I'm finally getting around to working with some of the Hawai'i images. These are from the neat little retreat we stayed at on Maui:

  

(full Maui set here)

I shot almost 1400 frames in Hawai'i, so it's taking me a very long time to sort them. However, here are a couple more panoramas, both of the west end of Maui:

 

Some iPhone pictures from the Sanctuary party with Ott:

We're back from Hawai'i. I haven't had time to sort my pictures yet, but here's a teaser panorama from the Big Island:

If I haven't been writing much for the past week or so, it's because Helena and I have been in Hawai'i on holiday. We spent five nights on the Big Island with my parents and are currently in our last of three nights on Maui. I've been giving the 40D a bit of a workout its first real shakedown really, and will be posting a writeup with pictures when we're home.

Molecular Basis of Life Discovered on Extrasolar Planet: "Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have for the first time found the telltale signature of methane, an organic molecule, in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system."

So the more that I think about the deep fried silkworms, the more I think they'd go great with, say, a Superbowl party. With the right dipping sauce...You bet. Like popcorn.

A couple more sunsets:

 

Pictures of various drinks and munchies available at the office:

(full set here)

  

And, of all the food that I tried on the trip, these are likely to provoke the strongest reaction from Americans. Deep fried silkworms:




They weren't exactly great, but they weren't that bad either. I ate a handful of them. My main complaint was much more with the texture and not so much with the taste. Crunchy on the outside, soft inside. On the buttery, nutty side but not really like anything I'd had before. I would have enjoyed them much, much more with some sort of thick, spicy sauce served on the side instead of just salt and pepper. Still, I'd eat them again.

Well, I'm home. I have a massive craving for spicy, spicy stir fry and the beginnings of a truly epic jetleg hangover. Or is that from all the sake I drank during my layover in Tokyo? No, it's the jetlag. In any case, long flights east always bother me more than than the westbound ones. For example, flying to Israel wrecked me both times, especially the time I made the mistake of taking a nap on the first day.

Must...stay...awake...

I have bed news for Helena.

I had about three and a half hours to kill in Narita (the Tokyo international airport), so I found a Sushi restaurant. As my dad says, it was like feeding people food to the dog. I'm completely ruined for raw fish, and I never even got out of the airport.

My time in China is almost over.

I'll miss the food. Out of all the traveling that I've done, I honestly have to say that Beijing is my favorite city for eating. But, more than the food, I'll miss the hospitality shown to me by the Chinese Googlers. They assure me that it is Chinese culture to take such good care of visitors but it always felt so personal, like I was family. I'm extremely touched by their generosity and I leave their country with a lot of self-reflection to do. Some of them have visited the Mountain View headquarters and I hardly spoke to them at all, even when I was the person coordinating the training program they were participating in. Then, to come to China and have them treat me so well...The experience has been more than a little humbling for me.

I have a few more pictures to post and stories to write, but it's late and I have an early flight.

Eh, I couldn't resist. I splurged on a Habana cigar. :)

As mentioned, I made The Temple of Heaven, Tian'an Men Square and The Forbidden City.

I'd read something about a "mandatory bag check" at The Forbidden City in the Frommer's book, so I decided not the bring my backpack in case "bag check" meant that I would have to leave it behind at the entrance. Since I would need a lot of pockets, I wore a pair of what I refer to as my "space alien" pants since they're the only thing I brought that would have enough room for the guidebook, my wallet, change, passport, camera bits and water bottles. Now, I call them "space alien" pants because when I wear them in the States that's the way people tend to look at me. To complete the outfit, I was wearing a black party t-shirt and my tattoo themed black hoodie. It turned out that I'd misunderstood and they were putting bags through the x-ray machine.

I started off by taking a taxi just before 7am to Nan Tian Men, the Temple of Heaven south gate. Friends who'd previously visited Beijing had recommended showing up at the Temple around dawn to catch the locals performing Tai Chi and other exercises and I am glad that I took their advice. The Temple seems to be the local place to come for morning exercise. People were jogging, doing Tai Chi alone and in groups, performing martial arts, participating in other exercises and, in some cases, just walking around singing. I wandered around the southern portion of the Temple grounds for well over an hour without seeing another tourist. Most of the people there were older, many outright elderly, and I saw very few locals whom I'd place at around my age. Quite simply, it was one of the most peaceful places that I've ever been and several times I was nearly moved to tears by the simple serenity that I felt.



