On your mark, get set, GO!!!

The traffic activity was amazing to see.  At all times it looked like there are many people risking their lives, with cars, bicyles, scooters and pedestrians, all challenging each other for every inch of road. But it was encouraging to find their disposition to all of it seems much better than in the US.   The difference in attitude is that when you're in China and you quickly decide to "cut in" to the 5 feet of available road surface, they will beep the horn at you a couple times but then completely accept it and move on without any ill feelings towards that one in 1.3 billionth person.  Whereas that same move, that we saw maybe 100 times while we were there for two weeks, would cause someone to literally come "unglued" in the US.  In the US you'd be fingered, cursed and possibly hunted. In China it seemed just accepted that that's what everyone there should do to get their place in traffic.

So there is a LOT of horn work being done but it's an understanding horn, if you will.  I told Ran that it would be such great fun if they put a horn in the backseat of the taxi or guide car, so we could play the game too.  I'd be happy as a lark, beaping at every bike, every car or any one of the crazy bastards...that's what they do. Maybe it's the "traffic of the future". Something we'll see in the US someday??

I kept trying to get pictures of the traffic and realized that if I were to do a coffee book with pictures from China (ya know, a coffee book) it would be of all the different bikes in traffic.  There were people from many different generations and many different social classes but all Chinese.  Not one American on a bike in the crowd. And every bike seemed different than the other.  Most had some degree of a homemade customization done to them.  Some looked like the make/brand of the bike should be that person's family name, with maybe just a surviving generation number for the model.  If we lived there, I imagine the "Kelley1" transportation vehicle lookin something like this, with Randi pimpin it out with leopard skin curtains.





We even ran across like a 'cycle rickshaw depot'.  I imagined this is where the advanced cyclists graduate to.







I like this sign, we saw there at many intersections.  I think it says "Don't walk.  RUN!, you crazy bastards, RUN!!"

The Great Wall

Our guide and new best friend, Robert, picked
us up at 8:30am on our first day tour of
Beijing. Our itinerary for the day was packed.
It included the Ming Tombs, Dingling Tomb,
Sacred Way, Jade shop & Badaling Great Wall!

On our way to the Ming Tombs we pulled the car
over to get a look at the exterior of the
Olympic stadiums of the 2008 Olympics held
there.  We took a couple quick pictures of the
Bird's Nest and Water Cube. We discussed Michael
Phelps's success and his resemblance to a large
American freshwater fish.  From there we drove
on to the Ming Dynasty tombs, where 13 emperors
have been buried.  We walked down the Sacred Way,
which out of all the spiritual locations we
were taken to, this one turned out to be the
most serene.

Mostly because it was early morning and free of the typical
heavy tourist throng.  Frickin amateurs!

The Ding Ling tomb (great name) from the
1500's that was just excavated in the
1950's. It's the only one of the tombs
that the government decided to excavate.
Apparently there was a lot of controversy
over it back in the 50s, then there was
a revolution in the middle of the work
and things got put on hold for 10 years.
During that time many of the artifacts
that were uncovered were just thrown into
a holding room that was later damaged by
floods. All in all, it didn't sound like
it went like they originally planned.
But they still had a lot of artifacts from the tombs, from this Emperor and
his 2 Empresses (you know Ding Ling).  It was kind of like a Pharaoh's tomb concept, try to keep all your good sh*t with you in the afterlife, in case it's still worth something or comes back in fashion a 1000 years later.  They even had a wishing well (more like a slot) that many people had aimed from 20 feet away and missed.  I came up to the line and delivered a strike...no problem!  I had Randi telling me the rest of the trip "you're so lucky John Kelley"  :)

It was built in 200 BC and is the longest man made structure in the world.  It is also listed as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.  It is truly
amazing and it goes as far as the eye can see. We went in on a certain area called Badaling.

Our guide Robert explained to that we can either
go the one direction that everybody takes and is
less steep or you can take the road less traveled
because it can be a strenuous hike at times but
the view is so much better and it's much less
crowded.

