LeeDylanLinda

Some Interesting Photos from the Last Month

2012-01-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

Wind blown snow attached to bare branches at Sandia Peak

Really cool reflection...
From the glass on the polar bear tank.

This sign is at the entrance to the cafe when you exit the Albuquerque Aquarium.
If you missed it, the second to last line is interesting...

Assorted

2012-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

Linda and Dylan "doing" yoga

Some strange looking lemonsDylan getting ready for ski school at Sandia Peak

Linda and I up at Sandia

The family took Friday before Christmas off and I decided to head up anyway because I knew I would find something like this....Linda's low key birthday celebration

Dylan "working out" on the water cycle at the climbing gym. I just really think it is cute how he has to rock his body back and forth to get the cranks around.

Christmas Prep

2011-12-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

Linda's family is coming out to New Mexico again for Christmas. 2 years ago they came out and the kids learned to ski and they wanted to come back for more, guess there were no hard crashes.

Anyway to get ready we put Dylan in ski school at Ski Santa Fe again, they have a great kids program. Last year was not so successful, he rode the conveyor lift and then planted himself at the top of the hill. This year on the other hand he absolutely loved it. In his words he went down the hill, "a million, jillion, dillion times", (I don't really know how many times that is).

Hopefully we will be able to get out gain this weekend with Dylan to get him more comfortable with skiing before we end up going to Sandia to ski with Linda's family. The kids programs at Sandia are more ski focused and does not offer the same indoor options that Santa Fe does.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-24T12:31:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Here are some pictures related to the last post.

Hanging out with the family in my parents rented home while theirs gets fixed

All the dry wall and flooring stripped out of the house

Sagging, charred ceiling and attic

Then we headed to J-Tree. Here Dylan is impersonating a Joshua Tree

On the second day out we headed to Echo Cove and there were a couple of other families. Dylan found a friend in this little girl. They played together for several hours, pretty much ignoring the adults.

On the third day we climbed at the Riverside Quarry which is an interesting granite cliff. Having been blasted it is all steep for granite and more featured than is typical. In addition, there is a lot of loose stuff that has been variously held in place, mostly with glue, but here with a 3/4" bolt that must be a foot long or more.

On our second day out in Joshua Tree, Mark Hsieh from the Mad Rock office came out to meet us. On Wednesday morning after a Taiwanese breakfast we headed into the Mad Rock office to see their operation then headed out to the Quarry to climb.

King of the Bed

2011-11-21T21:51:00.001-08:00

It is really hard to see in this photo, but tonight we are staying at a hotel in the town of Joshua Tree right outside the park that has 2 king size beds meaning Dylan has one to himself. Naturally he is a sprawled out as possible trying to take up as much space as his little body can. This of course after he spent an hour jumping all over the thing.

We had a good weekend with my parents in San Rafael. Had dinner with everyone on Friday night, from Great Grandma all the way down to young cousin Kailee. On Saturday I got out for a ride with my dad and Linda got out later with my mom. On Sunday we headed up to look at the progress on my parents house (photos to come later) they have torn out all the drywall and are now waiting for approval on truss engineering to replace the whole roof. After that we checked out the art studio that my dad displays at, AurorA Art Studios.

Then to finish off the day we watched the 49ers beat up on the Arizona Cardinals, OK so maybe they should have beaten them by a lot more, but hey 9-1 is still 9-1. GO 9ers.

We have another day of climbing out here in J-Tree then hopefully we will check out a crag in the Los Angeles area and head back to San Rafael for Thanksgiving.

Balloon Fiesta 2011, Halloween, BirthdayDylan waiting

2011-11-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

Dylan waiting, all bundled up, while Linda and I park the bikes and change shoes after ridding to Balloon Fiesta Park

Chowing down on a breakfast burrito at the Intel tent

Yum, Krispy Cream and milk

Hanging out by the cows udder

Did not see this one last year

People watching a balloon getting blown up

For my mom, Sugar Bear

Baby Bee leaving the nest, I don't think the mom and dad flew today

It was interesting, the balloons took off and pretty much circles the field because of the changing wind direction

Spider Pig (The Simpsons?) and a shark hanging out with the bumble bees

Balloons overhead

No idea what this thing is

Still waiting for pigs to fly

Dylan and Linda getting ready to head out trick or treating

Dylan trying on my new snowboarding boot

Dylan holding court at his birthday party

With his new toy

We had Chris, Jo and Trinity over for a small party on Saturday night, they brought cream puffs. I think they agreed with Dylan

Weekend in Austin

2011-09-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we headed to Austin to visit with Linda's family. Dylan had not seen his cousins since sometime early this year before we headed to China.

Dylan checking out the cockpit of the Southwest plane that we flew out on.

On Saturday after the cousins were ready to head off to their respective weekend activities we met up with Thu, Nat, Noah, Matt and Katie to climb at Flat Creek. In the past there has been plenty of water for the kids to play in and for us to cool down in between burns right in front of the cave. Right now there is almost no water.

Thu walking with the boys in the dry stream bed.

Anyway, Linda continued to work on Scapegoat, a very steep 5.12. I ran a couple of laps on a 5.11+ so that Katie could work it on TR, it was her first time climbing at Flat and her first time on a rope since she had Tyler.

Katie with Tyler, who has amazingly fat thighs, you have to fight to get the pants on and off.

Katie managed to get the route down to one hang on her second try, not bad for someone that gave birth less than 7 months ago. Though she climbed her first 5.11 when she was 7 month pregnant so it really is not a surprise, probably won't be long before she climbs 5.12 as long as she and Matt manage to get out regularly. After the warm up I surprised myself by fighting my way up a new route for the flash. It is a route Vinnie put up this year and I don't remember the name but the climbing was good and thankfully had a jug and a good rest right before the top out or I surely would have fallen trying to top out. After that I struggled my way up Scapegoat hanging on pretty much every bolt, my skin but mostly forearms, had had enough.

Overall t was a promising day of climbing for me. After the rush to get in shape for Paris-Brest-Paris I am not desperately trying to get into climbing shape to set for a competition in the middle of next month. As a setter I don't need to be able to climb the boulder problems but I do need to be able to do the moves. Needless to say, being able to peddle a bike forever has not helped my ability to climb. While climbing Vinnie's route would have been a given on many other occasions that I've visited Flat, it is at this time the first route I've done of that grade in at least 6 months and a good marker for where I stand as far as getting back into climbing shape.

On Sunday I borrowed a bike from Pam (one of Patricia's friends) and rode with a group for the "cream cheese ride" which starts at an Einstein's Bagels and goes about 60 miles. I felt pretty good for the first 50 miles or so until the 100 degree heat got to me and I hit the wall and went into survival mode. Jason, the group leader was nice enough to slow up and pull me in to the finish where I started lunch with chocolate milk and a cookie followed by chips, bagel sandwich and juice then more water in about 15 minutes.

Monday was a lazy day. Linda and I found a pool that was open in James' subdivision and hung out there for a bit then got lunch with her mom and sister before heading to the airport. At this point without Monday the week seems to be going pretty fast, nice.

Paris-Brest-Paris 2011 Ride Report

2011-09-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

Dad getting ready to head to the start Sunday afternoon

Caution, LONG, very long, but hey it is about 1200km of riding. Sorry, many photos from previous posts.

For Paris Brest Paris, after qualifying for the event the first thing you need to do is decide what start group you want to go with. The 80 hour group leaves at 5pm on Sunday, the 90 hour group starts leaving at 6pm on Sunday and the 84 hour group starts to leave at 5am on Monday morning. I choose the 84 hour group since I did not want to spend al day waiting around and then ride through the first night. The groups start in waves of about 500 riders, I missed being in the first group by 2 bikes and so had to wait an additional 15 minutes, not too bad considering that people that showed up for the 90 hour start 2 hours early only made the 4th group meaning that they waited around 3 hours to start.

My Waltworks prepped and mostly ready to go

Conveniently it started to rain about 5 minutes before the start. Many folks started to rummage around in their bags for more clothing, myself among them. Things started off mellow enough with a car and motorcycle leading out the group, they were to stay on the front for about the first 15-20 km to get us out of town. The relaxed attitude did not last long however and within 5 minutes of starting, with the car still in front and roads still wet, riders started trying to force their way forward only to have to slam on their brakes once they got to the front. I managed to keep myself out of trouble and towards the front through the start and figured that things would settle down and sort themselves out once we were out of town and left to our own devices and they sort of did.

Once clear of the car and town a pretty big group moved off the front because of the rolling nature of the course. In hind sight I probably should not have stayed with this group but I did. Rather than riding at a steady effort level there were a few guys that really wanted to keep a certain pace, this meant riding extremely hard on the hills, soft peddling over the tops and coasting on the down hills. This of course leads to the group stringing out on the hills and collapsing on itself over the tops. I had read somewhere that if you qualify, make it to Paris and through the first 50km you are half way done with PBP. One rider in our group had a pretty bad crash in the opening 50km, I really only heard it to start with as it was behind me, but turned in time to see a riders skidding across the yellow line eventually getting his bar turned 90 degrees and flipping, it looked PAINFUL.

One side effect of the crash was a reduction in size of the front group that continued to work poorly together. Eventually I played the roll of “little sister” and needed to pull over, amazingly after 2 hours out nobody else did so even though I rode to the front of the group and asked along the way I pulled over alone to water some grass. Eventually the second group on the road caught up to me and I joined in to pull the group along with 3 or 4 others and a bunch of hangers on. I had added a 3rd water bottle cage to my bike so I could avoid using a camelback and I was glad to have it as the first food and water stop was 140km in and I just made it, I now think that for a brevet bike 3 cages is mandatory if they fit on the frame. Though with the location of the bottle and the spacing to the front wheel I have to stop and pour the water into one of the other bottles, which again lead to the group riding away from me, c’est la vie.

After the start things are mostly a blur until the Loudeac sleep stop, lots of rolling hills, agricultural land, sunflower and corn fields, some nice forested areas as well. I also made one of my worst mistakes during this stretch, I had stopped to get out my “rain kit” (a garbage bag with 3 holes to make a vest, latex gloves, newspaper bags for the legs and a shower cap all stuffed into a small sandwich bag) after putting on the shower cap and putting the rest in the handle bar bag so as to have quicker access to it I rode off without zipping up my seat bag. I lost all my chamois cream for the day, tums, several packets of gel and the dark lenses for my glasses before my spare tail light fell out exploding on the road alerting me to the open bag. I also came very close to wrecking in a wet round about, coming into it far too fast and having to bunny hop onto the side walk then again over some rocks back onto the street going the right direction, definitely got my heart racing. At the Loudeac stop I ate a hot meal and tried to find my dad, he had started in the 5th wave of 90 hour riders and was due to leave about an hour or so after I’d arrived. It had taken me just over 19 hours to complete the first 450km which I was pretty happy with. I checked for him again after eating and noticed that his drop bag was gone which would mean that he had it somewhere. After changing into a clean kit and restocking food, cream etc, I did not take a shower since it had been raining off and on all day and was continuing to do so into the night, I headed back out.

I did not make it far, I have been trying to break in a new saddle for a few weeks and have not gotten completely used to it. I actually did not even make it back out to the road before turning around and rolling back to change my saddle, yes I brought a second. While doing this I noticed my dad’s bike and his drop bag still missing so after changing my saddle I looked around again and finally asked to check the sleep area for him since I had seen people that he rode in with leaving. The guy at the sleep area found him pretty quickly and a check of his sleep request showed that he wanted to be awoken at 1am to get back on the road, at this point it was 2:30am, OUCH, lost time is a killer. I finally headed back out into the rain to see how far I could make it without sleep as my dad got ready.

Sleeping on the tables

I was pretty groggy at this point and besides the rain and this being probably that hardest part of the course, two things of note happened during the next 40km to a food and sleep stop (but not a checkpoint). First is, I pulled onto a side road to take a leak and did not notice how much lower the side road was than the main road. When I tried to get back on and ride I did not push hard enough to make it back up onto the road and teetered into the tall wet grass on the side of the road, definitely time to get some sleep. The second was much more serious, though I did not think much of it at the time. There was a gas truck in the ditch on the side of the road and a couple of emergency vehicles at the bottom of a roller. It turns out that an american named Thai from the DC Rando group was killed during the night, probably not long before I went by, though I don’t know the exact circumstances. Really sad.

Dad crossing the bridge in Brest

Dad and I together at the Brest control

When I made it to the next stop I tried to just put my head down on the table without success and eventually went and got a bed in the gym. I had made it 490km in the first 24 hours. I woke about 30 minutes before I’d asked to be so just got dressed and on the road. The only thing I really remember from the morning is being hungry on the first bit headed out to Carhaix. After some food I perked up and started on the last leg out to Brest. Up until this point, besides the rain we had been really lucky with the weather. It was cool, foggy and the generally west wind had been from the northeast, meaning a cross tailwind, along with the rain. On this last stretch the prevailing west wind picked back up which made for a long grind, it did not help that there is something like a 25km gradual climb as well. Of course the start of the climb really did not seem like it was uphill until you noticed the riders going the opposite direction coasting and not slowing down. This is followed by an equally long downhill into Brest, a few rollers and it is across the bridge. Next you have to fight a never ending series of roundabouts along the coast and back up into town and the control. Thought there were several bands out play at intersections that helped get your mind off the repeated slowing and accelerating through the roundabouts. I arrived at about 3pm, it had taken just under 34 hours to make the outward bound journey.

I quickly made my way in and checked in and as I was headed to fill my bottles I ran into my dad again. He had passed me while I was “sleeping”. We decided to try and stay together for a bit and planned on stopping at a Creperie in a small town not too far out of Brest. In the town where the Creperie is we ran into Irene T. from Boulder and Deb who she was riding with and is planning on moving to Boulder. They had actually been riding with my dad off and on a bit and after convincing them that they had a bit more time than they thought to make the next check point they joined us for a nice light meal. After eating the long climb was a breeze, not to mention the west wind pushing us along. We made it into Carhaix in pretty good time and pressed onto Loudeac and another short night of rest.

Waiting for our crepes

Rider sleeping on the side of the road, very common by the 3rd day

I again woke on my own before I had asked to be and just got ready to go. The whole 3rd and into the 4th day were kind of surreal. All sorts of things that you would never see in the US. Whole towns would be out with tents set up to feed and fuel the riders. Families, baby to grandma/pa, would be out on the street to cheer ALL the riders as they passed. There was a row of high school aged kids on a bridge making a ton of noise as you approached and did the wave as you passed (in the US you would be more likely to get stones thrown at you by such a group). Families would have tables out with water, soda, juice, beer and wine for the passing riders, they would even just leave the stuff out at night for passing riders. On top of that you have riders that can barely control their bikes weaving all over the place. Silver burritos laying on the side of the road next to bikes (you have to take an emergency blanket, not a rule but everyone does) and sleeping riders on park benches and in phone booths. Many of these riders had literally ridden until they fell over and just wrapped themselves up where they lay.

