The Olympics, The Wall, The Tomb, Jade and Acrobats (incomplete--check back tomorrow)

So, I am sorry to admit this in writing and all but I didn't know the Olympics would be happening here in Bejing. I mean, I remember traveling a couple of years ago and seeing cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Hong Kong all advertising to be selected as the sites for these up coming Olympic games. But I never really paid attention to who "scored" the Summer 08 Olympic games. I just don't keep track of these things in the village.

But now, with events a mere 45 days away, Bejing is definitely gearing up for the Olympics. I snapped three photos of official Oylmpic buildings. The first on the left here is the building where all swimming and events will take place. The second picture here to the right is the Cycling building.

The last pictures I snapped is of the building they call the Bird's Nest. Kind of cool looking, huh? This is the building where the opening and closing ceremonies will take place.


The tour guides explained that next month they have cancelled all tours of this area and instead are planning to visit the United States. It is sure to be chaotically-crazy. At one point I guess the Chinese government put a cap on how high hotel can charge for their rooms. There was an official edict to prevent the gouging. The new policy is that hotels can NOT charge more than SIX TIMES their normal rate. Way to stick to their guns, huh? Whew!

Another interesting thing I learned in regards to the Olympic Games here in Bejing is that the core of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze metals will have Jade. White, green, and yellow jade will be incased in the gold, silver, and bronze. We went to a jade factory today but I didn't snap any pictures. I did, however, purchase a jade bangle for myself. It was costly, I am not going to lie. But I scored a pretty good deal, I think. I paid about 170 USD less than what it was marked at. I was willing to pay about 80 USD less than what is was marked but my mom is a bargaining champ.

It's a lavender jade with a little splash of green in it. I've had it on since I purchased it and I don't anticipate taking it off. As someone who doesn't wear jewelry my only real issue so far is that I now have my watch on my right wrist. And that's really foreign. Typing is wired. But I suppose with time, I'll get used to it.



So as I said I didn't take a picture of the jade factory but I did snap some shops of another shop we went into. We also went to a cloisonne factory. The workers take tiny strips of metal and manipulate them into swirls and other decorative designs and then attach them to a vase or plate or whatnot. They said a medium sized vase will take about a month to cover with the metal.



It's so precise. So interesting and intricate. I really was impressed with this stage of the art. After the wire work is complete paint is added. It takes 8 to 9 coats of paint. It is then pounded and fired and polished and all shined up to make the completed cloisonne piece. In all honesty, I'm not a big fan. I mean I like the piece with the bronze wire but once it's all painted and glazed, it looks kind of cheesy.

I mean I can appreciate the work but it's just not my thing.

I did buy some other things there in the cloisonne factory. Specifically, I purchased a present for Michelle and her fiance Marc. I hope they like them. If they don't I am SOL because they're specifically made for them.

Today we went to two factories. We watched one stage performance and we visited two tourist attractions. The first was an Emperor's Tomb. The second was the Great Wall.


The tomb we visited was built for the third to the last emperor in the Ming Dynasty. He ruled for 47 years. The two who followed ruled for only a handful of months each. This is said to be the second largest Ming tomb in China. The largest is having problems getting funded. That tomb is said to hold 1/4 of the countries riches and yet they can't find the funding to excavate. Hmm...

This photo to the right here is of our whole tour group. There are 30 of us from all over the United States. All but two of us speak English but most of the travelers are bilingual it seems.

The tomb we visited is surrounded by a garden. The garden had all sort of snap-worthy artifacts like these marble elephant table and chairs. The trees were clearly well cared for. And like in the Forbidden City Garden they trees here had the red and green plates indicating the tree's age.

There were several shops set up to sell good as well. One in particular caught my eye by opening up a variety of umbrellas and placing them around the stand. I was only one of several who found these worthy of a photograph.

With the garden being so immaculately decorated I was really looking forward to seeing the inside of this tomb. We went down about a dozen staircases (about 150 steps) to get to the base of the tomb. We circled around for a while until we got to the main attraction. The main tomb where the famous Emperor was laid to rest.

So there it is on the left there. The tallest red thing is where the emperor was buried. The slightly smaller one is where the Empress is. And those little red boxes were jewelry boxes. The concubines were buried in a different room within the tomb.