So we didn't have much of a choice...the gauntlet was thrown down!

The part about being less crowded was true and so
was the strenuous part. I had to reach back to my
2008 Olympic shape to get up the steep inclines.
It may not have been a medal quality performance
but we did it. It was actually a really great hike
with some incredible views.

Bullet to Beijing

On Sunday we were ready to start the Beijing leg of our China adventure and to get there we would be taking a $100 per person bullet train ride.

When we arrived at the train station we went right to the 'Information' booth that had that spelled out in English.  Excellent!  Unfortunately English was not a language that they spoke behind the counter.  But after some pointing, repeated questions and lots of head nods, we felt pretty sure we were waiting at the right track.

We got on and could spread out, as the train was really pretty empty for this first leg of the few stops it would make, on the way to Beijing.  It's a good thing it was empty too because the large American suitcases needed to have some room.

I looked over at Ran as she sat there lookin cool, having a sucker. She gave me a big thumbs up and said "we made it".  I found that to be really cute and funny.

For lunch on the train we were served a tray of rice, vegetables, some chop suey,  a few little chicken wings and a cup of soup. All for 35 RMB (about $5).  Everything was really pretty good.  The only thing was that the soup said it was 'laver egg' soup.  After just touring that silk factory tour yesterday I couldn't help but question if there was a small spelling mistake on the soup description.  I thought of asking the stewardess about it but decided not to...I really wasn't hungry for soup anymore anyways. Looking it up later I found out 'laver' is another word for 'seaweed'.  So that picture of the little guy in the top right corner of the soup cup, is not a cute characterization of a unhatched insect....nooooo, of course not.






Eventually the train filled up and we sat next to a young professor of physiology who spoke some English and was very nice.  The train cooked along near it's top speed of 308 KPH (191 MPH) most of the time, with the scenery usually being rice fields and tree farms.  It was a very comfortable and enjoyable ride all in all.

When we got off the train we had to find and meet our guide for the week.  As we exited the track area we found him right away.  He said he knew it was us because we were the only Americans in the crowd and we knew it was him because he had a sign with both of our full names, with middle names, as they appear on our passports. Little embarrassing...at least the Fitzgerald part.

Suzhou and Zhoushang

Our first tour with Top China Travel was on Saturday, May 26th. We took a van for a 90 minute ride to our first stop, Suzhou ("Sue-Joe").  The van made a terrible high-pitched scream about every 80 seconds (I counted).  I believe it needed new belts or pulleys. We all pretended we didn't hear it
and no one talked about it. But I bet we all were visualizing our group stranded and sold into a black
market of slave tourist workers.

The town of Suzhou is 2500 years old...an old vacation spot of the emperors.  There used to be over 3000 classical gardens (royal & private) at one time. Ironically they called it the 'Garden City'. Now there are only 20 gardens left. We visited the Humble and Lion Forest gardens.  The Lion Forest being 700 yr old and famous for it's rockery.

For lunch we ate at the Silk Factory and then toured it. I'm glad we did the lunch first because the in-depth look at the larvae being extracted from all these cocoons was kinda sickening or at least certainly not appetizing. At the end of the tour they gave use the heavy pitch to buy garments and quilts made of pure silk.

From there we went to Zhoushang ("Joe-drun"). Our guide who I had been calling Chen all day, only later to find out it was Chin, told us about a famous artist who painted a a scene from there in the mid-1980s that became a well known piece of art and really is what propelled the town into a tourist trap.  We all tried taking a picture from the vantage point she said the painting was done from. If I just couldda waved all those people off the bridge, it wouldda been perfect!
I saw a copy of the picture two days later, at the Jade museum, on our first tour in Beijing.  I might put that up in the house in a cheap frame.