One thing that I had missed on the way out was the food at Tinteniac. I had not stopped to eat there since the hot food was upstairs and who wants to have to walk up stairs in the middle of a 1230km bike ride? However, in the morning I had not eaten at Loudeac before leaving and was starved by the time I made it to Tinteniac and so forced myself to walk up the stairs to the food which turned out to be the best hot food I had at a control. They had well marbled prime rib that was very tender with a mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes, which the sauce improved. Most of the hot food options at the controls were relatively bland which is good for the stomach but eventually you need something with more flavor. Rice, pasta and mashed potatoes where supplemented by boiled chicken, fish or pork and a mild sauce. Another thing was the drink choices, of course there was water, regular and carbonated, then there were the sodas and juices last there was the beer and wine, an unbelievable amount of which was consumed by riders during the event.

While it seemed as though everyone was suffering, I had gone through that on the first day, fighting cramps for well over 200km. I felt great on the 3rd day, not that I could get up and sprint up a hill, but I could grind out high steady speed and never seemed to get tired. Anyone who has ridden a truly long event with me knows that this is never the case and I usually fade big time so I wanted to milk the good feelings as long as I could. I actually had people telling me that if I slowed down and let them draft the whole way they would keep me company??? I on the other hand could already smell the finish which was still over 300km away. I was still getting passed on the hills by people that would sprint up them but then they were so tired that they could not get on when I would go by on the flats or downhill. Riding out of Villaines de Juhel I spent some time riding with a 17 year old local kid who was out for a quick training ride and was probably going to head back to the control to help out afterwards.

Just follow the signs

The next control is Montagne au Perche which was just a food stop on the way out. This was a pretty well stocked control and I was able to check on dad’s status with their internet connection which was nice. Again the whole town is out checking out the different bikes and helping to support the riders. It was at this point that I really started to beef up my caffein intake. I switched from 2 vitamin I’s to 1 and an Excedrine, from Orangina to Coke and from solids on the bike to caffeinated gel packs. On the bike I never felt tired but when I sat down to eat at the controls I would fade quickly. There were several big climbs out of Montague that slowed me down and by this time it was dark again so you just had to follow the bobbing lights. Of course the further I got from the control, there would be fewer and fewer lights on the road in front of me and more lights sleeping on the side of the road. This bit has several very long sections where you stay on the same road so there are not many route markers and I started to get nervous that maybe I had gotten off route. Every once in awhile I would catch another rider but there were no groups. Eventually 2 support motor bikes went by and that was a huge relief since it meant that I was indeed on the right road. Shortly after lots more riders started popping up in front of me. Apparently I had ridden through kind of a “dead” zone where people that would have been there had all stopped because of the time that they were at the previous control, or were already sleeping on the side of the road.

Pre-ride with the David's Salon girls

I pulled into the final control at Dreux at about 3:30am. They had some amazing chocolate croissants from a local bakery which I naturally had a few of along with coffee mixed with hot chocolate. The last bit started off flat and fast through farm land before entering some rollers and finally a hill of two in a wooded area. Eventually I popped out into the small local villages that surround the starting town of Saint Quentin en Yvelines (SQY). This was a section that dad and I had ridden prior to the start with the Dave’s Salon team, so I knew where to go and did not have any navigational worries. Arriving back at the start I finally rode round the dirt track to get to the line, before the event I had walked when on the dirt (you don’t want to have to deal with a flat before you even start), and into the arms of a waiting volunteer who thankfully helped me get my bike down the steep ramp to the track. I final grovel up the very large steps to the gymnasium and the finishing control by which point I’d gone from completely awake while on the bike to ready to fall over of exhaustion. I had finished right at 7am on Thursday morning finishing off a 24 hour 450km push from Loudeac back to SQY.

My tired packing job

After finishing I had to wait for dad. Having passed him at Tinteniac with 360km or more to go I did not really know when to expect him. I had been able to check on his progress at times when the controls had internet but one of the magnetic chip readers was not working so I kind of lost track of him since it did not record and update his position when he arrived at that control. Anyway, I had plenty to do with getting food in me and trying to check back into the hotel and being told I had to wait till at least noon. Then I decided to take apart and pack my bike which in my drained state took only 4 hours. Eventually one of the ladies from the David’s Salon group headed to the finish to await some members of their group and keep an eye out for my dad as well. We got a call back at the hotel at 4pm that my dad had finished, 92hours 44minute. Once he was back at the hotel I walked back into town, should not have taken the bike apart, to get some food which we inhaled before crashing out for a much needed full night of sleep.

I really had no real expectations other than finishing, experiencing the event and seeing how my body reacted. In the future I think having a clear plan of going fast or taking my time would be better. Having finished with more than 10 hours to spare on the 84 hour time I obviously could have gotten quite a bit more sleep. Though I slept twice and woke up on my own both times so I’m not even sure how much more I’d be able to sleep if I tried. It is tempting to try the ride during the day method, where you do the first 450km to Loudeac then 330km to Brest and back, 310km from Loudeac to Montagne au Perche and a final 140km to finish, each day after the first starting at first light and hopefully finishing before dark. Though I don’t know how my legs would react to the long rests at night or if I would even be able to sleep through the night to make it worth while. The other option is to convince a couple of suckers (friends) to go with me and stay committed to staying together and working finish as quickly as possible.

Some shots from PBP

2011-08-26T03:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos my dad took before and during his PBP experience. I did not carry a camera figuring that I would not want to stop and use it.

The gymnasium during his check in was busier than during mine when there was no body there,

Here are people getting queued up to start on the running track,
One of the first controls, since he started at about 7:15pm he rode through the first night,
All the controls had cafeteria style food service, some better than others. Most were pretty bland, which was good for the stomach, but the one with prime rib made me want seconds, though over eating probably would have been bad. Back on point, the further along in the ride, the more people you saw like this,
Even though there were sleep rooms with mattresses and cots fro sleeping.

There were several spots out on course where there were photographers, but not here,
on the bridge in Brest not too far from the Brest control and right at the mid point of the ride.

Dad and I at the Brest control, Irene T from CO took the photo,

Relaxing at a creperie just outside of Brest on the return trip,
On the return, particularly the last 450 km this became an increasingly common sight,
Riders would stop where ever they could and pass out, at night most were using emergency blankets and it would have been hard to find a park bench or phone booth during the night.

Riders on their way to...
an example of the sign we were following.

We are DONE

2011-08-26T00:22:00.000-07:00

Both dad and I finished PBP!

Dad finished on Thursday afternoon at about 4 pm making his time about 92.5 hours.

I finished on Thursday morning as the sun was coming up, just under 74 hours after starting.

We even managed to ride together for about 160 km from Brest back to the main sleep stop.

We both took one fall, not a crash. Mine was mostly comical and a good sign it was time to take a break, dad's was a bit more serious, but he's fine and there is nothing to be concerned about.

Ride report to come later. Right now we have to get more sleep, pack bikes, dry cloths etc. for our 6am ride to the airport tomorrow morning.

PBP 2011, Dad is out on Course

2011-08-21T10:48:00.001-07:00

So I just checked and dad has made it out onto the course. Here is a shot of him as he left the hotel to go to the start area and get in the queue,

The 90 hour group started leaving at 6pm (or possibly a bit later) in waves of 500 riders, dad got on course at 7:15pm.

PBP 2011 is about to Start

2011-08-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

On Saturday dad headed to the ride start area to get checked in and I tagged along to see what the situation was. I did not make it very far because there were a bunch of people, bikes and you had to be checking in to get into the area, so I just headed back to the hotel to rest some more. This morning I headed back to the start area to check in and was somewhat surprised that there was no line whatsoever,

This is largely due to the fact that all the 80hr, 90hr and special bikes (5,000+)were checking in yesterday to start today and today was just the 84hr riders (less than 1,000?)

Here is my WW, for the most part PBP ready,
With a little treat on the back for after the ride,
I like porto which is usually red and when I ask about white porto people usually look at me like I'm crazy. I saw a bottle of it when dad and I were getting lunch at a small grocery store since most restaurants are closed on Sunday's and the store closed at 1pm as well, so I picked it up. I think, in general the white porto is less bitter and dry, not that the red is bitter or dry compared to most regular wine to begin with.

Anyway, time to head down to get dad off to the start. He starts tonight, Sunday sometime around 6pm here 6-9hours ahead of the US and I start tomorrow, Monday morning at 5am. PBP has rider tracking and we will be wearing ankle bands that will record our presence at each check point, you can follow at this PBP site, dad's frame number is 4459 and mine is 8224.

Friday Paris Tour and Quick Ride

2011-08-20T08:32:00.001-07:00

On Friday, after all the walking around Versailles the previous day, we just wanted to rest. Given that we had signed up for the Paris tour that Clauss with Des Peres Travel puts on, and we had heard that it was a lot of driving around looking at things but not much time exploring, it seemed as though we would get to give our feet a rest.

After breakfast we met up with everyone from our hotel who was going on the trip and boarded the bus. Dad and I sat in the back with David Charlton of David's Salon which is a hairdressing chain in the Philippines. Now David must be one of the best bosses ever, David's Salon sponsors a race and club team. About a year ago, one of the girls on the race team brought PBP to his attention and he made the offer that anyone who qualified for PBP he would pay for their trip. In all honesty he only expected a few to make it, instead 10 members of the club qualified as well as the girl from the race team. On top of that David qualified as well despite having had heart bypass surgery a year and a half ago.

Any way, here are some shot from the tour, Arc de Triumphe

In front of the Eiffel Tower,
The worlds best or luckiest BOSS, David Chalton, and some of his girls,
City bikes, in Paris you can check out a bike and ride it for free for half an hour, then it is 1 euro per hour after,
Looking in the front of Notre Dame cathedral,
The back side of Notre Dame,
Man purse alert in front of the Louver,
After the tour we decided that we would get out and try to ride the start of the PBP route to loosen up the legs. One bad thing about going on the tour is that there was a CA rando group ride that went out in the morning and did this with leaders that knew where they were going. So we figured we were going out to get lost. The bike room at this point is getting pretty crowded here at the Holiday Inn,
The David's Salon team came out to get lost with us,
And, I made sure to get us lost, but then found again. We rode out about 15 miles and only missed one short section on the way out. On the return trip we followed the route correctly until we ran into a couple that had done the ride before and we followed them the rest of the way in, taking the roads that are the finish of PBP which is a bit different than the start.

PBP and Trip to Versailles

2011-08-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today after breakfast most people headed off to see some sights. Dad and I caught the train to Versailles and walked to the Chateau. On the other hand, the Seattle Rando group apparently went for a 90 mile ride, guess they can't get enough.

In front of the entrance were these tall (22 meters) curved features on either side of the path.

The inscription said 85.5 X 16 which did not make much sense at the time. We had bought our tickets at the info center so we would not have to wait in line to buy them at the Chateau. Here is the line for people that had pre purchased tickets.
At least it moved quickly and we did not have to wait to buy the tickets and then get in this line.

Versailles is completely over the top, not unlike the Forbidden City in Beijing, but with different tastes. Here is dad taking a picture through the ornate front gate.
In China you hire a tour guide for about $15 for a specific location, here is our tour guide for Versailles,
In the opening corridor there are sculptures of loads of important figures from French history lining the walls and a couple of them are in repose.
The chapel with the over the top ceiling and organ,
The original "Hall of Mirrors", kind of like the play house ones but not quite.
Incredibly ornate carvings in the ceiling,
In China most of the interior work was done in wood and the marble was reserved for outdoor spaces, in Versailles there is tons of stone inside.

Military guarding the garden with with semi-automatic weapons,
It is striking the difference between the Asian gardens and the one at Versailles. In China it seems like they try to imitate what they like about nature for the gardens, while in Versailles they force nature into forms that suit what they want.
Here is another of the curved sculptures. This one 216.5 X 5, meaning there are 5, 216.5 degree arcs making up the sculpture.
More forcing nature into something it is not, which way do we go?
The garden is huge, if there was no one else there or you did not have a map it would be very easy to get lost. The shear size dictates special "tools" for the gardeners as well,
After we returned and rested we checked out the bike room here at the hotel. It is starting to get crowded,
There is a whole crew on matching bikes with matching bike boxes. They are from the Philippines and they are the David's Salon women's team. I guess David is a British ex-pat who runs a chain with 400 shops, in 2007 after PBP he offered to pay for the trip for any of his employees that rode and qualified.....not a bad job perk, in addition they will do a week long cycling tour of England after PBP is done.

We then checked out the bike room over at the main hotel, closer to the start than ours,
Bike boxes stacked to the ceiling and barely anywhere to walk. I have no idea how you would get your bike out if it was against the wall.

Paris Brest Paris Preparation

2011-08-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting preparation for PBP this year, largely because of our trip to China from March 30th through July 13th. I had to ride the Arizona brevet series so I could finish the qualifying events before we left, only the 200km event had been run in New Mexico by the time we left. After completing the 600km event in Arizona with my dad on March 20th I stripped my bike and hung the frame since with a regional climbing competition the following weekend at Stone Age I was going to be route setting and not riding. I had managed to put in just shy of 2,000 miles in the first two and a half months of the year, stuff that I'd read says that you should aim for 5,000 plus by the time PBP rolls around.

Once in China I managed to find a couple of other guys that rode regularly, one even had an extra bike that fit reasonably well, though it was a hardtail mountain bike. I was able to get out a couple of times with him him before my parents came out to visit us in China for a couple of weeks at the beginning of June. We had a great time traveling with them and seeing a good bit of China. Once back in Dalian I just borrowed the bike for 2 weeks and rode as much as possible which at this point was pretty painful. Feeling heavy fatigue after 2 or 3 hours is not promising when looking at riding and event that will require me to peddle 50+ hours in 3 and a half days.

Once the end of June rolled around it was another 2 weeks off the bike as we left Dalian to travel with Linda's parents and do a little bit of climbing in Yangshuo. As soon as we got back to the US I picked up Chris's commuter bike and starting riding as much as possible which involve a very painful first 3 days suffering from jet lag, dehydration, extreme heat and general lack of fitness (not something you want in the middle/late part of July). I needed to get a ton of riding in in a short period of time since you want to rest for the couple of weeks before PBP.

On my second weekend back Dani was nice enough to drop me off in San Yisdro at 8am on his way to the Durango century and I rode out to Bloomfield about 125 miles away where Chris picked me up on his way out to the century. Then on Sunday I rode the century staying with the lead group until the steep hills in Farmington where I promptly exploded off the back of the group and proceeded to finish off the ride largely alone. There was a section of about 30 miles where I would have been happy to just lay down on the boiling pavement then get flipped 10 minutes later, bet I would have tasted good. Chris finished with the first group in 4:02, Dani with the second in 4:10 and I came in right at 5 hours out. All in all I thought it was a good weekend for me, even though there were times both days where I was really having trouble, but hey I'd only been back for just over a week. This weekend was also important because it marked the first 2 ride on a new frame that a friend built for me specifically for brevets and traveling. Here it is on the first day just outside of Cuba, New Mexico.

The next weekend involved getting a longer ride in than normal on Thursday of 45 miles then 60 very hilly miles on Friday in the East Mountain area. Saturday started at first light and involved a loop a had not ridden before. Heading down the Rio Grande valley past Belen and onto Hwy 60, then around to Mountainair and back into Albuquerque through the East Mountain area again for 155 miles. The best part was that I basically felt great the whole way. On Sunday I started quite early to get some riding in the dark in. I headed out to Santa Fe and back then around Tramway once I was back in town. Again I felt good for the whole ride. This weekend really made me feel good about my chances of finishing PBP, which is a good thing since I only had one more week before I needed to start riding less to let my body recover.

The last weekend was just getting an extra ride in on Friday. Starting in the dark again and heading from the house to the top of the Sandia crest and back down to Cedar Crest where Linda met up with me and we headed back up to do a 4 pitch climb in the Sandias. On Saturday, Dani and I headed out to Taos where we rode on the enchanted circle, though the circle itself is only 90 miles so we did the prettier 2/3rds of it and turned around an rode back for 120 miles over 4 mountain passes, 2 each way. Dani was still able to ride away from me pretty easily when things went up, but at the same time I felt like I could just peddle my pace for very long periods of time which is the important part.

I feel like I'm not as prepared as I'd like but I've still done enough and certainly as much as I could with the traveling that we got to do around China. All in all I think I'm at about 3,500 miles for the year so quite a bit short of where I should be, but not terrible considering there we 3 months where I rode a total of 3 times. I have no idea what to expect, how my body is going to react but am pretty confident that I can finish, though maybe not as fast as I'd like.

First Full Day In France

2011-08-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

The Holiday Inn we are staying at is pretty nice. The rooms are small but the breakfast is great, especially the chocolate croissants. There are controllers for the air conditioning which I thought was on when we arrived yesterday, but it would not work at night, apparently the system is just being put in and will not be done till next week. The community is very welcoming and people ask if we are here for the event.

Today we spent most of our time with a few other riders from the US that are staying at the same hotel, Craig and Lori from different parts of CA who ride a tandem together on some events and Jim from Pittsburg. Craig has ridden PBP 3 times, Lori and Jim once each, last year in the rain.

After lunch we headed to the start area to make sure we knew where it was and could find it without much trouble when we needed to for bike check on Saturday and to get to the start on time. Here is the sign over the entrance taken of Lori.

In the morning we headed out to find the bike shop and while Craig and Lori had been there before we started out going the wrong way from the hotel and rode in a circle for awhile before putting the start town into Jim's GPS and heading off in the right direction. Once in the town we followed Craig and Lori to the shop. Here we are in front with Craig and one of the shop employees, Lori behind the camera.
Jim knew of an easy way to walk to the main shopping and eating area so we all followed him out later to get some diner. On the way we passed this custom t-shirt shop.
We all ate at an Italian restaurant together. Dad and I both got a fish dish that came with eggplant lasagna and BACON wrapped asparagus, YUM.
For lunch we just got the ubiquitous baguette sandwiches that you can get anywhere in France. So we managed to get a bit of riding in, more than we had planned, today and eat some pretty good food as well. Tomorrow, I think we are going to try to go to Versailles.

Off to Paris-Brest-Paris

2011-08-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we headed to the airport so I could fly to CA to meet up with my dad and head off to Paris-Brest-Paris. I checked in and met Linda and Dylan up by security to wait for Linda's mom, who is a hero to us, to arrive. After saying the hellos and goodbyes I was off.

I'm pretty excited but anxious about the ride. I'm definitely behind on training, though I did about all I could since getting back from China 4 weeks ago. I'm very happy with my new bike frame that my friend built for me, it handles quite a bit better when loaded and allows me to ride in a more upright position for the long miles. On the other hand I spent the last month trying out different saddles and now have 2 with me. I will start on one and have the other in my drop bag that I will go by twice, at 450km and again about 300km later so I can switch them if there is an issue with the new one.

Anyway, I spent Sunday in CA visiting with family and helping my dad pack and pick up last minute things for the trip. We also made a stop by my parents house that burned just after the New Year. Still nothing has been done, though plans are in process. Here is a view of the wall that burned down.

And again from the inside, the contractors have used plywood just to keep people out and tarps on the roof to try and keep water out.
Looking up from the kitchen/dining room through the burt roof.
Down stairs is not too bad, though there is a bit of water damage in most of the rooms.

On Monday it was off to Paris on an Airbus A380, the newest of the jumbos, bigger than a 747 by a fair bit. It is a full double deck and seats about 525 with a wingspan about 20 feet wider than the 747.
After getting through customs, we had to pick up luggage and our bike. Everyone that is using the same travel agent piled their bikes together to be loaded on a truck and delivered to the hotel that they were staying at in the starting town. This is the first wave of American bikes invading France, there will be another group arriving on Thursday.
We had to wait for quite some time for the bikes to be delivered to the hotel and once we got them everyone at our hotel was out on the grassy lawn assembling. After a couple of hours, my wheels needed to be trued, and my dad was helping another rider who had never taken off his rear derailer before we had functioning bikes and could head out to find food. By the time our days adventures were over it was 8:30pm and time to get some rest.

We are home

2011-07-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

Well actually it has been a few days, but we have settled back into being home now and are mostly unpacked. Here is Dylan doing what he does when we return home from a LONG trip,

celebrating with his long lost toys.

China Post #41 Li River Cruise and Bus

2011-07-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Guilin Linda was giving a presentation on environmental responsibility to the workers at Ging BaBa's company. They grow organic mushrooms and other product and then make them into Chinese medicine. While she was giving the presentation Dylan and I headed out on the true Li River cruise. We were picked up at the hotel by a van and met up with a bus that took us right past the tourist shops that we had stopped at on the Chinese tour and straight to the dock. There were certainly shops at the dock but that was to be expected and we were not there for long anyway. We boarded a boat with 3 levels, two inside and the last outside as well as some decks on the second level. Once onboard we joined the procession of boats on the Li River headed towards Yangshuo.

As we were motoring along the river these guys on bamboo rafts would paddle up to the boat at an angle and ease their way in to be able to grab hold and tie up to the boat.
They would either be selling fruit or some type of souvenir, you could do your shopping on the river.

There were countless beautiful sights along the way, including this that is considered one of the best in all of China, shown on the back of the 20 yuan bill.
Here is Dylan enjoying his boat ride.
After making it back to Guilin we had to get things packed up to head to Wuzhou the next day. Wuzhou is where Linda was born and her family lived before moving to Hong Kong briefly en route to Dallas. In the morning we headed to the bus station in Guilin and Linda took some pictures of the snacks that you could get in the station, such as these.
The scenery continues for hours outside of Guilin with seemingly endless karst peaks and small farming town tucked in the valleys between.
It took about 3 hours before we finally emerged from the karst forest into a landscape of more rolling hills. Wuzhou took about 4 hours to get to in total and is quite a bit lower, there is a river that flows down from Guilin to Wuzhou. Wuzhou is a small city built around the confluence of the river from Guilin and a larger river which dominate the landscape along with the rolling hills.

China Post #40 Yangshuo 1

2011-07-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

Quick post before we head off to Linda's home town where we will not have internet access.

Busy night scene on West Street in Yangshuo.

On our first day we hired a "guide" to take us climbing. It was going to cast us about half as much to rent a rope and hire a car to get us out there and back anyway. Our guide, Dane, was great with Dylan and Popo so it was well worth the 400 yuan. We headed to the Egg on the first day, the trail head.
Popo and Dylan hanging out in an arch that separates 2 sections of cliff at the Egg.
Dylan with Popo and GonGong.
Linda cleaning a 5.10+ that was really reachy in the upper half.
Interesting family store next door to the climbing shop that we used and hired Dane through.
Whoops, forgot to rotate this one. Anyway, this is the sign at the gate to Moon Hill, lucky for us they don't enforce it, it is probably meant more for scrambling though.
The view looking out through the moon hill arch back down at the village where our hotel was.
Starting up the great route, Over the Moon 5.12c
High on Over the Moon, right before my lack of climbing and related fitness reared its ugly head resulting in various responses from the spectating hikers.
After my battle I needed a cold drink which we bought from this little 70 year old woman that hikes up the 800 steps to Moon Hill every day with a cooler, she also has beer.
Our guide/friend Dane riding the Flying Horse, the Chinese name for Over the Moon, while cleaning the route.
This is the sign that guards the trail to get to the actual top of the Moon Hill arch.
Linda and I climbing the pole planted in the very top of Moon Hill.
The family in front of the hotel in the small village below Moon Hill, the Yangshuo Village Inn.

China Post #39 Guilin Li River Tour

2011-07-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

We woke up our first day in Guilin and headed out for Guilin ni fun, or Guilin noodles.

Basically rice noodles with some meat, an egg and all sorts of sour or spicy chopped veggies to put on top of them. After breakfast we were picked up by the tour company in a van, driven a short ways and transferred to a bus. It appeared as though we were headed for the docks for the Li River cruise which is one of the "must do" activities in many of the China guide books. How ever we were on a Chinese tour and not a Westerners tour. Shortly after the road sign to the docks we pulled into a little souvenir mall on the side of the highway. OK, just get through the 20 minutes we were going to be there and get on or way, they turned the bus off which meant that we had to go in since sitting in the bus in 90 degree temperatures is not really an option. Once we got on the road we immediately made a U turn, WHAT. Then it got better, the tour guide I guess said that we could take the regular road or if everyone would pony up some money we could take the toll way and get to Yangshuo faster. Pretty much everyone wanted the toll road so we made good time to Yangshuo and headed to a temple. By now we had figured out that it was not the Li River cruise that we were on but a tour that included a short excursion on the Li River. At the temple there were Buddha's and stairs, of course. There was also a.....
And here are Dylan and GonGong looking at the fish around the other "coptive anlimals"
We drove past Moon Hill on several occasions and had lunch across the street from the trail head which just made me drool since it is one of the feature crags of Yangshuo.
We headed to the dragon cave which was interesting. You take a boat through small lake at the entrance then walk through the cave which is filled with colored lights to highlight the different stalactites and mites.
Finally we were able to get on the Li River. The boats that we took were these things made out of sewer line sized PVC pipe.
Linda and Dylan on the boat with karst peaks in the background.
I really don't know how to describe it, there are peaks everywhere. It is kind of bizarre how they seem to be never ending. Here is one with a bunch of water streaks called "Painted Hill of Nine Horses" since it is claimed that there are nine horses, I could only see a few.
Taking a boat on the Li River is really amazing and totally worth the time. Even when you are subject to the hard sell. We were taken to a shop of sorts were they seat everyone in a room and talk about their product and how good it is then bring you into the show room and try to sell you stuff, all the time the door is kept closed so that you can't leave. Anyway, it was an adventurous day that got us to Yangshuo and on the Li River even if not for as long as we had hoped.

China Post #38 Photos for #37

2011-07-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Here is what we were greeted by when we got to the Dalian airport.

Crowds of people waiting to even be allowed to check in, some were apparently getting belligerent.
More crowds around the gates waiting to board buses to the planes.
The pathetic excuse for fog that caused all the delay.
The flight we were on was supposed to leave at 8am and eventually left at 6:45pm, I don't think our flight ever left since it was scheduled for 4 and a half hours later.

In the Shanghai Pudong airport there is a series of sculptures that we went past on our way to our flight to Guilin this afternoon. Dylan quite liked them.
Not sure what was on the computer but it seems interesting.
And rushing to the gate to make their flight on time.
Releasing the Shanghai haze into the plane prior to take off, it is probably cool humidified air.
The ubiquitous Chinese construction with a back drop of limestone karst peaks.
The motor scooter is more popular than the car here in Guilin.
Saw a few of these things around. Not sure what they are, kind of like a small tractor with a flat bed put on for cargo. None of them had hoods.
Linda's parents with Gin Papa and Mama at dinner after arriving in Guilin.
Here is Dylan running along through the Shanghai airport.

China Post #37 Dalian Airport Troubles

2011-07-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

So I like the fog in Dalian because it reminds me of the San Francisco bay area. However, the airport does not deal with the fog very well. On Thursday morning I said goodbye to Finbar, a guys from Ireland that we got to know a bit and on Friday morning he was back at the Shama. This should have set off the alarm. He had not been able to get out of Dalian airport because of the fog. We showed up at the airport around 10:30 for our 12:30 flight and did not see it on the board. What we did see however was an airport with about 10x the number of people that are normally there, one thing that the Chinese seem to do really well is move people through at least check in and security. After asking around we were told we could not check in and that the flight was delayed, but nothing else, no time estimate. We spent some time milling about and running into Finbar who was trying to get out again. We were then told maybe on Monday??? it is Friday. The flight was not officially canceled so we continued to hang around and got some lunch. Eventually we managed to get on a different flight to Shanghai that was supposed to leave at 8:00am and now had a boarding time of 4:00pm, at least we were going to be able to make the first half of our trip to Guilin.

We did not get on the plane until almost 4:45, OK now we are on our way. Not so fast, when we were headed to Xi'an with my parents we spent 2 hours sitting on the runway waiting, for what we don't know since we were never told. Naturally after they got us on the airplane this time we sat there until 6:45 before taking off. Since our flight to Guilin from Shanghai was scheduled for 6:50 we were going to miss that for sure. After arriving in Shanghai we had to deal with finding a flight the next day to Guilin and sucking up the lost money on the tickets for the flight we missed and finally finding a hotel for the night.

So now we are in the Shanghai airport waiting for our flight to Guilin.

This is the 3rd time out of 6 times that we have flown in or out of Dalian that there has been a significant delay. Strangely enough on another occasion the flight actually left early, so you never know what you're going to get.

China Post #36 Music Class

2011-06-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

Linda's parents have been in town for the last week and Dylan has been out of school. The school closed for the summer because the teacher is in Beijing for a few months of training. I have to say that it was nice for the three weeks or so that Dylan went to school all day and especially the last week and a half when they provided a hot lunch. Without a car it was hard to get much done when he was only going for a few hours a day, I miss driving.

Anyway, over the weekend Linda went with her parents and her coworker to see a tailor in Dalian and pick out cloth to have some pants made as well as a pair of shorts for me. Then on Sunday when I was hoping to get a long ride in, it decided to rain for the whole day. Instead we headed back into Dalian to do some shopping for gifts and mostly got wet. At least the market was not crowded because the rain was keeping people from leaving their homes.

On Monday, Dylan was invited to the music room where his school is. The room is run by his friend, Jing Gong's mother, so naturally I expected Jing Gong to be there and they would spend the time playing together. After dropping Dylan off and finding out that Jing Gong was not there I headed across the street to the sports park with Linda's parents and walked around the track with them. Here is a view of about 15-20 buildings that will be condos going up in various stages, there are more behind the ones that are closer.

At a minimum of 4 units per floor and roughly 20 stories high this should house 1200-1500 or more families. Pretty crazy, and there are at least 5 other locations around Dalian and the Development Area that are the same.

When we returned after almost an hour this is what Dylan was up to.
Yup, he was having an actual piano lesson, maybe you can get excited now mom, we will see, he seems to enjoy it but we would have to find an instructor back in Albuquerque if we want him to continue.

Later we headed with the Music teacher to where Jing Gong was taking what seemed to be a pretty advanced Chinese lesson. Jing Gong is only 10 months older than Dylan, so about 4 and a half, and was reading a chinese children's book (not one that is only a few words per page either, but more like 100 words per page) that was written in characters, not phonetics.

After the lesson was over we headed to lunch with Jing Gong's family and the Chinese teacher. Here is Linda's mom talking with Jing Gong's mom (music teacher) and Linda's dad talking with the Chinese teacher.
And of course Dylan and Jing Gong on our way to lunch.
So Dylan eventually had 3 classes in the 4 days we are here this week and Linda's mom gave several gifts to the teacher and Jing Gong. Of course Dylan got a handful of small toys as well and we were not charged for the classes.

Here is an interesting sight. A group of three street vendors.
You have the guy selling fruit out of the back of a truck, one out of the back of a horse drawn cart and a hot food (I think) cart all hanging out on the same corner on the way to Dylan's school and piano lessons.

China Post #35 Video from Sun Asia

2011-06-26T03:50:00.000-07:00

I thought this was pretty funny.

China Post #34 Sun Asia Ocean/Polar World

2011-06-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

This Saturday we headed to the Sun Asia Ocean World. It is really 3 aquariums and, what else, an amusement park all in one. We bought tickets to the Ocean World and the Polar World aquariums and made sure to steer clear of the amusement park.

At first these dolphins kind of scared Dylan, I think it was the teeth, but he eventually warmed up to them.

We got a late start so needed to find food to eat and wandered around the food stalls, though most were basically the same. Here is what was on the menu.
And.
Everything on a stick.

Here are the Coca-Cola table to eat at and apparently change you child's diapers too. Naturally the garbage can is conveniently located right below the table...
The aquariums were interesting. The Ocean World was themed around a submarine so everything was really dark and there was all sorts of piping and tubing running along the walls as well as loads of fake view ports.

Here we are looking into a "crashed UFO". It seems that aliens use toilets and watch TV the same as us, and now so do the fish.
One of the best things about the Ocean World is after you emerge from the "submarine". There is a 118 meter long tunnel that is under a tank.

Here are Linda and Dylan posing next to one of the numerous sea turtles.
And moving along through the tunnel. There was a moving walkway and a stationary one so you could ride to something you found interesting and step off.
I'm not sure this is a good idea. Or THIS might happen.
Now I don't really think this is a great idea, but hey they were out in the petting area so we took a turn. Dylan petting the young sea turtles.
We managed to see several shows, the first was the dolphin show which started out with this guy.
It was quite different than what you would expect in the US from an animal show in that it was more of a human performance supplemented by the animals. On top of that almost all the performers were not Chinese. Anyway the clown tossed out a few trinkets, one of which I managed to catch with some guy trying to climb over my back to get at it. Naturally Dylan got it and promptly lost it before we left the park. OH well.
On to the Polar World. This one was a bit depressing really, may of the animals were in really small enclosures, really just rooms. There were 3 arctic wolves, so pretty big animals, in a room not much bigger than a large bedroom, just pacing back and forth endlessly. Then there was the polar bear in a similar sized room. There were 4 arctic foxes in a smaller room that was furnished with a concrete sofa, bookshelf and a hamster wheel. It seemed as though the penguins were a bit on the warm side, they were all laying on the ice or standing with their arms out facing the fans, though it was obviously cool in the room since when they were fed the people were wearing down jackets.

There was a beluga show as well which was cool, though just see them was possibly better. Again, for such large animals the tank was small, but they were super interactive. They would swim down ad look at you through the glass and when someone else walked up they would turn to check them out too. They would follow some people along the side of the tank and react to things that you would do.
We only made it into the second half of the walrus and seal show, which was fine by me since the shows are really loud. Here the walrus is trying to pop a ballon before an audience participant can, I think the walrus won.
Out front of the Polar World in a moat filled with seals. For 10 yuan you can take a dish of small fish out and feed them. I figured hey for a dollar and a half, Dylan will never get to do that in the US, not with out some specific education anyway.
Later we even got a picture of the seal kissing Dylan, 30 yuan.

After seeing both aquariums we needed a snack. Dylan going to town on a chicken stick.
We headed back into the Polar World to catch the Beluga show after this.

Then I called the Shama, where we are staying and explained that I forgot the card for Brooklyn, the restaurant we were going to eat diner at. So one of the ladies at the front desk looked it up in the internet and I ran over to a nearby hotel where she told the lady at the desk there where it was and she wrote it down for me. Then I handed the paper to a cab driver and we made it to diner with no trouble.

All in all we had a good day out and Dylan certainly had a good time.

China Post #33 Assorted

2011-06-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some shots from another expat, Ian (EYE-an), who went with us to Dandong last month. A nice little family shot near the end of the Great Wall.

I had a shot of Linda climbing on the broken bridge and here is one of me. Since Linda would never look at the bridge and think, OH that looks good to climb someone had to start it.
And of course what mom and dad do.....
The little ones try to follow.

Of course Ian right now is stuck in Beijing. He showed up 29 minutes before his flight departed, I don't know if it was because he was running late or what but you could easily get through security and to the gate in every airport we've been through in time. Yet in China check in closes, PERIOD, 30 minutes before departure so in Beijing he stayed. Hopefully he makes it back or works something out since his flight back to the US leaves tomorrow morning at 10AM.

I had mentioned how China has invested heavily in High speed rail. Well as we sped along on our journey to Huashan we passed many of these towers in varying states of completion.
While out shopping in Shanghai we passed this store, UM Yeah, lets do that.
We also checked out this shopping mall, 4 stories high with almost 100 stalls on each floor, though after about 5 or 6 they started to repeat themselves.
You had the stores with coin purses and bags in all sorts of colorful patterns. Shops with t-shirts that had typical China images such as Mao or panda bears. Then there were the name brand shoe stores where you could get Nike and Adidas for ridiculously low prices. Outdoor clothing stores where the Mammut and Arcteryx soft shells had no stretch to them and exposed raise seams on the inside. Oakley sunglasses that were obviously not, but had the label along with $2,000 watches for 20 bucks. It really is all about the label, some of the stuff may have "fallen" off the back of the truck or slipped out the back door from the factory, but most of it was completely fake.

My favorite shop though was the Ipad, electronic accessory and lingerie store, they also had mens underwear as well.

It was interesting to see westerners walking around with suitcases full of stuff just buying everything in sight. Then of course there was this sign explaining what the mall stood for.
OK then. It is all fine and dandy to make knock off clothing and such but it has gone too far when THIS becomes an issue. This is a little too close to home for us as climbers and it seem that someone in China really lacks a conscience. Though I did not see any of this gear at this particular mall. If you ever go to a place like this just be sure that you are willing to deal with the consequences of having whatever you purchase fall apart on you. I don't think the government expressly promotes this kind of retail as the shop keepers did not want people taking photos of the product.

Enough for now.

China Post #32 Trains

2011-06-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

In the past 10-15 years China has invested heavily in high speed rail which is pretty cool. Many of the stations are closer in to towns and so the travel time is less as well as not needing as much time to check in and get through security. All in all, for trips up to about 1000 miles taking the train can actually be faster and certainly more comfortable as long as the train has assigned seating. The seats are bigger, recline further and you can always get up and walk around. The train we took from Xi'an to HuaShan had just opened a month or so ago and on the way out I had no concept of how fast we were moving, just that it was difficult to take pictures out the window. On the return trip I noticed the speedometer when it read 301 km/hr... about 187 mph and you could hardly tell, the ride was super smooth.

The next major line to open will be a Shanghai to Beijing train that will take 4 or 5 hours and is over 1000 km's, the flight time is about 2 hours plus the hour and a half you have to get to the airport, then collecting bags, so even if the drive time is the same you are still looking at about 4 hours for the flight.

Most of the high speed rail in China is with trains rated to 350 kph, but the typically only run at 310 kpm for passenger comfort. Then there is the Maglev from the Shanghai International airport to the edge of the city. The train runs off of magnetic levitation and while not as smooth it is freaking fast. They claim that the track is manufactured within 1mm over its entire length, but when you get jerked to the side 1mm at that kind of speed it is a bit harsh. While the track is built to within 1mm I'm willing to guess that the expansion joints that are quite regular might be off by a bit more. Anyway it was for me the high light of Shanghai and here is what it does.

China Post #31 Huangshan 2

2011-06-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Here are some shots from Huangshan that my dad took. He got a new little point and shoot that takes really good pictures, a Canon 965, I think.

Here we are hiding out in a tunnel trying to get oriented on the map. In China it seems that every map you get has different things on it and is really never to scale. The map that we are looking at has the whole mountain, but the maps posted along the trail rarely had more than the point you were at and the next point or two in any direction. In addition, sometimes those points did not match anything on the map.

Here is everyone, dad is behind the camera, being idiots after climbing Lotus Peak in the storm.
This is the water fall staircase I mentioned. The higher you got in it the more water you were hit with. This is because a storm drain from higher up dumped right into the top of the staircase. By the time we made it to the top water was hitting you in the chest and spraying up into your face because the wind was being funneled up the staircase.
During this episode water got up under dad's jacket and all over his new camera and yet it kept right on working, though the lens had water drops or streaks on it for the rest of the day.

Now I might be carrying a 45 pound pack with Dylan in it and all the other tourist are impressed and making comments like I'm a model father, but these guys are really impressive. There are hotels and stores up on the mountain along with trail maintenance project and they have to get their supplies somehow. These are the guys that carry the supplies up from the top of the cable cars.

The more impressive items we saw being carried were bags, yes plural, of concrete and propane canisters that were probably 100 liter or about 25 gallon, so 2.5 times the size of a typical BBQ canister, maybe bigger. Naturally it is all up and down stairs.

Last, here is mom after a wet day up on the mountain.

China Post #31 Huangshan

2011-06-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

After flying to Shanghai we took a car to the town of Huangshan. They say that after seeing Huangshan every other mountain in China will be nothing, we were glad to be going on a weekday to reduce clouds. Another thing working in our favor as far as reducing clouds was the weather. Here is Dylan ready to go in a modified poncho.

With the weather calling for rain, rain and more rain, here is what the wait looked like to get onto the lower cable car.
Not quite the 2 hours we waited to get up on Huashan. A look at the cable car ride up the mountain.
Once up on the mountain there were a few other people around though by China standards it was completely empty. Here is an interesting, naturally occurring rock formation in China.
Yep, a camera bolted to the rock wall to keep an eye on things. With the limited amount of time we were going to spend out in the foul weather mom, dad, Dylan and I headed for the highest point which is Lotus Peak and not too far from where the cab;e car dropped us off. Here is a rock pillar beside the path seen through the mist.
The wind was pretty strong near the peak, it almost knocked my mom over. Here is the summit monument, you can see that at this point my camera is getting a bit wet. Water was actually dripping out of it when I would pull it out of my pocket.
Last shot before I decided it was time to put the camera away for good. When we made it down from the peak back to the main trail we noticed this sign that we did not see on the way up.
Kind of hard to tell but it says not to climb the peak in a storm, OOPS. Anyway, my dad took some more shots so maybe I'll put some of those up later. It is a good thing I stopped taking picture and put the camera away, it took several hours before it dried out enough to work after the trip.

China Post #30 LeShan Buddha

2011-06-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

On our second day out of Chengdu we headed to see the LeShan Giant Buddha. The buddha was carved into the a high sandstone cliff over looking the confluence of two rivers that gave boaters loads of problems. To get to the buddha you start out by hiking up a trail with what else but some stairs. Along the way you pass numerous cavings of buddhas and other creatures such as this dragon behind my parents.

There is a sculpture of the sculptor, though I don't think the buddha was finished until after he had passed.
Here is a view of the confluence.
And the main attraction. The railing behind the head is about 8 feet high.
These are the stairs that you descend to get to the base of the buddha.
People milling about the buddhas feet, yes it is that big, 71 meters high.
Out past the buddha there are several other things to see including this bridge.
We had lunch at a little fishing village near the bridge and even though we asked for the food not spicy it was still pretty hot, after all this is Sichuan province where spicy food is king.

China Post #29 Pandas

2011-06-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

After Xi'an we headed off to Chengdu. We had hopped to meet up with our friend Kenny Tse from Albuquerque who has since relocated to Chengdu, Intel has a Fab there as well as the one in Dalian, however he had already planned a vacation to Vietnam. We did however use a driver he recommended to get around which was great even if it was a tight fit with the five of us.

On the first day we headed to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Mom, Linda and Dylan in front of the entrance.

We hired a government guide who spoke english, all tour guides are certified by the government in China. A short way into our walk, we opted not to take the oversized golf carts this time, we came across this statue. Naturally mom wanted a picture with me and Linda a shot with Dylan in front of it.
In addition to Giant Pandas the Base houses a number of Red Pandas. Since the red panda is a more social creature it does not take as much space since they pretty much all hang out in the same enclosure.
The first pandas we really saw were two cubs with their grandmother, apparently mom hand been removed to prepare for mating.
A young cub trying to climb, turns out that the panda is a pretty good climber and spends a bit of time in trees at least when younger.
There are numerous panda enclosures since pandas are mostly solitary creatures as adults. Here is a large female snacking away.
The panda needs something ridiculous like 20 kilos of bamboo a day since they can only digest about 20% of what they consume.

We moved on to the adolescent pen where there were several pandas hanging out together just like middle school kids. Here is one tree testing.
Here they are getting ready to let the morning siesta begin.
Since the Giant Panda is from the mountains they do no like it when the temperature s over 25 degrees celsius (77 F) and are actually move in to air conditioned pens when things get too warm. One adult in fact was pacing near the entrance to her pen about the time we were leaving at about 10:30am.

Here is dad shooting some teenaged pandas. The females at this age can still be housed together.
Much of the Base is covered in bamboo that makes for nice sheltered walking paths.
Our guide, Dylan and Linda walking along through a bamboo tunnel. However the Giant Panda is a picky eater and will not eat the bamboo that grows on the base. Their food need to be shipped in from higher and cooler climate zones.

This will naturally be my mothers favorite stop of her trip to China. We all though it was a very worthwhile place to check out and it is amazing how close you can get to the animals. You do however need to go early and preferably not during the height of summer so that the pandas will be more active. We got to the Research Base at about 8am and it was great, it wasn't even too crowded.

China Post #28 Terracotta Army

2011-06-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

On our second day in Xi'an we packed our bags and hired a car to take us out to the Terracotta Army and from there to the airport. Here is the family in front of the building that houses Pit #1 where the first soldiers were rediscovered in 1974 by a local farmer digging a well for water during a time of drought.