Generally speaking it was pretty lackluster down there. I walked back up and out of the tomb more interested in the gardens outside than the actual coffins. Sabrina ran up behind me and asked if I saw the ceiling. She said the staircase we took back up had a decorated ceiling. She asked for my camera and then ran back and snapped this picture on the right. So there it is... frills.

After dinner we went to an acrobatics show. They allowed pictures to be taken and unlike the previous show there wasn't a story to fallow. Just a bunch of "oooo" and "ahhhhh" moments. I didn't like it as much. I mean sure it was nice. Impressive. Picturesque. But... you know... how much of that can one sit through?

Perhaps it's like the difference between Nicole and I with music. I prefer the lyrics. She prefers the melody. I like the artistry but I prefer a storyline in my stage productions.

Regardless, it was pretty so I snapped a ton of pictures. We were in the front row so I found some of it a little too personal. The dragons came right to the edge of the stage at one point and one even barked at me. Eek!

For the most part my dad thought the woman did much more than the men. He was impressed with their components. They did a whole 10 minutes or so with tricks on bikes. A couple of times they did poses with eight woman all balanced on one bike as you can see from the photo on the right. "no hands" was clearly just the very beginning of their act.

There was another group that caught my eye though. Two men in only their boxer shorts came out and flexed their muscles for us for a while. Then they did all sorts of strange isometrics. It was so homoerotic I caught myself wanting to turn away at times to give them their own private time.

Rather than leave though I snapped a bunch of pictures. I mean come on... I pay for this stuff on Showtime back in the states. *sigh* I miss QAF.

Sidebar: Dee-- okay I saw it, David A was sort of QAF's Michaelesque. But I SO preferred Syesha. And when it came down to it I think I liked David Cook better too. He ranked about third for me I think. I thought he sang through his nose. I wanted to reach through the TV and open his mouth open more.

So... that leaves just our visit to the Great Wall. From the entrance there are two ways to travel. Off to the left is said to be the harder journey. There are 7 towers but a more stringent grade. Off to the right there are 8 towers. Kiana, Marissa, and Sabrina ll took the harder, less crowded option. My parents and I went off to the right.


Now here's where I might totally confuse you. Behind the picture of the girls is the trail that they DIDN'T take. The picture of me off to the left actually shows the harder (left) trail that the girls took.

Technically speaking, the picture of me was taken (by myself) half way up the trail on the right. So it's not that they hiked that whole thing pictured. Instead they hiked from the lowest point in the picture to way over past the highest part pictured. The trail apparently wraps down around the far side of that mountain. I wouldn't know first hand, because as I said, I wussed out with the right side.

Not that the right side was a breeze. In fact, I only made it half way. My parents when up to tower seven and barely made it back to the bus in time. I decided getting to tower four (the top of the mountain that is pictured behind the girls) was good enough for me. The views were beautiful. Ands after all, the hike was plenty strenuous up to that point. There were a few in our group that gave up long before tower #4.

So I will probably regret not having gone further. After all, it's not like I have another chance anytime soon. And also, I wasn't exactly smoked at the top of tower four. In fact, I went back from tower four to the main gate without even stopping once. Which means, I had plenty of strength and control left in me. We had about 80 minutes at the Great Wall. Getting to Tower Four took me about 30 minutes. Could I have kept it going? Sure. I probably would have made it to Tower Seven as my parents did. But I don't think I would have made it to the end (Tower Eight) in that time limit.

That is really the drawback in a tour like this, I think. There are some places I just want to spend more time in. And, in all honesty, there are some places I don't want to go to at all.

It's 10:50pm right now. The day AFTER the events I have written about here actually took place. Today we started at 7:00am and we didn't check into our new hotel room until 10:30pm. That sucked. I'm smoked. 

We watched a show again. This one was strictly music and dance. There wore bright colored outfits. Shiny things everywhere. But... I'm tired. Our whole tour group is. The guy in the table next to our was yawning ridiculously loud.

I don't want to be disrespectful. Not at all. But... a few more days like this and I think I will struggle with keeping my attitude in check, you know?

Tanks, Ducks, Concubines, Kung Fu, and Heaven

*sigh*  I swear to you that I have written more notes and taken many more pictures than what I am going to post for you today.  This *IS* the edit.  :)

Today marks the first real day of our tour of China.  We started with a nice breakfast.  As is usually the case with these tours, breakfast was pretty westernized.  Actually, I found it a nice combination of Chinese and American food.  Sort of like my own diet.  

