A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step

Mid-winter blues...

2012-01-28T14:38:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact we've had no snow, I've found myself saddled with the mid-winter blues. Being inside all the time, arguing with myself over what to wear for either a 60 degree day or a 20 degree day and just wanting to throw open the windows and get some fresh air and sun...while all my thoughts turn to San Diego in five weeks, it's going by so sloooowly.

I cashed in two "thank you for posting on Fodors, we've used your quote in another guide book" offers to get two new guide books for myself: Germany 2012 and The Ultimate Safari Planning Guide. Not that I have any intention of doing either this year. Well, ok, let's not kid ourselves here, I am seriously contemplating Germany in September. The safari guide, though, is calling to me. I'd earmarked that trip for The Next Milestone Birthday, but I'm not sure I can wait another 8 years to execute the plan!

Germany is sort of falling into place in my mind. I'd fly into Munich for 4 days or so, fly to Berlin for 5 days (day trips to Dresden and Brunswick for the Vermeers) then fly to Frankfurt and spend a 10 hour layover on the ground there just to see its Vermeer. My sister is thinking of joining me, so it could be the next chapter of the Sisterly Quest for Vermeer tour. We'll see. I have the Boston Globe Travel Show coming up in a few weeks; who knows what ideas I'll find there that will sway me....

San Diego it is!

2012-01-10T09:10:00.000-05:00

I bit the bullet on Sunday and booked the trip to San Diego with my fellow panda-phile from DC. I'm so looking forward to getting away, going somewhere warm and sunny that I already love and sharing pandas with someone who is as interested as I am.

I've been to San Diego before, back in 2001. I went to see U2 play in both San Diego and Anaheim as well as to visit Hua Mei, the panda cub I'd been virtually raising via panda cam way back when. I stayed with a local on Coronado Island (heaven on earth!) and we ventured off the island only for the show and to eat in Old Town. That one meal was hands down the best Mexican food I've ever had.

But the bigger resolution is the inner calm I have now as I've got another trip to look forward to. Once the holidays passed, I had inner turmoil like a nagging itch I couldn't scratch. I had nothing in the pipeline, nothing to look forward to. This did it. For now.

In looking ahead to a return to China in 2013, I got the United Airlines credit card, which gets me 25,000 miles on the spot and another 10,000 over coming months. That, combined with miles from my last China trip and this trip to California, should, in theory, get me an upgrade at least one way to China. But the card itself comes with some pretty handy perks, like free checked baggage, priority boarding and United lounge passes. Yee ha!

So, seven weeks until California, tasty Mexican food, warm weather (and more pandas!)!

Thinking about....

2012-01-07T17:38:00.002-05:00

San Diego! As I loathe winter, what better March trip to look forward to than glorious San Diego? And their three pandas... Hold tight till I book it.

Atlanta -- Day Four

2011-12-12T23:00:00.030-05:00

My last day in Atlanta started pretty much the same as the last three. Only difference being today I had to check out. I left my luggage with the able-bodied concierge and off I went. My goal was to be at the zoo at opening and hope that my panda pals were awake and entertaining visitors. I would not be disappointed.

Once again I walked to the Civic Center bus stop and ran for the #32 bus, only to find it was going to sit there for about 20 minutes before leaving. That always makes me feel silly for running for it, but hey, I burned off half a waffle doing that run. Maybe. The bus ride out only took about 20 minutes this time and now I knew where to pull the cord to request the stop. I was an old pro at this. I walked over to the gate of the zoo and realized it opened at 9:30, not 9:00, so instead of being 20 minutes late, I was 10 minutes early. I spent that time shivering in the cold (41 degrees) Atlanta morning.

After relinquishing my last CityPass ticket (I had used all five), I did some speed walking right to the panda area. In the first outdoor enclosure was a male panda, but I wasn't sure who, either Yang Yang or Xi Lan. It turned out that it was Yang Yang, who had very little interest in anything but munching bamboo much of the day. Xi Lan was such an utter flirt and camera hog on Friday, it was sort of a bummer to learn his dad isn't the same.

But my reward was in the next outdoor enclosure, where I found mom Lun Lun and baby Po out and about. Lun was eating and Po was wandering around. For the next 90 minutes, I had these two all to myself, with the exception of a very nice and chatty volunteer. I moved to the enclosed part of the panda area, and sat up against the glass of the outdoor enclosure. When Lun and Po started walking around, they were literally on the other side of the glass. I was lucky enough to have them pass close by (close enough to touch...well, but for the glass!) and both even stopped to look at me looking at them a couple times. It was fabulous. I learned a lot from the volunteer about this particular panda family and shared some of what I learned in China. Finally around 11 or so, Po settled down for a nap, then Lun did too, so I moved on to visit other animals.

The tiger cubs were up next and they were really putting on a show. As I approached their enclosure one of them was right at the glass and was licking it. I caught him mid-lick and he put his paw up against the glass like he was saying hi. He let me get pretty close before running off after his sister. I am thrilled with my photos of them as well. For a non-photographer, I did pretty well.

At 12:45, I ascertained that most of the other animals were inside and even papa panda Yang Yang was asleep. There was no sense standing out in the cold waiting for animals to wake up, so I returned to the downtown area. I was cold and hungry with lots of time to kill, so decided to have a big meal now and something smaller at the airport. I got off the metro near Fox Theater and walked to Mary Mac's Tearoom, which Frommers calls and Atlanta institution.

Mary Mac's is interesting...it is a bit dated in decor but also in menu prices. My meal was a whopping $11. I had meatloaf with fried green tomatoes and sweet potato souffle and sweet tea. I'd read about the sweet tea and decided to try it despite the fact that I don't actually like iced tea. It was quite good, very sweetened (sugar!). The meatloaf was fairly good, the fried green tomatoes were a bit weak but the highlight was the sweet potato souffle, which had marshmallows and brown sugar on top. NICE! My dessert choice (peanut butter pie) had just run out, but I was full, so I paid my tab and moved on. I'd pass on Mary Mac's if I were to return to Atlanta. It just paled in comparison to the other meals I'd had on this trip.

I really struggled deciding what to do with the rest of my day. I had about 3 1/2 hours until I had to head to the airport. Ultimately I paid another $26 to return to the aquarium. I spent half my time watching the whale sharks in the big tank and the other half watching the belugas. I stored up mental images for those times I need to relax and think of something zen. These underwater beauties will do it.

At 5:15 I took the Metro back to the airport and was all checked in and eating a salad at my gate by 6:30. Take off was at 7:30 and we had an early arrival back in Boston at 10 p.m.

All in all it was a great trip. I'd definitely return to Atlanta for the zoo, the aquarium and the food. Had I only visited the zoo and the aquarium once, the CityPass would have been a huge savings (I paid $69 for admission to sites that would have been $96 individually). Sure, I may not have visited World of Coca Cola otherwise, but sine it was nearby and essentially free, why not?

Atlanta -- Day Three

2011-12-11T16:01:00.001-05:00

Another night of solid sleep makes me wonder if I was running at a deficit or am just starting to unwind? Anyway, up at 8:00 and today I exercised some restraint at breakfast. I had the chef whip up some waffles and I had strawberries and pineapple, one cheese blintz, OJ and coffee. Miraculously, another carb-laden breakfast lasted me until well after 1:00. Those waffles were delectable. Very light and fluffy.

I headed out into a very cold Atlanta morning. Hey, I left Boston thinking it’d be warmer, why am I wrapping a scarf around my neck and hunkering down against the wind? I took the MARTA to Five Points and switched to the Blue Line to take me to the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site, which is on Auburn Avenue where he was born, preached and was buried from (and is still buried today). I went to the National Park Service’s information center, which had some interesting exhibits on his life and sermons. There was a LOT of video and photos I’d never seen before, as well as a theater that ran movies on his life. On the corner is the new Ebenezer Baptist Church which is across the street from the (now non-functioning) original. Next to that is the King Center where King’s and his wife Coretta’s tomb is outside. Up the street about a block is his birth home. This is the second time recently I’ve visited sites with the National Park Service (Philly was the other) and I’m impressed by how friendly and informative the rangers are. This was a good experience on its own. But something told me to go to church.

So just before 11 I headed into Ebenezer Baptist Church, where I was welcomed by a member. She handed me the program for today and asked me to complete a visitor’s card. I was led inside and I had my pick of seats among the congregants. Everyone made eye contact and smiled and welcomed me. I was quite obviously a visitor. The service started with lots of music and people standing to sway and wave their arms. The music was amazing, really very uplifting. Very early in the service, a member of the congregation stood at the mic and read out the names and hometowns of visitors. Oh good lord, there was a reason for filling out that card? When visitors heard their names, they were asked to stand and remain standing. Once all visitors were standing, the music started up again and the regular members all walked and greeted each visitor with a handshake and “God bless” or “Hallelujah” or “Happy Holidays”. I was blown away. Here I was, miles from home in a church not my own and I was made to feel welcome right away.

The pastor was energetic and inspiring. His sermon was based on a reading from Matthew where Joseph was told to take Jesus and Mary and flee from Bethlehem. If he had stayed in one place, Jesus may not have lived. The pastor wove that story into the moral that we must step outside of our comfort zone, that in order to fulfill our destiny we have to move on, but bearing in mind that however small it feels where we are now, from something small, something big can grow. Like Jesus growing from the animals’ trough in the manger to the cross. Those of you who know me know that I don’t consider myself terribly religious but for some reason these words rang true. After a few more songs and a benediction, the service ended, a very quick 2 hours later. I was glad I followed my whim, that was a memory made for certain.

I took the MARTA to the High Museum of Art, which I was hoping would have some of my favorite Impressionists on display and I was planning to pop into the Picasso to Warhol (from MOMA in NYC) exhibition. Alas, I only found one Monet and it was a canal view from Zaandam in Holland. I really should have remembered how much I cannot seem to appreciate modern art, because while I’m sure the exhibition was good – 14 artists selected by MOMA to be shown together in the south – I felt like I was drowning in art I just couldn’t “get”. I was also reminded how blessed we are in Boston to have the MFA with such a stellar collection.

Tired and cold, I headed back to the room to blog and email and warm up with a cappuccino. I canceled my pre-existing reservation for tonight to hopefully get into Pitty Pat’s Porch, a very popular Southern restaurant nearby. Here’s hoping…

Editing to add: I actually did make it to Pitty Pat's Porch. They weren't very busy yet at 5:30 when I went by. I thought for sure I'd be fighting to get in. The server here was phenomenal too. I'm starting to think it's "just" southern hospitality and not that they're great servers! Anyway, I started with a peach margarita which was fabulous and apparently bottomless and very strong on the spirits. I had the fried green tomatoes (as usual, but I love them!) and a couple of wonderful, warm sweet potato muffins that came with the meal (instead of corn bread which I'd been expecting). I had the Savannah crabcakes over grits, with a red pepper sauce lightly drizzled over it (can you tell this was to die for?). With the entree, diners have access to the side bar, which is like a Southern style salad bar. I skipped most of the salad fixings and instead tried things like macaroni salad, chicken salad and black-eyed peas (which seem more like beans?) I managed to save enough room for a heavenly bowl of hot peach cobbler with cinnamon ice cream. Sinful! All this well worth the expectation!

Atlanta -- Day Two

2011-12-10T21:13:00.000-05:00

I slept like a rock last night. I think the long weeks at work, the early wake up yesterday and all the activity outside yesterday ran me down. I woke at 7:45 and had my free breakfast downstairs in the hotel restaurant Sear. Let’s call it Carb-Fest 2011. It consisted of a cheese blintz, a sticky pecan roll, a buttermilk biscuit, oatmeal with maple syrup, one “high protein turkey sausage” and a bowl of strawberries and red grapefruit. I had two glasses of OJ and a cup of coffee. I didn’t think all the carbs would stick with me but I would manage to make it from 8:30 to 1:00 without feeling hungry at all!

I walked about 10 minutes from the hotel to Georgia Aquarium. I was looking forward to this but I had no idea that I would enjoy it as much as I did. The aquarium opened in 2007 (I think) and is really well laid out and executed. There are 5 areas you can visit: Ocean Explorer, River Scout, Cold Water Quest, Georgia Explorer and Tropical Diver. There is also a dolphin gallery where visitors can walk up to the side of a large tank to see a pair of dolphins swimming at eye level. This is in the same gallery as the Dolphin Tales show. Since I bought the City Pass, I got a free Quick Dip tour and access to the 4-D movie (which I skipped) and I paid extra for the Dolphin Tales show.

I started in River Scout, which was interesting with its albino alligators, piranha and otters but also because there was a running river overhead for most of the exhibit with river-dwelling fish, which was cool. I then went to the next gallery which was the Cold Water Quest and there I saw four beluga whales. I think I’d seen some at Mystic before but these were just exceptional. I love to be able to walk up to the side of the tanks and the animals are just swimming right by me. Or in this case the belugas were hanging out (literally) right in front of me. The volunteer guide there was really nice and we talked about the beluga. He said one female was pregnant for the first time, due in the spring. I found them just so zen to watch, the way they move so slowly, deliberately, like one large muscle contracting its way with the flow of the water. I came back to the beluga at least three times, I was that fascinated by them. In the same cold water exhibit were penguins and sea otters. The penguins were pretty cute, as they are.

The Quick Dip tour was worth it if only to get to the top of the Ocean Explorer tank and see how it works, how it’s filtered and how the giant whale sharks are fed. It was just fascinating. It also took us atop of River Scout, so we saw how the overhead river was designed and maintained.

Walking through the Ocean Explorer is really cool. The whale sharks are up to 24 feet long and just massive. They are so big that they cannot be taken out of the water because they rely on the buoyancy of the water to keep their body weight from crushing itself. Sort of freaky. I timed it to be there for the feeding of the whale sharks, during which the feeders get into rubber rafts with colored buckets on the end of poles. The whale sharks know “their” boat and the color of their bucket so they start flocking to them, as do hundreds of little fish. Believe it or not, an animal as big as the whale shark has a throat only the width of a quarter, so the feeders pour crill (really fine plankton, shrimp and chopped sardines) into its mouth, where the whale shark filters the water out and swallows the crill material. It is sort of a non-sequitur that an animal that big can’t eat anything bigger. I was really impressed.

The Tropical Diver exhibit had a large coral exhibit with fish, but to keep the coral alive, they had to simulate a wave crashing over it by forcing 6000 gallons of water across the reef every 2 minutes, so as to deliver much needed oxygen to the coral. It was extremely interesting to see the lengths the aquarium went to to simulate reality.

The Dolphin Tale show was really cheesy (with singing and over-acting characters) but it was neat to see what they could make the 11 dolphins do as tricks.

I finally left the aquarium at 12:30, over 3 hours after I arrived. I really had to restrain myself from a $250 “swim with belugas” experience. Being so mesmerized by then, it would have been cool, but I thought it rather impulsive. I could have probably taken another couple passes through my favorite exhibits, but I had two more stops I wanted to make today. I picked up a quick burrito at Baja Fresh and went to CNN. This was also on the City Pass. The Studio Tour was about an hour and took the group through the newsroom and showed us how some of the technical things work, like teleprompter, green screen and how the director cues up shots and segments for live tv. A lot of the CNN personalities I’m aware of don’t actually broadcast out of Atlanta, so no Anderson Cooper sightings, but Nancy Grace and Sanjay Gupta do work there, but not on Saturdays. It was pretty cool to see the studios and get behind the scenes though.

I passed through Centennial Olympic Park, which lies in the middle of all of these attractions. There are national flags of countries in the games and the Olympic fountain. As it was pretty darn cold out there today, not a lot of people were dabbling in the fountain. That was the area that had the bombing during the 1996 Olympics. Also on the way out to the zoo yesterday, the bus passed Turner Field, which was built for the games too. I think the torch for the flame is out that way as well.

My last stop of the day was World of Coca Cola. I hadn’t planned on visiting this but it was in the neighborhood and I still had time before dinner. It was hugely cheesy, as you might expect. The tour starts with an animated movie that has some sort of non-Coke related social message that already escapes me. Then visitors are let loose into the rest of the museum, which has exhibits on bottling, Coke paraphernalia (like old vending machines and merchandise from around the world), the polar bear (man in costume that was creepily realistic). Most of this was easily skippable since I am not terribly interested in Coke, but I did enjoy the theater that ran Coca Cola commercials through the years, many of which I remember, and ads from around the world. The fun part though was the tasting gallery, which had 64 Coke products from around the world to sample. They range from vile to sicky sweet to jealously delicious. I really liked the pineapple Fanta from Greece and the candy pine nut “Bibo” from South Africa. However, trying dozens of carbonated, full-sugared flavors in a relatively short period of time left me gassy and stuck in a sugar induced orbit. Yikes.

Dinner tonight was at Fandangles at the Sheraton Hotel. I will admit that the reason I chose it when researching restaurants on Open Table was for the appetizer. Frickles and Frings was a fried pickle, fried onion string, banana pepper basket that was quite simply to die for. I had a peach martini with them which was just wonderful. My main course was chicken and dumplings in a sage butter sauce. The dumplings were sweet potato gnocchi. Really very tasty. I was too full for dessert (as much as I wanted the peach cobbler) so I had a double chocolate martini (Godiva Chocolate Vodka and Godiva Chocolate Liqueur).

Overall I am enjoying Atlanta. I am finding the downtown area where I am staying to be really empty. I’m sure some of it has to do with it being the weekend and the off-season, but there are not a lot of people around here. The people I’ve talked to are very friendly and kind. The hostess and the waiter at the restaurant tonight called me Miss Amy. I think it’s funny. One thing though is that a lot of people are very slow paced and I am not. I find it hard to slow down. Surprise.

Early to bed tonight…not sure how or when to start the day tomorrow…High Museum of Art doesn’t open until noon.

Atlanta -- Day One

2011-12-09T20:27:00.001-05:00

Up at 5 a.m. and at the airport by 7 a.m. Left the car at Park Shuttle & Fly again (as always) and had a Starbucks breakfast…hey it’s vacation.

Flight on Delta took off at 8:30 a.m. and we had a headwind most of the way so landed at 11:25. I killed the flight watching Real Housewives of NY on the iPod and reading magazines. The trip was completely uneventful and smooth.

I sat next to a guy who was apparently from the south and I said “huh?” or “excuse me?” when he spoke more than I ever have in any foreign country I’ve been to. What language are they speaking anyway?

It was a fairly easy but long walk to pick up luggage and then jump on the MARTA to downtown, which took about 20 minutes. I got off at Peachtree Center and it was not even a 3 minute walk to the Marriott Marquis, a massive tower in the middle of downtown. So far, so convenient. At check-in I agreed to a high floor and a $10 upgrade which will get me a city view. I ended up on the 43rd floor and am not disappointed. This is not the New York City skyline, but it’s still pretty darn nice. The room is large and the bed is huge and comfy. After a vertigo-inducing ride up in a glass elevator (yes, glass all the way up!) I find myself at the end of the hall, so this should be really quiet!

I grabbed a quick chicken salad sandwich in the deli in the lobby and ate by 1 and headed right out for Zoo Atlanta. I had to walk about 4 blocks to the Civic Center MARTA stop where I caught a bus to the zoo. For $2.50 (I bought a reloadable Breezecard for transit fares), it took about a half hour to get out to the zoo, but the bus dropped me right in front. I arrived just about 2:00 and ran to the ticket window. I bought a CityPass, which will get me into 5 sights in Atlanta for $69, but I planned to come back for most of the day Monday, so I paid to get into the zoo today too.

Of course, I ran directly to the pandas. The first enclosure had one male; it was just a matter of figuring out who it was, since I knew it was either older brother Xi Lan or dad Yang Yang. I watched him for a bit as he walked around the enclosure. The next enclosure had a sleeping panda on the play structure (who I quickly figured out was mom Lun Lun) and the 13 month old cub Po sound asleep down in the moat on the drain grate. I was so deflated. I waited so long to see him and he and his mom Lun Lun were asleep? I moved to the inside enclosure and found Yang Yang (known for the white patch on his back left paw) doing somersaults in his enclosure, which was really funny. So that meant if I was watching Yang Yang do somersaults, then the first guy I saw was Xi Lan. I went back and found him lounging against a rock like an old man in a recliner. He really responded to doting and attention. He reminded me so much of Lu Lu in China! After spending some time and taking some photos of the pandas who were awake, I went off to explore more of the zoo.

I found the tiger enclosure pretty nearby and saw the two tiger cubs born this summer. They were the size of small dogs but loaded with energy. Neither would sit still for long and they spent time chasing and pouncing on each other, climbing trees, running all around. They were just non-stop action. I also found one red panda (sleeping) and a male lion lounging on a rock. Since I plan to go back on Monday, I really focused on what was important to me now, which was the pandas and the tiger cubs.

The zoo is nice, really well landscaped and laid out. They have a nice assortment of animals and lots of snack bars and two big gift shops. But mid-day on a Friday in winter, I was nearly alone there. In fact, when I went back to the pandas, I was alone.

I finally got back to the pandas to find Po just having woken up. I couldn’t believe I was seeing my little rock star! Po and Lun were moved to their indoor enclosure, with the hammock that I see so often every day on panda cam. I sat on the floor right next to the glass and watched them both eat the bamboo and biscuits that the keepers had just left out for them. It was just amazing to be there watching them that close!

I decided to head back to downtown at 4:45. The bus came by 4:50 and I was back downtown at 5:25. I checked photos and email quickly before dinner and then headed to Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint for dinner. At first I didn’t think I’d like the atmosphere because there was live music (Duh, it is a juke joint) but I ended up enjoying having something to watch while I ate. I had fried green tomatoes for appetizer, shrimp and grits for dinner and apple cinnamon bread pudding for dessert. I also had a Texas marga-tini for a drink. It was all really good. I could eat buttery grits all day, I think.

Exhausted, I hit bed early and dozed as I wrote this…Up early tomorrow for the aquarium.

How has China changed me?

2011-11-25T14:08:00.001-05:00

How will China change me? What little piece of me needs to be adjusted, corrected, expanded, modified? What preconceived notions do I have that will be remedied? When I look back six months from now, how will my thinking have changed? I've been grappling with this over the weekend as my wait starts to dwindle and I start to think about actually being there as opposed to all that's done to get there.

Back in August, that was what I was thinking. I was so unsure of what I was about to undertake and so influenced by what others had said that I was worried that this was all going to go horribly wrong.

What have I learned about myself? What has changed about the way I think?

Now that I have had time to think and clear my head of jetlag, I realize that I grew as a person and as a human being. I think I overcame a lot of mental hurdles and challenges that were hurdles and challenges just in my own head. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd survive squatty potties (I mean, really, I was wiping spattered pee off the inside of my legs...that was not exactly on my bucket list). I took on the cuisine and not only survived, I actually enjoyed a lot of it; I ate hot and spicy, I tried to eat things I would never have tried at home and I managed to eat a sustainable diet, not just sample things to say I did so. I saw little kids peeing on the steps of shops, on sidewalks, on front stoops. I saw people working with tools and farming implements that were rendered obsolete in America sometime in the 1800s. I'm not saying I necessarily processed all of this well, of course there was initially some shock, but this is why I travel.

I was much more tolerant than I expected. I normally do not process pollution or crowds or less-than-ideal conditions well. So either I didn't encounter pollution or crowds or less-than-ideal conditions as I had expected to, or they weren't that bad to begin with. Or I just became more tolerant.

Eye opening experiences are generally mind-opening experiences. The woman who was shucking corn by painstakingly picking it off the cob one kernel at a time? Sure, I actually did say that Kitchens Etc. has a kitchen tool for that and it's probably in my gadget drawer at home where it sits relatively unused. But there's no Kitchens Etc. in China and certainly not in the back roads of Sichuan province. This was the only way the woman knew how to do it, so that's how she was doing it. Is there another way? Perhaps for us. But is our way better? Who knows.

I also learned that there is joy to be found in small encounters and in surrounding myself with positive people. Going into this trip, I thought that it might be nice to hold a panda and it might be fun to work with them, feed them, sit and watch them by the hour. Never did I realize how overcome with emotion I would be by feeling the heft of a squirmy one year old cub on my lap or being held captive by a handsome 15 year old male bear who I still swear to this day was flirting with me. What gorgeous, gentle, sweet creatures they are and what a relaxing, joyous vibe do they give off. I can think back to every encounter still, and smile. I try to enjoy the smaller things to elicit that same feeling, like visiting zoos, museums, walking the beach, reveling in a little peace and quiet. I know I don't have to go all the way to China to find a moment like that, but sometimes it's work to get there mentally.

Even more so though, I realized that traveling with a group of strangers ain't all bad. In fact, our group was pretty darn amazing. Everyone was so positive and upbeat and supportive and friendly. As an uptight Yankee with a pretty pessimistic, cynical streak, I found it almost dream-like to spend almost 2 weeks with hardly a complaint, a negative vibe or a reason to see the glass as anything less than half full. I've tried to carry that feeling over to my post-China life, ridding myself where I can of negativity, bad vibes and pessimism. It's harder than I thought but overall a good practice. I'd go so far as to say I'd definitely travel with another group, but I'm not sure I'll ever find another to top the "Best Tour Group Ever" that I found in China. So to Dan, Naomi, Kim, Bev, Paula, Linda, Tracy, Margie and Marcia, I say thank you for being part of one of the best experiences of my life. We all made this trip what it was!

Finally, and perhaps a little strange, I have an all new respect for the color red. I hadn't realized while I was in China how pervasive it is and it becomes more apparent when I flip through the 2000+ photos I have, especially on the darker, rainier days it seems that the only color is red. Now I can be drawn back to China any time I unexpectedly come across red like that, whether it's a flag, a lantern, a bright red jacket. Funny how those things stay with you.

There are still too many snapshots like that that I have to process. I need to think about it all and let it sink in longer. Already though, I feel stronger, I feel more open-minded. China was as foreign a place as I have ever been but I took it on and survived, which, looking back now, I'm surprised I ever doubted myself.

Next Up: Atlanta

2011-10-19T15:16:00.001-04:00

I don't know what hit me, but today I booked my next excursion. I'd been throwing around a few European destinations and just want something quick and easy for right before Christmas. Europe is running a bit too expensive for "quick and easy" right now. So, Atlanta, tie up your pandas, I'm coming down! The Atlanta Zoo has four pandas now, not to mention a new litter of tiger cubs, all of whom I watch religiously on the zoo webcams. So that is the primary destination, as is Georgia Aquarium, CNN Headquarters and the Museum of High Art. That's just what I know off the top of my head.

Interesting, I had no idea it is so cheap to fly to Atlanta, the fare was $150 total, and even a very good, centrally located hotel is $100 a night (AAA discount)??? Wow.

Philly In A Day - amybatt style

2011-10-18T15:25:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday, I made the second in a series of one day jaunts to a major city in the Northeast. As you may remember, I made a similar jaunt to Washington DC back in the spring (and will go again next month). My purpose for these one-day trips is to take advantage of budget airfares and maximize the time on the ground.

As before, I booked Park Shuttle and Fly ahead and left my car there at 6:00 in the morning for a 7:15 flight on US Airways direct to Philadelphia. The beauty of this strategy is that the PS&F Shuttle will take you directly to your terminal without having to pay for parking in the garages there (PS&F is only $16.50 for the day with a coupon) so right away, you have car to door service. Having checked in online the day before, I could go right through security and to the gate. I allowed plenty of time and enjoyed a Starbucks iced coffee and cinnamon scone while I waited for my flight to board.

I'd heard US Airways runs late frequently and was surprised that we took off almost on time. That was balanced though, by seemingly endless circling around the airport in Philly before we landed, some 10 minutes late. That delay was just enough for me to miss the 9:10 SEPTA train into Suburban Station, so rather than wait for the 9:40 train and lose time getting to the museum, I took a cab to Love Plaza for $32. It took all of 15 minutes to get there.

I knew the Love logo statue is a famous Philly landmark and had planned to go there once I arrived at nearby Suburban Station, so I had the cab leave me there. The park was smaller than I expected and it was quite quick to find the statue, which is also smaller than I imagined but still cool to see, propped up on a stand so that the Philadelphia Museum of Art and pretty Benjamin Franklin Parkway fall behind it as a back drop. I ended up paying a homeless guy $1 to take my photo with the statue. That was my only option as there seemed to be only homeless people in that area at that hour. That done, I walked over to take photos of the pretty strikingly white City Hall and the "Your Move" statues (giant board game pieces) in the plaza across from City Hall.

From there, I walked up the parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I had an 11:30 reservation for the Rembrandt exhibit there and wanted to see some of the permanent collection beforehand. I made it easily by 10:00. On the way down the parkway, I passed the now-closed-for-renovation Rodin Museum and the future site of the now-closed Barnes Collection. Once both of those are open, this will truly be a museum mile to behold. Again, this walk from the plaza to the museum was another case where the distance on the map seemed grossly exaggerated. I found tucked to the side of the museum the statue of Rocky Balboa, who, in his first movie, famously ran up the steps to this museum. I later learned that it was sculpted to live at the top of the steps, but the museum graciously declined that offer. So I ran up the steps (not nearly as bad as climbing the Great Wall!) and entered the museum with my pre-paid admission ticket which I'd gotten online a few weeks ago; $25 for the exhibition and museum admission.

I spent about an hour and 15 minutes going through the European collection, as that most suited my tastes. The museum has a nice collection of Monets, I think about 18 in total. I'd seen a few at the Monet exhibit in Paris back in December, but it was nice to see them displayed here as the museum meant for them to be seen. In particular I loved the Manne-Porte at Etretat, The Zuiderkerk, Amsterdam (Looking up the Groenburgwal) and Bend in the River Epte Near Giverny. I also saw a great Vincent Van Gogh that I loved as well as an interesting, uncharacteristically large, uncharacteristically nude Large Bathers by Renoir. I also took a pass through the earlier European gallery but wasn't terribly moved by anything I saw there.

A little after 11:00 I headed past the entrance to the Rembrandt exhibit and good thing I did, as the line was already forming for the 11:30 entry time. I didn't get in until almost 11:45. Despite the museum letting visitors in a trickle at a time, it was still a bit more crowded than I would have liked, but like any other exhibition I've been to, most visitors eventually peter out and lose steam by the end, so it was more comfortable the further into the exhibit I got. The premise of the exhibition was that Rembrandt changed the way artists generally painted the visage of Jesus by creating his own style and manner of interpreting Jesus. Before this, artists ordinarily painted Jesus following the description set out in the Lentilus Letter (written by someone who'd actually seen Jesus) or on either of two cloths that retained the impression of Jesus' face while he was living (the Veil of Veronica and Mandylion). Following those guidelines meant that all depictions of Jesus looked pretty much the same. But Rembrandt injected a character and spirit into his versions of Jesus which made them live, and the way the paintings and drawings are displayed chronologically allows the viewer to see that transition quite easily. Unfortunately, most of the drawings are very small and the large-scale nature of the exhibition made it hard to view them in a crowd so big, but the paintings were indicative on their own of Rembrandt's transformation. Most striking, I thought, was a wall of nothing but paintings of the head of Jesus done either by Rembrandt himself or his studio, which reflects this new style and life-like quality over a series of very similar views and angles.

After the exhibition, I escaped a very crowded museum and boarded the Phlash bus ($2 per ride or all day access for $5), which took me to Reading Terminal Market, where I'd be meeting my friend Susan for lunch. She wasn't there yet, so I popped into the Philadelphia Hard Rock Cafe and bought a City-T as I usually do. We then walked to the market, which is a food market of just the best sort: too much choice, lots of incredible smells and a very hungry belly. Because we had a very rich meal planned for later, we both opted for a large salad bar place but splurged on a warm cookie right out of the oven at one of the bakeries.

The walk to the historical area where we'd spend the rest of the day took about 20 minutes down Market Street. As I'd never seen any of the historical sights, this was the crux of the visit. I'd reserved a tour of Independence Hall, which was a good thing since even in mid-October, the tours still sold out that day. After picking up our reserved tickets, we walked to the Christ Church burial ground, where Benjamin Franklin is buried. For a small fee, we were able to enter the cemetery and find a few other signers of the Declaration of Independence as well as toss a penny (for "a penny saved is a penny earned") on Franklin's grave. From there we visited the building that houses the Liberty Bell. A fairly lengthy line outside this moved quickly (no admission fee, just a quick bag/security check) and we were inside and out again within 20 minutes. The couple hundred feet leading from the entrance to the bell itself were full of educational exhibits about the bell and indeed liberty itself, but we skipped those to save time (3:45 tour across the street was approaching) and saw the Bell itself. I was duly impressed, I must say. It is polished to a dark copper shine and nicely set out on its own and given the spotlight, so to speak. But again, without the lead up to it, it's really a quick photo stop.

Across the street we went through still another security check to get into Independence Hall. The Park Ranger strongly suggested (no, mandated, let's be honest about that) that we arrive at least a half hour before our tour time, which meant after the security check we had a half hour to kill just sitting in the courtyard, which was pretty enough. Independence Hall, however, is under scaffolding, so if you are hoping to see it any time soon, you're out of luck, but for a faded scrim that barely registers the facade over the scaffolding. I had low expectations for the tour but the park ranger who led it was wonderful. She was entertaining and provided the perfect amount of information and detail. The most interesting room is the room where both the Declaration of Independence and, later, the Constitution were signed. Of course everyone has seen this in paintings as as the park ranger reminded us more than once "just about anyone who was anyone was in this room to sign." She also gave me pause because I'd never really thought about how much a risk all of them took in signing the Declaration, especially. That equated to being a traitor to Great Britain, essentially, and was a big risk to both the signers' lives and that of their families. Just something to think about...

