Il Procrastinator

Took a cab today straight to the Bell and Drum Towers. We didn't really care too much about them, but thought it made sense for completeness. The Bell Tower had an extraordinary set of stairs, and a giant bell as well.





After lunch at a local restaurant (no fortune cookies here either), we wandered through to Houtongs, which is a series of narrow streets with local shops... until it turns into a tourist destination with high priced stores.



We walked to Beihai Park to see the Temple of Incence Pagoda, which was no more and no less than it had been from a distance.



We walked to Xidan, which turned out to be an exhausting mistake. We were all sore by the time we arrived, and really only felt like going to dinner.



On the way, we stopped at Beijing Bookstore, which is far larger than Borders and even Powell's books. All in Chinese too.

As our final meal, we went to Outback Steakhouse. This was also the most expensive meal. The whole restaurant was filled with westerners, and the food was identical to home (except no Foster's).

Finish the evening in the pool.

Packing to go home now :)

Liz had a codfish sandwich at KFC this morning. Again, all the menus are different -- they are sandwich focused, vs. chicken focused.



We decided to try and get tickets at the National Stadium (Bird's Nest), but because of a concert tonight (sold out), we couldn't get in. It was really tough to get to via subway, so I don't know if we'll go back after dark.



Once again, China is about open spaces. They must have demolished thousands of homes to build the Olympic Park. You can see all the way to the Drum Tower.



We made our way to the Summer Palace, which I think was my favorite in Beijing. The views were amazing, and the lake peaceful. The architecture was also a little different, which was nice.





We ended up at a Mexican restaurant at Sinati. We had to pass through a quiet, guarded street of diplomat housing to get there. There was an upscale mall there, with an Apple store. Beijing is modern.



Exhausted today - glad only one day left.

6AM wake up call today for our trip to the Great Wall at Jin Shan Lin.

The cab ride was about 2 1/2 hours, and the driver was crazy.

We started our hike and were again surrounded by old ladies selling souvenirs. I was pretty tired of them, and was as direct as possible that we weren't going to buy anything.

Got most of them to go away, except one old woman who followed us for a ways. We had about 20 minutes of peace before another latched on.

The wall was immediately worth the $210 cab ride and 4 hour hike. It's not so much any particular piece of the wall as the entirety of it.



Any one segment is not impressive. It's not particularly high, or wide, and was deteriorated where we saw it. But the miles and miles of it, up and down the mountain ridges, twisting with the canyons, was splendid.





After a couple of hours, we entered the Simitai section, which is being/has been renovated. It's really surprising -- they do not make much of an effort to match the existing styles -- the brick color was different (black!), and the cement was spattered everywhere.

Near the end of the wall was a crazy handing bridge. Bleh.



We passed on climbing to the top of Simitai, because we were beat, the stairs were nearly vertical, and we had already seen some sweet views.

We wandered [in Beijing] after we came back, trying to find an internet cafe. The concierge denied us a location, because we weren't local. Finally we found a place, thanks to Liz (our designated linguist), and they knew perfectly well how to set us up with English.

However, they seemed frustrated with our lack of understanding of Mandarin. The convenience store lady waved money at me when I asked how much.

Finally took it "easy" today and just went shopping.

We had breakfast in the upscale mall across the street, which was still just mall food and pretty gross.

We went to the Silk Road market, where Liz was able to get some more fake purses.

We met a woman from San Francisco (Asian) who had been quarantined for 5 days - amazing!

Then we went to Wangfujing to shop more. This street is basically a mall of malls. Every front you went into was a mall itself.



Pizza Hut is completely different - all the pizza's are set, and there are a bunch of other things on the menu. Also, you don't order up front.

Met some German guy and his wife, who had a grandpa in Santa Barbara. Small world.



Jake wouldn't leave us alone for any time at all to go to the pool. Couldn't figure out why - scared of being alone, or spiteful?

Tomorrow - Simitai Great Wall.

Had breakfast downstairs for 239 RMB [~$35] each (before discount) - but it was good.

Went directly to the Forbidden City from there, although we still got a late start.



