Coming Down The Great Wall Is Easier

  Actually coming down is harder on your joints than going up. I just can't imagine back in 200 B.C. when they were building this thing. I guess it meant full employment. I probably said this before, but the astronauts on the moon could see the Great Wall unaided. Emperor Chin was quite a guy. He built the Great Wall and united the five provinces of China for the first time. He's been compared to Alexander the Great and and Julius Caesar. Some pretty ugly and bloody battles brought his victories about. He wanted to live a very long life. First his doctor told him to have lots of sex. I guess that wasn't working for him so he asked again, "How can I live longer?" The doctor prescibed daily doses of mercury. I guess the good news is that he was a raving maniac when he finally died. He's also the guy who had all the terra cotta soldiers guarding his tomb so he could rule forever from the afterlife. 

Heading Up The Great Wall

  That's me on the left in the blue jacket with my new black backpack purchased especially for the China trip. 

Temple of Heaven in Beijing

I really like this photo for its perspective, colors and intricate designs in the stone. I took it on the first day of our tour. I'm not much of a photographer, so when something turns out I have to share.

Monks Go Shopping At The Jade Factory

  I like this photo for the juxtaposition of East versus West and peaceful mind versus hectic mind. The people with all the tags around their necks are from our tour. I also like the monk in the front who is wearing only one glove. It was pretty cold that day. I would have gone with two myself. Didn't really find any jade that I liked. It's just not my thing. 

Temple of Heaven Prayers..Correction...It's A Poem...Thank You Yan

  Our very first stop in Beijing on Saturday morning was the Temple of Heaven, which is as much a park as a temple. This woman was making Chinese characters on the sidewalk with a brush dipped in water. I'm not sure what she was expressing. (I just found out that she was writing an ancient powem which speaks of a beautiful place with a stream and a little bridge.) My sister works with a woman from China who has been looking at my blog. Yan provided the information on what the woman is doing.

She did not pay any attention to the people around her. She moved steadily from one character to another never looking up. To her right people dancing to lively music that sounded like a polka. Right behind her was the Tai Chi group and their music. Nothing disturbed this woman's concentration. 

Chairman Meow in Shanghai

  Lots of feral cats. They probably help greatly with the rat and mice population. Chairman Meow had not had a bath in a while, but he did not look malnourished. He had not been neutered so there are probably lots of little Meows around. 

No Child Safety Seats In China

  This little girl rode in the back of her dad's cart. Other kids we saw rode on the back of the bike or some rode on a special seat just behind the handle bars. No one wore helmets. 

Learning All About Green Tea

  This is the room where we had our tea lesson. Our teacher put a three-finger pinch of green tea leaves from the basket into a glass for each of us. You can see the glasses around the table. A young woman filled the glasses from a tea kettle with water just slightly below the boiling point. We watched the leaves settle to the bottom of the glass, and then we drank. And then, of course, we bought green tea. So now, in addition to taking our pellets twice a day, we also drink green tea two to three times a day for our well-being. I actually like the stuff. I think it's an acquired taste. Our tea teacher insisted that green tea in teabags was medicinally worthless. And always best to get green tea picked in March. I got the feeling that the fall picking went into those tea bags she didn't like and was shipped to the U.S. 

Dragon Well Green Tea Plantation

  This tea plantation is outside Hangzhou in the West Lake area. It is renowned for the quality of its green tea. We were there during the best time to pick the leaves. Spring-picked leaves are more beneficial to your health, according to our guide. 

Maglev Train Levitates

 The train levitates less than half an inch above the guideway (yellow here) using the basic principles of magnets to replace the old steel wheel and track. It's very expensive to build one of these things. The magnetic field created by electric coils in the guideway walls and tracks combine to propel the train. There is no engine. Seems pretty environmentally benign. If you want to know more about these trains go to http://www.howstuffworks.com 

Maglev Train To Pudong Airport

  Rather than ride the tour bus to Shanghai's Pudong Airport for our flight home, a group of us were dropped off at the MagLev station in Shanghai. Our tour guide, the one we really didn't like, warned of all kinds of dire things that could happen to us if we did this. Despite her warnings or maybe because of her warnings, the group of us trooped off the bus, grabbed our luggage and headed up the escalator. The top speed reached on our trip the airport was 430 kph, which translates to 267 mph. It took the tour bus 40 minutes to get to the airport. The Maglev took just 8 minutes and cost $6 per person. Pretty amazing. 