After the tour we walked a bit more, passing Betsy Ross's house (notable really only in that it was her house) on the way to Elfreth's Alley, which is the oldest residential street (or something similar) in the US. It consists of period-architecture so walking down the street is really like stepping back in time to the early 18th century. That was actually pretty cool to see, if I'm being honest.

We then roamed around a bit, taking in some local indie music shops and other stores on the way to dinner, which I'd made reservations for at Alma de Cuba. This was pretty nice for the pair of us who'd been schlepping on foot all over Philly all day, but very worth the wait. The dark cozy atmosphere and big comfy chairs were just what we needed to kick back and enjoy good conversation and good food and drink. We both started with a Suave Mojito, which is a must when the two of us hit a Cuban restaurant together (mostly in Miami!). I had the chorizo sliders to start, which were two cute little tasty chorizo burgers with pickles and mustard. We both had the vaca frita, which was a twice fried skirt steak with black beans, rice and a very tasty tomato "escabeche" which was like a sweet salsa. We shared a plate of fried plantains. All of this was just beyond description. The steak was melt in your mouth delectable and I coul dhave eaten that escabeche on everything in my cupboard for the next month. By now I'd moved on to a black cherry capirihna, which was really sweet but very tasty and much more potent than the mojito (what is "Brazilian Leblon Cachaca" anyway? That was the liquor in this drink.) Although we both thought we were done for, we were tempted by dessert. I had the mocha tres leche cake and Susan had the dulce de leche crepes with smoked vanilla ice cream. That smoking of the ice cream may have been the strangest but most experimental part of the meal...very interesting.

After lingering a bit longer over our drinks, we headed to Suburban Station. I had a 10:45 flight home so took the 9:00 train back to the airport. That took all of 20 minutes and cost $7, but those commuter trains make the ones I take every day in Boston look like Lamborghinis; man, they were old! The flight left on time but experienced major turbulence and drifting on the landing (major understatement). We landed at 11:30 and I summoned PS&F to take me back to my car. Home by 12:45.

All in all, a great day with time well-spent both seeing the city and catching up with a good friend.

Next up, D.C. in a day!

Local Escape -- Degas and the Nude at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts

2011-10-08T15:26:00.010-04:00

It's not often that I will unabashedly demand that people go see art that I like. However, I just went to the members' preview for the latest exhibition at the MFA in Boston. If you are anywhere near Boston in the next 4 months, get yourself to the exhibit "Degas and the Nude" at the Museum of Fine Arts. This is George Shackleford's last exhibit before he departs the MFA for Fort Worth (sniff, sniff!) and it's just wonderful. I went Friday night for member previews and was just blown away. There are over 80 pieces from painting to pastel to sketches and sculpture that mindfully trace how Degas worked with nudes throughout his career. I always get the audio guides, particularly for Shackleford's exhibitions, because they are so well done. This was no exception. He has a way of designing a show that just makes sense and tells the story. Even as a fan of Degas, I learned more than I expected and was sad when I'd reached the end. I will go again a couple times, I'm sure before the exhibit closes, but I was glad to have the relative peace and quiet of a near-empty gallery last week to enjoy this on my own!

What is striking though is that there are two other notable Degas exhibits on now as well, "Dancers at the Barre" at the Phillips Collection in DC, which I hope to see next month, and "Ballerinas Picturing Movement" at the Royal Academy in London which I'm itching to try to get to before December. That Degas was both so prolific and so accomplished with both the nude and ballerinas as his subjects that three significant exhibits can run around the world like this is exceptional.

Next up...

2011-09-30T13:38:00.000-04:00

Finally I seem to have shaken the worst of the jetlag and almost feel normal again. In order to fend off the inevitable post-trip depression I have booked two quick weekend getaways...hell, not weekend getaways, one day marathons, to big cities nearby.

In October, I'm zipping to Philadelphia for the day to see the exhibition Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I fought off the urge to do this until I read the reviews of the exhibition; now I just have to go. Not having been there before, I'm going to try to see some of historic Philadelphia as well before meeting an old friend for dinner and jetting home late evening.

In November, I'm zipping (again) to DC to visit the giant pandas, the new red panda cubs and my lion cubbies (before they get shipped off to breed in other zoos) at the National Zoo. I may try to see the Sackler and Freer Galleries too, since I had my eyes opened to Asian art in China, but my other goal is to finally meet Bev, who went on the panda tour last year and was my lifeline in getting ready for my own China experience. I suspect there will be a good meal involved there too, possibly something Spanish?

I am kicking other ideas around for early winter but it all depends on the financial damage I suffered in China (shopping tally still not yet calculated, I'm in denial) and how raise/bonus season goes at work. I'm thinking maybe a long weekend in Atlanta, but who knows. Thoughts for 2012 include Germany (Berlin/Dresden), Egypt, Peru or Turkey...but seeing the "walk with lions" tour in South Africa yesterday in my Facebook feed was mighty tempting!

I held a panda!

2011-09-25T15:22:00.002-04:00

As the fog of jetlag continues to wear off, I'm starting to realize what an absolutely incredible experience I was lucky enough to have in China. As an animal lover, it would have been spectacular just to visit the two panda bases in China and see more pandas (more than 80 by our estimation) than most people see in a lifetime. I mean, really, you see maybe two, or six, if you travel to DC and San Diego and visit the best zoos in the US. We saw over 80! That alone made the last two weeks a breathtaking experience.

Never in my adult life would I have even dreamt that I'd get to hold a panda though. Living in such a litigious country as I do, the thought of even touching a panda is so verboten that I would never even consider it. To be honest, the thought would never have even crossed my mind. Going into the trip, my expectations were that I'd not only see more pandas than the average zoo-going American but that I might, just might, get closer too. Even after doing some reading online and writing to others who had already done it, it still really hadn't fully sunken in that others had really up close experiences and that I could participate in these photo opps that they did too. I just had no idea how profoundly it would strike me.

Holding a panda cub, or sitting with one while he munches away and I am able to rub his back, scratch his chin and look into his eyes, is like nothing else I've ever done. There are just no words sufficient enough to convey how magical it was. I've been fortunate enough to have had some pretty amazing travel experiences, but this one tops them all. I look at the photos now and it feels like it was all a dream, but its one that can still make me smile.

Pinch me, I held a panda!

Jetlag

2011-09-22T11:25:00.000-04:00

I can say this now because I think I am finally over the hurdle...jetlag sucks. And I'm not talking about the little speed bump we East Coasters get when we go to London and suffer the minor inconvenience of not being able to fall asleep there until midnight or wanting to sleep in that first day on the ground. I'm talking "12 hours difference, my body thinks it's daylight when it's dark, I'm ravenously hungry at 2 a.m. and how many bad American informercials must I suffer through before I fall asleep" jetlag.

Before China (my version of "B.C."), jetlag was a speed bump for me, that is the best way to put it. I'd force myself through that first day on the ground in Europe, get up at 8 a.m. the second day and be fine. No harm, no foul, no medication required. But going to China was not a speed bump, it was a shift in the tectonic plates in my brain. I climbed into bed on the first night in Beijing, exhausted from 24+ hours of travel and our first group meal which was so blurred I can barely remember it now. And there I was, staring at the ceiling for 8 hours. I may have gotten snatches of sleep, but nothing that would allow me to feel either refreshed or that I had made any gains on the time difference. That continued for 2 nights until I found drugs, thanks to a friendly pharmacist and physician in our group. Once I started to catch up, the momentum built by a few nights of decent slumber got me over the hurdle, until I felt almost normal again on Saturday, when I was just 48 hours from going home and having to do it all over again.

My first night back in my own bed, I heard the town's church bells chime 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00. I decided to just lay in bed until daylight, and was astonished to wake again at 11:56 a.m. I guess that makes sense as my body thought it had gone to sleep close to sundown in Beijing. The next night it was more listening to the church bells, so I watched bad reality tv and informercials until sometime before 5:00 when I finally drifted off to sleep, only for the alarm to go off at 5:50 a.m. for work

Getting through work that day....argh. Imagine, if you will, being unable to focus your eyes, let alone your mind. Imagine that your head is being pulled by some magnetic force to the center of the earth and you can barely resist the pull. Imagine that your cognitive skills are so muddied that you e-pay all your bills twice. Yes, that was me.

I stopped at CVS and begged the pharmacist for help. He pointed me to melatonin and sent me on my way. As darkness approached though, I felt better the later it got. That makes sense, because my body was coming out of the sleep cycle I had been forcing it to resist all day. I was tempted not to take the melatonin, because I felt so good compared to the daylight hours, but took it precisely for that reason; I was too keyed up to sleep. Last thing I remembered, it was 9:37. Next thing I knew it was 6:10 a.m.

Two more nights of melatonin, I think and I should be right as rain. It'll be going with me on my next trip too, no sense in needless suffering. Today I celebrate being over the hump.

China -- Day 11

2011-09-19T19:22:00.001-04:00

Subtitled: It's not goodbye, luggage resolution, going home

This morning I had my breakfast with Margie, Marcia and Tracy. It was sort of sad to think that tomorrow we will all be back at our homes, going about our usual routines without each other’s company. But it has been a good, no, awesome, ten days and we are all thankful for that, I know.

I had the usual breakfast at this hotel: cocoa crispies, OJ, assorted pastries with peanut butter and jelly and today, homemade yogurt. We agreed to meet for goodbyes shortly before our transfer took Marcia and me to the airport.

Regarding the suitcase crisis, I conferred with Dan and Naomi, who have also done a lot of world travel, and they agreed that I could probably get away with one very overweight bag. I decided to gamble and gave my new second piece of luggage to Margie, who needed another carry-on. I was hesitant to see what would happen when I tried to check my big sucker in.

Stanley arrived and so did our van. Marcia and I said our goodbyes to Dan, Naomi, Margie and Tracy. I really hope I get to see them all again somehow someday, even if it is not panda related. For now I'd just like to think that it's not goodbye, but just so long until we see each other again. I'd really like to think that.

The trip to the airport was quick and Stanley helped us check our bags in. Miracle of miracles, my now 27.4 kg (60.28 lb) bag went through without so much of a second look, or surcharge! Yee ha! I skated through immigration and customs happy as a lark. Honestly, I worry too much. I know that.

The only flies in the ointment today were the four bottles of Gatorade I bought near the gate (after security) aren’t allowed on this flight, so I have nothing of my own to drink, and I’m left to the devices of the flight crew to keep me hydrated. Bah. And we departed nearly an hour late due to a “problem with the cockpit window”, but the pilot seems convinced we’ll only be 15 minutes or so late into San Francisco. Go figure.

Our first meal was served and I inhaled the first Western food I have had in 11 days (ok, forget I told you about the McDonald’s cheeseburger!). It probably wasn’t even very good, but it was beef in tomato sauce, some sort of au gratin potato, two little slivers of carrot, salad with thousand island dressing and some light lemon cake with raspberry sauce. I did not leave a scrap of it. I even ate the roll with butter. Oh butter, how I have missed you!

I made it through that flight fine, the transfer at San Fran was fine until the Immigration officer said "Welcome home, young lady," which made me cry. I'm not sure if those tears were because I'm tired and homesick or because I am old enough to be the officer's mother. Young lady? Yee ha!

The longest part of the trip home I have to say was San Fran to Boston. That was interminable. Full flight, annoying seat mate, impossible sleep, low battery on the iPod.

But finally, I was delivered home some 28 hours after I left Shanghai, greeted by another furry four-footed wonder who was happy to see me. I'd do it all again in a minute...

More random thoughts...

2011-09-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

For some reason, I thought it made sense to get up at 6 a.m. I’m not sure why that was a good idea, as I don’t have to be out of here until 9:00. Hmmm. Because of that I am now coming up with more random notes.

On this trip, I was fortunate enough to keep my snarking skills in tact by practicing with one of the best from the Midwest. Dan, it turns out, shares my proclivity for poking fun at the insane comments and observations that we came across during the course of the trip. We both found it quite implausible that Chengdu was the equivalent of Paris in David’s mind, and would raise eyebrows every time David made that assertion. Another repeating theme that left us wondering was that it seemed that anything of Chinese origin was good for something. For example: jade cools your inner heat; the powder generated by rubbing two pearls together is good for circulation; Sichuan pepper cools you when it is hot out; this tea eliminates belly fat; this tea is especially good for “drunken time”. If everything is good for something then I would think this is the healthiest people on earth. Which leads me to my next point....

One other very easy target for us was a male habit of walking around wherever they are with the shirt lifted up to the breast bone, letting whatever belly they have hang out over their blet. We first saw this in Beijing and it was a recurring sight just about everywhere but Shanghai, so we both realized it was more than just an isolated occurrence. I think this is how Dan and I originally started snarking during this trip. He appreciated the wonder I shared aloud with him one day. I’m not sure whether these men think this is attractive, whether it’s an animalistic instinct to attract the ladies or truly just a cooling mechanism, but I am fairly certain this is not what my mother hopes I bring to Thanksgiving dinner.

Already I miss hearing David and Stanley say “citron paper”, especially now that I’ve realized that what they really mean is “Sichuan pepper”.

China is a honking society. They will honk in traffic, honk on empty roads, honk to pass you, honk while passing you, honk to warn you around a sharp corner, honk because they are about to run you down. It seems an odd but efficient method of communication. It’s like New York cabbies on steroids.

There’s neon and then there’s neon. The neon of Times Square, for example, is seizure inducing. It is meant to be crazy-ass in your face. The neon on the high rises in Shanghai is tasteful. It seems as if they meant it to be pretty and eye-pleasing. The tv tower projects rainbow colors that fade in and fade out. The Citi building is covered top to bottom with animated video. The bottle opener building is a gorgeous neon blue. Sure it’s all bright and you can probably see it from the moon, but not an assault on the brain in the least.

In my last hour in Shanghai I am going back and forth on whether to take the second piece of luggage at $200 or cram it all into the big bag and pay the weight overage of $100. I’m leaning toward the latter, but I’m afraid I’m missing something here. It seems too obvious.

Off to my last breakfast in China….talk to you from the US!

China -- Day 10

2011-09-18T10:48:00.002-04:00

Subtitled: Peanut butter, (More) Retail Therapy, Oh What a Skyline and Solving the Baggage Crisis

After nearly 10 ½ hours of sleep last night, I hit the breakfast buffet and was excited to see cereal on the menu here, as well as peanut butter. Peanut butter is something I’d started craving about 2 days ago and I made sure to indulge. After a large glass of OJ and two cups of coffee, we were off for a very long day in Shanghai.

Our first stop was the French Concession. Here we saw the spot where the Chinese Communist Party first met and walked around to enjoy the very quiet (hey, it was 8:30 a.m.) tree-lined neighborhood. Who knew that such pretty trees were grown in the center of a large city? The architecture seemed to be a sort of fusion of a bit western and asian. We walked through some narrow streets and areas with shops and restaurants. I indulged in a caramel macchiato from Starbucks. I figured I’d made it this far with my digestive system in tact, might as well risk it all on the last day.

Our next stop was a silk factory. I’d been a bit indifferent about the silk stop, and I think many can attest to the fact that I had no interest in buying anything. Well, my Bank of America Mastercard was left a puddle of melted plastic there. After looking at all the hard work that goes into harvesting the cocoon and how they meld the single threads into eight more more to get something durable, and how the cocoons are stretched, well, who wouldn’t want to support all that effort? In the end, I bought a silk comforter and duvet set, a silk jacket and a silk blouse, plus a couple of table runners for home. Good lord, my luggage crisis (you might remember I was 6 pounds over coming from Chengdu) just went into DEFCON 3. But I’d worry about that later.

After I bounced the Chinese economy further through the roof, we moved on to The Bund. Driving in from the airport last night I could see that Shanghai was different than any place else we had been so far. Despite being utterly exhausted, I was sort of excited by the fact that I was in another of the world’s greatest cities. Stanley said that Beijing is China’s history and Shanghai is its future. That much is pretty obvious. This area is notable because the buildings on one side of the river are all old and established, and face the slap in the face contrast of the financial district across the river, all flashy brand new skyscrapers that seem to all have once been the tallest buildings in the world. I love this. I love big cities. I love gorgeous skylines. I love nice, sunny, warm autumn day. So today I was hitting the jackpot on all counts. The skyline here is incredible. It is also less than 30 years old and because it was built on farmland is also already sinking. But that won’t stop the Chinese, who are actively building what will be (when it is done) the world’s tallest building. Until another is built to top that.

A side note about all this construction: I mentioned earlier all the cranes I was seeing. As we left the hotel this morning and drove down a block nearby that tended to be mostly residential and light commercial, Stanley said that the entire block was being taken for new construction. “Come back in two years and this will all be very tall buildings,” he said. I have to wonder what that does to the morale of citizens to constantly be displaced for things like Olympic stadiums, river gorges and skyscrapers.

Anyway, my favorite buildings were the tv tower, which looks like three fuschia colored pearls stuck on an upright pole, if that makes sense and one building they call the bottle opener, because it has an opening at the top that looks like could pop the cap off a beer.

Our next stop would be lunch. This would be the most accessible meal we’ve had so far, with either dishes we’ve had several times and tolerated well on this trip, or actual dishes we’ve had in Chinese restaurants at home. I wish I could remember specifics, I know the tomato and egg dish returned, which we all devoured. But after a while one lazy susan filled with 20 dishes starts to blend in with another. I ate happily, but Linda and I still found room for a Magnum ice cream bar afterwards.

After the Jinsha Museum experience in Chengdu, which was right after lunch and left most of us in a coma, we were afraid we would suffer the same fate at the Shanghai Museum. To the contrary, this ended up being one of the most amazing museums I have visited. It is logically split into sections for paintings, sculpture, calligraphy, bronze, ceramics, coins. As Ping Ping, our local guide (who was with us for the first three stops then disappeared at the museum never to be seen again) suggested, I started at the top floor and worked down. We were given only 75 minutes on our own, so I made a point to see the Chinese painting and calligraphy first, and that ate up nearly 40 minutes. I could easily have spent a half day here, but instead had to speed walk through the porcelain (I loved the Ming dynasty porcelain) and the bronze work. I absolutely adored the calligraphy section though, which traced how the art of writing Chinese characters changed with each dynasty. There were actually artists who were considered masters of this art and it showed. It was all just beautiful.

Next we moved on to the Yuyuan Garden, which is the best example of southern Chinese style gardens. Stanley did a great job explaining to us the elements of feng shui here, like putting a large stone in between the entrance and the courtyard to keep the energy in; making foot bridges zig and zag “to keep things interesting”, how rocks were meant to look like clouds or mountains or both, so that visitors could feel like they are escaping to a different part of the world when they visited the garden. It really did evoke a peaceful atmosphere, but for the throngs of crowds parading through it. I think I’d go back early in the day to try to see it less crowded. If I were staying here and had more time, that is…

Stanley surprised us next and took us to a Chinese tea tasting ceremony. This was in a small teahouse upstairs in the neighborhood near the garden and it had a spectacular view of the skyline from up there. The tea ceremony was nice because we got to sample about 6 teas we hadn’t had, and it was all prepared by a tea master who knew how to properly steep and pour the tea. Personally I liked the lychee black tea the best but I’m not really a tea drinker to begin with, so I didn’t know what was “good” and what wasn’t. It was a nice surprise from Stanley and I think we all enjoyed it.

We were allowed to roam around for about an hour before dinner. This was sort of unusual because I felt like we’d really been kept on a short leash most of the tour. What was funny was that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t really want to shop, was running low on batteries for the camera (seriously, about 1500 shots this trip!) and was just mentally on overload. So I did what any other girl in my situation would do, I went to Starbucks and bought an iced hibiscus mango tea and then to McDonald’s and ate a cheeseburger. In one day, all food cravings were satisfied!

That snack did not stop me, however, from eating with the group at our farewell dinner. The restaurant was right outside the garden and we knew we were in for a good meal when we saw photos that proved that both Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton ate there. Now there’s a pair of fascinating diners! This would be our last lazy susan meal and it was quite good. Now that the best part of the trip is over, I got a little more risky in what I ate, so I tried some seafood in the form of crystal shrimp and sweet and sour fish. I’d purposely avoided seafood and meat most of the trip just in case it made me sick, so now was the time to catch up. There was a spicy chicken and cashew dish that was great and a smokey sweet bean dumpling that was interesting. Stanley bought us another bottle of red wine, this one a bit sweeter than the last, and it was delicious.

Stanley rounded us up and piled us on the bus for one last time. He told us sincerely that we were a great group and he enjoyed his time with us. He says he doesn’t say that to every group, but who knows. I think for the most part we were a great group. I had fun and learned something from everyone and certainly enjoyed mucking out cages and snarking it up with them. Some of us hit the bar in the hotel for one more drink, but not before I stopped in the lobby shop and paid $35 for a second checked bag. There was no way I was going to make it with all this stuff and one suitcase without either paying serious overage or doing the “redistribute and rebalance your dirty laundry at the check-in counter” dance. This way it’s all going home, I’ll just have to pay to check a second bag.

So now I’m packed and ready to go, except for what I’ll be throwing out tomorrow and the electronics that are charging. But damn, I just looked it up and an extra checked bag on United is $200? Maybe this expense will curb my trip shopping in the future!!

China -- Day 9

2011-09-17T09:12:00.001-04:00

Subtitled: No rooster, wedding crashers, turbulence abounds

Today was the latest we have been able to sleep so far. The wake-up call was at 7:30 but I really didn’t have to be up until well after 8:00. It felt good to stay put and lounge a bit before breakfast. I finally managed to have a really good night’s sleep which I attribute both to finally adjusting to the time difference as well as shutting my window. That may seem strange, but after the big cities, it was nice to be up on a hill away from city noise, so I’d been sleeping with my window open. No window, no rooster, so I made it through to nearly 7 before I started to want to wake up. Take that, rooster buddy.

Breakfast at the hotel was better once we managed to actually let the buffet open before we invaded it before we jetted off to Bifengxia the first two mornings here. There wasn’t too much more on offer, but the OJ went from steaming hot to actually cold. The coffee here was interesting, already milked and sugared for us on the hot plate. It was good, but I like my coffee sweetened. The only other add to the buffet this morning were fried dough type bits, which could have used some cinnamon and sugar but I made do with the bright red jelly meant for toast.

We have nearly three hours to get to Chengdu to catch our flight to Shanghai at 3:20. On the way to the airport we stopped at a large banquet restaurant (with many rooms to serve large parties as well as smaller groups of diners like ours). This was the closest to Chinese food in America I have seen, with something like chicken fingers available. I had probably my last of the Ma Po Tofu only instead of tofu it was veggies. There was also a slightly spicy beef dish that tasted good. But again it was an exercise in more than 15 dishes all being spun about on the lazy susan and was way more food than all of us combined can eat.

The fun part of the meal though was when we crashed a traditional Chinese wedding being held near us in the restaurant. It was gorgeous, with all the bright red and gold decorations. There was a very loud officiant using a microphone who sounded to me a lot like the host of Iron Chef. The bride was dressed in traditional dress and headpiece and stood at the back of the room covering her face with a fan until she arrived at the side of her groom. There was a whole lot of bowing to each other, offering of tassels and sharing of food, all prompted by the bellowing officiant (remember, here louder is better) and very ceremonious, thundering piped-in music. It was interesting to see and cheap entertainment for the last half of our lunch hour.

On the way to the airport, David told us he enjoyed our time with him and gave us each a small panda pin as a gift. “It is cheap but it comes from the heart,” he said. Then, like he did when he picked us up, he sang again. He chose John Denver’s “Country Roads Take Me Home” and also “Leaving On a Jet Plane”. I don’t know what got into me other than fatigue and homesickness, but I will admit to shedding more than a couple tears.

Our flight out of Chengdu left an hour late, so the impromptu river cruise Stanley suggested earlier was nixed in favor of more sleep. We had a hellaciously turbulent half hour during the flight and I think all of us were hot, tired and in need of alone time. Stanley made the call to cancel the river cruise on his own, so maybe even he is feeling fatigued.

Once the plane landed, I noticed the crew all lined up in the center aisle and bowed to us. I hadn’t noticed that on any of the other domestic flights (all on Chinese carriers) here, so maybe it’s only done after near death experiences like the one we had cruising through that turbulence.

We were talking amongst ourselves and I think what is tiring about this trip is not just the physical moving about but also the constant overload of our senses. Everything we see, we hear, we taste is new and needs to be processed. I think that interrupts our normal rest and sleep patterns, as there’s been no “off” switch since we got here. I just need to make it through one more day…

So while I killed time on a bus, I thought of more random things that I’ve forgotten about in all that I’ve already written:

In Xi’an, I bought a book and had it signed by one of the farmers who discovered the Terra Cotta Warriors. When he discovered them while he dug a well on his land back in the 70s, the government gave him some obscene amount of money, like $30, to get him off the land so it could be excavated further and, as we know now, convert it into a tourist destination. Now though, he is sitting in the gift shop signing books and I’m sure reaping some reward for it.

At the start of the trip, Stanley asked us to give him the US equivalent of $8 per person per day to cover tips during the course of the trip. My first response was that everything I had read to prepare for China indicated that tipping is illegal. But as the week wore on and I saw these guides bending over backwards to accommodate us, it felt criminal that that was all we gave them.

Along that same vein, when four of us told David yesterday that we wanted to do the play with pandas photo opportunity again, he was surprised. “1000 yuan, you know?” he said. That is $150 which for them is about what they get paid in a month. And the four of us did it four times in a week. I felt almost gluttonous at that point, if that makes sense. It made me wonder what they think of Americans like us who seem to come here and cavalierly throw our money around like that. To me, it was part of the experience and a memory I would never want to forget, so if I have the wherewithal to do it, I will. But part of me did feel almost guilty when David was so incredulous that we would pay for that again.

As he gave us the itinerary for Shanghai tomorrow, Stanley just uttered the understatement of the tour: “This tour is not for your relax (sic), this tour is for you to see as much as you could.” I mean really, I like to jam-pack my days when I travel, but even I am starting to be run down from this schedule.

When checking in at Chengdu, I noted my luggage is 23.2 kilos, which is about 51 pounds. I think I need to shed 6 pounds before I head home on United. Gulp.

All along the roadsides in rural Sichuan province, I started to notice in the driveways in front of homes on which the residents would spread grain or rice or corn out and leave it to dry in the sun. That, and they would hang hundreds of ears of corn from their homes to dry. I asked David and he said they do that to preserve it for the winter, usually for farm animal but sometimes for themselves. I found it hard to believe that many will strip the corn kernels from the cob by hand one painstaking kernel at a time; if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it.

While I’m in no race to get home, I will say that I eagerly await the time when I enter a bathroom and don’t wonder if it’s Western or squatty and whether I need to bring my own toilet paper or not and whether I can flush it or throw it in the waste basket when I’m done. I’ve adapted well, but see, these are the sorts of things we take for granted and don’t need to mentally process at home. Here, even going to the bathroom or brushing your teeth (DON’T use the water!) can have serious consequences.

All of us have been trying Chinese ice cream wherever we see a freezer case full of it. In Bifengxia, Dan found the best ice cream bar ever: some sort of chocolate covered heath ice cream with little chocolate balls embedded in it and a marshmallow center. At the Chendgu airport, Paula found an oatmeal ice cream covered in dark chocolate. It is good to travel with people with such excellent taste in the finer things!

That’s it for Saturday….full day in Shanghai tomorrow!

China -- Day 8

2011-09-16T09:58:00.000-04:00

Subtitled: I Found My Man, This Is What Plastic Is For, All In The Name Of Tai

It rained last night and when I say rain, I mean torrentially raining. I laid awake for a while last night listening to it and prayed that it would stop before we had to volunteer today. And my prayers were answered. It stopped raining but did not clear up for most of the day. In fact, heading higher into the mountains the fog and mist was heavier (every time I rode into those mountains and saw the peaks shrouded in fog, I thought “Gorillas in the Mist” for some reason). We had the same breakfast as the day before and hit the road at 7:15. On the way up the mountain we got stuck behind a trash truck that refused to move. After trying to squeeze by without mashing mirrors for quite some time, our guide got out and argued demonstratively for a bit with the driver of the truck and finally convinced him to move in a bit so that we would not plummet down the side of the mountain. This was one of those roads only wide enough for maybe 1 ½ normal sized cars, not a bus and a truck. And there was no guardrail to keep us up, only a sure-death plummet down on our side. So that was why we were all late for work. I swear.

Something happened overnight and the four of us did not get split up and we were assigned to a new keeper, who I think introduced himself as Mr. Chang. It was funny calling him that as he appeared to be all of 20 years old; all of us could have been his mother. Anyway, Mr. Chang seemed to want to practice his halting English on us and also didn’t mind waiting while we ran amok taking pictures when we probably shouldn’t have. It was nice having a rapport with him though because we could ask him about the pandas rather than feeling like we were an imposition simply by asking simple questions.

Each time we entered a panda house for the first time of the day, it was always interesting to see how the pandas would greet you. They hadn’t seen humans overnight and were also probably hungry and ready for some treats. Most of the time they came to sit on their butts, legs out, right near the enclosure’s bars. They’d hold on to the bars or stick a paw out. One we saw this morning was up on his hind legs, holding the bars with his front paws, and rocking side to side, one foot to the other, head back in the air. I’d seen the pandas on panda cam do this before and it was sort of neat to see it up close.

We cleaned four of the enclosures we did yesterday. You might remember that I managed to dodge the poop scooping simply by having exceptional broom skills. No such luck today. And the enclosure I got to clean was Lu Lu’s, who apparently is the Ace #1 Pooper at BiFengXia. I was surprised he was still standing when I finally saw him; it appeared as if he’d imploded. And just to properly indoctrinate me into poop scooping, I reached down to pick up a long stalk of bamboo and the other end got stuck under the edge of the bars and when it flicked back, it flicked you-know-what all in my direction. Joy. I let it get to me for all of 30 seconds, didn’t care what hardened in my hair for the rest of the day and went on to the next cage. I can assure you, nothing will faze me now that I’ve cleaned Lu Lu’s cage.

Mr. Chang also had me clear off the outside enclosure for Lu Lu, which meant removing the bamboo from yesterday, cleaning up the poop and then hauling in new bamboo for the day. It was actually really satisfying to visit him later in the day and see him out there on his patio enjoying the bamboo. It was still clean out there then, but I’m sure he’ll waste no time messing it up. Lu Lu got up to return to his inside enclosure while we were watching him, but somehow I used some panda whisperer skills to convince him to stay with us and pose for photos. I won’t say I guilted him into it, but….I did scoop his poop! He indulged us for about 5 minutes, then gave us a bleat and went inside. And that was it for me and Lu Lu until I went back to say good bye later in the day.

We each got to feed pandas again this morning, having cut up more panda cake for them this morning. The keeper knew how many grams each panda was supposed to get, so we had to eyeball the loaf, cut it down to what we thought was correct and weigh it. We got pretty close most of the time. The keeper uses the panda cake sometimes to lure the panda in and out of the different parts of the enclosure, always sliding closed and locking a door behind them to keep them separate from us.

When Mr. Chang cut us loose from our morning duties, David took us back up to the 2 year olds’ area for another “play with pandas”session. Even though I hadn’t taken the cash out of the ATM for a third paid session here, I whipped out my credit card and signed right up. Experiences like this, that only happen once in a lifetime, are exactly what the plastic is for. We gowned up and got in line. While we were waiting, we could see the four pandas that they had chosen for us, and they could see us. I think they are well aware that any time non-keepers show up in hospital gowns, they’re going to get snacks. They were climbing all over each other and up and down the bars between them and us, they were obviously so excited. I could hear the little bleat of the guy I sat with yesterday and hoped I could get my hands on him first again today. And I did. He wasn’t hard to spot because he was already talking away. I sat down sort of next to and behind him and just started to pat his neck and back. I talked to him and he was chatting away back at me. I made a point this time to really take it in, look at his eyes, look at his fur, remember how it feels. It is just such an incredible thing to be that close and have them be so gentle and cute. I believe in storing up memories to pull out and savor when I need it the most, and every encounter I’ve had with a panda here is one of them, but this little guy really won me over. I asked the keeper on the way out what his name is, and she said Xiang Riu, I believe. All I know is that I found my man. I’m smitten!

Once we were done hanging with the two year olds, David whisked us off to lunch again in the employee dining hall. Today we had something similar, starting with a tomato and egg drop soup, a pork stir fry, lima beans of some sort with chicken, a hot cabbage slaw and rice. Again it was interesting to see all of the employees come with their own bowls, get them filled at the window, sit with us to eat and then go outside to the sinks to clean them up.

After lunch we went back to the panda kindergarten where I got to see the nursery worker de-poop the infant panda. She held him belly up and started to stimulate his lower region by rubbing it with a wet cotton ball. Then she tapped that area and all of a sudden he started to clear his bowels. I won’t go into much more detail than that, but I did take video of it. The poor guy really looked more comfortable once that was done for him; he’d looked a bit agitated just before that.

The other team of volunteers from our group was assigned to the temporary enclosures that are housing the pandas rescued from the Wolong base during the earthquake of 2008. There they saw a mother panda with a one year old cub who had not been separated from her as most of the cubs already have been. Our team of volunteers really wanted to see them both, so Stanley made a point of taking us up there on the way back to our jobs. Unfortunately we found the mom but no baby. But at this point, our cup already runneth so far over, it was hard for me to be disappointed.

Our afternoon volunteering didn’t consist of much but hauling some fresh bamboo in and talking some more to Lu Lu. We asked the keeper about him, and he said he is 15 years old and has always lived at BFX. I think he said he’d fathered some cubs, but I can’t be sure with Mr Chang’s English.

