Archive for the ‘Photos’ Category
Trip to Trinidad
Last Friday afternoon Amy and I traveled to Trinidad, California to spend the weekend with family in the town where they’ve been enjoying summers for many years.
A haven for fishing (still no success for Andy on that front), plenty of live music and dancing, and with a generous dose of small town USA, it was an enjoyable trip.
Unknown size: square.
Beijing Ancient Observatory
Situated literally on top of subway line 1, the Beijing Ancient Observatory was the site of star gazing and astronomic observation continuously for over 500 years. There many instruments for measuring and mapping the position of stars and celestial motion made from copper and still functional hundreds of years later. The place was deserted and the quiet courtyard, small exhibits, and observation tower provided a nice escape from the heat of the afternoon.
Shanghai Expo 2010
Back in September 2008 I wrote a blog post titled World’s Fairs are still happening! which read as follows:
Anyone in Seattle knows the Space Needle, downtown monorail and a few other things were built for the 1962 World’s Fair. The World’s Fair is an extravagant event that throughout history has left several major cities across the US with large, oddly-shaped landmarks and a legacy to tell to children for generations.
Asking around, I’d not been able to find anyone who has the slightest recollection of any World’s Fairs since the early 1980s. It turns out that since Vancouver, BC in 1986, all subsequent fairs have been in other parts of the world. The World’s Fair Museum site at expomuseum.com has the full details.
A trip to Shanghai in 2010 does sound rather tempting.
It’s amazing what can happen when you write ideas down. Last weekend Amy and I traveled to Shanghai to visit the World Expo and explore the city.
Leaving after work on Wednesday we had two weekdays at the Expo followed by some time in the city. The weather cooperated and we had little rain and mild temperatures which was ideal for exploring the huge Expo site. There were many crowds, as expected, but away from the major pavilions (China, US, western Europe) the lines were rarely more than 20-30 minutes wait. We covered a good spread of Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Pacific and many of the other smaller venues. As you’d expect no two pavilions were alike and many approached their displays and attractions with different purposes in mind. Some focused on education, others attracting tourism, some attracting business and investment, a few providing on-site dining and high end restaurants, another creating an upstairs market for selling rugs and so on.
After two full days we were both exhausted. There was much more to see but it would have been hard to go back for a third day without a break in between. Overall, however, well worth the trip.
China Pavilion
Sign writing in falling water droplets
Iran Pavilion
Krgyzstan Pavilion
Mexico Pavilion (with a restaurant serving good, but expensive, burritos)
Oil Pavilion
Favorite site: Happy Street as a collection of future living ideas by the Netherlands.
Beijing Urban Planning Museum
Waking early on Sunday morning provided the opportunity to make the trek down to Tiananmen East. Wandering past the crowds that were already congregating in the square and smiling at the parades of visitors all wearing the same baseball caps dutifully following their flag bearers, we made our way to the Beijing Urban Planning Museum at the south end of the square. This nondescript building is fortunately not on the regular tour route and after a nominal 30 RMB entry fee we entered to find it deserted.
While the museum contains exhibits on city history, urban planning strategies, tap water management, and transit expansion, the highlight is the scale model of a large part of the city. Surrounded by floor panels containing satellite imagery, the model contains much of the city within the fourth ring road. Impressive!
Trip to Xian
Last weekend we traveled to Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province and site of more than five thousand years of history.
We left Beijing by train after work on Friday. After a hotfish meal in the station diner, we boarded at 9pm, slept overnight and rolled in to Xian at 8am the following morning. Each cabin slept four and were clean and comfortable and it was only marginally odd sleeping next to complete strangers.
We were met at the station by our young friendly local guide, ‘Hank’, and after a brief detour by the hotel, headed to the East Gate of the City Wall. Renting a rather small tandem bike for just 40 RMB we toured the 9 mile perimeter of the city on top of the wall.
We finished in time to make it to the Musical Fountain in front of the Wild Goose Pagoda just in time for the noon performance which was well attended by the local population.
We filled the afternoon touring some of the historic sites including the pagoda, mosque and markets. After dinner we wandered through one of the parks between the city wall and the defensive moat to find people practicing tai chi, exercising, and listening to musical performances.
During a brief late evening stroll to the Bell Tower, the city was still alive with traffic, street vendors selling art, and people flying their kites into the black night sky.
Sunday morning we first went to the Shaanxi History Museum which told the story of many thousands of years of history focused on the area. It painted a picture of the changing fortunes over the centuries with prosperity in peace, conflict in war, and innovation and advancement in many areas long before the west.
