Our Hostel:

Pu'er Tea!

Wednesday - we only had a half-day here in Xi'an as we only arrived this afternoon. We were met at the airport by a man (arranged by the hostel) with a sign that read "Sarah". He took us to his car, had a very heated discussion with another driver (whom he then paid) and then began to drive us to the hostel. On the way he began to try and convince us that we should go with him to see the terracotta warriors (the major tourist destination here). He continued to try to convince us of this throughout the one hour trip to the hostel. At one point he even called an English speaking person to help via cell-phone. However, we did not negotiate and arrived safely at our beautiful hostel. Jonathan figured that he had paid our actual driver for the privilege of driving us and having the chance at our business. Jonathan's blog has a great picture of me in our new hostel: http://jmtravelblog.wordpress.com/


To mom:--> You would love this town, especially the "Muslim quarter", which reminds me of some of the Vietnam markets, but nestled in narrow alleys with crowds, strange food and a ridiculous amount traffic (for such small streets). There are many things on skewers, including mystery meat, other mystery meat, octopus bits, baby chicken wings, etc. There is a lot of contrast here, a little like Danang. On the surface, it is a bit boring but full of contrasts: malls, busy streets, tiny alleys full of food, smiling people who enjoy our pictures and people who look at us like we are aliens. China is not as hard as I had predicted. Mandarin REALLY helps! But here in Xi'an it is a weird dialect of Mandarin and no one understands me. Its no worse than Vietnam!

Tomorrow the underground terracotta army.

Hi! I didn't have time to blog last night. The great wall was great! We were able to arrange a taxi to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It was about an hour drive, $90 for the two of us. I practiced some Mandarin on the way, explaining that jonathan was my friend and not my husband and that I was a vegetarian (my best phrase). Our driver explained that she also did not like meat and gave me a high 5. It has been really hot here - 85 degrees and humid - but this section of the wall had a cable car, which we gladly rode up instead of 3000-5000 steps. The wall is located on the ridge of a mountain, nestled between other mountains, so the views are beautiful. After the hot hike, we left for Dongyue temple, also called the temple of "Hell". Loved the barely maintained rooms with different life-sized plasterized scenes depicting one of the "76 departments" of the Daoist supernatural world. "Stepping through the entrance pops you into a Taoist Hades, where tormented spirits reflect on their wrong-doing and elusive atonement. Take your pick: you can muse on life's finalities in the Life and Death Department or the Final Indictment Department. Or get spooked at the Department for Wandering Ghosts or the Department for Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death. It's not all doom and gloom: the luckless can check in at the Department for Increasing Good Fortune and Longevity, while the infirm can seek a cure at the Deep-Rooted Disease Department. English explanations detail each department's function."




A search for roasted duck for Jonathan took us across the street and into a large park, filled with people exercising on the outdoor public equiptment. Like, Vietnam, we were impressed by the large numbers of people who hang out, work out, do tai chi, hacky sacking, walking, fishing, card-playing and socializing in the parks. (Later we noticed people were still exercising at 11:30pm). There is also a walking and biking culture, with excellent public transportation. Everyone I have seen is very thin and fit which caused us to reflect on the US culture that seems to keep people indoors. Duck was found and delicious. I had fried eggplant.



Today is a travel day (leaving in 15 minutes) to fly to Xi'An.

Monday June 7:
Armed with bike rentals and maps, we set out at 7am to navigate through the small alleys and along a string of lakes to the Forbidden city and Tiananmen square. The ride was beautiful. After dodging other slow and unidirectionally challenged older bikers, we made it to the Forbidden city:


"The Forbidden City is the best preserved imperial palace in China and the largest ancient palatial structure in the world.

It is recognized as one of the most important five palaces in the world (the other four are the Palace of Versailles in France, Buckingham Palace in the UK, the White House in the US and the Kremlin in Russia). The splendid architecture of the Forbidden City represents the essence and culmination of traditional Chinese architectural accomplishment.  In 1961 the Forbidden City was listed as one of the important historical monuments under the special preservation by the Chinese central government and, in 1987, it was nominated as World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. The Palace Museum is a real treasure house of Chinese cultural and historical relics.

The Forbidden City, situated in the very heart of Beijing, was home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The construction of the grand palace started in the fourth year of Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty (1406), and ended in 1420. In ancient times, the emperor claimed to be the son of Heaven, and therefore Heaven’s supreme power was bestowed upon him. The emperors’ residence on earth was built as a replica of the Purple Palace where God was thought to live in Heaven. Such a divine place was certainly forbidden to ordinary people and that is why the Forbidden City is so named.