There was a whole lot of confusion about how the day was to end. David came to get us at 2:30 for a “ceremony” up at the main entrance at 3:00. We were supposed to be back for the last feeding at 3:30. We took the buggy up to the main entrance and quickly surmised that the ceremony was to honor a contributor to the facility and it would be all done in Chinese (obviously) so it would be of almost no value to us to see. Others in the group were still really desperate to get a glimpse of Tai Shan, who’d been practically hidden when we went up to Leopard Mountain the day before. We managed to convince David and Stanley to take us up there one more time. Since all employees were at the ceremony, we had to walk from the main gate. At David’s pace, we did it in about 20 minutes: 10 minutes to the kindergarten and 10 more to the repatriated pandas.

On the way, I stopped our group to show them Lu Lu, since some of them didn’t work with him like I did. He was still eating bamboo, only this kind he was stripping the leaves off with his mouth (with the leaves all pointing in the same direction!) and once he had a dozen or so leaves all lined up in the corner of his mouth, he use his hand to twist them into a cigar shape, and he’d bite of chunks of the cigar and eat them. It is all really very scientific, and he has it down to a science, to be able to pick up stalks of bamboo and strip the leaves off, skillfully leaving the twig that attaches the leaf to the stalk intact! I bid Lu Lu a fond farewell and told him to be a little kinder with his poop production with his next volunteer, and we continued our walk up to Leopard Mountain.

When we first arrived, Tai Shan was right where we left him yesterday. And even when the keepers came to bring him and his neighbor Fu Long biscuits, he didn’t move. After a bit, he crept up two steps so we could see more of him, but he was still dozing away. Finally he got up, went into his enclosure (where we ran to the front window to peer in at him). He thought about his biscuit for a few minutes and then brought it outside. Tai sat upright on the step, one paw on his knee, the other holding the biscuit to his lips where he licked it absentmindedly for about 10 minutes, giving us ample time to snap about 50 photos. Then as soon as he’d had enough, he dropped the biscuit and went back to his spot. And that was the end of the Tai Shan show. Now that everyone was satisfied (David let us stay past 4:00 because I think he knew he’d have an uprising on his hands if he tried to make the group leave) we could leave. While we waited for a buggy to bring us back to the entrance, I went over to say goodbye to Fu Long. He was the first adult I saw when I arrived on Wednesday and it felt right to see him last too. We also caught a glimpse of Mei Sheng doing his tree climbing routine again, climbing nearly three stories up a tree, to then perch himself precariously in the fork of a branch for a nap. I honestly don’t know how these pandas balance and don’t accidentally fall out of the trees while they sleep!

We left Bifengxia for the last time. Last time on this trip, that is.

Dinner tonight was in the hotel restaurant again. Stanley helped us order. Since I was the only spicy chick there, we didn’t order spicy. We had kung pao chicken, two plates of Sichuan green beans with chicken, the fried sticy rice sticks that we also had last night and a big order of fried rice. With beer for some and Sprite for others, the whole thing came to 24 yuan or $4 a person. What a bargain!

I noticed that on the way back on the bus I started thinking about packing for home. I think mentally I’ve made the transition and am ready to head back. Tomorrow is mostly a travel day (2 ½ hours to Chengdu then a 3 hour flight to Shanghai) and we have Sunday to see Shanghai and that is it. I can’t believe I’m at this point already!

Not sure if there will be an update tomorrow…nothing but travel, I think.

China -- Day 7

2011-09-15T09:41:00.000-04:00

Subtitled: Who Knew They Look Into Your Eyes, Mr Hard To Get, A Nice Chinese Red Wine

Today would be our first official day volunteering at Bifengxia. We got our wake up call at 6:15 in order to be on the bus by 7:15 and working by 8:15. Last night I managed to sleep most of the night in good order until the loudest rooster in the universe started to crow at 4:30 a.m. I just can’t win here when it comes to getting some sleep!

This hotel, Moonstar Hotel, is on one of the highest hills in Ya’an. It is so isolated that walking to Ya’an for a night out or even for dinner or the supermarket is just out of the question. The hotel has its own restaurant though and we ate there last night; another lazy susan meal with dish after dish of interesting or wonderful things. I am in love with what I think is called Ma Po Tofu, which is a really hot and spicy tofu and meat dish. I put it over sticky rice and it is quite a meal.

Anyway, the restaurant doesn’t open for breakfast until 7 so that left us little time to eat this morning, but we managed to sneak in early. Since I just can’t stomach noodles, rice or anything Chinese at that hour, I hit the pastry table and had something that looked like jelly roll, two shortbread cookies and toast with some sort of fruit flavored gel. The chef showed up and fried eggs for all of us. I’m still wondering about the orange juice (like Tang at this hotel) that was boiling hot. Hmmmm.

We made it to BFX and got split into two groups, one of four and one of six. I volunteered to get off at the first stop with Bev, Tracy and Kim. They then split the four of us to work with other volunteers, for some reason. This proved problematic later in the day when the other volunteers seemed to be getting special treatment from their keeper, but the keeper Kim and I worked with seemed nice enough for sure and treated us well. We got paired with two girls from Ireland who were here to work for two weeks.

It was time to don our keeper clothes (ok, I’ll admit I put the jumpsuit on in the bus) and get to work. First stop was an enclosure that needed to be mucked out. Each enclosure holds two pandas separated from each other by a wall inside and fence outside. They are indoors overnight, so we first cleaned the outside, scooping up any poop and cleaning up the shedded outer layers of bamboo that the panda had eaten on his patio the day before. Then we pulled weeds on the patio, swept everything up and dumped it into big buckets. The keeper would then transition the panda outside, locking us back inside, pushing panda out and locking it outside. We’d then sweep and de-poop the inside of the enclosure. It was not sunny but it was about 80 and humid and I broke a sweat fast. We’d lay out fresh bamboo for the day and off we’d go to do another. We did enclosures this morning and helped with another one, getting done about 10:00. Then we got to take a break until 11 but Stanley and David had arranged for us to sit for another photo with a 1 year old panda and play in the kindergarten with 2 year old pandas, so off we went for that.

I am, apparently, an expert sweeper. I somehow managed to avoid scooping poop if only because I can sweep with these bundles of sticks they call brooms here. I swept the fronts of a couple enclosures as well as a long path from the main road up to an enclosure. It felt good to break a sweat but I do wish I’d gotten to do something else.

The whole time you are cleaning within eyeshot of a panda, there is a very good chance they are watching you. We were outside the first couple of enclosures and I was down pulling weeds on the floor and I’d look up and the panda would be inside at the round door watching me, as if it were overseeing the whole thing. I will say, it was satisfying to go back by the places that we cleaned during the morning and see them enjoying their newly laid bamboo and freshly cleaned and weeded terrace!

What really amazed me is how the pandas respond to their keeper. One female panda, Ho Bao, was way out in her enclosure, high up in a tree. Apparently she’d been there all day yesterday and they couldn’t get her down last night either. Her keeper didn’t seem concerned at first, but when he stood for almost 15 minutes calling her name and she didn’t come down, he started to tell the other keepers about her. What was fascinating though is that when he called her, she lifted her head and looked in his direction, so she knew he was calling her. Not that she was going to come to him, but she obviously realized she was being called. All of the pandas, when being summoned in or out, respond to their names.

The difference between this photo shoot and the one at Chengdu is that the panda does not sit on your lap. They brought out a little one and put him on a set of chairs (that so closely resembled a bus station!). One by one we each got to go sit with the panda and pat him while he was occupied by a carrot or cookie. The encounter lasted all of 30 seconds this time (rather than a minute in Chengdu) but this time I managed to get video. It was not as overwhelming emotionally this time because I was prepared for it all. I just remember patting him and looking into his eyes as he ate away. I also scratched his neck and his chin when he lifted his head up. The whole thing went by so fast though it seems like a dream.

Very quickly we got driven up to another panda kindergarten, different from the one yesterday. This one was for the 2 year olds. We were gowned up again and led into a courtyard where four pandas sat munching away eagerly on their panda biscuits. I moved towards one panda that was sort of off on his own and got to know him. This was just an amazing experience because I could spend three minutes getting to know this panda. What was just amazing about it is I did nothing but rub his back and scratch the back of his neck and talk to him and every few bites he’d squeak at me, like we were conversing. And when he turned to look at me, he made eye contact with me. I told Suzanne about it and she smiled and said that that was very common.

Right after that, David took us to the keepers’ dining hall, where he had arranged for us to have lunch. For 20 yuan (about $3.50) we had about five courses. It was all traditional Chinese but it was good and cheap and we didn’t have to go too far for it. What was interesting though was seeing how it worked for them. Each employee brings their own bowl, goes up to the buffet window and all five courses are served into the bowl. The employees all eat in the dining hall and when they are done, they go outside to communal sinks, scrape off the leftovers into a slop bucket and wash the dishes in the sink. It was actually sort of cool to see the behind the scenes action. Suzanne told us they don’t get paid much but they do get room and board on site.

After lunch with two hours to kill until we were needed back with our keeper, one member of our group convinced David to take us up to the mountain where the repatriated pandas are, specifically with an eye toward seeing Tai Shan, the panda born in DC. We made the long and winding trek there in the buggy (large golf cart) only to find that Tai Shan had hidden himself away behind a wall, but ever the diva, he did stick his head and one paw out when we called his name. I got to revisit his neighbor, Fu Long, who is just one of the most photographic pandas ever, especially when he sticks his uniquely white foot out. We also saw Mei Sheng roaming up in the hills amidst the grass. I think there is already a movement underfoot to get back there tomorrow in order to see Tai out and about rather than sticking his ears out from behind a wall!

Around 2:00 we went back to our assigned teams. The Irish girls we were teamed with showed us how to cut up the panda cakes, which to me seem a lot like Irish brown bread. David said we could try it, but I was still pretty full from lunch. We then went to visit the four pandas under our care to watch the keepers weigh them. They called to them and threw piece of apple and carrot on the large platform scale. The pandas being pandas, were interested in the food and would climb up to get weighed. Our pandas ranged from 125 kg to 94 kg. It seemed like the lower weighing pandas got the bonus of getting panda bread, which we got to feed them. It was the first time I got to feed a panda. Our keeper warned us in the morning to stay back about 3 feet, hold it out to them and when it seems like they have it in their mouth, let go so they won’t bite further down toward your fingers. With that in mind, I lifted some panda cake to the panda and he took it. I might have gotten a little too close on the second piece because I came away with panda drool all over two fingers. I’ll never wash that hand again….!

The last thing we did before the day was out was put fresh bamboo in the enclosures for the overnight. A few of the pandas got bamboo shoots as well, which I also got to hand feed them. There is just something so awe inspiring to have an animal like this take food from your hand and eat it while looking you in the eye the whole time. I really felt like I did something to make their day better today.

We left tired from being hot and on our feet all day. The work wasn’t necessarily hard but it was a long day to be outside in humid mountain air.

Dinner was not part of the tour package but because we are so far from the city, Stanley met those of us who were interested and took us to the hotel restaurant to help us order. I split a Ma Po Tofu and rice with Kim and a bottle of Great Wall Cabernet Sauvignon with Linda. I also had an interesting little fried rice cake too. All in it was about $17 per person before the wine.

After a long day, it’ll be nice to go to bed to the sound of a gentle rain…hopefully it stops before morning and I don’t hear the local cock crow again tomorrow!

China -- More random notes

2011-09-14T06:02:00.000-04:00

I had over three hours today on the bus, so I caught up on my blogs and put together more random notes. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that I have access to Facebook from here, so you have been spared nearly 140 shots of baby pandas! This and the next two blogs are new as of early on 9/14.

More random notes...
David said this morning that the day rarely dawns sunny here in Chengdu but when it does people usually call up their friends and go to a tea house to enjoy the nice morning. I’m wondering how that sort of spontaneity meshes with a work schedule…

On the flight over, the guy I sat with told me a story about capital punishment in China. He said that if prisoners are on death row and they don’t need to be made an example of, they would be fed extremely well and made to be fit so that they are in the best shape for organ donation. How creepy is that?

David told us the most popular US singers in China are Karen Carpenter, John Denver and Michael Jackson. Now there’s a trifecta!

After we saw the wealth of archeological treasures at Jinsha, Paula told me that she had asked Stanley about all the development in Beijing for the Olympics and if they had encountered anything like those digs that would have held up development. His reply was “we had a schedule”. So I am guessing that if anything like that was found, it was just built over. Paula had a good point that most of this sort of exploration started well after the Cultural Revolution so the Chinese are probably still figuring out all of things like the Jinsha site they could be doing but weren’t allowed to previously.

David is extremely proud of his hometown of Chendgu and home province of Sichuan. Whenever he introduces a sight or opportunity to us, he points out how unique it is and how much we are going to like it. When Dan said that he’d already seen face-changing at a theater in Beijing, David made him confess which show was better. Dan of course said the one in Chengdu was, and David acted as if this were a personal victory for him. At one point during the day, David told me that there are many similarities between Paris and Chengdu: the teahouse lined river, the wealth of museums and culture, the slowness of it all. I really have to take exception to the comparison because while on paper that may be true, Chengdu is about as far from Paris as I’ve ever been, both literally and figuratively.

One other thing that is acceptable here is when desperate mothers try to play matchmaker for their unmarried sons. Stanley told us that in the park near Temple of Heaven, we may see mother sitting with photos of their son, a description about him (think “Looking for Love” ads) and a phone number or QQ (like Facebook or Twitter) address for him. We didn’t see that at Temple of Heaven but we did see it in the big park in Chengdu. All over a row of bushes were pinned these handwritten missives which were basically “take my son, please” requests!

China -- Day 6

2011-09-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

We had a later wake up call today but I ended up awake a few times during the night so I finally got up a little before 7 and got online before I took a shower and packed. Today we are moving on to Ya’an where the Bifengxia Panda Center is and where we’d be working the rest of the week.

I had a breakfast similar to yesterday’s and made it to the bus by 9. Suzanne Braden, the co-founder and director of Pandas International is riding with us to Ya’an, which is about 2 ½ hours away.

We stopped for lunch at a roadside place and again were treated to a lazy susan chalk full of Sichuan specialities. There was a great celery dish, only the celery was really thin and it had some sort of sliced up bacon with it. There was also a specially ordered spicy dish for the hot and spicy girls (of which I am one) that was a whole lot of Sichuan peppers and some beef. It was excellent and probably the hottest I have had yet. I also liked an egg dish with diced tomato.

It was great having Suzanne at lunch with us. She told us about how Pandas International sprang into action after the 08 earthquake at Wolong and got them supplies for both humans and pandas within 72 hours. She said it was chilling to receive the first email from Wolong that said “send medicine to stop the blood.” I got the impression that that was more a figurative than literal statement but she said one that still gives her nightmares. Last month rain and mudslides washed out the bridge to Wolong so she won’t be making the trip there during this visit to China. She feels Mother Nature hasn’t been too kind to the Sichuan region since 08 because in 09 and 10 they had flooding and this year there was the horrible snowstorms the crushed bamboo. She’s asked us for our list of topics that she can cover at dinner tonight and I expressed my interest in breeding especially given the pseudopregnancy of Mei’s that I just witnessed on panda cam.

After lunch we went to Shangli Old Town which I can’t decide whether it is a tourist trap or an actual working town. It seems more like the latter, and I think maybe my skepticism taints my view of it to even think it’s the former. The town seemed really dilapidated but I’m thinking instead it is just not developed. There were lots of really small local shops and restaurants and locals just hanging about.

We made the short drive to the Bifengxia Panda Center. Getting to Bifengxia means a lot of driving along slow roads with many hairpin turns through the Bifengxia gorge. It was gorgeous scenery but more than a little precarious in spots in our tour bus. Once we were there, it was obvious that this isolation and desolation, so far from society as we know it, is exactly where the pandas belong. The center is so vast that they have golf carts to transport volunteers (us) from the entrance to the volunteer center. Because we arrived here so late today, we were “only” going to go see the panda kindergarten. David and Stanley came after us and warned us when our golf cart left first to wait for them at the top. Well, like hell I say (and I have to say, others were with me, I was not alone!). I started to wander and I think I found Tai Shan’s enclosure since I recognized a very new play structure I’d read was recently installed for him, but there was no sign of Tai himself. I wandered further past that building and found three adult pandas sitting eating bamboo. Already I’d seen three more than most people see in their lifetimes. But turn around again and about 6 feet away from me was who turned out to be Fu Long. What a handsome guy he is…just leaning against the log, sniffing at us as if to check us out. Of course it took me no time to take his glamour shot. And I thought I could die happy with my photos yesterday? Oh, today would be so much better!

Once Stanley found us out and dragged us back to the group, we went to the panda kindergarten where we passed by another nursery, this time only with one newborn in it, but we could take photos. A little further on, we found out that we had lucked out and arrived just in time for feeding. The keepers put pans of milk out and the little one year old pandas wandered over to drink it up. When they were done, they sat up and the keepers would wipe their mouths off and hand them a biscuit of some sort. Then came bamboo and what looked like carrots. These little ones were so fun to watch as they toppled over backwards, eating with their front paws up in the air. It was hilarious. One was significantly smaller than the others and I learned his/her name was Mao. We circled up, over, around and down, finding pandas sleeping precariously perched on tiny little stubs of branches, lounging against logs, walls or the steps. One was hiding in a ditch, thinking that we wouldn’t find him snuggled against the wall.

David summoned us for our orientation, which was really just picking up uniforms (a styling UPS brown jumpsuit) and gloves and signing a waiver. Tomorrow we start work at 8:10, which means leaving the hotel at 7:15. It is all just too exciting for me to put into words, to be honest. I’m crazy with anticipation now that it’s finally here!

Dinner tonight is with Suzanne in the hotel.

China -- Day Five Part 2

2011-09-14T05:58:00.000-04:00

Looking back on the whole experience it is even more incredible. But a few things I forgot…the keepers would put the panda on your lap and then they’d hand him a stick of bamboo and dip it either in honey or sugar water that he’d busily gnaw away at. As long as the panda had that, he didn’t care what happened to him. What was hilarious though was as he finished one stick of bamboo, he’d look to the keeper with the stash of bamboo and sticky goodness and they’d hand him another. It was like he knew the drill and would stay with it as long as he could. I think he made it through 8 of us before they changed shifts and the second cub came in for the rest of the photos.

Chengdu PRBC has red pandas as well, which I love. Unfortunately only three were out in the enclosure and they are so squirmy and skittish that it was tough to photograph them.

I think the biggest take-away I had from the day at Chendgu PBRC was that the pandas here are extremely well taken care of and seem to be living as normal an existence as I’d hope for. Just following those two through the grass yesterday felt like a safari to me and seemed so much more natural than just walking up to a glass room or a large cage to see them. I’m so curious to see how things are at Bifengxia now!

Believe it or not, David had to drag us out of Chengdu PBRC. I really think.we all could have stood around waiting for a panda to turn its head to give us that money shot. We would wait patiently if it meant getting the perfect view of thinking it had acknowledged us. But David had an agenda for us and off we went.

Our one mistake was not getting the names of the cubs who participated in the photo op. We think the one I held was Yun Zun or something similar, so I will have to look that up when I get home. I’d want to follow his progress if and when he gets sent to a zoo or starts breeding.

I should probably use this space now to talk about Chengdu. For a city I’d never heard of before I started reading more on pandas, it is massive. Massive in the sense of “how could a city this big exist and I’ve never heard of it?” In fact the top 20 largest cities in China are larger than all US cities. It is massive and sprawling. It is also in a perpetual state of construction and demolition. It is very common to see enormous piles of bricks that used to be one large building that will be replaced by yet another skyscraper. The city is also building additional subway lines so whole blocks have been taken by eminent domain and demolished to make way for the subway.

What I have noticed though is that the further I get away from Beijing the more the infrastructure declines. From Beijing to Xi’an to Chengdu, I saw less and less English, more squat toilets (and no Western style toilest), more demolish, more construction cranes, and more evidence that this is a developing, not developed, country. I am curious to know how much of the difference between Beijing and the other two cities is due to the fact that Beijing was built up for the Olympics. Here I see more really rundown buildings that look like the outer boroughs of New York that just look like lower class tenements. There is what David calls a “deluxe neighborhood” that has designer shops like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry, but that seems to be the exception and not the norm. And while I had heard before I came here that China is really dirty, I’ve found that it’s more a function of having billions of people in a relatively small space and also of being one of the oldest nations on the globe. So is it sparkling clean like a quaint city at home? No. But is it as dirty as I was led to believe? Not really. It’s sort of like when people say Rome is dirty…if dirty is classic old architecture that hasn’t been razed for new glass skyscrapers, then give me dirty.

Anyway, after leaving the panda center, David took us for lunch and it was back to lazy susan style serving. All of the dishes had a more Sichuan flare and as I was one of the three on the trip who wanted “super spicy” he had dishes made up especially for us. One that was fabulous was a julienned string bean with three types of hot pepper. There was an interesting egg dish, almost like a flan, that had a spicy beef on top of it. I think we had maybe 15 dishes, none of which horrified me, which I guess is a good thing.

After lunch, we went to the Jinsha Site Museum. This modern glass building was built over an archeological dig It is still an active dig and if we timed it right probably could have seen people working there. The guide walked us through the dig (on platforms over the pits) and explained to us what significant findings were made and where. Then we went to a second building that was more like a museum displaying items that had been found. The guide said this museum had been opened in 2007 so it is still relatively new and I am guessing will become less sparse as the dig continues. I felt that for such a massive space, it had a lot of filler in the way of maps and dioramas with stuffed animals and mannequins than actual treasures. It was interesting enough but I think we were all brought back to harsh reality after the euphoria of the panda experience that morning.

Our next stop was supposed to be a tea house but the one David wanted to try was closed, so we went to another that ended up being the same one that Anthony Bourdain went to on the episode he was in Sichuan Province. This was an outdoor pavilion with little cement tables with big wicker chairs around them. Almost as soon as we entered the pavilion, older Chinese men approached us with these long wire rods with cotton at the end of them. What they were (get ready for this) were ear wax cleaners. For a price, they would stick the rod in your ear, use a tuning fork and let it hum against the rod. Somehow, that would clear out the wax. We all politely declined; no, really we don’t need our ears cleaned. Then the men started to offer arm or back massages. I was tempted as I’ve had a knot in my shoulder for the entire trip but Stanley didn’t think it was a good idea. But by far the strangest encounter we had was with an old man who came up to us with a mesh bag of live turtles. These are the little turtles that some kids get as pets when they are young. The guy was pretty insistent that we buy them. I asked David why people might be buying them. He replied “soup”. Ok, so maybe not pets after all.

David ordered us tea which was served in little cups with lids on saucers. David also bought each of us a mooncake to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival together. He taught us to drink the tea by picking it up with the saucer, tipping the lid away from you (which holds the tea leaves in and pushes the steam away from your face) and sipping gently. The jasmine tea was nice, but I still miss my coffee!

When we were done with the tea house, we moved on to the park around it where there were a lot of activities similar to what we saw Sunday morning, only all of this felt like it was on steroids. Everything was louder and more ostentatious. There was some sort of faux red carpet runway where residents were taking turns walking the catwalk. There was lots of karaoke, where apparently louder means better. We saw more people doing these groups dances (usually women) and a few groups of men playing cards or Chinese chess.

One of the other tourists in the group got me interested in photographing little kids. For the most part, if we smile, point to the kid and hold up the camera, the parents are really accommodating and proud of their child. Only some times are we denied a shot. But I think that it really captures the spirit of the country when you see the kids react to the camera and I am surprised by how many parents will respond to us in English, even if just to say “bye bye” or “thank you”. We found a lot of little kids in this park that we managed to snap photos of.

After the park we went to the Wenshu Temple, which is the first Buddhist temple I have ever visited. It is made up of several buildings each of which have a different icon (not sure if that’s the right word for a statue of a god in Buddhism) and people would come to pray to a particular god based on what they are looking for: benevolence, wisdom, etc. I found that I hadn’t realized how loud China was until we were inside the grounds of the temple where it was almost deafeningly quiet. In the lantern covered lanes, we saw monks walking around and the faithful lighting incense in large incense burners and offering them up to the gods. The contrast of the dark would buildings with the bright red lanterns and the brilliant gold statues of the gods was really striking. This was a cool, quiet respite on what was a very long day.

Our last stop before dinner was the Kuanzhai Lane Pedestrian Street, which was sort of a touristy block or two of shops, restaurants, pubs and tea and coffee houses. The architecture was pretty and we had a laugh at places like “Scent of a Woman Coffee Shop”. What did it for me though was finding my first Starbucks of the trip, where I bought my collector mugs and thermal cups as I do wherever I go. We only had a half hour here, so we moved on to dinner pretty quickly.

Dinner was meant to be on our own tonight but David made reservations for all of us to eat together at a Sichuan style tapas meal. He said it would be $15 a person so we didn’t hold out a lot of hope that it would be anything fabulous. We were so wrong. In the end, we had over 20 dishes served either to us individually or family style on the lazy susan. David also got extra spicy dishes made for the three “hot girls” so we enjoyed those. I think from that meal, my favorites were two noodle dishes (one thin like spaghetti, the other white and thick like a pencil) that were really spicy, round “sweet meatballs” that looked like golf balls but were filled with something sweet. There were also spring rolls filled with what we think might have been blueberry. Stanley bought us Chinese whiskey so a few of us did some shots. That was interesting; it had a scent of cherries and berries, went down like grappa but had a chocolatey aftertaste. It didn’t take much of that to get a buzz on!

After dinner we drove to the Shufengyayun Theater where we were seeing a local show. We had some time to kill so David walked us through some local neighborhoods. One street was nothing but pet shops, selling predominantly different types of goldfish, but also a few with mice, gerbils, kittens and puppies. This sort of disturbed me because on its face it is not the type of neighborhood I’d ever feel comfortable walking through and the rundown nature of the shops was really unsettling. But a mere 10 minutes’ walk away had us browsing Louis Vuitton and Burberry. Go figure.

The local show was really entertaining. There were maybe 10 acts and included hand shadows, Chinese violin, Chinese opera, dancing, puppetry and face changing, which was the big finale. Face changing is an interesting trick. The actors appear with a mask on and quicker than you can blink, they switch their masks right before your eyes. I think I saw a few of the actors pulling them away with strings, but it doesn’t explain how they can get down to bare face and then have a mask on again! This was really a great experience and I’m glad we had the chance to see it. But what an action packed, fun filled day!

I stayed up until midnight checking email, looking at photos and posting to Facebook. Hoping for more sleep tonight!

China -- Day Five

2011-09-13T12:00:00.001-04:00

Subtitled: Pandas!

This will have to be part one of Day Five, since it's 11:20 p.m. here and I have a 7 a.m. wake up call. But I'll cover the best part of the trip now.

I got a nice 7 1/2 hours of sleep last night which was just tremendous. Mentally it felt so much better to wake up the first time and see it is 6 a.m. and not 1:30, 3:00 or 4:15. Breakfast here was good but the further we get from Beijing the more Chinese and less Western breakfast seems to become. I still managed to carb up (cereal, pastries) and balance that with protein (yogurt) and juice before we headed out.

Our first stop of the day was Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Facility. There was a heavy mist to the start of the day, which made everything seem rather ethereal. We walked up a path and immediately into a wooded area surrounded by bamboo. David, our local guide, asked how many of us were interested in the panda photo opportunity, and all of us except Dan did it. David took us right to the area where the photos were to be done and told us to kill some time looking at the panda nursery nearby. The panda nursery is just like one for humans, with incubators and the cutest darn little pandas ever. Since pandas breed around the same time every year (January-ish), all the cubs are born in the summer, so these little guys were all about 6 weeks old or younger. Actually I think the oldest in the nursery that I saw was born on 7/24. Their eyes are closed, the have a thin layer of fur and they are doing what they do best at this age: sleep. We made two passes through the line and more than a few of us were talking baby talk to them. No photos were allowed so this part of the day has to stay in my memory only. Finally, David called us over for the photo opportunity.

All of us were taken into a room where we put on a surgical gown and booties. We gathered together like nervous school children behind the line in front of a big wooden throne. What seemed like ages, but probably was just a few minutes, passed and all of a sudden the keepers came from the hallway on our right and they were escorting in our panda baby. He wobbled in like a little toddler would. He was just about a year old and ready to get to work. So one by one, we each handed our camera off to a keeper, sat in the chair and they plopped this bundle of fur on to our laps. From there on, I cannot explain to you what it felt like. I know I was talking to him, I know I put my cheek on his head to feel his fur (coarse, damp) and I know that I didn't want to let him go. This was just so much more overwhelming than I ever imagined. I don't remember now how I thought it was going to be, but however good that expectation was, this was better.

Much too soon, the keepers lifted the panda off my lap and my time was up. I made it about 5 paces away before I broke down and cried. I was not alone in that feeling either. I couldn’t believe what I had just done and felt truly blessed by such an amazing experience. When we talked about the whole thing as a group, we all agreed and others said that I just exploded with happiness holding that bear. I’ve seen their photos of me as well as my own and I have to agree.

We spent the rest of the morning touring the facility. We tracked a pair of pandas as they worked their way through tall grass seeking out more bamboo for breakfast. We saw some cubs snoozing peacefully up in trees. We saw Mei Lan (formerly of Atlanta Zoo and Po’s big sister) napping on a platform. We laughed as one panda dove head first down a ravine and into a ditch in search of breakfast. It was all just so amazing to see them in such a good, healthy environment. I cannot believe I still have three days of this to go!

I’m heading into the Sichuan mountains tomorrow and am unsure of when I’ll be able to connect again. It may not be until Saturday, but I’ll update the blog with everything when I get connected.

China -- Day Four

2011-09-12T09:19:00.001-04:00

Subtitled: To Sleep Perchance to Dream, Looking for One Good Warrior, Not So Hot Pot

Lo and behold, today I awoke at 4 a.m. for the first time, having gotten a full 5 ½ hours of sleep. I didn’t necessarily consider that a success but my tour mates cheered for me at breakfast, pointing out that that was the sum total of sleep I’d managed to get the past two nights combined, so that's progress I guess.

Breakfast here at the hotel in Xi’an definitely skewed more toward Eastern than Western cuisine. I had to hunt to find my carbs, but managed to make do with Rice Crispies, a couple different pastries and two cups of yogurt. And then Naomi and Tracy told me they’d found lychees and dragon fruit on the buffet, so I headed out for round two which would include something with a more Asian feel. See, that’s what picking my food with blinders on gets me! The lychees are good here, just like what I get in the lychee lemonade at home. The dragon fruit is actually like a kiwi only with whiter meat and a bright pinkish red skin. So that was my fruit for the day.

Alan and Stanley warned us that there’d be no scheduled lunch again today but no amount of convincing from them would have me wrapping up things from the breakfast buffet to smuggle on to the plane for lunch. Instead I hit my personal stash of protein bars, Pop Tarts and Fig Newtons. Lunch of champions, I say.

The weather dawned dry at least, although I spent about 10 minutes with a hair dryer drying out my sneakers a bit. Rather than pack still-damp jeans for the journey to Chengdu, I’m wearing them again. Long range weather forecast says it is supposed to be warmer, dryer and downright hot as we approach Shanghai this weekend. By lunch time today the sun will have found us and it is becoming increasingly warm.

Our first stop today was a local art museum and school. The guide at the museum was a cute little Chinese student with a good grasp of English and a playful sense of humor, as we were to find out. She took us on a trip through the history of Chinese art, showing us examples of folk art, like farmer art, which used propaganda to get the Communist Party’s message through (she says people nowadays laugh at that message). Also she showed us puppetry which was made from animal skin and paper cutting and carvings on clay.

As we moved to the next room, she showed us how high all the thresholds were and asked which foot should we lead with when crossing such a high threshold. It turns out men should only step over with the left foot and women should always step over with the right foot, because women are always right. She said this with a wink and a smile to Dan, the only man in our group. In the next room she told us about Empress Wu, the only female to have ever ruled China. Apparently she lived quite long and at 81 still had extremely young boyfriends. Some of us said simultaneously, “cougar” and laughed. The guide looked puzzles and said “teach me new word?” and we explained how cougar has a double meaning now in English. It seemed to me she’d be quick to use that the next time she tells Americans about Empress Wu. We also told her that “dog” and “weasel” have different meanings as well. So we did our deed for the day, educating the Chinese about American vernacular.

The last room in the museum was set up as an art studio with long tables with 10 seats, and plenty of black paper, brushes and ink. If you are hearing foreboding music in your head now, you’re on the right track. We were going to learning calligraphy. Being quite possibly the least artsy person I know, this ended up being an effort in not getting frustrated, throwing the brush and leaving. I felt the pressure when the guide came through and said “Lady, you must finish your stroke.” I thought I was done! Ugh. So instead of saying “forever”, the symbol which contains all 8 strokes of calligraphy, mine probably said “underachiever” or “you’re not done yet”. Who knows. We got to take our lessons home but I’ll be damned if it’s going on the fridge. What I will be hanging are two watercolors I bought from the local students; one is an orchid and the other is a plum tree. Of course they cost about 10% of the price I’ll have to pay to frame them, but it’s a nice souvenir nonetheless.

An interesting sidenote to the calligraphy story is that when artists does paintings of bamboo, they usually do so using only the 8 brushstrokes of calligraphy, so it is more appropriate to say they are “writing bamboo” rather than painting it.

After the museum we headed outside of Xi’an to the Terra Cotta Warriors museum. This has been so high on my bucket list for so long that I could hardly believe I was going. I’d already seen an exhibition with 10 of the soldiers in DC a couple years ago but still to see them on the site where they were found and excavated would be amazing. The warriors are guarding the tomb of the Emperor Qin, emperor of the first dynasty. Qin was a good emperor and is usually compared to Julius Caesar in terms of success, although he was also known for being sort of mean as well. Anyway, of the many things Qin did (among which were unifying the country, centralizing currency, weights and measures and linking the Great Wall together), perhaps designing his own tomb to have several thousand warriors guard it as he went on the afterlife, was one of the best, for me anyway. The “cemetery”, as Dong calls it, is over 56 square kilometers, but only three pits of warriors have been excavated for us to see. Excavation in other areas has stopped until they can determine two things: one, how to preserve the colors on the terra cotta, which fade extremely fast when exposed to oxygen, and two, how best to handle the high volumes of mercury which they find coming from Qin’s burial mound. The amount of mercury they are finding near where he’s known to be buried is so high that it would be dangerous to anyone working on the excavations.