Chinese Trivia

  This huge photo of Mao faces Tianeman Square in Beijing. Our guide told us that due to fading from the sun, it has to be replaced once a year. Just a bit of trivia. 

Meditating Monk

This was taken at a 1,600 year old Buddhist Temple in Beijing called Lingyin. I couldn't go in the temple because of all the incense so I stayed outdoors and watched this monk for about 45 minutes. He was surrounded by crowds of people who had come to pray and offer incense to Buddha. In the background you can see the number for our bus, R-4, and our tour guide carrying it. No matter what happened this fellow did not move. Now that is the true definition of emptying ones mind. I have to try this again. It is wonderful when you truly remove yourself and just breathe.

Hotels In China

With the price of our China tour so reasonable, I was a bit worried about the hotels they would choose for us. I went on line and did some research before we left. The hotels all were rated four or five star. I wasn't sure what that meant for the Chinese. If it was on a scale of ten then we were screwed. I was wrong. They were wonderfully modern and clean. The picture here is the lobby of the Howard Johnson Hotel in Hangzhou. I haven't stayed in a HoJo for years and certainly none in the U.S. look like this. The bartender still struggled to make a gin and tonic.

All The Big Companies Are There

  This is a view of the Shanghai skyline at night from a boat on the river. As you can see, the city is thriving. All the big named companies are here. One more indication that we have to pay attention to China. By shear force of will, the country will dominate this century. For hundreds of years the country focused internally either trying to unite all the states or trying to stamp out the outside world. The leadership has finally realized that the only way to power is through a robust economy. That is their goal. Stand back. 

Inside Starbucks in Shanghai

  I felt like I'd never left home when we walked into this Starbucks right near the entrance to Chinatown in Shanghai. Everything is the same as it is here except the price is in Yuan (8 Yuan to $1) and the people are all Chinese. It had the same feel as Starbucks here. There are 57 of them in Shanghai. Kerry bought a Starbucks T-shirt that says "Starbucks Shanghai". I had a latte and he had the coffee of the day. 

Enuf With The Silk...On To The Doctor

  A trip to China would not be complete without a visit to a Traditional Chinese Medicine pharmacy. We visited the Tong Ren Tang, which is located on the edge of Tianeman Square and has been serving the Chinese since 1644 when it became the pharmacist to the Qing Dynasty. We had our three pulses taken by a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor. He then asked us, through an interpretor, a few questions and finally prescribed medicine for us. With me he was right on. He said I had stomach problems resulting in acid reflux. Bingo. He did the same thing with Kerry. He said he had energy and immune problems. We both came away with two bottles of pills each. Mine are shown in the photo. I take 30 pellets from each bottle twice a day after meals. Kerry is lucky enough to have one prescription that only requires two tablets but the other one is 30 little pellets. We have been taking them for two weeks and my acid reflux is gone. Plus I feel better. We won't know if Kerry's has had any affect until he has his next platelet blood test. 

Tales From The Cocoon

Another way to harvest the silk still starts with soaking the cocoons in hot water. Then the worker gently pulls each cocoon apart, removes the (dead) worms, and stretches the wet cocoon over an arch that looks to me like the rounded end of an ironing board. The worker keeps stretching more wet cocoons over the arch until there are many, many layers. The cocoons are then set aside to dry and the worker starts all over covering another arch with wet cocoons. Once the cocoons are dried they are removed from the arch and one side is cut so the pile of cocoons lays flat. These flat cocoons are then individually stretched until each is close to the size and shape of a rectangle to fill a quilt for various-sized beds. We watched four women doing this pulling. It looked easy but as it turned out the stuff is so strong that you really have to work to stretch it out. Even the guys in our group had trouble. Meanwhile these petite women just kept on pulling. Once they have a high enough pile of quilt filling they put it into a silk duvet cover. There are ties, rather than buttons, to keep the cover together. This is what went into our silk quilts and pillows.

Finding The First Silk Thread

  This is the silk thread production line. Not exactly Ford Motor production line but nonetheless a production line. The women drop 8 cocoons at a time into small pots of boiling water. Our guide claimed the worms inside were already dead when they hit the hot water, but she's also the one who said the air in Shanghai was clean. You decide for yourself whether they are killing the worms or merely loosening the first silk thread. Eight silk threads are then combined and spun into an 8-strand thread of silk. These women stand all day putting their hands in very hot water and using their eyes to detect a tiny silk thread. The lighting was not good, and I didn't see any signs of a place to sit while they worked or rested. This was one of those workplaces that made me squirm. But we bought four silk quilts and two silk pillows. This factory produces one-fifth of China's silk products. More to come on silk. 

Some Silkworm Facts

 These puffy white balls are silkworm cocoons. Inside are a male and female silkworm who have been spinning this cocoon for about 10 days. Now we come to the mind-boggling part. Each cocoon contains about 3,000 feet of silk thread. In the silk factory we visited in Suzhou (southern China) workers boil the cocoons to loosen a single thread. They gather together single threads from 8 cocoons and spin them together to make an 8-strand silk thread. You need 3,000 cocoons to make a pound of silk. Silkworms are considered domesticated because they can no longer fly. Only a few silkworms are allowed to grow to be moths so that reproduction can occur and the cycle can start all over again. More pictures to follow. 

Another Great Sign

 Not sure where we saw this, but I really liked it. 

Handicapped Accessibility Is Limited

  This might look funny to you but if you were handicapped and wanted to get to the top of Tiger Hill and see the Leaning Pagoda, this would have been your only way to do it. I don't know how much these gentlemen charged.

The only signs we saw for "handicapped people" were in the bathrooms, and they just denoted western toilets rather than the "squat" ones the Chinese use. But even then there were several steps and narrow doorways to get in and out of the bathroom. We did not see many people in wheelchairs. When we did, it was obvious that they could get out of the chair to get around something that was limiting access. 

The Ubiquitous Twig Broom

  I like this picture because of the contrast between the new and the old. Brand new car, new toll plaza and the centuries-old broom that is used all over China by government workers and private citizens alike. I guess when you find something that works you stick with it. 

Chinese Soldier in Tianeman Square

  We are still curious as to why he has two fire extinguishers next to the box he's standing on. He's on the edge of the square. 

Beijing Hosts 2008 Summer Olympics

 There are signs all over Beijing of the impending Olympics. This is the chance for the Chinese to show the world that they are right up there with the best of them. I've never seen so many construction cranes in one city. Our guide told us that the subway system would go from 35 miles of track to 200 miles. Traffic would come to a standstill if mass transit wasn't expanded. The antiquities are being refurbished including the Emperor's Palace (shown here) in the Forbidden City. It's surrounded by scaffolding and not open to tourists. There is a clock in Tianeman Square that counts down the days, hours and minutes until the Olympics begin in Beijing. All I can say is, I hope they learn how to make a decent Margarita and martini before the torch arrives. Right now their skills are lacking. And they could do with a few softer beds. I also hope the air conditioning works. Beijing is miserably hot and humid in the summer. 

Big Hunka Jade

  This jade carving is in the lobby of the jade factory we visited in Beijing. It's carved from one large piece of jade. For some reason, jade has never really interested me. I tried to buy something in the factory store but just never saw anything I liked. That was a rarity in China. 

Peking Ducks

 Those white feathery creatures in the middle of the picture will grow up to be Peking Duck. It's one of the few dishes I recognized in China from my Chinese eating experiences in the U.S. It was just as fatty in China as it is here in the U.S. The crispy skin, however, is delicious.