Finding myself with some time to kill before the main buildings opened at 8am, I found a bench near one of the groups engaged in Tai Chi and sat to meditate for fifteen or twenty minutes. It was the first time that I'd sat in months but I couldn't think of any better way to honor the sense of historical presence that I felt. When I opened my eyes, I discovered that one couple had installed themselves for their Tai Chi only about ten feet off to my right. As I got up and started to walk away, I noticed a group of women gaping open mouthed at me. I smiled and nodded a "nihao" in their direction and they all replied and then burst out laughing. With me...At me...I couldn't tell and didn't care. I got the impression that extravagantly dressed American tourists did not typically come to the Temple grounds to sit perfectly still in half lotus for twenty minutes but I generally seemed to be regarded with expressions of benign bemusement.

I walked in the direction of the Fasting Palace and bought my entrance ticket. The young man working the entrance stopped me and pointed out the the ticket would also get me into the Divine Music Administration, a building I'd been planning to skip. He pointed out that it was nearly 9am and if I hurried, I could catch the performance so off I went. I'm deeply grateful to him, since I really like traditional Chinese music and had no idea that there was a performance at all:



I was one of only three people there to watch the show. After the performance, I wandered north in the direction of The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (Qian Dian), which is the main building as far as tourists go. The closer I got to it, the more people there were especially as it was growing later in the day.



I had a really neat experience as I was leaving the Hall to head north towards Tian'an Men. One of the things that some of the locals were doing for exercise was to toss soft, cloth covered rings of about 14" in diameter back and forth. I'd seen many people doing this over the course of my walk, but outside the Hall was a group of six men apparently in their 60s and 70s who were catching them around their necks. It was very impressive to watch as the throwers were so accurate that the receivers would hardly have to move. I stood there for awhile, staring, trying to decide whether or not to take a picture (I decided it would be rude) and then turned to go. As I was turning, one of them called out "hi!" to me and made a throwing motion with one of the rings. I nodded to him and he proceeded to toss five of them to me. Of the first four, I caught two in my hand and had two bounce off the top of my head...Eyes on the ball...Eyes on the ball...But I managed to catch the fifth one around my neck and they all applauded. When I went to throw the rings back, I discovered that it was much harder than it looked but the guy, who must have been in his 70s, made a couple of really impressive running catches around his neck. We waved to each other and I continued north.

(Full Temple of Heaven set here)

The approximately three kilometer walk through Beijing to Tian'an Men was relatively uneventful, except for one trike rider who accosted me near the Square and insisted on providing me with a service. He simply would not take no for an answer. He actually made three separate passes at me, riding off for a few seconds prior to returning to try again. For the sake of storytelling, I'll embellish and tell it as a single conversation while leaving out the most repetitive parts. To complete the scene in your mind, you'll need to picture me continuing to walk, delivering most of my responses over my shoulder while passing Chinese women giggled at my attempts to get rid of the guy.

Him: Hello! *pointing at his passenger seat* (I've discovered that "hello!" is often the first sign that I'm about to have the hard sell put on me...)
Me: No thank you. I don't want a ride.
Him: Where you go?
Me: No, thanks.
Him: You go to Tian'an Men Square?
Me: No, no thank you.
Him: Come on, no money!
Me: Wo bu yao! (No, I don't want...)
Him: I take you to hutong. You get massage. (The hutongs are the old neighborhoods that are apparently being bulldozed to make room for other things. I haven't actually been in one.)
Me: No!
Him: You want massage?
Me: No!!
Him: It cheaper there!
Me: No! I don't want a massage!
Him: Come on! No money!
Me: I don't care if it's no money! No!

