I have arrived back in the States! Overall, I would rate the trip positively, though like an olive in a cupcake there were moments of unexpected misery amidst this otherwise frosty cakey treat. Stay tuned for those salty posts.

The highlights of any business trips are always been those moments when I can escape the overcast skies of meetings and engineering reviews to hang out with friends. In Beijing, the friends of choice are Charlotte and Josh.

Josh and Charlotte in Beijing

Charlotte and Josh both grew up in China so they speak great Mandarin and dig the Chinese culture. More importantly than all that, they are both truly wonderful people. I was first introduced to them through Mika who, incidentally, is moving back to Beijing this summer and will certainly find herself on my list of favorite people to visit while overseas.

The night before my flight to the states I met up with Charlotte and Josh and we made dumplings!

Oh the glory!

Charlotte taught me how to fold the dumplings her way (above), and Josh showed me his way (below), which he described as a much simpler technique used as a desperate means of trying to keep up with Charlotte’s expert speed.

The Josh Style Dumpling

Here’s my MSPaint representation of how to fold a dumpling.

How to fold a Dumpling

Special thanks to Charlotte and Josh for welcoming me during my trip.

Here’s an Animated Gif of Charlotte, Josh, as once again I setup my camera wrong with its delay setting.

Oh the joys of laughter!

The weather finally cleared a bit here in Wuhan so my coworker Bill and I ventured out to act as tourists while we wait patiently for our company meeting that has been delayed until Saturday.

On Thursday, we went to the Yellow Crane Tower.

The Yellow Crane Tower

The Yellow Crane Tower stands on the Yangtze river and is one of the ‘four great towers of China.’ Interestingly, the tower has burned down a bunch of times so the current version is a modern day construction in honor of the one that once was.

Kinda strange that a recent build that only stands as a representation (not a replica) of a once famous building could get so much tourist attraction no? I’m thinking we should build a pagoda tower in CT to boost tourism and call it one of the great towers of Connecticut. Genius.

Behind the tower there’s a bell.

Philadelphia, shame on you

For a mere 10 RMB ($1.67), I was allowed to ring that massive bell three times.

For the first ring, I was given peace for the rest of my life.
For the second ring, I was given luck for the rest of my life.
and for the third ring, I was given wealth for the rest of my life.

WHAT. A. DEAL.
Best one dollar and sixty seven cents I’ve ever invested.

There’s a fair chance that I’ve talked about Hot Pot on this website before. Apparently I have a poor memory when it comes to hot pots. All that aside, check this out:

China FTW

Oh the glory. We’ve got two broths in the middle: one spicy, one normal. Going clockwise from the top left, we have greens, cabbage, tasty spheres of deliciousness, tofu, potatoes, dumplings, beef, pork, cauliflower, carrots, noodles, mushrooms, tofu things, and more beef.

I am strongly considering buying a hot plate for the House of Rock so that we can make this meal happen in Connecticut.

If this morning’s trip from Changping into Beijing could be summed up by the plots of no more than three movies, those movies would be:

Death race 2000
Home Alone
and
Rambo IV

Actually, not really that last one. But the other two fit quite appropriately.

The drive itself was typical Chinese driving. The Chinese are to driving laws what names are to My Little Ponies, pretty much anything goes (example: Musical wish rainbow celebration tink-a-tink-a-too pony*). The most audacious moment might have been that time we barreled down the wrong direction of a divided road swerving maniacally around the oncoming traffic.

When we (miraculously) arrived in Beijing we zipped by the airport to drop off a few colleagues. Our drivers got confused and at one point forgot which car I was in. Having no idea what was going on at the time, I remained patiently quiet. So it’s no doubt I was surprised when our driver looked over at me with sudden shock and horror and declared “I forgot you were in this car!”

After navigating the labyrinth that is on and off ramps in Beijing, we finally got things settled and I arrived at my new hotel in downtown Beijing. At this point I gave Josh a call. Josh lives with Charlotte in Beijing and they are both totally awesome. Josh and I found each other in the busy city and Josh gave me a bit of a walking tour of some of the lesser Beijing spotlights. Including, but not limited to, our visit of the world’s largest screen which hovers above a walking street in Beijing shedding a powerful glow from its 6000 square meters of screen space. Josh took a picture, I’ll see if I can snag it to post.

