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July 24 Henry is here!I have decided that I will try and blog about the hijinks of Henry and John and Trina trying out parenthood. However, for now, I just wanted to get this video up. This is a video of Henry about 20 minute or so after he was born. Click player in the Media Player Window above to watch the video.
More to come.
John November 28 Adieu Poland, adieuWe are back in Berlin now. We will spend a couple days here and then we are headed back home and back to work.
 Poland was fun and it was a good trip. Krakow was indeed a fun city. We made an additional day trip out to Auschwitz and picked up the major sites in Krakow as well. Auschwitz turned out to be much more interesting than I thought that it would. Much like the trip out Tiger Leaping Gorge last year, Auschwitz was probably a site that I would have skipped had I been traveling by myself. I had visions that it would be a bunch of empty buildings and that I would walk away from it like with the same feeling as when I visited the World Trade Center site (for that haven't visited WTC it, is really just a construction site). My assumptions were incorrect. The Auschwitz-Birkenau sites have been done very well. It was a very interesting, educational, and somber moment to walk through the various buildings, displays, and overall sites. We signed up for a guided tour as recommended by the LP and this was definitely worth it. Learning about the horrible travesties that have been suffered by the Tibetans and Jews over out last two trips has been an eye opening, reality checking experience that is what I love about travel so much.
Our time in Krakow was well spent. The highlight of which was the best church that we saw on the entire trip, Church of St. Mary in the old town square. The alter there is an amazing piece that I will let my pictures speak to since I can't. (On a side note, we tried to upload pictures in Krakow and lost 90 minutes to horrendously slow upload speeds that resulted in no pictures, sorry.) A second highlight in Krakow was seeing a Leonardo da Vinci painting. This was a pleasant surprise as we did not realize that it was here when we were planning the trip but it was definitely worth seeing.
Then we bid Poland adieu. I was commenting to Trina this morning that I did not pick up a single Polish word while in Poland. Usually, I manage to at least pick up hello, good bye, and thank you but for some reason that didn't happen. So, adieu will just have to work. We took an overnight train from Krakow to Berlin and arrived in Berlin this morning. This afternoon we hit the Pergammon and saw Nefretiti, which I also did not realize was here. Tomorrow, we are going to see the Royal Palace and on Sunday we depart for Seattle.
Well, we are off to finish up laundry. We will try again to get pictures up tommorrow morning. I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!
John
November 22 Outdoor performance gear.....We are in Krakow now. I like this city. It has a vibe similar to what I have felt in Asian cities of just being alive with activity. It is what I love most about New York and what I miss about Chicago. Today, we spent the day wandering around the old town. We took in a church right off of the square and it was probably the highlight of the trip thus far. It was amazing inside. Every inch of the church was covered in some decoration. Definitely, not what I was expecting based off the other churches that we have seen on this trip.
We wrapped up our time in Warsaw with a short trip out to Torun and Chelmno. The purpose of this trip was to visit the town that Trina's family came from. The trip was rushed but I have a sentimental feeling towards visiting ancestral areas. I have made a promise to myself to follow up and do the same for my family at some point. In all of the trips that I have made to Korea, I have not yet made it down to the town that my mother grew up in and I could not even name a city to visit from my Dad's side of the family. This is something that I will correct...
Warsaw was an interesting city and I am glad that we made the stop there. It has a very old communist feel to it and there is definitely a sense of pride amongst the locals in the wealth of history there. However, it was the moment in the trip where we hit the snags of traveling independantly. I have come to cherish these moments in a weird, sadistic kind of way. Over the course of the time that we were in Warsaw, I think that we ran up against more things that were closed than open. We were not able to get into the John Paul II art collection nor into the new modern art gallery. We lost about 5 hours of combined time in train stations due to either cancelled trains or not being able to read train timetables written in Polish. However, I have come to terms with these things happening on our trips and just enjoy them for what they are. We did go out to a very nice meal to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Trina and I meeting. We looked for the best restaurant that we could find in Warsaw and enjoyed a six course French Polish (mostly French) feast that I will definitely remember for some time. It was a delightful meal that started with lobster rilletes and Prosecco and ended with chocolate soup and port with filet mignon, risotto, and bulgarian syrah along the way. I was in foodie heaven the whole time.
Today in Krakow, we finally hit our first snow. We woke up in the morning to a light dusting and by the afternoon it was falling in large wind blown flakes. I was happy that I had the impenetrable shield that is my primaloft coat and Gore-Tex shell. I know that outdoor performance gear is one of the "things that white people like" for those that are familiar with that site. :) Count me as a white person that was in love with his outdoor performance gear today. The 7 or 8 shots of vodka that I had today probably helped as well.
On the schedule for Krakow is: visiting Wawel Castle, day tripping out to Auchscwitz and Jasna Gara, hitting up some the many museums that are here, and exploring the city.