The Forbidden City covers an area of about 72 hectares with a total floor space of approximately 150, 000 square meters. It consists of 90 palaces and courtyards, 980 buildings and 8,704 rooms. To represent the supreme power of the emperor given from God, and the place where he lived being the center of the world, all the gates, palace and other structures of the Forbidden City were arranged about the south-north central axis of Beijing."

I am currently relaxing and cooling down from the summer heat before embarking on tonight's culinary adventure.

Sarah’s blog – Sunday June 6. 2010




We arrived at the Sleepy Inn at about 5pm tonight. Luckily the time zone is the same here as Hong Kong, so we won't have to do any more adjusting just yet. The hostel was a bit tricky to find because the address is for a shop on the other side if this building. Luckily a few young women told our driver to go around the block. Some arguing and pointing to street numbers ensued but finally he gave up and drove to the other side of the building. We found ourselves in a very cute neighboorhood of one-story homes with stone roof/walls along the shore of a popular lake. If we walk around the lake we have easy access to the subway station. Everything is much trickier here because it is rare to meet someone who speaks English. I have been able to use some Mandarin to give directions and order food which is making me happy. We tried taking the train down to snack food street only to find that we were in a walking mall surrounded by actual malls (again). I did not expect that of mainland China. Finally, after having a hard time finding a place for dinner we actually went inside the mall to look for food. We stumbled into the "South Silk Road" restaurant and discovered an amazing menu with plenty of vegetarian food. Our order included: spicy tree bark, fried bean curd strips with green onion, asparagus with peppers (but called "asparagus with wikipedia"), two types of tea, spicy bean with bowl of rice ball. There were a number of items on the menu which included wikipedia, presumably due to looking something up on the internet and cutting and pasting into the menu. The meal was delicious and we are now happily back at the Sleepy Inn. Tomorrows plan will be to navigate by bicycle to the Forbidden city and Tiananmen sq.

I have very little time on the computer today, so am doing a short BLOG.  Yesterday was a very full day in Hong Kong including 9 hours of walking around the city and trips to a flower market, a bird market, goldfish market, taking the tourist trasm up to the peak (overlooking the city).  We are not loving Hong Kong, partly because neither Jonathan or I are fans of malls.  The malls are everywhere, including at almost all entrances and exits to the subway system. We are finding that often, getting from point A to point B necessitates going through a series of connected malls, making up the only way of crossing major roads.  So, we were not surprised to find not one but two malls on the top of the peak tram.  We were picturing the equilivant of something like a mall in the middle of Yosemite or on the top of Mt. Tam. This seems a little insane to us, especially in a city with relatively few accessible green spaces.  Hong Kong was interesting to see, but I am very excited for more remote adventures.  We are flying to Beijing today!

We decided to take a ferry out of the city to one of the nearby islands, Lama Island.  It was a strange combination of nature and factories and fences which made us wonder if Hong Kong didn't have its own John Muir? We made a few friends on the ferry, a naturalist from the East Coast and and woman studying for the last 6 years in China. 

By the way, here is a link to Jonathan's blog with some thoughtful commentary on the trip so far: http://jmtravelblog.wordpress.com/

This night market is located just a block away from our hotel in Hong Kong

Man Mo Temple:

Day 1 Hong Kong:

Arrived in Hong Kong. We have been eating our way through the city including red bean paste buns,bubble tea with milk toast, wheat gluten with mushrooms,crispy turnip rolls, and fried rice. A walking tour through a slightly smoggy Hong Kong brought us to an even smokier Man mo temple with copious amounts of incense. Pictures coming as soon as I find a real internet connection.

Made it to Taipei! Slept 10hours on the plane and feeling good! Hong Kong here we come.

View China 6/3/2010 in a larger map

Wo jiao Sarah Grams. Wo shuo Zhongwen. Wo ai ni.

China Itinerary!

