oneyearaway's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member oneyearaway on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/oneyearaway en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:40:12 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Born to shop? — Hong Kong, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211825700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211825700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211825700/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:40:12 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Hong Kong, China

(Jim)Looking through the money in my pocket to buy tokens for the Star Ferry, I noticed something you haven't seen in the U. S. since about the time of Andrew Jackson.  Hong Kong currency is issued by several different private banks, none of which enjoy anything like U. S. Federal Reserve status.  Shades of Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Part of what makes Hong Kong so much fun is the variety of capitalism on display.  On Nathan Road, the main shopping street in Kowloon, you can find a Western-style mall with Gucci shops and Starbucks right next to an electronics emporium with hundreds of products displayed on floor-to-ceiling shelves.  As anywhere, streetside real estate is the most-prized retail location, but an archway leads off the street and into the interior of the block, to a bewildering warren of small booths selling watches, DVDs, clothing, Indian or Pakastani fast food, cell phones, laundry services, you name it.  Up that escalator is another set of copy-watch shops, nail salons, and tiny travel agencies advertising cheap tickets to Myanmar or Rajasthan.  In the office building next door, the 8th Floor contains both a dentist's shop and a high-end retail outlet for Prada, Fendi and other high-end brands - or are they copies? With the dollar in its current weakened state it would be insane to buy any form of electronics, watches or photo equipment in Hong Kong, unless it is absolutely needed to keep your existing apparatus functioning.  (For example, I bought a spare battery for Amy's camera, which often goes dead due to the kids taking feature-length movies of Webkinz soccer matches.)This was not true the last time I was here in 1990.  At that time the dollar had decent value, and the duty-free status of Hong Kong made watches and such good value.  When we left the U. S. in July 2007, I intended to stop by the U. S. Customs office to register my old Tag Heuer watch, our three recently-purchased Canon cameras, and my IBM laptop, so on our return they would not appear to have been bought overseas. I soon realized that this would have been a waste of time.  Who would buy any of these items anywhere overseas when they can be had more cheaply here in the U. S.?  Britons on winter break fly to Florida with empty luggage, which they fill with cheap merchandise at the outlet malls.  Right now the United States is the destination of choice for buying cheap high-end goods. To sell cameras in the U. S., Canon or Nikon must accept lower profit margins here than in other countries with stronger currencies.  They charge "what the market will bear", just as U. S. drug companies do with drugs in price-controlled Europe and Canada.  Paying different prices for the same product in different countries is not a complex price-fixing conspiracy.  It is a profit-maximizing strategy followed by rational economic actors faced with diverse economies and price-control regimes. So, long story short, there will be no new watch for Jim.  Not in Hong Kong, and given the current state of our finances, not in Pennsylvania either. My only two significant shopping excursions were to my tailor, W. W. Chan, to order four new sets of trousers sized to conform to Release 51.0 of Jim Hemphill's ever-expanding waistline; and to Mayer Shoes in Central to get two pairs of new shoes.  My closet holds ten pairs of wonderful Church's English shoes, all purchased in the mid-1980s, in sizes from 11C to 11 1/2D.  My feet are now roughly 12D, a consequence of age, weight and slowly deteriorating arches.  I've finally come to terms with the fact that I need shoes that fit my new super-sized self.  Hopefully they will arrive in the office before I do.
