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Published: October 11th 2005
So, we received a few comments from readers disappointed about the content of the blog. Apparently you wanted to read about this, and we posted something about that. You expected yin, and we gave you yang. Well, all I have to say about that is phooey on you!
Just kidding of course, but in all seriousness (not that you can see me), but writing this blog is well, harder than it looks. I apologize, but sometimes I'll either purposefully or accidentally leave things hanging. For example, long-time readers are probably
still expecting me to post a list of the contents of each of our bags. Well, that's probably not going to happen, though at the end Sherry and I thought it would be fun to look at our bags and figure out just how many things we've dropped/picked up along the way.
e.g. Sherry dropped her Chacos when were in BKK for the 2nd time. Sold 'em for 2.50 USD. Yesterday I bought a pair of Chinese 'military' shoes for less tha 1.00 USD, but I've yet to drop any shoes. I'm lugging around 5 pairs for crap's sake! Worst packing decisions, for me at least: Teva's (surprisingly not useful) and a rash guard for surfing (haven't used it, even though I've surfed twice).
Anyway, to get back on track, one reader commented that they'd like to know more about the world's deepest gorge, 'Tiger Leaping Gorge' in China. Well, there's not much to say really. First, we were there, and there were signs proclaiming its depth of 3900 m. For those of you that like to divide by 10s, that's like 4 km. For those of you that like to divide by .6s, that's like, well, a bunch of feet. Well, I'm here to tell you that the gorge didn't look that deep. It was pretty impressive to see the Yangtze rushing through this gorge. There _probably_ were some pretty high mts. above us, in the clouds a bit, and I guess, if you measured from our spot (6000 ft elev at the bottom of the gorge btw), to the top of a tree on some mountain 50 miles away, you might get 3900m, but it'd be a bit of a stretch.
More interestingly, we've had 2 or maybe even 3 people as us on the trip what a 'gorge' is. Having been educated as a geographer I of course redirected the question to Sherry. It's a canyon or as one guy said, a place where there are two big mts. right up next to each other and there just happens to be a river running through it.
We had another postnig asking about the Terracotta Warriers in Xian. Great question from Aunt Sharon (hi Jennifer, hi Savannah). These are life-sized (or even larger?) clay warriers (hollow from the waist up) assembled in battle formations protecting the tomb of an ancient Chinese emporer. I can't remember his name. The site was impressive to see, and we learned that the figures weren't discovered until the 1970s. Most of the figures had broken, but they've been painstakingly reassembled. Interestingly, you're not supposed to take flash photos at the site, but as with other regulations in China (no smoking for example) this isn't enforced.
My friend Brian who is spending the summer and fall walking, he calls it hiking, from Canada to Mexico, emailed to defend the posting of complaints and general 'bitchiness' of some of my blog postings. According to Brian, who is maintaining his own journal, painstakingly typed in on some kind of battery-powered Fisher-Price text-only applicance, so-called 'journey' journals that lack widespread complaining are untruthful. So, there you have it, at least one voice in support of complaining. Isn't that a little bit what this thing (the blog) is for anyway? ; )
Finally, a bit about our travels. Isn't this what you're reading for? We had a really cool day+ in Chengu. Pronounced choung-DU. We met up with Sherry's friend Jonathan who has lived in China for 5 years and his wife Leia. She's Chinese and he also speaks Mandarin and we just poked around Chengdu enjoying the fact that we could go off the map in our guidebook and visit restaurants and places without english signs/employees and not feel completely lost. Of course, both J and L are not from Chengdu, and we learned that even if you speak Chinese, you can still get lost in a Chinese city.
Highlights:
- Sichuan Hotpot. This is the name of the province and the cusine is very famous for it's high spice level. We dipped a bunch veggies and meat into some boiling water/oil/spices, let it cook, then dipped it into some cold sesame oil w/ raw garlic (and MSG to taste) and we loved every bit of it. It turned out that Sherry had the best tolerance for spice of all of us, including Leia who is native (but not used to the spicy Sichuan cuisine). Anyway, Sherry paid the price the next day however..
- Panda Conservation Center. Basically a special zoo for pandas. Really nice, not that many people, and lots of great experiences with Pandas (please, no comments sickos!). It was cool though. We saw a mother holding and cleaning her cub, we saw adolescents (sub adults was the english translation) playing with each other pushing around, and we saw red pandas which aren't really biologically related (I don't think), but look kinda like bear cats. They're really active and pretty tame. We learned to that panda in chinese language is two characters, meaning literally 'bear' and 'cat'. We also learned that if you mispronounce this people will think that you're saying 'chest hair'... Pretty funny.
- For breakfast we tasted the regional specialties which were this pretty tasty sesame cake thing with a sweet center, and more interestingly this eggroll/pastry thing filled with a substance that's known as a 'numbing pepper'. Your tongue and lips literally go a little bit numb when you eat it, though it's not 'spicy' hot. Weird experience.
Many many thanks to Jonathan for he and Leia showing us around. We left them just starting a 2 month experience seeing China. They're very excited about this, having done something similar to what we have done, leaving work to see what's out there. Jonathan also took some pretty sweet photos of the pandas, which I now have on our ipod courtesy of this cool gizmo that he had that let us take photos directly from memory card to ipod. With the new photo ipod that we have (it's only broken and re-fixed itself twice on our trip!) we can even view the photos on the unit. Technology is amazing.
Have to go. Those of you out there that are still reading might be interested to know that inet costs ,75 to 1.00 US per hour in this neighborhood.
Sherry and Cory
PS - Sorry, no photos yet. Will post soon. Tomorrow AM we'll wake up in Stockholm, Sweden refreshed from our 10.5 hour flight.
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Brian in Denver
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critical feedback
Count me among those who enjoy the complaining--it comforts me in my windowless office with three computers that I have a rich life consisting of Internet surfing and ESPN College GameDay. Also, I need more details about the less savory parts of the trip e.g. "Sherry paid the price the next day however.."--what exactly does that mean? How many trips to the loo? I'm just afraid as the trip moves on to western Europe, there will be less crapping and barfing. But, as always, that's just me....