Had another encounter with the "students," and told them the other guy had been rude.

Forbidden City was huge, and crowded, but once again, it all looks the same. They didn't have it set up very well either, with glass panes that were dirty, or crowded viewing places.



Lost of interesting pottery and history but the place is unmaintainably huge.



We walked up to Jinshan Park and got a great view of the palaces -- again, huge.



Exhausted, we went to HouHai and had our most expensive dinner yet. After, we walked around the bars, where every single one had a live band/musician.



Whew! Tomorrow - rest.

Woke up late today and had "breakfast" at the Japanese restaurant down the street. The noodles were excellent.

We thought we had started a little late, so decided to go to Tiananmen and head south.

Walked quite a distance to the subway, but easily figured it out once we arrived.



Tiananmen is huge, as we've heard. When we came out, Jake was talking to a "teacher" who wanted to show us around. We started to suspect something when he was too insistent that we come with him. When we left, he called us stupid.



We strolled through the square, and noticed a lot of cameras. There were also many policemen and army personel.



We walked south to Qianmen, another couple of gates. They look the same as the ones in Xi'an.



South from there, we passed through an eerily quite outdoor mall. Once again we were harassed, this time by rickshaw drivers.



We got a little lost on the way to the Temple of Heaven, and found the biggest shoe store ever. The sales lady laughed when Jake didn't want a box.



Finally we found the temple, which lies in a huge park. Beijing continues to be huge.



But again, the artistry is boring. It's like the builders only wanted to replicate what came before. The colors, pictures, and ornaments are all the same.



After we wandered the park, we encountered "Dr. Tom," the highlight of the day.

This guy was a treat. An old retired doctor, his English was very good, and his knowledge of politics surprising. He offered to show us to a restaurant and have Peking Duck.

I smelled a scam, but Liz and Jake did not. He tried to order us more food than we wanted, but I was very careful to limit what we bought and we made it out without any damage.

Tomorrow: Mao & Forbidden City.

I was exhausted today, and tired of being in Xi'an.

We started after breakfast by taking a cab to South Gate. As usual, the cab driver did not want to go, but the doorman saved the day and made him take us.

We had trouble finding the way up to the top of the wall, and wandered around a bit. Once local gave us vague hand directions to get to the top, and another resonded with a gruff, "No, I don't know."



We found a bed of rocks in our wanderings, which was cool.



Finally, we found our way up. The Chinese sure know how to make a wall.



We didn't have time to but, but we walked a ways. The wall is huge.



We did laundry in the afternoon. Two rounds in the dryer did not do it.

In the cracks we visited the Drum Tower and Bell Tower. I'm not too impressed by these towers. They are almost identical to each other, both architecturally and artistically.



The locals throw their trash on the ground in McDonald's.



The highlight of the day was definitely the flight to Beijing, which made an unexpected detour to Zhongwei, a little desert town west of Xi'an.

The Chinese are crazy on planes. They walk around without any regard to turbulence - when taking off, taxying, etc. Crazy.

Got in to Beijing late tonight. Try to take tomorrow easy.

Today we started by having breakfast at the little Singapore restaurant downstairs, where Liz was treated with peanut butter _in_ here French toast.

After, we went to the train station, with the usual refusal of cab drivers to take us there.

On the bus (#306), we met a nice German guy who also knew Mandarin. He was helpful figuring out how much to pay and where to get off, but also surprised that we didn't speak any.

Terracotta warriors were cool, but not what I expected. First, the place is huge. The parking lot is huge, the walk to the pits is long, surrounded by a huge empty mall, and the building the figures are in is huge.



So I was slightly surprised by how many remain n-excavated. Probably 2/3 of the first room is still covered (of 6000 warriors total) and 90% of room 2 is covered.



Apparently they are waiting for a breakthrough so the colors can be preserved.





(Once again, I was sold something I said no to. The English guide was 100RMB, and at least made things more interesting, even if she tried to sell us things at the end.)

We stopped at the [Huaqing] Hot Springs on the way back, which is the site of the "famous" Xi'an incident, and also the site where an emperor was forced to kill his favorite concubine. The gardens & site were very beautiful, even if the pools themselves were a little boring.



