Teahouses are each day's journey's end. We are welcomed outside each unique home by our two lovely porters, always smiling, curly haired, Da Wa, and humble almost mute, Nim Sung Gay. Usually they have our bags already neatly laid in our double share private rooms. These rooms vary in luxury but always include a bed, mattress, blanket, and pillow. Not much action happens here (literally above 4000 m any 'action' is not reccommended) all the action takes place in the dinning room.
The dinning room is the hub of a teahouse. Along all four walls is bench like seating with colourful tibetan coqueted carpets as cushions. Tables sit infront of the benches and in the center a small wood burning stove creates warmth. After a long day's hike this is where all nationalities seek common comforts. A hot pot of lemon tea, some great food (plates of carbohydrates - no meat the whole trip due to poor storage) and an enegetic card game. Endorphone filled good cheer generally generates much laughter that trancends language barriers and the smell of sweaty feet.
On one occasion our little group mingled with the Korean entourage that planned on summitting Everest. They had yaks, 200 porters, camera equipment, and enough beatiful North Face equipment to clothe an army. They would plug in a laptop and ROberta and I wee transported back to Korea with the latest "K-pop" songs. Roberta and I did not make any good friends with the Koreans themselves but the Nepalese ambassadors that were with them were introduced to the card games "shit head" and "pig."
Another memorabe night at a tea house involved me teasing our porter Da Wa that he should dance. The outcome to my shame involved 7 Nepalese porters siging a taditional love/folk song and clapping while I had to jig around. Ohhh DEAR!! I think the German family in the corner had never seen anything like that before!
Along the trail we also made friends with others who were doing the same route as us. THere was James and Malvina from Ireland. THey gave us great advice about our upcoming THailand trip. THey were so down to Earth and shared our passion for travel/food that it was always a joy to speak with them. THen there was Kiwi, Pat, who I think was part super hero as nothing seemed to bother him. He could trek the whole day, eat lunch and then trek further the same day just to acclimatize. He was also great for a good game of cards.
The ones we bonded with the most I would have to say were our porters. Da wa and someone were always laughing about something. He played many a card game with us and was always saying midly crude things in Nepalese. ONe night I was playing cards with a group of 6 porters while Da wa tried his best to Marry me off. The most special night would have to have been the last night when Dawa invited us to his home in LUkla to meet his family.
Dawa lived on the third floor of a building in a small room. THe room consisted of a wood burning stove in a blackened corner for the kitchen a bed in the other corner and a mat on the floor. Here is wife, 11 month old, and 6 year old all lived. His daughters were adorable. His wife gave us tea and Da wa being the entertainer he is had three friends over also. At one point he literally had them all lined up and asked me or Spencer which one I should marry. He was totally joking... but what does one say?? THen the dancing/siging began me and da wa danced while everyone dang. THis time I was more successful and got one of the random boys dancing and Spencer and Sasha. It truly was a special evening. We gave our porters our gifts (things we didn't need) and then they topped us off in setiment the following morning when they gave us lucky prayer scarves. We were blessed to have such fine porters and we will never forget them!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Everest Trail!
3300 m up to 5400-5600m high... which is about 10 000 steps!!!
The Everest Trail is one of those indescribable journeys. The journey was what it was truly all about for me. Day by Day, moment by moment, was all I wanted to concentrate on. It was a mind game I was playing with myself. If I let my mind think about the 6-7 hour day ahead of me or the 12 km up hill I knew I would feel more exhausted than necessary.
The beginning of the trail passes through various mountain communities. THese communities are simple rock/wood homes with wood burning stoves and outhouses. Replacing trucks are the strong backs and poor soles of the porters. SOme of these super human men can carry 200kg on their back. The cargo is often put in a woven basket base and tied tall (often taller than the men themselves) and a belt goes around their head for support. They often carry one short wooden walking stick is duel purpose and used to rest their heavy load on when they stop to break. The path itself is quite neavigateable. It goes from stoney brick at times, to horendous stairs, to dirt paths to boulders upon boulders.
During the first part of the journey the communities are broken by amazing views of valleys and flowing rocky rivers/waterfalls surrounded by lush fir tree mountains. Some of these rivers are crossed by strong suspension brideges or heart racing wood planks. The best bridge by far was the one we were escorted across by marroon robed monks in tennis shoes. All along one side of the bridge prayer flags (yellow- Earth, Red- Fire, blue- sky/watter, white-air, green - wood) blew into the fresh mountain air. Besides prayer flags we passed many buddhist stuppas, rocks with carfed or painted prayers, and prayer wheels. One morning Roberta and I were grumpily awoken by monks gonging around. hahaha
Sometimes one has to remember to take their eyes off the rocky path to enjoy thte spectacular views. Day 3 revealed snow capped peaks and trees that looked mystical with thin green hanging moss. "Eyes down" is a safety precaution. I think I tripped about 400 times a day but when I think about the flowing streams I crossed... I think my mom would have been pround of her klutz child. Loose rocks are not the only reason to look down. Mudpies of yak crap decorate the path and cause a great obstacle. of course I stepped in it but it was also a game of sorts to try and avoid it. On the yak note if the smell did not warn you they were coming (aside = sasha loved the smell) the bells around ther necks did. We let the big curly horned Yaks pass on the dangerous cliff side. They also had heavy loads. In all honesty, It seemed everyone on the mountain worked harder than us. That doesn't mean we didn't work hard, we did huff and puff up stairs, hills and over boulders.. The hardest part wasn't necessairly the steep areas but the high areas where oxygen was low and made one dizzy/ nauseous. I was so thankful I had 2 poles for balance and to push off of. When lifting one's leg became torterous. I thought of everyone I loved and took a step for them. I had the most positive atttude because of it but can't take any credit for it. All the people I know truly got me to Base camp.
