MarilynMetsa

Em Ma took us to the Summer Palace, the residence of the emperors during the hot Beijing summers. The most interesting part of the Summer Palace history is the story of the Dragon Lady. After her husband died, she ruled through her young son, and when he died, through her nephew. She wasn't a very nice lady, but she did have a lot of power. The Summer Palace is located around a lake shaped like a Bat. As we were near the lake, Em Ma asked" Do you know how banning fishing came about?" "Maybe because of over fishing, or maybe pollution in the lake?" I answered. "WHAT?????" said Em Ma, too polite to call me stupid. She then went on to describe a story of a young empress who was afraid that a concubine was ... read more

Arriving in Hong Kong I found Jacqui crabby and stressed after several days of unsuccessful meetings and a rather over successful conference demolishing her stock of books and journals in the first morning. Being the kind and helpful mother that I am, I suggested we go to tea to take away the stress from the last few day. We chose the RR66 (Revolving Restaurant 66), since it was recommended in the guidebook. Now our family has always been known to love a good cuppa, and I will happily admit there are several favorites that come to mind. The Houghton Tearoom always has a good selection of excellent tea and delicious eats, Betty's tearoom in York speaks for itself, RR66, however, with its 'all day pot' of thick coffee like appearance and average tea time spread was ... read more

We arrived in the UK on a historic day - election day. Gordon Brown's Labor Party was defeated by David Cameron's Conservative Government, but Cameron didn't get enough votes to rule. This means a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. This is high drama. Not only that,the polling (voting) was so heavy that people were turned away from the polls at 10 PM, to quite the outrage. Meanwhile, we were enjoying a pint at Jaqui's Local. It is an interesting place, with pot belly pigs wandering the establishment. Her living room is small, but the Pub is large and friendly. Then we punted, a great sport in Cambridge. ... read more

Sadly, it was time to leave China. The Beijing airport is huge, clean, modern. While standing in line for baggage inspection, I hear, "Marilyn Clark?" What, is something wrong with my passport? Who is wanting me? It turns out it was Dave Gill, a colleague from my Cummins days who I haven't seen in 6 years! He is working on a new plant near Beijing. It trully is a small world. On the trip home we woke up just in time to see the sun rise over Mt. McKinley in Alaska. Awesome! We loved China and I hope Kim and Ryan end up there so I can visit again! And, Ben, you have to go climbing in Yangshou!... read more

Nora and Mike and I stayed on to shop in the "Fleece" Market, as Andrew called it with instructions on how to take a cab back to the Hilton. The first cabbie stopped, looked that the hotel business card funny, but responded when Mike showed him the hotel key. Unfortunately, he must have been new because he took us in the opposite direction to the older Hilton. The cab ride we thought would take 15 minutese took us an hour. I felt sorry for the cabbie, he didn't charge us anything. The city is amazing, we could be anywhere in the world. All the cars are new since no one had cars until 1998 or so and it has grown exponentially. The traffic is more organized here too, a product of the Olympics. THere are miles ... read more