Thursday, July 30, 2009
This is how smart I am
So, on the hottest day in Seattle history, what do I decide to do? Jason and I head to the penisula and play 36 holes (Trophy Lake and McCormick Woods)......and WALK 27 of them. Yikes...103 degree heat and a lot of golf, I was done last night!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Beijing Pics, part 1
Well, I have been through the first 300 of the 1400 pics I have from this trip. The good news is my new Canon Powershot G10 takes great pics. The bad news is the weather in Seattle is really good and keeps distracting me! I'm still playing with the formatting of this, so it will be a work in progress.
More good news! Jason and I booked the next adventure, the trip to Nepal. We are going to Nepal to climb a 20,000 ft. mountain, then to Truk to dive some crazy wrecks, then Jason is heading to Hawaii and I'm heading to Australia, Fiji and Hawaii. I can't believe I'm going to Nepal!!
On to the pics:
Qinian Hall, part of the Temple of Heaven structure. It was huge and really intricate, as most of the Chinese structures were.
Randomly I was walking from the Temple of Heaven to Tienamen Square, and went by an opera house, and I thought this lion was pretty cool!
We ended up at a Jade factory, the carvings were pretty impressive.
Great Wall! Of course, notice the haze. You need to view the full size pic to really see how the wall wanders through the hills. I still can't imagine building this wall, or the manpower it actually took to create the thousands of mile of wall.
Also, look at all the people. It was Chinese holidays as well, so they were all over the shop!
Yup, I was there :)
This was the entry point for a Ming emperor who had died, they would carry him through this gate and another couple miles to the final burial place.
The Ming Tombs, this guy was guarding somebody important, couldn't tell you who :) But my Mom and I are helping!!
More good news! Jason and I booked the next adventure, the trip to Nepal. We are going to Nepal to climb a 20,000 ft. mountain, then to Truk to dive some crazy wrecks, then Jason is heading to Hawaii and I'm heading to Australia, Fiji and Hawaii. I can't believe I'm going to Nepal!!
On to the pics:
The birdnest from the Olympics, it really was an impressive structure.
Qinian Hall, part of the Temple of Heaven structure. It was huge and really intricate, as most of the Chinese structures were.
I'm at the Temple of Heaven, where the Ming and Qing emporer's went to give thanks to the God's and ask for a good harvest.
Randomly I was walking from the Temple of Heaven to Tienamen Square, and went by an opera house, and I thought this lion was pretty cool!
We ended up at a Jade factory, the carvings were pretty impressive.
Great Wall! Of course, notice the haze. You need to view the full size pic to really see how the wall wanders through the hills. I still can't imagine building this wall, or the manpower it actually took to create the thousands of mile of wall.
Also, look at all the people. It was Chinese holidays as well, so they were all over the shop!
Yup, I was there :)
This was the entry point for a Ming emperor who had died, they would carry him through this gate and another couple miles to the final burial place.
The Ming Tombs, this guy was guarding somebody important, couldn't tell you who :) But my Mom and I are helping!!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Working on pics
Hi everyone, working on getting pics up. Since I'm unemployed, I should have no problem getting a few up, right? Well, here's the first one.....is that a camel in the background??!! :)
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Back from the Gobi!
Just a quick post to let you all know that I'm back from outer Mongolia and in Seattle. I'll finish up the rest of the trip in the next couple days, it finished well, but I'm here and a little tired, and since I don't have much to do over the next couple days but sleep, unpack and do laundry I'll have plenty of time.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Where was I?
Oh yes....last time we chatted I was just back from the Gobi desert and we were hanging in UB (Ulaan Bataar) for a couple days, and here for Nadaam! The Nadaam festival is the national festival of Mongolia, all 9 provinces compete in it. The opening ceremonies were amazing, reminded me a lot of the Olympic ones. They had a speech from the president, the presentation of the flags from the provinces, then the athletes came out for Archery, Wrestling, and knuckle-bone shooting. The only other sport in the games is horse racing, and they were showing it on a big screen behind the ceremonies. Lots of pomp and circumstance, I got some great videos of the music and horse riding tricks.