]]> Walking all over — Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1212789600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1212789600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1212789600/tpod.html Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:21:04 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China

(Jim)One of the highlights of visiting the Li River is traveling by foot, cycle or bamboo raft through the stunning countryside, seeing the tranquil lives of the locals up close.&nbsp; At least, that is what we read in the guidebooks.&nbsp; We made arrangements to spend a day seeing several of the charming and historic local villages, and to do a nice long hike in the country.&nbsp; We arranged to be picked up at the hotel by our driver at 9:30 a.m.&nbsp; Of course, we were late.&nbsp; After a ten minute drive into Yangshuo, our driver stopped at the roundabout and could not find our guide.&nbsp; There followed twenty minutes of yelling into the cell phone.&nbsp; The driver did not appear to&nbsp;fully understand the concept of cell phone, and seemed to want&nbsp;to be sure he was shouting loud enough&nbsp;for his voice to carry to wherever our guide was hiding.&nbsp; Finally&nbsp;the&nbsp;guide, who is Chun Li's father, came running over and boarded&nbsp;the van.&nbsp; He sat up front with the driver, where the two of them yelled at each other some more, in a very good-natured way.&nbsp; They were fully as loud as if they had been standing on both sides of a busy street.We then embarked on a two-hour ride through hell.&nbsp; The guidebooks that describe Yangshuo make much of how rustic and charming the countryside around Yangshuo is, and recommend walking or cycling into the countryside, getting pleasantly lost, and really enjoying the charm of rural China.&nbsp; What the guidebooks don't tell you is that most of the country around Yangshuo looks like the foothills of the Himilayas.&nbsp; Steep slopes,&nbsp;bad roads and worn-out shock absorbers make a dangerous combination for a family prone to carsickness.&nbsp; By the end of the first half-hour, Jack was complaining bitterly about his belly, compelling us to stop several times while he pantomimed throwing up by the side of the road.&nbsp; Nothing ever came up, though the local dogs gathered hopefully in case Jack lost his breakfast and thereby provided theirs.&nbsp; By the end of the first hour, Amy had joined the chorus of complaint.&nbsp; I tried pressing the <i>ni huan points on her wrists to reduce the nausea, without much effect.&nbsp; I observed, loudly and not for the first time, that if it were up to the rest of the Hemphill crew humanity would never have emerged from that first Tanzanian gorge, never mind boarding the <i>Mayflower, crossing the Cumberland Gap or stepping onto the lunar surface.Finally, after a full two hours, we reached our destination, the&nbsp;Stone Village about fifteen miles from our hotel.&nbsp; The first person we met was a small, silent boy&nbsp;with a spear.&nbsp; He regarded us impassively, waved his weapon in our direction, then went back to staring.&nbsp; We thought afterwards about all the children we saw in Bali, who as soon as they saw a Westerner would pour out of their homes, smiling, waving and yelling out, "Hello!&nbsp; Hello!"&nbsp; Not this boy.&nbsp; Not the best omen for future U. S.-China relations.After an hour walking around&nbsp;the village and trying to get Jack to talk with the inhabitants, we climbed back in the van.&nbsp; Amy at this point was in near-open revolt, demanding that I verify that we weren't going to be in the van for another hour:&nbsp; "Tell him we like to walk.&nbsp; Tell him we <i>want to walk."&nbsp; Our communication throughout the day was considerably impeded by the fact that our guide had only two words of English;&nbsp;"toilet" and "OK".&nbsp; After much pantomime and shrugging, I semi-assured Amy and the kids that we'd be in the van only for a few minutes, then walking for several miles.&nbsp; By sheer good luck, this turned out to be true.&nbsp; We did a scenic&nbsp;four-mile walk through the mountains, then descended&nbsp;into the Li River Valley.&nbsp; Another mini-crisis followed.&nbsp; We were supposed to go on to Xijiang from there by water, then&nbsp;get back in the van for another fifteen mile jaunt to Fuli.&nbsp; Amy flat-out refused.&nbsp; Instead, we negotiated a brief stop at our guide's home village, then a bamboo raft ride straight back to Yangshuo.&nbsp; Fuli could wait for another day.&nbsp; Indeed, as far as Amy was concerned, Fuli could rot in hell and we could head straight for the nearest Westin Heavenly Bed.&nbsp;&nbsp;(We never did see Fuli.)Both on the hike and the later raft trip, we saw stunning scenery, though we weren't able to get any real postcard shots because of the constant haze that is everywhere in China, a consequence of a fast-growing, densely-populated nation that relies on coal-fired power plants for most electricity production.When we arrived at the guide's house, we learned that Bill Clinton beat us here too.&nbsp; There were several photos of him right in the same rundown living room, with the same guide we were following.&nbsp; Both looked&nbsp;a good bit younger and more engaged than they do these days.&nbsp; After looking at the four hundred year old roofs of the town, with karst peaks towering over and satellite dishes precariously attached, we went&nbsp;down to the living room, where we sat on foot-high stools around a low table and had tea.&nbsp; We kept nodding and smiling as the tea ceremony stretched into the second hour and the kids' whining began to rise to a new crescendo.&nbsp; At last, to our surprise the guide&nbsp;asked us to pay for our snacks, and then&nbsp;led us back to the boat.&nbsp; When we got back to the river, we started off toward town aboard our faux-bamboo raft.&nbsp; Within minutes we had to tie up alongside an island and shelter under the raft's canvas roof during a sudden thunderstorm.&nbsp; The raft guy gave the kids his poncho and woven hat, and we all mostly stayed pretty dry.&nbsp; Sitting under the small roof of the raft, listening to the rain drumming above,&nbsp;reminded us of our high-speed trip up the river to the rain forest in Malaysia.&nbsp; There is something comforting about being outside during a rain storm, but still together and sheltered from&nbsp;the elements.&nbsp; This was our first visit to the town of Yangshuo and to the famous West Street, a cobblestoned pedestrian street that runs perpendicular to the Li River.&nbsp; The street is wall-to-wall shops on both sides, with many ostensibly named-brand goods.&nbsp; Haggling is near-universal.&nbsp; After a decent lunch and a small amount of desultory shop-looking, we headed back to the Mountain Retreat by cab.
