China Trip

It has been a crazy few weeks since we returned from our China Trip.  I wanted to post pictures a while ago, but work has just been out of control busy.  But at last, here is a picture tour of our trip.  Most of these were taken by Liz, but a couple were taken by Becky and Sarah.

The trip started in San Fransisco.  Sarah was kind enough to allow Liz and I to hijack her car and tour the area for a day.

After the Golden Gate Bridge, we went to Muir Woods to see the Redwoods.  These aren't the ridiculously wide ones, but are really tall... and still wider than any tree we've ever seen.

  

We left the Red Woods and ate at the Pelican Inn.  This little English restaurant and inn that was recommended by Sarah's boss.  We sat out in a screened porch and enjoyed some fantastic food and atmosphere.

  

Then we carried on to Muir Beach so we could see the Pacific Ocean.

And it was very very cold!  We were fortunate to have nice weather for the day, but with the ocean breeze, light jackets were comfortable.  We did see some people tanning which was somewhat odd for March, but also saw some lunatics who jumped in the water. Yikes.  There was also a die-hard surfer who had a wet suit, but that is still pretty nuts since his feet, hands, and head were exposed.  

After 14 more hours on a plane, we finally arrived in China.  It was night time when we arrived, and the first picture taken was at the hostel of a peculiar foosball table.  We played a game the next night because I was so intrigued.  It was wider than any table I've ever seen, and had a unique configuration from defense to offense of 1-3-3-4 instead of the traditional 1-2-5-3.  You'll also notice the feet are separated instead of one solid piece.  It was much harder to be accurate, but made for some crazy angle shots when striking just off center.  The metal made team also made a loud ping every time the ball was hit.

Ok, on to more Chinese-related pictures.... The Great Wall of China!

The wall sits on the ridge of a mountain, so we took a cable car up to it.  We literally walked on every part of the wall you see in these pictures with the exception of the above picture where we weren't allowed to venture to the level part on the very top of the ridge.

Yes we did walk quite a bit, but it was mostly downhill from where we started to the point the below picture was taken.

You may not have ever noticed that the vast majority of the wall is steps.  Even the subtle changes in elevation were small steps with a 1-2 inch lip.  A few of the parts were actually quite annoying to walk because you couldn't take a normal stride.  Sarah and I were clearly the cooler people in the group, and decided to climb the big hill.  And we climbed and climbed and climbed.

Nearly every part of the wall has been restored at one time or another.  The first parts of the wall were built sometime in the 7th century B.C. when China was separated into states.  China was unified in 221 B.C. and the government started to connect separate parts of the wall to form the Great Wall.  Much of what you can visit today was built between 1300 and 1600 during the Ming Dynasty.  Tourist spots have been restored more recently to accommodate the visitors.  A lot of the wall is restricted because it is so old that it would crumble.  Sarah and I walked up to a restricted part and could see the clear difference between restored wall and older wall.       

The top part of our climb was so steep that we were using our hands and feet to climb.  It was a little scary, but the view was spectacular.    

Finally, we met back up with Liz and Becky.

And took the alpine slides down!  No I did not expect to be able to jump in a cart and slide down from the Great Wall of China, but it was awesome.  

Becky took a picture of this funny old guy that was sitting outside the entrance smoking his wooden duck pipe.  Becky has been there 2-3 times over the last few years and has always seen this guy there.

Day 2 of our trip took us to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City.  This is the biggest public square in the world and has quite a history which I imagine you know about. 

On one side of the square rested the embalmed body of Mao Zedong who died in the 70's.  Yes he was embalmed and not embossed as I have been incorrectly telling people.  I'm not the best with words sometimes.  Anyway, the picture below shows the incredibly long line to see his body.  

The opposite side of the Square held the entrance to the Forbidden City with a huge portrait of Mao on the front, even though he had little to do with the city.

There were quite a few people walking through the city.  In fact, there a lots of people everywhere you go.  Many of the Chinese people are infatuated with Americans.  While we were walking around, aside from the many stares, a few people asked to have their picture taken with us.  We felt like celebrities.    