Then we stayed to watch the wrestling. It's just 2 guys, standing up, and then they kind of clench and try to get each other off their feet. Interestingly, the higher ranked wrestlers pick their opponents, so for the first few rounds there are a lot of mismatches. The archery is very good, really nice archers uniforms, and they are shooting (75m for men, 60m for women) at targets on the ground. There are several judges down at the targets and when the hit, they sing! I got a great video of a bullseye :) The knuckle bone shooting is a recent addition to the games, and they really flick bones at some stones, it's kinda odd.
After Nadaam, then next day we went to a budhist monestary, which was cool, we saw monks chanting! Then we headed to the national park, and it was absolutely beautiful. Saw a lot of great rock formations. We did go to another ger family, which was awesome, they dressed up for us and seemed like they really wanted to share their home and traditions with us, which was awesome. Unfortunately, we only got about an hour to go hiking around, and I would have liked about 7. Not enough free time on this tour....so we got up this morning, did some more hiking with Evan and John, up some rocks and watched the group mingle for about 1/2 hour, it was pretty cool. We could almost even here them from about 500 feet up and aways away!
As for the tour, I think everyone is getting a little tired. It's been go-go-go and not everyone is 30 years old. Lot's of complaining starting about people being late to the bus and lingering to long...I, for one, will not miss that part. We have a good group here but there are a couple of odd ducks. Also we don't have enough free time to do what we want, so sometimes you have to skip stuff to do what you want, but those are the choices of a group tour. However, overall it's been pretty good and I've seen some amazing things. Tonight we are going to another monastery that we have a private tour of and dinner after that.
Oh, and we've found that the Chingiss Vodka is quite lovely....
Then we stayed to watch the wrestling. It's just 2 guys, standing up, and then they kind of clench and try to get each other off their feet. Interestingly, the higher ranked wrestlers pick their opponents, so for the first few rounds there are a lot of mismatches. The archery is very good, really nice archers uniforms, and they are shooting (75m for men, 60m for women) at targets on the ground. There are several judges down at the targets and when the hit, they sing! I got a great video of a bullseye :) The knuckle bone shooting is a recent addition to the games, and they really flick bones at some stones, it's kinda odd.
After Nadaam, then next day we went to a budhist monestary, which was cool, we saw monks chanting! Then we headed to the national park, and it was absolutely beautiful. Saw a lot of great rock formations. We did go to another ger family, which was awesome, they dressed up for us and seemed like they really wanted to share their home and traditions with us, which was awesome. Unfortunately, we only got about an hour to go hiking around, and I would have liked about 7. Not enough free time on this tour....so we got up this morning, did some more hiking with Evan and John, up some rocks and watched the group mingle for about 1/2 hour, it was pretty cool. We could almost even here them from about 500 feet up and aways away!
As for the tour, I think everyone is getting a little tired. It's been go-go-go and not everyone is 30 years old. Lot's of complaining starting about people being late to the bus and lingering to long...I, for one, will not miss that part. We have a good group here but there are a couple of odd ducks. Also we don't have enough free time to do what we want, so sometimes you have to skip stuff to do what you want, but those are the choices of a group tour. However, overall it's been pretty good and I've seen some amazing things. Tonight we are going to another monastery that we have a private tour of and dinner after that.
Oh, and we've found that the Chingiss Vodka is quite lovely....
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Out and back from the middle of nowhere....
Warning...lengthy post ahead....