Finally, Happy brithday to my Dad and Trina's Mom. Also, welcome back to the states HJ and Lauren, we missed you.
John November 18 Aro? What the hell is an aro?We are safe and sound in Warsaw. Warsaw is everything that you picture when you think old communist city. Drab communist block buildings, wide streets, large squares. Classic. However, capitalism has clearly won in the new buildings that are going up. We went shopping for a new duffel bag in a recently built mall. It was like stepping into Bell Square Mall, complete with food court and everything. Getting here was somewhat of a mini drama. We purchased tickets in advance for the overnight train. From talking with the ticket counter person, we thought we had booked a private sleeper. However, when we showed up to the train, we were directed to the normal seating car. This was not what we expected. Then, while we were sitting there trying to make heads or tails of the situation an old woman that smells of liquor and looks drunker plops next to us, smiles a toothless grin, and starts devouring a sandwhich. I decide to do what any good capitalist would, when stuck on an overnight train with no bed. I track down a conductor and see if I can buy my way on to a sleeper. I thought that this would be simple enough. I would give the conductor some money and he would upgrade us to a sleeper. However, unlike in Germany, this conductor did not speak a lick of English. After a bit of ridiculous pantomiming and pointing, I got him to understand that I wanted to upgrade to a sleeper. So, I reached into my pocket to get some money and gave him a pantomime of how much. He held up ten fingers and said ¨Aro!¨ I looked at him confused thinking ¨Old man, if I knew what you were saying do you think that I would be pantomiming like a silent movie star?¨ I handed him 500 Czech Crowns to see where that leads me. He again holds up ten fingers and says ¨Aro!¨ I then just pull out some more cash and spread it out to have him pull out what he needs. Again, he responds with the fingers and the aro. I give him the pantomime of not understanding what he is saying with a smile and he shrugs, ten fingers, aro. I head back to our shitty seats wondering what the hell he was saying. Trina and I decide to move to a different compartment to at least get away from toothless old drunk, hungry woman. I grab our trusty Lonely Planet and try to look up this ¨aro¨ to see what magical number I was going to need to pay to get a bed. However, Aro did not appear in the Czech or Polish numbers area. The train pulls away and we brace ourselves for a long night. In a few minutes, a different conductor stops by to check out tickets. I ask him if he speaks English and he says, ¨No, but I can try to help.¨ (You may be asking yourself why he said no when clearly it seemed that the answer was yes. I was wondering the same thing.) I ask him if it would be possible to upgrade to a sleeper and he says that he will check and get back to us. A few minutes later he returns and says that we can upgrade. So he leads us down to the sleeper car and hands us off to the conductor of the sleeping car. I peak around the corner, and there is the same old man. He saluted me, I believe, to acknowledge that we had now come full circle. So, we started the process again. I reached into my pocket to get money and handed it to him. However, this time he pointed at the money and said, ¨No, Aro.¨ Then it hit us. He was saying Euro! This led to the inevitable travelling experience, where both sides now repeat the word that was a breakthrough in conversation about four or five times, while smiling and laughing. Columbus must have done that shit daily.... Anyhow, we upgraded to a really nice sleeper and slept the whole way to Warsaw. The conductor came by later and shook my hands and gave me another salute. This time, I believe, he meant no hard feelings. More on Warsaw later. John November 15 If you could just roll all of that up into a little pill....We are headed out to our last day in Prague. First a little bit of administrative business, we have made a couple of changes to the originally posted itinerary. First, we have decided to cut going to Lviv. We have been on the fence about that portion of the trip for sometime. It is not that we don't want to go but going there very much tightens up the schedule and it just seems to make more sense to try and get it on a trip in the future. Second, we have decided to reverse the order of how we are going to see Poland. We are going to head directly to Warsaw tonight via a sleeper train. Then, once we see Warsaw and the surrounding area, we will head to Krakow and then back to Berlin. The reasoning here is two fold. First, since we are taking a sleeper anyway we figured that we could just add the couple of hours that it would take to get to Warsaw while we are sleeping. Second, with the cutting of Lviv it allows us to play things by ear in Warsaw and either stay longer or leave earlier to spend more time in either Krakow or Berlin.
Yesterday, we spent the day walking around Prague. I like this city a lot and very much appreciate the "old" feel that it has. We probably took more pictures yesterday than we have the entire trip thus far. The highlight from yesterday (and probably the entire trip thus far) was visiting St. Nicholas Church. The interior of the church was amazing and due to the charging of admission to get in there were not very many people in there. Always a plus. Last night, we caught an opera, Nabucco, at the Prague State Opera house. The show was good, although, admittedly I did miss portions of it due to my narcoleptic tendecies with warm, dark places. Combine that with a touch of jet lague, a liter of beer, and you have a recipe for sleeping pills....