Walking in to pit 1, despite the fact that I’ve seen so many photos of this, I was still completely breathless when I saw it all with my own eyes. Right before me were row upon row of soldiers, each one unique and each dressed for his position in the army, since the uniforms and hair styles varied whether the statue was a warrior, an archer, an officer, a general, etc. These soldiers are so unique that even the soles of their shoes were different, so there was no cookie cutter production line here. Even though I'd seen the dozen or so in DC a couple years ago, there is just something about seeing them here where they were meant to be, and realizing that there were several times more still underground just really blows my mind.

The warriors closest to the entry were completely excavated, but as I walked around the hangar (because the pit looked like a huge airplane hanger), the further from the front the less excavated the area was and fewer whole soldiers I could see. It was just stunning to look down and see pieces of soldier or horse just lying there. I was blown away. To be so completely overwhelmed by it even when I’d looked forward to it for so long was more than I could ask.

Dong did a great job showing us around pits 2 and 3, where there was even less excavation and different types of warriors. We also saw the bronze chariot that was discovered. I really expected a stop like this to be rushed like they tend to be, but we spent quite a bit of time there, over two hours and I left feeling like we had really seen it well.

We went right to the airport from there and again the luggage had been checked and we arrived just in time to board the flight – this is traveling in style. The flight was only about an hour and we picked up our luggage and met David (Chinese name Ying) who is took us to dinner for hot pot. We had to preorder whether we wanted hot pot or not spicy hot pot. I put in my order for fully spicy…we’ll see what happens….

On the way to the restaurant, David told us about Sichuan province and Chengdu (Sichuan means “three rivers”). Oddly enough, he pronounces Sichuan like “Sit-re-an” which I’m trying to figure out. He says there are a lot of Tibetan people here because the province is close to Tibet and Chengdu is the closest big city. When I say “big”, I mean bigger than Boston. A lot of it looks like the area out around Huntington Ave and Northeastern in Boston. It’s a bustling college city with lots of traffic filled double-laned streets.

One epidemic here is building cranes. You can’t throw a dart without hitting a crane putting up a very tall building. Not just here, but in Beijing and Shanghai as well. It is really sort of crazy to think about adding still more to the skylines here!

Dinner was interesting. For Sichuan hot pot, each diner gets his or her own pot of oil with spices. I had to ask for either regular (not spicy) or spicy (hot and spicy, with lots of Sichuan pepper). I opted for spicy because I do like hot and spicy food. Once I’d put in my order though, I had instant regrets. I remembered Anthony Bourdain’s episode where he did hot pot and the next day had a pretty serious intestinal meltdown. I really wasn’t up for that tomorrow, with it being the first day for pandas, but I took my chances. In the end it wasn’t so bad. I was more concerned about the rare/raw meats (chicken, pork, fish and beef) that we had to boil in the hot oil, so I opted for either big wedges of veggies (pumpkin, celery) or noodles or previously cooked shrimp, fried pork strips or fishballs. I suppose in the end it was like really spicy fondue, but it wasn’t that hot. I do wish it had been hotter, but for the sake of saving the day with the pandas and my intestinal fortitude, I am happy I played it smart.

We got to our hotel here in Chengdu and it is really nice. I think the room is the nicest we have had so far, with a big comfy king bed and very Tibetan furnishings. There’s a nice big soaker tub and shower in the bathroom. Hopefully it’s quiet and I can get some sleep!

As I write this someone just rang the bell to the room. A tiny little female hotel employee was delivering mooncakes to my room, a complimentary snack in recognition of Mid-Autumn Day, the night of the first full moon of fall. I have of course already eaten one, and can’t quite explain it. There is a dense moist cake inside and some softer gooey covering outside. I might have to have another to figure this out...

China -- Day Three

2011-09-11T09:00:00.002-04:00

Subtitled: Why Don’t We Do This, (More) Retail Therapy

Oddly enough as we prepare to leave Beijing, the day dawned sunny and warm. You might ask why I know this and it’s because I’d been up since 2:00 waiting for it. I guess one might say I have that affliction Bill Murray had in Lost In Translation, I just cannot sleep for the life of me, at least not when I’m supposed to. I brought this up earlier this morning with some of my fellow travelers, and given that there is both a family doctor and a pharmacist with a pharmacopia among us, apparently I will be hooked up with suitable sleep relief tonight. We’ll see.

Today I ate breakfast with Tracy and Margie. Since our luggage had to be outside our doors for pick-up by 6:30, we were all downstairs for breakfast when it opened. That got us marginally better pickings and at least a table together. I had the same breakfast as yesterday, only with more coffee and dumplings that were filled with cheese and something resembling blackberry.

We were off so gosh darn early to head to the Temple of Heaven. The Temple itself is situated in the midst of a big leafy green park, which is hard to come by in a city like Beijing. We were dropped at the gate and Stanley led us through the park. What we found there was actually fascinating and also heart-warming if you want me to be honest. Stanley had explained that men retire here at 55 and women at 50, so there are legions of folks with lots of free time to fill in their later years. Apparently they meet every day in the park to catch up with friends and do all forms of exercise, game-playing and catching up. I couldn’t believe how crowded it was and how active these “older folks” were. We first came upon a group doing tai chi to some soothing Asian-inspired music. There were groups playing badminton, smaller groups of friends playing cards, mah jong, dominoes. Women would sit and crochet things like small animals and bonnets and sell them along the pathway. A large group was dancing under the shade trees; it seemed each dance started off slow and relaxed and as the group danced to some pre-determined sequence of moves (it seemed they all knew the steps, we certainly did not). The pace of each song built over the 4-5 minutes in went on and it ended in a flurry of arm movements and swirls. There were musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments solo, and a trio of guitarists who were letting anyone who wanted to sing with them. All of this seemed so natural to them and it did give me pause to wonder why we don’t do anything like that. There was a sense of community and camaraderie that I don’t see at home. Plus too, not one of these folks was overweight. Is it because they do this every day or is it just that their daily life doesn’t lend itself to eating enough to be big. I don’t know, but this was extremely cool to be a part of.

We made our way to the Temple of Heaven, which was just gorgeous. The temple is round as heaven is round (so they think). It is designed in three levels (roofs) going up to a steeple like top. Stanley explained that it was constructed using no nails, because the Chinese believe that nails will eventually rust and give way, but if joints are constructed so that the pieces are interlocking, they will hold together forever. The colors and decorations (dragons and flowers mostly) were stunning, mostly blues and greens with some gold and red. Visitors are not allowed into the interior but we could peak in at the 28 columns holding up the roofs (28 for some combination of hours in a day and days in a month, or something like that). It was actually quite surprising how impressive this is, especially after all the buildings we saw at the Forbidden City yesterday that could arguably be considered bigger and better than this. Sometimes, I guess, a little less is more.

After the temple, we boarded the bus and were off to Pearl Palace, where we were shown how fresh water pearls are cultivated and then let loose into the showroom. The sales person asked us to guess how many and what color pearls were in one of the oysters we pulled from a pool inside the showroom. She then split the oyster shell opened and scooped out about 15 pearls. We each got to keep one as a souvenir, which was cool. I made my way through the showroom and quickly found a very affordable solitaire pearl on a chain (we got 30% off the ticket price, which I didn’t feel the need to talk down). I also picked up a ring, because hey, the price was right and I liked it as well as a gift for someone at home. Despite working my credit card down to a melted pool of plastic yesterday at the jade factory, it still worked here and the retail therapy took a bit of an edge off my ongoing jetlag.

I sat outside the shop in the gorgeous sunshine with Dan and Naomi, a couple from Oklahoma. We talked about places we’ve been and favorite places to revisit. Stanley then loaded us all back on the bus where we all agreed we could have spent all day watching the folks at the park just hanging out and being social. It was one of the best parts of the trip so far, for sure.

We had a 1:00 flight to Xi’an on China Eastern Airlines; the flight taking about 90 minutes. I had the noodle lunch on board, which was just noodles with green beans, shrimp and cabbage. I ignored the cucumber salad and the brown hard boiled egg and started munching on the copious chocolate I just bought in duty free.

Having left beautiful weather in Bejing, we arrive in Xi’an heavy rain and back in the low 60s. Stanley had hired us a luggage service on both ends of the trip, so the luggage that was picked up at my room at 6:30 was miraculously delivered to the flight in Beijing and appeared on the luggage carousel for me in Xi’an. It was sort of sweet to arrive at the airport just in time to get a boarding pass and get on the flight!

Once we arrived in Xi’an we had no choice but to persevere despite the rain. Half the group clustered under an overhang for shelter but I went with a few others to walk the Xi’an city wall. It is about 20 feet wide and 8 miles long. We did perhaps a city block’s length, but I figured I’ll only be here once, to hell with the rain.

From there we went to walk the Muslim Quarter, which has a significant food street market. I never thought I’d say this but I was actually tempted to eat street food, some of it looked and smelled so good. One in particular was a thin pancake topped with leek and scallion and some sort of cheese, then topped with another pancake and pressed, then fried. It smelled amazing. Walnuts and dates are really big here. Alan (Dong is his given name), our local guide, said they are grown right outside the city.

After traipsing through more rain and getting soggier still, we arrived at the restaurant for our 16 course dumpling dinner. After being a bit disgruntled with dinner last night, I was happily surprised with tonight’s. Dumplings are thin sacks almost like pancakes, filled with a stuffing of some sort (veg, rice, meat or a combination) and twisted into shapes. This restaurant is known for making the shape look something like what you are eating, so chickens, rabbit, walnuts, tomato, fish. Most of them continued with a somewhat bland theme that I’d discovered. But a few had a kick to them that made them really enjoyable to eat. The spicy chicken, extra spicy chicken and spicy pork were phenomenal. Bev and I were the only ones who like spicy foods so a lot of those were left to us to finish, which is clearly not a problem for me! There was also a pumpkin spice dumpling which I loved, but I would being a pumpkin fan. This was the first time we had Chinese rice wine, which is like a much weaker version of Japanese sake. It was too sweet for some, but just right for me! As I’ve given up on seeing any dessert but watermelon (and I hate watermelon!), I stocked up on Dove chocolate bars and am presently indulging as I get ready for bed.

We don’t leave until 8 a.m. tomorrow but luggage call is at 7:15, so another sort of early morning for us!

China -- Day Three -- Special Edition

As I’m on the plane on the way to Xi’An, I figured I’d write up some of the more anecdotal things I’ve neglected to share in the blog so far.

At the jade factory yesterday, I won’t say the saleswoman was hard sell, but when I expressed an interest in a bangle, she pulled out a display tray of them, grabbed my wrist and slid a plastic bag over my hand and started trying to force (my impression, not hers, I’m sure) bangles over my hand. Now don’t get me wrong, but I was thinking that if I need to employ any method of persuasion to get a bracelet over my hand, it is probably too small. Yet she squeezed the widest part of my hand together and said “RELAX” and I tugged my hand away and said “I don’t want to own it” and she finally backed down. I’m thinking hard sell here might have meant “stick it on them so they can’t get it off and have to buy it.” Ultimately I got a bracelet I can get on and off without butter, soap or Crisco.

Stanley is a really sweet guy and a good guide. But we noticed quite early on that he won’t eat with us. Every meal we’ve been to, they seat the 10 of us around a table and he will leave once we’re seated. He says he goes to eat with the bus driver and oddly enough he always re-appears just as the watermelon is delivered to the table. A few people had Stanley as a guide for a few days before the rest of us arrived and they said they played the game trying to figure out how old he is (born during the Cultural Revolution, that’s as much as we know) and if he’s married and has kids (married, no kids because “I’m a good Chinese”).

The gentleman I sat next to on the interminable flight to Beijing told me a story about a factory manager who works for him here. A couple years ago he called my seat mate who lives in Albany, NY and asked for a favor. It turns out his wife had just found out she was pregnant with a girl and it was their second child. They wanted to keep the baby but with China’s one-child policy, knew they probably shouldn’t. The factory manager wanted to send his wife to live in Albany to have the baby, who would then have dual citizenship in the US and China. Their plan was to return to China with the baby, with the fabricated story that it was a baby who’d been adopted by a US couple but then returned. It seemed they’d thought it all out, but ultimately they just had the child in China. The daughter, because she was the second child, would not be eligible for any social services (health insurance, etc) for her entire life because she was a second child.

Beneath Tiananmen Square is a network of tunnels that get you across the streets from the square over to the entrance to the Forbidden City and back again. These are pretty common in other cities I’ve been in, with the exception of the somewhat arbitrary metal detectors, which are manned by Special Police and overseen by an armed guard. We whizzed right past without stopping, whether that is because we had Stanley with us or not, I’m not sure.

I didn’t manage to dodge the squatty pottie for long. The really nice, seemingly upscale restaurant we ate at for our Peking Duck dinner had only squatters, which I think caught a lot of us offguard. At least they had toilet paper, I suppose. And in the domestic terminal of Beijing Airport, they had only one Western toilet available, which I gladly stood in line to use. Remind me to thank my PT for all those wall squats I’ve been doing for my knee, they are coming in handy for something!

I’m a sage with chopsticks at home having become a sushi freak. However, those are wooden bamboo so the roughness of the wood gives some texture to help you hold on to what you’re attempting to pick up. Here, they are nicely varnished, smooth wood. Here too, most of what we’re eating is in a sauce, which makes the food extra slippery. I will admit to having stabbed more than one bite of food with one chopstick to get some leverage. Call it cheating, I call it survival skills.

The Chinese superstition, if you call it that, is unbelievably limiting. The things that Stanley has said are almost hard to believe. Like when China bid for the Olympics, they either wanted 2000 or 2008, since 2000 was the millennium celebration and 8 (as in 2008) is a lucky number for them. As we know, they got 2008. But other little things like being aware of your birth zodiac (I am year of the dog) and when it comes around again, because every 12 years it will and that will be a transition year for you. You shouldn’t do anything risky or unusual in your transition year, and in fact you should wear something red all year. Men typically will wear a red belt. Generally they really believe in numbers and that 4 is really bad because it sounds like the Chinese word for “dead”.

Stanley taught us how to write some Chinese characters. He drew one horizontal line for “one”. Two for “two”. Three for “three”. All three together can also mean the three parts of life: earth, heaven and something else I can’t remember… To write “emperor” draw a vertical line through the three lines. To show “jade”, draw a dot to the right of this same symbol. To show “country”, draw a box around all of these characters together.

Which leads me to how these folks text on their cell phones. Being the computer geek I can be, I asked Stanley to show me how he texts. He does use a Western alphabet on the keyboard, but what they have to do is type in how the syllable sounds, like “bei” and “jing” for Beijing. Each sound he types will reveal possible characters to choose from and he has to scroll through to pick the one that matches the tone he wants, because don’t forget that each character can be spoken in any one of four tones, each tone changing the meaning of the character. Yikes. I said that it all seems tedious, but he said once you’re used to it, you can do it pretty quickly.

Walking to dinner tonight, I saw a woman carrying a toddler out of a shop with a sense of urgency. She had him facing forward, arms around his waist. She got to the top step of the store and squatted down, holding him over the next step down. He leaned back, spread his legs, letting his pants split open (on purpose) and his private parts popped out only to pee all over the top step. I guess this is just how it’s done here…think of the savings on diapers. Think of how quickly I’m burning these sneakers when I get home.

I've seen some pretty interesting uses of the English language. One small take out restaurant was called Glutton Kitten, another Nice Rice. The best billboard I've seen was today, for a "come to Xi'an" travel promotion: "The Amorous Feelings Tourist Festival". Now that ought to lure them in!

China -- Day Two

2011-09-10T10:34:00.000-04:00

Subtitled: Stanley’s Proverbs, Amy’s Proverbs, And TMI about the Duck

Despite a 12 hour time difference, I was still awake at 3:00 to feed the cat. I suppose I’m nothing if not reliable. Problem is, I did not get back to sleep until 5, only to wake at 6 in order to be ready for our 7:45 departure.

Breakfast here is like the wedding dress sale at Filene’s Basement. The breakfast room is massive, with maybe 100+ tables, but when I appeared for breakfast at 6:45, there was a line and every buffet station was crowded. This buffet had everything I’ve ever seen before in my travels, plus salad, dim sum (mostly dumplings) and the Chinese idea of pastry. I had yogurt, canned apricots and beaches (yes, it was spelled “beaches”), pancakes with sugar and jam and a bowl of cereal and OJ. The couple from Oklahoma convinced me to try a dumpling, which was good, but not breakfast material for me.

I withdrew from the ATM in the lobby (convenient!) and we were off. The day started out with light rain and cool, maybe low 60s. I very quickly added a layer under my windbreaker and by the end of the day would wish for more. Our first stop of the day was the “Egg” National Opera House, just for a photo stop. The Opera House is shaped like, well, an egg, not coincidentally enough. It lies atop a moat and you would enter it by walking through a tunnel under the moat, but we weren’t so we didn’t, but we walked onward toward Tiananmen Square.

Our guide Stanley is a man with a mission. As he started out the day, he noted the wet weather and told us “Confucius would say ‘Noble people travel with the rain and the sun’” so I guess today we were to be noble people. I’ll just add that as a Spinning instructor, I’m supposed to know what to say to motivate when the chips are down, and this one didn’t do much for me. But it was a nice thought.

We entered Tiananmen Square on the same road that we drove on last night. Through the rain, we admired the square, albeit quite briefly. Stanley had arranged a group photo that would be presented to us later that day in a souvenir book. The wind was turning umbrellas inside out and we were getting wetter than hoped. Yes, the square here is large, larger indeed than Red Square. It is surrounded by a massive building housing Mao (Lenin might be more than a bit disconcerted if he knew he was in a phone booth, comparatively speaking), the National Museum and the People’s Congress, which are massive, official-looking buildings. While I give points to Tiananmen for vastness, it didn’t feel like a place people would go to hang out, indeed as I said they’re chased out at the end of the day. I feel as though if I stayed here, I wouldn’t keep going back like I did in Red Square last year. I’ve seen it, I’ll move on. Like the guards at Red Square though, the soldiers we saw guarding the flagpole (huh?) here also pack it in for the day at 8 pm, so props to our guys at Arlington National Cemetery for being the only ones to put in round the clock hours!

Crossing under the street to get over to Tiananmen Gate into the Forbidden City, we had to pass under Chairman Mao’s photo, which was sort of cool, given how many times I’ve seen it in the media at home.

The Forbidden City is gorgeous; it is also massive, but not tall. It appears spread out more horizontally than anything. I was more than a little surprised to see the throne room which I think was actually used for the movie The Last Emperor, or at least a very good facsimile was. I did learn quite a bit in the end. The interesting part for me was about the concubines the emperor was allowed to have. Stanley told us the emperor would select a concubine he wanted to spend time with. The eunuchs would then clean her and prepare her for the emperor, then wrap her tightly in a quilt, so that she couldn’t stash a knife to try to assassinate him. Then the emperor would only spend a few hours with the concubine doing, well, what emperors do with concubines. The emperor would then retreat to his own quarters to sleep. Competition was fierce among the concubines because their social standing could rise if they could provide the emperor with a son.

The trivia I learned here may someday come in handy. Vases of water were kept around just to prevent the wooden structures that made up the city from burning. The lion statues are male and female: the male has his paw on an orb, the female on lion cub. The Chinese invented civil service. An Empress Dowager once ruled through her sons and nephews from “behind the curtain” off the emperor’s office.

So after a very brief (just over an hour) cursory run (literally) through Forbidden City, we were off again. But not before my first encounter with a squat toilet. Well, I managed to dodge this one. The Forbidden City public toilets had two Western style (like you’re used to) and the rest were holes in the floor with strategically placed footprints to help you hit your mark. I managed to get into a Western style toilet, but had to use my own toilet paper, which thankfully I packed.

We had lunch at a small neighborhood restaurant, and it was pretty similar to the lazy susan dinner we had last night, where plate after plate of food just keeps landing on the lazy susan for us to pounce on. Orange chicken was one of the plates at lunch, which surprised me. There was also a delicious red onion dish (as in: red onions were the star of the plate) and a cinnamon or Chinese 5 spice beef that was good. Every meal ends with watermelon. When the slices of watermelon show up, time to go home. I’m not a melon fan, so I usually sit and wistfully remember the stash of chocolate and candy corn back in my luggage.

As we left Beijing, we passed by the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest from the 2008 Olympics. That actually was pretty cool to see. Both of them are just huge, much larger than I remember on tv, and when we came back through tonight, the Water Cube was lit up to an electric blue that just throbbed into the night sky.

On the way to the Great Wall, Stanley explained that Mao wrote “You haven’t become a hero until you’ve climbed the Great Wall.” He proudly declared that today is the day we’d become heroes. But not before a strategically placed shopping stop for jade. Jade is China’s precious gem, and the Chinese believe it has healing qualities. In my second proverb of the trip, I say “Any shopping stop is a good shopping stop.” After a guided tour through a workshop to see how jade was cut, we were let loose into an immense showroom of everything you could imagine in jade. I flagged a sales girl and made her chase me around like my personal shopper. I’ve wanted a jade bangle bracelet for ages and that was my first stop. I ended up with an A-1 quality certified lavender bangle…good glory it’s unreal, but not cheap. We did get “Stanley’s discount” but still. I also picked up a few gifts for folks at home and immediately felt that my retail therapy was helping both my dessert neglect and my jetlag. I visited the “museum piece” room and fell in love with a white jade bowl with two orange jade koi fish swimming in it. It was cut from one piece of jade that was white with orange in the center and it was explained to me that master cutters know how to design with the colors as they appear in the jade. It was about US$12,000, so I wisely passed on it.

Back in the bus and off to the Great Wall. Along the way we passed a few other places we could have stopped to see some Wall, and all of them were deserted. I wondered if Badaling, the section we were visiting would be as well. It had stopped raining but was overcast and damp. I also saw some shrine pavilions built into the mountainsides and random camels here and there. We pulled into the parking lots and found them deserted as well. Stanley said weather was on our side because it wasn’t crowded. It was, however, much cooler here and damper still. We gathered as a group and were given the option to go to the right, the “mild side” as Stanley put it, or the left which was more technically challenging. You know exactly which way I went. Tracy, a tour member from North Carolina, hung with me for about 10 minutes, then she agreed to sit and wait and take my photo as I continued the climb.

It took me about 20 minutes to reach the highest tower on this side. Some of the gradients were insanely steep and on the last set of stairs I was literally crawling using hands as well as feet to pull me up. I really didn’t think it would be this steep at all, and as someone who spends upwards of an hour on a step mill a couple times a week, I broke a good sweat. At the top, I had a stunning view back to the “mild side” but the part further on on my side was shrouded in clouds, so I turned and went back down, only to be reminded of my HELLO VERTIGO. Yowza. As steep as it was going up, it was almost more work going down, preventing myself from falling forward or running out of control. Oddly enough there are hand railings here, but they are about knee height on me, so not a lot of use. I found myself almost sitting back to prevent a lurch forward. Finally I got to the bottom and in a fit of stupidity, took on the “mild side” with the time I had left. It was milder, but not by much. I made it to the base of the stairs at the third tower here and my legs told me to stop. They were not taking on that set of about 80 stairs and coming down again happily. So I retreated and found a shop that paints Western names in calligraphy. Cool.

The Great Wall, in my opinion, is really best appreciated once you’ve climbed it. I think if I had just shown up and seen what I could see from the parking lot or visitor’s center, I wouldn’t have the appreciation for how it winds not just up and over and down and around, but also across the mountains. And to think the entire thing was built in 10 years? Hmmmm.

Dinner tonight was in one of Beijing’s famous Peking Duck restaurants, Pianyifang. Back to another round table with a lazy susan. Appetizers galore started to appear, and once again the lotus root dish disappeared in a flash, it is a real crowd pleaser! The chef appeared with our duck and carved it down before us, laying little slivers of the meat on a duck shaped dish, so that the meat almost looked like the dish’s feathers. The waitress took a pancake, put some thinly sliced Chinese celery or cucumber on it, dipped a couple of pieces of duck in the hoisin sauce and then artfully wrapped the pancake around her chopsticks and presented each of us with a tube of duck deliciousness. As you can imagine, my attempt at the same exercise ended up looking a hot mess, but still tasted really good.

I am, however, getting a bit uptight about the communal eating. The duck experience lent itself to a lot of double dipping and illegal use of chopsticks in the group’s shared bowl. I could tell others felt like I do, so we just backed off and stuck with dishes that had serving spoons with them. That said, I was more than a little dismayed when a small plate appeared on the lazy susan nearest me and I quickly realized that was the duck’s head split in half and artfully presented, which several at the table later pontificated was for decoration only, except they’d missed how the woman next to me tore into it for every last tasty morsel, then compared notes with the woman next to her about how the beak meat tasted, and did she work her way around the eye or what? Which lead me to Amy’s next proverb: “Yes, there is such a thing as too much information about a duck.” Good glory, dinner’s over….

China -- Day One

2011-09-09T09:54:00.000-04:00

Subtitled: I didn't sign on for a 16 hour flight, what am I eating anyway, and jetlag is nothing a waterfall shower and a hot chocolate chip cookie can't cure.

So when last we chatted, I was holed up in O'Hare killing two hours. A very long story short, the flight left 90 minutes late, which meant we were sitting on the tarmac inexplicably for that long before it took off, so in theory, in that same seat for nerly 16 hours. Joy. But it wasn't so bad because I had the window seat, the middle was empty and a very nice, information-sharing guy was on the aisle. We talked quite a bit, but I also watched three movies, slept a lot and somehow had three meals in-flight. The guy I met flies over once a month for business so he had lots of info about his experiences the last 20 years which was interesting.

Flying in toward Beijing, I was astounded how it went from fairly impressive mountains to mile upon mile of skyscraper apartment blocks. I mean HUNDREDS of apartment buildings as far as I can see. But I supposed in a city of 19 million, you gotta put 'em somewhere.

We got here late, so I was picked up by the driver and taken, with two other members of the group, directly to our welcome group dinner. So enter us, all in 30+ hours old clothes, bed head and in need of sleep and a shower. They took us to a restaurant that specializes in making vegetarian dishes taste like meat. If only I could tell you what I ate. The waitstaff just keep bringing plates and leaving them on the lazy susan, and it is up to you to serve yourself or not. They don't tell you what it is and good luck guessing. One thing I really liked in a light sauce turned out to be lotus root, go figure. When we found something we liked, we asked our guide Stanley.

At 8:30 they finally took us to the hotel, which changed from the original itinerary, again inexplicably. I thought we were taking the scenic route because Stanley was doing some guide schtick on the way which I was fighting to stay awake through, but I did perk up as we drove through Tiananmen Square. "Hey, that's Chairman Mao," I actually said as we passed his large portrait hanging over the gate (who knew you could drive right through the square like that?) It was dark so I didn't get much sense of the scope, but Stanley said people aren't allowed to walk in the Square at night because of safety reasons, so no sense trying to get there for night photos. He did add though "Much, much bigger than Moscow's Red Square," to which I thought to myself, "hey, don't you go all hating on my Russia now..."

So far, I don't have much of an impression since most of what I've seen is in the dark. I can say it feels like I'm being driven around a big version of Chinatown. I know that sounds stupid, but part of my jetlagged mind is looking for the corner where we turn and come out in front of South Station (sorry to those of you not from Boston, that may not make sense).

By the time we got to the hotel, I was near collapse but then the concierge handed me a hot chocolate chip cookie with a smile. Then I arrived to my plush king room and found a waterfall shower. Honestly, I'm not sure there is anything that would have made me feel much better at this point. If your jetlag isn't tempered by a hot cookie and a waterfall shower, I don't know what will do it.

Up and out by 7:45 tomorrow. It's 10 now, so I've been up 31 hours. Yee ha!

1/5 of the way there

2011-09-08T11:09:00.000-04:00

I estimate that there are 21 hours to this trip from door to door, and I'm officially 4 hours into this excursion. Just landed at O'Hare in Chicago. I quickly decided that yes, $6.95 is a decent price to surf the web for about 2 hours between flights.

The good news, my ear did not explode, and neither did the cat (sorry, you had to read the last post to get that). So I feel a bit more confident that neither my burgeoning ear tumor nor head will explode before I arrive in Beijing.

The cat had me up at 3:00 a.m. for breakfast, and at that point it was useless trying to sleep again, so I watched infomercials. 4:45 came fast, my mom was bang on time to pick me up and we were at Logan by 6:40. Check in was smooth, resisted Starbucks (the caffeine taper begins NOW...time to suffer! I will regret not tapering off like I should have) and read the Globe. Very smooth flight with the exception of the very ill off duty flight attendant who passed out in front of me. Should I fall to the same fate, he will be hunted down and taken care of.

For those keeping score at home, the "this will take the edge off" drug of choice is Xanax. Given that I've never taken it before and don't know how I'll respond to it, I'm hesitant to try it out at 35,000 feet for fear I'll end up the cause of a TSA-diverted flight as I run naked up and down the aisles and need to be restrained and arrested. I feel fine now, not terribly stressed about the duration of the flight, but who knows what will happen. But maybe Xanax and my aisle dance will liven up the flight and help kill some time.

Boston folks, the sun is out here. It felt like I landed in a foreign country when I saw it, it was so damn dreary when I left this morning. And I'm embarassed to admit I had no idea what that large body of water was we came in over as we landed here. Surely a Great Lake? Maybe I need to travel a bit more in this country...

So now it's 2 more hours in Chicago and off I go. Talk to you from China!

T-2 and oh my god...

2011-09-06T15:23:00.001-04:00

I know I said I wanted a challenge, but now as I sit here less than 48 hours from liftoff, I am really wondering what I've gotten myself into. I mean, WHAT was I thinking? Yes, I am a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of China but I think some of that is just that I'm overwhelmed with other things. My ear is still blocked, with no real resolution other than "you can still hear, that's good". My knee is still problematic, and there's the fighting with insurance for every last PT session owed me. And just when I think all things may be turning my way and I can leave mentally unencumbered, what's that I hear? Oh yes, the cat (god love him, he's 14 today) has diarrhea. Will the fun never stop?

So that's why I broke down and called my poor abused primary care physician and asked for something to take the anxiety off this big old flight (13 hours and 45 minutes, if you're keeping track) from Chicago to Beijing, and maybe even back again (10 hours Shanghai to San Fran, 6 San Fran to Boston). Hey, this isn't childbirth here, doing it naturally isn't going to win me any awards, make me a hero or make my newborn MENSA material. Sure, I've got an adult version of the fun bag all packed, except instead of Tootsie Pops, Madlibs and hockey cards, I've got 5 movies, 2 books of Sudoku and logic puzzles, 9 magazines and 10 protein bars. But somehow, I think it'd be nice to stretch out in my compression stockinged legs in those three extra inches of legroom in Economy Plus and just relax rather than fret about how much godforsaken time is left on this flight anyway? If you know me at all, you know I have a tendency to dwell. So I medicate as much for those around me as for myself. Believe me.

I think it occurred to me on Thursday night when I used Flight Tracker to see where my flight was at that point in time, a whole 7 hours after take-off. And damn, it was just over Alaska, with all of the Russian and northern Chinese coast still to go. "IS THAT ALL?" I actually yelled at the monitor. With that one piece of knowledge, my dwelling began in earnest. That's why I ~~screamed~~ called for help.

Sunday found all my stuff packed except for what needed to be cleaned, used, charged, worn between then and Wednesday night. I have one more trip to CVS to pick up the aforementioned prescriptions.

I've downloaded a VPN which should in theory allow me to post freely on Facebook and this here blog, but you never know. I'll be back here when I can.

And if this post doesn't clue you in that I've just about lost my marbles, I don't know what will.... ;-)

Happy 14th birthday to my furry boy...I'll miss you when I'm away!

One Week!

2011-09-01T14:26:00.000-04:00

Officially I can start playing the "one week from right now" game....one week from right now I will have (hopefully) just departed Chicago for a 13 hour 45 minute flight to Beijing. Ok, well, maybe we don't want to play that game just yet.

Things are coming together well. All my pre-trip checklist items are crossed off except to meet the cat-sitter and pack. Oh but this ear thing has turned into a more serious crisis. After another fruitless appointment and a round of two antihistamines, a decongestant and an antibiotic, I'm still not better. Tomorrow I get escalated to an ENT (ear specialist guy) who will hopefully put me in fine feather to fly. I really just want to be medically cleared to fly and perhaps chemically prepared to tolerate the discomfort that might ensue (if you catch my drift).

I am still a bit dumbstruck by the potential of all I am about to see. I cannot for the life of me fathom standing on the Great Wall...or seeing the Shanghai skyline...or feeding or holding a panda. But all of that is on my agenda in the next two and a half weeks. I just cannot believe it. If I could just fast forward through a few of these coming days!

T-minus two weeks...

2011-08-25T12:26:00.000-04:00

Either I have become amazingly efficient at this packing/preparing thing or I'm forgetting something serious. "All" I have left to do is actually pack, notify credit cards of my travels, buy travel-friendly snack food, and charge up the electronics. And I have two weeks to do that. Hmmmm....

Somehow I managed to create a minor medical crisis by blowing out my ear somehow to the extent that I cannot hear out of it. A quick trip to the doc tomorrow will hopefully leave me in fine feather to travel for 16+ hours quite soon.