So on my plate there is bacon and eggs, pineapple and watermelon, potatoes and pork bao, snow peas and bok choy.  On the side I have congee with green onions and tofu, and hot tea with milk and sugar.  Mmm... the best of all worlds.

Our first stop was Tian'an men Square.  Interestingly I can't access much about Tian'an men Square from the Internet here. In fact in addition to the blogger block, I found that in researching Tian'an men Square wikipedia, youtube, and most photos searched are blocked too. And Google? It's sort of half-assed. It seems someone in China has a grip on the Internet here. And whoever that is is not real willing to let local information seekers learn about the massacre.

Anyway... we went to Tian'an men Square today and I learned that in the center is a tower called, "Hero's Memorial." On Sundays local honored primary students get chosen to stand at the entrance to the memorial and raise flags in couple-hour shifts. Today just happened to be Sunday so I snapped a shot of the uniformed tykes.

It was a strange sort of place to be. There were guards in uniforms walking amongst us casually. On the bus we were told you may not take pictures of these guards though... they ARE working. And if it looks like you are wanting to cause a ruckus you will be "handled". Our guide told us that on a previous tour a group took out a newspaper and snapped a photo (I am thinking like the Delta Discovery--people take the local AK paper to different places and snap a photo that appears in the newspaper as a sort of shout-out) Anyway... this newspaper was apparently confiscated by the guards and the couple taking the picture were held up about 20 minutes for questioning. It was all just sort of strange feeling.

I snapped a photo of the group traveling. And while my plan was to not post it... just keep it for my own collection, I am going to go ahead and show it to you here.

Do you see that chain behind them. It marked off the square that didn't seem particularly important or anything. But a few minutes after I snapped the picture a little boy ran under the chain and into the open area. Two guards called after him. He didn't respond so they chased after him. When they reached him he looked up at them.

WAY UP at them. Because he reached about mid-thigh. They pointed to the chain he had crossed. He sort of half stumbled, half ran, back to his family, frightened. They too were frightened and took a hold of him on both sides. I couldn't snap a photo of the guards but I did get this one here of the criminal.

At the edge of Tian'an men Square is the Imperial City (wherein lies the Forbidden City). Prior to the end of the last Emperor this is where the Emperor's family would stay when visiting. We entered the Imperial City and walked the 3.2 miles through the part that is open to tourists.

There is this one particular place called the Meridian Gate within this outer area of the Forbidden City. The Meridian Gate was a place where people were tortured or put to death 400 years ago. Wars were also "announced" in this great open area. Our guide told us specifically about one autumn when 360 officials were tortured and then dropped from high off the ground to eventually die by hitting the ground. It was all pretty gruesome.

I looked down to the ground to imagine these 360 bodies meeting their eventual end by broken neck or whatnot on the earth, and I saw I had a hitchhiker with me. Do you see him there? Using me as protection as we crossed the meridian? Wishing me luck perhaps?

After we crossed the Meridian Gate we officially entered the Forbidden City, or rather the gathering place for officers who waited for the Emperor's daytime Court. Here I had a photo snapped of our whole group crossing one of four bridges crossing a moat. This was an entrance only for men. It seems the Empress and concubines (the only woman allowed into the Forbidden City) had another entrance. An entrance forbidden to us tourists.

Our tour guide gave us some time near the officer's "Break Room" so I snapped a photo of Sabrina poking the roof of one of the several male-only buildings. This one in particular was one that is being all shined up for the Olympics so we couldn't go inside. This picture could have been better without my backpack in the way, but you get the drift.

I took a random picture near the highest point in the Forbidden City. You can see here a little of the general expanse. There are 9,000 rooms within the Forbidden City. Heaven is believed to have 10,000 rooms so the Forbidden City worked hard to get close to Heaven and yet respect that the Emperor is not a god.

Everything was so intricately designed. I snapped a photo of a roof top corner just to give you a little peek as to the details in every building. Numbers of animals in the design all have important meaning. Buildings with odd numbers of animals are for men. Also, specifically, the number nine means longevity. Any even numbered designs signaled places for the Empress and other concubines.

The life of a concubine fascinates me; what can I say? I snapped a picture here of one of the many concubine rooms. Each one had a lock from the outside. The guide said they pretty much spent their entire existence in this room. In the evening the Emperor would walk the courtyard between the concubine's room and choose one or two to talk to. Yes, my tour guide told us he would chose who he would "talk" to. hee hee.