Base Camp
The day of Base camp was horrendous!!! We trekked 4 hours to our lunch spot over huge boulders up and down with no grande views. We got to our place for the night ate some lunch dropped our bags and optimistically set off for our goal. 3 hours over what Roberta deems a boulder factory or a scene from the Flinstones Rock quarrey... we arrived.
Well Ram, our guide, told us we arrived. Basically, we would have had no clue. Black crushed earth that looked terrestial mixed with boulders. THe only aesthetically pleasing thing was the "Khumbu ice fall" which was a valley of white or aqua blueish ice triangles. Ram wanted to turn back as it was getting lated and it did seem like it was going to snow. I was mad though I came all this way and wanted to see a tent of an summiting expedition.
This is when Ram lied to us. He said there was nothing to see it was too early in the season. I was so MAD I turned to my porter friend, Dawa, and said that is a LIE! I have talked to others who siad there was an Italian team settign up and we walked up with a lot of the Korean team's equipment. Dawa laughs and says to me "Ok ditti (Nepali for firend)We will go I will tell the others they can turn back.
Then Dawa proceeds to run (5464 m we are at) over these boulders mixed with ice and slippery crushed rock and expects me to follow! Of course I do and make it to the tents. The italian team had about 7 tents I could see - one orange dome, a tall skinny green tent whuich was probably a bathroom, 2 blue tents, a yellow, and a large blue one for the dinning room. I met the italian man, Miguel or Manual, and shook his hand, wished him good luck climbing.
I felt silly what does one say to someone who is about to Summit Everest! I think I asked to shake his hand so I could say I did when he was famous. God only knows... he probably already is famous and I am too ignorant. He invited me in for tea but with the storn approaching I politely declined. After a couple weak pictures for such a momentous experience I went to turn back but then told Da wa to wait. I just couldn't leave without seeing the dinning room tent. I tood a picture and then got a picture of myuself the italian man and his many porters in the tent.
The momentous life experience only lasted about 6 minutes and we ran back to where Roberta, Sasha, and Ram were waiting.(Spencer was too sick to come-- he had the worst cold of his life with a little altutude sickness... he should have an award for what he did)To be honest I am not sure why we couldn't all run to the tents I know Roberta and Sasha were exhausted from altitude but I feel like they were jipped by Ram who never gave them the option. In all truth it wasn't realy fair. SO this momentous experience I haven't talked about and is a solitary joyl. Us three girls all made it to base camp so we DID IT!!! but we didn't all get to shake their hands... which is not the point... but sucks a little.
The next day we were up at 4 am and started to climb kalapartha 5600m to get a great view of Everest while the sun was rising. All four of us were teamed up. Sadly Sasha had to turn back because of altitude sickeness. To add insult to injury or in our case sickness the clouds rolled in and it began to snow. THe Elusive Everest would not be seen. How Ironic we had been hiking for 9 days and all the while the one mountain we came to see, Everest, stayed hidden behide a cloud. This mountain in some ways mocked our headaches, nausea, sweat, and tears we went through to climb it's shoulders. We only walked to 5400m to day we went higher than base camp and climbed down defeated. We then continued walking another 6 hours down starting our decent. The journey had reached its strange climax. We were proud of what we accomplished and what e pushed our bodies thorugh and reconciled with the idea that we earned that picturesque postcard of Everest.
And then it happened... the last day of hiking down we woke up early to cath a glimpse of Everest's peak. Surrounded by his protective clouds, his black face with white snow wrinkles smiled at us ... "Job Well Done Flatlanders"
The Everest Trail is one of those indescribable journeys. The journey was what it was truly all about for me. Day by Day, moment by moment, was all I wanted to concentrate on. It was a mind game I was playing with myself. If I let my mind think about the 6-7 hour day ahead of me or the 12 km up hill I knew I would feel more exhausted than necessary.
The beginning of the trail passes through various mountain communities. THese communities are simple rock/wood homes with wood burning stoves and outhouses. Replacing trucks are the strong backs and poor soles of the porters. SOme of these super human men can carry 200kg on their back. The cargo is often put in a woven basket base and tied tall (often taller than the men themselves) and a belt goes around their head for support. They often carry one short wooden walking stick is duel purpose and used to rest their heavy load on when they stop to break. The path itself is quite neavigateable. It goes from stoney brick at times, to horendous stairs, to dirt paths to boulders upon boulders.
During the first part of the journey the communities are broken by amazing views of valleys and flowing rocky rivers/waterfalls surrounded by lush fir tree mountains. Some of these rivers are crossed by strong suspension brideges or heart racing wood planks. The best bridge by far was the one we were escorted across by marroon robed monks in tennis shoes. All along one side of the bridge prayer flags (yellow- Earth, Red- Fire, blue- sky/watter, white-air, green - wood) blew into the fresh mountain air. Besides prayer flags we passed many buddhist stuppas, rocks with carfed or painted prayers, and prayer wheels. One morning Roberta and I were grumpily awoken by monks gonging around. hahaha
Sometimes one has to remember to take their eyes off the rocky path to enjoy thte spectacular views. Day 3 revealed snow capped peaks and trees that looked mystical with thin green hanging moss. "Eyes down" is a safety precaution. I think I tripped about 400 times a day but when I think about the flowing streams I crossed... I think my mom would have been pround of her klutz child. Loose rocks are not the only reason to look down. Mudpies of yak crap decorate the path and cause a great obstacle. of course I stepped in it but it was also a game of sorts to try and avoid it. On the yak note if the smell did not warn you they were coming (aside = sasha loved the smell) the bells around ther necks did. We let the big curly horned Yaks pass on the dangerous cliff side. They also had heavy loads. In all honesty, It seemed everyone on the mountain worked harder than us. That doesn't mean we didn't work hard, we did huff and puff up stairs, hills and over boulders.. The hardest part wasn't necessairly the steep areas but the high areas where oxygen was low and made one dizzy/ nauseous. I was so thankful I had 2 poles for balance and to push off of. When lifting one's leg became torterous. I thought of everyone I loved and took a step for them. I had the most positive atttude because of it but can't take any credit for it. All the people I know truly got me to Base camp.