The "highlight" of the day came on our ride home, when I was convinced by a bus driver that the bus went to the same place as 306. Things seemed fine at first, although the bus was low quality and made a lot of stops. Then we skipped the freeway entrance and rode down a road that was in the process of being repaved.

Instead of closing the street, however, we were left to fend for ourselves on the dirt road, swerving out of the way of oncoming traffic (because of construction, 1 lane) and bouncing around for several miles.

I got nervous and asked some girls if they spoke English. They did, barely, enough to laugh at me and just not enough to reassure me of our final destination.

They offered to help us with a cab when we arrived, which was nice.

We walked back, taking a detour through a park. Lots of interesting things happening there, like badminton and dancing.

Also saw a traffic accident where a bicyclist was hit by a car.

Dinner was again interesting. The waitresses are utterly baffled when I tell them I want my steak medium, but willing to try to be helpful.

We ended the day in the Muslim quarter, which didn't appear very Muslim at all.



We'll try to get an early start tomorrow before we head to Beijing.

First real day in Xi'an. We started out by extending our stay for a day because we're exhausted and we got a late start.

We breakfasted at McDonald's, which tasted exactly like in the US. The menu was a bit different - they had no quarter pounders, and the McNuggets came in packs of 5.

After, we attempted to get tickets for the train, and chickened out. The train station is a zoo, and we were discouraged by so many people, waiting around outside, and the lack of English. So we bought plane tickets [to Beijing] instead.



I suppose we almost got in a car accident on the way back.

We tried to go to the History museum, but could not find a bus. There was a nice girl from Beijing who wanted to help us. She was surprised we didn't know any Mandarin.

We walked down to the forest of tablets instead, by the south wall. There were hundreds of stone tablets inscribed with books by Confucius, and other Calligraphy masters.



Again, we learned that the Chinese do not appear to care to preserve valuables. There were workers making imprints with ink on these ancient stones.



Another strange thing about this museum: it appeared to have private vendors hawking their wares within the walls.

The highlight of the evening was walking around the grocery store, looking at the chicken feet, and learning that bags cost .20 RMB. The wine was spoiled too :(

Tomorrow: Terra Cotta Warriors.

Starting to get tired.



This morning we rented bikes and headed towards Yangshou to find breakfast. We stopped by a little place owned by some Dutch people where we finally had something to eat that tasted "American" or whatever.



After we continued in to Yangshou to get some cash. The streets were crazy busy with traffic, and we were all a bit nervous.

Changing cash required "an act of Congress." The cashier made photocopies of my passport and filled out paperwork.

After we checked out of the hotel, we went to the Butterfly Caves, where we figured we could duck out of the rain. Turns out there are really only two or three interesting caverns, and then they lead you back outside for a view and butterflies.



No butterflies today because of the rain.



We did see a couple of rock formations that we won't remember in our photos later: monkey, statue, and hand.



The most amazing thing about the cave is that the Chinese have no trouble paving over the whole thing and decorating it all with lights. I wouldn't be surprised if it were all fake.



After the caves, we went back to Yangshou to do more shopping.

For whatever reason, we decided to leave at 5, even though our flight was not until 9:55.

And it was late.

But the airport was more like a busy train station. The locals were so loud, and listening to music without headphones, and playing cards.

I saw only one other western couple the whole time. I'm not convinced anyone else spoke English. Even on the flight, it was obvious the stewardess was only reading English words.

We also had an interesting exchange with the airport shuttle driver, who seemed completely incapable of telling us that yes, we did need to get on the bus. Fortunately, we figured it out.

The hotel [in Xi'an] seems great, except for the smell.

Went rock climbing this morning. First time I've climbed actual rocks. We started on the medium difficulty, and Jake & Joe both made it up. Dad slipped and skinned his knee at the crux, and I tried and failed twice to get past that point. After, Jake made the hard climb, Dad made the medium climb, and I conquered the easy face.



After, we took a dip in the river. For lunch I had a terrible hamburger. Something weird about the cheese.