It will go nice with our cheap-a*s art copies collection.  We did the little boat ride and listened to our driver lady sing for tip.  She sounded as though she was in pain singing. I wanted to tell her "you bad" when I smiled and tipped her but Randi wouldn't have liked that  :)  It was really a beautiful little water town and calls itself the No. 1 water town. If I were to redo the trip and make a change to our itinerary, it would be to actually stay a night in Zhoushang and take the high speed train to Beijing from Suzhou the next morning.  Randi and I would have liked to have had dinner and drinks next to the river that night, after our boat ride but the tour must drive on.

This would be the only group tour we would take and by the end of the day we got to know our 10? other tour members pretty well.  They were from all parts of the world.  They included a gregarious Italian guy from Milan, who was funny even though no one knew Italian. He was very animated and seemed very happy.  We were happy for him.  Then there was a black kid from the US who wouldn't shut up.  He was chewin the ear off some other guy on the bus. The only time he stopped was when he fell asleep. But he did seem very nice. There was an older lady from Copenhagen who was touring without her husband.  She seemed very sweet and found Randi to be the same.  And a yound girl from the Czech Republic who was very well traveled. We took pictures with everyone and even exchanged email addresses to exchange pictures.

Working in Shanghai

Our week in Shanghai was dominated by work.  Randi would go off each morning with Josh, a PTC Sales guy who we would have breakfast with every morning and would accompany her to the office there everyday.

I stayed in the hotel, except for Tuesday and Wednesday I went to the Oracle office and was hosted by a hardware manager named SK.  He set me up in a visitor's office and pretty much left me there for the day.  However, the one day I went with him and 3 other folks from the office for a classic Shanghai style lunch. This was really the one thing I was hoping to accomplish, seeing as it really was the highlight of when I worked in France.  While it was only one experience, it was a good one.  We ordered 9 dishes for the 5 of us and could not finish it all.  SK paid for lunch and seemed happy to have me there.  I really liked the pork in brown sauce, even though each piece had kind of a gelatin side to  it, whose texture seemed kind of gross to me.   I manged to get a picture of it off the menu.


The second day I was at the office I couldn't find SK, so I went for a walk on The Bund, which was only around 5 blocks from the office.  With some good advice from my neighbor, I really enjoyed the 2 hours I spent just watchin people and shopping for trinkets a little.  He had told me that as an obvious American tourist type you are gonna get approached a LOT to buy this or that.  So what you need to do is wear some earbuds, whether you are listening to music or not and just smile and keep walkin.  That worked great!  Actually I listened to Bob Dylan and really enjoyed the walk. Crossing every intersection was an adventure. I had "no direction home, like a complete unknown"

I got a kick out of the look/style of these young kids, with their big hair and makin peace signs.  That's a boy takin that picture, with a hairstyle that looked like my Mom's, circa 1970.  I smiled thinkin that they are trying to be more American...more like the old man snipin their picture behind them.

Mr and Mrs Bund

We finally both had a good night's sleep last night.  That's the first time I could say that for the both of us since we've been here.

We went out to eat last night to 'Mr and Mrs Bund'.  Love the name.  I wanted to tell people "my name is Bund...James Bund".   It is considered the best French restaurant in Shanghai according to Frommer's Guide book.  It was really very chic and very good.  We didn't have reservations comin into the place and they were packed.   But they managed to give us what seemed like the best table for two in the place.  Maybe they knew we earned it! after a year of dealing with the French  :)  Later in the week we decided to go to the other Paul Pairet restaurant in Shanghai called 'Jade on 36'.  We went there for the world renowned view of The Bund on the 36th floor but we certainly paid for it...not sure it was worth it. We found 'Mr and Mrs Bund' much more reasonable and liked the atmosphere better as well.

After dinner we went next door to the Peace Hotel and had a drink in the old Jazz club there.  It was lightly raining all night with a heavy fog/smog but it was a comfortable temp and the mist gave the place kind of a spooky nostalgic look I thought.