When the Emperor died concubines had one of two choices. She could choose to be buried alive in the tomb of the Emperor, in sacrifice; or she could move to a small house until she died of natural causes. This second choice carried with it little honor. What a lonely existence and what a strange choice to make at the end. I imagine the concubines all together at the end who chose to be buried with their Emperor. Sure, they were seen as nobel... but in that room... did they share stories of regret? Or did they stay proud? They are woman after all. I can imagine some major bitch-fests.

In between all of the concubines' rooms we saw the Emperor's room. I wasn't that impressed. It was frankly pretty small. We KNOW this is the Emperor and Empress's room though because it had a golden blanket and only the Emperor would decorate his bedroom with this color.

Leaving this area we entered the Forbidden Garden. Honestly, I missed the stories here because I had somehow managed to misplace my sun glasses attachment. Marissa offered to retrace our steps to see if it could be found. The tour moved on without us into the garden while she ran back. I didn't even find them which is a bummer because they fit rather nicely and it's damn sunny out. But that's just the the way it is sometimes. Life could be worse. I could like... be a concubine or something.

I did though hear an explanation on why the trees were each given a red or green plate. They said the green-plated trees were less than 300 years old but the red plated trees have been growing for more than 300 years. You can see here a photo of both.

After we left the Forbidden City we had a nice lunch, and then headed over to a park called the Temple of Heaven. Also in Bejing there is said to be two gates. One gate enters a Temple made by an Emperor the other enters the Temple of Heaven. It is said that an Emperor had a dream that God dropped seven stones from the heavens indicating where to build this specific temple.

The temple itself is a architectural mystery. It is said to be made of three large tree trunks and there isn't a metal nail in the whole thing. The drawback to this is that this is actually the third Temple of Heaven because the first two burned down.

The temple is not open to the public. But there are four showrooms around the temple that show what it does look like on the inside. In addition to the amazing paintings and other decorative elements the temple has a staircase and an alter. The Emperor was to place his givings to God on the steps and then burn them. Yeah, do you see how the Temple of Heaven burned down a couple of times?

Here's another group shot of us facing the Temple. That building behind us is one of those showrooms. We had about 30 minutes to wander this area. I was rather disappointed with this because on the outside of the gate surrounding the Temple of Heaven and the four showrooms, was a park. The park is very popular for exercise, music, dance, card games, etc. In the mornings the locals pack the place with their leisure activities and in the afternoons it's flooded with tourists and retired people. There was one guy in particular we passed on the way to the Temple who was playing a really interestingly looking string instrument. I was hoping to snap a picture of him, but our "freetime" was within the Temple gates. Not in the park.

So... left with just a quick walk by, I was only able to snap this photo to share. As you can see playing card games near heaven is a popular past time. Who am I kidding, this is exactly how *I* hope to be lucky enough to spend my retirement. Whether that be really here in Bejjing or some other beautiful park that makes me feel near God is irrelevant to me. I'll place my own seven stones. 

Sitting near the temple I snapped a couple of photos myspace-style. Here's Sabrina and me on the left. And Marissa and I are posed here on the right.

After we left the Temple of Heaven we went back to the hotel for about an hour. Marissa and Kiana whipped out their DS and started clicking away. Sabrina sat at my computer and typed an email to her mom. I flipped on the TV and watched "The Net" on one of the two English stations we get in our hotel. My parents went to a nice courtyard on the side of the hotel and did a little Tai Chi before  one took a shower and the other took a quick nap.

After our hour of downtime we went to an optional performance called, "The History of Kung Fu." It told the story of a young boy who trained at the Shaolin Temple to be a great leader. It was amazing! I bought a copy of it thinking I would gift it to a couple (Ted Berry and Pam Lau) I know who run a Karate program in Bethel. However, not opening it myself might be tough. It was so amazing. The costume. The strength. The acrobatics. The color. The pacing. It will be hard to not open it up myself to share it with others. I snapped just this one photo as the curtain fell. You'll just have to use your imagination until I break open my DVD copy.

After spending some time and money at the gift shop there, we were bused back to the hotel to pick up those on our tour who did not go to the History of Kung Fu.

