting my blogs. Alas, I cannot read any comments. But that could be a good
thing.

And to niece Aubrey who is a bit vertically challenged: in China you would be
statuesque!

Inside The Forbidden City

End Run

(This post should have preceded "18 Million People, 6 Million Cars".)


Beijing


After two days of trying and failing to get onto the blog site ("The server is busy") but
having access to everything else, it occurred to me that that site was blocked. As our
native guide, Kevin (aka Yang but Dances With Wolves is his favorite American movie
so his "American" name is Kevin as in Costner), has told us with a wink, "Remember
that China is a communist country." He also pointed out some of the umpteen kazillion
cameras--Big Brother is watching.

To summarize the journey: we left Chicago at noon on Tuesday and 13 hours later we
arrived in Beijing at 14:04 Wednesday. I've dubbed it the Nap and Nibble run. United
has a whacky-doodle seat configuration, some face forward and some backward. Lucky
us, we were in rear-facing seats that looked directly into the (brightly lighted the whole
way) galley. It's been my experience that on long haul flights, the flight attendants will
pull the curtain that blocks light from and access to the galley. Not so much on United.
FYI, after the meal was served, they doused the cabin lights (it was maybe 3 pm) and
adjourned to the above mentioned galley and raided the frig!!! The food was mediocre,
the headphones were uncomfortable (for some reason the airlines have reconfigured
the entertainment consoles so the wonderful and pricey, noise-canceling Bose, etc,
cannot be plugged in, but the sound was garbled, so it didn't really matter.

Our route took us up and over Canada, the Arctic and then down. Every once in a
while I'd peek out the window and see nothing but ice. No truckers or polar bears. On
those long flights you eat, watch a movie, read some of your book, play a little Angry
Birds and think, we must be more than half-way by now. Then you check your watch
and realize you've been gone 3-1/2 hours with 9-1/2 to go. And that's why God made
Ambien and Sonata.

The Beijing airport is HUGE! EVerything in Beijing is huge. It is also very murky. Kevin
told us that no manufacturing is allowed w/in the city limits, but they have cars. Lots of
cars. Millions of cars. But more on that later.

We got to the hotel at 5 pm and went straight to our room. I was asleep in my clothes on
top of the bed by 5:15. At 4:30 am, I was up as was the sun. Sunrise is around 4:30. Of
course, it is so murky and hazy that you really don't see the sun. I broke out the iPad to
post a blog with no luck.

I'm going to email this to Jay so he can post it for me. Thus the end run. They don't call
me Susan Bourne for nothing. The story of how I left Amsterdam without entry stamp

in Bristol, England is for another day. Jay said I had the perfect cover for a spy: middle-
aged (bless you my son for that) suburban mom.

Next blog will be about our first full day in Beijing.

18 Million People, 6 Million Cars

Beijing

Remember those pictures of Beijing back in the good old Mao days when the people
had no cars and rode bicycles everywhere? Well, just like the Mao uniform of dress, the
bikes are gone, replaced by cars. Shiny, new cars. Six million shiny, new cars within the
city limits on roads designed for three million bicycles.

Beijing is crowded, noisy and on the move. No one is standing still save for the military
cadets who average about 5'6" and weigh maybe 120 lbs and are guarding random
sites around town. To say that the infrastructure is lacking is truly stating the obvious.
And if it hadn't been for the Beijing Olympics, there would be no signage other than
Chinese characters. All the road signs, tourist sites, stores, restaurants, etc are
identified w/ Chinese characters with English translation below. "Rush hour" seems
to be 24/7. As Kevin says, to the drivers pedestrians are an inconvenience and traffic
lights merely a suggestion. The air pollution is directly related to the cars on the road.
No clunkers, either. Almost every car maker has manufacturing plants in China. If you
buy a car made in China, they are relatively inexpensive. The favorites seem to be VW
sedans, Toyotas, BMW, etc. If you've just gotta have that Mini Cooper or Porsche or
any other foreign-made card, the duty is at least 100%. Gas is approximately $5 US
per gallon. The Chinese currency, the Yuan, is now floating against the dollar and is
currently 6.33 yuan to the dollar. Foreign currency can be changed into yuans at any
hotel or bank w/ no service charge.