We hired an english speaking guide when we arrived at the park which was very worth while and about 150 yuan. Here is the first thing that you really see when entering Pit #1, the soldiers.
However it is difficult to miss just how big the building is that houses Pit #1.
230 meters by 70 meters wide or so. The place is huge, and at one time was filled with terracotta warriors in underground tunnels. The warriors in the front have been reassembled and stood in the proper location. While their comrades in arms are still in broken piles behind them. A closer view of some of the soldiers.
Here is a sideways view of the front line. You can also see the location of the well that was being dug on the right side of the shot.
At the back of the Pit #1 building, archeologists have set up the infirmary, where they bring the bits of broken soldiers to reassemble. Here a statue gets put back together and some casting.
Pit #3 is more of a headquarters. Here they are holding a meeting of sorts or ceremony.
Of the more than 6,000 soldiers only one has been found that did not need the be put back together. This is the "lucky" one, a kneeling archer.
The army was built by the first emperor of China for him to take into the after life and continue to rule. A late ruler came along and smashed the army with his own living one and burned the underground tunnels that housed the army, presumably so that the first emperor would not pose a threat to him when he made it to the after life.

So much history and an amazing sight. This was Linda's favorite thing she saw during her time with my parents in China.

China Post #27 Huashan

2011-06-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we all took a taxi from the Sofitel to the Xi'an North train station which is pretty far out towards the airport. The train station is new at this point and the trains that run through it are pretty high speed. We caught a train to the town of Huashan that only took 45 minutes with a stop (the bus is supposed to take 2.5 hours). Along the way we went past lots of farming land, each plot seemed to have a little building on it for the workers to store tools in or rest when it is really hot.

Then a quick taxi ride to the visitors center near the base of the mountain. We then had to catch a park bus, since cars are not allowed in the park (similar to what Zion does during high season and what Yosemite has talked about doing), to get to the base of the cable cars and trail to the North Peak which is the lowest of the 5 peaks. Here is a map of the mountain and believe it or not, the the steepness is not exaggerated.
Here are some people heading up the stairs to the North Peak with the cable cars hanging above them.
And since it was a holiday weekend and we got a late start, here is the 2 hour long line that we had to wait in before getting on the cable car.
Since the line made countless switch backs to squeeze so many people into a small space (about 3,000 in 2 hours) we got to see several people many many times. These two were taking a lock engraved with their names up to lock to one of the chains along the route. They were also using it to lock themselves together in line by their purse straps, the man purse strikes again.
After taking the cable car up to the North Peak you hike along a stunning ridge line that finishes with this exposed stair case right along the backbone of the mountain.
Here is a shot looking back down along the ridge line. The steep stair case is visible in the lower portion of the photo.
All along the trail and steps where engraved locks with their red banners attached. There were certainly places that were more popular than others to leave the locks, such as this one where chains were hung down the rock face.
Eventually, with mom getting worried about having enough time to get back down to the cable car before they shut down for the night I made a run for the South Peak since I had heard about a really exposed path leading up to it. I was disappointed to find that the path was just steps and paved path the whole way. Then up on the summit, this was the set up.
You had a photographer to take your picture who then handed a card to another person that took it down to a flat area just below the summit. At the flat area was another person with a computer and a pretty big photo printer that would print your summit photo for you to take down.

Also on the summit was this little pond.
More locks
Here is Linda on the way down
Along the route in a couple of spots were these guys standing on the side singing for money.
I had not noticed on the way up but the general rule here is that children under 1.2 meters are free, but in this situation, under 1.5 meters was half price. We should have gotten some money back on Linda's cable car ticket since she was standing on the balls of her feet once she figured out what I was trying to get a picture of.
Anyway, word to the wise. Visit Huashan if you have the chance, it is incredible. Don't do it on a holiday weekend. Get an early start. The exposed trail might start from between the West and South Peaks and heads up towards the South Peak, so head to the West Peak then follow signs to the Cliffside Trail.

China Post #26 UFO and Xi'an Sofitel

2011-06-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

My parents came out to China at the end of May and flew into Beijing where they meet up with XiaoWei, the same tour guide that took us around, for a few days. After that they flew to Dalian to see where we were staying. When they got in they were exhausted. We mostly took it easy and only made it out to do some shopping and walk over UFO hill, this time from the beach side. Down by where the road runs into the coastal road there are these huge dinosaur bones sculpted into the road cut.

By walking from the other side this time I got a closer view of the winged bull with rider.
We spent a bit of time up on top looking around and pointing out where things are located. Then we started down to inland side. Previously this plank path had been in terrible disrepair, now it was all shiny and new with a concrete base and engineered planks that should not rot like the logs and wood that they replaced.
I had not noticed it before, but around the pigeon ball the path had designs laid into it like at the Forbidden Palace garden.
This time as well, instead of a pond full of scum and trash there were fish and even a little turtle. There was still a bit of trash though.
On Friday we all left for Xi'an to go check out Huashan, one of the 5 sacred mountains and the Terracotta Army. We had been told by another expat that the Sofitel was very nice. Here are a few shots, the stairs leading up to the spa and fitness area,
The bed and teddy bear that they provided for Dylan, surprisingly he actually liked the crib,
and the lobby
OH and this sat out in front for much of the first day. It apparently belongs to a woman who does business in Xi'an regularly and has a room set aside for her when she is in town.
With the way people drive around here I can't imagine driving such a nice car.

Here is a shirt I saw a lady wearing one day while we were out.....?

China Post #25 Dylan and Yuna

2011-06-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

On our first morning in China we meet a nice couple from Luxembourg, though they are French. Loic and Elody have a dughter that is a bit younger than Dylan, Yuna, that he plays with quite well. They also have a young son, Enak, that is fun to play with as well.

Here is a video of Dylan and Yuna playing together when we had them over for dinner while Loic was out of town.

China Post #24 Dylan Attacks

2011-06-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

A week ago or so we had Linda's co-worker Avril and her husband Rusty over for dinner. Avril is the person that Linda is out here to mentor and Rusty also works for Intel. They seem like nice people and Dylan really took to them, so much so that he tried to corner Avril away from Rusty.

And yes, I forgot and shot it sideways.

China Post #23 Random

2011-05-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

Dylan and I have started taking the bus to get to school, it shortens the walk by quite a bit and he really likes the idea of taking the bus

Some of the drivers are really courteous and will wait for people running for the bus and others almost seem as though they are trying to keep people fro getting on. Many of the buses seem to be in desperate need of new clutches as they grind and lurch to get going.

Here is one of my favorite stores...
They sell everything, well not quite... It is mostly an athletic wear company, but the logo is the same. On another note, you can buy Nike shoes branded as Xero at some shops for about 30% of the price, I'd be willing to bet they are made in the same factory as everything looks the same.

Interesting caption on this poster,
"Dream will become your fingertips"?

Cleaning trees?
Really not sure what there were doing watering, knocking leaves off, cleaning the sidewalk, spraying pesticides on the leaves? Who knows.

A crowded train ride into Dalian.
With all the walking around we get to a fair bit of people watching. In the winter everyone was wearing kind of drab colors lots of grey, brown, dark blue, faded greens, black. Now that spring has sprung and there are leaves on the trees HOT PINK is in. Through the first month or so we were here you would see the occasional woman in the pink jogging suit, but now you can't go out without seeing hot pink shirts on guys and girls alike.
It is hard to not find the hot pink "playboy" polo shirts with the collars turned up kind of humorous. Another popular thing that becomes more apparent in spring is the couples wearing matching tops, be it hot pink or just poorly translated english.

Last, like the "mullet" in Spain, the "man purse" is huge here.
Some are more "masculine" than others and other times they are truly purses. Most are other miniaturized messenger bag variety such as this. Maybe this is more Euro than I'm used to, like the pink too?

China Post #22 Dandong Part 2

2011-05-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Dandong included a visit to the museum commemorating The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Once you realize that this tower that stands on top of a prominent hill in town is part of the museum it is pretty easy to find.

Just below the museum is this nice looking park.
Though we did not get a chance to visit it because we were running short on time and wanted to be able to make it to the Great Wall as well as the driver needing to be back in Dalian by 9pm. There was also a field with several war planes and military vehicles that you could climb around on and explore that we did not get a chance to check out.

The museum is interesting in that you can't really say that there was a "winner" of the Korean War or The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and since history is generally written by the victors there are now two different takes on the war. In the museum I did not see a mention that the US was trying to stop North Korea from taking over the South, though in US history the aid to South Korea comes after the North invaded the South.

The museum has a whole host of pretty cool and well done sculptures. The first you see upon entering the museum is this one of Mao and his North Korean counterpart along with the tourist imitating the pose.
A plaque describing the reasons for the war and ending with the Chinese and DPRK victory over the "inferior" US.
There were 2 really incredible dioramas in the museum. The first was relatively small and behind glass, though still maybe 15 feet by 6 feet. There was tons of detail and it was difficult to tell where the wall in back started.
The second was at the top of a long spiral staircase that lead up to a round platform in the middle of a larger round room. Again, a ton of detail. This time though there was a photographer up there with military uniforms so you could have your photo taken as one of the soldiers in front of the diorama.
There was a ton of information through out the museum and with Dylan I did not get to read through very much of it. I kind of wish I could get a Chinese history of the war in english so I could read through their take on the war more completely. There were a few things that I found interesting like this grainy photo of a POW showing that the US "forced" prisoners to get tattoos, apparently in Chinese?

Many of the photos presented as "proof" of claims were very grainy though. Then there were the shots of single dead insects to show that the US was using biological warfare. A claim that was rejected by the World Heath Organization but later supported by China's own investigation that may have included the confession of airmen that had been tortured.

One last thing towards the end of the museum. This map, it shows the Korean peninsula with a line at the 38th parallel and in pink, the land gained by the North and in blue, land gained by the South along with the number of square kilometers that it represents. To me, it looks like the numbers may have been fudged a bit if the map is actually to scale.
The museum is certainly worth a visit, probably 2-3 hour to get through it and actually get a real feel for the Chinese and North Korean view of the war, then some additional time to check out the grounds with the military vehicles.

China Post #21 Dandong Part 1

2011-05-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we managed to get a driver for the day. We took the opportunity to head out to Dandong which is a city right on the North Korean boarder. Dandong is interesting because of the history involving it in the Korean war. It is said that the winners of war write the history, but what happens when there is no winner?

We started the day by visiting the Yula River Broken Bridge Park. You can see Ian (pronounced "eye"an), one of Linda's co-workers who is in China for just one month. It was interesting because Ian looks much more American than we do and as such, numerous people grabbed him and pulled him into their photos.

The bridge was bombed by the USA in the Korean war to try and cut off Chinese aid to the North Koreans. Now the bridge is open to the public, here Linda and Dylan walk out the bridge.
Here is the end with some bent steel, though I would bet that there was more damage originally. You can see North Korea in the distance with the vacant concrete pillars that used to support the rest of the bridge.
You can see a ferris wheel in the distance, apparently much of what you can see at the boarder is put on like a hollywood set. Just shells and paint, nothing works, it is just to make it look appealing. You can also see a newer bridge that was later built later.

Here is a view looking south from the end of the bridge. North Korea on the left and Dandong, China on the right.
On the walk back to land I noticed that the steel girders provided nice overhanging faced with bolt head jugs on the edges. Here is Linda attracting some attention from other visitors.
After lunch we noticed this bar across the street.
After lunch we visited the museum to the war which is a whole other topic. Then we headed to the section of the Great Wall that is just out side of Dandong. It was interesting to compare this bit to the section we visited outside of Beijing. While the section near Beijing is definitely maintained, this section had been completely "restored". This just means that it has been built back up, but not necessarily as it would have been. The surface had been built up beyond where it would have been partially obscuring some of the drain and defense ports in the wall. In addition the surface has been repaired with different sized, perfectly smooth and square tiles that just look out of place.

Here is some light through windows in one of the "castles" as Dylan calls them.
Looking back down the wall as Ian comes up towards us.
Looking out from one of Dylan's "castles" at a town on the Chinese side.
Dylan trying to escape.
Dylan, myself and Ian descending very steep steps from the high point on the section of wall to the far end.
Linda and Dylan with a guard on the building that stands at the far end of the wall.
And on the front of the building, this is the far east end of the Great Wall.
and finally a little warning to watch where you go. While there is a river that separates the two countries there are places where there are several different channels and it is not obvious where the boarder is. We were warned by several folks to not go hiking anywhere that it was not entirely obvious that we were still in China, really to not head east of the wall itself.

China Post #20 Random Stuff

2011-05-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of STUFF and some thought about the shots.

I was pretty excited about the shoes I brought from the US. They seems pretty comfortable and are water proof and quite breathable. I had worn them a few times before coming out to make sure they were OK. Well apparently I did not wear them enough, I experienced quite a bit of heel lift while hiking and wore a hole through the inside of the heal cup. That hole started to tear up my socks, so I had to get some new shoe. Here is Dylan trying them out, he looks like a clown.

Even with wheel barrows and such, you still people carrying thing the old fashioned way.
Here is the front of the building that Dylan's school is in, not exactly traditional Chinese architecture.
There are random holes in the sidewalk.
Here is Dylan being a TURTLE with our laundry basket.
If you have to go to the dentist here you get to be put on display while you are worked on, a little weird.
I urinal.
Here is one of the cargo bikes, if you look the brake is a foot peddle that just presses into one of the front tires.
Here is a new bed that Dylan found, now he can be my alarm clock.
Dylan copying Linda while she ties her shoe, naturally Dylan is tying his velcro.
Not sure what brand of car this is, but I bet you can't get this model in the US.
Next up, Dandong (on the North Korean border) posts.

China Post #19 Labor Park

2011-05-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we headed in to Dalian to check out Labor Park. We'd heard that it was quite pretty and that it actually had walking paths and was not all in your face commercial. We walked to the train station in DDA passing one of these buses along the way.

Linda thinks they are really "cute" and look like some sort of insect with the mirrors being the antennae. She thinks they are so cute she wants to take one home, I'm all for it if I can redo the interior and turn it into a camper and she is willing to "feed" it.

Here we are on the platform waiting for the train, a lot of people headed towards town and not so many the opposite way.
The trains can be quite crowded and it is difficult sometime to even get on resulting in pushing matches.

Once we reached the park after a quick taxi ride we were greeted by another large gathering of people. Notice all the paper posted to the trees?
This is a weekly gathering for parents who are looking for spouses for their kids. At the top of the list is the birth year and month. There may also be job requirements or height, but it is mostly about the persons birth signs.

Then there was another area where there were a bunch of groups sitting playing card games just above a small pond.
Mow Dylan had really wanted to get a boat in Bingyou Gou because he had so much fun on the ferry ride. So we rented a peddle boat and cruised around for a bit, Dylan did some steering.
There were some older men practicing writing on the walk way. I think they were just using water.
There was a long wide walk way headed up from the pond towards a soccer ball shaped restaurant that had all 12 of the Chinese zodiac characters along it. Since nearly everyone was stopping to take photos with their's we did the same. I find it interesting that most of the Chinese seem to have a pose that they strike when they are getting their photo taken. Here is Dylan riding his pig.
After walking around on some paths through the trees, they were still paved, we came upon some fungi. There were 3 of the same type and one fat one. Here is Dylan on the smallest.
Linda on the medium,
and myself on the largest.
There was a pretty large flower garden attached to the park that had loads of lilies? in many different colors. Here are Linda and Dylan in front of some purple, Linda's favorite, and yellow ones.
Some pink and white ones back lit.
Finally we came to another entrance from the one we took and got to see the Labor sculpture.
After the park we headed a few blocks away to an Indian restaurant we had been told about called Abashi. It was not real easy to find since the name was not on the building and the location does not exactly match what comes up on the map when I did a search. Anyway, Dylan loves his Indian food and made every effort to cram as much in as he could.
It was a long day, we probably caught the second to last train back to DDA and Dylan was...
fading fast.