Base Camp
The day of Base camp was horrendous!!! We trekked 4 hours to our lunch spot over huge boulders up and down with no grande views. We got to our place for the night ate some lunch dropped our bags and optimistically set off for our goal. 3 hours over what Roberta deems a boulder factory or a scene from the Flinstones Rock quarrey... we arrived.
Well Ram, our guide, told us we arrived. Basically, we would have had no clue. Black crushed earth that looked terrestial mixed with boulders. THe only aesthetically pleasing thing was the "Khumbu ice fall" which was a valley of white or aqua blueish ice triangles. Ram wanted to turn back as it was getting lated and it did seem like it was going to snow. I was mad though I came all this way and wanted to see a tent of an summiting expedition.
This is when Ram lied to us. He said there was nothing to see it was too early in the season. I was so MAD I turned to my porter friend, Dawa, and said that is a LIE! I have talked to others who siad there was an Italian team settign up and we walked up with a lot of the Korean team's equipment. Dawa laughs and says to me "Ok ditti (Nepali for firend)We will go I will tell the others they can turn back.
Then Dawa proceeds to run (5464 m we are at) over these boulders mixed with ice and slippery crushed rock and expects me to follow! Of course I do and make it to the tents. The italian team had about 7 tents I could see - one orange dome, a tall skinny green tent whuich was probably a bathroom, 2 blue tents, a yellow, and a large blue one for the dinning room. I met the italian man, Miguel or Manual, and shook his hand, wished him good luck climbing.
I felt silly what does one say to someone who is about to Summit Everest! I think I asked to shake his hand so I could say I did when he was famous. God only knows... he probably already is famous and I am too ignorant. He invited me in for tea but with the storn approaching I politely declined. After a couple weak pictures for such a momentous experience I went to turn back but then told Da wa to wait. I just couldn't leave without seeing the dinning room tent. I tood a picture and then got a picture of myuself the italian man and his many porters in the tent.
The momentous life experience only lasted about 6 minutes and we ran back to where Roberta, Sasha, and Ram were waiting.(Spencer was too sick to come-- he had the worst cold of his life with a little altutude sickness... he should have an award for what he did)To be honest I am not sure why we couldn't all run to the tents I know Roberta and Sasha were exhausted from altitude but I feel like they were jipped by Ram who never gave them the option. In all truth it wasn't realy fair. SO this momentous experience I haven't talked about and is a solitary joyl. Us three girls all made it to base camp so we DID IT!!! but we didn't all get to shake their hands... which is not the point... but sucks a little.
The next day we were up at 4 am and started to climb kalapartha 5600m to get a great view of Everest while the sun was rising. All four of us were teamed up. Sadly Sasha had to turn back because of altitude sickeness. To add insult to injury or in our case sickness the clouds rolled in and it began to snow. THe Elusive Everest would not be seen. How Ironic we had been hiking for 9 days and all the while the one mountain we came to see, Everest, stayed hidden behide a cloud. This mountain in some ways mocked our headaches, nausea, sweat, and tears we went through to climb it's shoulders. We only walked to 5400m to day we went higher than base camp and climbed down defeated. We then continued walking another 6 hours down starting our decent. The journey had reached its strange climax. We were proud of what we accomplished and what e pushed our bodies thorugh and reconciled with the idea that we earned that picturesque postcard of Everest.
And then it happened... the last day of hiking down we woke up early to cath a glimpse of Everest's peak. Surrounded by his protective clouds, his black face with white snow wrinkles smiled at us ... "Job Well Done Flatlanders"
Katmandu First impressions
Katmandu made my blood sizzle with excitement.
We arrived late at night around 11:00 pm. THe airport was tiny, made of old red brick, no carousel for lugage, broken escalator, and small fans blowing on the ceiling. It was like being in an old western movie but instead of cowboy hats traditional woven recatangular Nepali hats were sported. We lined up for our visas which we had to pay in AMerican currency (oddly no rupies).
Once we picked our bags off the floor we made our way to the enterance only to be charged at by men offerring accomodations and taxis. I was glowing with laughter... just like South America- we dodged them declining politely and beelined for the sign with our names. We jumped in a van with a broken sliding door and were off.
We snaked through dark alley ways, past tine homes, over spilled piles of bricks, 3 legged stray dogs and our favorite a pile of garbage that a stray cow as big as our van was eating from. Cows are holy in Nepal so they roam free! ASSSAHHH!
OUr hotel was behind a gate. It was beautiful 6 storey building which is about as hgh as they get in Katmandu as the city used to be a lake and the foundatons are not very strong.
The city has captured my heart with its kookiness so Check back later for more on Katmandu!
We arrived late at night around 11:00 pm. THe airport was tiny, made of old red brick, no carousel for lugage, broken escalator, and small fans blowing on the ceiling. It was like being in an old western movie but instead of cowboy hats traditional woven recatangular Nepali hats were sported. We lined up for our visas which we had to pay in AMerican currency (oddly no rupies).