Tian'an Men was in some ways what I expected China to be like, based on the anti-Communist propaganda that Americans must endure: lots of soldiers and police, red Chinese flags everywhere, Soviet-esque buildings and the like:

  

(Full Tian'an Men Square set here)

Overall, the Forbidden City was a wash for me. It was interesting to see the unrestored buildings, but like a staff member at the Temple of Heaven told me, the Temple was built as a miniature Imperial Palace and aside from scale, the two sites are very similar architecturally. Plus, it was too crowded, especially after the Temple's serenity. There might have been something different in the sections I didn't visit, but I was tired and didn't bother to penetrate very deeply into the complex. My advice is that if you're only interested in the architecture and don't care about the museum exhibits at the Palace (each of which are an extra charge) or if, like me, you have an aversion to areas which are particularly dense with tourists, just hit the Temple of Heaven at dawn via the Nan Tien Men.



(Full Forbidden City set here)

Even though I could have skipped out on the Forbidden City, my visit there ended on a high note. While on my way out, near the main gate, I got the familiar "hello!" which immediately put me on my defensive, but this time it was different. The speakers turned out to be two attractive, twenty-something Chinese women walking arm in arm who spoke excellent English. We got to talking. They turned out to be from a small town is the northeast of China and had stopped me to find out if I was a rock star or something. They seemed to be genuinely interested in just talking to such an unusual specimen of an American as me. Once they saw my earrings under my hoodie, they exclaimed about how unusual they are so I took the hood down to give them a better look. I got the usual "doesn't that hurt?" but they honestly seemed to never have seen big earrings like mine before. They wanted to hear what life was like in the States right now so I bitched about Bush, the war and the current economic slowdown affecting a lot of people. Since many of my coworkers call each other by their English names, I took the opportunity to ask the girls if it was common for Chinese people to take English names. Yes, turns out that is quite fashionable among young people. They were surprised to find out that I was married and that I was 35 - they had me pegged for 25 - and we talked a bit about our cultural impressions of when it was the correct time to marry and have kids. I wound up walking out of the Palace with them and back onto the main street, where they invited me to join them for a coffee. Now, they were SO not setting off my scam detectors but I was pretty tired after my experience on the Wall the day before and the probably ten today miles I'd walked since dawn, so I politely declined their offer.

It was a good day.

We went to a barbecue place tonight...Two more food firsts for me: chicken hearts and beef tongue. These, especially the tongue, aren't so odd, but I'd never had either before.

I've visited The Temple of Heaven, Tian'an Men Square and the Forbidden City. I'll post an in depth writeup with pictures when I have a chance, but there are a lot of photos to sort, edit and upload and I'm back at work today so my time will be limited.

While I was hiking on the Wall, I had the opportunity to reflect on the Chinese countryside that we'd driven through. I realized that, although I intend to return to China, I might never get another chance to see a Chinese village so I kept the camera out and got this set. Now, these are not 'art' photos by any stretch of the imagination. They were taken from the back of a moving car through through heavily tinted windows and are completely unedited. I didn't even bother to put my copyright tag on them. Don't expect any sort of quality or composition or anything like that.

  

(Full set)

Interestingly, the terrain of the farm country prior to getting into the mountains reminded me so much of Michigan in winter that I didn't bother to take any pictures. I didn't need to: no leaves, squirrel nests in the trees, leaden sky, very flat. That sort of thing. The one thing that caught my eye was that by my estimation, something like 96% to 98% percent of the trees that I saw were recently planted by the government, and I saw a lot of trees from the freeway. I could tell because they were in perfect rows, there was none of the other vegetation forest would have (besides grass) and they all had white paint on their trunks near the ground line. My coworker Suny had mentioned a large reforestation project, so I assume that the trees I saw were planted as part of that.

I made it to the Great Wall at Simatai without incident. The driver that my coworker Bill arraigned didn't speak any English but that wasn't the slightest issue. He was right on time, had snacks and water for me and even put pirated Chinese copies of Transformers and Final Contract on his in car DVD player while we drove.

The Wall, well, what can I say...? Stunning. Desolate. Intimidating. I mean, I'd always though, oh, it's wall right? Big deal. Yeah, it's a huge deal actually. Of course, since it's a defensive fortification it occupies the high ground and in this case, that ground is quite high indeed. I would NOT want to be a sixth century invader attacking this site.