I've started to play the "two weeks from right now" or "three weeks from right now" game...realizing where I'll be or what I'll be doing at this particular moment. I even add 12 hours to factor in the time difference. Hee!

A significant milestone in all the waiting is when my actual days on the ground at my destination appear on the long-range weather forecast. Almost there!

Hurry Up, Slow Down

2011-08-20T16:47:00.001-04:00

Now I'm into the teens and I've reached that magical part of trip anticipation which my friend Bev has so aptly pointed out is where it hurries up and I need it to slow down. Right now I feel like I have a nice big luscious chocolate truffle in my hand, I want to eat it in maybe two bites, it's starting to melt in my hand a bit, but I want to stop and savor it, and I have to eat my vegetables first. Yes, I want to go quickly, yes I am feeling ready but I just really want to stop and savor it rather than lose these last days to the chaos of getting out the door.

I'm at the point now where I'm starting to think in terms of "one more": one more paycheck, one more haircut, one more run to the pet store, one more "regular" trip to the grocery store. I can also count out other significant milestones: two more full weeks of work, two more weekends at home, three more trips to PT...it's coming.

Wednesday I received the final departure packet from the tour operator. It had finalized hotel and flight details, some restaurant names and the roster of all the travelers on the trip (9 of us). And it occurred to me that these 8 other names were the names belonging to people I'd be spending 12 days with. Some of them may be taking my picture at the Great Wall or Tienanmen Square or holding a panda. We'll be schlepping on and off buses, planes and having meals together. If any of you are reading this after the fact, know that I was excited to meet you. Nine strangers coming together to experience the trip of a lifetime.

My packing pile is growing. As magazines are delivered, I save them. As the cosmetics, prescriptions, new clothes arrive, they just hit the pile. In two more weekends they'll all be landing in the Samsonite. Hurry up...slow down!

Wheels in Motion

2011-08-17T12:16:00.000-04:00

It's always hard to remember when it occurs, but there always comes a point pre-trip when things just start to happen and I realize I'm going, whether I'm fully ready or not. This has started to happen in the last week or so.

First I received the visa, which is mildly disconcerting only because the only thing I can understand is my own name; the rest of it could read "Panda Stalking Psycho, Beware!" on it and I wouldn't be any the wiser.

Then, one night last week I sat down and went through all my luggage and gadgets. I found the plugs I need and other things I want to take (neck pillow) and culled out things I don't want to take, like numerous cosmetic bags, plugs for Europe, and a UK hair dryer! I ordered a back-up battery for the iPod, paperbacks for the plane rides (Daniel Silva, you better be entertaining at 35,000 feet over the North Pole!), started to flesh out movies and tv series for the iPod, got prescriptions refilled, bought a new windbreaker, compression stockings and still more clothes (hey, summer sales!). I've found ways to post to the blog and Facebook from behind the Chinese Firewall, as well as access email from there. I've confirmed that I'll have an internet connection for every city except Ya'an, where I'll be for three nights. So yes, you will get panda pictures, almost as they happen....

It's almost time to start notifying credit cards and banks that I'll be away and to expect activity in China. I need to start buying snacks, write up the instructions for the cat sitter and stop the newspaper. I know it seems like a finely tuned machine, but I can actually give myself an anxiety attack thinking of all there is to do. ALL there is to do. I still need to figure out how to get to the airport at an ungodly early hour and how to get home at an ungodly late hour.

But it will all come together. It always does. And the weeks and months after the trip, this flurry of activity will all be a distant memory.

How will it change me?

2011-08-14T17:18:00.001-04:00

I think that every trip changes at least a little piece of me. Sometimes I feel it is pretty obvious, sometimes it is more subtle. My first trip to Ireland made me realize how narrow-minded we can be before we've left our own home-country; my travel companion brought with her US postal stamps to mail cards home. She also wanted to jet to Paris for the day from there, like it was going from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. My first trip to Amsterdam made me more conscious of traffic, pedestrians, bikes, bikers without helmets and recycling...go figure.

Russia changed me in that it leveled the playing field in terms of the whole "us vs. them" mentality I had grown up with. Yes, they are different, they were different, they have different political structures, but my exposure to the locals left me almost relieved that they were a lot more like me than I imagined or expected.

How will China change me? What little piece of me needs to be adjusted, corrected, expanded, modified? What preconceived notions do I have that will be remedied? When I look back six months from now, how will my thinking have changed? I've been grappling with this over the weekend as my wait starts to dwindle and I start to think about actually being there as opposed to all that's done to get there.

Phases of Anticipation

2011-08-03T10:46:00.000-04:00

The last few weeks has found me going through various phases of anticipation, most of which I've experienced before while waiting anxiously for a trip. Other than last week, I've been responding in a pretty textbook manner as I wait. And wait. And wait.

Initially, there is the euphoria of having just booked another trip. Usually this comes on the heels of the last trip, when I've put the luggage away, finished the photo albums and finally admitted I'm back to reality. "Yay, it's booked," I'll exclaim and then immediately tally the days till departure. This time it was 198 days. Argh.

Once the countdown drops under 100 days, into the double digits, I start to realize it's going to happen. No, really, it's not just been a fun way to kill time reading guide books and internet forums. I'm going to go. I may fuel this fire by watching travel shows or documentaries about the country I'm going to. This was especially true for China, which I have so little exposure to to begin with.

The one speed bump I hit this time that I haven't before is what I mentioned previously: fear. Even with all my preconceived notions about Russia, I was never really afraid of anything. I looked at that trip as a big adventure and fulfillment of a life-long dream. This time just a couple weeks ago, I went through a week-long wave of "I am SO in over my head here." Whether it's the language, the culture, the food (seriously, will I lose a ton of weight on that diet?), the people, the distance from home...what is it that's freaking me out? I had to keep reminding myself I'd be with a group most of the time, that's a security blanket. Somehow, some way, that feeling passed. I'll survive. I always do. I have to think 25+ previous trips out of the country will serve me well.

Now I'm in the "let's just go" phase. Mentally and emotionally I am just tired. I'm tired of being wanted and needed and tired of the daily grind and the same schedule day in and day out. Tired of people asking for things and offering nothing in return. My brain is saying "enough". Watching re-runs of Anthony Bourdain in the Amalfi Coast the other night reminded me of that "a-ha, this is why I travel" feeling that I get when I see something in my travels that makes me stop in my tracks, take a breath and just inhale it through all my senses. I expect the Great Wall may do that, hell, maybe even the ride in from Beijing airport. I need to flush out my mind and shut down the day to day. My mind has that sleepy, hungover feeling that needs a jump start. It's ready, but can it make its way through five more weeks? Let's just go.

I expect next up will be the phase where my organizational skills and past experience kick in and I get ready to go. This is where lists, piles and even project plans come in. I execute the finely tuned machine that gets me out the door. It's starting a bit now. Lists are formulating in my head: what needs to get done and when, who needs to be told and when, what I need to pack and when I can pack it when I know I won't need it again before I go. This is a fun phase only in that it kills time to departure and also is visible, rather than mental, progress towards the goal.

And closer to departure, I usually gave a wave of nostalgic homesickness before I even leave. I always have trouble thinking of leaving my cat alone and my family and friends here to carry on the drudgery without me. It's such a short time in the scheme of things, but I always count "how many sleeps without me" and wonder again why it is I'd want to leave the comfort of home. I've read on travel forums that this is normal. I've never not felt it before any trip, so I expect I'll hit it again this time.

Finally, in the last few days before I go, there's the butterflies in the belly, the restless sleep of an eager traveler, the "oh my gosh, it's here" feeling once the bags are mostly packed and mentally I've checked out of my day to day before I'm even gone. I know in a matter of several days or even a couple weeks I'll be home again, and looking to kick off the vicious cycle all over again.

Into the 30s

2011-08-01T10:36:00.003-04:00

Now that I'm officially into the 30s in my countdown to China, I think I can safely start physically preparing without anyone thinking I've lost my marbles. Not that I care, mind you.

Last week was a significant milestone in that I sent my visa application in. I'm using the same agency as I did for my Russian visa, which is located in Arlington, Virginia. Since there is no Chinese consulate that processes visas in the Boston area, I'm relying on the agency to do the legwork for me, for a price, of course. So with this milestone, I'm $201 poorer. All in the name of travel.

Just yesterday I started my staging area for the trip. In case you weren't following along for the pre-Russia insanity, this is where I start piling things up as I think of them; ultimately they will end up getting packed. It's usually a corner of my home office. And it will gather everything from books, guides, gadgets, cosmetics to clothes. The piling has begun!

This morning I looked into what plug adapters I'll need to charge my camera, iPod and laptop. China is proving to be somewhat of a challenge in that there are three possible prong configurations in use. One is the UK plug, one is similar to our two-prong plug and the third is a hybrid I've never seen. I'm fairly certain I have all of these in my collection of travel gadgets. Note to self: look for them.

In order to fully test the powers of my camera, I've visited three zoos locally and learned what the various automatic and manual settings do for my photos. Of course going to see wild animals is hardly a hardship for me, but this "play with camera" excuse works well.

Yesterday I spent about 7 1/2 hours with a friend of mine at a gorgeous beach. The time flew and felt like a heartbeat between the time we arrived and the time we packed up to go. Then I thought about it riding home and realized if that was my trip to China from Chicago, I'd still have about 6 hours left. Gulp. Note to self: find really good plane reading.

One thing I'm really researching is how to access the internet from China. Since they are fairly rigid about access to certain Western sites (blogspot being one of them) I am trying out various methods for accessing Blogspot as well as the internet in general. I really am hoping to find a reliable VPN (virtual private network) that will be immune to their firewalls. Not only do I want to be able to post to Blogspot, but also to send and receive email as well. Fingers crossed.

It hasn't all been really smooth sailing leading up to this point. About 10 days ago I went through a period of about a week where I was really freaked out about going to China. I don't know what it was but for several days I had convinced myself that this is quite possibly the craziest thing I've done. And it just may be. But I can talk myself down with thoughts of seeing some amazing sights, experiencing the most unique culture that I have been exposed to to date, and of course working with the pandas. Sigh...find inner calm. Inhale pink, exhale blue.

Next up on the checklist: find plug adapters, order travel sized products, get prescriptions filled, find good plane books, get visa back, find VPN for internet access.

Damn, lots of work to be done....

Still....waiting

2011-07-18T21:14:00.000-04:00

I don't really have much of an update, other than to say I'm going nuts waiting. I'm mid-way between 7 and 8 weeks from China. The good news is that the tour has been confirmed. I'd been anxiously awaiting word that we had enough travelers to go (the travel company needed 10 travelers) and I got confirmation that it's a go. So, next up, getting the visa, ordering travel sized stuff from Minimus.biz, and starting my piles of "stuff" for packing. As usual, the second bedroom will slowly become a staging area over the next month or so. I can hardly believe it, the staging area is on the horizon.

I know, I'm crazy.

Just Killing Time

2011-07-05T16:05:00.000-04:00

Here I sit, midway between 8 and 9 weeks from China. As usually happens with me as I'm "just killing time" until I go, I start to think, dwell on and obsess about the most ridiculous things.

First, where to next. I don't mean next-next like next-big-trip-next, but rather some smaller, easy to accomplish and relatively affordable trip at the end of the year. I want to go to Philly sometime for the Rembrandt exhibit and to see the city I've never been to before. But I'm also thinking of a long weekend of the Christmas Market type, maybe Dresden, Strasbourg or Munich. Hell, maybe Oslo or Stockholm. Wherever IcelandAir can get me quickly and cheaply.

Second, have I mentioned lately how long these damn flights to and from China are? Going over, I fly Boston to Chicago, which is quick and easy. But then, Chicago to Beijing is 13 1/2 hours. Good glory. What on earth am I going to do for that long? As my China-phile friend Bev says "That's a work-day plus a short nap". Then I realized I sat on a beach for 5 1/2 hours yesterday and if that had been a flight to China, I'd still have 8 hours to go...argh! Coming back, the flight is "just" 10 hours from Shanghai to San Francisco, then 6 hours San Fran to Boston. Somehow breaking it up like this seems more palatable, and the second flight will be "overnight" to my body so hopefully I'll be sleeping that last leg. But ugh...time to start putting the fun bag together now!

Finally, I am getting excited. A couple days last week I could barely contain myself, wondering how I was going to make it through 9 more weeks without driving myself (and everyone around me who'll listen) crazy. That has tempered a bit this week, but I still can't believe that 5 months have passed already. Wow.

Next up...always thinking ahead

2011-06-21T09:40:00.000-04:00

As I'm under 80 days now until China, I think it's funny that I'm thinking about my travel for 2012. Right now it looks like one of: Peru (Macchu Picchu), Egypt, Turkey or back to Russia.

Championship of a Lifetime...

2011-06-16T11:12:00.002-04:00

Finally, a Boston championship I can celebrate. Not being a Patriots, Red Sox or Celtics fan, the previous 6 Championship Parades that rolled by my office in downtown Boston didn't matter to me. In fact, I worked through them. It was quiet while everyone else had their noses pressed to the glass or were outside the building curbside for the parades. I got a lot done.

But this time, this one's all mine. Truth be told, I blocked off Friday on my calendar so no one would book anything for me just in case. I know that was probably a potential jinx, but hey, if there's a parade Friday, I'm not going to be analyzing legal systems during it.

Before anyone can accuse me of being one of the masses of band-wagon jumpers, let me share with you what Bruins hockey memories I've lived. But first, you have to rewind and reset your time capsules to 1980. In fact, go back to the US victory over Russia, and then my mother-country Finland, to win the Olympic Gold medal. I was 10 and my autographed poster of goalie Jim Craig wrapped in the American flag after that last game was my prized possession. See, my Dad (and his Dad) was all into hockey, and when Craig was signing stuff at a deli in Marblehead, my Dad took my sister and I to meet him. And so the fan-dom began. But it got even better when Craig landed with the Bruins about the time a rookie named Ray Bourque started to play for Boston. And the fan-dom grew.

I collected hockey cards. I had Ray Bourque's rookie card. And Wayne Gretzky's too. Top that.

I spent the next several seasons watching games with Dad and I remember him using checkers on our shag carpet as he tried to teach me the fine art of staying onsides. I had a hobby of clipping articles out of the Globe and pasting them into scrapbooks made of green paper (green?) that I'd hole-punch and hold together with yarn. I remember the bench clearing brawl against Minnesota (how many of you even remember there was a team in Minnesota?), the game we lost Norm Leveille in Vancouver to a brain aneurysm (Vancouver, how coincidental!), sending postcards to vote for the 7th Player Award, getting psyched when Brad Park opened a pizza place at the bottom of our street!

Dad fed into the madness by taking me and my over-the-back fence neighborhood pal David to Twin Rinks in Danvers. There, the Bruins practiced in open session, for free. This was cheap entertainment for kids from the hood. We'd go during school vacations, weekends and (don't tell Mom) some school days. Those guys were great to us. Ray Bourque, Steve Kasper, Stan Jonathan, Brad Park, Terry O'Reilly...they always had time for us and we collected autographs, broken sticks and pucks that they'd toss over the glass to us.

If we weren't 10 or 12 at the time, we clearly would have been arrested for stalking Ray Bourque. One pre-Christmas shopping season, my Dad spotted Ray buying Corningware in Lechmere (how many of you even remember Lechmere?). My sister and I followed him around, as if he didn't see us at all, until he finally turned around and said hi. We giggled and ran, as I remember it.

My Dad's Dad took me to my first game when I was about 12. It was a Christmas present, and the game was against the Hartford Whalers. It was a big deal because Grampy took me on the train into Boston, which I'd never done (and god, if I realized I'd be doing it every day for 17 years now...!), and even today I can remember him pointing things out to me on the way in and explaining the finer points of the game to me. But that was when I learned, even at that young age, that there's no hockey like live hockey. Damn. I was hooked.

It wasn't until the Cam Neely era that I was able to get back to another game. My sophomore year in college, the Bs made another dash to the Stanley Cup finals, and by that point, I'd met a like-minded friend at Salem State who was just as willing as I was to do what it took to get to the home playoff games. We were not beyond taking cash advances on our credit cards or selling our textbooks back for cash before finals were even over to buy scalped tickets. We were in the house when Edmonton dropped Boston on its head in 1990 and also there in 1991 when Ulf slammed Cam and effectively ended his career. Those were the days when sitting in the top row of the balcony wasn't nearly as far away as it is today, and just being in the house for the game was all it took. We spent many a game in the highest reaches of the old Gah-den, singing our hearts out and drinking watery beer with our friends. Karen and I both think we're still carrying that credit card balance.

But as a Bruins fan, one of my proudest moments was converting an oblivious Irishman who'd never even seen hockey. I think it was in the late 90s on one of Martin's visits here that we went to training camp at the Ristuccia Center in Wilmington. There, we got to watch practices and scrimmages. We didn't go just one day, we went just about every day that week. And like I did nearly 20 years before, Martin was able to get up close and personal with the players, like superstar goalie Blaine Lacher, though I think he had a stronger affinity for the goon squad that did better beating the hell out of each other than they did making the team. Other seasons, I'd take him to Bruins games, always tending to pick the most violent ones, like against Eric Lindros and Philadelphia, and Martin would be screaming at the fights just like the most seasoned Gallery God. He made me proud.

Finally, after a long and stellar, but ultimately unsatisfying career, Ray Bourque left Boston to try and chase the Cup that had eluded him so long in Boston. I obviously had a "history" with Ray and was sad to see him go, but pulled for him to be fulfilled somewhere else. Ultimately in the spring of 2001, Ray won the Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. Martin and Joe from Ireland, Karen, my back-yard-neighbor David and my sister and I were all in the midst of a marathon week of U2 concerts. But every night after the shows, we'd huddle around ESPN and catch up on Ray's games. On the night he won the Cup we were in the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) listening to the last night of U2's stand in Boston. I'd been getting text messages during the concert from friends watching the game at home. I knew he was close. At the start of the concert's encore, Bono came on stage wearing a Bruins jersey and announced to the crowd that Ray Bourque had just won his Stanley Cup. The crowd went nuts. We were Ray's fans in Ray's house. No matter what U2 played to finish the night, we'd be celebrating in the streets for Ray that night. And celebrate we did. I wonder today if he ever found out about that, and how happy we as a city were for him. I think the turnout at his appearance with the Cup at City Hall the next week was an indication of our appreciation.

So here I sit now, feeling slightly hungover from lack of sleep and emotionally tired (I really thought they were going to blow whatever lead they had, hey, I'm a pessimist!) But I'd not miss the game or the interviews or the replays of the footage until 2:00 a.m. for anything. I'll be at the parade Saturday, because this is a team I care about. A team I grew up with. A team I shared with so many people special to me who I remember today. There's no drama. There are no bloody socks. No Mannys just being Manny. No star quarterbacks who can't cut their hair without the permission of a Brazilian supermodel. These are guys who have always been good to me and to Boston. It's time now to say thank you for that.

D.C. in a Day - amybatt style

2011-06-04T17:55:00.002-04:00

There’s something slightly decadent about hopping a plane and jetting off to a major US city for a day. Decadent, and liberating. I mean, really, for a traveler, there’s no feeling like getting off the plane and getting right to business. No waiting at the luggage carousel, no schlepping bags to a hotel and checking in. As I found out, Washington D.C. is especially good for this, since it is a mere 5 stops on the Metro from the center of pretty much anything you’d be interested in.

I was up long before the alarm clock on Friday morning, as my cat regularly wakes me for his breakfast somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00. I’d gone to bed early the night before, but not early enough that 3:30 was a good time to be up for the day. At that point though, it was hard to convince myself to go back to sleep with only an hour left before the alarm was set. So I stayed in bed until 4:30 and got up and got ready.

Just so you know, traffic at 5:30 a.m. on a vacation week (Memorial Day was just four days ago) is minimal. No, make that non-existent. I was at Park Shuttle and Fly within 45 minutes, which is exceptional. PS&F dropped me at the terminal at 6:20 and I was sucking down a Starbucks iced coffee waiting to board the flight by 6:45. The only thing that slowed me down was the security check. Note to potential terrorists: cargo shorts with lots of stuff (or, as the TSA agent says “lots of gromets, buttons, zips and snaps”) earns you not just the super-duper full body scan but also a pat down. Yee ha. Said pat down wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d read on the internet, and I breezed through. And here I was just wearing my new Athleta gear to see how it’d be to travel in. Those shorts, not so good for airport security, apparently.

Somehow, JetBlue made magic happen and our 90 minute flight was only 64 minutes. I know airlines pad their schedules, but I’ve never been that early. Instead of 9:00 we landed at 8:24. I flew out of my seat in row 5 and breezed to the Metro stop at Reagan National. I loaded up a Metro fare card with $10 (I figured three Metro rides total for the day, and I wasn’t wrong) and off I went. By 9:20 I was walking into the National Zoo, my primary destination for the day.

It is actually sort of funny, this lion cub cam addiction I’ve had. I’ve been watching this pride grow up since late last summer. I can’t recall how I stumbled on to it, but I quickly became addicted. These two moms, one dad and 7 cubbies were my stress relief when times were tough and my entertainment when I was bored. The running joke is that I work 35 hours a week, and most of that is with lion cub cam minimized on my desk top. They are never more than a click away.

I’d only been to the zoo once before and fell hard for the pandas at the time, as well as the one tiger I got to see. That was early November 2009 and the zoo was a ghost-town. What I didn’t realize is that the zoo is open starting at 8 a.m. but the shops and food stands aren’t until 10. Many of the animals are out in their enclosures that early and they are the most active that they will be for most of the day. Because I wanted to see the cubs so badly (I’d actually written on the zoo’s Facebook page to confirm they’d be out there when I was!), I immediately beat feet to Big Cats, which is probably the farthest point from the main gate as anything in the zoo is. It was a gorgeous day though, low 80s, dry air and beautiful blue sky. On my walk up I remember thinking to myself, “it’s a great day to be alive”, as cliché as that sounds. But later on, I overheard a school kid with a similar, relative sentiment: “This doesn’t even feel like being in school!” I couldn’t have agreed more!

I arrived at Big Cats and the first enclosure I came upon was where Luke, papa of the lion pride was. He was all alone, looking regal as he laid taking in the sun. As handsome as he was, and as proud as I was for him and his new pride, I was a bit disappointed there were no cubs. But I figured it was early and I’d just have to make the return trek back later to see if the cubs were out.

So I made my away around the hill that houses the Big Cats. There are three enclosures here; the second was empty, presumably a tiger would make an appearance later. As I was about to give up, I rounded the last corner to see the third enclosure and there they were: my cubbies! All seven cubs and their Moms were out, lounging in the early morning sunshine. I was ecstatic. It was like meeting rock stars, if you could call my fawning over them for nearly an hour “meeting” them! I took more pictures than I care to admit, but just could not believe I was here with the cubs. In my head, I of course pictured them to be the still little cuddly balls of cub they had been all these months, but in reality they are actually medium-to-large dog size now. The males are starting to show some growth of mane around their chins, but most of them still haven’t outgrown the spotted and stripey fur of their baby-hood yet. They are all leggy with gigantic paws, like when you see a golden retriever with these massive paws, you just know they’re going to eventually grow into them. But how cute, how majestic and how amazing they are. I was completely smitten.

The cubs stayed up on the upper level of the enclosure, but both Naba and Shera, the moms, came down to the lower level to take in the unobstructed sun. I could have sat there all day, but it became obvious as time wore on that all were down for long naps, so I bid them adieu and will continue to follow them online.

I passed by the tiger enclosure again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new female that has just arrived at the zoo, but the one tiger that was out was napping in some tall grass.

I next made my way to the panda enclosure, which most visitors were lamenting was “closed”. I knew from my pre-trip research that only Tian Tian would be outside as the world awaits a potential cub from Mei Xiang, who is now in seclusion in the panda house (along with the red panda, which I just discovered). There was a keeper cleaning up the enclosure and laying out bamboo. I knew if I waited long enough, somewhere around 11:00 they would let Tian out. Just after 11, out he came. I was perfectly positioned for him as he made his way down the hill and plopped pretty much right in front of me. He rested up against a tree stump and started in on his bamboo. He’d peel off the dark green out layers, rip off some of the softer inside and crunch away. And his crunches were audible. I smiled to myself several times as I realized that 90-something days from now, I’ll be in panda-country getting ready to get up close and personal with these gorgeous creatures. Damn!

I took a quick tour of the Asia Trail, where no red pandas were to be had, and then found a neat bridge over the Elephant Lookout where I could see all three elephants from above. But at this point the zoo was crowded, I was hungry and tired, so I hopped back on the Metro and headed toward the National Gallery.

I got off at Metro Center and walked down 10th Street to check out the merchandise at the Hard Rock Café. Nothing new there, so I kept going and looking for lunch. I came across a Cosi, which we have at home, but where I knew I could get a good, quick lunch. With only one day in the city, I didn’t want to waste much time with a sitdown meal, so I got a turkey and brie sandwich and water and off I went.

I walked down to Constitution Avenue and walked through the Butterfly Garden alongside the Museum of Natural History. Much too windy for butterflies, apparently, so I made my way along 15th Street to the National Gallery of Art. My second reason for this visit was the Gabriel Metsu exhibition there. This alone was worth the trip. Metsu is the lesser-known (at least here) contemporary of Johannes Vermeer, but by some accounts the better and more successful of the two. Vermeer fans will spot the similarities immediately, but in reading the exhibition guide, particularly the chapter comparing Vermeer and Metsu, even the staunchest Vermeer fan (me) will start to wonder who exactly influenced whom and who is the better painter of that time. One quote stuck with me: "Why buy a Vermeer if there is a Metsu available" and after three or four passes through this incredible exhibition, I wondered the same thing! Metsu's use of red is amazing. His detail work on dress trims and a pile of coins on the table will leave you breathless. Sure, more than a few of his paintings reminded me so much of a Vermeer (Woman Reading a Letter, Man Writing a Letter, A Man and Woman Seated by a Virginal) but these were just as good, if not better in some respects. I was blown away. Truly, just amazing.

I tried to make my way through the Gaugin exhibit, but just could not do it. I’m not a fan and it’s hard for me to swallow his style. I made my way back to the main building and went through the collection from the lower floor up: the Rodin and Degas sculpture, the Impressionist to Modernist collection (which was on view as the Chester Dale exhibition) "Most" of that collection has been relocated downstairs next to the cafeteria as the "Chester Dale Collection" exhibition. I say "most" because I found some notable NGA highlights missing, like Manet's Dead Toreador and Monet's Woman with Parasol, both of which I love. Then upstairs to just paw my way through the galleries, from oldest to newest, all of it: Spanish, Italian and Dutch. Even some American and British. I ended in the Dutch galleries, where, alas, two, including the one Vermeer I like there, were on loan (and a de Hooch taking its place on the wall!)

After leaving the NGA, I still had about an hour before my dinner reservation. So I walked over to the Museum of Natural History, with the intention of seeing the gems, which I did not visit the last time I was here. I guess after seeing the crown jewels of the United Kingdom and Russia in the last couple years, these were sort of anti-climactic. Plus crowd control was non-existent (another thing we could learn from the UK and Russia!) So I just sort of wandered around the upper levels of the museum and happened to peak into a room that appeared to have a butterfly pavilion, and indeed it did. I’d read a blog recently on “Around the Mall” that pointed out all the places you could see butterflies around the mall. This was, in the end, the coolest thing I think I did all day. Maybe because it was unexpected, I don’t know. Despite the fact the Smithsonian Museums are free, there was an entry fee to the pavilion (reduced for Smithsonian Magazine subscribers, fyi).

Once you enter the pavilion you are hit but the warmth and humidity which must be required to sustain both the plant and the butterfly life. There had to have been over a dozen different types of butterflies flying about. I’d taken a laminated card with information to help me to identify them, but was so overwhelmed by the sheer number that I didn’t bother. It was fascinating to be walking through them, butterflies flying about and landing where they wanted to, whether that be human, wall or plant. It was both relaxing and refreshing, and totally unexpected. And after taking about a billion more pictures, I headed out for dinner.

I made a very early reservation at Cuba Libre, which was about 6 blocks up from the Natural History Museum. I walked up in about 15 minutes and was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t terribly underdressed (glad I wore my sneakers for the amount of walking I did, but was a bit nervous I was too touristy casual for this). This was a great meal to end the day. The atmosphere was relaxing and did evoke a bit of Havana. I had a great waiter who was friendly and had very good recommendations. I started with a classic mojito and plantain chips with guacamole. The Cuban guacamole is fabulous in itself if only for the pineapple they use in it. Heavenly! My main course was Camarones con Caña, which were pan seared jumbo shrimp with a mango BBQ glaze and a crispy Anaheim pepper stuffed with creamy quinoa, sweet potato and Mascarpone cheese. I know that chile relleno is probably the worst thing nutritionally to order off any menu, but if this wasn’t exactly what I needed after nearly 12 hours straight of walking, then I don’t know what was. Oh, that might be dessert (hey, I did WALK all day!), which was torta mendirita, their take on a dessert-style rum and Coke: a rum-soaked dense cake with coca-cola sauce, topped with a dollop of lime sorbet. Throw in a glass of sangria and you have a winner of a meal.

But the day wasn’t over yet. I still had almost 45 minutes before I had to even think about heading to the airport. I had spotted the National Portrait Gallery not even a block away, and right on the Metro line I needed to take to the airport. It was open until 7:00 so I went in, remembering that it had just acquired a portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates, which I handily found (pretty cool) and I went upstairs to wander around the President’s portraits for a bit. Finally about 6:40 I hopped back on the Metro and was at the airport by 7:00. I was through security and boarding at 7:35. The flight wasn’t supposed to leave until 8:05 but we pushed back and were airborne by 7:55! It was only an hour and 8 minutes home. Again, I breezed off the plane, called PS&F to pick me up. Paid $16 to park for the day and was home by 10:15.

What a day! I covered a LOT of ground (most of it on my own two feet) but really feel like it was a mind-eraser. Lots that had been going on in my head was put to rest with a day doing only things that I love. And I like DC more and more each time I visit. Maybe moving there shouldn’t be totally out of the question....

T-99 Days!!!

2011-06-01T15:53:00.000-04:00

Today marks the first day in double-digits in my countdown to China! It is hard to believe that four months have already passed and I've made it under the triple-digit count! Anyway...progress continued today.

My primary care doc referred me to the regional Travel Health Clinic. While he felt fine preparing me for Russia, he'd rather I see professionals for preparing for China. So this morning I had my appointment there. The nurse I met with went over my vaccinations to date, illnesses I'd had traveling previously and my plans for the future related to travel and other non-travel but potentially risky behavior. She evaluated the locations where I'd be staying in China and what I'd be doing. I got a pass on both malaria and the rabies series. She felt that I was not in a high malarial region. With respect to rabies, she informed me that even if I have the rabies series, I'd still need to get help in China within 48 hours, and there is a fairly large city nearby with (presumably) good hospitals if not a major airport. So in the end, I got a measles/mumps/rubella booster (good anyway just with the outbreaks in Boston lately), tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis booster, my second Hepatitis A shot, my first Hepatitis B shot (with a second in a month) and I came home with a live typhoid cocktail which I have to take every other day for a week, starting on Saturday. Woot woot! So that's done.

Interestingly, when I get home, she recommended I get a tuberculosis test, because she said there have been instances when travelers have picked up TB through airborne drops of spit or from the numerous clumps of "hocking" which are common in Chinese culture. Interesting.

The travel agency confirmed they have eight travelers for this excursion. I think they need ten total in order to run it at the cost I've paid. Fingers crossed they will get the additional two this month!

Next up: applying for my visa, which I can't do until July.

Stay-cation and other things...

2011-05-30T12:18:00.001-04:00

My last vacation was in December and I spent it in Paris. Since then, I've contended with family illness, a major system rollout at work and various and sundry other life issues. I'm long overdue for a vacation, I feel. I demand the ability to recharge my batteries, clear my head and forget all the unpleasantness, stress and hassle of the last 6 months. I much prefer taking off to somewhere fun and exotic over staying home, but since I've opted to do a mega-vacation later this year (that would be China, in case you're just tuning in), I'm taking the four business days this week off (today is a national holiday, so I'm not burning a vacation day for this) just to "relax". If you could call it that. Already day 3 of 9 and I'm sort of stir crazy. Sure, I have a trip to the travel clinic for my pre-China vaccinations to look forward to, an early morning training session with my personal trainer, and all sorts of errands to do. You could even call me marginally productive because in addition to four hours at the gym and three at the beach over the weekend, I've already emptied the vacuum filter and cleaned out that junk cabinet in the kitchen that didn't close properly until now.

I hope to visit the MFA one day this week to finally see the new American Wing and the Chihuly exhibit. I'm hoping mid-week will be less crowded as kids are still in school.

Later this week I'm headed to DC for the day to meet the two litters of lion cubs that I have been raising virtually from my desk at work via Lion Cub Cam. For me, it's special because these little guys have kept me sane when I'm both bored and frazzled. They're fun to watch and I'm anxious to see them all together as a pride. I'll also see the National Zoo's pandas for the last time before I head to their homeland, which will be sort of exciting! I also want to try to get to the butterfly garden at the Natural History Museum (hot/humid weather permitting, I don't get overheated well!) and get to the National Gallery for the Gabriel Metsu exhibit. I'm following all that up with dinner at Cuba Libre; it's not often (ok, never) that I find Cuban food in Boston, and this restaurant is near the National Gallery where I'll end my day.