]]> Xi'an — Xi'an, Shaanxi, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211919300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211919300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211919300/tpod.html Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:31:09 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Xi'an, Shaanxi, China

(Jack)Last night we arrived in Xi'an from Hong Kong. On the one hour drive from the airport, I did my best to listen to&nbsp;our guide,&nbsp;(Joe in&nbsp;English, Guo in Chinese), who&nbsp;had graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and was a pretty interesting guy. However, my limited Chinese was my fallback as I slowly dropped out of the conversation.The simple room was a far cry from the Holiday Inn&nbsp;Golden Mile, but the bed was warm and cushy and the breakfast was fine (excluding Katharine getting unwanted ham in her omelette).The first thing you notice coming into Xi'an is the massive city wall stretching 13.74 kilometers around the city, separating the old from the new. The wall is the best preserved in China or indeed all the world, with 98 ramparts (each 120 meters apart) and a moat 20 meters wide and 7&nbsp;meters deep. But in all its splendour it is overshadowed by the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, and by extension the Terracotta Warriors.(Jim) So we were standing on top of the magnificent, fully-preserved city wall of Xi'an, looking down the main road into the city center and seeing the new modern buildings fading into the mists.&nbsp; No, not early morning fog, but all-day-every-day pollution caused by millions of new automobiles and thousands of coal-fired power plants.&nbsp; Most of China lives under this ever-present miasma.&nbsp; The Terra Cotta warriors are an amazing sight, an army 7,000 strong complete with generals, scouts, archers and cavalry.&nbsp; The level of detail is astounding.&nbsp; The bottoms of the shoes have intricate fish-scale patterns.&nbsp; The clothes have natural-looking folds.&nbsp; Each individual figure has his own face, and it is believed that each one represents an actual individual soldier in the Emperor's army.&nbsp; Originally each figure was brightly-painted, but the colors have faded almost completely, casualties of exposure to oxygen and China's air pollution.&nbsp; The warriors come in a few standard configurations, including archers, foot soldiers, cavalry and officers, in the exact proportions that would have characterized the real army.&nbsp; Our guide Joe pointed out the figure of one of the generals.&nbsp; "See, he has big belly.&nbsp; Most Chinese thin, but he eats well.&nbsp; We say man with big belly have General's Belly.&nbsp; Like you, sir," he said, pointing at my stomach and smiling.&nbsp; I looked at him closely.&nbsp; Was he deliberately making fun of me?&nbsp; I concluded that he believed he had paid me a compliment. The army was discovered wholly by accident in 1974 by several farmers digging a new well.&nbsp; Their shaft was sunk only a few feet from the edge of the vast field where the army lies buried.&nbsp; A few feet to the south and the entire complex might have remain undiscovered.&nbsp; There was no historical record from China's Qin Dynasty period that mentioned the existence of this vast pottery army.&nbsp; Archeologists believe the army was fashioned to guard in the afterlife the mausoleum of Emperor Qin, whose dynasty was both the first to unite the entire country and the shortest-lived.&nbsp; A peasant rebellion followed close on his death, and the rebels sacked and burned the buildings housing the army.&nbsp; When found the figures were mostly smashed to pieces, their weapons stolen for use in the rebellion, and then the buildings burned.&nbsp; The figures we see today were painstakingly put back together byarchaeologists from countless fragments.The violent rebellion that followed the glorious reign of Emperor Qin is another example of a theme repeated at the sites of many of the ancient world's most magnificent relics.&nbsp; The greatest monuments are typically built by egomaniacs who impose brutal taxation on their subjects to pay for their architectural whimsies, and those exactions are often self-limiting.&nbsp; "Apres moi, le deluge," said Louis XV.&nbsp; Had he anticipated the destruction that would follow his death, Emperor Qin might similarly have said, "Apres moi, la poterie sera casse."&nbsp; (Pardon my execrable French.&nbsp; Perhaps Jack will someday be able to express the thought in understandable Mandarin.)<i>Postscript:&nbsp; Our day in Xi'an followed by five days the mess at the airport when we realized I had not procured visas to enter the People's Republic.&nbsp; Our day in Xi'an was ideal in every way, despite being organized on only two business days' notice.&nbsp; Major kudos to both our stateside travel agents Macnair Travel of Alexandria, VA and Pacific Delights of wherewhere.