Meals were ho hum yesterday. We didn't try too hard to seek out food as we were out and about most of the day. For lunch, we caught some sausage from a street vendor and after the opera we grabbed some Italian style pizza since we wanted something quick. We did hit a couple of Cafe's yesterday and I had a fantastic beer. It was Bernard Dark. Lots and lots of malty delisciousness. Definitely, the best beer that I have had thus far on the trip. Also, yesterday, I finely had my obligatory Pilsner Urquell.
Well, we are off to Prague Castle. I promise that I will try and get some picutures up soon....
John November 14 For the love of a normal keyboard....Normal keyboard....yay!
We are now in Prague after spending a day in Dresden en route to here. Dresden was very pretty, but there was something about it that was off for me. The skyline of the old palace of the king on the water front is beautiful and definitely a site that I will remember. However, when you get up close and you get inside the buildings you start to realize that these buildings are not old. That is what I think was off for me. To give the city of Dresden a fair shake, they rebuilt the city from rubble afer heavy bombing from WW2. They have done an amazing job on the rebuild staying true to what the old buildings looked like. However, for me, the fact that some of the buildings were less than a few years old, detracted from the experience a bit. That being said, a definite highlight of the trip was seeing Raphael's "The Sistine Madonna." It was a very impressive painting and not something that I was expecting to see.
The remainder of our time in Berlin was well spent. We saw a long span of the Berlin Wall and hit the Jewish Museum. Then I went out and found a cigar shop and stumbled across the Absinthe Depot. Needless to say, I stopped in for a little sampling or two or three.... From Berlin, we took the train to Dresden and then trained it from Dresden to Prague. I had fogotten how much I enjoyed train travel. It is very nice to not be as cramped as you are in an airplane and seeing the countryside is always fun.
Prague is amazing. To contrast against Dresden, everything here is very old. I guess this is what not getting bombed heavily will do for you. I am looking forward to seeing the sites here as I believe that I will be impressed. From a food perspective, tonight we will dine in traditional Czech Beer hall. I love the sheer amount of beer drinking that has been Germany and Prague. These are my kind of people....
I will try and get some pictures up soon.
John November 09 In the land of beer and meat....We arrived safely in Berlin. The flight our here was long. I have been spoiled by the shorter international flights to Asia. This trip also represented out first bought with airline shenanigans. We had a variety of small issues ranging from trying to make sure that we had seats together to delayed flight out of Amsterdam to my luggage not making it to Berlin. In the end, these were all just minor annoyances (including my luggage which was safely delivered to our hotel a few hours later).
I love Berlin so far. This is my kind of town. I am surrounded by beer and meat. Per recommendation from Gunnar at work, our first meal was döner, which is essentially very simlar to a gyro with a doughier flatbread instead of pita. I had mine with the yogurt and garlic sauces. Trina had the yogurt and hot sauce. It was delightful and a wonderful way to start the trip off. Tomorrow we are going to hit the famous döner stand across the street from the hotel. It is supposed to be one of the best in town. We walked by it on our way to dinner and ended up getting so distracted by 4 foot sticks of rotating cylinders of meat that we went down the wrong street. Dinner was also a treat. We went to a traditional German place. I had a dish very similar to stroganoff and a couple half liters of the local brew (sweet German pilsner).
Outside of beer, we had a relatively low key first day. We walked around the city took in a flea market and stumbled across a very old Jewish cemetary. <<Lesson learned: When visiting a Jewish cemetary, you must always have your head covered. If you do not have a hat, then they will provide you with one. However, do not make the false assumption that the hat only needs to be worn inside. Otherwise, a cranky old jewish man will reprimand you in German.>>
Tomorrow, we will hit the major Berlin sites along with getting some more döner and hitting a bakery. Priorities, yo, priorities.
More later.
John
PS The keyboards here are strange. For instance, if were to type -Yesterday, I didn't see you @ work- it would look like -<zesterdaz <i didnät see zou "work- Consider it a quiz to figure out the misplaced letters on the keyboard here. They also have fun different charcaters like ö, ä, and ü.