Once we picked our bags off the floor we made our way to the enterance only to be charged at by men offerring accomodations and taxis. I was glowing with laughter... just like South America- we dodged them declining politely and beelined for the sign with our names. We jumped in a van with a broken sliding door and were off.
We snaked through dark alley ways, past tine homes, over spilled piles of bricks, 3 legged stray dogs and our favorite a pile of garbage that a stray cow as big as our van was eating from. Cows are holy in Nepal so they roam free! ASSSAHHH!
OUr hotel was behind a gate. It was beautiful 6 storey building which is about as hgh as they get in Katmandu as the city used to be a lake and the foundatons are not very strong.
The city has captured my heart with its kookiness so Check back later for more on Katmandu!
On the way to Katmandu
Travelling is never completely smooth. Getting to Katmandu has proven to be a little of a feat. First our plane was delayed 24 hours. Luckily, we found out the night before so we had an extra day in Xi'an. We had our Chinese guide, George, sort things out... bless him! We were able to get a free room and some meals. I emailed the trekking company, told them of our trouble and hoped for the best.
The airport hotel was interesting to say the least but at least t was a bed/pillow/ and no airport floor.
The next day at the airport we checked our huge backpacks and then only received one ticket to another destination in CHina but not onward to Katmandu. The flight only left us with an hour or so and my panic set in when I thought about trying to recheck our selves and our bags in.
I watltzed up to Customer Service and no one spoke English! I showed our tickets tried to act out "no time" and check big bags. but they weren't getting it. PANIC!! we were alread one day late for our trek which messed us up a little... two days would be catostrophic! I got them to let me use the phone to phonet trusty George who was with another tour group. BLess his heart he talked to them and got back on the phone and said "Meira Don't WOrry!" That's when I started to cry.
He had china southern fax them and said someone would meet us at the gate to get to our next plane.
Once off the plane Chinese men in pink t-shirts/ties grabbed us and drove us to the backside of the plane where the luggage was being unloaded. We were told to find our bage so we jumped the trolly lierally throwing other people's lugage off to get to our backapacks which were jammed at the bottom and in the middle. We were then driven to the terminal checked in and told to RUN through security and to the gate as fast as we could. Luckily we made it!
The airport hotel was interesting to say the least but at least t was a bed/pillow/ and no airport floor.
The next day at the airport we checked our huge backpacks and then only received one ticket to another destination in CHina but not onward to Katmandu. The flight only left us with an hour or so and my panic set in when I thought about trying to recheck our selves and our bags in.
I watltzed up to Customer Service and no one spoke English! I showed our tickets tried to act out "no time" and check big bags. but they weren't getting it. PANIC!! we were alread one day late for our trek which messed us up a little... two days would be catostrophic! I got them to let me use the phone to phonet trusty George who was with another tour group. BLess his heart he talked to them and got back on the phone and said "Meira Don't WOrry!" That's when I started to cry.
He had china southern fax them and said someone would meet us at the gate to get to our next plane.
Once off the plane Chinese men in pink t-shirts/ties grabbed us and drove us to the backside of the plane where the luggage was being unloaded. We were told to find our bage so we jumped the trolly lierally throwing other people's lugage off to get to our backapacks which were jammed at the bottom and in the middle. We were then driven to the terminal checked in and told to RUN through security and to the gate as fast as we could. Luckily we made it!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Xi'an- Information overload!
Xi'ian has been wonderful but information overload. We have a private tour guide, George, and driver, Mr. Lee. George is a walking Chinese Encyclopedia and really wants us to learn. haha even when we are tired/exhausted bad students... for example day one after being up since 4 and travelling to Xi'an our tour began and by 5:00 we didn't care too much about the museum relics but he made us look and learn. Good teacher!
We began the day at the wall. Xi'an has a city wall and moat seperating the new and the old city. THe wall was built in 1370 and extends 13.74 km. IN the past there were 4 gates but now due to traffic there are 17 gates.
From there we had an amazing buffet lunch and drove to a Pagoda. Pagodas are those rectangular shaped buildings that are 5 7 or 13 stories tall. Most small ones are used to house a monk's cremations but this one was used to translate some buddhist teachings by the founder of Buddhism, Buddha Shakyamuni.(note Prince Siddhartha Guatama gets credit for founding Buddhism but the latter reached enlightment before)
Then we saw a Chinese history museum. With the evolution of all the Dynasty's starting right from broken pots in the Neolithic Martirarchal soceity. Finally we ended with a show of Dancing and drumming and opera like singing reminicent of the Tang Dynasty.
Day 2
We started at an excavated site of findings from a Bampo Village (Neolithic/Matriarchal). A village that exhisted 60000 years ago! We saw the outlines of their stationary tipis like houses and the pottery of the day.
THEN we saw the Terracotta WARRIORS. Asssahhh life dream number 376... ha ha really I don't know what number it was but it was a goal... and they were incredible. So the terracotta warriors number to about 8000. They were created 2200 years ago around 221 B.C. They are amazing life like soliders prolly about my height maybe a little shorter all individually designed to match either soliders of the time or the artists that created them. The generals of the group weighed an impressive 300 kg!!!They were created for the grave of the Chian (?) Dynasty's Emperor, to protect him and create an army for him in the after life. The masoleum (underground palace he was enthroned in took) 38 years and 720 000 men to build. All for one man!!! Can you imagine!!! No dust in the wind here Kansas.