]]> 50th birthday celebration — Anchorage, Alaska, United States http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1214667000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1214667000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1214667000/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:50:32 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Anchorage, Alaska, United States

(Jim)Today we stumbled entirely by accident on Alaska's 50th anniversary of achieving statehood.&nbsp; We walked a few blocks over from the hotel where the cruise ship bus dropped us to the Saturday market, an area where several streets are closed off for a half-day.&nbsp; There was some politician giving a speech in front of the Federal Building, and several Alaskans across the street chatting amiably about how much they dislike all politicians.&nbsp; Three 1958 Bulgemobiles with whitewall tires and big back fins were parked in front, and a girl singer in a retro hairdo belted out period hits.&nbsp; We finally figured out what was going on when we saw a special edition of the local newspaper.The evident sincerity of the celebration was really engaging.&nbsp; The event had a real small-town feel, not least because Anchorage is, by the standards of most American cities, a small town.&nbsp; The population of Anchorage is just under 280,000, which is almost half of all of Alaska's population of 670,000.&nbsp; (By comparison, our home county of Chester County, Pennsylvania has a population of 480,000, almost all of whom are better-dressed than the average Alaskan.)<i>By the way, there are no pictures with this blog entry, though we took some nice ones.&nbsp; After serving us well since the first day of our trip, Amy's reliable little Canon 850IS digital camera has disappeared, who knows where or when.&nbsp; So some number of Japan, Canada and Alaska pictures will never see the light of day.&nbsp; Very sad.
]]> Cruising — Inside Passage, British Columbia, Canada http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1214188200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1214188200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1214188200/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:36:58 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Inside Passage, British Columbia, Canada

(Jim)Since we got back to North America last week, I've had the persistent thought, "I don't belong here."There is nothing <i>different here.&nbsp; No new people or customs, no strange foods, no hard-to-comprehend language.&nbsp; Returning to rich, English-speaking North America after adjusting to a year abroad is sort of like getting used to wearing itchy wool underwear, then trying to do without it.&nbsp; What used to be an itch had become&nbsp;a comforting friction, and I miss it.On the cruise ship, we have seen lots of what we rarely saw on our travels -- fat Americans.&nbsp; Most of the Americans we saw on our travels were active travelers, a group that appears to trend much skinnier than the usual for our wealthy and relatively sedentary nation.&nbsp; Here on the cruise ship, we have seen lots of people who are simply enormous, including many whose weight clearly impacts their health and mobility.&nbsp; As a guy who has not seen the south side of 200 pounds for the better part of two decades, I have little room to criticize.&nbsp; Besides, my take on heavy Americans is different from Amy's.&nbsp; I think we are fat because we are rich, pretty much end of story.&nbsp; Throughout our travels, we saw the reality that as nations become more prosperous calories go up and activity goes down.Perhaps even more striking than the weight is the degree to which many people here just appear unaware of where they are or what is happening around them.&nbsp; They appear clueless, as if they aren't really paying attention, as out of touch with their surroundings eyes-open as Jack or me while reading a book.&nbsp; Folks push the elevator button, then stand staring blankly at the box when the doors open, as if they've forgotten what the magic-up-and-down-box does or where they wanted to go.We chose an Alaska cruise on purpose for the end of the trip.&nbsp; We waanted something very easy and non-challenging to ease our transition back to our normal lives.&nbsp; Given the level of discomfort I'm feeling, this was probably a good idea.It is interesting.&nbsp; Amy does not want to travel anywhere for two years, partly for monetary reasons but mostly to avoid travel-related stress.&nbsp; I can't wait to hit the road again, to get out there where the language, landscape, customs and foods are different, and where our family is united in a common adventure.I wonder what we will remember of this year?&nbsp; Will it remain an active memory, or will it fade until it seems at last just a dream, a memory of a fantasy long ago?