Well, we just got back from taking a 1 1/2 hour flight to the middle of nowhere, and then driving 2 more hours farther out to from the middle of nowhere to who knows where? First we had a wakeup call here at 4 am (after a 2:30 am wakeup call the day before, yikes). We flew to the southern Gobi desert, and then took vans over dirt roads in the desert to a Ger camp even farther out. Ger's are the traditional nomadic home, it's a round structure with a small door and a roof. Apparently it takes about an hour to deassemble/assemble for travelling. Ours were a bit more permanent, and we even had a working bathroom, which surprised me! The camp was actually way nicer than I expected, even complete with a bar for thirsty traveller's (appropriately called the Thirsty Camel bar!). We rested for a bit, the van ride out there was very rough, dirt roads and ruts all over the place. The million dollar idea for Mongolia is to open a brake and shock repair shop out in the Gobi! I crashed for a 6:30 am wakeup the next day.
After breakfast, we had a presentation on the flaming cliffs where all the dinosaur fossils have been found. We actually had a professor of paleontology traveling on the trip from Ulan Bataar with us, so that is pretty neat. After lunch, we headed out in the crazy vans again, apparently we were lucky because our van had working A/C, others did not. These are definitely not the BMW's of the van world.....anyway, we went to a spot with sand dunes, some nomads came over and some of the group rode camel's (I did not, I wanted to climb the sand dune and those things smell!!!), some bought trinkets from the nomads. Then we went to the flaming cliff's, which really are awesome. Interestingly, there are no fences or anything, you can climb all over this amazing area of archealogic history. We saw where the guy in 1925 fell down a cliff and found the first dinosaur eggs. I even found a fossilized footprint! I showed it to the doctor, and she confirmed it, it's like 70 million years old, and it was just lying out there, no big deal. There weren't even any excavations going on, which blew me away! In the U.S. there would be fences all over and ongoing excavations at all times, but very different countries...
After this we went to a traditional Nomad family Ger and got to hear how they live. A very harsh lifestyle for them no doubt, there really is only grass out in the Gobi. I always feel weird doing these things though. The lady had 3 grandchildren with her, and wants them to go to the city and get educated, not be a nomad.
We got back just in time to catch the last 5 minutes of happy hour, so we all refreshed before dinner. After dinner, we went up on a little hill before sunset, and watched the sun set into clouds, no stars for us! Oh well, it was still beautiful out there if you like desert scenery.
The next day, another 7 am wakeup call (are you seeing a trend here??!!!), and we got in the vans and headed out to a national park. We had a bus today since one of the vans brakes' "weren't 100%". Awesome. The national park was cool, we actually hiked to a glacier in the Gobi desert! Sure enough, there it was, pretty amazing. Then 3 of us split off from the group (John, an engineer from Abq, and Evan, a 26-yr old who has already done 2 tours in Baghdad) and went and did our own hiking. We ended up going up a little valley, and had yaks (or at least what we think are yaks, they may have been a cross breed) come 20 ft from us!!! Everything was fine until they got that close and the Dad gave us a little warning grunt to get out of there, and we immediately complied. Then we got back to the buses and headed on back to the lodge, about 1 1/2 hours back, again over rough terrain, and the back seat of the bus came apart! Our transportation has been very poor this trip, and the drivers crazy, so our tour manager decided that before dinner drinks were on him, what a guy! There is a Chingis Khan vodka out here that is quite nice....I actually rented a bike when we got back to the Ger Camp for an hour, and I went straight out into a 35 mph wind...rode 45 minutes out, and took me 10 minutes to get back! Going out was very hard, but completely desolate, I truly was by myself out in the middle of nowhere, it was a very empowering feeling. Came back for drinks, dinner, and then a walk to sunset again. A good day! Followed by a 3:30 am wakeup call, an hour van ride back to the airport, then our flight was delayed 2 hours because of winds in Ulan baatar...awesome. But we made it back, I'm just pretty tired right now.
Quick Mongolia stats:2 million people in the whole country, 1 million live in the capital Ulan Baatar. There are 1.5 people/square km, and if you remove Ulaan Bataar from it, it's 1 person/square km, which is ridiculously unpopulated! They became Democratic in 1991 as they got away from Communism. Everyone in the country has a bank account, even nomads, because from the time they are born to being 18, the government gives them 3000 turgrug ($2.50) every month.