That evening Roberta and I wandered around the city... saw some shopping streets and wound up on a cute coffee/bar street with weeping willow ligning the streets. THe kids enjoyed a massage and some pizza hut.
Day 3
We drove to see a Buddhist temple that held some of the ashes of Buddha Shakyamuni. THis is a huge deal to a lot of Buddha followers as it is considered a pilgrimage site. The underground temple was cool to see and the ashes were held in a little gold shrine. Roberta and I did comment though that it did not seem as huge of a pilgimage site we had imagined. I am speculating that this is possibly the nature the religion in that it is a personal quest for enlightmenet and I believe the buddhas and bodhisattavas are there to guide your journey vs being the 'be all end all' to heaven- like Jesus is.
After this we had a traditional lunch in the country side. It consisted of many plates of greasy vegetables, noodles, whole chicken soup. (Gabby we needed you here to eat the neck :) From here we made it to another masoleum of an emperor and empress together it was also undeground of a huge mountain. IT was nice but what was great about this whole day was being out in the country and seeing a little of CHina that did not consist of the city life.
There was a lot of agriculture. Corn and wheat (as well as fruit apples, pompegrantes (I closed my eyes due to clusterphobia), and persimmions). The people drive these large trucks with two wheels in the back and only one in the front. THen to make matters even more unstable they stack them so full that they stock makes the truck double in width! The houses were obviously poor by western standards but still quite large. THey were falling apart but they were made from brick so they seem decent compared to a lot of places in the world. I doubt any of the houses had plumbing and the roads weren't paved but it had a good feel to it.
Ok but that all i got.. I will be leaving to Meditate on a mountain for 16 days... so see you some time after that
XO
We began the day at the wall. Xi'an has a city wall and moat seperating the new and the old city. THe wall was built in 1370 and extends 13.74 km. IN the past there were 4 gates but now due to traffic there are 17 gates.
From there we had an amazing buffet lunch and drove to a Pagoda. Pagodas are those rectangular shaped buildings that are 5 7 or 13 stories tall. Most small ones are used to house a monk's cremations but this one was used to translate some buddhist teachings by the founder of Buddhism, Buddha Shakyamuni.(note Prince Siddhartha Guatama gets credit for founding Buddhism but the latter reached enlightment before)
Then we saw a Chinese history museum. With the evolution of all the Dynasty's starting right from broken pots in the Neolithic Martirarchal soceity. Finally we ended with a show of Dancing and drumming and opera like singing reminicent of the Tang Dynasty.
Day 2
We started at an excavated site of findings from a Bampo Village (Neolithic/Matriarchal). A village that exhisted 60000 years ago! We saw the outlines of their stationary tipis like houses and the pottery of the day.
THEN we saw the Terracotta WARRIORS. Asssahhh life dream number 376... ha ha really I don't know what number it was but it was a goal... and they were incredible. So the terracotta warriors number to about 8000. They were created 2200 years ago around 221 B.C. They are amazing life like soliders prolly about my height maybe a little shorter all individually designed to match either soliders of the time or the artists that created them. The generals of the group weighed an impressive 300 kg!!!They were created for the grave of the Chian (?) Dynasty's Emperor, to protect him and create an army for him in the after life. The masoleum (underground palace he was enthroned in took) 38 years and 720 000 men to build. All for one man!!! Can you imagine!!! No dust in the wind here Kansas.
That evening Roberta and I wandered around the city... saw some shopping streets and wound up on a cute coffee/bar street with weeping willow ligning the streets. THe kids enjoyed a massage and some pizza hut.
Day 3
We drove to see a Buddhist temple that held some of the ashes of Buddha Shakyamuni. THis is a huge deal to a lot of Buddha followers as it is considered a pilgrimage site. The underground temple was cool to see and the ashes were held in a little gold shrine. Roberta and I did comment though that it did not seem as huge of a pilgimage site we had imagined. I am speculating that this is possibly the nature the religion in that it is a personal quest for enlightmenet and I believe the buddhas and bodhisattavas are there to guide your journey vs being the 'be all end all' to heaven- like Jesus is.
After this we had a traditional lunch in the country side. It consisted of many plates of greasy vegetables, noodles, whole chicken soup. (Gabby we needed you here to eat the neck :) From here we made it to another masoleum of an emperor and empress together it was also undeground of a huge mountain. IT was nice but what was great about this whole day was being out in the country and seeing a little of CHina that did not consist of the city life.
There was a lot of agriculture. Corn and wheat (as well as fruit apples, pompegrantes (I closed my eyes due to clusterphobia), and persimmions). The people drive these large trucks with two wheels in the back and only one in the front. THen to make matters even more unstable they stack them so full that they stock makes the truck double in width! The houses were obviously poor by western standards but still quite large. THey were falling apart but they were made from brick so they seem decent compared to a lot of places in the world. I doubt any of the houses had plumbing and the roads weren't paved but it had a good feel to it.
Ok but that all i got.. I will be leaving to Meditate on a mountain for 16 days... so see you some time after that
XO
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Day 3- Great Wall
Today we saw a Ming Tomb (from the Ming Dynasty). Really though we saw a large building that was meant to house his soul while he was being judged for the afterlife. The tomb itself was apparently located underground somewhere in a cool stone like palace with two of his concubines buried beside him (27 meters underground)... now that would have been a sight!
After the tomb we went to the Great Wall! We (new group- same World Tour English Peeps) opted to do the hike vs the cable car. There were two gates one could climb the East (easier) and the West.. what did us four do?? the West of course! So 2 Km up and 100000980948092382093892083 stairs (some of which are gianormous but even though they were huge they were huge for a length of time than medium for a length of time.. there was consistency-- no Inca flatish) later we reached the highest peak. I am not complaining though because the whole experience was heart poundingly breathtaking.