]]> Ground Zero — Hiroshima, Chugoku, Japan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1213659000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1213659000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1213659000/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:27:52 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Hiroshima, Chugoku, Japan

(Jim)Hiroshima is a beautiful city, ideally situated where two rivers come together.&nbsp; It was very near the confluence of these two streams that the first atomic bomb used against human beings was dropped on August 6, 1945.&nbsp; The horrors of that day and the aftermath are well known.&nbsp; If you don't know the extent of the suffering caused by the bomb, please read John Hersey's classic account, Hiroshima.Few visible signs of the bombing remain.&nbsp; The most significant is the A-Bomb Dome, the name given to the brick-and-steel skeleton of a government building that was almost directly under Ground Zero.&nbsp; The blasted steel girders of the building's dome roof have become a symbol of the beginning of the Atomic Age.The northern past of the island between Hiroshima's two rivers has been preserved as a Peace Park, with the Peace Museum at the southern end of the park space.&nbsp; An eternal flame burns at a monument in the center of a lane from the Museum to the edge of the river across from the A-Bomb Dome.&nbsp; The Peace Museum does a thorough job of explaining the horrors of the bomb's effects.&nbsp; In my opinion, the Museum distorts the impetus behind our decision to drop the bomb, emphasizing our wish to gain geopolitical advantage against the Soviets, and underestimating our passionate desire to avoid an amphibious assault on theJapanese home islands, particularly after the brutal carnage of the battles for Okinawa and Iwo Jima, where the Japanese fought almost literally to the last man.Most of contemporary discussion of the decision to drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki shows an inability to think historically.&nbsp; People today, including prominent historians like Barton Bernstein of Stanford, talk about the alternatives to dropping the bomb, cherry-picking facts from recently de-classified documents that suggest the Japanese would soon have surrendered without the bomb's use.&nbsp; Since this is a travel blog, and not a history thesis, I'll just make what I believe is the crucial point.&nbsp; We know today the horrors of the atomic bomb because we used it and saw the aftermath.&nbsp; We know that nuclear weapons represent a different category of war-making because we used those weapons and saw the results.&nbsp; I suspect that nothing but the hideous reality of the bomb's effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have restrained mankind's hands from another use in the sixty-plus years since Hiroshima.We fear the most what we know best.&nbsp; Theoretical horrors have trouble competing with real suffering.&nbsp; The experience of the Japanese inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has provided that context of suffering for policymakers for the better part of a century.&nbsp; If we had never used the bomb, would the world have had sufficient sense of the horror of a nuclear war?&nbsp; Would we have restrained ourselves from using the bomb in Korea?&nbsp; Would the Soviets have been similarly restrained in the more than forty years that they pursued worldwide hegemony in the name of a failed vision of the Communist utopia?So much time has passed since 1945 without any use of nuclear weapons that our fear appears to have faded.&nbsp; We have passed into a strange alternate universe where the same people who protested against possession of nuclear weapons by Western democracies now protest against using military means to prevent Iran's would-be Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, from getting his very own nuclear arsenal.&nbsp; If anyone doubts that having Ahmedinajad in control of even one nuclear weapon is a disaster beyond description, go to Hiroshima, tour the Peace Museum, and then re-read the Iranian President's speeches over the last five years.I realize this post is a mess.&nbsp; Perhaps there is a coherent thread here that I can tease out later.&nbsp; Just two quick practical asides.&nbsp; Our two hotel rooms in Hiroshima, which cost us $62 each, were the nicest cheap hotel rooms we stayed in our whole trip.&nbsp; And Hiroshima is a lovely city.&nbsp; We would like very much to return another time with a less depressing focus.