China Post #18 Appearance

2011-05-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

This may be specific to Dalian, I don't know having not traveled that much outside of the city. It seems as though the city streets are considered a garbage can or advertising space. You see people throw half empty drink bottles, cigarette boxes, flyers that they don't want, really anything on the ground. People also paint phone numbers and places stickers on the ground with phone numbers to advertise, I guess?

So it is a good thing that there are loads of these guys going around, the Dalian garbage men and women. Some pick it us and others use the garbage bikes to get it were it belongs.
If you think the garbage guy is burly, I don't know what this guys was moving about, but he can't even see the road in front of him.
Now up here is Dalian we are pretty far north and even though we are on the coast it snows regularly during the winter. Some trees do fine, others apparently not as well. I don't remember the numbers exactly but they were at least 1 and 2 million. Last year they planted 1 million? trees in Dalian to beautify the city and this year they are planting 2 million?. Now this is great and all because trees are good for the environment and air quality. However it seems like choosing trees that don't need to be replaced might be a good idea. As well as not planting them this close together...
Because they are so close and maybe not the right types of trees to be here you see government workers driving around in huge water trucks hooked up to fire hoses dumping hundreds of gallons of water on these trees, and one the leaves come in, which has now happened, when it rains the roots will get no water since the trees will form a complete canopy.

There seems to be some idea of what is considered idyllic. Outside of amusement parks in what would others wise be nice wilderness areas, it includes nice creeks with rocky shores like this one....
sculpted out of concrete. What good would it be if you could not control the flow of water to make it run at the proper level for the longest time? So up "stream" there is a dam and some piping. Here is the dam, the bigger rocks in the back ground with the writing on them,

Yep, concrete. If it does not look right make it so.

Obviously there is a long history of very high quality wood working in China and Asia in general. Lots of old temple and such were originally built with hand cut joints, no nails or screws etc. In keeping with that history, this was the railing along the top section of the road up to UFO hill....
Only problem, when they break...
Concrete again. Now don't get me wrong, it does all look very nice and there are even some sections of concrete stone that Linda and I have looked and wondered if we would get in trouble for climbing on. It is always interesting climbing on something man made that was not intended to be climbed.

Here is another example, once again on UFO hill. Something about this road cut caught my eye and made me look again.
You can see wire mesh that was installed to grow more grass on and cover up the rock.

Here is another thing that is very noticeable about the sky line around here. Buildings seem to go up in pairs for the most part.
Sometimes more.
And other times many more, there are places where you will have 20-50 buildings that are all the same. This is really no different than suburban USA really, it is just the scale that it is done on. That's all for now.

China Post #17 Beijing Backbone and Other Stuff

2011-05-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

Beijing has long been the capital of China and because of this has a long history. The layout of the city is interesting. There are 6 or 7 ring roads that are centered around the middle of the city and roads that radiate out from there as well. The original city was built along the "dragons backbone" and this was continued with the Olympic Park. The park was built out beyond where the original backbone ended, but along the same line. The government than connected the new section in Olympic Park with the old that runs through many of the historic sights. Here is a first shot of the backbone in Olympic Park looking away from the city. Remember that the venues are split by this open walk through the middle.

You can see how the concrete is laid differently to define the backbone. This next shot is looking the opposite direction, towards the city from Olympic Park. You can see a temple or gate, I don't remember which at the end of the backbone. I believe that was the end of the original "dragons backbone".
Now, a shot from the back side of the Forbidden City overview park

You can actually just make out the communication tower in Olympic Park just to the right of the temple in the distance along the backbone. Which then means that this spot overlooking the Forbidden City also sits on the backbone. If you remember from the Forbidden City post where Dylan is hiding behind me as we overlook the City, there is a line of temple that run down the middle of the City. Those temples lay along the backbone as well.

The backbone in the Forbidden City is more prominent. It is made of large marble blocks and stone carvings as seen here.
Also, in the temple along the backbone are thrones for the emperor that are right on the backbone as well.
Then exiting the Forbidden City and making the walk to Tiananmen Square you have the picture of Mao and a flag pole right on the line.
As well as the monument itself which I've posted a picture of Linda in front of in a previous post. Beyond the Tiananmen monument is this building astride the backbone. This is Mao's tomb.
Naturally Mao's coffin lies on the backbone inside the building. Finally after walking around Mao's tomb you come to this wall. This was near the edge of the city long ago. It is hard to see in this shot but there is another temple in the distance right through the doors.
This was after leaving the Acrobat show on the first day in Beijing. You can see several people holding flags up, those are the tour guides. Then their flock all wears matching hats so that you can find your guide and they can see if anyone has strayed from the group.
So here I caught some canary's.
And some cardinals.
And finally some bluejays.
You know this system seems just fine and dandy except once you loose the group the hat and flag do you no good. Apparently one of the guides at the Acrobat show was talking about how they had lost a client at the Forbidden City that morning around 10 or 11 and had just found them by the end of the show at 6:30. Admittedly it would be very easy to get lost in the City. Also, I found a hat for one of the clients sitting on the ground up in the Overview Park.

China Post #16 Dalian Climbing

2011-05-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

Being Wednesday evening Linda and I again arranged for an Ayi for Dylan and headed into Dalian to climb with the local group. The wall is located in the basement fitness center of the Sweetland Hotel just off of Olympic Square. Now basement might not be quite the right word since the Chinese build entire multi level shopping centers below busy intersections. There are badminton and basketball courts along with weights and a billiards area. The climbing wall is off to the side of the badminton court with a net separating it from the basketball courts. The main section of the wall is pretty much vertical with a couple of slight bulges that run the length of the wall in the third and fifth panels. The panels are about 3 foot square so the wall is pretty tall.

Then off to the right is this steeper but narrow wall. It is really too bad that there is the vertical panel in the middle coming off of a horizontal roof just below. The blue feature that runs out the middle is actually quite nice and eliminates those horizontal and vertical angles.
The local climbers are for the most part relatively new to the sport but are psyched to try stuff and improve. They always seem to be having a good time and never seem to really get frustrated because they have not expectations.

The worst thing about meeting the group to climb on Wednesday nights is that they meet from 6-8pm and the train closes at 8pm so we have to take a taxi home instead of the train, which is more expensive. On top of that the taxi drivers in Dalian never seem to want to run off the meter and always quote a price that is 1.5 to 2 time the cost of what the meter would read. I don't know if this is because we are american and they feel that they can do it to us or if they do this to everyone. Interestingly, in Beijing we never once had a taxi driver try to make extra by over charging us. Maybe it has something to do with having had the Olympics there and trying to bring things up to a standard that westerners would expect, though this means that you tip in Beijing while you don't tip in Dalian. Anyway, here is a shot looking down the street from where we are staying when we got back.
Dylan has started going to a new school that just opened this week. Since they don't have cots of food organized yet it is only for half days but will be switching to full days soon. The best part right now is that they are trying to do a "soft" opening this month and there are only 3 kids so there is lots of one on one attention. Hopefully Dylan will learn some Mandarin.

China Post #15 Tiananmen

2011-05-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

For the rest of Sunday in Beijing we had started off by walking down one of the cities original streets past several historic locations to get to the Lama Temple which in hindsight is kind of like a much smaller version of the Forbidden City except with religion as its focus as opposed to the emperor. There were the standard lions guarding the gate of which there were larger ones at the Forbidden City. The female one is the one with the "animal" under its foot, as explained by an american, or with a baby lion in actuality, while the male typically has a ball.

There was another angry dragon turtle, this is supposed to be the offspring of the dragon and Linda now thinks it is so cute. Again a much bigger one at the City but you could not get right next to it like this one.
After finishing up with the Forbidden City we stopped at this flower park. Upon entering there was this rabbit, since it is the year of...
There were lilies? of several different colors, pink, red, yellow and Linda.
After the park we headed to Tiananmen Square. We had to go through a tunnel under the large road that separated the square from the flower park and the City. Along either side of the tunnel were these carved stone panels, intermixed with army guards.
Once out in the square I was actually surprised at how empty it was, not really the lack of people because it was raining, but there was the monument
And if you turned around there was a flag pole, the building with the photo of Mao is across the street.
This is the Workers on the front side of Mao's tomb, there is a matching sculpture on the opposite side of the entrance.
And this is the one on the back side of Mao's tomb.
An exhausted father and son. After having carried him for 2 straight days up and down stairs and all over Beijing I was having to take breaks every half hour or so for my feet. All I wanted was a bucket of ice water.

China Post #14 Forbidden

2011-05-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday in Beijing we did a walking, mostly tour. After walking one of the original streets in the city we rented a bike instead of taking a rickshaw to do a tour of a hutong. This was a terrifying experience since the cranks are not connected meaning that either rider can coast or peddle at any time so one ride may be leaning right while the other is leaning left to push on the peddles. Now I'm really curious how riding a regular tandem would be.

It seemed as though any time Linda really tried to push on the peddles she would pull on the handle bars making the bike try to swerve out from under us and when I tried to correct for this I discovered that the bar was not tight and I could rotate it forward and backward, the brake levers as well. Eventually we got the hang of things and we stayed upright the whole time, though I did not get much of a chance to look around. Dylan loved it though so that makes it worth while.

After the excitement of the ride we got lunch at a noodle house and tried fried noodles, boiled noodles and steamed noodles.Here is Dylan with a noodle mustache, naturally.
Next we headed to a park were we could get an overview of the Forbidden City. Along the way we passed a nut stand that is known for having great roasted chestnuts. There was a good sized line but Linda wanted to try some so we waited. They were quite good, kind of an interesting taste. Here is Linda all happy with her purchase.
Once we got to the park where we could get the overview I was confronted with this. The Chinese, maybe all asian cultures since when we were in SE asia there were lots of stairs as well, love their stairs. I'd recommend anyone who is coming to China to walk stairs at least a couple of times a week, maybe 20 floors a day to begin with or maybe it's the fact that I have Dylan on my back for all this.
Anyway, here is Dylan hiding while we get our picture taken at the high point of the park right in line with the center of the Forbidden City.
The park and the overview is definitely worth while and we can't imagine not doing one without the other. After looking around and getting an idea of the layout of the entire city, Beijing, we headed down more stairs to the entrance to the Forbidden City. It had started to rain when we were looking around from the top of the park so here are a bunch of umbrellas entering the Forbidden City.
From the entrance we took we were in the garden first. There were these sculptures which are supposed to be some sort of magical offspring of the dragon, similar to a unicorn.
One amazing thing about the garden s that everywhere you walk there are all these tiny inlayed pebbles to make panels with pictures. I actually think that the rain made them easier to see.
It seems that they really should restrict people from walking on the tiles but then there would be no room to walk so eventually all the pebbled will be broken out from people walking on them. Here further in is a huge slab of marble that has been carved twice, once over a previous carving. It is about 36m by 3.5m.
Here's Dylan and I just outside of the ceremony temple with dragon head water spouts in teh back ground.
Another view of the water spouts, it was not raining enough but they still run. It would look pretty cool to see all the dragons spitting water from their mouths.
A pulled back view of the ceremony temple.
Here is a video of what Dylan discovered that he could do in the borrowed baby backpack. Though later he tried to go in reverse and tipped backwards, though without getting hurt since the back sticks up behind his head.

Assorted

2011-05-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my dad, last Friday.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers in our lives.

Congrats to Chris and Joanna Eckstein on finishing the Tour of the Gila. Chris raced quite well staying with the lead group on the first few days and placing well in the TT before suffering a bit on the final day. Joanna was coming back from assorted broken bones on both sides of her body.

My dad just did his pre-registration for Paris-Brest-Paris, the 1200km brevet, held every 4 years. I'll get to register in another week. Hopefully dad finished his 300km this last weekend to finish the qualifying series.

China Post #13 Great Wall

2011-05-08T20:34:00.001-07:00

After visiting Olympic Park we headed out to that great big long stone barrier. Xiaowei took us to a less traveled section of the wall and even though it was a beautiful day there was nothing that could be considered a crowd. Naturally there is a little village right were you access the wall and Xiaowei called ahead and had some chinese pancakes cooked and ready for us when we got there at one of the restaurants. After a quick snack we headed across a river and paid 2 nominal fees to cross some farmers land and were on the wall. It is really impressive...I probably did not need to mention that. It's incredible that the Chinese built a 4000-4500 mile long wall in just a couple hundred years.

The area we were in in was quite mountainous and the wall climbed, descended and weaved through the terrain. The section we were on headed mostly up for a pretty good ways then had a saddle and a quick drop to a really long climb, of course beyond the saddle the wall had not been cleaned up or maintained so things were a bit more interesting the further out one walked. Here is a view looking down towards the valley from were we started, this is actually where we first got on the wall.

Here is Dylan and I heading up...
and the whole family continuing UP...
A view looking out past the first high point, out of the frame to the left to the really high point more to the right.
From where the last picture was taken in the saddle Linda, Dylan and I headed across the hillside on a trail to make a loop and hike a longer section of the wall without having to go up twice. As we headed off through the low trees we heard some yelling and turned to see a guy charging down the wall from our previous high point before the saddle. It was an amazing display of speed, balance and agility coming down the steps and smooth surface along the top of the wall in smooth sole slippers. He wanted to collect a small fee for crossing, maybe, his land. Once we dealt with that we worked out way across and got onto the wall where it looked like this.
That was shot right where Dylan and I got back on, while Linda headed down a bit further towards the low point. This is what it looked like heading back up.
Here is a panoramic shot from the lower of the high points.
As Dylan and I headed down from the high point to complete our loop, we were confronted by this really steep section that some people were reduced to crawling up.
Looking out from one of the towers back up towards the high point.
Linda coming down that really steep section after she finished her loop.
Here is where we had lunch after hiking on the Great Wall for a few hours. Not a bad view.
After the wall we headed back into Beijing to see the Flying Acrobat Show. It was sort of like Circ'us Ole in Las Vegas. Some of the stuff the guys and girls do is pretty amazing but both Linda and I were disappointed in the choreography and timing, were could easily see everyone doing the same thing, mostly, but off by a second or two. It was worth while though because Dylan was in a trance through the whole thing.

China Post #12 Olympic Park

2011-05-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we headed to Beijing to do the tourist thing. It was a hectic weekend of running around and lots of walking, but hey we only had two days. We stayed at the Beijing Traditional View Hotel, which had its good points and bad, the first was that it was really had to find because it is in the Hutong area, which also was a good because there was lots to look at on the narrow streets around it. Anyway, that is for another post. In the morning our tour guide, yes we hired a personal tour guide, no bus for us, Xiaowei met us at the hotel and we headed out. First stop was Olympic Park. We parked in a huge underground garage and went up the elevator, emerging right in front of...