The wall snakes or rather soars like a dragon's long body up and down rolling green hills. Red and Yellow colored flags flank lookout grooves. Hundreds of years ago men protected the Great Chinese Empire from the world's strongest Colonizers, the Mongolian Huns. Staring into the distance the fog was just transparent enough to see the wall continue for miles upon miles. One can only wonder how different China and all of Asia would have been without the existence of this Great Wall. One more moment in life one can reflect on the ingenuity and capability of people.
Siging off... Love you all
XOXOX
me
ps mom spencer says hi!
After the tomb we went to the Great Wall! We (new group- same World Tour English Peeps) opted to do the hike vs the cable car. There were two gates one could climb the East (easier) and the West.. what did us four do?? the West of course! So 2 Km up and 100000980948092382093892083 stairs (some of which are gianormous but even though they were huge they were huge for a length of time than medium for a length of time.. there was consistency-- no Inca flatish) later we reached the highest peak. I am not complaining though because the whole experience was heart poundingly breathtaking.
The wall snakes or rather soars like a dragon's long body up and down rolling green hills. Red and Yellow colored flags flank lookout grooves. Hundreds of years ago men protected the Great Chinese Empire from the world's strongest Colonizers, the Mongolian Huns. Staring into the distance the fog was just transparent enough to see the wall continue for miles upon miles. One can only wonder how different China and all of Asia would have been without the existence of this Great Wall. One more moment in life one can reflect on the ingenuity and capability of people.
Siging off... Love you all
XOXOX
me
ps mom spencer says hi!
Beijing Day 2
The day started with a bus pick up to all the famous sites in Beijing (excluding the Great Wall). We began the tour at Tiananmen Square.
Our lovely group consisted of our tour guide, Song (English name Forrest), us Canadians, an older Australian Couple whom provided great comic relief, an English couple who had just quit their jobs and will be travelling around the world for a year, and a gorgeous Indian couple who were both going to University in China studying Medicine. We were a great ecclectic little family.
Tiananmen Square was just like any Square in the world. A square of stone road leading up to a gianormous recangular building. The history of the place is what makes it with the cultural revolution and the protesting of the University students but to look at it was not that spectacular in my humble opinion. Large with Mao Zedong in charge. Sadly too I did not get any refresher on the signifigance and history of any of the people's republic of China which made this square more "just squarish" than as signficant as it could of / should have been... I suppose when I have a moment i should go back and brush up on this history.
From here we literally crossed the street (albeit underground) and made it to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden city is really a palace built to hold the Emperors of China thus "forbidden" to the public. This place was incredible! Built in 1406 (but since destroyed numerous times by fire and rebuilt) the enormity of it was unbelievable. There are 9 999 rooms in it all perfectly symmetrically built. 9 999 rooms because the 10000 room was for God (whom the Emperor was just beneath of Course!) All the buildings were also summetrically built with a middle axis. This was for good Fein Shui depicting harmony and balance. The whole palace screamed ROYALTY! It was enormous, there were various levels (all aligned with marble stairs/gaurd rails), the middle buildings were obviously more important due to their position. The reds, blues, greens with gold accents heightened the visual feast. There were incredible details in the ceiling paintings but also in the roof top gargoyles. Each building had a different number of tiny animal figurines on them the higher the number the greater importance of the room and who occupied it. The Emperor that lived here truly had the Royal life. For breakfast each morning he ate 100 different dishes.. though I am not sure if we can call him a glutton because he only ate two bites from each bowl for fear that it may be poisoned.
It seems the threat of death was always a worry to the Chinese Emperors. I was told that unlike most monarchs China's rulers were not decided upon bloodline. Essentially, any common man with enough power backing him could take over. Interestingly, for 2 generations of great Emperors one Empress "The Dragon lady" (the Dragon actually represents the Emperor (most powerful one) and the Pheonix the Empress) ruled the land and used these men as her figure heads. She was actually a concubine of lower status (there were about 7 levels- princesses from other lands would have had a higher rank) This dragon lady had a son and reared him/trained him to be Emperor. A Chinese rags to riches story. This Emperor in return gave his mother "The Summer Palace"
The Summer Palace was another stop on this day tour. We took a dragon boat across a beautiful lake to an almost island like paradise. There were similar style homes in square symmetirical syle floor plans. What was interesting was that the whole thing was man made. The lake was dug up and the dirt used to build the hill in which the compound was housed. THen trees from all over the world were planted to decorate the island. Naturally stunning! Stautes of the pheonix and dragon also flanked some of the more important buildings. Cheekily though the queen had the statues position switched so that the pheonix actually stood where the ruling Dragon statue should stand. Cheeky Cheeky woman... I think we could have been friends... he he.
Somewhere between all of this we also saw the Temple of Heaven. It is a huge dome shaped blue painted building. The blue signifying the heavens vs the green Earth/red royalty. The emperor came here twice a year to pray fro good harvest. Otherwise I believe it wasn't used.
The path that lead to the temple was one of the strangest experiences I have ever encountered. Chinese people lined both sides of a partly enclosed walkway (roof) enjoying a lesiurely day in the park. Only every 8 steps somehting new was happening... one woman was signing...8 steps... men were playing Asian checkerlike board game... 8 steps.. trumpet players.. 8 steps men slapping cards on to a pile and yelling... 8 steps one sixty year old man doing a ballet type of dance. It was like a strange dream where things quickly flip into a new situation.