]]> Among the expats — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1212026400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1212026400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1212026400/tpod.html Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:22:22 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Beijing, China

(Jim)Tonight we dined with an American&nbsp;family we met in Phuket, Thailand.&nbsp; They have two kids a bit younger than Katharine and Alec, and are in the process of adopting a young Chinese boy they have named Pete.He is Marketing Director for a U. S. multinational's China operations.&nbsp; They live in a nice townhouse in a secure ex-pat community outside of Beijing.&nbsp; It is all foreigners where they live.&nbsp; Chinese nationals are not allowed to buy or rent there.It was nice seeing other Americans, and very interesting to hear their takes on China and the ex-pat lifestyle.&nbsp; Chris offers an interesting perspective on Chinese nationalism.&nbsp; He sees it as a sign of growing wealth and confidence, but not a danger as long as the rest of the world keeps hands off Tibet and Taiwan, and as long as the inhabitants of those two places don't do anything provocative.They love China and their community of fellow foreigners, so much so that they are somewhat reluctant to move back to the U. S.&nbsp; The expatriate community is evidently much like a very close and supportive village, where everyone knows and helps each other.&nbsp; An interesting note:&nbsp; The family goes to a non-denominational Christian church.&nbsp; Chinese nationals are not allowed to worship there, and police check the IDs of worshippers as they enter.&nbsp; In mid-June, this church and all others will be closed indefinitely.&nbsp; The suspicion is that the goverment wants to eliminate places where potential protesters might gather and organize.&nbsp; No one knows whether churches will be allowed to re-open after the Olympics.
]]> Paging Homer Simpson — Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211483700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211483700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1211483700/tpod.html Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:04:40 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

(Jim)Here's how Amy just put it:&nbsp; "Who'd have ever thought that you'd need a visa to get into the People's Republic of China?"&nbsp; Jack put it this way, "There was a <i>Simpson's episode about China, Dad.&nbsp; You really <i>are Homer."We got to the airport today nice and early, arriving at China Eastern Airlines almost two hours before our flight to Shanghai.&nbsp; Despite waving my printout of our itinerary at her, the nice woman behind the counter insisted our reservation had been cancelled.No matter, as it turned out, because she also wanted to see our visas.&nbsp; She kept flipping through our passports, saying, "Visa?&nbsp; Visa?"&nbsp; I said, "Maybe visa on arrival, yes?"&nbsp; Nodding as if I thought this might be true.&nbsp; "No visa on arrival in Shanghai."&nbsp; She was no longer smiling.&nbsp; I finally said, "I take bags back now, go to coffee shop, check with travel agent."Of course, it is 4 a.m. in the U. S., and the only travel agent available will be the emergency contact, who we've already established several times is utterly useless.&nbsp; So I e-mailed every person we know about at the travel agency and called the Beijing contact for our tour company.No visa-on-arrival service exists for the People's Republic, and no visas had been obtained.&nbsp; In fact, recent pre-Olympic security changes have made visas much harder to obtain.&nbsp; The tour company's Beijing rep suggested I get a visa in Hong Kong immediately, and come the next day.&nbsp; So I trotted downstairs to begin speaking to Hong Kong travel agents.&nbsp; Most were polite but unhelpful, saying the quickest visa turnaround would be Monday, and directing me to China Travel Services.&nbsp; They were not polite, equally unhelpful, but at least definitive.&nbsp; No same-day visa turnarounds.&nbsp; The fastest possible turnaround was two business days, which means Monday afternoon.&nbsp; (Turns out China Travel is the state-owned travel agency, which explains a lot.&nbsp; As I've said before, 'Public sector customer service.&nbsp; Coming soon to a health care system near you.')So we are back to Hong Kong for four days, all together in a much smaller room in a much cheaper hotel.&nbsp; (The same one I stayed in here on my last visit to Hong Kong way back in 1990, strangely enough.)&nbsp; Tomorrow at 9 a.m. I plan to be in line at China Travel Services.Amy is watching CNN.&nbsp; The death toll in China is now over 50,000 and climbing.&nbsp; They are shooting stray dogs to avoid disease.&nbsp; Many towns will be permanently uninhabitable.&nbsp; As Amy said, "Maybe we were not meant to be in China, and maybe that is not a bad thing."This makes three places we considered visiting or actively planned to visit that are now categorically off-limits due to natural or manmade disasters or a combination of the two -- Myanmar, Tibet and Chengdu, China.&nbsp; (We'd hoped to visit the Panda Research Center.)&nbsp; The three have been hit with government crackdown/flood, government crackdown, earthquake followed by flood and disease.Disasters seem to precede and/or follow us like near-miss explosions in an old Buck Rogers movie.&nbsp; Are all you folks back in Chester County really sure you want us to come back?&nbsp;
