Travel Blog Posts
October 13th 2007
Well, you know I didn't go to the Great Wall with the group, and therefore I missed getting in the group picture. But we live in the world of magic and photoshop, so when Mary gave me her print of the group photo I said I would add myself in and post it on the blog. Here it is. And to show that I have been to the Wall before, there's another picture of me and Chip on the Great Wall in August 2004. I am also including some of my favorite details of the sites I have already seen that were included in excursions from Beijing. These pictures were taken in 2004, mostly at the sites where the group toured around Beijing. Since I did not go on the tour excursions to the Wall, Forbidden ... read more
October 10th 2007
This blog is about the food. We had tour food for most of the trip, and I do appreciate the challenge a chef faces when feeding a few hundred senior Americans. It was usually recognizeable and never overspiced. Some people might say it was bland and boring. Other people might say thank god it was not too spicy and not too weird. No chef could possibly please all the people all the time. The breakfast buffets were probably, for me, the best part of the tour food. My first breakfast at the Shanghai Shangri-La Hotel was a revelation. There were so many stations with different breakfast cuisines: Chinese, Japanese, European, American. It was all wonderful. I do not usually eat breakfast, but at the Shangri-La I had to eat breakfast twice every day just to sample ... read more
October 8th 2007
We left Chongqing via the zoo, a stop that was managed a lot like a military insertion. We were inserted into the zoo at the point of entry closest to the pandas, and we saw the pandas, and then we were surgically extracted. Of course, there was the requisite stop at a government tourist trap. The pandas were frankly adorable. And there were babies! Two lesser panda babies and one giant panda baby. The lesser panda is also known as the red panda, and we were reminded constantly that it is really a member of the raccoon family, but if memory serves it is not a clear relationship. In any case, they were unbelievably cute. They are also very playful. The babies were sleeping so no pictures of them. The giant pandas occupied for enclosures and ... read more
October 8th 2007
The last few days have been a Cliffs Notes tour of China. Saturday we left Chongqing for Xian, and Sunday we hit Xian early then flew to Beijing. We have been on the go go go see see see do do do tour! I was in such a rush leaving Xian to get some posts done that I did not get all the pictures uploaded, so here are more pictures from Chongqing. The next post will be Xian, and then I will post from Beijing. The reference in the title of this blog is to the way we are sleeping. Narcolepsy is the order of each day. We are all sleeping like Dead Pigs, which, according to Grant, our guide, is very lucky. These pictures are from the Tourist Temple at the Viking picnic platform in ... read more
October 6th 2007
Three Gorges and The Yangtze River (Wednesday) I am waking up around 4:30 in the afternoon, Austin time, 5:30 in the morning Chinese time. There was early bird coffee served on the Observation Deck, so I was one of the first people to get my fix. The day is overcast and there is fog on the river so it is hard to see much beyond the gangplank. To get to the boat from the station, we get into a tram car on a rail that takes us up and down the steep bank (see picture). It is a very industrial looking operation. The locals who take the ferry here to work disembark and just walk up the steps, which is no doubt excellent daily exercise. After coffee and a crispy pancake with fresh mango and cheese ... read more
October 6th 2007
Monday morning we went to the Shanghai museum where there are lovely collections of jade and bronze artifacts dating back to the 34th century bce, and exquisite examples of traditional and ritual Chinese furniture carved out of beautiful woods, folk art, and some very very old carvings of Buddhas. Of course, the largest collection was ceramics. The light was dim throughout the museum and my pictures are not as sharp as I would like but you can see some of the wonderful things we saw. I was particularly impressed with how perfectly some of the old jade had come through the last five thousand years. A jade scepter in the shape of a hand axe was as perfect as it could be. The carvings were amazing. After the museum we headed over to our lunch destination, ... read more
October 1st 2007
This morning we went to Yu Gardens, a 300-year old monument to tranquility built by a son in honor of his father after he retired from politics. Of course, the father footed the bill . . . Since October 1 is the anniversary of the birth of Mao's China, everyone in China gets the day off. In fact, they all get 8 days off. And they all go to the city to see the big sights. Yu Gardens is a hot destination for Chinese people on holidays, and we were shoulder to shoulder with most of them. The views were a little hard to see, and walking was more like seething with the crowd, but it was beautiful and interesting. Most of the Yu Gardens are buildings, rocks, water, and walkways, all paved with beautifully arranged ... read more
October 1st 2007
The flight from Austin was rather like an endurance test. Up at 3 am. saturday morning, arriving at Shanghai Pudong airport at 2 on sunday afternoon. Not a lot of sleep on the plane, but finished a rousingly silly adventure novel called Rembrandt's Ghost and was pleased to find that my seatmate was a Shanghai native, Charlie Li, who gave me lots of good tips for seeing Shanghai as he travelled home from his first trip to the U.S. Thank you, Charlie! I took the Maglev train from the airport, the fastest train in the world. It was a kick, especially to note that almost everyone who got on the train immediately took out cameras and snapped away en route. I only took a picture of the sign at the station cautioning passengers to 'Be Gentle.' ... read more
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