Unlike some sections of Wall in the Beijing area, such as Ba Da Ling, Simatai is unrestored.

The full gallery is here, but what follows are my favorites.

Looking east towards Jin Shan Ling, the section of Wall to the east:


 

Looking east, back the way I came:



Looking west from the twelfth and final watchtower toward Tian Qiao (Heavenly Bridge), a section of Wall which narrows to a few feet and is currently closed to visitors due to the danger:



Detail of a watchtower and a particularly rough section of Wall:



And, of course, me. This shot was taken by a distinguished, older Japanese gentleman whom I was lucky enough to run into. He spoke excellent, accentless English and had an even larger Canon than I did. It didn't hurt that he complimented me on the 40D when he handed it back:



I'll file this particular excursion under "watch what you ask for," since I'd picked Simatai specifically because it was supposed to be a challenging hike as well as less packed with tourists. No complaints though, I got exactly what I wanted on both accounts. We arrived around 9:30am and, aside from few North Korean (I think) groups, I had the Wall to myself. On the way back down, I met larger numbers of people making the climb, so getting there early paid off.

Now, I work out. I lift weights. Do cardio. Yoga. Still, this climb about did me in. How tough was it, you ask? You can get some sense of the elevation change from the pictures above, but check this shot of the tourist center from which I started my hike:



That shot was taken at about the eighth or ninth watchtower, so I actually had climbed significantly higher. I always hate it when I go to tourist sites and I feel like I'm separated from the place and haven't actually done anything or gotten a real sense of the area, so I'm happy to say that I definitely did something at the Wall.

If I had any problem at all, it was that my left knee became very sore on the descent. I can walk on level ground, climb stairs and even do squats without pain, but going down stairs even now, the next day, is pretty rough.

I'd been warned about the insistent peddlers at Simatai but most of them took a simple "no" and I really only had an issue with one, a little old farmer lady. She met me near the top of the walkway up to the Wall and engaged me in broken but fairly reasonable English. She came on all friendly: "You American? How long you been in China? I farmer from Simatai," and such. I was friendly and talked to her; I mean, how often do I get to talk to a Chinese farmer? Besides, at first I thought that she just was being friendly with the only American in sight. After a little bit of small talk, she started putting the sell on me but I didn't let her get her bag open before I started telling her no. She took it pretty easily; too easily I thought, although by that time we'd hit the first set of stairs on the Wall itself and I was in much, much better shape than her and she couldn't really keep up. "Ok, maybe you buy when you come back down!" Sure enough, on the way back down, there she was and she didn't give up so easily the second time around. She really put down the hard luck story on me. I'm not even sure what she was trying to sell me; I think it was a calendar of some sort. I was pleasant, kept smiling and tried politely yet firmly saying no. After she put the booklet into my hands with a "here, for you," I gave it back and started back down the Wall, still calling "no" over my shoulder in response to her persistence. "Maybe you buy shirt?" She kept on coming after me, more insistent with every step. After saying no and smiling about a thousand times, I finally couldn't take it any more, took off the smile and put a little bit of an edge into my voice which finally did the trick.

I think that I learned a lesson from the experience about bargaining for when I do go shopping in Beijing next week. She initially was asking 20RMB for the calendar (about $3.20) and by the time she finally gave up, she was down to 8RMB. Now, although I had to bargain once or twice in Israel, I have no natural talent for it and I got taken. My experience on the Wall today matches up with which I've since read about bartering which is to start very, very low and to walk away if the seller won't come down. I don't know that I'd get 60% off on an item that I'd showed interest in to begin with, but now that I see I can deal with a hard luck, pressure sell and that it isn't the end of the world to be in a barter situation.

The strangest thing that the vendors tried to sell me was beer. Yes, yes of course! That's exactly what I'd like to drink while climbing down broken, uneven steps with with a sore knee and thousand foot drops on both sides...

I made it to the Great Wall, no problems. However, I'm presently trying to stuff 130MB of pictures to my systems at home at the princely speed of 2-4KB/s. That's what, nine hours to transfer everything and then I still have to annotate the images, run bins and upload the result to my webserver. Oh well, it'll happen when it happens.