PPS Don't forget to check on Trina's blog as well. Link in the previous post. November 04 Go see Trina's site Go see Trina's site for the specific itinerary: www.trinabwright.com This will probably be the last time I cross-reference the posts. :) Love, Trina (and John) October 12 Next up: mostly Poland We recently bought our plane tickets, which now makes the trip all the more real. I've been joking with John that last year we went on the trip that he's wanted to go on since high school, and now, this year we're going on the trip I have wanted to go on since high school. We are flying into Berlin. We'll be spending a couple of days seeing the sites. Kara couldn't say enough wonderful things about Berlin, which makes me look forward to it even more. Furthermore, Esther said it's so amazing to see how different from each other the western and eastern sides of the city look. My "pen pal" from Germany recommended that we try Berliner Weiße mit Schuß. Next we'll move on to Dresden, which is a city I've wanted to wander around since reading Slaughterhouse Five. From there we'll go to Prague and look at panels upon panels of stained glass. Yes! From there we'll head to Krakow to explore as many churches as possible. We'll also be making day trips to Oswiecim and Czestochowa. Oswiecim is near the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In Czestochowa is the monastery of Jasna Gora, which is one of the holiest places in the country. I have a copy of a photograph from when my relatives made a pilgrimage there in the 1920s. It'll be so cool to walk the same path they did! From Krakow I nearly positive we'll head to Lviv (Lvov) in Ukraine. Then we'll go to Warsaw and hopefully stop briefly in Zamosc. I'm super excited about the Warsaw Rising museum, and it sounds like there will be lots of cool "city" things to do. After a few days in Warsaw, we'll move on to Torun: birthplace of Copernicus! Nearby are the cities of Bydgoszcz, Chelmno, and Swiecie, which are where my ancestors came from. Once we've wandered a bit in those cities, we'll start making our way back to Berlin, and then back to Seattle. So that's the itinerary. We've started to put together our to-do list to get ready for our November 8 departure. More to come.... Trina (and John) January 17 Gone But Not ForgottenI realized the other day that I never followed up Trina's list of favorite things with my version. Also, we have been recently reminded that if there are 2100 photos why is it that we have only posted a few pictures. So, this post is to list out my favorite things but to also announce that I have uploaded some new pictures. I suspect that Trina and I are going to have some similar answers to the favorite things but maybe that speaks to the experience. I will skip the runner up but try to provide more explanations. Here goes:
Favorite thing about Lhasa: Barkhor Square – When you do research about Tibet and traveling in Lhasa, almost everyone speaks well of Barkhor Square. I am sure if you did a search on Barkhor Square you would get a million hits. Every description is probably correct. Barkhor is everything that I expected and read about yet still managed to be unexpected in so many ways. We spent every night that we were in Lhasa walking around Barkhor Square and never got tired of it. Least favorite: Chinese Oversight – The Chinese Government presence in Lhasa was definitely noticeable. Even in my favorite spot, Barkhor Square, there were “officials” on the tops of the buildings with telescopes and telephoto cameras keeping a close eye on the pilgrims and Tibetans gathering in the square outside of the Jokhang.
Favorite monastery experience: Jokhang – As I have blogged about previously, Jokhang was in a word, amazing. It is probably the single greatest travel experience that I have ever had. Being in the pilgrim line and moving from room to room was something that I will always remember. Least favorite: Showing up at Sakya Monastery to a closed Assembly Hall – We travelled a couple hours off the main road for the specific purpose of going to the main assembly hall at Sakya Monastery. When we showed up bright and early the next morning, we were very disappointed to see that the Assembly Hall was closed to renovation. However, when we saw that there were pilgrims that showed up to find out that the Assembly Hall was closed, it put things in perspective. At least we didn’t walk there.
Favorite encounter: Trina and I agree here. The best encounter with Tibetans was a spur of the moment experience where our car was blocked on the road in a small village. I hopped out of the car with the Polaroid camera and started snapping photos. The kids were ecstatic to be in pictures. The moms were proud to have the photos. The dads seemed to think that I was a little crazy. At the end of the day, it was the authenticity of the encounter that made it so memorable. Least favorite: I don’t think that I had one, but if you forced me to pick it would be the seemingly constant jacking that we took on hotels. Posted prices were either ignored or intentionally grossly high so as to “trick” you into thinking that you are getting a good deal.
Favorite wow moment: Chenresig in Jokhang – It was one of the those jaw dropping moments, where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you just know that you are seeing something special. Runner up: Being at the bottom of the waterfall at Tiger Leaping Gorge - I know I said that I was not going to do runner ups, but in this particular case I just have to. The waterfall at TLG was the first wow moment in the trip and also took me completely by surprise. It was a great beginning to the trip. Least favorite: My only bout of food poisoning happening at a 4 star hotel – After leaving Tibet we decided to treat ourselves and be wowed by staying at a 4 star hotel in Guangzhou. The result: Food poisoning from the breakfast buffet.
Favorite kora: Reting monastery – The kora at Reting has to be one of the most peaceful places on earth. It was quiet and beautiful. It is said that the Dalai Lama has declared that should he ever return to Tibet that he will not call the Potala home but instead he would make Reting his home. After walking the kora there, you start to understand why. Least favorite: I didn’t have one.