This whole day ended at 6 where we sadly said goodbye to our new friends.. funny how much you can learn about people in a day.
That evening we went on a walk to find somehting to eat. We wound up at an outdoor street food market... ASSSAHHHH... street food is one of my favorite things to check out. I had heard that CHina would not dissappoint. Centipedes on sticks, snakes, starfish, and seahorses... all for you to try. Too bad my tummy was empty and I just couldn't do it... Spencer and I will choke somthing down before the trip is over though. The funniest part of the experience was that there was an odd ball non Chinese man behind one of the booths (think big Grecian)... we made eye contact... and he yelled at me "TESTICLES for you!" haha sorry buddy I don't want your testicles. We finally settled in a chinese restuarant ate some ridiculously oily food (I have decided I am not a fan of Chinese food-- but who knew?? ) Then on the way to the hotel we got a little lost... but no big blow outs.. and we made it home safe and sound. Finally it was bed time... gawd i am tired recapping only 43 more days to go.. haha
Our lovely group consisted of our tour guide, Song (English name Forrest), us Canadians, an older Australian Couple whom provided great comic relief, an English couple who had just quit their jobs and will be travelling around the world for a year, and a gorgeous Indian couple who were both going to University in China studying Medicine. We were a great ecclectic little family.
Tiananmen Square was just like any Square in the world. A square of stone road leading up to a gianormous recangular building. The history of the place is what makes it with the cultural revolution and the protesting of the University students but to look at it was not that spectacular in my humble opinion. Large with Mao Zedong in charge. Sadly too I did not get any refresher on the signifigance and history of any of the people's republic of China which made this square more "just squarish" than as signficant as it could of / should have been... I suppose when I have a moment i should go back and brush up on this history.
From here we literally crossed the street (albeit underground) and made it to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden city is really a palace built to hold the Emperors of China thus "forbidden" to the public. This place was incredible! Built in 1406 (but since destroyed numerous times by fire and rebuilt) the enormity of it was unbelievable. There are 9 999 rooms in it all perfectly symmetrically built. 9 999 rooms because the 10000 room was for God (whom the Emperor was just beneath of Course!) All the buildings were also summetrically built with a middle axis. This was for good Fein Shui depicting harmony and balance. The whole palace screamed ROYALTY! It was enormous, there were various levels (all aligned with marble stairs/gaurd rails), the middle buildings were obviously more important due to their position. The reds, blues, greens with gold accents heightened the visual feast. There were incredible details in the ceiling paintings but also in the roof top gargoyles. Each building had a different number of tiny animal figurines on them the higher the number the greater importance of the room and who occupied it. The Emperor that lived here truly had the Royal life. For breakfast each morning he ate 100 different dishes.. though I am not sure if we can call him a glutton because he only ate two bites from each bowl for fear that it may be poisoned.
It seems the threat of death was always a worry to the Chinese Emperors. I was told that unlike most monarchs China's rulers were not decided upon bloodline. Essentially, any common man with enough power backing him could take over. Interestingly, for 2 generations of great Emperors one Empress "The Dragon lady" (the Dragon actually represents the Emperor (most powerful one) and the Pheonix the Empress) ruled the land and used these men as her figure heads. She was actually a concubine of lower status (there were about 7 levels- princesses from other lands would have had a higher rank) This dragon lady had a son and reared him/trained him to be Emperor. A Chinese rags to riches story. This Emperor in return gave his mother "The Summer Palace"
The Summer Palace was another stop on this day tour. We took a dragon boat across a beautiful lake to an almost island like paradise. There were similar style homes in square symmetirical syle floor plans. What was interesting was that the whole thing was man made. The lake was dug up and the dirt used to build the hill in which the compound was housed. THen trees from all over the world were planted to decorate the island. Naturally stunning! Stautes of the pheonix and dragon also flanked some of the more important buildings. Cheekily though the queen had the statues position switched so that the pheonix actually stood where the ruling Dragon statue should stand. Cheeky Cheeky woman... I think we could have been friends... he he.
Somewhere between all of this we also saw the Temple of Heaven. It is a huge dome shaped blue painted building. The blue signifying the heavens vs the green Earth/red royalty. The emperor came here twice a year to pray fro good harvest. Otherwise I believe it wasn't used.
The path that lead to the temple was one of the strangest experiences I have ever encountered. Chinese people lined both sides of a partly enclosed walkway (roof) enjoying a lesiurely day in the park. Only every 8 steps somehting new was happening... one woman was signing...8 steps... men were playing Asian checkerlike board game... 8 steps.. trumpet players.. 8 steps men slapping cards on to a pile and yelling... 8 steps one sixty year old man doing a ballet type of dance. It was like a strange dream where things quickly flip into a new situation.
This whole day ended at 6 where we sadly said goodbye to our new friends.. funny how much you can learn about people in a day.
That evening we went on a walk to find somehting to eat. We wound up at an outdoor street food market... ASSSAHHHH... street food is one of my favorite things to check out. I had heard that CHina would not dissappoint. Centipedes on sticks, snakes, starfish, and seahorses... all for you to try. Too bad my tummy was empty and I just couldn't do it... Spencer and I will choke somthing down before the trip is over though. The funniest part of the experience was that there was an odd ball non Chinese man behind one of the booths (think big Grecian)... we made eye contact... and he yelled at me "TESTICLES for you!" haha sorry buddy I don't want your testicles. We finally settled in a chinese restuarant ate some ridiculously oily food (I have decided I am not a fan of Chinese food-- but who knew?? ) Then on the way to the hotel we got a little lost... but no big blow outs.. and we made it home safe and sound. Finally it was bed time... gawd i am tired recapping only 43 more days to go.. haha
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Beijing Day 1
Beijing has been a whirl wind true Keira Travel Style. We arrived at the airport safe and sound after our two hour flight from Seoul. We were all a little spent from our weekend of celebrating and saying goodbye to Korea, as well as, hello for the two new Canadians joining the adventures, my brother, Spencer and his sweet girlfriend, Sasha.