Before heading to the airport, we spent the afternoon at the place Xian is now most famous for: the Terracotta Army (bingma yong). Built in the time of the Qin Dynasty (210 BC) the vast underground pits full of life-size, individually built, warriors statues lay forgotten until 1974 when accidentally discovered by a local farmer. The site is impressive both for the scale and detail in its initial creation and now with the painstaking effort to restore it.
Beijing Botanical Gardens
Despite ‘hazardous’ air quality and a week where temperatures almost touched freezing (in April, after the heating is turned off!), today included a visit to the Botanical Gardens. Located to the northwest of Beijing they are much larger than I expected and are home to many trees, plants, history, lots of locals and relatively few foreigners.
Trip to Hong Kong
From Yangshuo we headed to Hong Kong for a few days to collect a new visa and explore a new city. Hong Kong is a fascinating place and felt very different from Beijing. For me it felt like a pretty accurate representation of what you’d get if you combined New York City and London into one. New York City with the smaller streets, high density of living and commerce and lots of activity. London for the road signs, driving on the left, subway station decor (you could easily be on the tube), accents, and familiar brands.
The speed of life seems much faster, with a richer mix of different cultures and languages.
The food was consistently excellent everywhere we ate and it was a real treat to have no language challenges when ordering meals.
Land is in short supply and the density of tall, skinny buildings is impressive, especially when they sit bolted on to the very steep hillsides. The rare pieces of land that are spared from development really make the contrast in land use evident.
There was a difference between the time spent in Kowloon (on mainland China) and Hong Kong Island, with the latter being more formal business and very high-end commercial and Kowloon suited more to general shopping opportunities including jewelers, electronics vendors and a seemingly limitless supply of tailors.
In short it’s a great place to spend a few days.
Trip to Guilin and Yangshuo
Amy and I spent the last week on vacation in southern China and Hong Kong. The trip combined time in Guilin and Yangshuo along with a couple of days in Hong Kong for Amy’s visa renewal.
Leaving around noon on Sunday we arrived in Guilin late afternoon. Similar to the surprise in finding Harbin (a medium size Chinese city) to have a population of ‘just’ four million, it turns out that the area surrounding city houses about the same. We walked around the lakes located in the middle of the city and had the local specialty — beer steamed fish — for dinner. By evening, a huge night market had sprung up on the main street selling all manner of products for locals and visitors alike.
On Monday we took a boat cruise on the Li River. Due to a recent drought in the region the river is not as high as usual for this time of year so it was not possible to sail the whole distance to Yangshuo. The abridged circular trip was still impressive with karst rock formations on both sides of the river surrounded by terrain that is said to be the inspiration for Avatar.
We wrapped up the day with performance at Impression Liu Sanjie which was spectacular. With a theater set on the bank of the river, the performance happens on the water itself with some 600 performers, lights and dancing. In this picture, each stick figure is actually a real person. Excellent.
In Yangshuo on Tuesday we rented bikes for the afternoon. What we’d planned to be a leisurely bike ride against the scenic backdrop turned into quite an expedition on dirt roads through rural villages guided by what can only be described as a shoddily-drawn pirate map and Mandarin practice with the locals. We probably covered 30 km in total and had quite a strenuous adventure in the process.
On the final morning in Yangshuo we took a ‘bamboo’ boat ride down to the point where we’d turned around a couple of days before, returned to the city for lunch and then made our way to the airport for the flight to Hong Kong.
Beijing Olympic Park
The opening ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympics will likely be the standard against which all future events will be compared for many years to come. Having been in Beijing just a couple of months prior to the opening day and seeing the general state of readiness, the rate at which the organization, construction and fit and finish work must have come together in those 50 days is nothing short of astounding.
As the weather has been much better this week, we took the subway out to the Olympic venues today to walk around the area and see some of the stadiums up close. Unfortunately the air wasn’t as clear as it has been recently but still provided plenty of opportunities for interesting photos.
Kite flying is quite popular and the long, broad tract of pedestrian area provides a good channel of wind for some high fliers.
The Birds Nest stadium is actually quite interesting up close as well as from afar.
It’s rare that you have an opportunity to spend time in an almost deserted venue designed to hold tens of thousands. A quiet soundtrack of cheering and excitement plays in the background, along with replays of the highlights on the giant screens, but overall the experience is very calm and serene.
Beijing Military Museum
With its bold architecture and many varied pieces of military hardware from tanks to planes to ships, the Beijing Military Museum was a great place to tour on a Sunday morning. I especially liked the building itself with its great hangar-like open spaces, large staircases with marble floors and ample natural light. The limited English signage removes almost all of the guilt of not stopping to read everything and leaves little opportunity to question the different ways of preserving history.