Wend down to Yangshou and shopped after that. Amazing how most of the tourists are asian. Liz was good at negotiating at first, then offered too much money for the coca-cola shirt I wanted. The woman didn't want to take the price, but when we walked away she changed her mind. Then she got upset when Liz wouldn't buy.



After spending all of my money, we went to the lightshow. I thought it was really good, but I don't think Vicki & Dad were impressed by the choreography or the talkative nature of the Chinese audience. My favorite parts were the waves of red sheets and the long line of lighted women.

Tomorrow, off to the caves, and Xi'an.

(Liz) Slept in a little today, but it was fine. We are at the Mountain Retreat hotel, and when I woke up, I was treated to some amazing views of these eroded mountains (the words will come to me: karst peaks).



I've never eaten a fried egg with chopsticks before.

Took us a while to finally make plans. We talked with the front desk woman (Angel, who has brittle bone disease [more here]) for 45 minutes before deciding to drive up to Yangdi & raft down to XingPing.



Rafting was fun. Had no idea what the raft guy was saying, but he pointed out a few cool things.



After, we hiked up to Full Moon Hill, where we were accompanied by some nice ladies ready to sell us water. A most amazing experience. They fanned us as we walked up the hill, made fun of my belly, taught us some Chinese, and charged us RMB 20 for water (~$3.00).



Talked to the front desk staff about helping with our travel arrangements. After they decided they didn't want to help us, Liz told me she was willing to wing it in Xi'an.

We'll see.

Visited a mall in Shenzen that sold really cheap name brand items.



Picked up a Lacoste & Ralph Lauren polo. Liz talked some poor girl down from 800 to 150 RMB for a Louis Vitton purse.

The salesmen were persistent following us through multiple stores like mosquitos, every call of "watch? sunglass?" like an itchy bite.

Vicki yelled at a few of them [for following too persistently]. Dad too.

After lunch at another Dim Sum place, I slept for about 2 hours.



Still haven't made plans for after Xi'an. Hopefully that doesn't bite us.



Then we flew to Guilin and drove to Yangshou. Apparently this place is some sort of resort.

Looks nice, and the scenery should be amazing tomorrow, but I was totally surprised.

Started today by heading straight out, past the IKEA, to the 10000 Buddhas Monastery. Not sure of the history of the thing.



China's tourist sites seem to be subject to perpetual renovation. Was hoping to see some monkeys.



Made the same food mistake again, and ended up snapping at each other while we searched for food.

May have mentioned this already, but Hong Kong is obsessed with Swine Flu.

Crossed over to China. Immediate difference in English spoken. Also, immediately less commercial.

Went to a local Chinese restaurant. Impressed that the spicy tofu was basically the same as my own local Mandarin Palace.

Dad & Vicki called a friend to order the food for us, which was funny - the waitress didn't know what to do with the phone, and everyone laughed.

Uploaded my photos to Picasa & deleted them from my memory card. Hopefully nothing goes wrong with them. [Edit: nothing did. All of my Hong Kong photos are here for your perusal: Flickr Hong Kong Set ]

Streets smell pretty gross in the local market near where Dad lives.

We had some amazing Dim Sum this morning. There were no other westerners in the restaurant, and the wait staff had to produce English menus just for us.

We were also introduced to the custom of washing your dish before your meal.

After, we headed out to Lantou Island via ferry. Took about 100 pictures of the Big Buddha at Pin Li Monastery.



There was a lot of construction at the monastery. Looks like they are building a new, bigger monastery behind the original. Seems like a money making operation.



They are obsessed with the swine flu here. Every public place has sanitizer, public service messages, reminders to wash your hands, and posters.



Broke down and had steak dinner tonight. Couldn't decide on another restaurant because of price.

Started out the day late as Liz discovered our hotel reservation was wrong and had to correct it.

Tried breakfast at the Flying Pan. American food, sort of.



Headed to Stanley Market on the bus. Amazing scenery. Vicki pointed out the shark nets in the water.



Went to the art museum afterwards. They had Louis Vuitton on display - not that great. Even the native collection was pretty disapointing.