On the way home we got into a cab with extremely tinted windows and no driver number/info on the inside.  I felt strange about the guy when we were getting in because I expected to have to hail a cab but he was waiting on the sidewalk and asked us if he could drive us.  As soon as I got in I said to Ran I don't like this...I wish I would listen to my gut more.  And sure enough I could see his meter going at about twice the speed it should have been.  I knew this ride/fare pretty well because the Oracle office I went to a couple days was right next to The Bund area. So I knew it should be between 25 and 30 RMB.  But when we pulled up to the hotel his meter said 47 RMB.  I told the guy he was ripping us off but I was using the wrong language of course.  The guy wouldn't give me a receipt and he wouldn't pull right up to the hotel.  We b*tched back and forth at each in different languages until I gave him only 30 RMB and told Ran to get out of the cab.   After we got in the hotel I realized the 17 RMB difference is like $2.50...hardly worth an international incident but I felt as righteous as a blind Chinese activist at the time. It was about the principal of it!!

On the other side of the Earth

The view from our hotel room on the 27th floor at the Marriott Courtyard Pudong Shanghai is immediately noticeable that we are definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Everything has a kind of futuristic look to it.  Even the newscaster looks as though she may be an electronic avatar.

The slow boat to China

Holy sh*t! is that a long flight.  I connected through Detroit and then took a 15 hour flight to Shanghai.  Wow...I thought it would never end.  I kept looking at the flight data which counted off the 7200 miles we were flying and it was like each 1000 files took forever.

I think I actually slept about 30 minutes during the entire trip.

Luckily for me, on the 'long road to see Nutsy' I had possibly the best book recommendation one could get, for someone who's never been to China and doesn't know the culture. It was given to me by a culinary god and friend of mine from my office, Harold.  You can find him most days seeking out new culinary experiences in the Minneapolis Skyway.  The book is titled "The Last Chinese Chef".  It was really an easy read and was able to read the entire book during the never ending flight. It was written by the same author of "Lost in Translation".  It reminded me of the books by Peter Mayle.  And like "Year in Provence" it stressed that food means everything to the Chinese, as it does to the French.  There is a statement in the book that the most important thing is to preserve civilization.  That as men we are the sum of our forebearers...that includes great thinkers, great artists and great chefs!

Besides reading that book I only watched one movie.  That being'Warhorse', with the horse reminding me of a giant Maddie.

I guess I'll take that flight one more time, as it seems to be the best way back.

My PHONE!!

I got everything ready I possibly could this past Saturday morning of my flight, before going to the airport. 

I watered all the plants and the lawn. I did the dishes and even went and bought a coffee cake!

Then on the way to the airport I realized I wasn't positive which terminal we were going to.  I was a little aggregated that I didn't already figure this out and had to call while Alli drove me.  So I found that out, gave Alli a kiss and got dropped off.  As soon as I got 20 steps into the terminal I realized...I don't have my phone!!!

The incredible panic of possibly not having my phone for two weeks in China rendered me paralyzed to remember any number but mine or Ran's and she was in China.  However, Alli eventually found my phone under her purse on the seat and turned around to bring it to me.

Word of advice...keep a small piece of paper in your wallet with phone numbers.   Even better advice...never leave phone in car before leaving country.  Confucius say...it is better to stare at screen and send no text, then to stare at empty hand.

Still packin

I wanted to start the blog before I left for China, so I'd have a place to start jottin some things down as soon as we arrive. Randi is arriving into Shanghai from India, around the time I take-off tomorrow. So she'll be there a day before me.

I'm so jacked! about the 15 hour flight right now. But that will be after I first connect into Detroit with a 90 minute layover. I'm concerned about my back, sittin inside an airplane that long. I looked for some kind of lumbar support for the trip but didn't find anything. However, I decided I'm gonna bring a couple soft footballs (water toys)...I think that may help??

I can't wait to see my Indian Princess, Rindi there in China.

I think I'll start the blog with a picture of our dog (we've done this before). She doesn't mind.
It was taken on Maddie's 2 year old birthday this past week, which she celebrated by eatin some sticks in the backyard.