In terms of preparing for China, I've watched a bunch of travel shows I downloaded from iTunes: Anthony Bourdain's first China episode, and three by Samantha Brown. The last of her episodes was in Sichuan, and she visits the Chengdu panda center, where she gets to play with and hold baby pandas. I was surprisingly emotional watching that. I can't believe in 3 months, that will be me! Other than the obvious attachment to the pandas, I'm finding myself somewhat wary of the impending culture shock. I think I said this last year when learning about Russia, but China appears to be a whole nother ball of wax. It is overwhelming enough that the language is both unreadable and unspeakable. But the food is so drastically different, hell, even what they consider "food" is different enough...I wonder how I will rise up to the challenge. IF I will rise up to the challenge...but this is why I travel. I want my eyes widened, my mind opened and my beliefs questioned.

Bringing China Back Into View

2011-05-13T16:07:00.000-04:00

Having been sucked into the vortex of another seemingly never-ending system implementation at work, I seem to have lost sight of China. So as things have slowed down a bit, I've refocused. This purposeful refocus serves not only to distract me from the drudgery and stress of the current project, part of it is to actually start to prepare for the trip. If you remember how engrossed I was leading up to the Russia trip, you'll realize I have a lot of work to do.

One day this week, I added the week numbers to my calendar in Outlook. This week is week 20 of 2011. I leave on week 37. Damn, 17 weeks. I better get my act in gear!

With the gift card my firm gave out for Employee Appreciation Day, I bought four books off of my Amazon wishlist. I'm reading one now which is an account of an American who went to university in China in the early 80s. Granted, that was when the barriers to our being in China were newly removed, but I am noticing a painfully sharp strictness in how life was for the Chinese under post-Mao Communism as opposed to what I learned about Russian-brand Communism. This actually disturbs me more: not telling foreigners your birth date and not letting them throw you birthday parties; not being able to dance, work out or even do tai chi; suffering through a painfully high-carb diet; having to speak against their parents if they were determined to be enemies of the party -- whether true or not. It really is just unbelievable to me. And I mean "unbelievable" in its most literal sense. I just do not believe what I'm reading. Oppression just seems to me to be so extreme then. I hae to wonder how it has changed now. Surely eased up with more exposure to the west?

I've also given my Netflix queue a workout and have really enjoyed some wonderful movies set in China. Not One Less was a very touching, true story about a substitute school teacher in rural China who struggled to keep all the kids in class until the permanent teacher returned. It was fascinating, the conditions they teach in as well as how she motivated them to stay. Raise the Red Lantern tells the story of a woman who became the fourth concubine in a family and how she suffers under the stresses of that lifestyle. And at the suggestion of my fellow panda-fan Bev, I watched The Last Emperor, which amazingly I had never seen before but thoroughly enjoyed. Bev told me that it is fairly representative of how life was in the Forbidden City.

Today I killed some time before real work began plotting on maps where the Starbucks are located in the Chinese cities I'll be staying in. Looks as though I am well-looked after in Beijing and Chengdu. There are none in Ya'an, and none near my hotel in Shanghai. I'm unsure where my hotel in Xi'An is, so that's up in the air. It's just nice to know it's there...not that I'd necessarily have to go, other than to buy the requisite city-specific merchandise.

Somewhere in the fits and starts of my sleep patterns recently, I had another dream about being in China, but darned if I can remember it now. I'm hoping for a return to a more sane existance soon, one which will allow me to enjoy the next 17 weeks and get back to the real business of trip planning and watching Panda-Cam all day at work again!

The Magic of Royal London

2011-05-01T16:47:00.001-04:00

This past week, I took a lot of heat from people who thought I was crazy when they learned that I was staying home Friday to get up early and watch the Royal Wedding without having to get ready for work and leave home halfway through the ceremony. For me though, having visited London a couple times and also being keenly interested in the history behind most royal families, there was no way I was going to miss this.

I was only 11 years old when Charles and Diana got married, but I remember it vividly. My mom woke me up to watch the ceremony at an ungodly early hour, but it was the middle of the summer and easy to get up when it was light out anyway. We watched the whole thing beginning to end (this in the time before you could record anything!) and I guess like other girls around the world, I was captivated by the fairy tale of the whole thing. I remained interested in Diana over the years and followed with interest the many twists and turns of her life. I felt she'd just really found herself and was at peace with her life when it was tragically cut short. In Ireland and Scotland the week that the car crash took her life, I still regret that I didn't extend my stay for another day to see the funeral procession.

About a year after Diana's death, I visited London for the first time and visited all the Diana-related sites that I could: St. Paul's Cathedral where she was married, Buckingham Palace for a view of the famous balcony, Kensington Palace where she'd lived with her boys after the separation, and of course Westminster Abbey where her funeral service was held. I was especially taken by the contrast in size between St. Paul's, which was just shockingly massive compared to how "intimate" Westminster Abbey is. The area in the Abbey up near the altar past the choir screen feels as close and homey as a chapel. The verger giving me the tour of the Abbey on my first visit there sent chills up my spine when I asked where Diana's coffin laid during the service and he responded "right about where you're standing now, ma'am." Wow.

Even returning some 12 years later, I still found London magical. There is something alluring and mystical about the royals for me. By this visit, I had read up on Henry VIII and his many wives and of course his daughter Elizabeth I. I was captivated by the love story of Victoria and Albert. I spent an afternoon in the National Portrait Gallery looking at what these "characters" in the readings I'd done looked like. I was on their stomping ground, and it seemed like their reach was infinite. I noted with interest the spot in the Tower of London where Ann Boelyn lost her head. I admired the crown jewels. I enjoyed again the pomp, circumstance and reliability of the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. The most notable remnant of the royal past I think is the legacy left at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is one of the grandest, most exceptional, and most diverse, collections I've ever seen.

Watching the coverage Friday morning reminded me of all the things I loved about London. Seeing the military bands and horsemen as they marched through the streets, knowing exactly the streets the processions were taking, having just walked them myself not a couple years ago, seeing not one, but two kisses exchanged by the newly married couple reminded me of standing there at those very gates one morning having my own picture taken there. It was just incredibly impressive to see Big Ben and Parliament, the London Eye, the Mall and Buckingham Palace broadcast out over the airwaves, and witnessing the history that took place at that spot in front of the altar at the Abbey again, and remember that I'd been there.

Places I've Been: Keukenhof

2011-04-18T17:06:00.000-04:00

To celebrate tulip season, and, perhaps, to lament that my small plot of tulips isn't nearly this impressive, I thought I'd share photos from our trip to Holland during tulip season in 2007. Now, I'm not a flower person, but the Keukenhof Gardens really opened my eyes to such spectacular beauty. The garden staggers the types of bulbs to ensure that something is blooming voraciously for all of the 6-8 weeks they are open. We hit it perfectly the year we went; the week we were there was just about the peak of the season. This is also where I fell in love with the color orange. I have never seen such extraordinary orange as I did in the tulips there.

I miss Russia!

2011-04-14T09:09:00.001-04:00

Somehow I feel disloyal or unfaithful to my upcoming trip to China, but this week I realized that I really, really miss Russia. Or rather, I miss all the planning for and anticipation of and actual experience in Russia that made up almost all of 2010 for me. And right now, I just don't have that same passion for China. Yes, I absolutely want to go and am very much anticipating the trip. What is missing is that fire, that passion, that burning desire to go and consume.

I think a lot of it has to do with how long I had thought about and been interested in all things Russian. It did go back to my childhood and was something I'd always kept in touch with. China has been on my "bucket list" but not in the way Russia was. I wonder if anything I see in China will take my breath away like the rainbow painted onion domes of St. Basil's or the pinch-me moments in the Hermitage or Pushkin or Tretyakov. Will I eat as well as I did in Russia? Hmmmm....

So I guess it won't surprise you that I've already identified a potential trip to Russia for next year. It combines more of the territory outside the big cities with more within the big cities that I didn't see the first time around. It's with the same company I booked with last year, only not independent, but rather a small group.

Oh the conundrums I have!

Spending habits

2011-04-11T12:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first warm-enough day we've had around Boston to wear a t-shirt. I found my Hard Rock Cafe Moscow T and proudly wore it for the day. I also have a nicer Moscow HRC shirt that I'll pull out when the weather gets nicer. For me, it's a nice reminder of the trip and a collection that continues to grow. Wherever I go, there's usually a Hard Rock there, and each has a "city T" design that is customized to the city, usually with some tip of the hat to a local culture or icons. I even started buying the shirts for my Dad, who now looks equally styling when he heads out to physical therapy or the rehab gym.

Other things I tend to pick up on every trip are a city mug or thermal cup from Starbucks. Sad as it is, Starbucks has become ubiquitous and since it's such a common part of my life at home, it tends to be some place I'll seek out when I'm away, if only to find the city mug or thermal cup. This morning as I ground my way to the train on a dreary Monday morning, it was sort of fun to sip my first coffee of the day out of my Moscow travel mug.

I also have a enormous collection of magnets. I like unusual magnets that show something of what I've seen while I'm away but aren't cheesy kitsch, if that makes sense. I rotate the collection, since now it's too big to have it all on my fridge at once. I think my favorite ones are the little ceramic white house from Capri, and the bike shop and waffle house from Amsterdam.

But here's the thing...don't go buying me all of these things if you travel some place cool. To me it only counts that I bought it there, and all of this serves as a reminder of my travels in little flashes of memory.

Now aside from those three oddities (you have to admit, those are strange things to seek out!), I do love jewelry and will look for something distinct for myself and maybe my Mom and sister. The amber in Russia was just gorgeous (and cheap!). I got a Majorca pearl ring in Seville. A Swarovski crystal pendant in Holland (not native to Holland, I know but a neat sister experience where my sister got the other piece as part of a set). A garnet ring and pendant in Prague. A gold filigree ring and bracelets in Florence. Murano glass pendants in Venice. You get the point...I like my jewelry!

I also keep an eye out for things that the region is known for. I have Prague crystal, Waterford crystal, Belleek porcelain, Delft porcelain, matryoshka dolls, faux Faberge eggs, Limoges boxes...the list goes on. And in the handy to have category, I love my Irish knit sweaters and the Irish woolen throw on the back of my sofa.

Most useful for memories though are the watercolors that I buy from street artists. They seem to be every where that tourists are and they paint everything that makes the location what it is. Usually I will bargain a 2 for 1 purchase, picking two that I like and deciding when I get home which I'll want framed (which always seems to cost about 10 times what I paid for the print!) I have a bunch of these framed now, as well as a couple oil paintings that I bought in Venice and Paris, that I rotate on my walls at home. It is always interesting to see how local artists paint their own hometowns.

While I don't shop my holidays away, I do try to keep an eye out for things distinctly local and that will make me smile when I see them (or wear them, or use them) back home.

Places I've Been: Monet's Gardens at Giverny

2011-04-09T17:21:00.002-04:00

For a fan of artist Claude Monet, a trip to Giverny is almost compulsory. Yet it wasn't until my later trips to Paris that I made it there. Coupled with a trip to his own museum, Musee Marmottan, the gardens at Giverny put you smack dab in the middle of his world, seeing the gardens and space that inspired him so. Some of my favorite photos are below.

Perhaps this view inspired this?

This looks a bit like this

Asked and Answered

2011-04-07T10:56:00.001-04:00

One blog I read is NomadicMatt's and this month he is asking people to answer some pretty basic questions about why they travel. I figured I'd answer them here, so that my readers, rather than his, can learn a little more about what drives me...

•Why did you start traveling?
In 1993, I went to Dublin to see U2 play two shows there. I went with a friend from college, met two U2 "penpals" (this was before the internet, we wrote each other with pen, paper, envelopes and stamps for 6 months before the show) and then I met an really nice Irish guy who kept tempting me back across the pond for some ten years after that.... So I blame U2 for this!

•What’s your greatest travel moment/memory?
This is the most difficult question I've ever answered! If I had to pick just one? It's probably either watching my Mom turn on all the water faucets for the homeless dogs in Pompeii; they ended up following her all over Pompeii! Or finally seeing Vermeer's The Girl With the Pearl Earring in the Rijksmuseum in The Hague with my sister; she completely snuck up on and surprised us!

•What’s the worst thing that happened to you while traveling?
My grandmother died while my Mom and I were in Florence. We got the call early morning, and by then it was already too late to leave that day, which is just a horrible, helpless feeling knowing that the people at home needed us. We had to spend another day in Florence scrambling to get tickets home. Once we had the tickets sorted, we went up to San Miniato to hear the monks sing vespers. We walked up there in pouring rain, but as we came out of the dark church after, the sun had broken through the grey sky. It was as if Gram was there with us.

•If you could tell a new traveler only one thing, what would it be?
Forget everything you know about home. Forget face cloths, ice cubes and that everyone here speaks English. Where you're going may not have any or all of those things. But that's why you're doing this. Keep your eyes and mind open and adapt.

•What’s the one travel thing you can’t live without?
I love my new carry-on, after years of having one I hated because it was so inconveniently designed, this one finally works for me. Second would be my new iPod.

•What’s your biggest travel regret?
I was in Ireland and Scotland the week Princess Diana died. I was scheduled to fly home out of London the day before her funeral and really contemplated staying to see the funeral. I allowed myself to be talked out of it, and once I got home and saw the procession on tv, I really, really wish I had stayed.

Have a travel question for me? Post it here and I'll answer. Maybe! ;-)

Learning Mandarin

2011-04-04T09:08:00.000-04:00

I have always been a believer that travelers should know at least the very basics of any language of the country they travel to. It is common courtesy, and even if I can't get beyond "I'm sorry, I don't speak Mandarin very well" at least I have tried and don't just scream English louder and louder at the locals hoping that volume will get my point across. Even though I'll be with a small tour group, I think at the very least, I should get the basics down. I'll feel a more responsible traveler at the very least.

So for the lack of better things to do while I wait 5 months for my trip, I downloaded the first set of podcasts on iTunes to try to learn some Mandarin. Radio Lingua Network is usually my go-to source for their language podcasts. I think I've been through One Minute Russian, Coffee Break French, My Daily Phrase Italian and Coffee Break Spanish. These podcasts are good to at least get my feet wait and get the basics down.

In the case of Mandarin, though, "basics" is really, really basic. And scary difficult. This morning I went through the first three lessons of One Minute Mandarin. Man, this language is not easy to pick up. There are sounds and intonations that are not easy for a native English speaker to pick up. Apparently there are no subjects or verb tenses, and a lot depends on tone of voice, which is sort of interesting.

This morning, I attempted to conquer hello, goodbye, please, thank you and "I speak a little Mandarin". But ask me to say any of that now, and I'll probably botch it all up. I've got 5 months to perfect it.

My First Dream About China

2011-04-01T09:47:00.000-04:00

After a particularly brutal workout with my trainer last night, I passed out cold on the sofa until about 2:30 a.m. I moved to my bed at the request of the cat, and got 3 hours of sleep there before said cat woke me for his breakfast. I had a half hour to sleep before the alarm went off, and during that time my subconcious went nuts about my trip. It was all about packing, which probably won't surprise you if you know me and my obsession with practice packing, pre-packing staging and the like.

Anyway, I had my new suitcase which Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas. I was aware that this was its inaugural journey and was unsure how much would fit. I insisted on packing my own bed pillow in the outside pocket (I never take a pillow with me) and then freaked out realizing that I was leaving for the airport and couldn't find all the Athleta clothes I bought 6 months ago and still hadn't dried my hair after a shower. So you tell me what's going on in my head! The general vibe of the dream was excited and anxious in a good way, until I realized I had to pack in 20 minutes!

I picked up Lost On Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation and am glad this is my first reading on China. This is the type of travel writing I hope to write someday. It's a fine balance between humor and snark and his honest observation. The chapter on Mao is hilarious, but also eye-opening. The way he describes how he felt on landing in Beijing for the first time, bogged down with jetlag but eager to get out into a world covered with Chinese characters rather than the English alphabet, really hit home for me. Mildly confused, and even more so after navigating his hotel lobby and 12 intersections on his way to Tiananmen Square, he made me feel as if I am right with him. Laughing all the way.

His experience in the Square though, did enlighten me in that I may have made a minor mistake in not taking the time to visit Lenin's Tomb in Moscow, though. I didn't realize that there are only three Communist Dead Guys on display in the world, and with this trip I'd be able to see the second of them at Mao's mausoleum (a quick trip to Vietnam and I could see Ho Chi Minh). I mean, I collect experiences like this, like two of the three most extravagant collections of crown jewels (only Iran is left, don't tell Mom!), the Seven Wonders, the 35 Vermeers. How easy would the three Communist Dead Guys be? Sigh. Will just have to go back to Moscow, I suppose.

And the wait goes on

2011-03-30T11:46:00.000-04:00

Realizing the other day that in 6 months, I will be home from China, I at the same time noted that I still have 5+ months to wait. And with most of the "work" done for now to get ready, I need to find a better way to bide my time. What I have done to amuse myself is start creating a reading list like I did for Russia. At first I thought there wasn't much in the way of literature translated from Chinese (there isn't) but there are quite a few memoirs and historical narratives that interest me.

So far the reading list looks a bit like this:
The Man Who Loved China - Winchester
A Comrade Lost and Found - Wong
Postcards from Tomorrow Square - Fallows
China Witness Voices from a Silent Generation - Xinran
Factory Girls From Village to City in a Changing China - Chang
Last Days of Old Beijing - Meyer
China: It's History and Culture - Morton
China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power - Gifford

Inadvertently, my reading list trends a bit heavier on more recent Chinese history. That happened with my Russian reading as well. I suspect that that's because it is what I can remember, but I will of course make a point to learn more about the thousands of years of dynastic history as well.

Over the last weekend, I watched two excellent films set in China. The first was The Road Home which was just such a beautiful, simple film about love, loss and devotion. I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The other was a documentary, Last Train Home, which chronicled the yearly plight of nearly 130 million migrant workers in their attempts to return home for the Chinese New Year, but more specifically also documented the troubles and angst of one family in particular. The parents, also migrant workers, are separated from their children all year, but for the two weeks they return home for the New Year. The children grow up with only their grandmother and expectations are high that they will do better than their parents so that they have a better life. It is hard to believe that this is actually present day China we are peeking into. It was a troubling but very well-presented story.

In other news, I continue to celebrate the ever climbing airfare prices now that I've purchased mind and locked it in. My same fare is running about $200 higher now. I also noted that there's been a schedule change since I booked, and I arrive into Beijing a half hour later than I planned. Oh well, not much I can do about that now.

I've also put two orders into Athleta, finding things like capris and light-weight wicking tops that would be suitable for touring a warm late summer China without overheating. Any excuse to shop....

Places I've Been: Venice

2011-03-27T16:45:00.007-04:00

A few years back, I coupled Paris and Venice together in a 9 day vacation. As dreamy as that sounds, it was almost like eating all your Easter candy in one day. Sensory overload. There was just too much beauty and awe in that trip to even make sense of it, even when I'd already been to Paris a few times before. That said, I do feel that Venice is truly beautiful. It is a heady concept to wrap your brain around: that there are no streets and no cars and no buses. You either walk or get around by boat. Seems sort of crazy but you adapt pretty quickly. There is also the inevitable "getting lost" which everyone must do at least three or four times as maps don't always nail down that little side alley, or fully accept exactly where a street transitions from one name to the next. Venice is a place to be seen, sooner rather than later, before it is entirely destroyed by one or several of its many floods. Get there. Soon. Here are some of my favorite shots from that trip.

Here we have a view of Piazza San Marco from the balcony of Basilica di San Marco. The square is pretty good sized, and known for its cafes and the dueling bands that play at each every evening.

My favorite shot is this one, taken from beside the Doge's Palace across the canal toward San Giorgio Maggiore. I think the contrast of the gondolas and the colors of the water and the sky striking.

If this shot isn't stereotypical Italy, I don't know what is. I love the contrast of the decrepit buildings, the neatly hung every day laundry and the gorgeous flowers.

The Basilica of San Marco is actually a white stone building. However, if you visit it at different times of the day, it will actually pick up the color of the sunlight. Here, it was sunset and the white stone was rendered a soft orangey pink.

The Bridge of Sighs connects the Doge's Palace and prison. Prisoners would cross the bridge to their imprisonment, glancing out at beautiful Venice for perhaps the last time, and sigh.

This Bocca di Leone was a mailbox used to collect complaints from residents anonymously. There are several others throughout the city.

San Giorgio Maggiore lies on an island across the Grand Canal from San Marco. The church houses Tintoretto's Last Supper.

Traghetti are smaller gondolas used to ferry passengers across the Grand Canal. That's about the only place you'll see them, and you'll note they are predominantly used by locals, who are brave enough to stand for the crossing!

The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute is in the Dorsoduro district of Venice, across the Grand Canal. It houses a Tintoretto and several gorgeous Titians.

Burano is one of three islands that visitors can day trip to from Venice (Murano and Torcello being two others). On Burano, the residents paint their houses vibrant colors so that the fishermen in their families can easily see their homes as they leave and return home from long journeys.

Why I travel

2011-03-27T15:58:00.006-04:00

It's sort of funny, lately a whole bunch of things have been conspiring to make me hungrier and more passionate for travel. Life has dealt certain members of my family a tough hand so far this year, and that tends to trickle down the more you care about them. I've spent more time in hospitals and with doctors this year than I care to remember, but now that that hurdle seems to be passed (fingers crossed) it makes me even more determined to squeeze every last minute, every last experience, every last memory out of my trips.

At the same time, I keep seeing friends and family making posts on Facebook that go on and on about how concert tickets, flashy cars and expensive trips abroad all have a price tag, but that kiss from a sloppy toddler is priceless. Or how thrilled they are that they get to spend school vacation week at home with their elementary aged children. After a while, I see enough of these public declarations from the same folks (and sometimes almost immediately after I've posted photos from my trips) to wonder just who they're trying to convince, themselves or their Facebook connections?

I haven't yet found the viral status update for the 40-year old single chick who saves pennies and works solely to buy kibble for her cat and pay for the next trans-oceanic adventure. I'm not sure I need to make that statement though. I don't need to convince myself of that, I know that to be true. I'm pretty certain I don't need to convince my Facebook friends either; if they know me at all they know this to be true.

So why is this travel thing like a crack addiction to me? Good question. And it just may be that I can't explain it. It may be so individual to me that no one else will ever understand. But there is just something about a trip, those singular experiences strung together into a week or two weeks or even a weekend, that still take my breath away. Seeing St. Basil's Cathedral through the grid of the gate to Red Square, looking out over a lush, green valley full of grapevines in Tuscany, smelling the competing scents of lemon and olive groves in Sorrento, admiring the crown jewels in London, peeking at Westminster Abbey from the top of the London Eye, coming face to face with a Vermeer, a Rembrandt, a Picasso, a Michelangelo that I've only ever seen in books. All of this gives me a rush. When things I have admired remotely are there in my foreground, all of a sudden I'm charged up. I'm on fire. I'm visually, mentally, aromatically, tactilely eating it up. And I lock these flashes of magic away for later. For the morning when it's just too discouraging to face another day with miserable people on the train or at work, for the next time I'm passing time waiting for a relative at a hospital, driving from here to there, or even just on the odd occasion that something else I've seen or heard brings me back to that moment. I haven't done drugs, but I imagine that a good trip on your drug of choice likely rivals my own "trip".

My Travel Map

2011-03-25T13:38:00.004-04:00

TripAdvisor has a great function called My Travel Map. I just updated it with my upcoming destinations. This is pretty cool!

View my profile

Create your own travel map or travel blog

Places I've Been: Tuscany

2011-03-20T17:44:00.009-04:00

Back in 2005, I went on a cycling tour around Tuscany with Vermont Bicycle Tours. This ended up being one of the best experiences I've ever had, not just on a bike and not just in Italy; I mean best EVER. Now that I've done it, I can highly recommend seeing the area this way if only because it feels like you're in a movie, with the hills and valleys of Tuscany wrapping around you like an IMAX shot. We started in Florence, rode to San Gimignano, Siena, Montelpuciano, Montalcino and Pienza. It was, in a very insufficient word, gorgeous. The mileage wasn't horrible. Now I look back and laugh though. My longest day was 35 miles. On average they were 20-25 mile days for a week.

The Duomo in Siena, which to me, remains the most amazing church I've ever seen, hands down. The striped marble carries through on the inside and is just stunning.

This is me outside the Duomo (cathedral) in Siena.

Even then, I managed to find cat friends wherever I went. This little guy is in Colle Val d'Elsa.

This is the view of San Gimignano from the belltower there. The hills and patchwork fields are amazing. The tower you see is one of the 7 "skyscrapers" that San Gimignano had.

This is the view of San Gimignano from the patio of our villa. You can better see the "skyline" of the town from a distance.

This is near Villa Ducci, near San Gimignano. These were vineyards, which were everywhere we rode, it seemed.

This was the view from my window in the villa in Pienza

This is me near a poppy field somewhere on the way to Pienza.

This is the stereotypical cypress shot that everyone seems to get when they go to Tuscany, but they really are pretty. This was somewhere on the way to Pienza.

This was a house where locals served us lunch on the front porch. I had the best house wine, picci (hand rolled thick pasta, like spaghetti), tomatoes with basil and olive oil and homemade lemon sorbet. It was the lunch of champions! Unfortunately we lost one of our group here, who ended up too drunk to continue riding!

This is me at the town gates of Montepulciano.

This is Montepulciano as seen from a distance. They don't call these "hill towns" for nothing!

This was our picnic stop during one of our day rides. We had a fully stocked SAG wagon as well as guides who really knew how to feed us well!

This is on the way to Montelpulciano, more cypresses.

This was our group out at our last dinner. We survived!

Our group got ready every morning much as you would at home, except the guides would inflate tires and fill water bottles for us. We just had to show up and ride!

Here I am (second in line, in white) finishing off a hill.

Finally, I spent a couple days on my own back in Florence, taking a day trip to Pisa. This is actually much more awe inspiring than I ever imagined!

Savings!

2011-03-19T09:50:00.002-04:00

Well, small miracle...I sat down this morning to complete the passport application, and when I got my current passport out, I realized it doesn't expire until January 2013! So that means I don't have to renew it now for China. All I need is one blank visa page, which I have. Granted the pages are pretty full, but one blank page will do it. I'm certainly not paying the $82 to add pages now when I'll be paying $140 next year sometime to renew the whole thing!

So now I don't feel so bad about spending the $366 to upgrade my seats. Somehow it balances out!

Thinking back to Ireland

2011-03-17T14:35:00.008-04:00

I suppose maybe it's the day that has me waxing nostalgic for Ireland. If memory serves me correctly, it's been 8 years since I have been on the auld sod. Ireland was my first trip out of the US that wasn't Canada. Everything about it was new: plane travel, jetlag, the country, the accent, the food. Little did I know then that what would happen that week would change me for life. For the better, I tend to think.

Matters of the heart had me going back and forth from Boston to Dublin more than a few times a year for the next 10 years or so. Sometimes I would hop a plane on a Thursday night and come back Monday afternoon. After the first couple times, it wasn't so much about what we did as who we saw and how we spent time together. Eventually the "we" I was traveling with became just "me". After so many visits, it wasn't worth my friends' while to go with me. It was more fun for me on my own once I'd established myself there anyway.

I saw Dublin change from a sleepy town where, to me, "everyone was Irish". It didn't seem that immigration to Ireland was terribly popular; why would it when unemployment was over 20%? As the Celtic Tiger was born and flourished, I saw Ireland, and Dublin in particular, lose it's home town charm. It seemed to have more foreigners than Irish. There were more faces that seemed better suited to London than there. The locals I knew and ran into were still the same joyful spirits I remembered, but it was notable nonetheless that the warmth and charm that I felt from the beginning was lost as the country started to climb out of its doldrums. The Dublin I knew went from a city with a single "skyscraper" barely 16 stories high to, over time, more like a proper metropolis with its share of towers, the most notable of which built by U2 themselves.

But once I'd experienced Dublin, I all of a sudden started to take baby-steps further afield. Edinburgh first. Then London. From London to Paris. Then beautiful Italy. The progression continues through eastern Europe, the lowlands and of course, further south to Spain and east to Russia. Making that leap out of the comfort zone of home clearly ignited a wanderlust in me. It made me want to see more. It made me have to see more.

It is funny though, when I think back to what most impressed me on that first and how far and wide I've gone and with that, how wide my mind has opened up. The places these eyes have seen in the 18 years since that first trip may have relegated Dublin somewhat into something not quite as grand as I first saw it, but it has not at all squelched my passion for the town I loved so well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And the planning continues

2011-03-17T14:09:00.006-04:00

This week I was able to take advantage of a lull at work to actually get things done for the trip. Well a rare lull at work and a not so conveniently scheduled sinus infection that landed me at the doctor on Monday.

At that appointment, I'd hoped to get my vaccinations for China also (hey, while I'm there, might as well!), but the physician's assistant said they don't even stock some of the ones I need. Instead she referred me to an infectious disease specialist at a travel clinic. Immediately, I called to book an appointment, if only to get it all over with. The receptionist was well-versed in how this will work and what I would need. Unfortunately, they are booking into June now. Fortunately, I have some time to play with. She did recommend that I call my health insurance provider and find out that they are all covered, because some are over $200 a piece. Thankfully, a quick call to Blue Cross today confirmed that all of them, even the rabies series, is considered "preventive care" and is available to me at no charge!

Which is good, because the other thing I did today was book airfare. I'd been waiting for a dip on the BOS --> D.C. --> PEK route, but when I went to book today that leg had been canceled entirely. So now I'm going through Chicago on the way over and through San Francisco on the way home. I splurged and bought the extra legroom in Economy Plus, which added $366 to the fare. Gulp. But I have to believe that five more inches of legroom is really going to matter on a 14 hour flight. All in it was $1900. My thought is to lock that in now before anything else in Asia or the Middle East effects fares or fuel costs!

Next up was trip insurance, which had to be purchased by today, three weeks after my deposit on the trip, in order to be eligible for "pre-existing condition" cancellations. I know to some trip insurance seems like money out the window, but with various health concerns among my immediate family, it seems like the smart thing to do on a trip this expensive. If it was just $500 to Paris, that'd be one thing. This is considerably different.

And finally, I picked up passport forms and went to AAA across the street from work today to get passport and visa photos done. This weekend I'll complete the passport application and get that out. I can't apply for the visa until June but will need the passport renewed by then.

There is something sad about changing passports. I've done it once before and always feel like I've earned all those stamps and dog-eared corners and rippled edges. It shows that I'm a cagey veteran, I know what I'm doing and take me seriously. Now I'll have a passport that probably creaks when I open it, rather than bend back on its own to the photo page. I'll get the old one back just like I did last time, but it feels like I'll be leaving behind an old friend who's been through a lot with me. The bigger issue is getting a photo taken that you can live with for the next ten years. Yikes!

Trip planning update and devastation in Asia

2011-03-11T11:29:00.007-05:00

Early this morning I awoke, having fallen asleep watching tv. I was met by the news that Japan had just suffered a massive earthquake and at the time only 30 people had been killed. By the time I woke for work, that number had increased tenfold, and would probably continue to do so during the days and aftershocks and tsunamis that are to follow. I then read in the Globe this morning that Southeast China suffered a smaller, but still significant, earthquake the day before that.

After I got confirmation that the two people I know in Japan are safe and sound, I reminded myself that exposing myself to risks like this is one of the side-effects of global travel. I won't deny it: I did pause a moment and wonder about going to China in September. I reminded myself again that BiFengXia, the panda center I'll be volunteering at, is the replacement panda center for the much better known Wolong center which was decimated in an earthquake 3 years go. They lost several pandas in fact, before they managed to relocate the population to BiFengXia.

But like the bombings and unrest in Russia that occurred in the months leading up to my trip there, I have the same feeling of helplessness about natural disasters that might take place in China. Yes, it may happen. But fear of it happening when I'm there for 12 days cannot suppress my wanderlust. Go (unless forbidden to do so by the authorities) and go I will.

I received my confirmation and receipt for the tour yesterday, along with a welcome packet, insurance form, visa form, some demographic data and suggested reading list for the trip. The visa form is not nearly as involved as the one for Russia. Since I do not have a Chinese consulate near me, I'll be calling on the agency that got my Russian visa for me to do so again. I trust them now that I've sent them my passport and gotten it back successfully once before.

I'm still checking airfare daily, hoping for a little drop, right now it is running around $1500 before upgrading the seats to Economy Plus. I was contemplating adding a day at the front end of this trip so I can spend a bit more time in Beijing. I'm still undecided on that. Next up I have to purchase travel insurance by the 17th in order to get the "cancel for any reason" coverage.

My pre-trip reading will begin shortly. I was quoted in another Fodors guide, which entitles me to a free travel guide, so I chose China, of course. That saves me $25 and is arriving shortly. I also ordered a condensed history of China that reviews say is "readable". So wheels are in motion. It's hard to believe that 6 months from right now I'll be in Xi'An!

Here's the map of the trip:

Places I've Been: Prague

2011-02-27T14:10:00.016-05:00

I was going back through a lot of old photos and found the set I took in Prague. That trip in 2004 to Prague and Vienna was my first entirely solo journey. I learned a lot about myself and also stepped outside the comfort zone of Ireland/France/Italy for the first time.

This is Prague Castle, which lies on a hill that is a bugger to climb. I was there in October and it was briskly cold but offered up crystal blue skies. Visitors reach the castle by crossing Charles Bridge and walking through Mala Strana "Lesser Town" and uphill.

This is the view from one of the towers on Charles Bridge. Obviously, the bridge is a great place to people-watch as well as find souvenir hawkers and street musicians.

These are views of both Castle Hill and Charles Bridge, day and night.

This was a quiet little canal I found walking back from Castle Hill.

Playing the airfare game and other randomness

2011-02-26T20:04:00.002-05:00

For whatever reason, I told the travel consultants that I would find my own airfare to China. So if you know me at all by now, you know that this has become an all-consuming project for me. At work all day Wednesday and Thursday this week, I researched flights and immediately identified United as my carrier of choice, only because I can purchase an additional 5 inches of leg room in coach. I figure with 13+ hour flights ahead of me, 5 inches could feel like a mile, right?