The Forbidden City is forbidden because no on was allowed in or out unless the Emperor gave permission.  Generally, men were not allowed.  This ensured that any women that got pregnant in the city were carrying heirs to the throne.  The Forbidden City housed the Emperors for 2 dynasties.  In general, each emperor built a new building during his or her reign.  

Many of the buildings were restricted to enter.  From what we could see from the outside, they contained thrones and other significant resting places or centers of worship.  Most of the buildings had cool names.  Some emperors focused on supremacy while others focused on harmony.  There was a Hall of Imperial Supremacy, but we were more interested in the Halls of Supreme and Middle Harmony.  The buildings we were allowed to enter contained some great ancient collections such as the jade item below.  

We also visited the Olympic Park from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

You may remember the Bird's Nest.  Interestingly, since the Chinese tend to build things very fast and to look nice, they often overlook structural integrity.  Though this was built just over 2 years ago, it is already showing signs of wear and is costing Beijing $9 million a year to maintain.  

All of those sites plus some shopping, crazy driving, and western food concluded our time in Beijing.  It was now time to do some more traveling.  Here is a map summarizing where we went.  We had a 5 hour train ride to Zhengzhou, followed by an hour car ride to Xinzheng where Becky works.  When we left Xinzheng, we had the hour car ride, followed by a 7 hour train ride to Shanghai.  I was going to make an Indian Jones style map video, but got lazy.     

Here are some pictures of Sias University where Becky works.  A good bit of the campus is modeled after other cultures.  The theme of the administrative building is East meets West.  The next 2 pictures are the same building from opposite sides.  

East:

Meets West:

They are supposed to be the entrance to the Forbidden City and the White House.  They call the next area Italian Square.  The square had a number of small shops and places to get food.  

The only stairway from the campus down to Italian Square was being renovated while we were there.  This work was done in one day.  I never really saw the workers working, but each time we went past it, a lot of work had been done.  I thought it picture worthy because of the odd method of laying brick, covering in concrete, and then topping with marble.  It was also interesting because nothing was roped off.  In America, that mess laying across open stairs would inevitably lead to a law suit from some student tripping.

Xinzheng is considered one of the birthplaces of the Chinese Nation and is located not far from the Yellow River.  It is considered to be a very small city for China.  I thought it would be fun to put a little perspective of one of their small cities.  Harrisburg, PA is a small city in America.  Its area is only 11.4 square miles and has a population of just under 50,000 people.  Xinzheng is half the size of Harrisburg with an area of only 5.8 square miles.  However, its population is over 600,000 people!  The picture below is in the square of Xinzheng.  The 2 guys are brothers and are considered to be the founders of China.           

This is an alleyway near the square.  The tailor Becky goes to is located at the end on the left.  Check out the excellent Chinese wiring on the right side.

Many of the vehicles were oddly shaped from what we are used to.  They are a bit more narrow which helps to cram 5-6 wide on their 4 lane streets.  Yes, driving is crazy.  Everyone just moves as a crowd, you honk your horn just to let people know you are passing, traffic signals are no more than recommendations, and driving in the oncoming lanes or on sidewalks is totally acceptable.  I thought the 3 wheeled trucks were worth a picture.  

The clothing the Chinese people wore was mostly beyond understanding.  Tradition determines the proper attire.  You wear heavy clothing and coats up until a certain date in April, and then switch.  It does not matter how warm or cold a particular day may be.  The children are always bundled up like the kid in A Christmas Story.  The kid below has on many many layers.  I think it protects them if they happen to fall, or maybe get hit by a car.  They would just bounce off and continue on their way.  They don't, however, wear diapers.  The seat of their pants is simply a whole to do their business wherever they happen to be.  I did not take a picture of this, so don't worry.  

We rented some bikes one day to see what life is like outside the city.  This is a nearby village.  Notice the old building in the middle surrounded by newer and ugly concrete buildings.

This is one of the main streets.

For reasons none of us were quite sure of, one of the buildings had a 4 step explanation on how to have a child.  There was a bit of detail written out that we couldn't read, but based on the pictures, it explains what is going on and that a doctor should be contacted.  Your guess is as good as mine as to why the 4th step shows a baby popping out of an egg.