Had some pretty good Chinese food at Crystal Jade (or something), then went to the light show on the waterfront. Pretty interesting, though korny. Tired again today, but was mostly fun.



Noticed on the subway this morning - not a lot of tourists, and locals seem very business oriented.



Where are the laundromats? The stores that are going out of business/empty? The benches in malls?

Crazy lady on the bus today. "I've lived here three years," but she couldn't tell us whether to stay on until Kowloon. Also, we met an older white woman who referred to us as "round-eyes" but was otherwise funny.

Exhausted. Harbor city mall. Subway Octopus mayhem. City is a series of connected malls. Star Ferry. Dry Fish street, herbal medicine street. Tram. Mid city elevator. Zoo. Victoria Peak. Kind of shady. Pool.





Tired. Done.

Not what I expected when I stepped off the plane and found an upscale mall. The W is like a night club.

Went to Temple Street night market. Key images: waiter smoking a cigarette, squilla (large shrimp) wriggling still alive.



More English here than I expected.



Lots of cargo on the express [edit: I believe I was talking about the giant shipyard we passed on the train from the airport. Hundreds of thousands of cargo containers].

Having fun...zzzz

Somewhere high above the earth, I'm 8 hours into the flight. Knee is bothering me. It's tough to walk around on the plane.



A week ago I was thinking there was a significant chance I wouldn't make it. A few hours ago I was convinced we would miss the flight.

In a few hours we'll have to find our way to a hotel in a strange, foreign city.

Sure is going to be fun.

[ This is the first of 20 entries chronicling Josh, Liz, and Jacob's Epic Stereotypical China Tour 2009 as it happened. Straight out of the notebook :) ]

It used to be, it would frustrate me when older people used checkbooks at the grocery store to pay when a debit card would gave sufficed.

I realized today that I have a very similar, and similarly unbreakable, habit: I always hand my card to the cashier, instead of swiping it myself on the "newfangled" card readers.

Old :(

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

I communicate in grunts and nods,
and sometimes whistles.

I'm in Denver for most of the week for an advanced Rails studio. I'm having a great time, but I'm not sure what the deal with this Denver place is.

Never having visited previously in my adult life, I expected a compact city built in the mountains, amid Pine trees and snow. I mean, it is called the Mile High City.

But it's flat! Imagine my surprise when, after arriving at midnight and trekking across town to my hotel, I awoke to a view with no mountains. Fortunately, my hotel room window is pointing east, and I was able to get a beautiful glimpse of the distant Rockies once I ventured outside.

Denver's sprawl reminds me of Houston, without the humidity; of LA without the smog. Vast spaces separate buildings from each other, and large swaths of land lay green (but unshaped) between districts. Before I arrived, I fancied walking to the nearest shopping center in my free time - after all, it's only a couple of blocks on the map. But it's a five minute drive!

So, the point is, I took the rail. And the bus, when I found out that I couldn't cross the freeway from where the rail dropped me off.

Woot! I've been published. Schmap web page Here's the picture they used:

A few weeks ago Liz and I took a trip to Maui. Here's the lowdown.

Thanks to Liz's dad having an employee discount, we stayed at the Westin in Ka'anapali.


Other pictures from the Westin, including the parrots, the garden, and more views: Westin set

The first day we spent getting to know the island. We hung out in Lahaina a little bit, and drove back out to Kuhului.

Here's the famous Banyan tree in oldtown Lahaina. Yep - that's one tree.


More pics from Lahaina and driving around: Lahaina and Ka'anapali set

On the second day we headed out to Hana, which is a little town on the East side of Maui.

The drive is more about the sights along the way than the destination. Here's one of the many waterfalls:


( Read the rest... )

I'm willing to bet, every day, everyone of us in this room has some thought that is boastful or lustful or petulant, or something weird, and we would die if anybody knew we were thinking that. Get this part of the brain damaged, and every time you think one of those things, you say it! Or you do it! [laughter] This is the frontal cortex.

Ho-ho hoo ha!  D'oh!   http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2003/april/index.php?ft=sapolsky

That never happens to me.