Reunited, we all went to dinner together. We had our official Peeking Duck dinner. Or rather our Bejing roasted Duck dinner. They cut the duck tableside and then taught us how to roll them up with these potato pancakes.

Inside the pancake is the oily and flavorful Bejing Duck dipped in oyster sauce and sprinkled with onion threads.

We were told by our local guide that Bejing food is known for being very oily and very salty. I liked everything but it also further drove home for me the fact that I prefer the poor, light, Vietnamese food to the more popular in American-Chinese food.

It was tasty. Everything was tasty. Here's a closing picture of our dinner table.

Tomorrow we go to the Great Wall.

So why was I up at 4:45 am?

Well... we got into Bejing around noon local time. Customs went ridiculously fast and we met with our tour guide in the lobby of the new Bejing Airport. It seems there were two other groups (in our same tour) who were supposed to be on our same flight from Bejing. They had not yet checked in with our guide. So... we waited.

Our guide doesn't like their new airport. It's big (and pretty). But I guess it's not really enjoyable for those who have to wait around for hours on end. The old airport had better seating, he explained. Here we are are just sort of standing around and waiting. Look at the really interesting.... big thing... to the right. Yeah... uh... big bowl surrounded by flowers was not impressive to our guide.

Looking closer, BTW, you can see Marissa is in between my mom and dad playing her DS. hee hee Marissa is addicted. I LOVE it. Kiana and Sabrina play too but for Marissa it's like every minute of downtime is DS time. I think it was a really good investment. My mom might grow to hate it. "Put down that DS! Look out the window!" But for now, the very long airplane rides were only really full of whiney complaints during take-off and landing (when the DS was stowed).

In general though, the kids were champs. I mean really, they're not kids anymore. Kiana is a Sophomore and Marissa is a Freshmen in HIGH SCHOOL for goodness sakes. And Sabrina... she's in Jr. High. So it's not like they are the babies on the plane. Having said that this is by far the longest trip they have been on. Their longest flight before this was from New Mexico to the East Coast about a year and a half ago.  On that trip they went to Canada for a couple of hours.  And last year they took a cruise to the  North part of  Mexico.  But this is there first time really OFF the continent.

By the way, I snapped this photo of a sign (shout out to Carey and her photos on signs) on the moving walkways. It reads, "Please look after oldster and child." Oldster... I like that. I gotta think that sign was for me, right? I am traveling with my Oldster parents and youngster children of my sister.

So there we sat on the floor of the airport waiting this time for strangers rather than for another plane.   Eventually, Marissa's DS battery went dead. She talked Kiana into letting her use hers to continue to play. As it turns out, Kiana's was almost out of power too. We went into that place there in that first photo called, "Le Cafe" to steal their power for Marissa and to pay for a coffee for me. I ordered an iced mocha thing and a ham croissant.  It was around $5... very reasonable I thought.  Before they brought over my coffee my mom came over and said that our tour guide (Henry) decided to stick around because another plane from Hong Kong to Bejing was delayed.   And just in case the other groups were on it, he'll wait for another three hours.

We, on the other hand, could go to the hotel and then have the rest of the day free. We were next committed to a 8:30am meeting in the lobby the next morning. Free time is an exception on these tours and we were all very grateful to be able to get to the hotel and get out of our traveling funkyness.

The six of us are staying in three hotel rooms. As you learned from my previous (Business) post I am staying in a room with Marissa. My daughta' from a different mutha' (and fatha'). Kiana is staying with my mom. And Sabrina is staying with my dad. We are all on different floors. Which is just strange.

We checked into the ammenities and found that they have a swimming pool and a gym. The girls and I decided we would like to take a swim. My mom previously had told them that they would NOT have free time in China and should NOT pack swimsuits. As it turns out I am the only one traveling with a suit. A swimsuit I picked up during my Seattle layover because I left mine in Oscarville. So... we decided to spend the rest of the day getting dinner (we had after all only had breakfast on the plane), buying swim suits, and then enjoying the pool.

(side bar Marissa just woke up and said sleepily, "ah-wah." She sat up. "Is it morning?" It is quite bright out. I said, "It's 6 am. You can sleep more." She thought for a moment mumbled something about not having ever put on her pajamas and then lied back down.)

We moved our stuff into our room and then brushed teeth and hair before heading out of the hotel. We had heard there was a department store about a block away so we just sort of walked around in a loop until we found a restaurant we thought looked pretty good.