Sarah, Liz, and I were all pleasantly surprised by the delicious food we had while staying at the university.  Our meals were family style and we were thankful to Joe and other colleagues of Becky's that knew the best dishes to order. The lazy susan in the middle was helpful since our plates were smaller than the diameter of your fist.  Fortunately, we had a little experience with chop sticks.

We also experienced Hot Pot where a big pot of broth is resting in the middle of the table with a propane tank beneath heating it.  Everyone makes selections from a wall of food on skewers to add to their pot.  After a few minutes, everyone digs in.  It is a time consuming meal as you spend a bit of time chasing after homemade noodles with your chopsticks while hoping not to burn yourself too bad.    

Just outside the front gate of the university is a wonderful group of vendors serving "street food."  They are out there every night making wraps of awesomeness right in front of you from scratch.  When you place an order, you ask for one, grab your choice of 7 skewers with vegetables and meats and the vendor goes to work.  Each vendor makes something a little different, but the food is all fairly similar.  The teachers have nick-names for each of the stations.  In the picture below, Liz and I are splitting a "crunchy goodness." 

To wrap up the trip, we all headed down to Shanghai.  We are walking on a popular road in the picture below where cars can't go and there are many shops and restaurants.  

Here is a picture of the 4 of us along the Bund with a portion of the Shanghai skyline in the background.  Every city has a large building that serves almost no purpose other than looking cool.  Shanghai has the pearl tower.  For a price, you can go up in the tower.  Their is a river between us and that section of the city that we didn't feel like crossing.    

We all throughly enjoyed the shopping in China.  Beijing and Shanghai had a number of "fake markets" for our shopping pleasure.  Since China isn't as strict with copyright laws, the merchandise has the correct name.  There were no prices for anything, you just have to stroll by seaming disinterested, let the vendor give you price, insult them with a much lower price, and then haggle to a reasonable solution.  Some people don't know the prices you can get, so the vendors always throw out silly high numbers to see if you will bite on.  I bought a Gucci wallet that the merchant priced at 250 yuan.  To which I offered to pay 20.  After she asked me if I was joking, we haggled for a bit longer.  I walked out a time or two, only to have the merchant yell down a better number to bring me back.  After 20 minutes or so, I bought the wallet for 33 yuan, or a little under $5.  Not a bad deal.  I'm sure we spent in excess of 8 hours shopping at these markets.  They were just so fun and rewarding when you got a good deal.   

And that is the trip.  We took over 1500 pictures!  And we have many more great stories and experiences if you haven't heard them yet.

Thank you for reading.

A Reasonable Design At Last

You may have noticed that I have switched around blog formats a couple times in the past month.  I’ve wanted to change it, and learned some new tricks to upload other designs from the web.  After a silly amount of time, I came to realize that there is not a single pre-made layout that I thought would suit my blog.  I had that scrapbook one for a while, but that wasn’t quite right, so I switched to a general one until I could figure out what to do. 

I finally decided to learn a bit about HTML and make my own.  Though I did start from a template I found online (Link Here), I edited most of the code to suit my needs.  After getting all the fonts and positioning just right, I decided I needed a little logo.  Again I browsed a bit online, and came to the conclusion that I should just draw my own.  The results of quite a bit of labor this week are before.  I must say I am quite happy.  I have a couple more ideas I plan to layer into this site, but I’m going to take a break for a while and get ready for China.   There will likely be no posts for a couple weeks, so I catch you on the flip side.

P.S.  I found one template that I liked quite a bit that I started modifying.  Here is a link.  I decided it was a little too girly and didn’t quite suit me.  But I did have some fun replacing all the little puzzle pieces with my drawn logo.

Thanks for reading.   

"It's Saint Patty's Day. It's all in good fun"

This wonderful holiday of greenness instills in me fond thoughts of Boondock Saints.  NOT Boondock Saints 2 which instills in me great remorse and the desire to hit myself repeatedly in the head until the knowledge of that movie goes away.  I thought I would just throw out some partially edited quotes for my reading audience.