This year, for the second time running, me and my team won the "Sandcastle and Sculpture" category at the Sandcastle Festival.




Our theme this year was "Beachopoly" - a board game in the sand. It's getting harder and harder to come up with ideas, but Liz was clutch with this last minute suggestion.



A couple of my favorite pieces.  Jimmy build the sea serpant,  I put together the dice.  Other features of the game board: a castle at the end, horseshoe, hat, car, gumdrop, and shoe game pieces, a bridge, a giant toothy mouth (a pit), and a jail. 

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kornork/sets/72157602092057663/
Luke and Megan also showed up on the front of the Daily Sound: http://www.viewda.com/webpaper/sbdailysound/webpapers/sbds070917/multi/index.html

Thanks to Emily, Jimmy, Molly, Jake, James, Megan, Luke, Liz, (and Donnie, Cody, and Marianthe for showing up for support)!

In August I went to Peru for 10 days with some friends. It was an unforgettable experience - filled with awe, some altitude sickness, mindblowing eye-openers, and a lot of fun. Here are the highlights.

Lima
We arrived in Lima on August 23rd at 12:30 am. Lima is a city of ~8 million people, so we expected it to be a South American version of LA. Wrong.



Lima (and, I shouldn't have been surprised to find, the rest of Peru) is massively poor. At midnight, the city is dark, deserted, and appears dangerous. We drove half an hour through deserted streets, finally arriving at our hostel.

The next morning the city started to bustle again. We had our breakfast ( a rice cake topped with a fried egg, with a side of fries ) and stopped at the local cathedral before heading out.





Cuzco
Cuzco is the gateway to Machu Picchu. The oldest continuously occupied city in South America, it has a rich history, with both Spanish and Inkan influences.



( Read the rest... )

You suck.

I spent all day yesterday ducking spoilers - both on the web (in my RSS feed!!) and on cable news.

Some of us have DVRs.

I read an article today (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070612/ap_on_en_tv/nielsens_7) that, without warning, gave away the end!

Can we at least get a SPOILER ALERT??

This one (carefull... http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-06-11-sopranos-analysis_N.htm?csp=34) gives it away in the title of the article!!

WTF.

I went to bed at 8:30 last night (Friday).

:(

Take your top 20 artists. For each of these artists, collect the top 5 similar artists. The resulting number of unique artists is your [b]eclectic score[/b]. If the score is small (extreme = 5) your musical preferences are very limited, and if it is large (larger than 80, extreme = 100), then you have an eclectic musical preference. You can compute your own score at http://anthony.liekens.net/pub/scripts/last.fm/eclectic.php

My eclectic score is currently

68/100

The 68 related artists for my profile are A Perfect Circle, Architecture in Helsinki, Beatbox Giant Productions, LLC, Beck (3), Belle and Sebastian, Ben Folds, Ben Folds Five, Broken Social Scene (2), Coach Z, Coldplay (3), Comedy Central, Dave Matthews Band, Death Cab for Cutie, Deftones, Dispatch, Disturbed, Drowning Pool, Eskimo Joe, Foo Fighters (2), Franz Ferdinand (2), Green Day (2), Guns N' Roses, Interpol, Iron & Wine (2), Iron Maiden, Jesse Novak, KoЯn, Limozeen, Little Birdy, Marzipan, Modest Mouse (3), Mudvayne, Neutral Milk Hotel, Nine Inch Nails (2), Nirvana (3), O.A.R., Oasis, Pantera, Pearl Jam, Powderfinger, Radiohead (5), Rage Against the Machine (2), Rammstein, Red Hot Chili Peppers (2), Secret Pants, Silverchair, Snow Patrol, Something for Kate, Soundgarden, Static-X, Strong Bad, Sufjan Stevens (2), System of a Down (3), TV on the Radio, Taranchula, The Arcade Fire (3), The Beatles (3), The Cure, The Decemberists (3), The Flaming Lips (2), The Killers, The Postal Service, The Shins, The Strokes, The Walkmen, The White Stripes, Weezer (3), What's Her Face