So here is the first photo of the six of us. (By the way, you can click on any photo to make it bigger but I am only attaching small pics because trying to attach them any bigger times the server out.)

I promise in the future to take photos of the food and decor and such, but last night, my objective was just to use my timer to get us all together.

After the tasty meal we walked back to where we had spotted the department store. At this point my mom and dad were feeling sleepy and were pretty much not committing to watching the girls swim. With the mix of being unshowered and humid/smog in the environment I was starting to break out and feel just generally unclean. But, I was committed to enjoying this downtime. So we pressed forward on our swim suit search.


The department store had five floors and it took a while to find the suits. Once we did, we saw that they were all pretty small. Damn those Asian size-zero figures. My mom and dad found another shop close by. The name of the store translates to "Fat Lady". Charming, huh? Anyway... they were on the too big side for my nieces and they were also swimsuit-free.

So, reluctantly, we headed back to the hotel where the girls agreed to a little lay-down time in our separate rooms and then to meet up again later and to go to the gym. That was at about 6:00pm. I fell asleep to the clicking of Marissa's DS at about 7:15pm.

I never heard from any of the other rooms.

I woke at 4:45am and blogged for you all.

Now it's 6:20am and Marissa just finished up her shower. We are gong to meet for breakfast at 7:45am to start our day.

Business....

Okay... so this is weird.  I'm in Bejing now and I can create, edit, and publish posts but I can't view my own blog.  I also can't view anyone else's.  (so bummed Nicole!)  So I guess I am just going to hope things look formatted correctly, etc.  And... I guess I don't get to read Australia updates from Carey (and Maria) until I am back in the USA.  

Also, I can't view comments.  Luckily, I was able to change my preferences so your comments are emailed to me.  Any blogger loses all energy without feedback.  So while I can't post to your comments specifically, Dee, Nicole, and Carey thank you so much for reading and commenting!   Anyone else out there lurking, you can post a comment without registering and such.  You can stay "anonymous" and just sign your name.

Also, also... Richard, I emailed you again two days ago.  I asked how the interview with Dillingham went and also if I had left three small DS games there.  But... you haven't responded.  Which means you probably still aren't getting my emails.  Or you hate me.  What is up?!!

Also, also, also... Nicole, I heard we are, at the closest, 1,000 miles away from any earthquake ridden areas.  But really... I can't tell you where we're going.  I'm just along for the ride.  All I know at this point is that we are in Bejing.  

Did you know Bejing and Peeking (as in Peeking duck) are the same place?  They decided to switch from the Cantonese pronunciation of the word to the Mandrin pronunciation a few years back.  The airport code for Bejing is PEK.  Just like the airport code for Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) is SGN.  And Istanbul was once Constantinople and Old New York was once New Amsterdam.  And Myanmar will always be Burma to me.  

And just because it seems strange to have a post with no picture.  Here's a business-themed picture for you.  Yeah, that's me... as I type this.  In my nightgown... unshowered.  That's Marissa's sleeping leg back there (she even sleeps like me with one leg out of the covers!)  It is, after all, 5:00am Hong Kong time.

Three down, one to go.

So that was a long flight.

Even though we got in 30 minutes earlier than expected, 30 minutes isn't a whole lot when you're looking at a 13+ hour flight. It's Saturday morning here. Hong Kong time. It's Friday 4:00pm California time. I lost a day in my 40+ hours of REAL TIME traveling.

I did get some sleep though... finally. I'm feeling much less cranky. When I woke up, the attendants were passing out orange juice and water. In my sleepiness I sort of lilted to my right and saw an eight year old Indian kid, let's call him Saint Peter, sitting patiently in his seat while his three year old brother, let's call him the Devil, was trying to push him out of it. The boys' parents were sitting on the other side of the Devil and were softly offering, "have a seat" and "relax" to the monster. I felt Saint Peter's pain. After a couple of minutes of this the Devil kicked Saint Peter's tray and an entire cup of orange juice spilled over Saint Peter's seat. He jumped up and into the isle. Somehow he managed to avoid it on his clothing. The orange juice just pooled in the seat while everyone else just sat there not moving. Saint Peter stood waiting. I called for a flight attendant but none came. Poor Saint Peter. After about 1/2 of it had soaked into his seat his dad threw him a blanket and just told him to soak it up. He did so without complaint.

