The road less traveled...or maybe not

These first few days of the trip have been lots and lots of road miles...not much sight seeing yet! Brian and I left Tahlequah on Saturday after a hectic day and met up with Matthew and friends for a late supper in Norman, OK. Sunday morning we picked up Matthew, and drove south towards Lake Texoma to pick up Adam from camp.

We arrived at Camp Cavett in time to get in on the closing ceremonies and to watch Adam receive a camp award for Congeniality! He was honored for stepping forward and helping another camper who had fallen and was hurt...made me so proud! By the time we stopped for lunch and a quick supply stop (picked up a great travel cooler that plugs into the 12V outlet in the van...travelling in style!!), it was already 2:00, so we only made it as far as Springfield, MO the first night to end Day 2.

Day 3 included travel across 4 states...Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and finally ending the day in Ohio. We got great views of various sights from the car, and stopped long enough in Indiana to take pictures of the welcome sign. It was Brian's first visit back to the state of his birth after moving with his family when he was around 1 year old.

We have one more day of primarily driving hard...we should have another 4 state day today with the remainder of Ohio, a very brief crossing of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and finally stopping for the night in Princeton, New Jersey. Here's hoping for a rather uneventful day on the road!

New Jersey/New York City Trip in Photos: Day 1

(Note: As I'm sure someone else will explain, we embarked on our trip to Princeton, New Jersey and New York City today. I am going to be documenting our daily progress via photos and captions, so stay tuned. -matthew)

After Mom and Dad got me in Norman, we picked up Adam from camp, where he greeted us with newly blond hair.

(For the rest of the photos, click through to the full post...)

Food, food and more food

Food was quite the adventure. This is a difficult section write. Hard to know where to start. Chinese food in the US has definitely been screened for the american palette. There is just a much larger variety here for one thing. One dish will look and taste like something right of the menu at Grand China in Tahlequah, and then the next dish will be extremely bizarre.

We ate in a variety of settings from big banquets, to neighborhood restaurants, to fast food to little corner noodle joints. A number of our meals were 'family style' where the dishes were placed on a huge 'lazy susan' and everyone shared them. Typically you'd have 2-3 dishes per person, so when there was 10 of us there could be 30 dishes to try. Some would be quite simple - just Chinese pickles, or some fruit and a sauce, etc.

The picture below shows an authetic meal at a little lunch spot. My main dish is the noodle/vegatable/meat dish in the lower right. Some of the sides were tomato slices with sugar, Chinese peanuts and 'noodles' made of tofu.

I consider myself to be a pretty adventerous eater, but there were times when I would get 'maxxed out'. I realized that part of what was odd was there were many times when you really had no idea what something was going to taste like. Odd feeling to pop something in your mouth without any idea what the sensation will be. In the US, one has favorties and less favorites and things one doesn't like, but generally you know what to expect. For instance, at one meal there were these little purple-brownish cigar shaped things. They looked a little like dates (or some other fruit). But the skin was a little wrinkled, so could be like a stuffed grape leaf. I couldn't rule out a piece of meat though either. I popped it in my mouth and...oh it's a little potato!

I ate a couple breakfasts with stuff from the bakery next door. This is not traditional Chinese food (they seem to be trying for some sort of chinese version of Europe). The three items below are typcial. One was like an inside out quiche (good), another was like a big puffy 'pig in a blanket'. And then there was the sandwich. It was on toasted bread (which is not at all chinese), but the three layers were not any combo I've tasted before. One layer was like ham and a pickle. The middle layer was fishy (looked sort of like tuna salad). The third layer looked like vegatable stew (corn kernels, peas, carrots).

In the core of the city, fast food is becoming more popular, especially with younger people. The meal above was a combo at a chinese fast food chain. Dumplings and vegatables is the main dish. Below was the meal at a Korean fast food chain (just like we do Taco Bell, they may do Korean). Their specialty is these stone bowls. The bowl was outrageously, melt your skin, hot and stayed too hot to touch most of the meal.

Hot liquids were a common theme, which seemed insane to the americans in the sweltering weather. They do have very cold winters in Beijing, when such meals would be great, they just don't know when to quit!

Here are some of the strangest things I ate: Pumpkin vine (pretty good greens). Squid. Corn juice, which is evidently a new fad. One could get the effect by taking a can of creamed corn, strain out all the solids and then add some more sugar. Very sweet and corny (about the consistency of eggnog). We had boiled and roasted chicken a couple of times. The head was still on the plate (just like 'A Christmas Story'), but that was no big deal. The odd part was that it was then cut into like 1 inch strips. Bone and all! Must be a heck of a knife. You'd have a piece of thigh or breast, but the ribs etc. would be cut right through. There would be bite sized pieces of meat but also small, splintery bone bits in there. Duck feet (one of the worst things I've ever consumed-you can live a full complete life without ever eating duck feet).

Random Stuff

Sort of the modern day version of the rickshaw. These are little one passenger taxi's. There are slightly wider two passenger versions. We never rode in any of these little guys. You do see taxi bikes and more rickshaw looking things in tourist areas.



What gives...KFC delivers here!



A recycler on three wheeled bike loaded up with mostly styrofoam.



My favorite english sign so far in front of a small buddhist temple.

What a difference a day can make.

The last full day here it rained. Not that much, maybe quarter of an inch. The wind may have changed as well. That evening we couldn't believe the skies. We could see them and there were clouds and blue patches and sun. It was like a whole new city. Carrie and I were snapping pictures left and right.