Favorite surprise: Tiger Leaping Gorge – I always knew that TLG was going to be nice. I was just not convinced that it was going to be worth the 2-3 hour ride in the wrong direction. Trina pushed for going from almost day one of planning. Admittedly, TLG was everything that I thought it was going to be and more. It was the perfect beginning to our trip and well worth the effort to get there. Least favorite: Hotel Deposits – In many of the hotels that we stayed at in addition to the hotel rate we had to put down a deposit that was sometimes more than the cost of the room. Considering that in most hotels there were more things broken than working, this seemed ludicrous
Favorite tidbit out of the Lonely Planet: The Barkhor Square walking tour- I agree with Trina on this one also. The Barkhor Square walking tour was such a treat. It took us to some off the beaten path places on the Barkhor that we would have never seen otherwise. Runner up: I have to make mention of the Thorntree. For those that don’t know about the Thorntree, it is the online boards on the LP website. The thorntree is probably the single best place for information on travel on the Web. Least favorite: Any food recommendation. For as good as the lonely planet is on everything else, they seem to come up short on food recommendations.
Favorite vendor: The husband and wife team that owned a small store where we used the computers for internet access. They were always happy to see us and never seemed to jack us on prices. Least favorite: Just about every hotel that we stayed at except the Banak Shol. As stated above, it seemed that we were constantly getting jacked on price and on top of that most of the places invariably had something stop working during the course of the one night that we stayed there (e.g. hot water, cold water, water in general, toilets, electricity, lights, etc)
Favorite food: Hot noodle soup on cold mornings – There were a few occasions where we were able to order what our guide and driver were getting for breakfast. The spicy noodle soup concoction was great on cold Tibetan mornings. Least favorite: The hotel breakfast buffet that gave me food poisoning.
John
November 17 2100 photos of favorite thingsI've been sorting our photos. The sorting reminded me of all sorts of fun things we did on our trip that I haven't blogged about, and it reminded me that I need to post some pictures. (Some of you reminded me, too.)
Here are some of my favorite things:
Favorite thing about Lhasa: All the small communities hanging out in courtyards of tucked away temples Runner up: Barkhor Square Least favorite: Bicycle rickshaws
Favorite monastery experience: Following the pilgrim line in Jokhang and watching people pour spoonfuls of yak butter to the lamps lighting the statues Runner up: Being shown around Drak Yerpa by a spunky old monk with a twinkle in his eye Least favorite: Passing the beggars outside Sera—one of kids latched onto John’s leg
Favorite encounter: At one point on the road we had to pause because the road was blocked by a tractor-cart. While we waited for the owner to move it out of the way, John took Polaroids of a nearby Tibetan family having a picnic. The kids enthusiastically posed, the moms smiled shyly when we gave them the pictures, and the dads viewed the whole thing skeptically. As we left, we saw them shaking their Polaroids while they waved goodbye. Runner up: At pilgrim leaning over my shoulder to get a better look at the pictures in my book Least favorite: The vendor who absolutely would not come down in price on prayer flags
Favorite wow moment: Seeing statue of Chenresig in Jokhang Runner up: Getting to the bottom of Tiger Leaping Gorge and looking up Least favorite: Having my passport confiscated by the police
Favorite kora: Reting monastery Runner up: Ganden monastery Least favorite: It don’t think it technically counts as a kora, but the path around the oldest Cypress tree was a waste of time
Favorite surprise: Visiting the nunneries and seeing how much community activity goes on there Runner up: Dove chocolate bars available at just about every roadside store Least favorite: Seeing a little toddler squat down and poop right in front of me on the sidewalk
Favorite tidbit out of the Lonely Planet: The Barkhor Square walking tour. It was such a great scavenger hunt, and it was the only time we stopped at a monastery when the monks were dressed in ceremonial robes and hats Runner up: Bringing a flashlight into the monasteries to better see the murals Least favorite: The cheesecake at Tashi 2 was only so-so
Favorite vendor: The lady who sold us internet time at a small store near our guest house Runner up: The guy who sold us a statue and a tea kettle Least favorite: The girl who followed me for blocks trying to sell me a necklace
Favorite food: Curried potatoes Runner up: Pork ribs in special Tibetan spice rub Least favorite: Yak and veggie stirfry
That's all for now. Pictures are uploaded here.
Love,
Trina October 28 Sushi is almost a consolation prizeWell, we missed our connection in Tokyo by fifteen minutes because the plane was grounded in Guangzhou for mechanical problems, and thus, we were issued new plane tickets for a new flight as well as a meal voucher, so we treated ourselves to some pretty respectable sushi at the airport.
While I'm on downer subjects, earlier this week we had our Wally World moment when we drove two hours off the main road to visit Sakya monastery only for the majority of it to be completely closed for construction repairs. We were bummed. We toured what was left in less than an hour. I was pretty grumpy about it, but then I realized that the pilgrims who endured many more hardships to get there than I did were also dissapointed, and that put it into perspective a little bit. Plus there was not a sporting good store nearby, and no one to stick up except some friendly monks who seemed pretty excited about the restoration of their monastery.
The rest of our road trip was wonderful. We saw so many great things at each of the monasteries we went to. The toughest one to visit was the cave monastery because I could barely breathe and there was so much to climb. I took a few looks and each time I said I couldn't make it to the top, but John kept prodding me until we finally did. We took breaks about every eight stairs, but we finally made it, and the cave monasteries were completely worth the trouble. The statues were really amazing, and we were shown around by a spunky monk with a twinkle in his eye. My favorite monastery that we visited in the four days we were riding around was Tashilhunpo, which was in Shigaste. They had quite a few big and beautiful statues, and the complex was fairly big and pretty to look at. The complex that was prettiest to walk around was at Reting monastery. It was full of juniper trees and on a hillside, and there were all kinds of nuns and monks wandering the paths as well. The most pleasant surprise on the trip was going to Dorje Drak, which our guide sneaked in at the end since it was on the way home. It had spectacular scenery right on the river. We didn't stay too long, though, since we were eager to get back to Lhasa and the monks were heading in for dinner.
The day and half we spent in Guangzhou was pretty fun. We went to two Buddhist temples just for comparison's sake. The city itself reminded me a lot of Bangkok. We also spent a lot of time in the hotel room watching movies, which was time well spent since we were pretty tired from the previous two weeks.
Well, I'm nearly out of time and I want to go figure out the fancy vending machines they have here at the airport.
Love,
Trina
October 25 Food and Sundries part 2I totally forgot to write about Tibetan breakfast number 4! It came on three different plates: one plate had a buckwheat pancake, another plate had something that looked and tasted like tsampa (barley flour mixed with a bit of tea or water to make a paste) but I don't think was technically tsampa, and soft yak cheese coasted in sugar. Of course, being me, I ate all of these items separately; however, John noticed mid-meal that the guy behind me was stacking all these items on top of each other (think Stacks and Merryann's, UIUC grads). So I promptly stacked them on top of each other, and it was much more delicious. The cheese didn't taste so strong, and the tsampa didn't taste so boring, and the buckwheat pancake was warm and delicious. It was much better stacked then separate.
I also totally forgot to write about the Tide laundry bar. It's brilliant. The reason I know is because our hotel provides free laundry service, but they refuse socks and underwear. So John and I spent part of an afternoon last week washing our socks and underwear in the sink. On one of our outings, we passed a place selling Tide laundry bar, which is essentially a less concentrated version of their detergent in bar soap form. It got everything so clean, and then our room smelled like Tide instead of like feet, which was nice for a change.
Last, but not least, everday we pass a place that has the greatest supply of paper products I've ever seen. Toliet paper and napkins as far as the eye can see. There are so many different varities of maxi pads, it made me blush a little. Nevertheless, this place is a pants-wiper's paradise, and I long to return to a place where napkins are as big as my head instead of as small as my palm and where people blow their nose into Kleenex instead of onto the sidewalk. :)
Love,
Trina October 22 Food and SundriesThere was a comment that we should write more about the food. The food as been varied in quality and price. One of our best meals consisted of scrumptious dumplings and breadsticks and was 7 yuan (~1 dollar) for four people. One of our worst meals was this pork and vegetable stirfry thing for 80 yuan. While on the road we ate a lot of dishes that were pork and veggies or yak and veggies or just plain veggies. We also ate a lot of spicy noodles, which seems to be the primary breakfast of champions out here. When we were in the cities, we ate more Western food, which has also been varied in quality. A week ago, I had a few bites of a truly hideous pizza, but last night, I had yummy tomato soup and garlic bread.
While we've mostly eaten Chinese food, we have had an opportunity to eat some Tibetan-style meals as well. I'm particularly in love with a fried potato dish that has a mix of spices in it--primarily curry. Our Dutch travelling mates scarfed down quite a stack of pork ribs which had a good spice rub on them. Momos are good, but really all potsticker type things are good. :)
I learned that yogurt and muesli makes a wonderful breakfast. We think the yogurt is from yaks as well because it has a distinctly stronger, more sour, flavor. It's good, but usually needs a little extra honey. We've also been enjoying varieties of tea: green, jasmine, chrysanthemum. It's amazing what one can do with some dried leaves and hot water. We've also enjoyed yak butter tea much more than the average joe, although I think it would be much better in the morning. It's much too salty for savoring in the afternoon when it's warm out.
I have finally conquered acclimitasation (sp.) only to have to start battling a new problem: dry skin. My skin is so dry, it's rubbed raw by the seams on my pants. For the last couple of days, I have been aggressively moisturizing, which has helped heal most parts. I also have funny red spots on my face, which John insisted on pointing out to a salesgirl in order to get the proper face creme, but really I just had to point at the Oil of Olay. We've also had a problem with stinky feet with no Dr. Scholl's powder in sight. We tried to buy a Chinese equivalent, but it turned out to be some sort of baby creme--John thinks it's lotion, I think it's diaper rash creme. FInally we gave up and settled on baby powder since Johnson & Johnson's is the only thing we recognize, and it's been difficult miming stinky feet to the poor store clerks.
Off to Tashilhunpo.
Love,
Trina (and John) October 20 Stupid Internet...So I wrote a big long post about what we have been doing but my stupid internet time ran out and it booted me off before I could post. Stupid Internet.
So here is the summary since it is late and we have to get up early tomorrow.
We have been taking it easy. We did a lot of shopping. We bought a rug. We went to the Potala Palace.
We will be gone for teh next few days on a variety of trips. Here is the itinerary:
Sunday - Reting, Taklung, Drak Yerpa Monasteries
Monday and Tuesday - Gyanste, Shigatse, and Sakya
Wednesday - Samye, Mindroling, and Yumbulang Monasteries
The good news is that we posted pictures in the past blogs.
More later.
John and Trina
PS - We have seen the comments to the blog posts and will try to reply in the next post. October 18 Home Sweet LhasaAfter a week in the Landcruiser, we are now in Lhasa. As we have found with most of our travels Trina and I seem to enjoy the major cities more more than the message borders and LP authors do. Lhasa has been a welcome relief from the smaller cities that we stopped in along the way. We very much enjoyed the trip out here but we also very much enjoy being in Lhasa finally.
So far we have walked around the Barkhor area, which is similar to the old town in Zhongdian just bigger with more people. It also has a muchmore authentic feel to it. Today, we took pictures outside of the Potala Palace. We are hoping to get tickets to go inside the Potala but that seems to be easier said than day as tickets need to be purchased a day in advance and the line starts forming before 7 AM. Today, we also visited the Jokhang and Sera monasteries. Jokhang was another one of those great travel moments. The Jokhang experiece was practically a religious awakening and as you know I am not really a religious person. The statues were stunning. The pilgrims that were there outnumbered the tourists at least 10 to 1 and there sheer dedication to being there was inspiring. In all of my travels to various religious sites, I have never seen anything like I saw today. It was a moment that I will forever remember.
Sera was nothing to scoff at either. It is one of the Buddhist colleges and it was also quite impressive. The highlight was probably watching the Monks debate various buddhist philosophies and ideas. They are quite animated, which is a big dfference from how they act the rest of the day.
That's all for now as I am running out of Internet time.
John
On the RoadZhongdian was a lovely little city in Yunnan province. It is divided into two sections, the old town and the new town. The old town had stone streets and many little handicrafts stores and tea houses. Our guesthouse was in this section. At night it seemed like the whole old quarter people met in the square to dance. The dances were a lot like line dances, except in a circle. It was a lot of fun to watch; I wasn't brave enough to try.
The new section looked a lot like other cities we've seen in China. A lot of newish, non-descript buildings with people selling all sorts of things on the sidewalk. The new, fancy hotels as well as the banks and malls were in this area as well. The main street was short enough to walk the entire stretch, but long enough that we didn't feel too lazy when we decided to take a cab.
On the road, the scenery changes quite a bit from one day to the next. The first day looked a lot like Kentucky, West Virginia, Smoky Mountains, except much, much taller. Then for the next couple of days, the scenery looked a lot like New Mexico. The couple of days after that looked a lot like Washington--there were even ferns in the underbrush. The last day had a look that was completely its own: deep blue skies and pale beige mountains and many prayer flags fluttering.
The mountain passes were pretty intense. As a matter of fact, I was quite ill for the first one, although I was fine for the rest with some diamox and acclimation. What was really cool about making it to the top was the hundreds of prayer flags fluttering in the very strong winds. We always got out of the car to look around. Some of the vistas were really amazing. The tallest one we went over was around 5100 meters, which is taller than any mountain in the US--I think.
I'm going to turn over the blogging to John.
Over and out.
Trina
October 10 Moving on upToday we leave on our overland trip. Last night I tried to blog, but the internet crapped out on me, so I'll do an abbreviated version now.
After hiking in the gorge, we decided to take it easy and see things nearby. We took a short bus to a monstery north of town, which is supposed to be one of the oldest and most important in the area. In addition to seeing many murals and statues of Buddha, we also saw a mommy pig and her six or seven piglets roaming around. There were monks around as well, mostly doing chores. In one of the temples, there were two monks chanting, which was nice to hear. The place was a little bit run down in some areas, but there was a lot of constuction going on, which could be seen as a good or a bad thing.
Once we got back to town, we had a nice lunch and then we ran some errands. We also visited a monastery to the south of town; this one we were able to walk to. It was much better restored and had an enormous prayer wheel. We helped turn it with some other tourists and a couple of old Tibetan ladies.
Next to that monastery was a museum about the Red Army's march in the region during the '30's and '40's. We took a lot of pictures there since they had good signs and exhibits. Very eye-opening.
I should get going because I think I see my breakfast making its way to the table. We'll be offline until we reach Lhasa. We'll post again on the 17th.