Enjoy.  And if it you haven’t seen this movie, go find a copy right now.  Get mentally prepared for all the swearing, and just enjoy a great movie.   

Rosengurtie: Wait, rule of thumb? In the early 1900s it was legal for men to beat their wives, as long as they used a stick no wider than their thumb. 
Connor: [Sarcastic] Can't do much damage with that then, can we? Perhaps it should have been a rule of wrist? 

Detective Greenly: [giving his theory about the two dead Russians in the alley] This guy takes a blunt object, freakin', waah! Hits the guy with the bandages around his head, right? Why? 'Cause he's smart. He knows the guy with the bandages around his back, he ain't goin' nowhere. He's goin' freakin' nowhere. 
[to dead body] 
Detective Greenly: Where you goin'? Nowhere! 

Detective Greenly: Then he comes over here, jumps on this guy's back and crushes him to death... I feel something big here.  I wouldn't be surprised if we see more these turning up.

Paul Smecker: Brilliant. So now we got a huge guy theory, and a serial crusher theory. Top notch

Murphy: Ahh, F you! I'm sweatin' my butt off draggin' your stupid rope around. Must weigh thirty pounds. 
Connor: Shhh. We are doing some serious stuff here, now get a hold of yourself! 
Murphy: Oh, *f**k you*! I'm not the rope-totin' Charlie Bronson wannabe that's getting us lost! 

Paul Smecker: [walking through the hotel room] How many bodies, Greenly? 
Detective Greenly: Eight. 
[Smecker gives him a look] 
Detective Greenly: Ah, crap! I forgot about that one! Nine! Nine? 
Paul Smecker: While Greenly's out gettin' coffee, anybody else want anything? 

Paul Smecker: Now, you Irish cops are perking up. That's two sound theories in one day, neither of which deal with abnormally sized men. Kind of makes me feel like Riverdancing. 

Detective Dolly: So what's the symbology there? 

Murphy: We're sorta like 7-Eleven. We're not always doing business, but we're always open. 
Connor: That is nicely put. 

Connor: We haven't really got a system of deciding who, Roc. It's, uh... 
Rocco: Me! *Me*! I'm the guy! I know everyone! Their habits, who they hang out with, who they talk to! I've got phone numbers, addresses… I know where they live!  We could kill *everyone.* 
Murphy: So what do you think? 
Connor: I'm strangely comfortable with it.

Man in the street: OK? I'm ready to get busy too. You know, I'm ready to get *busy*. 

Z is for Zack

Is there a better way to end the alphabet?  I assure you there is not.  I thought it would be fun to close off this series of posts with some very random facts about the author of this blog.  Not knowing what they are at this point it time, I can predict that most will not surprise you, but the majority will none the less be fairly odd.