I can't get any photo's up right now but hopefully soon. Wait till you see the video of the van ride...this is definitely not a vacation, but "traveling", which means not a lot of rest and a lot of going and going. Mongolia is definitely not place for first time travelers, but is very awesome to see. We are back in Ulan Baatar for the Nadaam festival, which is their national sport festival, and I'm super excited for it! We are going to opening ceremonies tomorrow, and then we get to see archery, horse racing, wrestling, and whatever else the festival has to offer (possibly fermented mare's mile!). Tonight I'm splitting from the group to going wandering around the city with Evan, and then we are going with our local tour guide to a bar with a band playing. Mom is staying with the group and going to a Mongolian fashion show. And now, it's off to shower and nap for me!
Well, we just got back from taking a 1 1/2 hour flight to the middle of nowhere, and then driving 2 more hours farther out to from the middle of nowhere to who knows where? First we had a wakeup call here at 4 am (after a 2:30 am wakeup call the day before, yikes). We flew to the southern Gobi desert, and then took vans over dirt roads in the desert to a Ger camp even farther out. Ger's are the traditional nomadic home, it's a round structure with a small door and a roof. Apparently it takes about an hour to deassemble/assemble for travelling. Ours were a bit more permanent, and we even had a working bathroom, which surprised me! The camp was actually way nicer than I expected, even complete with a bar for thirsty traveller's (appropriately called the Thirsty Camel bar!). We rested for a bit, the van ride out there was very rough, dirt roads and ruts all over the place. The million dollar idea for Mongolia is to open a brake and shock repair shop out in the Gobi! I crashed for a 6:30 am wakeup the next day.
After breakfast, we had a presentation on the flaming cliffs where all the dinosaur fossils have been found. We actually had a professor of paleontology traveling on the trip from Ulan Bataar with us, so that is pretty neat. After lunch, we headed out in the crazy vans again, apparently we were lucky because our van had working A/C, others did not. These are definitely not the BMW's of the van world.....anyway, we went to a spot with sand dunes, some nomads came over and some of the group rode camel's (I did not, I wanted to climb the sand dune and those things smell!!!), some bought trinkets from the nomads. Then we went to the flaming cliff's, which really are awesome. Interestingly, there are no fences or anything, you can climb all over this amazing area of archealogic history. We saw where the guy in 1925 fell down a cliff and found the first dinosaur eggs. I even found a fossilized footprint! I showed it to the doctor, and she confirmed it, it's like 70 million years old, and it was just lying out there, no big deal. There weren't even any excavations going on, which blew me away! In the U.S. there would be fences all over and ongoing excavations at all times, but very different countries...
After this we went to a traditional Nomad family Ger and got to hear how they live. A very harsh lifestyle for them no doubt, there really is only grass out in the Gobi. I always feel weird doing these things though. The lady had 3 grandchildren with her, and wants them to go to the city and get educated, not be a nomad.
We got back just in time to catch the last 5 minutes of happy hour, so we all refreshed before dinner. After dinner, we went up on a little hill before sunset, and watched the sun set into clouds, no stars for us! Oh well, it was still beautiful out there if you like desert scenery.