]]> Rainforest ramble — Taman Negara Rain Forest, Malaysia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1205687700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1205687700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1205687700/tpod.html Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:54:32 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Taman Negara Rain Forest, Malaysia

(Jim) &nbsp; Tropical rain forests are justifiably celebrated for their biodiversity.&nbsp; Last night we saw both red and black ants, several species of moths, and a spider the size of a teacup. &nbsp; That was just in our room. &nbsp; Last night's sleep was not terribly restful, between the kids' fear of the spider emerging from under the bed where he fled when we tried to defenestrate him, and the ant bites that covered my neck the next morning.&nbsp; This morning we drank lots of caffeine and met our guide Hasbi for our jungle trek.&nbsp; &nbsp; There is a reason they call it a rain forest.&nbsp; The downpours we experienced during our ride up the river yesterday reduced the jungle path largely to mud.&nbsp; We soldiered onward for more than two hours, amid a rising chorus of complaints from the kids.&nbsp; Jack, who studied Malaysia in the third grade and insisted our world trip include a visit to the Malaysian&nbsp;rain forest, was at his whining worst this morning.&nbsp; &nbsp; As we were climbing up toward a nearby peak with a good view, the path got steeper.&nbsp; Fixed ropes ran alongside the path, and we were soon half-climbing hand-over-hand, half-slipping in our flat-bottomed sandals&nbsp;on the muddy path.&nbsp; Then we reached a downed tree that crossed the path, which was liberally sprinkled with tiny red ants.&nbsp;&nbsp;Katharine freaked, screaming out loud and trying to hurl herself off the path, which would at that location have resulted in a two-hundred-foot rolling plunge down a 60 degree slope.&nbsp; I had to grab her and hold her to keep her from tumbling away.&nbsp; After a few minutes of very direct discussion, Katharine allowed herself to be manhandled over the tree, still whimpering.&nbsp; About five minutes later we reached the first overlook.&nbsp; We were only 500 meters from the top of the hill and the famous panorama over the rain forest. &nbsp; I'm sure it must be nice.&nbsp; The panorama, that is.&nbsp; Amid a general revolt, I agreed to turn tail and descend, feeling like Norman Dyenfurth on the 1963 American Mount Everest expedition.&nbsp; ("Up go, Bara Sahib?"&nbsp; "No, Ang Dawa, down go.")&nbsp; We did get a few pictures of green trees rising in the mist. &nbsp; Soon it was time to go back down.&nbsp; Here in the sodden jungle of Malaysia , the descending staircase appeared to be made of standard platform iron sheets, the stuff with the diamond-shaped treads.&nbsp; Our guide told us to step&nbsp; on the board only in the center, directly over the underlying wooden beams.&nbsp; At first it was not clear why this was important - surely I had not grown so fat that I could plunge through a quarter-inch sheet of plate steel? &nbsp; Closer inspection revealed that what was shaped like iron plating was actually pressboard.&nbsp; Of all materials to use for the treads of a steep stairway rising through a tropical rainforest that gets several hundred inches of rain a year, surely wood chips in glue has to be high on the list of inappropriate materials. After a half hour's steady careful descent, we came to our next challenge, the world's longest canopy walkway.&nbsp; My turn to whimper.&nbsp; As I've said before, I am no fan of heights.&nbsp; I react to heights and open spaces much as Katharine does to marauding ants.&nbsp; The prospect of being 120 feet high, walking on an 8" board supported by a woven rope netting, has never ranked high on my must-do list.&nbsp; &nbsp; Having been so brutal with Katharine less than an hour before, I felt obliged to set a good example on the canopy walkway.&nbsp; This time Katharine begged to go first, strolling across the planks 120 feet above the forest floor with no evident fear.&nbsp; I followed.