1. I’ve spent entirely too much time already thinking about Man Weekend 2010.  Despite the fact that I am going to be in China in less than two weeks, I’m already getting excited about the prospects of this year’s festival of manhood filled with fire, guns, competition, meat, and booze. 
2. I know exactly what I would ask for if I found a magic lamp with a genie granting me 3 wishes
1. Monetary:  I don’t want an abundance of wealth that I would have to worry about being taken or running out, or even tax implications.  I would simply like to be able to reach into my pocket and pull out the exact amount of money I want in any situation.  How awesome would that be?  Never having to worry about carrying money or balances.  “Hi, I would like to purchase that car.  How much will that be?... ok, here you go.”  I would like a hot dog please.  BAM. $1.50.  It would also be very convenient for traveling internationally as the power would clearly work for any currency.  “Here’s 800 yen… Here’s 50 Euros…. Here’s a goat.
2. Super Powers:  All of the powers of superman with the ability to turn them off and copy them to another person.  The powers of superman would clearly be awesome, but I feel like sometimes, you would just want to be normal.  I also think you would want to share your abilities with others, especially flying.  What good would it be if I can fly anywhere in the world and beyond if Liz and Wes couldn’t go with me?  Of course I would have to be very careful about who found out about my powers and almost no one could know my powers could be copied.  I’ll just have to deal with that problem as it comes up.
3. Set the genie free:  If genies exist, I can only assume that the Aladdin principles apply. 
3. In any social occasion, at almost any point, I would rather us play a competitive sport / activity than do what we are currently doing.  Sure I like sitting around and talking, or a good meal, or watching a movie, or a board game, but if any one in the room is up for a game of tennis, ping pong, football, ultimate Frisbee, basketball, etc.  Let’s go.
4. I’m George Costanza when it comes to public restrooms.  I’m not really exaggerating here.  The decisions I have made in past situations would probably shock you, but I’m not going into those stories here.  I will say that China is going to be an issue.  With some exaggeration, I’m thinking about just holding it.  Like George when he was in India. 
5.  I think I’m a darn good driver and would like so much to be a part of a car chase.  It doesn’t matter if I’m being chased or chasing someone else.
6. One thing I would love to do, but will most likely never get the opportunity, is get chased by some cops in an urban setting.
7. I spend more time than you could possibly imagine daydreaming about terrorists charging my current location with guns.  I know the exact plan that would execute to put myself in a position to counter-attack.  Though I am screwed in my office with high walls 3 stories up and my back to the door, I think I have a PK route from the front door of the office to the bottom floor if the elevators are out of service.  Clearly the stairs are a bad idea.  At the same time, I am always ready to flip some pews at church for cover.    
8. I can’t wait until I have my own place where I can build a workshop to forge.
9. From time to time I think to myself that I could build an alternate energy fueled rocket pack in my spare time.  I have to force myself to the reality that I would inevitably fail.
10. Enough people have commented me on my writing to make me want to write a book.  Though completely ludicrous to think I could get published, it’s fun to dream.  I am, however, strongly considering writing a short story to put on my blog.  How could I even begin to think about success in a book if my short story is crap?   
11. I am way too trusting of people.
12. I want to engage in a fist fight for noble reasons.
13. I am completely convinced that I am in no way meeting my potential in life.

Thank you all for reading along through the alphabet. I thought number 13 was a good number to end on cause well…. 14.  I’m not superstitious.   

Y is for Yearn

KRAMER: Do you ever yearn?
GEORGE: Yearn? Do I yearn?
KRAMER: I yearn.
GEORGE: You yearn.
KRAMER: Oh, yes. Yes, I yearn. Often, I...I sit...and yearn. Have you yearned?

GEORGE: Well, not recently. I craved. I crave all the time, constant craving...but I haven't yearned.

-Seinfeld

I had no idea what I wanted to blog about when I starting writing today.  Having nothing significant, I just typed a few random thoughts.  They seemed to blend well together into some sort of a poem.  Perhaps it is deep, but it is most likely crap.  Either way, I shall share it with the world. 

Just a blank canvas awaiting greatness.

Merely a decent quote amongst a sea of formless drivel.

I want to do better, I could do better, but I fail to be better.

If actions speak louder than words, to what volume can I assign hopes and dreams?

Perhaps I am muted.

Pff... X

Forget X!!

I was going to post X for XKCD since that comic is awesome.  I started making a list of my favorite posts when I realized...  

I don't want to give X the satisfaction.

W is for Weston

How could W not be for Weston?  Our baby boy is growing up.  I can’t believe I am the father of a 14 month old.  Time has gone by so fast, but at the same time, it is weird to remember him not being able to hold his head up, or just lying on the floor like a lump.  I decided to pick one of my favorite pictures of him from each month of his life, leaving out the present month due to my last post.  It has been wonderful to look back at the pictures and remember the different stages.  I tried to pick pictures that were really good, but at the same time, not on our walls or sent out to many other people.  You will most likely recognize some of the pictures because they were just too cute not to put on this post.  It was incredibly hard to narrow down each month to one picture since we have well over 6000 pictures of Wes so far, but I just picked one and went with it before I drove myself mad.  I think Liz took most of these, but Becky contributed quite a few, as well as a couple lucky shots I happened on.  It’s possible there is another photographer in there as well, so I apologize if I didn’t give you mention.  

Enjoy.