On Thursday I was playing on the United site and figured out that if I booked each leg individually (say, Boston to Chicago and Chicago to Beijing) that was coming up with cheaper fares than if I'd done Boston to Beijing. As in $300 cheaper. But I didn't book that, and haven't seen that fare again, damn it. I'll return to work next week and check periodically during the day, hoping that I'll nail that fare again on Wednesday or Thursday.

My other bit of randomness is that I learned that China requires that your US Passport be valid for 6 months after your visit to China (most European nations require that it be valid for just 3 months). My passport expires in January, which means, you guessed it, I will have to renew my passport before I get my Chinese visa this summer. Argh, that's like paying for a 10 year passport and only getting 9 1/2 years out of it! Oh well...

Let the countdown begin: I'm going to China!

2011-02-22T14:42:00.003-05:00

The deed is done...well committing to it is done! I just submitted my reservation form and deposit on the trip to China! I am really, really excited for this trip, which was not even on the radar at the start of this year. China is someplace I've always wanted to travel to and experience, and the panda volunteer program is a huge plus. I am SO EXCITED!!!

Now the planning begins in earnest:

Get new passport
Get visa
Set up VPN or proxy for internet access (Chinese government heavily censors internet traffic)
Read, read, read
Buy clothes!

More on China...

2011-02-16T19:46:00.003-05:00

With a bit of a lull at work this week, I've had time to think about, obsess on and otherwise kick the wheels on this trip to China. The nice sales dude from Access China sent me a nearly-finalized itinerary that is pretty sweet, while sort of frenetic, it does get me to where I want to be in fairly good form. I spoke with Wendy Wu's place today and they didn't seem nearly as clued in as she was when she and I spoke on Sunday. I am waiting to hear back from them. I wrote the third provider of these panda volunteer tours and haven't heard back at all. He's losing my trust rapidly.

In the process of researching hotels on Trip Advisor, I came across two reviewers of hotels that mentioned they were on this same trip last year, so I wrote to both. One wrote back almost immediately and really sold me on the trip. She said things about feeding the pandas and getting to play in the panda kindergarten and holding them twice (once at the Chengdu Center and once at BiFangXi, the place she volunteered at). I am nearly ready to sign on the dotted line for this. So I'm not spending as much time in Beijing as I'd like, I am hitting the main sights. I should settle for that and go back if I need to.

Damn, did I just say "go back"???

I realized Chengdu is very near Tibet, as one of the hotels is Hotel Chengdu Tibet. Hmmm.

I made the mistake of looking up airfare just to see what the fares and routes are. It's about 17 hours with 1 stop going over, but mother of god, it's about 23 hours coming home. I will need drugs, lots of drugs, to get through that!

And speaking of drugs, I looked up on the CDC Website what I should get for vaccinations before this trip. Don't tell my mother, please. I need to get: Hepatitis B (remember, I already had the Hep A vaccine for Russia), Typhoid, Polio booster, Japanese encephalitis and Rabies "if spending a lot of time outdoors, especially in rural areas...and for travelers involved in any activities that might bring them into direct contact with bats, carnivores, and other mammals." Bingo, that's me. Shoot, I've heard the rabies vaccine is painful! So off to my doc I will go shortly, as the Hep B set of three shots takes six months. That was the first time I wondered if it's really worth it, but you know I figured it is. I'm still writing.

It's looking like China...

2011-02-13T16:15:00.003-05:00

Today I spent a half day at the Boston Globe Travel show. I went because I was curious and it's like a mall of vacation and travel opportunities. Granted 70% of it was cruise, Caribbean and package travel companies. It was the 30% of other offerings that captivated me. My goal primarily was to talk to two of the companies that offer the panda volunteer experience in China. Three companies have that connection and two were there to speak with. Access China Tours, the company I wrote to when I was sick and first heard of this possibility, was there and the sales guy sort of gave me the car showroom feeling. What did pique my interest though was that this year's itinerary (which I am waiting for them to finalize) includes Xi'an, home of the Terra Cotta Warriors. That is a huge score; if I'm going to China possibly once in my life, to see the Great Wall and the Warriors would be imperative. Access China's previous itineraries did not include Xi'an.

Where my well-thought-out plan went awry was when I attended the presntation on "Off the Beaten Path China" by Wendy Wu, owner of Wendy Wu's China, the other company I am investigating. She had me at hello. Her slide show had pictures of things I'd never have dreamt would attract me. She had several variations on lengths and depths of trips. Some "only for people who've been to China 6 times." Yes, that's right, six times. To me it just really seemed like she has her act together and knows how to do this right. She pointed out that she doesn't just take you to the closest, most crowded point at the Great Wall like everyone else does, she takes you to somewhere more secluded. "No photos with millions of other tourists", she says. Hmmmm. I've read that she is the UK and Australia's #1 China Travel Consultant, just now making in-roads in the US. This could be very good for me....

I sought Wendy out after her presentation and asked about the panda volunteer trip. She said it would be customized for me. Just me. There'd be no group of 15 going to volunteer, I'd be doing it on my own. I'd also have private guide and driver in the rest of China (where have I heard this before?). She recommended 9 days to see Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai, and end in Chengdu where the pandas are. Taking a very quick look at her catalog, this trip is already proving to be far less expensive than Russia. At least 30-40% and it includes air and visa. Yee ha.

I spent a fair amount of time signing up for raffles for free trips (I'd go to the Azores for free -- it's only 4 hours away!) and even spoke with a hot-looking South African guy about safaris (coming soon!) as well as a rep from the Turkish and Israeli Tourist Boards. I have bags of stuff I need to read!!!

So I'm waiting to see Access China's itinerary and will call Wendy later in the week (she said to call and ask for her directly!) But given that I just can't seem to get excited about Poland, or Germany, or Italy, but I have this simmering internal flame of wanderlust for China, maybe this is it. Stay tuned.

Already the Bucket List has shifted

2011-01-27T11:30:00.005-05:00

From my last post you would have thought that I was pretty well settled on where I want to travel this year, right? Well, here's a curve ball.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I think it was a culmination of three things; a perfect storm of events. First, I watched the new series An Idiot Abroad last weekend, and in the first episode, our protagonist/idiot Karl was sent to the Great Wall of China. Loved the episode, for sure, but the seed may have been planted there. The next thing that happened was that I got some form of viral infection that left me delirious, fever-bound and bed-ridden for five days. In the midst of the illness, I saw on a Facebook feed that Access China Tours does "Panda Volunteer Tours" that build in three days at a panda conservatory in China. Now if you know me at all on Facebook, you know that I'm virtually raising a panda cub at the Atlanta Zoo right now. Indeed, this is not the first cub I have raised while working a 40 hour a week job. Back in the 90s, I raised the first cub born in the US that survived to adulthood over the webcam at the San Diego Zoo. I love animals, I love baby animals and I am smitten with pandas, even though I've only ever seen them twice, once in 2001 in San Diego and once in 2009 in DC. In fact, the cub I saw in DC then is now living at the conservatory I could volunteer at in China.

So all that said, in the midst of my febrile haze, I wrote Access China Tours to see if they'd do another trip like that this year. They've already responded that they are planning one for September, and that details would be coming out in February. The question is now, can I afford this (probably) and do I really want to do this or is it all just crazy talk? I reject the notion that it may just be crazy talk because the aforementioned DC trip was taken specifically to see the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit that was ongoing then. I'm definitely interested.

What makes the Access China Tour attractive to me is that it is fairly short, only 11 days, but it covers Beijing a bit, Shanghai a bit and the panda thing. It'd be a nice introduction (Forbidden City, Great Wall) and leave me with a taste for whether I want to return to China more in depth later. And I get to hold a baby panda in the process. Plus too, after Russia, I'm feeling like I want to up the ante again. "Just" going back to Europe would feel less exciting than it usually does. China would be another "experience" that would push me outside my comfort zone, but also the panda volunteering would be a chance to do something out of the ordinary, which is the stuff memories are made of.

So everything for this year is on hold until I figure this out. I want to see an itinerary and do some research on the travel company. But I really, really do want to work with pandas...

2011: Looking ahead

2011-01-23T16:28:00.002-05:00

As I sit here fighting some sort of virus and languishing somewhat lethargically between winter storms, I'm fighting the early-winter blues by sketching out my travel plans for the year. I've already gotten 8 days off approved for May, now it's just a matter of deciding how to use it. If anything gets me going, and indeed keeps me going, it's planning a trip. And then anticipating it.

So far in the forefront of my mind is Poland. I'm not sure exactly how it jumped into the bucket list, but I returned from Russia and already knew that's where I would go next. I don't remember anything I learned or saw in Russia that would make me want to go there. Maybe latest news of the theft of the sight at Auschwitz put the bug in my ear. Maybe hearing that it won't be kept up by the government much longer makes me want to see it. But there's more to Poland than just the concentration camps. Indeed, Jowita, the aid at my physical therapist's office, has listed many places I need to try to see. She introduced the idea of Gdansk (a delightful seaside village on the Baltic Sea) and encouraged me to skip Warsaw for her beloved Krakow. Right now I have an idea of flying into Gdansk, either flying or training to Warsaw and then taking the train to Krakow, where I'd spend four days and fly home from there. This is all hypothetical, except I know exact dates/flights/prices and have even scoped out hotels.

Later in the year I'll want another longer trip. Right now I'm kicking around Germany, Croatia and Peru. Believe it or not I have only been to Cologne in Germany, and my ongoing fascination with all things World War II and such really lends itself to going to Germany, probably Berlin and surrounds (including Dresden) and maybe Munich. I don't know. Croatia's on the bucket list and it'd be beautiful in the early fall.

After that, I'm thinking a quick trip to Philadelphia to see the Barnes Foundation for its collection of Impressionist art and the Rembrandt exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I've never been to Philly and would actually like to see all that it has to offer in the way of American-history.

But who knows. My bucket list has been disrupted before, it may be again.

2010: Travel Lessons Learned

2010-12-24T15:04:00.005-05:00

I didn't travel as much this year as I usually do (Miami, Russia, Paris) but I felt like between planning and anticipating and actually going, I had a whole lot of travel on the mind. Looking back, I've come up with a few lessons learned.

1) No matter how many times you've been somewhere, it can still feel new again. Honestly, I had lost count how many times I've been in Paris. I know, that's a terrible problem to have. But looking back at my passport stamps, I count six, so this time was seven. As much as I relished being able to hit the ground running without having a learning curve, going at Christmastime lent itself to a completely "new" Paris. No tourists, no English spoken here, no crowds, but in their place there was cold weather and snowy fringes left behind after an earlier storm. The Christmas scene in Paris was breathtaking. It was not suffocating like a Hallmark-induced, Labor Day-onward commercial explosion. It was rejuvenating, liberating, and dare I say, spiritual. Paris was looking beautiful for a completely different reason this time of year. It felt new to me again, and it carved its own special memories in my heart.

2) I indulge greedily in the differences. Russia blew me away. That, in fact, may just be the understatement of the year. Perhaps, the understatement of my travel life. Looking back now, I think about what struck me most, what made the biggest impressions on me and what are the fondest take-aways from that time, and it was realizing and appreciating what made Russia and its culture different. I love that the language and the written word are so different (and that I managed to figure them out, even a little). I love that their art and culture is rooted in a history so different from ours. I love that what survives there is based on a spirit that has twisted and suffered under unimaginable influences but somehow persevered. Everything from the pastel colored palaces in St. Petersburg to the grandiose Russian living room of Red Square to blini with caviar and vodka shots makes me smile. No, I can't see that at home, or many other places I travel to, which is why it is all that more precious to me now as I look back.

3) Sometimes, travel changes just work out for the better. American Airlines tore me away from my weekend in Miami unexpectedly early. At first I was disappointed and then frazzled, but I was also relieved. It had not been the best weekend for me; I'd been suffering through it quietly, and I really welcomed the opportunity to jet home early, no matter how hot, sweaty and inconvenienced I was and how many delays and plane changes were ahead of me. I will never look upon a travel diversion again as a bad thing...sometimes, they are the lucky twist of fate.

4) Don't listen to the haters. As people found out I was going to Russia, I got all sorts of unsolicited advice. A docent at the Museum of Russian Icons said "I would not go there now with all the bombings." Friends of my parents said I was crazy for flying on 9/11, another said "I would never go there alone." Well look folks, I went and I came back safe and sound. Instead of thinking that my experience was just a stroke of luck, I instead tend to believe that their perceptions and my actual experience are a reflection of the differences between us and how we approach travel. Honestly, if I didn't do something out of fear or concern for things real or imagined, I'd never go anywhere. Seriously. Travel smart and lean on your common sense.

5) Never say never. Paris was not even on the short list this year, or the next few years even. Russia was always a "bucket list" dream destination. But the desire to celebrate my 40th year in style and also my wanderlust and craving for Monet all played a role in how my travel itinerary played out this year. I've never outwardly ruled out a destination (well, perhaps Iraq or Afghanistan, for now) but it's just sort of funny how my destinations come about. Right now, I'm thinking Croatia or Poland for next year. I wonder what I'll be talking about 12 months from now...

6) Don't try to recreate perfect. Twice I was tempted to recreate what was, to me, a perfect experience. The first came in Moscow when I had the meal to end all meals. I mean really, it was unbelievably good. I remember every detail and recall that the next day I wanted to go right back to have the same meal again. It was that good. My guide encouraged me not to. "Don't mess with perfection", she warned me, and pointed me in the direction of another really, really good meal. She was right. What if I'd gone back the next night and it was sub-par? What if I ordered something else, or worse, the same thing, and it just wasn't as good? She had a point. A couple months later, my sister and I returned to rue de Buci to find our favorite eclair shop, only to find that our little nook of pastry perfection had been converted into an upscale boutique furniture shop. Distraught, we walked away remembering our last time there, and knowing that it will forever be "perfect". Sometimes remembering experiences as they were is far better than trying to recreate the magic.

That's it for now...wishing you merry travels and lots of destination dreams!

Paris Day Three - Last Day

2010-12-12T17:12:00.007-05:00

How crazy is that to read...Day Three, Last Day? Believe me, it has gone by way too fast, but on the other hand it also feels like we have been here for a week at least. The ground we have covered, especially the ground we have covered on foot is just ridiculous. Abby keeps saying we need to get a map and mark out everywhere we walked. But I'm not sure she really wants to know, especially as she sits here next to me with cold, wet towels around her swollen ankles and my bottle of Aleve in hand.

This morning we made a bit of a nutritional error. We thought we'd be smart and have an omelette instead of the carb laden breakfast of cereal, croissant, etc. The girl who works the breakfast room whipped up three-egg omelettes for us and served them with a slice of ham. We ate them fine enough (with a croissant or two slathered in Nutella, of course, and a fine pot of coffee) but it wasn't long before both of us felt not so well. Neither of us actually got sick but there were moments this morning when I had my doubts about living long enough to see the Monet exhibition. Seriously. I should have known better than to trust a small hotel kitchen with potentially toxic eggs and breakfast meat. Never again.

That aside, we still managed to set out by 10:00 and we zipped up the Metro 1 line to La Defense, which I'd only seen once and Abby had never been to. Defense is the "business sector" of the city where they have managed to hide away all the skyscrapers and financial district. At the heart of it is a massive metal arch structure called Grande Arche de la Defense. It's like the contemporary art version of the Arc de Triomphe, and in fact, lines up directly with the Arc de Triomphe as you can look straight down the Avenue to the Arc de Triomphe about 2 miles away.

Here at Defense though is the largest of all the Christmas markets. This one opened at 11:00 so we killed some time walking around a very windy and cold plaza and taking pictures of an enormous statue of a thumb (don't ask, I'm honestly not sure!). Once in the market, we realized we had really done the markets when there was nothing that we hadn't seen before in terms of offerings, food. It was much too early for mulled wine (even I must admit) and the smell of the food cooking was turning both of our stomachs, so we didn't last long at this one. I did finally find something I wanted to buy here, though. One stall was selling real flowers that had been set into glass pendants. I picked out a tiny forget me not for me, and a gorgeous red flower for Mom for taking care of my boy while I'm away. But that was it. After a picture in Santa's chair (he apparently starts his work day later than noontime), we were done for in terms of Christmas markets!

We zipped back down the Metro 1 line to the Champs Elysees where Abby and I visited Louis Vuitton. Abby (the world's largest Louis Vuitton fan) calls this the Mother Ship, because it is indeed their flagship store. Last trip here, I believe the highlight of it all was her first official Louis purchase. We went back because I saw a scarf in the window that I liked. In the end, we both bought a scarf, and I believe the highlight of Abby's trip was when the sales person said she "found" her in the Louis computer system from last time she made a purchase here. Oh brother...

From here, we walked down Avenue d'Iena toward the Eiffel Tower. We both have been here before, but believe me when I tell you that I never tire of seeing it. No matter how close or how far from it I am, it still makes me smile. We approached it from the side rather than straight on, and passed through a really nice neighborhood where we kept seeing peeks of the tower between the buildings and through the trees. Finally we arrived just across the bridge from it, so we crossed the Seine, taking pictures most of the way. Today ended up being quite sunny and finally shone through with a blue sky and big white puffy clouds. All thoughts of snow were long gone. We walked around and under the Tower, through a small neighborhood to the side of it, through the park around it. Honestly, this is my fourth or fifth time I've been this close and still, I find new ways to see it, both with and without a camera lens.

Around 2:30 we took a cab back to the hotel to leave our Louis Vuitton bags and walked to Les Deux Magots, which is a famous cafe where many of the famous writers or days past used to sit and argue and smoke over their coffees and absinthe. Today it was jam-packed with mostly Parisians, which was cool. Abby surprised herself with a very good haricot vert (green bean) salad. I had a croque monsieur sandwich again with mixed salad. We were trying to warm up from the time we'd spent out in the wind near the tower, so we had chocolate chaude, hot chocolate, which is literally melted chocolate in a pot, as well as a pot of coffee. Yee ha. I had a coffee cream-filled soft cookie for dessert and Abby had an eclair. Clearly, we'd recovered from our earlier digestive distress.

At 4:00 we made our way to the Grand Palais, where we had reserved tickets for the raison d'etre of this trip: the Monet exhibition. Before I go into insane amounts of detail (and feel free to skip it), let me just say now that it's over, it was completely, entirely, absolutely worth it. As one who loves Monet like I do, I cannot imagine NOT seeing this. I am smitten all over again.

The premise of the show was to make the French appreciate Monet again, instead of dismissing him as too ordinary or pedestrian. I'm not sure if it worked. We interviewed a few French people as part of Abby's thesis research and they already loved Monet. So would this win over the haters? We're not sure.

The exhibition was organized mostly thematically and a bit chronologically. The first couple of rooms covered his very early paintings. The subjects were things I never even knew about, like harbor scenes, and it was before he adopted the slightly out-of-focus, abstract eye that he is known for now. He did portraits? Still lives? Who knew?

I think what was most striking for me was the series works. It is one thing to say that Monet was known for his studies of light and shadow. To see one of his Rouen Cathedrals and say "oh, that's the effect of morning light" is one thing, but to see five done at different times of day and realize the different light just by your own power of observation, is quite another. Do that with the haystacks, the poplars, the waterlillies, Venetian scenes, British Parliament, Antibes oceanfronts. Honestly, seeing them side by side, like they haven't been since he painted them is just incredible. And it made me realize just how good he really was at what he did. One of the discussions on the audio guide said that on his first day in Antibes, he had started forty canvases. Forty. He painted over 2000 paintings in his life. To do just one that is worthy of this acclaim would be enough. To do 2000 is incomprehensible. To be able to see nearly 200 in one place at one time like we did today is a blessing. Truly a blessing.

In the end, over 40 museums from all over the world loaned works to this exhibition. We were keeping track for a while but it got overwhelming. The MFA in Boston loaned 5. The Met, three. It seemed like the now-closed-for-renovations Orsay here in Paris emptied their attic and basement for this, because I've been to the Orsay four times and there were dozens from the Orsay I'd never seen before. What was ironic is that I got to see both of the paintings from Russia that I saw the "we're sorry, this work is on loan" cards for at the Hermitage and Pushkin back in September!

I will stop gushing long enough to admit it was not perfect. First, the crowds in the first four rooms or so were insane. At one point I was 10 people deep in front of a painting. But I found the longer that I was patient, the more people dropped out. It was like the Monet marathon. Everyone had the best of intentions as they started, looking at every painting, reading every label, listening to every soundbite. But by halfway, the galleries were half empty and I was able to view Monet the way I do: first from a distance of about 15 feet out, then up close to see the brush strokes, then back up again. The crowds would not allow for that sort of viewing, but thankfully by the best of the series paintings, I could. And second, I have to admit that the big culmination of the show sort of fell flat for me. They worked the series paintings up to the big finish: the waterlillies. Unfortunately for this exhibition, the Marmottan has the best collection, so these sort of felt like also-rans to me. It was just a bit of an anticlimax. That said, it was still an amazing exhibition and an experience I already relish. I have a 300 page catalog at home (hard-cover, I had it sent home to me before we came over!) waiting to be cracked open and devoured, and I can hardly wait.

It took us nearly 2 1/2 hours to get through the exhibition, and by then we were hungry again. I tried my best to find Abby her beef borguignon (who knew it isn't a staple at every French restaurant?), but by the time I did, it was a 20 minute wait and nearly 8:30. She dragged me out and we ate at an Italian restaurant near our hotel. It wasn't bad, despite the fact that I couldn't believe I was eating Italian in France. We both had the gnocchi gorgonzola, which was quite good; the buffalo mozzarella which was ok (but not Sorrento-quality!) and the profiteroles for dessert. It hit the spot anyway, despite not being the beef she wanted. I managed to wash down a few glasses of beaujolais, so I was happy.

We got back to the hotel around 10:30 and packed. I phoned Alain our happy taxi driver from Friday and he's picking us up at 10:00 tomorrow, so we're good. And with that, we say "A bientot" to Paris. Until next time.

Paris Day Two

2010-12-11T16:07:00.006-05:00

Today started out innocently enough. We both slept well and soundly. Up at 8:30 and enjoying the hotel breakfast by 9:30. For 14 euro, it is all you can eat here. It's pretty extensive. While Abby behaved herself at breakfast, I broke the bank. Anytime, anywhere there are croissants with Nutella, I'm done for. So with OJ and corn flakes to start, I had two amazingly fresh croissants with all the Nutella I could handle. Sigh. In order to balance the carbs out, I did have yogurt, thinking the protein there wouldn't leave me madly hungry at 11:30. I was wrong.

We zipped out on the Metro (the 4 to the 1 to the 9, all transfers were fast and flawless, the way public transportation should be) and we walked through the cute little park to the Musee Marmottan for their version of "the Monet exhibition".

For those playing along at home, the whole reason I am here is THE Monet exhibition, which is tomorrow. It is nearly 200 paintings from all over the world, brought together in the Grand Palais. The Musee Marmottan, which is the collection of Monet's family, refused to loan any works to the big exhibition, instead choosing to run their own at just about the same time. And blessed I was that they did.

The museum is small anyway, and I'd been three times before, so I'd seen everything it had on display. But for this, they emptied the attic, and then some. I really had very low expectations that I'd see anything new. I was pretty blown away. The ground floor rooms focused on Monet's friends (works they did of him and his family), Monet's caricatures and his travels to other parts of the world. The caricatures were interesting to see because they were very much unlike the work we know so well from him; they are more like exaggerated cartoons of people he knew. But at one time, they paid his bills. The room devoted to others' paintings of him (and his wife) was interesting, because I primarily "know" him as the round little old man with the long white beard and mustache. At one time though, he was clean shaven, svelte and tall dark and handsome, go figure. There was a pair of paintings of him and his wife done by Renoir, which was just fabulous. One of the quotes nearby said that Renoir was the only person to speak to Monet in the French familiar "tu" form, which speaks to me of how much respect others gave him and also how close Renoir was to him.

There were letters and books and sketchbooks, two palettes with his paint still on them, and a pair of his glasses with thick, yellow-tinted lenses. Later in the exhibition we learned that his cataract surgery late in life left him with an exaggerated sense of color, which he tempered with the yellow lenses.

This exhibition had several "series" of Monet's on display, a few I'd never seen. The basement large room is used to display the larger panels in his collection, and prior to this, it was mostly waterlillies. Today though, there were series of weeping willows, the rose arbor at Giverny, the Japanese bridge at Giverny, flowers generally and of course, the waterlillies. It was interesting to see how they'd brought together paintings for each "series" and presented them cohesively, as if to prove that series painting was Monet's thing. I loved it.

My main complaint, though, was that while the placards describing each room were in both English and French, the labels on the artworks themselves were only in French. There is a reason why these exhibitions were held in the tourist off-season, and that was to make Monet more accepted by his countrymen. If they held this in the dead of the tourist season, it would be full of Americans. Really. Today we were the only Americans I saw there; it was all French speaking people, to my ears. But that doesn't mean that I still don't want to learn from the labels. My French is good enough to get around and make conversation, but not learn from art labels. Ok, rant over.

Now that I mention it, I haven't seen many Americans here at all. I know it is off-season but I'd expect a few more tourists. Usually when we see people who are obvious tourists, they are Japanese. Maybe it's just the holiday season.

From the museum, we hopped the Metro back to Trocadero, where we had lunch overlooking the Eiffel Tower. I told Abby that I don't really feel like "I'm here" until I see all three of: Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. Today we satisfied the last. Lunch was at a brasserie at Trocadero. For repeat visitors, a croque monsieur (grilled cheese) or croque madame (grilled cheese with egg on top) is what you dream about. To balance out the nutritional value slightly, I had it was a mixed green salad, but I think probably the kir royale cocktail and the tarte tatin (apple tart) that I had for dessert negated any benefit from the salad. With all that protein though, we were super-charged for the afternoon.

We walked over to Trocadero, overlooking the Tower and the fountains leading up to it. Unbeknownst to me, there was yet another Christmas Market set up around the fountains, with an added ice rink and snow park that the other markets didn't have. We contemplated having a stroll through the markets and over to the Tower, but it was colder and threatening rain, so we're gambling that tomorrow might be a better day for that.

On we went down the road to the Alma Tunnel area, where I showed Abby where Princess Diana died and the flame statue that to this day remains a memorial to her. Nearby was our destination: the Pierre Berge and Yves St. Laurent Foundation, which was hosting the David Hockney exhibit. While I am not at all a fan of modern art, this one blew me away. Hockney happened to start playing with his iPhone one morning, drawing the sunrise as he saw it out his window. Then he started drawing the flowers that were put in his room every day. The scenes and still lives of fresh flowers that he drew are what made up this exhibition. It had 20 iPhone and 20 iPads, each of which cycled through either a series of 4 or 5 flower "paintings" or presented an animated progression as he did one from a clean slate through to the end. It was fascinating for me, I suppose because I am a techno geek. The catalog has an interview with him, in which he explains how he started doing this, how he literally emailed the exhibition to this gallery and how he is unsure how to get paid for this medium, since it can be shared repeatedly without being tracked, just by forwarding an email or sharing a file. Wow.

Our surprises for the day were two. First, Abby saw Pierre Berge, one of the names of this gallery, bringing a couple through the exhibit. This was significant to her as Berge was not only the founder of the gallery but YSL's partner and manager. She was awestruck by his presence. Then, as we sat watching the iPads cycle through all their images, an older gentleman walked by, and she thought, and we confirmed with a quick Google here at the hotel, that it was indeed Warren Buffett. That impressed me. So now we know what the incredibly wealthy do two weeks before Christmas, they go to Paris and follow us around!

After this exhibit, we hopped the Metro up to the big department stores. I knew from my trip research what to expect in terms of decorations, but I neglected to factor in the utter chaos the big stores would be on the second to last weekend before Christmas. Calamity, chaos or just really big crowds, it was overwhelming and panicky. The sidewalks were shoulder-to-shoulder and ten deep off the street. We made it up to Printemps, saw a few windows, went inside a bit and cut back outside when inside was too crowded. I knew I wanted to see the 4-story Christmas tree inside Galleries Lafayette, but the sidewalk was insanely crowded and not moving very fast. We cut across the street, walked toward Lafayette and crossed back over. We made it inside, but it was bumper to bumper people again. We did get to the center, where we had a few seconds to look up, take a few photos of a gorgeous tree hanging from the main atrium of the store, then run before we got trampled. I'd wanted to go up a few levels to take pictures from different angles, but there was a line for the escalator at least 50 people long: they were doing crowd control on the upper floors, I kid you not. So we evacuated and headed back to the hotel to crash for a bit before dinner. I'm glad we saw it all, but it wasn't the relaxing holiday vibe we are both after.

Before dinner we strolled down to St. Sulpice church (our hotel is on rue St. Sulpice, just up the block from the church). There, we found another Christmas market. It wasn't as spectacular as the one from last night; it was probably 10 stalls and a big temporary building of "vintage" stuff. Abby found some vintage Louis Vuitton. I managed to find a ring I loved that wasn't vintage but made by the guy running booth. It was an orange sapphire set between two thin bands of diamonds. And it fit perfectly...sigh. Unfortunately it was over one paycheck's worth of cash, so I boldly walked away. But it will remain the ring I dream about for years to come, I assure you of that!

Dinner tonight was at a restaurant I'd found in my research. Le Temps Perdu is near our hotel so very convenient. We decided to get the 25 euro fixed price menu, which was an appetizer, main dish and dessert. We both had onion soup, which was even better than last night's. Then we had fried steak with bernaise sauce. Mine came a bit too rare so I sent it back to get it recooked. Abby thought the meat was a bit too fatty but I enjoyed it once it was not bleeding on my plate any longer. It came with au gratin potatoes, which I liked. I had the "floating island of the house" dessert. This was a pool of vanilla cream with a large puffy meringue floating in it, all drizzled in caramel sauce. Good lord, it was delicious. We both had a kir royale and I ordered a carafe of beaujolais, which I loved. I'm finding the new beaujuolais I have had to be very light and very fruity, which I will keep in mind for Christmas!

After dinner we walked down Boulevard St. Germain to that neighborhood's Christmas market. It was a bit bigger, but by now we'd seen all the goods at the other markets. We were really in it for the mulled wine (no supplements tonight) and we window shopped a bit before heading back to the hotel. It's amazing how big your pocketbook feels when the stores are all closed.

So tomorrow, the big Monet exhibition at 5:30. I'm not sure how we'll fill the day just yet, but I know we will...

Paris Day One

2010-12-10T17:07:00.002-05:00

I'll have to cut to the chase on this one since I have now been up for 36 hours straight and am eagerly awaiting sleep.

We made it here fine. Brilliantly in fact. Both flights were completely uneventful, except for us thinking Kevin Garnet of the Celtics was sitting in front of us. I'm not sure why he'd be flying in the cheap seats on IcelandAir during basketball season, but it gave us something to talk about and someone to stalk to the restrooms. In the end, we don't think it was him. He didn't answer to Kevin or flinch when I yelled "rebound" and I tend to doubt he'd carry a pink floral laptop cover like this guy had. Anyway...

I had wanted to try to take the RER train from Charles de Gaulle into Paris. It is only 8 euro (compared to 50 or so for a taxi) and twice as fast. However the line to buy tickets was about 20 people long and not moving, so this led us to find a taxi and meet our new friend Alain. I had my doubts about Alain when I first saw him chain smoking in his taxi outside Terminal 1. But he jumped out, wrestled my sister's suitcase from her, and loaded our luggage in eagerly and as we climbed in back, the smooth melodies of Frank Sinatra were oozing out of his CD player. He shut the CD off as he started the car, and we both objected. I said to him in French "no, no, no, we love Frank!" And he growled back "French car, eet eez sheet...cannot start with CD on, not nice American car like you have." And so our love affair with Alain began. This nice middle aged guy sang Frank with us all the way into the city center. He complained about the traffic, saying "eet eez sheet"...so Alain apparently only knows one obscenity in English, and we got it twice. When we finally got to our hotel, he asked when we were leaving the city for the airport again, offered us his card, asked us to pre-book him the night before, and that he'd take us back to the airport "wizout zee supplement sheeet". So we're hooking up with Alain again on Monday and getting a cheaper fare without the airport supplemental fees. Yee ha.

We quickly changed and headed right back out. Our first unplanned stop was a macaron shop nearby. My sister hadn't tried any the last time we were here and we were feeling a bit peckish. We bought 6 and kept them for our walk. She was duly impressed with the caramel and chocolate ones, a fact we'd keep in mind later on.

Our first, and hopefully only, tragedy of the trip was our much anticipated return to rue de Buci for the eclairs at Bonbonniere de Buci. Alas, we made it to the street and walked up and down a few times, and have finally conceded that the cute little neighborhood market street has been overrun with more upscale shops and boutiques and our beloved Bonbonniere was run out of town. We tried an eclair on Buci just in case, but neither of us had a strong feeling either way whether it was as good or just a suitable replacement.

We made our way to Notre Dame and took in the Christmas tree that is prominently decorated right out front. We made a pass through the inside as well to see the nativity that is there, but we both were underwhelmed with what looked like something from the Hallmark Paper Store rather than something suitable for the church.

Everything here seems to be decorated for the season: cafes, restaurants, museums, shops, car dealerships. And it's all done with the same swagger with which the French are able to wrap scarves, that is, very classy, with taste, and not like you'll ever be able to pull off yourself at home! It is just gorgeous.

After Notre Dame, we walked toward the Marais neighborhood, stopping at a crepe stand where we both had a crepe. (Remember, we last ate in Boston at 6 pm Thursday, it was now about 8 am Boston time!) I had a caramel crepe that was literally a plain crepe baked and folder and then filled with ladels of caramel sauce. Abby had butter and sugar, which she said was rather light on both butter and sugar.