The Birds Nest Stadium is pretty cool, Linda was a little unsure of if she wanted to spend the time here but ended up really enjoying it. We just walked around the grounds looking at the buildings and getting the explanation of what different things represented. There were loads of people out selling stuff for kids to play with and Xiaowei bought this bird for him and Dylan to play with.
Here is the main walk that goes through the middle of the park. The stadium, flame and communication tower are on one side and the water cube, gymnastics facility and technology center are on the other,
At one end of the of the walk there is a nice "garden" with a bunch of trees and sculptures. Here we are in front of one called "flow".
One nice thing about having a tour guide is that you always have someone to take pictures and you don't have to ask some random person or set up a timer. Here is the stadium and the communication tower again.
The flame which used to reside on top of the stadium has been moved down to ground level so everyone can see it.
You can go into the stadium and walk around but it cost more money and would have taken up more time. The water cube also allows visitors inside for a fee that varies depending on what you want to do, look around, you can swim in the pool and apparently there is avery large water park inside as well.

It is definitely worth the time to go see the Olympic Park, especially since it is free to walk around.

China Post #11 Aircraft Carrier and Climbing

2011-05-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

This story popped up in the google news feed last month from the Taipei Times. A quick summary is the Varyag was built in 1988 by the Soviets, sold to China by the Ukraine in 1998 for $20 million as just a hull, the Chinese started refurbishing it in 2002 in Dalian and it is expected to launch later this year. It is docked just behind the huge Ikea store right at the second to last train stop on your way into downtown. After trying to go to the store called Metro unsuccessfully, since they do not allow children shorter than 1.2m or about 4 feet, we drove around to get a better view than what you can get from the moving train.

This was shot from inside the car and through a construction gate, though we could have gotten a very similar view from the top of the Ikea parking garage. A couple of interesting things. It is a ski jump style carrier, you can see the ramp at the end, as opposed to a catapult take off. It will apparently have better on board defense than an American carrier that relies on other ships for protection. Last, the reported name to be is that of the last admiral from China to take Taiwan, now that has got to go over well with the neighbors. Obviously, since this news is coming from Taipei there is going to be some bias to it.

Monday was a holiday, Labor's Day, so we got a one of the high school girls that lives in the building to babysit Dylan and we headed back up to Daiheishan to get some exercise. We had intended to try and make our way up quickly and possibly multiple times, nothing like 1300 steps to get your heart rate up. Of course we were thwarted by the holiday crowds. Again we had to be dropped off well below the trail head and make our way past hundreds of stationary cars to get to the gate. We were making our way up and had not gone too far when I heard a very familiar noise that made me stop in my tracks. It was the sound of a power drill on rock echoing off the cliffs. I found the guy about a third of the way up a cliff that looks to be 200-250 feet. Linda and I headed off in the direction of the cliff and found a group not too far from the cliff that was with the guy drilling. They turned out to be a group from Dalian that tries to get out most weekends and on Wednesdays at an indoor wall. They invited us to climb with them on Wednesday and to run a lap on the route they had just put the anchor in. After that we finished up Daiheishan and headed back to Shama looking forward to climbing on Wednesday.

With a little emailing we got directions to the climbing wall which is in fitness center in the basement of a hotel. We took a very crowded train ride into town on Wednesday at caught a taxi to the hotel. The wall was small but the people we psyched to be climbing and having a good time. We had fun climbing, meeting people and trying to figure out future climbing plans. We left a bit after 8 and caught a cab back to the train station only to find that the trains stop running at 8. So we had to catch another taxi back to the DDA which was quite a bit more expensive than taking the train 8 yuan vs. 60 yuan. Dylan was being watched by one of the Ayi's that works for another family in the building while we were out.

Here is a video of Dylan during the Wednesday morning Mommy's group that meets at the Shama playroom. He reminds me of that game where the gophers pop out of the holes and you have to whack them.

Now we are getting ready for our weekend trip to Beijing.

China Post #10 Bingyu Gou

2011-05-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we headed out to a really pretty valley up in the mountains called Bingyu Gou. From the photos that we'd seen it looked like a nice scenic valley with a river and and some limestone pillars sticking up out of the river. Now some of this turned out to be true but other thing could not have been further from the truth.

It probably was not the best day to go with it being a holiday weekend, the parking lot was full and there was a line of cars a half mile long waiting to get into the lot. Once we got dropped off and walked past the waiting cars we came to the entrance with its ubiquitous stone totem.

Now the dams in the back ground should have been our first clue as to what the park was about. We paid our entry of 120 yuan a person and we got on a ferry to go across the mini lake that the dams created. Dylan was IN LOVE with the boats.
As we motored up the river along with another boat, several others were headed in the opposite direction also loaded down with people. It is hard to see in this shot, but there is a temple on the top of the highest peak, then as you head down, a cell phone tower, power lines and another boat. Quite a contrast.
As we neared the dock we saw one of the pillars that sits out in the river, though thinking about it, it might not be "in" the river if it were not for the dams. Regardless it did look cool.
After docking and trying to get ourselves oriented, which was made more difficult by the driver we took miss translating south to north, telling us to meet him at the north entrance, which was closed instead of the south entrance. Once we got things sorted, it was into the heard. There was a resort off to the right across a bridge, a zip line to the left that you had to cross these concrete blocks to get to.
Other options included a ferry of some small boats, and everything cost more money. Here you can see the resort in the back ground and several of the rented boats to go along with another floating pillar.
We managed to find a way to get by without having to pay for one of the "activities" that involved some very steep stone steps up and over a ridge. At this point we should have figured it out but we were still holding out hope that things would get more scenic once we moved further from the entrance...remember the boats headed the opposite direction loaded with people.

Anyway, once we were past our second (first the boat then up and over the ridge to get to a bridge) water crossing we walked a short distance and were confronted with a small amusement park. There was a swinging pirate ship, water log ride, animated dinosaurs in the water around the rides, tram and mini bus rides. There was also this stone, the "beauty" stone.
For those that have not seen what some Asian toilets looks like.
Sadly at this point it was nearly impossible to enjoy the scenery. There were hoards of people and the mini buses were constantly speeding by in both directions honking their hors for people to get out of the way. All on a road that was only wide enough for a person or two in either side of the vehicle. See video at the bottom of the page. This did look pretty nice though.
Especially when compared to this. More contrast.
I was starting to wonder how much longer I was going to have to put up with the oversized golf carts, it had only been about 10 minutes when we came upon this scene at our 3rd and final river crossing. You can't see all the options here, but there is a person on a zip line, another on a tight rope with a hand line and a handful of different walk ways.

Again all costing some amount of money, and again not signs pointing to a way around without paying. We chose the cheapest and easiest option which was basically squares with gaps between them mixed with sections that were oversized rolling pins that you walked on. Dylan actually enjoyed walking across this more than I though he would.
At this point I was pretty frustrated with the whole thing. Between trying to not get shoved off the trail and not run over and having to pay for everything after paying to get into the park I just wanted to get out. Then we saw a sign saying how far we had to go, 5.7 km to the south entrance and it was all on a road, nobody was walking it but there were plenty of cars to keep us company. Ultimately one kind individual made her boy friend pull over and offered us a ride. We were both done and hopped in, I had to roll down the widow to get the door closed and stuck the top of the baby backpack out.

OH yeah, and the rock is not limestone, it is quartzite.

We met up with the driver at the south entrance and got in to head home. I though this sign was quite humorous and might sum up a lot of things from the experience. It is for a speed bump.
Here is video of one of the nicer golf cart buses.

All in all I still thing that Bingyu Gou could be a nice place but I don't think I would even consider going on the weekend again, especially a holiday weekend. The Chinese seem to have this inability to appreciate nature for what it is and feel the need to turn it into something different. If you are supposed to be having fun it needs to be an amusement park with rides. We've seen 3 now, Discovery Land, which we have not been to yet and is near Golden Pebble Beach seems like your standard park, the one just off of Xinghai Square which was OK, though expensive and finally the Bingyu Gou one which seems utterly excessive and a waste of a beautiful natural setting.

China Post #9 Xinghai Square

2011-05-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we all headed into Dalian to check out Xinghai square. The day was kind of overcast and foggy, it reminded me a lot of San Francisco. In fact the weather here is very much like in the SF bay area. This is supposed to be one of the must see locations in Dalian and billed as the largest square in Asia, though it is more of an ellipse. The main feature of the square itself is this tall totem right in the middle.

Carved into the ground around the totem are all 12 of the Chinese zodiac signs. Below the signs are the elements and below those are the years for each sign and element. Here is Dylan next to his.
Outside the zodiac circle there were fields of flowers and in the background if you looked inland, there are loads of tall buildings, usually built in pairs.
There was a bike rental place just outside of the "square". Lots of people were renting tandems and triple bikes like this one.
This group was having some trouble getting started again.

Headed out of the "square" towards the beach there is this long sculpture of footprints.
They lead to a sculpture of a boy and girl playing in the sand up on this platform.
It was almost like a stretched half pipe for skate boarding. It was really steep at the tops and kids were trying to roller blade or ride scooters down it. We stopped at a coffee shop nearby that looked good and had been recommended by some of the "mommies" from the local expat group. While it was expensive the mocha and irish cream cheese cake were very good.
All around the edge of the ellipse were these wire mesh sculptures of people doing sports, I think there were all olympic events.

Back towards town is a large expo hall that is all glass on the front which made for nice reflections of the buildings behind.
For dinner we headed into uptown to a place called Brooklyn which is owned by an asian-american from Chicago. They are known for having the best pizza in town. We arrived before they actually opened but we're allowed in to look around and at the menu. This is the upstairs eating area.
The sausage panini was great.
and the pizza was definitely better than any other pizza we've had out here and it would be a pretty good restaurant in the US. It is just nice sometimes to eat something that your body is more accustomed to.
Here is a video of a game that several people were playing off of Xinghai square, out by the beach. I have no idea what it is called.

China Post #8 Food

2011-04-28T05:55:00.000-07:00

Well for some reason the wifi here is running extremely slow. I'm hoping to load a bunch of photos of food, so we'll see how it goes.

We've been eating out more than usual here. Partly because it is quite a bit cheaper here than back home, most of the time and because it can be more difficult here to get groceries. There are stores where you can get everything in one place but for the most those stores are a 15 minute walk or more and I have to take Dylan which might mean carrying him and groceries on the way back. Closer to the Shama there are loads of small markets, stalls and street vendors, so you can get everything but one needs to make 3 or 4 stops to be able to cook a meal.

The staple food here actually seems to be noodles instead of rice. I wonder if it will be rice when we head south or possibly it is just the proximity to Korea that makes noodles so common here. Anyway here are some images of food and thoughts on it.

So the first restaurant we went to here is a "Hot Pot" place. Just think fondue, they bring out a bowl of soup and start it boiling on a cook top in the center of the table. Next up are the raw ingredients. This one is just down the main street from us and seems to place a lot of importance on the mushrooms. We've been twice and after getting this huge plate of fungi the first time,

and feeling as though we never wanted to see another mushroom again, we tried to pass up the shrooms the second time and the server insisted that we get some and would not let us order anything else until we had picked a plate of mushrooms. The second time though we ended up getting a much smaller plate and they were quite interesting, almost like dense noodles.

Most of the meat that they have is shaved quite thin which means that it cooks very quickly and is pretty tender. Not sure if the tenderness is from it being sliced so thin or it actually being a much better cut of meat than what you can usually find in the stores and stalls.

This was the soup pot the first time we went. It had a nice divider and the person dropping in the food actually kept the meat on one side and veggies on the other.

Mushrooms went on both sides as did the noodles which were fresh and very good. The second time the pot did not have a divider, not sure really what gets you the different pots since we ordered the same soup base both times.

We had wanted some fish, so we ordered salmon. Now everything in the menu is raw in the picture since that is how they bring it to the table, but apparently the fish is not meant to be cooked. Now I love sushi and sashimi but it is rare that it comes out on ice??? Regardless, t tasted fine and none of us got sick, though it felt a bit weird eating ice cold sashimi.
Another popular restaurant among the expat population out here is the Bashu Legend. I wonder if this doesn't have more to do with the english name on the sign out front than the quality of the food. I think we all agreed that at least 2 of the dishes on the table were a bit odd tasting, not in that they would make you sick but just ODD.
The better dishes I thought were just OK, while Linda liked the chicken dish.

When you are out roaming about town you tend to grab what ever is convenient and usually there are plenty of options to pick from. Lots of stands, street vendors and small shops. This is a noodle house we stopped at near the train station in downtown. No english to be found, so I ordered by pointing at what someone else had to get a bowl of noodles and some meat. Linda asked what they recommended and was a bit surprised when they brought out the octopus and vegi dish.
Usually you are pretty safe getting noodles and there is a noodle place in the shopping center below us where for 6 yuan you can get a bowl (conversion is about 6.5 yuan to a dollar). Most of the time you can eat for 5-10 yuan for lunch and get a hot cooked meal.

At the other end of the spectrum, we got a recommendation for a restaurant in downtown called the Asia Grande. It was quite good but when the bill came, OUCH. It really would not have been that bad except for one dish. The food was better than most any Chinese food you would get in the US (go figure) and the presentation was very nice. We got...

Goose, which seemed to everyone to be a bit more tender than duck. You could flip the head over and look at the skull and beak cavity as well. Next we got sweet and sour, I don't remember if it was chicken or pork but it was tasty.

Nobody else wanted to order red meat so I got a lamb chop wrapped in....
bacon. Last, since it was a cantonese restaurant, Linda wanted to get a steamed fish which seemed fine since we always get steamed fish when we go out with her family. A nice flounder with a good amount of meat and nice seasoning.
When we got the bill it was a little over 1,000 yuan but they ended up discounting it down to about 900. Everything looked fine on the bill, though the fish was priced by weight which is what killed us. It was 26 Yuan for every 50g and it was nearly a 1 kilo fish. Yep, that was a 468 yuan (or about $70) fish. Nearly half the meal.

We have been here long enough now that we have had to get Dylan's and my hair cut, partly because we did not make a point of doing it before we left. Here is Dylan getting his $2 hair cut, I think mine was closer to $3 but they washed my hair twice and I did not have them wash Dylan's since I did not think he would let them, though now that he has seen them wash mine maybe he would.
Another interesting food thing. This is what you get when you want to take soup home. It just gets scooped into a plastic bag and you carry home. some places even line the bowls they give you to eat from in plastic bags so they don't have to wash them after you are done, they just toss the bag and put in a new one.
Now, in the US this would never work since as we all know plastic bags are super flimsy and if you look at them wrong they get holes. Out here the bags are ballistic, you could easily use the same bag 10 or more times at the grocery store. On the topic of food containers and differences, soda cans are much thicker than their american counter parts and bottles are thinner. I wonder how much material would be saved if the lighter duty of both was used everywhere?

OK so that was a bunch and everything loaded.