We got to the airport in Bejing and the first thing we see is a Starbucks and KFC... apparently Beijing will be a lot more Westernized than Korea! Apart from the glaring Western Franchises was a sign with our names on it. Airport pickup to our hotel. I love being taken care of. No worries and we were off. We passed the multiude of brown, yellow, and various colored 70-80's style taxi cabs and threw our oversized heay backpacks into the back of a van. The sights were exactly how I imagined large city China to be. Varied archietecture (different from Korea), Olympic banners everywhere, many cars, bicycles dashing in between vehicles, and little "taxi" bikes. Awesome!
Our hotel is three star but feels like 5 plus. Great bedding nice rooms, showers!!! SO not backpacker style. The breakfast this morning was unbelieveable. Fried noodle, egg, fried rice, strange vinegared salad like vegetables, and spring rolls.. oh and real brewed coffee!!!
I am getting ahead of myself though. Our first day consisted of us arriving about 2 pm and not really knowing what to do with ourselves as the tours were booked for the next two days. Luckily, I have read lots about Beijing quickly ran to the internet and found a couple things for us to go and do easily. We wandered in a shopping area- Silk Street and Pearl Market. A couple of silk clothing/scraves were for sale but we didn't see any pearls. Instead we walked up and down markets of knock off bags and name brand shoes where pushy Chinese people kept beckoning "Hey Lady you like my bag?... I give you good price." The English here is 400 times better than that in Korea. The kids (Spencer and Sasha) ate McDonalds saying it was a must as McDonalds sponsered the Olympics and apparently everyone had to eat it here during the Olympics. Roberta and I (equally as bad but I pretend better) enjoyed some Starbucks and we just wandered with no real plan. Best sort of travel. Saw some jade carvings, bought some amazing flower jasmine tea where you literally drink the tea with a flower in your cup.
It was getting a little dark at this point but I really wanted to see these 'Hangtons' I read about. Old ancient small stone houses, no plumbing that are trying to be preserved in the metropolis that is growing in and around the city of Beijing. We found them and were we ever glad we did. Surrounding this area was this amazing lake with weeping willows growing all around and candlelight restaruants up and down the walkway. Seriously romantic and naturally gorgeous. We spent hours walking around snapping photos. Spencer did some shopping and bought a decent looking mask though the shopping will have to end here as there is no room in our bags!!!
Roberta and I were finally getting famished so we ate some sweet and sour chicken and fried rice noodle. Surpirsingly the food seems to be quite similar to our Western idea of Chinese food... though I can't believe they eat this all the time or they would be 100000 pounds. After this we finally went back and to bed.
We got to the airport in Bejing and the first thing we see is a Starbucks and KFC... apparently Beijing will be a lot more Westernized than Korea! Apart from the glaring Western Franchises was a sign with our names on it. Airport pickup to our hotel. I love being taken care of. No worries and we were off. We passed the multiude of brown, yellow, and various colored 70-80's style taxi cabs and threw our oversized heay backpacks into the back of a van. The sights were exactly how I imagined large city China to be. Varied archietecture (different from Korea), Olympic banners everywhere, many cars, bicycles dashing in between vehicles, and little "taxi" bikes. Awesome!
Our hotel is three star but feels like 5 plus. Great bedding nice rooms, showers!!! SO not backpacker style. The breakfast this morning was unbelieveable. Fried noodle, egg, fried rice, strange vinegared salad like vegetables, and spring rolls.. oh and real brewed coffee!!!
I am getting ahead of myself though. Our first day consisted of us arriving about 2 pm and not really knowing what to do with ourselves as the tours were booked for the next two days. Luckily, I have read lots about Beijing quickly ran to the internet and found a couple things for us to go and do easily. We wandered in a shopping area- Silk Street and Pearl Market. A couple of silk clothing/scraves were for sale but we didn't see any pearls. Instead we walked up and down markets of knock off bags and name brand shoes where pushy Chinese people kept beckoning "Hey Lady you like my bag?... I give you good price." The English here is 400 times better than that in Korea. The kids (Spencer and Sasha) ate McDonalds saying it was a must as McDonalds sponsered the Olympics and apparently everyone had to eat it here during the Olympics. Roberta and I (equally as bad but I pretend better) enjoyed some Starbucks and we just wandered with no real plan. Best sort of travel. Saw some jade carvings, bought some amazing flower jasmine tea where you literally drink the tea with a flower in your cup.
It was getting a little dark at this point but I really wanted to see these 'Hangtons' I read about. Old ancient small stone houses, no plumbing that are trying to be preserved in the metropolis that is growing in and around the city of Beijing. We found them and were we ever glad we did. Surrounding this area was this amazing lake with weeping willows growing all around and candlelight restaruants up and down the walkway. Seriously romantic and naturally gorgeous. We spent hours walking around snapping photos. Spencer did some shopping and bought a decent looking mask though the shopping will have to end here as there is no room in our bags!!!
Roberta and I were finally getting famished so we ate some sweet and sour chicken and fried rice noodle. Surpirsingly the food seems to be quite similar to our Western idea of Chinese food... though I can't believe they eat this all the time or they would be 100000 pounds. After this we finally went back and to bed.
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