Love,
Trina October 09 What is a Sky Ladder Really?Today, Trina and I made the trek down to Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was a wonderful experience and we are both delighted that we decided to make the trip down there. Admittedly, Trina has been pushing to go Tiger Leaping Gorge since we started planning the trip. I had been resistant not because I didn't think that it was going to be amazing but because I was not overly excited about the 3 hour trip down there and was concerned about overpacking the itinerary. Having been down there now, I have to say that I am glad that Trina insisted on going there. Tiger Leaping Gorge is nothing short of breathtaking. It was one of those moments where you say to yourself, "This is it. This is why it is worth sitting on a plane for 14 hours to get here."
To get to Tiger Leaping Gorge, we took a bus from Zhongdian to Qiaotao. The LP stated this bus ride would take around 3 hours. However, with the new roads it took around 2 hours and 15 minutes so that was nice. Once we got there, we hired a mini-van to drive us up the road to see the Gorge. Through suggestions at one of the local eateries, we decided to do a short three hour hike into the Gorge. What we didn't know, was that the "short" hike was actually a 1000 ft decent down to the base of the canyon. Of course, a 1000 ft descent also means a 1000 ft ascent. Needless to say, this was a physically strenuos activity. The ascent included the option to take the famous (infamous?) sky ladder. This is a rickety rebar ladder that goes straight up the face of cliff. It easily was 50 feet long. We ended up being deterred by the sign that had an arrow pointing at the ladder saying "Dangerous Ladder" and another arrowing pointing up a path that said "Safe Path." We opted for "Safe Path." We thought it was what our mothers would have wanted us to do. :)
However, it was worth all the sweat. At the bottom of the canyon, we had a tremdous view of a waterfall that fell the depth of the canyon. It was amazing. Words and the dozen pictures that we took cannot adequately describe the experience. It was a moment that I will surely remember for a very long time. The entire TLP is really quiet impressive. I would write more about it but I just don't think that I can do it justice. We took 200 pictures today and hopefully at least one of them will capture the moment.
For the trip back, we ended up meeting 4 people from Israel and we managed to flag down an empty coach bus that was headed up to Zhongdian. After a little bartering, we were able to secure a ride and we had the entire bus to ourselves. It made for a nice trip back after a long day of hiking. For dinner, we found this great restaurant, Lhasa Restaurant, that serves Tibetan hotpots. The food was excellent and we both stuffed ourselves.
Tomorrow, we are going to go check out the two monastaries that are just outside of town. For those that watch Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations," we will be visiting one of the temples that he stopped at in the Shangri La episode. Then for dinner we are meeting our Dutch travel companions Martin and Ria. Thursday, we start our trip to Lhasa.
Also, on a side note, we forget to mention in last nights blog that we found the jacket that had gone missing. It was packed in one of the bags. Sigh.
Well, I am off to bed for a well deserved rest.
Wishing everyone the safe path,
John and Trina
October 08 Touchdown in (the real?) Shangri LaWe have arrived. The plane flights out here were long. Especially, the four and half hour leg from Narita to Guangzhou. That flight was miserable. One of the worst we've been on in a while. Something to note for future reference is that when traveling to large countries the temperature can vary. Touchdown in Guangzhou revealed that the temperature was 32 degrees....Celsius. That's right 90 degrees at midnight. That would make it almost 50 degrees warmer than Tibet. Luckily, we were not there very long, so the lack of summer clothes was not a big deal.
We are currently in Zhongdian. It is very pretty here. The old town is amazing, and it is finally syncing in that we are here after a year of planning. The altitude here is 10581 ft. Shoutout to Gary for lending us his watch with altimeter. Now we know at any moment how high we are. Although, John's body temp is so high that it's been throwing the temperature gauge off.
Needless to say considering how high up we are, altitude sickness has been a factor. Trina has been hit harder than me so far but I am sure that my time is coming soon enough. (Trina spent the entire afternoon with a headache shivering in her sleeping bag before it finally occurred to her that we brought Diamox for just this sort of thing.) The medication that the UW Travel Clinic gave us worked quite well and it is reassuring to know that.
After two days of airline food, we finally got to eat something that was not in a little tray and actually tasted like something. First we had breakfast at a place recommended in the LP. Tonight Trina and I went to a local dumpling shop. 30 dumplings. $2 US.
We have a couple of days here to hang out before we set off for Tibet on Thursday. The original plan was to go see Tiger Leaping Gorge, but we've been hearing that it's rained there for two weeks straight and has been closed for the last few days. We're going to check in with someone tomorrow, and if it is closed, we may head out to a nearby town that is supposed to have spectacular views and many limestone formations. We'll see. We are a little bummed, but our other options sound nice as well.
I think that is all for now. Time for a cup of tea before we head back to our guesthouse.
Please forgive all typos and errors in grammar. The keyboard is a little funky, and we're a little wiped out. :)
Love,
Trina and John
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