The next day, another 7 am wakeup call (are you seeing a trend here??!!!), and we got in the vans and headed out to a national park. We had a bus today since one of the vans brakes' "weren't 100%". Awesome. The national park was cool, we actually hiked to a glacier in the Gobi desert! Sure enough, there it was, pretty amazing. Then 3 of us split off from the group (John, an engineer from Abq, and Evan, a 26-yr old who has already done 2 tours in Baghdad) and went and did our own hiking. We ended up going up a little valley, and had yaks (or at least what we think are yaks, they may have been a cross breed) come 20 ft from us!!! Everything was fine until they got that close and the Dad gave us a little warning grunt to get out of there, and we immediately complied. Then we got back to the buses and headed on back to the lodge, about 1 1/2 hours back, again over rough terrain, and the back seat of the bus came apart! Our transportation has been very poor this trip, and the drivers crazy, so our tour manager decided that before dinner drinks were on him, what a guy! There is a Chingis Khan vodka out here that is quite nice....I actually rented a bike when we got back to the Ger Camp for an hour, and I went straight out into a 35 mph wind...rode 45 minutes out, and took me 10 minutes to get back! Going out was very hard, but completely desolate, I truly was by myself out in the middle of nowhere, it was a very empowering feeling. Came back for drinks, dinner, and then a walk to sunset again. A good day! Followed by a 3:30 am wakeup call, an hour van ride back to the airport, then our flight was delayed 2 hours because of winds in Ulan baatar...awesome. But we made it back, I'm just pretty tired right now.
Quick Mongolia stats:2 million people in the whole country, 1 million live in the capital Ulan Baatar. There are 1.5 people/square km, and if you remove Ulaan Bataar from it, it's 1 person/square km, which is ridiculously unpopulated! They became Democratic in 1991 as they got away from Communism. Everyone in the country has a bank account, even nomads, because from the time they are born to being 18, the government gives them 3000 turgrug ($2.50) every month.
I can't get any photo's up right now but hopefully soon. Wait till you see the video of the van ride...this is definitely not a vacation, but "traveling", which means not a lot of rest and a lot of going and going. Mongolia is definitely not place for first time travelers, but is very awesome to see. We are back in Ulan Baatar for the Nadaam festival, which is their national sport festival, and I'm super excited for it! We are going to opening ceremonies tomorrow, and then we get to see archery, horse racing, wrestling, and whatever else the festival has to offer (possibly fermented mare's mile!). Tonight I'm splitting from the group to going wandering around the city with Evan, and then we are going with our local tour guide to a bar with a band playing. Mom is staying with the group and going to a Mongolian fashion show. And now, it's off to shower and nap for me!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Mongolia!!
Sain Baina uu from Mongolia! I made it here easily, and they don't block my blog like other countries do :) I've only got 5 minutes, so a quick update: Beijing was good, did a power trip around it to the Temple of Heavan, Tienamen Square and the forbidden city. You can really feel the military presence and the disconnect between the old and young generation. It was very smoggy and hazy, the smog got to me bythe end of an 8 hour walking day. That night we met our travel group, and the next day went to the Great Wall, the Ming tombs and the Olympic village. The olympic structures were impressive, and the Great Wall is enourmous, and ridicously high and hard to build, I can't even image the manpower needed to build it.
Had a Wagyu beef steak last night (if you don't know it....it's better than Kobe beef), and flew to Mongolia at 7:30 this morning. The main city here, Ulaan Bataar, is much bigger than expected, and the people already seem more friendly than Beijing. We are going to a nomadic camp tomorrow, but tonight we are having dinner at the Presidential Palace! I'm off for lunch, hope all is well!
Had a Wagyu beef steak last night (if you don't know it....it's better than Kobe beef), and flew to Mongolia at 7:30 this morning. The main city here, Ulaan Bataar, is much bigger than expected, and the people already seem more friendly than Beijing. We are going to a nomadic camp tomorrow, but tonight we are having dinner at the Presidential Palace! I'm off for lunch, hope all is well!
Friday, July 3, 2009
I'm off!
Well, it's off to China and Mongolia for me! It was a last round of golf for me at Washington National today....grrr.....too.....much......purple......
But now heading to the far east to see what happens. I'm interested to see if I get to Mongolia and want to go to BBQ if I get to make my own... :) I will update as I can, apparently China is having issues with internet access (i.e. I may get photographed as I enter an internet cafe) so I'll do the best i can, my guess is photos will come after I get back.
Hope everyone has a safe and awesome 4th!
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