Here's a picture taken a couple days earlier. That's the sun trying to shine through the murk. Pretty sure there are no clouds or fog here, just the pollution. Barely enough sun to cast a shadow sometimes. The only way you could tell if there were clouds was by the general light level. No stars or moon could get through at all.



Before and after of roughly the same scene.



Blue skies on our last morning. Too bad it didn't rain the day before the Great Wall.

2008 Olympics Venue

On our last full day we did some shopping and then walked through the main Olympics area built for the 2008 games. Here's Brian in front of the main Olympics hotel.



Brian in front of the Aquatics Center, usually referred to as the 'water cube'.



Brian in front of the Olympic Stadium, usually referred to as the 'birds nest'.



Which way to McDonald's?



Yeah, wheelchair sports!



A cool tower.

Summer Palace

The summer palace is about 4 or 5 miles north of the forbidden city, but has a different feel. Less serious, more playful. My favorite part of the forbidden city was probably the gardens and the summer palace is more like that all over.



There's a big lake and we rented paddle boats to get around part of the time. Here Carrie and I take a turn pedaling.



A dragon boat crossed our path.



This quite spot is known as the Pavillion of Bright Scenery. It's less restored, more antique condition gave it a nice feel.



This is part of the 'long corridor'. A corridor is often a feature in Chinese formal gardens and this is the longest (you'd better not have a corridor longer than the Emporer's or you're asking for trouble. Over 8000 separate painted scenes in the ceiling.



A buddhist shrine at the top of the hill.

The Great Wall of China

The closest and easiest section of Great Wall to visit from Beijing is the park at Badaling. It is also the most crowded. There are other more secluded park access points and miles and miles of unrestored wall in various states of decay.



Evidently, the wall never worked as originally intended; that is as an impenetrable barrier against invaders. There were numerous instances of it being breached or an end run being made. Possibly the most useful it has ever been to China is with a ticket booth to sell 'invaders' the priviledge of walking along the top of it.



First views of the wall from the parking lot. Very hazy. Close enough to Beijing for air pollution to be thick as pea soup.



Still near the access point. At the start one has the choice to go east or west. We went west, which is the less traveled route.



It's Brian Kaney on the Great Wall of China at Badaling! Pretty cool to really be here.



Looking out a turret over the side. At many points it wasn't that super high, maybe 10 ft. Not that hard to climb over, but it did provide a good defensive position and a early warning system.



If you came to the park planning to commit a nuisance, think again.



We got to the Wall park early (~8:30 AM) and it was a weekday, so the crowds were not so bad. The way we went, it got pretty secluded near the end. The second hill with the flat platform is the farthest one can go this direction at Badaling. It is unrestored after that and not open to the public.



The Great KFC at Badaling!

Peking duck or Beijing duck?

Both 'Peking' and 'Beijing' are transliterations. That is, you take a non-english word and make up a spelling that when pronounced hopefully mimics the sound of the word. Peking is easier to say, but a less accurate representation. Beijing is pretty close to how it sounds when the Chinese speak of this city.

We had a big banquet the first evening of our two days of meetings. After the second day of meetings, a smaller group took us out for 'Peking' duck. This picture is from the taxi ride. Bikes no longer rule the road as they once did, but they are still a major force to be reckoned with.



This is evidently the original restaurant that started a dish called Peking duck, about 150 years ago. It has become a tourist institution. A place to bring out-of-towners. We're told no Beijinger would go there to just eat, as you can get roast duck that is just as good for half the price elsewhere.



Touristy but still pretty fun. Dazzle them with as much China decoration as we can.



The duck being carved. Every party has it's little room. It's a huge place; can accomidate something like 2000 guests!

A typical day at the office

Our attractive tree-lined street. We had two full days of meetings at the Chinese Ministry of Water, which was just around the block from the hotel.



Here I am outside the front gate of the ministry, just before the guard came around and said not to take pictures there. This was actually the second day of meetings and we were coming back from lunch. So we had been through the gate a few times and I had wanted to get a picture, but wasn't sure if it was OK. So I pulled the camera out to take a quick one a little farther down the sidewalk from an angle that the guards couldn't see us yet. One of the other meeting participants saw me and right away offered to take a much better picture with me in it (they were all very friendly). So I figured if the locals are doing it, then go for it. On the other hand, the person who took the picture, wasn't from Beijing either so maybe it was the blind leading the blind into trouble. They had brought in people from regional River Forecast Centers around the country to participate and my picture taker was from that group. Not a big deal, they just told us not to take pictures there.



The conference table where we met.



We had lunch at a restaurant just down the street. This is on the walk there. Coke is pretty easy to find, but I never did see a Pepsi.



The restaurant where they took us to lunch both days.

Leaving forbidden city and Temple of Heaven

Eventually, we made it all the way to the north end of the forbidden city. The symmetry and placement of important buildings along the city centerline continues. The first image shows the north gate of the palace compound. Beyond that is a hill with a building centered on top. The hill is actually man made, being the excavation pile for the forbidden city moat and some nearby lakes.

We climbed the hill and from there you look farther north at more important buildings along the centerline.

We then had lunch and afterward took a taxi down to another big park, where the Temple of Heaven is located.

More forbidden city

Here is an assortment of pictures once inside the 4th gate.







This next one is actually an opera house built in the late 1800's with three levels of stages.



My favorite part was the gardens which are shown in the next two.





And when you see a AC unit don't forget: