China Series #7: Lama Temple

For the final edition of the China Series, we're going to have the Yonghe Temple. It's also known as the "Lama Temple." It has that second name because it became a Lamasery, which is a monastery of Tibetan Buddhist monks. In the Temple, we saw a huge statue of the Buddha that was made from one tree. The statue filled the building all the way to the ceiling. I have no picture of it, since pictures of the statues of Buddha, were not allowed. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was very impressive. It was interesting to see that the Yonghe Temple was a center of administration for two different Lama leaders. One is the Dhalai Lama, who is in exile in India and is not allowed to return to the temple. The other is the Panchen Lama who is much younger and is allowed to visit the temple. I'd post more on the rich history of Tibetan Buddhism, but my knowledge is not very deep. Suffice it to say though that I will learn more though since my interest is piqued.

China Series #6: Pollution

Believe it or not, Beijing has the worst pollution of any place that I have ever been. It was every bit as bad as L.A. was the last time I went. The pollution in this picture is actually a little better than it was the next day, but I didn't get a chance to get a picture that day. Make sure to look for the buildings in the background. Sometimes, people miss those on first look and think that the pollution is not that bad. If you need to, click on the picture and see a larger version, so that you can get a good idea of how bad the pollution was. Beijing has over 15 million people and it is still growing. Things will only get worse unless the Chinese switch away from gas. I hope for their (and our) sakes that they do make a switch. Otherwise, things in 20-30 years will be absolutely terrible health and energy price-wise, as well.

China Series #5: Great Wall

The Great Wall was an impressive sight. The most impressive thing to me was what you couldn't see. Almost 4,000 miles of wall. That's an amazing distance. I used to fly about 2500 miles from San Francisco to NYC every Sunday. That took about four and a half hours. Of course, some parts of the wall are in much better shape than others. In some locations, it is almost rubble and is very dangerous to traverse. In other places, farmers stole bricks from the wall for their building projects. Who can blame them though? They're so poor that they'll do anything they can to improve their lives. The historical importance of the Great Wall pales beside the importance of improving their everyday lives. I would probably have done the same as them if my family didn't have enough money to purchase building materials. It's easy to criticize the poor for their theft from history when you're sitting in your Levi's having a Starbuck's in Beijing. I know our tour guide criticized them. I disagreed, but I kept it to myself.

China Series #4: Police State

Our Chinese tour guide was a nice guy. He was also either brainwashed or a liar. I think it was the first of the two. Talli asked him if the Chinese government spent much on the military. He said no, not much at all. I have pictures that show otherwise. Of course, he could just mean that they pay their military poorly compared to other countries. The following pictures are of the security forces just in Tiananmen Square. The first picture is of one of the police at the perimeter of the square. The second picture is of two gray uniformed security forces that the guide said were "private" security guards. Sure. Private. Private guards guard government squares all the time. They're some other group of government security, maybe a different police group. We saw these police many times throughout our travels, but the next picture shows the forces that we saw in, by far, the greatest strength. I know that it doesn't look like there was much security so far, but this picture should reinforce my point. This was a group of green uniformed soldiers that was marching through the square. I think they were going to relieve some of the soldiers on one side of the square. I could be wrong though. They could have just been showing their strength by patrolling the square. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of security. I wouldn't have screamed out "Mao Zedong was a kook!" I would have been locked up in seconds. In response to a question Paul asked me to verify during our trip, there are no McDonald's in Tiananmen Square. Sorry, Paul. Mao Zedong was not staring lovingly across the square at Ronald McDonald. That would have been creepy, but funny. He was staring across the square at his tomb. That's creepy enough for me though. Who wants to stare at their own tomb?

China Series #3: Chinese Culture

When Talli and I were at Changling (one of the Ming tombs), we were able to see some of the traditional garb in the Chinese court. This lady was demonstrating one of those pieces of attire. Don't mind her slightly off-putting demeanor. Where she was standing by the door, she was squinting right into the sun. The lady pictured here was just at the front entry of the Hall of Eminent Favor. Inside were different examples of garb, crowns and armor of the imperial family. The examples of their garb were all very beautiful reproductions. Later, we took an optional tour where we attended the Peking acrobat show. It was a great show. A few times during very difficult maneuvers, there was a mistake, but they redid those misses until they completed all the feats they had planned for us. It was a very impressive and fun show. There were great costumes, backdrops and amazing acrobatics and contortionism. It was a definite highlight of the trip.

China Series #2: Giant Panda

Here's the second edition of the Chinese Vacation Series. I've selected the Giant Pandas that we saw at the Beijing Zoo. First, we saw the ones outside. At first I was fascinated by them eating and walking around. After a while, this panda looked more like he was pacing frantically. It was like the people watching were making him uncomfortable. I'm not quite sure what this panda was eating. I think it was "maked grass like growing thing and combustion engine not boiled." I could be wrong though. Translations can be hard. It might just be bamboo. This seemed to be the most content of all six of the pandas that we saw. He could have just been the hungriest of all the pandas though. We did get there around breakfast time for the pandas. He would have more time to get bored after his belly was full. Then we saw the pandas that were in the indoors exhibits. Those giant pandas seemed pretty... well sad. The ones inside just sat staring out the bars trying to look outside. They wouldn't look in the direction of the people at all. They also didn't move. I was happy to hear that a much larger Beijing Zoo is being built on the outskirts of the city to give more room to all the animals. The current Beijing Zoo is way too cramped. Current Life Update: Pond Temperature: 56 Degrees Talli's birthday dessert party was a big success yesterday. Everyone seemed to have a decent time. We enjoyed having them all over. Talli and I both had a great time and lots of great conversations with lots of great people. This morning, we dropped Leor off at the airport. Hopefully, he had a good flight and will have a great spring break. Stay tuned for more China Series Updates...

China Series #1: Chinese Cuisine

One of the most amazing things I saw in China was the menu at the Chinese Restaurant at the Best Western Talli and I stayed at in Beijing. To see the actual menu items you'll have to click on the individual pictures. I'll put the text of the menu item underneath each picture. All prices are in Yuan. There are approximately 8 Yuan to the dollar. The text in parentheses are my comments. Pulling down bakes traditional state banquet well-known dish on the pig's head
(Very well known dish, I'm sure.) Traditional well-known dish is maked known in squirrel mandarin fish this greens Hunihe River
(Squirrel Mandarin? Is that what the Chinese squirrels speak?) Honey almond and snowplow in stew
(A snowplow?! You've got to be kidding me. How does that fit in the pot?) The sour bite the snakehead boiling water
(?????) Tianma and baby pigeon in stew
(Baby pigeons? Just sounds cruel.) Lily stir-fry foursquare
(I never thought to turn a favorite kids game into a dish.) The pliable bag length fish
(How long is bag length?) These were amazing choices. As you might think, I had a hard time choosing a dish to eat. I really thought the pliable bag length fish might be interesting, but I couldn't bring myself to eat it. Anyone have any thoughts on these dishes? I'm reaching out to people to pick their favorite dish and why they chose it. Just leave a comment... More Chinese experiences to follow.

Back From China!

We've returned from China! Our internet connection has also returned. Plus, Talli has had her birthday. Which birthday, you ask? That you would have to ask her. China was an amazing experience. So much history and, despite what they want you to believe, so much poverty still. Things seem to be improving, but it is amazing the level of poverty that the majority of the country still endures. Give them another twenty years or so and things will have improved a lot. Luckily, when we returned from our trip, all our fish had survived in the pond. We were very happy to see that. In fact, they seem happier to see us then when we left. They no longer hide so much. Over the next little bit, I'll be doing my series on China, the same way I did for our trip to Rome. As I speak, the pictures are downloading off of our cameras. The series will detail the experiences that impacted me the most on our trip.

China Bound

Well, tomorrow is the day. Talli and I are heading off to China. A 13 hour flight awaits us. It should be a great trip. I still have some free drink vouchers from when I used to have 1k status with United. Maybe we can get a glass of wine to go with dinner. I wonder what type of wine goes with airline food? All the fish have been released. Pictures though will have to wait until after China. Pictures from China will start going up a day or two after we arrive most likely. I still have to install our new modem at home the day I get back. If it works, things will start trickling out onto the blog. Talk to you all again soon!

Dog Meditation

In a bid for inner peace and greater domestic tranquility, Talli has been meeting with our Minister of Home Yard Security. Talli has been attempting to negotiate special dispensation for van Sunder Land visitation by the Postal Service Ambassador that visits us six days a week. Tensions between the Minister and the Ambassador are high and we are at an impasse. The Minister has been barking hysterically at the Ambassaador and jumping at the mail slot. The Ambassador has barely enough courage to drop off missives before retreating to his home country. Currently, Talli is attempting to teach Hunter meditation in order to lower the anxiety that is underlining the conflict. More information will be passed along on this story as developments occur.

Home Yard Security

Every aspiring country needs to focus on Home Yard Security. That's why Talli and I have appointed our first Minister of Home Yard Security. Hunter van Sunder was appointed to the position. Pictured here we can see Hunter providing a vital service hunting down terror suspects that have lodged in our tree, refusing to leave. The following picture is of one of the Bird League's Separatist fighters. Minister van Sunder has been very diligent at his post. He has been militant about stopping Home Yard Incursions and has imposed draconian measures to prevent them. Barking at and chasing off offenders have been vital anti-terror tools. Additionally, we have pictures of a Squirrel League Terror school that was founded just across our border with the fascist government of Angry Neighbor. It will be a hard job stopping the incursions into our yard by these and other terrorist groups, but Hunter van Sunder is just the dog, er, Minister of Home Yard Security to do it.

Two Fish Releases

With the trip to China looming before us, I decided to release our aquarium fish into the wilds of our small country of "van Sunder Land." Okay, the name doesn't have the ring to it that it needs. I'll work on it. I've been busy. Technically, the release is into our above ground pond, but it is outside. That's as close to wild as we have unless you count a rain barrel that has no filter in it. The first release on Saturday, March 4 was of two koi: Ghost and our unnamed yellow and white one and three goldfish: Goldie, Shark and Boss Hogg. You can see a picture of all nine fish here playing follow the leader shortly after release. After a while they decided they didn't like schools and started roaming in gangs of three or four. Unsettlingly, like urban America. So far, no gang warfare. Yesterday, I released the next batch. This was a smaller release of one koi: our blue doitsu being released in the picture here and two goldfish: Mustache and Tinie. Pond Temperature: 53 degrees The fish were released because the pond environment at approximately 800 gallons is much more stable than either the 23 or 50 gallon tanks we have. The smaller tank experienced a filter failure during one of our trips that cost us two koi. The tanks in the house, like the house itself has not been heated so that water temperatures are relatively similar. To reduce our risk during our trip, all the fish destined for the pond will be released before our trip. The next release will be tomorrow.

Unpleasant Weather Over van Sunder Land

Last weekend while I was offline due to AT&T not being able to sell us DSL promptly, the weather devastated our house. Okay, maybe that's a little overstated. It was cold. There was hail and vertical rain. You can see the hail picturesd here near the founatin. So, it was unpleasant to be walking outside. Inside, everything was okay, with the exception of having no internet connection. Internet Connection update: AT&T contacted us, they can't give us their faster connection. We don't qualify. So, we'll be getting the slower 384 kbps - 1.5 mbps connection speed. As a bonus, we have to wait longer to get connected. So, the time was pushed back until March 14. Unfortunately, we'll be leaving for China that day, so I had them postpone it until the day we return. As a result, internet will be restored to the van Sunder family on March 20th. That's three weeks without a home internet connection. It can be hard sometimes having your home thrust back into 1991. Oh well, such is the pain of living in the third world of the independent state of "name to be announced". We're still too early in our state to have a name. Check back later for more information.