6/2/2010 1:30am PST 6:00am TPE Flight SFO -> Taipei China Airlines #3
6/2/2010 7:25am TPE 9:10am HKT Flight TPE-HKG China Airlines #601
6/2/2010 10am HKT 10:30am HKT
6/2/2010 sleep Nathan Hotel 378 Nathan Road, Kowloon,
6/3/2010 sleep Nathan Hotel 378 Nathan Road, Kowloon,
6/4/2010 sleep Nathan Hotel 378 Nathan Road, Kowloon,
6/5/2010 sleep Nathan Hotel 378 Nathan Road, Kowloon,
6/6/2010 1:20pm HKT 4:40pm CST Flight HKG->PEK Hong Kong to Beijing China Souther Airlines #309
6/6/2010 sleep sleepy inn hotel 103 Deshengmen Nei Da Jie, Xicheng District, Beijing
6/7/2010 sleep sleepy inn hotel
6/8/2010 sleep sleepy inn hotel
6/9/2010 11:55am CST 1:40pm CST Flight PEK-XIY Beijing to Xi-an China Southern Airlines 5036
6/9/2010 sleep seven sages hotel Cortyard 5 of QiXianZhuang, NO.1 Bei Xin street, Xi'an.
6/10/2010 sleep seven sages hotel
6/11/2010 12:35pm CST 1:50pm CST Flight XIY-XNN Xi-an to Xi-ning China Southern Airlines 3213
6/11/2010 sleep Lete Youth Hostel 15/F, No.5 Building, International Village Apartment, Chengzhong District
6/12/2010 Board Train to Lhasa
6/13/2010 Arrive by train in Lhasa
6/14/2010 Lhasa
6/15/2010 Lhasa
6/16/2010 Lhasa
6/17/2010 Lhasa
6/18/2010 Leave Lhasa, overland drive to Xigatse. Hotel.
6/19/2010 Drive to Nylam
6/20/2010 Arrive in Kathmandu
6/20-29 Treking Nepal
6/29/2010 3:45pm KTM 5:15pm DEL Jet Airways 261 KTM->DEL Jet Airways 261
6/29/2010 11:15pm DEL 7:00am HKG Air India 314 DEL->HKG Air India 314
6/30/2010 7:30am HKT 5:30am HKT sleep Regal Airport Hotel at HKG
6/30/2010 7:20pm HKT 9:00pm TPE Flight HKG-TPE China Airlines #920
6/30/2010 11:10pm TPE 7:20pm PST Flight TPE-SFO China Airlines #4

here's our flight schedule...
LP95 19JAN DEPARTS CUZCO AT 350P ARRIVES LIMA AT 515P
CO1108 20JAN DEPARTS LIMA AT 1255A ARRIVES HOUSTON GEO BUSH AT 620A
CO605 20JAN DEPARTS HOUSTON GEO BUSH AT 924A ARRIVES OAKLAND AT 1136A

going to the marketand some ruinstoday thenweareoff! this keyboardis crazy.

hello!
i forgot to mention that i was going to the amazon for 4 days. (that´s why there have been no blogs) we took a tour, meaning we had transport from the airport to a boat to a research station on the jungle. there we had our own guide (because this is the low season) and big meals provided. our guide took us for walks and told us about the plants and animals- did you know that chocolate comes in a fruit that looks like a spotty mango and the seeds are coverd by gelatinous goo that tastes like lychee?

here are the highlights for me:
night boat ride up river looking for caymans (didn´t see caymans because the river was too high)

saw a capybara family (they are rodents of unusual size- the largest in the world) http://mbgnet.mobot.org/sets/rforest/animals/capybara.htm they are extremely cute, considering the ones we saw were larger than a big dog. there were also three babies who didn´t notice when their parents walked away for us. we got within about 5 feet and i noticed that they are smelly. funny thing is that they have webbed feet!

saw many (about 40) parrots at the clay lick. apparently the berries the parrots eat are toxic, so they got to eat clay which neutralizes the toxins and keeps them healthy.

the pet macaw, willy. he came to our door and said ¨knock knock¨twice. so, i let hime in. he waddled into out little hut and looked very agitated. he tried to peck rachels bare feet so she jumped on the bed. he bacame more agitated and attacked my shoes and pants on the floor. i sat on another bed and tried to look relaxed. he came over, got on the bed, walked up to me and said, ¨SQUACK!!!¨ extremely loudly. this made me squack and spill my beer. he kept following me around, very agitated-like so i finally led him outside (me barefoot in my underwear with a squacking parrot on my heals. i´m stealthy so i snuck past and we closed ourselves in the room again.

red howler monkey: at about 4 am you begin to hear their erie call. it sounds like nothing you´ve ever heard- like a cross between the loudest windstorm you can imagine and a low growl. and they howl and howl and howl. I highly recommend----->click on howler monkey bellow: http://www.naturesongs.com/costa.html
here´s some info: The Howler Monkey is the loudest monkey and the loudest land animal. The only animal that is louder than the Howler Monkey is the Blue Whale. The Howler's call can be heard up to three miles (4.8 km) away.
The Howler is the largest New World monkey (monkeys from South, North, and Central America). These social primates live high in the trees (the canopy) of the rain forests of southern Brazil, northern Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Howlers have a life span of about 20 years. These monkeys are in decline due to a loss of habitat.
see this very beautiful picture: http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/red_howler.html

watched a group of tiny saddleback tamarin monkeys:http://www.projectamazonas.com/Images/Flora&Fauna/FloraFaunaGalleries/mammals%20primates/Saguinus%20fuscicollis%2001.jpg

heard a giant pekaree snorting nearby. we were on a little afternoon walk, saw tracks and then heard snorting. earlier in the day our guide said if you see one, you probably want to climb a tree. so we hurried home.
http://www.ecology.info/ecology-peccaries.htm

heading home tomorrow and i will be back the 20th!

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/96/mummy/index.html
click for a virtual mummy expedition
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/andes/
click for a virtual autopsy

Ok, this is from 1996, but its what we saw today in ariquipa....

"Incan girl's mummy goes on display:
Killed 500 years ago in apparent ritual sacrifice
May 22, 1996Web posted at: 12:30 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The hiker who stumbled upon a frozen body atop a Peruvian mountain in September says he didn't immediately sense the full importance of his discovery.
"When we turned it over and saw the face, I thought, 'Uh-oh, she's dried out,'" Dr. Johan Reinhard recalled. "But when we lifted her up ... that was the moment the electricity ran through the body, because we knew that we had something absolutely unique. It's the first frozen body from pre-Columbian times in the Andes."
Reinhard, an anthropologist, carried the body on a bus to a Catholic University in Arequipa, Peru, where scientific analysis began.
On Tuesday, Reinhard looked on as the mummy was unveiled to the American public for the first time, at the National Geographic Society building in Washington. Until June 19, visitors can inspect the Incan girl, who has been dead for half a millennium. (1.1M QuickTime movie)
The teen-age mummy has inspired awe, curiosity and affection. She is known as the "Ice Maiden" or "Ampato Maiden," or simply "Juanita."
Volcano-top ritual bludgeoning
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore examined the mummy using a CT scan. The computer-driven X-ray revealed a crack in the skull, just above the right eye, and a brain that was pushed aside -- probably by internal bleeding. The research team concluded that the healthy girl 12 to 14 years old was killed by a powerful blow to the head.
Archaeologists believe she was taken to a religious complex on the Nevado Ampato volcano for a ritual sacrifice to appease Inca gods. Before the killing, she may have fasted and taken drugs or an intoxicating drink.
After finding the Ice Maiden, Reinhard returned to the volcano and found two more ancient bodies. One was probably an 8-year-old girl; the other may have been a young boy. Both had been damaged by lightning after burial."

my day today....
woke up at 6:30am, showered, ate, grabbed a bicycle-taxi to the bus station for our 8:00am bus.
bus was late, got on at 9:00
drove 20 minutes to a gas station
bus was stopped for 1 hour while being fixed
drove 20 minutes to a dirt road.
drove down dirt road for 10 minutes.
a guy announces in spanish that the bus will be turning around.
i corss my fingers that we are not going back to puno.
but, luckily, we seem to have taken a wrong turn and continue out of town on a paved road.
paved road is covered in large rocks everywhere. (from yesterday's riots)
we drive on the shoulder as much as possible until we come to a stop.
i peek out a window and a guy on a bike asks me (in spanish) where we re going.
"arequipa!" i say
"no pasar!" "no pasar!" "no es possible!"
our bus turns around
i cross my fingers we are not going back to puno. we can't get away!!!
we go back to the first dirt road and take that again. apparently that was the other option that the driver had thought better of and we were now stuck with.
so we took the short cut.
my friend used to say, "short cuts make long delays"
its true.
we were on the dirt road until about 2 or 3:00
then connected with a paved one (saw a sign that we were now 60km away from where we started....)
finally got into arequipa at 5pm!!! (this was supposed to take 5 hours!!!!)
its pretty here... old colonial buildings, everything made of white stone. that's all i have seen so far. we are going to hear some music now!!!