China Post #7 Easter and a Bike Ride

2011-04-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend was relatively laid back. On Saturday I managed to borrow a bike and get my first ride in in 5 weeks. I rode with a couple of guys that work for Goodyear out here and was on one of their wives bikes. It is odd riding on flat peddles but at least I brought riding short or the 40 miles would have been pretty uncomfortable. Riding out here is an adventure for sure. Drivers have no concern for others personal safety or space, you have to always be on guard. The first 5 km or so getting out of the main DDA area were pretty aggressive with cars and the last 10 km or so as well. However the bulk of the ride was pleasant on open roads with wide shoulders (which means nothing) and very little traffic (which does). The last 3 km or so was so grid locked that we were weaving between stopped cars the whole way or just getting on the sidewalk.

On Easter Sunday we headed out to a little Easter celebration arranged by some expats for the kids. They divided the kids into an older and younger group and had them basically do team scavenger hunts to find candy stashes around the area. Here is Dylan in the younger group getting their first clue.

And Dylan with Linda and Carrie (mom) and Abby moving between candy stashes. We rode out to the event with Carrie and family.
The grounds where the Easter event was held had some dinosaur statues and I could not help but to feed Dylan to the T-rex.
Naturally he enjoyed this one much more.
We were told to bring a baked good in the invite and decided it would be easier to just get a cake from our favorite bakery, Haute. Here is our chocolate Easter cake, pretty sweet looking and not too bad either.

In the afternoon Linda had scheduled us for a family photo session for us that she has wanted to do for a long time. I don't really like these things since they involve getting dressed up and acting like a trained seal, but I know there is some saying about a happy wife. Anyway, it took forever, about 3 hours and Dylan was getting to be pretty difficult by the end. Anything to keep him happy which included him jumping up and down on my back which I paid for the next day. I also had to make a run for food him and when I went into the mall I saw this wall tucked to the side of the entrance.
It is pretty tall, but obviously not open at this time. I've heard that it is open when it is warmer, I wonder how much it costs.

Here is Dylan being Dylan. I'm not sure what he was pretending the closet was but he was enjoying himself anyway.
We brought about 10 books from home for Dylan since he loves to read or be read too. One of the books is a Disney book about Donald using a "magic" stone to trick Goofy into inviting him to dinner. In the story, the stone makes soup. So here is Dylan making "Stone Soup".
And the finished product...delicious...Linda even cooked it a little for him.
Brad was one of the two guys that organized the Easter event and he set up the younger kids scavenger hunt. He wrote all the clues and this was his favorite.

600km Tombstone Brevet...quick China update

2011-04-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Today, Dylan and I hiked up Big Black Mountain again. This time with a couple of British kids, Cara (16) and John (12), their mom's hip was acting up so she did not come. This time we just went up to the high temple and back down the road as there were clouds billowing over the communication towers and the wind was picking up while we were at the temple. You notice a lot more when it is not raining, though it was cloudy. For example, you can see one of the high temples from the one at the bottom of the stairs, Linda and I never really looked up because of the rain. There are numbers painted on every hundredth step, so now I know that there are 1301 steps to get to the high temple and 1333 to get to the parking lot that the lazy take a shuttle up to. Later I found out that the staircase up to the communication towers has one unbroken section of about 500 as well, so something like 1900 steps to the top of the mountain. Anyway it was a nice day out and Dylan walked the first 100 or so steps on his own.

Well it has been awhile since I did the 600km Tombstone Brevet in Arizona with my dad. He flew out on Thursday and we had a pretty leisurely drive out on Friday from Albuquerque. We headed out to diner after checking into the hotel and tried to go to Olive Garden again (Chris and I had tried to go before the 300km). Now I'm baffled, it seems in Albuquerque you can just walk into Olive Garden whenever, but in Casa Grande there is always a 45min to hour long wait, at least on Friday night. Anyway, we found diner elsewhere and got to bed. We woke up early to have a real breakfast at the Denny's out in front of the hotel, then finished getting ready and headed to the ride start.

We checked in maybe 5 minutes before the start time and got ready to go. Everyone rolled out and things stayed pretty tame at the front end of the pack even with some yo-yoing and swerving within the lead group. Dad started to mention that the pace may be a bit high after going through Eloy and I mentioned that we would drop off once we hit the frontage road, which I did with my usual rest stop, though at this point dad was doing better and I told him to continue on as the pack rolled along the frontage road. I had been hoping to catch back up to the group, but apparently took too long relieving myself and shedding layers. Anyway, I tried and proceeded to set personal peak power output numbers for the year for intervals from 15-40 minutes, not the best idea at 25 miles into a 378 mile ride, but I figured that after the first check point we would be loosing the lead group anyway and easing up significantly. Thankfully dad dropped off the lead group before the first check point and drifted back to me and we cruised in to Marana as while the lead group was still getting snacks and such.

We headed out after taking care of things and rode on just the two of us until we reached Saguaro National Park where we made a quick stop and another group caught up to us and we ended up riding off and on with them through the end of Mission Rd which went much better this time. With out the heinous head wind from the 400km, we were averaging a couple mph faster that the fast group was on the 400km. Passing the race groups from the Tucson Bicycle Classic was pretty impressive with the noise they were making (headed downhill they sounded like a line of cars passing instead of bikes) and intimidating with the yellow line violations that were committed as we were riding the opposite direction.

After a stop in Continental at which I was hoping to get pizza but the shop in the gas station was closed, we headed out on Sahuarita Rd.. This road felt pretty grueling on the way out, like it was all uphill and into a headwind or something. I was definitely experiencing a low point along here and felling pretty frustrated. The we turned on Hwy 83 and things got worse. It looked like rollers but it felt as though we were going uphill the whole time. Eventually I could not bear it anymore and pulled over while dad continued on. I ate, stretched and watered a bush, no trees around. After my break I felt much better and cruised along passing dad on a long steady climb that seemed to be doing a number on his mental state. I pulled over at the top and waited for him and we rode down and into Sonoita and then the hero run into Elgin with a raging tailwind. It felt great to be cruising along at 25 mph with very little effort after suffering for 25 miles or so.

A little, but very late lunch for us at the Elgin Club provided by Susan and it was on the road to Tombstone. This bit was great, the sun had just set, there was very little traffic and a tailwind again. Of course this meant turning around and riding back into it. A light snack in Tombstone including a cup-o-noddles and we were on our way back having finished just over half the ride. Lucky for us the wind had started to die down by the time we were heading back though it was still there. It was very cold leaving Tombstone as we had cooled down and there is a steep downhill coming right out of town so we stopped and put more cloths on and continued on. Apparently there was a fair bit of downhill as well as the wind helping us on our way out to Tombstone as things were quite a bit slower headed back towards Elgin though we made steady progress and eventually were topping the last hill before the diner stop back at Elgin. That last downhill into Elgin almost had be shivering off the road and I was worried about making it to Sonoita and the hotel for the "night".

I put extra plastic on before we headed out again. Bags over my feet and legs to help block the wind. It turned out to not be as bad going from Elgin to Sonoita where we had a reservation at the Sonoita Inn which is really quite nice. By the time we made it to the Inn and found our key, made our way in finding my drop bag but not dad's (which got sent to the Elgin Club instead of the Inn) it was 2am and I managed to crawl into bed around 2:30 for a 5:30 wake up. I was not psyched when the alarm went off in the morning, but rolled out of bed to a pretty nice continental breakfast. After finishing getting ready to go we ran into Wim, a friend of Stephen's from Calgary, these Canadians use Tucson as a winter home. Anyway, Wim's wife encouraged him to hurry up and leave with us and I told him to not worry since he had rolled in at maybe 10 the previous night and I knew my dad would not stand a chance keeping up with him.

We got on the road about 6:30, a little later than planned but since the next checkpoint was 60 miles away it was not a big deal especially once I found out why I was so frustrated the day before. Turns out that after a couple of miles of rollers and one hill it was a raging downhill to Sahaurita Road, never dropping below 25 mph and Sahaurita Rd itself is mostly downhill as well. A stop at McDonalds was followed by a tedious (because it is dead straight) but relatively mild 5 mile climb took us back up to Mission Rd at the top of the rollers. This climb really took its toll on dad and he did not seem to be doing very well at this point, he was having trouble dismounting the bike and complaining of "stinging" in his legs. Needless to say we took it real easy through the rollers and then coasted the downhill on Mission Rd. It is always nice to get 15 miles in without having to push the peddles. We made it back into Tucson and took a nice long break to eat a sandwich and other stuff. We took it nice and easy through the rollers in Saguaro NP and again enjoyed a tailwind most of the way into Marana.

While I had been concerned for the last 50 miles or so if my dad would want to drop out, at this point I knew we would finish. We had maybe 6 or 7 hours to go 43 miles back to Casa Grande and while it was going to be slower than I wanted we would make it. The Frontage Rd along I-10 was bad again, for some reason everyone complains about this road, but for me it is not so bad when you are doing it in the morning or returning in the dark, but when you are headed north on it at the end of a ride and it is still light out it is every bit as bad as people say. We took a pretty long stop in Eloy just 14 miles from the finish, we did need to refuel, but ended up staying for quite some time. We left Eloy as it was getting dark and toddled along towards Casa Grande, at this point I was riding ahead then slowing down or waiting not wanting to get out of sight of my dad since I knew where we were going at this point. We eventually rolled into Round Trip Bike Shop a little after 8pm with under an hour to spare on the 40 hour time limit.

We loaded up the bikes and headed off to check in with Susan at her hotel and turn in our brevet cards. We checked into our hotel and cleaned up, talked a bit about going to get diner and decided that sleep was more important at that point. We both crashed hard and did not move till the morning. I got up and told dad I was going to get breakfast and went to the hotels continental. Eventually I finished breakfast and dad had not shown up so I headed back to the room to see what was up and he was not there either. Turns out he thought I meant that I was going to Denny's and he was equally confused when he got there and I was not in the restaurant.

We packed up and headed back to Albuquerque, through more snow (what is the deal, I get snowed on on my way home every time). We made it back home with just enough time to take apart dad's bike and put it in the box to head to the airport. All in all it was a good weekend, though Dylan wished Yeah-Yeah could have stayed longer or spent more time with him and let me know it on the way home from the airport.

China Post #6 DaHeiShan

2011-04-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

So on Sunday we headed up Big Black Mountain BBM. The weather was quite different from Saturday when we wore t-shirts some of the time. Very cloudy at the start of the day and the rain started right when we left the car. There are supposed to be 3 ways up BBM, one which is mostly stairs, another that is a road and has a shuttle service ad the third we know nothing about nor do the people we talked to about it. Anyway, our outing probably ended up being a bit faster than it would have been in nicer weather because we did not want to stop and look around with the rain. The trail started out in a narrow canyon that even had some snow in the bottom of it still. There was this wall built across the canyon not too far up.

There were several temple built along the trail as well as a handful of trees that people tied these red strips of cloth to. The blue sign to the guys left is probably something along the lines of "beware: steep steeps ahead"
Since just past this tree the trail went up a flight of steps steeper than these switch backs leading up to it.
Here are Dylan and I at the entrance to the temple.
and Linda next to a Buddha inside the temple grounds.
and a few statues just outside of the temple.
From the temple you can head up a road to some communication towers at the actual top of the BBM. The road takes you up to a flat area where there is a tram like the one in Albuquerque but it is not running and it only goes to a lower set of towers. A little further along is what from a distance looked like a steep scree shoot, but on closer view was a very steep staircase. Here is Linda trudging up the steps into the clouds.
At this point it was pretty cold and we were all pretty wet. The wind picked up as well as the clouds getting more dense. We did not stick around on top, Dylan was pretty unhappy with the wind and there was nothing to see with cloud cover. We headed down as quickly as we could and once we made it down to the temple we opted to take the shuttle the rest of the way down since Dylan was still unhappy. Once we got down it took awhile to explain to the driver we were using where exactly we were. While we waited I wandered a little staying near the road so we would not miss him. There was a field close by with some trees blossoming that were quite pretty.
Here is a little clip of a construction zone in China. I'm sure that it will look pretty nice when it is done. Not only are the workers just right there on the highway but there is also a pedestrian just walking along on the side, but still in the left lane.

China Post #5 UFO Hill

2011-04-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

This weekend we headed to the appropriately named UFO hill on Saturday and Big Black Mountain (Dai....shan) on Sunday. UFO hill is really close to where we are staying and is not much of an outdoor experience, but it did still make for a nice half day out. We took a taxi to the base since we really did not know where it was. Turns out it is really close. Anyway, when we got out there were several street vendors selling kites and balloons.

There was this huge monument at the base of the road up and you can see the UFO in the distance.
With all the kites for sale, low on the "hill" there was a nice park with lots of people out flying or just hanging out in the nice weather.
Only a few 100 meters up the road there was this odd ball shaped enclosure off to the right. So we headed over to check it out. Turns out to be a pigeon ball? and up the trail from that is a sculpted stream bed with large "Alice in Wonderland" type sculptures like this corn.
After we made our way through the stream bed we came out at a pretty big reservoir, though I doubt that that is what it was for. Through this section there were several sculpted walls that had Linda and I wondering if we would get stopped for trying to boulder on them...

A steep trail lead up from the reservoir back to the road and this plank side walk along it. As you can tell safety is a top priority here. There were several sections where multiple pieces of decking were missing and even spots where you could tell that the support joist had dropped out.
To their credit though, further up they were working on repairing the side walk and converting it to rebar and concrete which can't rot out from under people. Though there were no barriers to keep people off or out of the work area which seems fine to me except for the fact that at times you might need to dodge traffic on the road.
Here are Linda and Dylan walking up the final steps to the UFO.
The UFO is really just a nice high spot to look out around Dalian. It of course cost money to go up into the UFO itself, though it is not expensive and it was nice to get out of the wind which was picking up as we got higher up the "hill". Dylan made the hike all the way up on his own but was pretty beat, so instead of carrying him down we opted to take the little shuttle. Here is a quick video of the shuttle ride, and for reference it was less crowded on the way down than when we were headed up.

Well it is almost midnight on Sunday so I'll get to posting on Big Black Mountain tomorrow hopefully. It is a beautiful hike and a must do.

China Post #4 Bathrooms

2011-04-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

The Bathroom post.

I know that at least my mom will appreciate this one.

One of the easier thing to find out here is a bathroom. The universal sign is the one we all know and love, in addition it is one of the easier things to mime that you need...

In the mens room, urinals actually flush when you approach them, which made made me jump the first time, and again when you leave. On the other hand, one time when Dylan had to go and there was not a bathroom around we were directed to a drain out behind the building, nice.

Toilets, sometimes you get a regular one that we are used to in the US and other times there is a long trough with tread on either side for your feet. Another thing to consider is the TP situation. Many times there is not TP in the individual stalls but a large roll before you go in so you have to take what you are going to use with you. What happens if you need more?

Often times the sinks are in a shared area before you go into the men's or women's room.

Now onto something that everyone wants, this is a poor rendition of what I was serenaded by the last time I used a public restroom.