About this time my mom decided she had to go to the bathroom so I let her up and she stood in the isle while Saint Peter tried to dry his seat. Then the kid seated right in front of Saint Peter (another 8 year oldish Indian boy) woke up long enough to throw up. Twice. On the isle carpet. On my socks. And my mom's.

Again. No one did anything. My "call" to the flight attendant was still lit so there really wasn't much more to do. My mom went to the bathroom and changed her socks. Saint Peter went back to his seat by climbing on top of the blanket that separated him from the wet seat. The vomiter put his tray down and sort of held his head in his hands. Well one hand. The other hand had vomit all over it.

No one answered my "call" intentionally but a flight attendant did try to pass through the isle to deliver breakfast trays. When I pointed out the vomit he looked rather irritated.

He turned around and came back several minutes later with some news papers he threw down on the floor and some air freshener. He wiped the kids face with plastic gloves and a wetnap. The kid looked miserable. I asked if he was okay and offered to get him a bag or something but he said he would be alright.

A few minutes later his dad walked by. He pushed him up from the tray table he was laying on and said, "sit up straight! You'll get sore" and then he walked away. I stopped him. "Uh, sir... he just threw up." I pointed to the newspapers. "You might want to, you know, check in on him." You could see the dad was embarrassed. He came back and comforted his son a little wiping up his face again with a wetnap.

Poor kid.

I was proactive during landing.

You know those screaming babies that accompany every flight's landing? Well a few years ago there was a real wailer on a flight from Alaska. The mom was embarrassed. I was mostly sympathetic. Only slightly annoyed. The flight attendant came over with two drinking cups. She said, "look, I know is sounds strange but just trust me." She took a couple of napkins and wadded them up in each of the cups. Then she got them both slightly damp. She put the cups on either side of the baby's head (covering it's) ears. The baby stopped crying instantly. She mumbled something about air pressure but no one was really listening we were all so impressed with her voodoo power.

I made the magic cups before the landing in Hong Kong. It worked. I felt barely any pain at all. No tears. I looked like a goof. ... as you see. But it worked! I'll take looking dorky over the pain of what I imagine feels like child birthing through your forehead any day.

And one more thing... they are calling for pre-boarding on my final leg of travel right now. As much as I would hate to not be able to join the hoverers and all, I have one more thing.

Check this math--
My dad and I ordered a couple of things. The total came to $65. He paid with a ten-dollar bill. We got $11 back. Where does this happen you might wonder...

Hong Kong Airport's Starbucks!

65 Hong Kong dollars was about 9 US dollars.
The change was 1 US dollar which was 11 Hong Kong dollars.
Mind you I am just trusting that the barista was doing HIS math right. :)

Me cranky

I've been awake 40 hours.

I watched "Bucket List" and half of "Once" (again!) while on my longest flight (thus far) rather than sleep. That, I swear, was the only stay-awake that I made intentionally.

I hate airports.

And people with kids.

And air pressure.

I have a bit of a head cold. For those of you who haven't experienced "landing" with sinus pressure in your head, I can't possibly express to you the severity of the experience.

I...

wanted...

to...

die.

And I got to experience it TWICE so far. Firstly, I attempted to rip off my ears while landing in Seattle. And then secondly, after an 8 hour layover in Seattle and then a 90 minute plane ride, I punched myself rapidly in the eyeball in an attempt to become unconscious while landing in San Francisco.

I can't believe I am about to get on a third airplane. Only to land again. This time in Hong Kong. And hey, guess what I'll do once in Hong Kong? I'll have a LAYOVER AND THEN GET ON ANOTHER EFFING PLANE AND HAVE ANOTHER EFFING LANDING. I've been in San Francisco for 8 hours. Most of that time looked like this...

I bought my nieces all Nintendo DS(s) for the trip. I am the coolest Aunt ever. They are grateful. And quietly click click stroking away on those game systems.

I have only one more photo to share. And it's not a very clear one. But here's the thing... I don't get why people crowd the aisle when preboarding is announced. Someone? Anyone? Help. Why in the world would someone seated in row 7 stand up and block the walkway for EVERY OTHER passenger. Why not just sit for another 20 minutes and enjoy your freedom. I just don't get it.

In Seattle about 30 people did this. I snapped their photo. The gate is on the left. There are five people in "line." The rest? On the right there? That hoard of standers? Just waiting for their row to be called.

Bah! Traveling.