A little cultural aside from Kevin: Beijing has a huge (remember, everything is huge in
Beijing) subway and bus system. The fare is 1 yuan, or 15 to 20 cents. Kevin told us
that the system is, needless to say, greatly subsidized by the government. "Remember,
China is a communist country and image is everything." Twenty cents a ride certainly
sounds better to the world than the two, three or more dollars per ride anywhere else in
the world.

Today we visited Tienaman Square. (The English spelling of Chinese cities,
monuments, parks, etc is quite varied just like Kadafy.) As luck would have it, The SCO,
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, is in town, meeting at the People's Hall,
smack in the middle of the (do I really need to add, HUGE) square. China, Russian and
several of the ....stan countries make up the SCO, so w/ Putin et all in the Square, the
people are not. It was completely blocked off, so our visit to TS consisted of staring at it
from across the six lane street (also blocked off). It sort of looks like the fairgrounds
when the fair is gone. Acres of cement that can hold one million people, although Kevin
says that 300,000 is more comfortable and manageable. He also told us that it is the goal of every Chinese to make the pilgrimage to TS and return home w/ a photo to mark
the occasion. TS is considered the birthplace of communist China. It is where Mao
announced it, thus it is so. Mao's face is on all the Chinese money (Taiwanese money
features Sun Yat Sen. One is warned to check your change for Mao, not Sun Yat Sen.
The Taiwanese money is real, but only on Taiwan.) and, ironically, on a huge portrait at
the entrance to the Forbidden Palace. OMG, it took us three hours to walk through the
palace. It's not like Catherine's Palace or Versailles or Buckingham Palace...no art or
furnishings or pretties, just a set of concentric squares with acres of courtyard between
each ring, that you keep walking through until you hit ground zero where the emperor
slept. Lots of feng shua (sp?) couple w/ paranoia involved. A huge moat was dug
around the whole place. There are no trees inside the Palace grounds because the
emperor did not want his enemies to hide in the trees and kill him w/ a well place arrow
or knife. The courtyard surrounding the inner sanctum is paved w/ 15 or 16 layers of
paving stones so his enemies couldn't tunnel in. Some of the buildings were restored for
the Olympics (like Atlanta and every other host city, anything that will show to visitors in
town for the Games is buffed and polished. Image, remember, image.) and the goal is
to finish the restoration by 2020. There are 9,999 rooms throughout the complex, so
this is no easy task. Rent The Last Emperor to get an idea of the scale of the place.
Average daily attendance is 35-40,000, with a record number 150,000 during one
festival or another. You hear countless different languages being spoken, but like TS,
it's a must-do for Chinese. The Chinese do not modulate their voices. They tend to
speak loudly and with great abandon. The din is incredible. I shudder to think what the
decibel level is.

We went from crowds of thousands to one of the hutongs, an ancient city enclave with
narrow streets and pedicabs. We pedicabbed to a local market, bought 10 yuan each of
vegetables and then went to have lunch in the house of a Beijing citizen. Tiny place with
tinier kitchen but wonderful food, which translates to nothing that meowed or barked
yesterday! Two things we've noticed: tiny plates (bread plate size) and cocktail napkins
instead of even one of those flimsy lunch-size things. We ate some exotic vegetables,
lotus root (delicious), pork, potatoes and rice. Beverages of choice seem to be water
(bottled), Coke (regular, none of that Diet stuff), Sprite or beer. Our hostess was quite
charming. She was a spinster lady of a certain age whose twenty-something year old
niece was carrying on the family tradition of painting (with watercolors) the inside of
small, crystal snuff bottles. Need I add, available for purchase?

Back to our bus (twenty people per regular sized bus---there's that image again. The
regular citizenry may jam the busses, but the tourists ride around in regal splendor.) and
then through stop and go traffic for a good hour to the hotel. The federales had blocked
of one lane of every road and highway for the exclusive use of the SCO attendees.

Szechuan restaurant for dinner. Once again, at least ten dishes, all delicious and most
VERY spicy. One guy on the trip doesn't really like Chinese food so is eating a lot of
rice. He looks longingly out the window every time we pass a McDonalds or KFC. What
was he expecting? Grits and greens? We learned that he and his wife live about two
miles from us in Kennesaw.

Now it's time to suit up for the Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace and then Peking
Duck at the Hepingmen Quan Jade Restaurant where Mao and Nixon dined together.
Jim and I are passing on the "rare opportunity" to attend the Peking Opera tonight. I
seem to remember cacophonic wailing on the Ed Sullivan Show. A quiet night at the
luxe Shangri La China World Towers sounds much more appealing.