&nbsp; My 230 pounds had a very different effect on the walkway, setting it actively bucking and swaying.&nbsp; Jack stepped on ten meters behind me, and almost immediately panicked.&nbsp; &nbsp; I turned back toward him, setting up an even more violent swaying.&nbsp; "Jack, do you want me to go down with you?" I asked, secretly hoping the answer might be yes.&nbsp; &nbsp; "No, Dad.&nbsp; You are not allowed to go back."&nbsp; Jack then did an incredibly brave thing.&nbsp; Though he was so scared he was crying, he resolutely put one foot in front of the other and moved toward me.&nbsp; In response, I took a deep breath, relaxed my knees, and turned back to the way forward.&nbsp; Katharine was already across.&nbsp; &nbsp; The walkway from the entry building to the first tree platform was pretty short.&nbsp; The next one was not.&nbsp; It was a two-hundred foot curving pathway through space to a distant tree.&nbsp; I decided the walk required music, and launched into our current favorite traveling song, Kenny Chesney's <i>Back Where I Come From.&nbsp; In the town where I come from...&nbsp; (No, that is not right.&nbsp; Deep breath.&nbsp; Jack steps onto the board ten meters behind me.&nbsp; The rhythmic swaying intensifies.)&nbsp; In the town where I was raised, clocks ticked and the cattle grazed.&nbsp; (That is better.&nbsp; Stepping up onto the second platform.&nbsp; Four more to go.)&nbsp; That's where I come from, where I'll be when its said and done.&nbsp; (I hear the piping voice of Alec from well behind.&nbsp; Lex is a major Chesney fan.&nbsp; Jack follows me up a slanted aluminum ladder to a higher bridge, which is already swaying like crazy.&nbsp; Katharine waves from the next platform about 100 meters away, then begins walking calmly back toward us, just like she is on a sidewalk back home.)&nbsp; I'm proud as anyone to say, that's where I come from.&nbsp; (My camera case snags on a rope and jerks me back and sideways.&nbsp; A flash of panic.&nbsp; Deep breath.&nbsp; Carefully unhook the snag.&nbsp; Onward and upward.) &nbsp; And we are finished.&nbsp; Another several hundred yards of walkway lie on the other side of a closed gate, currently under repair.&nbsp; One by one the others arrive.&nbsp; Jack is obviously unhappy, Katharine (who went back to meet Amy and Alec) absolutely loved it.&nbsp; Alec and Amy found the experience fun, too. &nbsp; To cheer Jack up, I explained that he will never need to do a canopy walk again.&nbsp; "Imagine you are at Boy Scout camp, and they ask you if you want to do a canopy walk.&nbsp; You can say, 'No, thanks.&nbsp; I already did the longest one in the world, in the Malaysian rain forest.&nbsp; After that these little ones just aren't worth the trouble.'"
]]> Pirates of the Java Sea — Ubud, Indonesia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1210780800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1210780800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/oneyearaway/round_the_world/1210780800/tpod.html Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:50:53 -0400 One year away: Our family's trip around the world.
Ubud, Indonesia

(Amy) &nbsp; After months of hearing tourists talk about the incredible deals they found on pirated DVDs around Asia, we decided to temporarily suspend our moral objections to the practice and see what the furor was all about.&nbsp;&nbsp; The local convenience store in Ubud sold thousands of DVDs, most at a price of US$1.50.&nbsp; Titles ranged from classics to slasher films to this year's Academy Award winners, which I suspect hadn't been released yet in the U.S.&nbsp; Among others, we chose <i>Horton Hears a Who, which we missed in theaters, and<i> The Simpsons Complete 12th Season. &nbsp; One of the first things you notice is that the DVD covers are pretty poor copies.&nbsp; Like a lot of t-shirts you see around the world with English words on them, they don't completely make sense<i>.&nbsp; Horton, we noticed immediately, was rated R.&nbsp; This struck us as quite funny-had we inadvertently bought <i>Horton Hires a Ho?&nbsp; Did Jim and I need to preview the movie first? &nbsp; <i>The Simpsons was actually rated PG and did contain a bunch of episodes; unfortunately, most of the episodes were not from the 12th season.&nbsp; It did provide a few hours of amusement, although I wouldn't have been too bummed if the monkey had confiscated it from the patio.&nbsp; I might even have given him a juice box and popcorn. &nbsp; Sadly, we read yesterday that if you are caught bringing pirated DVDs back into the US, you will be fined and entered onto a master computer list, which means your luggage will be ripped apart every time you reenter the country.&nbsp; As much as we'd love to share them with our friends, I think the DVDs will stay on Asian soil even after we leave it.
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