We made it to the Carnavalet Museum for the Louis Vuitton exhibition. This is not something I would have gone to on my own, but Abby loves Louis, so there we were. I actually learned quite a lot about the Vuittons (there was not just one running the show over the years) and that they started out primarily as luggage and trunks producers. The trunks they had were really impressively handcrafted and well-preserved over the last 150 years or so.

After Louis, we returned to Au Pied du Couchon, which translates to "Pig's Feet" or, as we effectionately call it, the Pig Place. We ate here last time, and recall the onion soup to be beyond parallel. And it still is. It was tastier this time due to how cold it was out (warmer than home, but still cold to be outside, about 34 degrees). I had the mashed potato and black pudding main dish and creme brulee dessert. My sister had duck which I tried and was very tasty. As it is beaujolais season here, I did have two glasses to go with my meal. Well, I'm not sure if beaujolias is meant to go with black pudding, but that's what I had. And enjoyed.

Now refortified and ready to go, we took the Metro to the base of the Champs Elysees and walked the Christmas markets in this neighborhood. The markets are hard to explain, but in essence, many neighborhoods have them. They allow vendors, crafty people and food people to set up booths with things to sell. The wares run from chocolates, candles, woolens, jewelry, wooden toys, fleece items...you name it. The food is everything from cotton candy to sausages to foie gras on toast to mulled wine. We got hooked early on one particular booth that had mulled wine with "supplements", meaning rum, calvados or vodka shots. Good glory...the hot wine, the heat from the alcohol, it was a dangerous combination, but one that fueled us all the way up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, a walk about 2 miles, and on no sleep and very little food. Abby asked at one point why she was disturbed that we were walking with open Solo cups of alcohol, happily imbibing. I said I was more disturbed by the 14 year old kid who served it, but hey, vive la France. Who am I to complain? If this is wrong, I don't want to be right!

This market also had a santa in a sleigh who they'd strung between two towers and on the half hour, they'd send him across and back again, as he (a real man) would wave to the kids and talk to them over the microphone. Abby and I both immediately commented that we didn't know Santa spoke French, but DUH apparently he does, in FRANCE!

We made a couple pit stops on the way up the Champs Elysees to admire the window displays in Louis Vuitton (of course) and buy more macarons in Laduree, which is known for this brilliant confection (and in our opinion, wins hands down, especially with the salted caramel one!)

So once we made it up to the Arc we hopped the Metro and headed back to our hotel. Abby is already sound asleep, and I'm not far behind. We have two museums and a whole lot of Christmas markets to see tomorrow. A bientot!

I packed boots!

2010-12-09T08:47:00.002-05:00

If any of you have known me for any period of time, you probably are well aware that I loathe winter. I despise cold, whine my way through sleet and become downright profane with snow. So as I finished my packing last night, I never thought it would come to this: I packed snow boots.

I've been following posts from my fellow travelers on the Fodors travel forum, and Kerouac, an ex-pat living in Paris, posted a set of photos he took yesterday morning. This is probably all you need to see. To a life-long Bostonian, that's nothing to even think twice about. But to a part of the world that rarely, if ever, sees the white stuff (they don't even have plows, shovels or salt trucks in Paris), this is crippling. The media reports this morning are full of stories of people who were sleeping in cars last night because they couldn't get home. That happens in Boston maybe once every 7 years when we get two FEET or so of snow in a very quick period of time, not the trace that Paris got yesterday.

And here I go, snow-loather extraordinaire, off to the land of newly fallen, and hard to handle, snow.

On the brightside, the space taken up in my small suitcase by these boots will results in my not missing a beat, I hope. Here I come Christmas markets, mulled wine and Monet exhibition. I just need to squeeze out 7 more hour at work. I'll be meeting my sister and my luggage at Logan right after work, and away we go. I just hope the snow is done for now and we're able to land at Charles de Gaulle tomorrow morning! I remain confident that any day in Paris, even in the snow, is better than any day at my desk at work.

I'll be back with reports from the road....au revoir!

Paris T minus in the teens

2010-11-21T16:01:00.004-05:00

Honestly it feels like I've just done this: gathered the trial sized items, started to pile up the city map and travel guides, wondered how much really will fit in my carry-on. But here we are, only two more weekends between us and Paris. Can it be?

Of course I'm excited about the Monet exhibition, the whole reason we're going, but now I'm growing more excited about seeing Paris at Christmastime, something I've never done. Hell, I've never been to Europe later than early November before! I've seen pictures, so I know what I'm in for. It looks truly stunning. I want to share them with my Dear Sister Traveling Companion but I want her to be surprised. Already she said of one of the Christmas markets "I want to have my picture taken with the French Santa Claus". Oh boy, does he know what he's in for?

So on the agenda, we have Monet at the Grand Palais, Monet at the Marmottan, a Louis Vuitton exhibit, a David Hockney exhibit and perhaps a stroll through the Louvre. But other than that, I feel like we're pretty open. I wouldn't mind strolling the markets, drinking mulled wine, finding that foie gras on toast and really drinking in the Christmastide.

Now to see if three days of clothes really can fit in my carry-on....

T-Minus a little less than five weeks

2010-11-06T17:13:00.002-04:00

Since I last wrote I've had the surprising addition of my Dear Sister to my long weekend excursion to Paris. She lucked out with her three day delay between the time I floated the idea by her and booked the trip myself when she said she couldn't go and the time when she became cash flush and could go. The fare went down nearly $100.

So I've changed the hotel room to accommodate us both and bought her a ticket to the Monet exhibition. As time draws closer, I get more excited. I love the fact that we've both seen the main sights in the city and can concentrate on a few art exhibits (Monet both at the Grand Palais and the Marmottan, the Louis Vuitton at the Musee Carnavalet and the David Hockney iPhone exhibit at the Foundation Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Laurent). That will allow us time to enjoy all that is Christmas in Paris and maybe just a leisurely stroll from patisserie to patisserie.

I've sort of abandoned the idea of taking a day trip to Rouen. As much as I want to see the town, I've found there's more to Paris this time of year than I expected. I did a bit of research and it seems that there are neighborhood Christmas markets during the month of December, one of which is right in the neighborhood where our hotel is, near St. Sulpice church. The three main department stores also have large window displays for the holidays and the Champs Elysses is lit up as well. I've never been to Europe so close to Christmas before and am excited to have a sort of non-commercial holiday experience.

I'm also beyond excited to eat. Let's not kid ourselves here, Paris is the best city in the world for food. And wine. And pastry. So I'll be partaking in all of the above, and maybe some crepes and croque monsieurs as well. Diet be damned. You only visit Paris once. Well, maybe seven times...but you get my drift.

Last time Dear Sister and I were in Paris, she was dreadfully sick with pneumonia. We (or maybe I) had no idea how sick at the time but I'm hearing now that she didn't enjoy it as she should have. Here's raising a glass (Kir Royale) to making sure she does this time.

Scratching the itch

2010-10-11T13:50:00.003-04:00

Coming home is always an experience of mixed emotions. There is the joy in getting reacquainted with those whom you missed (parents, sister, cat) and the fun in telling your travel stories to anyone who'll listen and even to those who won't listen. There is the sorting of the photos, making the photo album, getting the watercolor you bought framed. But it always seems that after about 10 days, once the luggage is put away, the jetlag and residual headcold have worn off, reality strikes again. This happened to me last week and it was painful. In fact, it was more painful than I ever remember it being.

Is the gloom and pseudo-depression that set in a sign that it was just a really good trip? Does it mean that Russia was everything I expected and more? How is it possible, then, for something so good to leave me feeling so bad?

Wednesday and Thursday last week were painful for me. Perhaps it's the combined effects of the bum hip, an irresponsible personal trainer and a lethargic gloom of reality that fell over me at work. It really was over, and I was in a funk. I felt like I was coming down with something, just could not get behind myself.

So I did what any rabid traveler would do: I started looking at a quick fix. I have my sights set on a longer trip to Poland in the spring, but I am not going to last that long. I need to address the burn I feel now, now. And that's when IcelandAir sprung an amazing fare on me in its weekly email. And as soon as I said the words out loud -- "I'm kicking around a long weekend to Paris" -- I knew it was virtually certain I'd found the scratch for this itch.

I thought about it for a couple of days, reminding myself of the massive, history-making Monet exhibition that is on in Paris until the end of January, and I went to see what dates IcelandAir could whisk me away. I waited another day, confirmed I could get Mom to look after the cat, and I did it. In about 10 minutes I had air, hotel and a ticket to the exhibition. I am going just for three days, but I am going. Immediately, the fog lifted and I was on fire again.

Paris is an interesting contrast to Russia. I've been to Paris 5? 6? times before and I know it. I've seen most of it and I know my arrondissements. I can hit the ground running on day one. I just need to decide how and where to spend my time, which is a half day Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. I will fly home at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, so I can get a good breakfast and lunch in Paris before I come home.

I picked a hotel in the 6th that is ordinarily $370 a night and got it for $200 a night. Not cheap, and more than my airfare, but remember, we're scratching an itch here. So because it's only 3 days and I've been before and I just want to see the exhibition, maybe day-trip to Rouen and otherwise just hang out, I'm challenging myself to make this trip carry-on luggage and Paris map only. No big suitcase, no pile of guidebooks. I'm going to just go and be on this trip.

We'll see how that works out. But for now the countdown is on again. And I feel better.

Russia - Coming Home

2010-09-23T12:24:00.003-04:00

Don't take any of the following as having any bearing whatsoever on how much I enjoyed my trip. It just seems as though as perfect as the preceding 10 days were, my travel day home was fraught with missteps, near disaster and a whole lot of hassle.

You might remember that my suitcase seemed a bit heavy but that I thought I'd taken care of it with a careful packing the day before I left. Well, in fairness to the driver who I nearly killed under the load of this bag in St. Petersburgh, one of the wheels on it had been broken in transit, so it wasn't exactly as mobile as it should be. And apparently all my working out with Jon made me not realize the suitcase was as heavy as it is, because at check-in in Moscow, they made me "repack" right there at the check-in desk, unzipping my bag for the whole world to see my dirty laundry, literally. Problem was, I'd already packed all the heaviest stuff in my carry-on, in anticipation of this ritual which I'd done before. There wasn't much more stuff I could take out of the larger suitcase and carry on. I was meant to shed 6 kilograms, about 12 pounds! In the end, the agent let me carry on a shopping bag of stuff, so Dad's fur hat, a castle replica with a music box and three sets of matroyshka dolls all came on board with me.

Moving on to immigration, you might also remember how I said I "breezed in" to Russia when I arrived? Well on departure, the immigration agent was suspect of me because I did not look like my picture. Even when I took off my glasses, they were still doubtful. (I was pretending that I'd lost some weight in the 8 years since I had that photo taken, to ease the pain of this entire experience). I'll tell you, having Russian immigration officials, four of them, criticizing your picture and entry documents is a near intestinal-releasing experience. All I needed was three stamps on three documents to send me on my way, and it took them 20 minutes and a superivsor to get those stamps. But when I finally had the documents handed back to me, hallelujah! I ran for duty-free...where I had room in my bags to buy exactly nothing! Oh well.

Fast forward a bit to Munich, where I "only" had 90 minutes to connect to my flight to Boston. I had to go through security again though, despite never leaving the secured zone of the airport; literally off one plane, on to the bus to the terminal and into the terminal and directly on to the next plane. But the security agents saw the two Faberge eggs (replicas, not the real thing, but they apparently look like primative bomb parts) in my carry-on and, you guessed it, I had to unpack the entire carry-on for inspection. I actually think this was more the satisfaction of a bet between the two security guards, because while they were both looking at the x-ray of this bag, I heard them say twice "Faberge", so my guess is they were just trying to prove that's what they really were. But in my eye, this engorged carry-on wasn't meant to be anything but unpacked once, and that was supposed to be in the comfort of home, but I did it. I had no choice. And I repacked it too. And still managed to make the flight, even with a toilet and water stop!

And finally...Munich is one of those airports where the plane can taxi forever to take off. I mean we taxied so long that at one point I expected to look out the window and see Logan on one side and the Tobin on the other. We finally arrived at what looked like the take-off runway, and then the pilot came over the PA and, as is customary on Lufthansa, made the announcement first in German and then in English. All I heard at first was "blahblahblah PROBLEM blahblahblah PROBLEM blahblahblah PROBLEM". I knew something was awry even before he announced in English that there was a strong electrical burning smell in the forward galley and we'd be returning to the parking stand to investigate. Excellent. Long story short, it took them an hour to identify a coffee maker that was smoking (as in burning, not lighting a Marlboro) and they tossed that off-board on to the tarmac. Literally. Then another hour to confirm all other systems were go. Then we taxied again and took off. The 8 hour flight became 10 1/2 hours. But finally I arrived home. Safe and sound. I supposed it is better to find the smoking coffee maker before take off than somewhere mid-Atlantic.

Looking back even while still a bit jetlagged, the entire trip on the ground in Russia was just so wonderful, that while temporarily inconvenienced, I would not let the travel day jade my experience. Stuff happens. I am home safe and sound and with a wonderful trip under my belt.

Stay tuned for more...I have a few thoughts for longer essays on some of the things I blogged about in brief. Thank you for reading along with me though and for all of the feedback via email! You're fanning the flame for future travel writing!

Russia, last day

2010-09-20T14:58:00.002-04:00

Subtitled: Kremlin crawl, changing of the guard groupie, underground strings and the tears that they bring

Last full day in Moscow dawned again bright and sunny, and blissfully remained so all day. We were in and out of doors for most of the day. I started the day off as I did yesterday, with the massive breakfast buffet, learning it is better to stick with the mixed berry granola, and a cappuccino at my local Starbucks. Irina showed up right at 9:30 and we walked to the Kremlin for our pre-assigned entrance time of 10:00.

I thanked Irina profusely for the recommendation of last night’s dinner and said that I was contemplating a return tonight. She shook her head and said “ah, no, you leave it be; you cannot repeat perfection.” And she promised to come up with something good for me tonight.

I should preface my telling of the Kremlin tour by saying the Kremlin is not Red Square. It is where the president works first and foremost, so security is tight and very strict. It is not free and open to the public at any old time. There are permitted entry hours and you can book ahead. You also have to go through quite a few metal detectors. We waited in line sandwiched between two elderly tour groups and I silently thanked the travel gods for gently nudging me in the direction of MIR. Bullet dodged there!

Our first stop in the Kremlin was the Armory. This was a fanciful trip through the history of Russia’s tsars and emperors, where they had collections of silver, ostentatious gifts from other countries, original carriages that they used. You can tell with my rather brief description that, while I did enjoy seeing it, it was not the highlight of the visit. What I enjoyed quite a bit more were the dresses worn by Catherine the Great and Alexandra, the last Romanov tsarina. Catherine’s in particular were particularly noteworth because those she wore when she had just come from Germany had about a 12 inch waist (not kidding!) and after 20 years of Russian cooking and good living, well, it was quite a bit bigger. The other part of the collection that was just beautiful was the Faberge egg collection. There are so few in the world (I believe 36?) and about a half dozen are here; the rest are in private collections. They were stunning. That’s all I can say about them without using every other insufficient superlative in my vocabulary.

An unexpected side trip in the Kremlin occurred when Irina got access for me into the Diamond Fund, which ordinarily has to be booked ahead. This is a vault deep under the Kremlin that houses, among other things, the crown jewels. She felt it was important that I see them since I’ve seen Great Britain’s and they are compared to those and the Shah’s Jewels in Iran. Since it was timed entry, there were maybe 20 people total in both rooms. After getting buzzed through two vault doors by security guys who looked like Secret Service, I found myself in the first room which held uncut and cut gems that are part of the collection, not in any particular jewelry settings. It was almost unbelievable that these were actually real because they were so big. Any gem you can imagine was here in one way shape or form: emeralds as big as a plum, gorgeous smoky quartz, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, amethysts, lapis, jade, opal, pearl…it was endless. This room also contains jewels set into pins, tiaras, brooches in the last 20 years or so, but those are only for exhibition and no one wears them.

The Emperor’s Crown though, and the scepter and orb, were just incredible. It was so hard to comprehend they were real. I cannot even begin to describe how blinding the diamonds were, how beautiful the Orlov diamond on the tip of the scepter was. And I got to stand there by myself and just admire. It was surreal. (In London you get whisked by the crown jewels on a moving staircase and cannot get so close or spend any time admiring them).

After the Armory tour, we walked along the Kremlin walls and found Cathedral Square, so named for the several churches that border it. (I learned that they call their churches cathedrals if they have an iconostasis separating the worshippers from the altar. If there is no iconostasis, it is just a chapel, and usually only has one dome.) There was only one church I had my heart set on getting into, and it was the one that is on the cover of my guidebook. I was anxious to see if I’d have to ask to go or if that was on the itinerary; surely we would not visit all 7 churches. I was thrilled to discover that Assumption Cathedral was the first we were to visit, and that was my church. The exterior of the church is pretty unassuming: mostly white with a few golden domes. But inside, the frescos are floor to ceiling, wall to wall and they are exceptional. On top of that it has one of the most impressive iconostasis that I’ve ever seen (not that I’ve seen many ever, but I’ve seen quite a few this week). Taking it all in was almost sensory overload but still very impressive. I was thrilled. Irina said that this is “pretty typical” of Russian Orthodox church, which seems like a lot of work to me given how many churches there are, but it’s an interesting fact.

We walked the rest of the Kremlin area and she took me into one more church only to show me the special exhibition of Lalique glass that was there. That was pretty interesting and nice that she thought that I would like to do that.

I was growing weary as by now it was nearly 1:45 and it had been a long time since the fuel from breakfast was running out. So we walked to GUM and went upstairs to their food court (which, thankfully, is a far cry from the food court in the malls at home). She suggested an “Asian” place but I sort of balked at it. Then I realized that their idea of Asian is actually Turkish, not Japanese or Chinese like I expected. So I had what she had: mutton on a spicy rice pilaf with tomato and onion and I ordered a side of Russian potato salad, which was pretty much like ours.

Fully refortified, we headed back out and did the rest of the tour of Red Square. There wasn’t much I didn’t already know about it, so it was a brief pass through and she left me at the Historical Museum, which we agreed I would see on my own. This was the end of my time with Irina, and she hugged me and thanked me. She said that clients like me are the reason she keeps doing this; it was a pleasure for her to show someone so mentally and emotionally invested what her country is all about. I think Mom and Dad would be proud, because both of my guides said this about me. It’s sort of like bringing home a report card that says “Amy is a joy to have in class.” But really, it is just my natural inquisitiveness and passion to learn. I asked Irina for her address because I want to send her the book Make Way for Ducklings, since she showed me those statues yesterday and had never read the book.

Anyway, I did go through the History museum, but without a guide it is sort of useless. None of the exhibit labels are in English. Some of the rooms have one card explaining everything in every case in the room, but it’s tied to the wall, so visitors can’t walk around the room with it. I considered it a wash and left after the second floor. If you’re vaguely interested, it seemed to trace the history of Russia back to Paleolithic times; I am not kidding, there were displays of rock from thousands of years B.C.!

One of the things we passed by earlier in the day was the eternal flame which is in Alexander Garden and commemorates all who have fallen while serving the country. It is guarded by three guards, two of whom do not move an inch the entire hour they are on duty. At the top of every hour, they change guards. Irina suggested that I come back for that later in the day, as it had just happened when we were strolling by.

So at 4:00 I was there, in the spot Irina said was best. At about 10 of 4:00, the main guard comes out from near his guardhouse and inspects the two on either side of the eternal flame. Then he returns to the guardhouse and from way down the path on the right, three freshly rested guards come goose-stepping down the long path. I will tell you, the silence when they approach is deafening. And seeing them march gave me chills. The sound of their feet hitting the pavement just resonates in you. They swap out the two immobile guards, who then goose-step back the way the new guards came. In all, it takes about 6 minutes total. Not like in London where there are bands and a parade, more like Arlington National Cemetery where it is subdued and serious. But I was hooked. It’s sort of an adrenalin rush for me to see them approaching that way. And I noticed that when the old guards retire, they go first to the flame and pay respects, turn and face front and center toward the crowd, then goose-step off. Oh yeah, I decided right then that I was coming back, front and center.

So left to my own devices then for an hour, I went shopping because while I didn’t want a Faberge egg before I saw them, now I did. Fortunately I only had to look in two shops in GUM before I found the replica of the one I liked in the Kremlin collection. And feeling a bit peckish, I stopped at a blini shop and had a blini filled with chocolate. Sigh.

I was back and in my appointed spot at 4:50. I saw the first inspection of the outgoing guard. I also made friends with two older Canadian businessmen while we were waiting. I managed to give them the skinny on what they needed to see in the 6 hours they had before they were jetting off to St. Petersburg, but I convinced them that they needed to stay 5 minutes to see what was about to happen. And the changing of the guard happened again, just as before, and I snapped a marvelous photo of it when the guards turned forward. Just awesome.

So at 5:00 I headed back to the hotel and scoped out the restaurant that Irina suggested, a Russian place called Kitezh. It was less than a block from the hotel, so I went back to change and spent some time organizing my bags for tomorrow. It turns out I am in better shape than I thought and shouldn’t kill my driver tomorrow (or leave him with a hernia) the way I’ve redistributed my loot between suitcase and carry-on.

Dinner at Kitezh was nice. It was not nearly as good, or as expensive, as last night’s meal, but this was really a great way to end my trip. The décor is old Russia, very rustic with thick wooden tables and farmhouse style walls and ceilings. The waitstaff all wear linen rustic “costumes” which were sort of cute. I started with a glass of kvass, which is a non-alcoholic drink made from fermented bread. It tasted like an apple cider but not as sweet and not like apples, if that makes sense. I decided the rest of the meal would be a greatest hits experience from this trip, so I had salmon caviar, again, and beef stroganoff, again. I know, not terribly creative and not daring (there was bear, moose, bunny and deer on the menu, but come on now!) but I wanted a meal I would savor and enjoy, and who knows how long it will be until I have either of those again. Dessert was the “Kitezh fruit roll” which on its face sounds a bit non-specific. It turns out it is like a jelly roll with sour cream (bless their hearts) and strawberry and kiwi in it. With espresso and a glass of wine, the bill was 1640 ruples, or about $55 plus tip.

I decided to end my stay where I started it, at Red Square. The sun had just gone down and I made my way through the underpass the gets pedestrians across the 8 lane thoroughfare separating the neighborhood my hotel is in from Red Square. I was not even halfway through the underpass when I heard the string octet. I had heard them several times during my stay in Moscow but somehow never seen them. Tonight they were right where I would pass them twice. And twice, I stood and listened, for just one more. Again, and again. They grabbed me with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, kept me with Beethoven and some Mozart. Once I empted my change into their hat. A second time I threw them some bills. But Vivaldi started the emotions rolling and I realized that this was it. Tomorrow at this time I will be closer to home than I am to here. These 8 guys and girls in torn jeans, baseball caps and sneakers, all playing classical music’s greatest hits, will be here when I’m not. And that really overwhelmed me.

But I shook off the tears and continued my way back to Red Square, and realized it was 7:50, 10 minutes before the last changing of the guard. You guessed it, I went back. I wanted to see what happens at the end of the day. Long story short, the flame is brighter in the twilight and all the guards go home for the day. So in that sense it is very unlike Arlington National Cemetery, where they guard that tomb day and night.

I took one more long lap around Red Square, taking mental pictures this time more so than digital pictures. It was a long, drawn out goodbye, but I figured I’d waited so long to get here, I needed to leave when I was ready.

Back here in the hotel in the rock hard bed, I am extremely thankful for these 10 days. They far exceeded my expectations and my dreams. There is not one single thing I would have wanted to be different. Now I just want to hug my family and my boy and sleep in my own bed tomorrow night. With a mere 17 hours of travel between now and then, I bid Rossiya a fond “do svidanya”!

Russia Day Eight

2010-09-19T13:32:00.003-04:00

Subtitled: Soviets past, Ducklings, still more art and the perfect meal

Today dawned with blue skies and bright sun, but Irina warned me to carry my umbrella anyway to keep the rain away. At least half of our day was to be spent outside, so she wanted to do her best to keep make it that way.

I forgot to describe breakfast here at the Hotel Budapest, and really must because as a breakfast person, I find it ideal. I was pleasantly surprised to find three types of granola in addition to the standard rice crispies and corn flakes. I opted for berry granola both days so far, but may go with vanilla or chocolate the next couple days. There is a hot buffet with sausages, eggs, hash browns and oatmeal. There are also several types of bread and pastries, yogurt and fruit salad, juices and coffee or tea. I usually have the cereal with yogurt, fruit and a pastry. That sort of breakfast will hold me over until a late lunch, believe it or not.

This morning I got up a half hour earlier to so I could walk to the Starbucks I stumbled over near my hotel last night. I had a cappuccino, which tasted so good after going without for so long.

Our driver picked us up at 9:30 sharp and we drove to Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery. Given that it was a Sunday morning and no one was on the roads, we zipped right there. Irina said she had a surprise for me nearby that she wanted to show me. We parked across the lake from the convent, which made for a wonderful photo opportunity, but within the park we were in, there was a set of statues that would be familiar to most Bostonians: Robert McCloskey’s Make Way For Ducklings statues. Apparently Barbara Bush gifted them to the children of Russian some years ago and this is their home now. I instantly recognized them and felt a rush of homesickness, oddly enough. Irina was relieved that I did indeed know them, because she says so many Americans do not! It makes me wonder if it is not local popular culture in any case.

The Novodevichy Convent essentially has a history of taking in wives or sisters of tsars once the tsars get tired of them. The women would be sent there to live out their lives, essentially becoming “dead” to Russia when they take the veil. The grounds is made up of a cloister, the Smolensk Cathedral, a belfry, a small gorgeously decorated chapel and a second more rundown church, all surrounded by a fortress (god forbid these women make a break for it!). The convent is still operating, as is the cathedral. Irina asked me to don my headscarf and we went inside for the service, since it was that time on Sunday morning. We went in just as the faithful were taking communion and sharing bread with each other. The choir was just beautiful (but professionally trained and hired, so they ought to be) and the symbolism of these people coming together every Sunday, obviously seeing each other week after week was touching.

We left the convent and went around the corner to the cemetery. This is the place where anyone who is anyone of modern Russia seems to be buried (except for those I saw in St. Petersburg last week). The cemetery serves almost as a historical museum of popular Russia. The trend seems to be to make the stone on the gravesite indicative of what the person is known for. A pediatrician is represented by a carved likeness of himself holding a baby. A pianist has a baby grand headstone. Military officers have busts of themselves decorated with all of their medals. Artists have photographs of themselves and an engraving of their theater’s logo. One ballerina had an exquisitely carved statue of herself in white marble representing her in best known role. The popular people I knew that we saw were the author Chekhov, Boris Yeltsin, Raisa Gorbachev and Nikita Kruschev. Irina said that nowadays a governmental commission decides who gets buried in this cemetery because demand for that honor is high and space is running low. It really is a wonderful walk through Russia’s culture though and quite an experience to see.

Our driver stopped half way between the cemetery and the Pushkin Museum on Arbat Street so we could pick up a quick lunch. Irina knew of a Fresh Foods shop and we had tasty roll-up sandwiches and a drink. We got to chat and inevitably the conversation came around to the economy and politics. What was interesting to me is that Irina says that all of her American clients tend to be Democrat and she has never met a Republican. She asked me what I feel about Obama now and how I would vote in 2 years. A long conversation ensued and I think she was surprised at how frank I was with my opinions. She said that Medvedev is up for reelection at the same time, so 2012 should be a good year. Russia, she said, has split priorities for that year with both the election and the Olympics in Sochi.

One other thing that was interesting is that she does not save for retirement. She said generally Russians do not trust banks or investment houses, so if they have extra money, they spend it on something that will last, like a house or car. I asked her what she will do when she retires since right now the government does not support anyone either, and she says that the pension system has not been fully developed yet in the new Russia, so she hopes it will be sorted out by then. She was certainly not terribly concerned!

Our next stop after lunch was the Pushkin Museum, which is a collection that is split between two buildings. The older building houses a collection of plaster casts of popular sculpture and a wonderful Egyptian antiquities collection as well as a revolving exhibition space. The exhibition on show today was a collection of Russian art from an Armenian museum. While all of the labels on the art in this exhibition was in Cyrillic, I was able to identify several of my new favorites from this trip by sounding out some of the names. I am quite pleased with myself!

This part of the museum has quite a collection of plaster casts, which often gives the museum the reputation of only having “copies”, which is not true. There is however a large room that is made to replicate the main room of the Bargello in Florence, and has a life sized replica of Michelangelo’s David. There is also a room that has copies of many of Michelangelo’s other pieces, including the Pieta, Moses, Bruges Madonna, and the Medici chapel sculptures. That was pretty cool. The Pushkin also has six Rembrandts which were just awesome in every sense, but not as spectacular as Danae or the Return of the Prodigal Son which I saw last week.

The new building house painting and sculpture that was collected by two wealthy Russians. It covers pre-impressionism, Impressionism (my favorite) and post-Impressionism. I think I really perked up most when we entered the floor of Impressionism. The first painting that popped out to me was an absolutely breathtaking Degas, the Blue Dancers. It is the Degas masterpiece in this collection and quite possibly the most beautiful Degas I have ever seen. It uses his deep blue pastel and it hard to say whether this is really four separate dancers dancing, or one single dancer that Degas has just chosen to represent as she pirouettes around his drawing paper. Needless to say, I loved this.

Anything after the Degas would have been gravy. But there were several other Degas, seven Renoirs, six Rodins. One Rodin, Love Running Away, I had actually never seen before and it was very alluring. There were five Van Goghs, including one that actually got sold while he was alive, one painting of his doctor in Arles that was discovered on the floor of a chicken coop (apparently the doctor didn’t know what he had been given by his patient, and used it to patch a hole!) and one very interesting unusual setting for Van Gogh, a circle of prisoners pacing in a prison courtyard. I was impressed, for sure. I was also smitten with 11 Monets which were much better quality than what I had seen in the Hermitage. There was a Vertheuil landscape that was pretty, a very nice white waterlillies and two Rouen cathedral scenes.

When I was done here, Irina walked me to Arbat Street where she left me for the day. She gave me several options to return the hotel, including two walks and a Metro trip. Ultimately I opted for the Metro, only because I had been up on my feet and walking since 9:00 a.m.

I walked up and down Arbat, which is a pedestrian street with various souvenir shops, restaurants, two Starbucks and the only Hard Rock Café in Russia. I did the requisite Hard Rock shopping and walked back Arbat to a Georgian restaurant that Irina recommended. This, my friends, turned out to be THE meal of the vacation, I suspect.

You may recall that I fell for Georgian food last week in St. Petersburg. This meal though, exponentially surpassed that meal. This was a meal I will look back on in days, weeks, months and wish to do it all over. Bear with me here…

The restaurant is set in a very kitschy looking “typical Georgian style country house”, said Irina. Inside, it looks like the inside of a water mill, with a water wheel, an interior river with big fish and turtles and hard wood planks and chunky dark wooden furniture. I flipped through the menu, which thankfully had English subtitles that seemed a bit shaky in translation at best. Let’s just say that I am hoping that “mutton in bowels” really means “bowls”. I took the safer choice and ordered for an appetizer a Georgian cheese baked in a shallow iron dish with diced tomato and Georgian spices (which are spicy, but not necessarily peppery hot, not like a jalapeno but more like paprika). I also ordered the stewed veal in a tomato broth with onions and a lightly spiced tomato broth. This came with a thicker consistency but lighter texture pita-type bread that I ate by tearing it open and spooning the meat into. I did order a side of mashed potatoes, which normally can hold their own in any meal, but the rest of this was so good, they stayed mostly uneaten! I also had a glass of house red wine and a bottle of water.

Somehow, the appetizer came at the same time as the meal, and the cheese, the cheese! Oh my! It was steaming hot and had just a little bit of browning on the top. It tasted like a cross between a strong goat cheese with a touch of bleu in it. The veal was tender and juicy and with quarters of the bread rounds was just yummy. But can you even imagine the cheese WITH the veal in the bread??? Oh I can, and I did. Good Glory! I firmly believe that when you reach the Pearly Gates, you will be served this meal. Seriously. It was that good.

Oh but we are not done yet, my friends. The waitress, who was the sweetest and friendliest I have had here, asked if I wanted dessert. I asked her to bring me whatever is the typical Georgian dessert and a cappuccino. After a little bit of a wait, she delivered a layer cake that was presented just amazingly on a large plate, with swirls of honey, drops of berries and cocoa powder, with something written in Georgian on the top of the plate (hopefully it wasn’t “Do you know how much you’ll be working out to burn this meal off?”) I should have asked, but instead I pulled a very Japanese-tourist move and pulled out my camera. I put it on Food setting (seriously, my camera has that) and took two shots. It looked too pretty to eat, but to hell with that, I was going in for the kill.

The cake was alternating layers of cake soaked in a hazelnut liquor and mocha mousse, and covered in what I think was something similar to toffee shavings. Hallelujah, I reached the promised land! While this ended up being my most expensive meal ($80 plus tip), it was well beyond “worth it”. I am so tempted to go back tomorrow night for my last meal in Russia!

That was it for today. I successfully took the Metro back to the hotel and crashed on the rock solid bed at 8:00. Tomorrow is Kremlin and Red Square tour and that’s it.

As the vacation draws to a close I really am feeling sad that I am leaving and I find myself actually not wanting to leave; I feel I have so much more to see and do. I have loved this more than I thought I could. It has ended up being a better experience than I expected, one that I will treasure for all I saw, all I learned and for the two wonderful guides I had that made my experience that much better.