After 4-5 hours of strolling we’d had enough and we stopped by one of Charlotte’s and Josh’s favorite Chinese food restaurants where we met up with Charlotte. It was great sharing a meal with these two and the food was much more tame and much much more delicious than some of the banquet food that I mention in previous posts.

Charlotte’s a TV personality here in Beijing who just scored a gig on an international education show and Josh just finished his role in a movie being put out in Taiwan. When both of these become available to the public, you can be certain that we’ll have links to it here.

Special thanks to Charlotte and Josh for the great day.

*I wasn’t kidding about Tink-a-tink-a-too.

1. Saying I’m in Beijing is a bit of a stretch. I’m actually in Changping which is a dramatically less populous area on the northern outskirts of the city. In fact, breakfast at my hotel reminds me a lot of those ending scenes of 2001 a space Odyssey. Breakfast is held in a huge room. It has tall ceilings, ornate decorations, plates of food, and pristine table cloths. Yet despite this glitz and glamor, there’s no one else to share it. I sit at a huge round dinner table with the buffet table spread out in front of me and there’s isn’t a soul in sight. It’d dead quiet except for the occasional moment when my fork scrapes against the plate.

2. China really has a unique spot on the global culinary scene. It’s got all-stars like dumplings and delicious rices, but I have a hard time diving in when there’s a duck head* on my plate staring back at me. In somewhat related news, I haven’t thrown up yet on this trip. Keep your fingers crossed that I’ll make it through Thursday without digestive upheaval.

*It tasted like awkward.

Firstly, here’s the fasting article that I mentioned a few days ago. ta-da!

And I must admit, so far so good. I definitely struggled a bit during my flight as I tried to set my body up for the new time zone, but when I laid down to fall asleep at the hotel I had no problem nodding off. More impressive was that I was able to sleep from 11pm until 7am only waking up once. Now, I’m still not convinced that the technique is flawless because last time I flew to China I think I arrived in the morning and had to tough it out through a full day. This time I arrived at night and all I had to do was make it to the hotel.

But if tonight’s sleep is as painless as last night’s and my return trip proceeds just as smoothly then I think it’s safe to say that fasting is going to become a standard part of my international travel routine.

I have arrived in Beijing!! The flight actually felt very reasonable. I was flying Air China and I must admit it didn’t have some of the amenities that one grows accustomed to on American flights. Namely, no air nozzels and very limited TV screens. That said, the service and food was wonderful and the airfair was very affordable. I had a window seat which let me finish Dune uninterrupted. I even got a little sleep.

For this trip, I experimented with a jet lag technique that I read about in some online article. Basically, the theory is that if you fast before your trip and then start eating on the new schedule your body will force itself to acclimate more quickly to help you find and hunt food. I stopped eating at 8pm on Thursday and didn’t start again until 5pm Friday. Now that I’m in Beijing, I will try and sleep and we’ll see if this theory works well. I really hope it does because this is a short trip and I don’t have tons of time to dominate jet lag before I have to fly home and screw everything up again.

There should be plenty of updates this week as I have a computer in my room. As a start, here are a few pictures of my hotel room.

Note the nice tall ceilings and the split brick columns. The pathway in the back leads into a second room containing the bed.

There are a bunch of ceramic pots and camel and horse statues adorning the mirrored glass shelves. It’s a pretty nice room.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and get in touch with Mika’s sister. My colleagues don’t arrive here until tomorrow night so this would be a great opportunity to do something fun. Stay tuned!

Hello readers!

I’m off to Beijing. While it is a work trip, I should get some personal time on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be meeting my friend Mika’s sister and her husband in Beijing. They live there and speak the language well, so it’ll be nice to have an English speaking friend nearby. Mika also passed on some great ideas for things to do while I’m there.

Things will very likely be quiet around these parts for the next week as I traverse the far east. If I find myself having some spare time to put up some scheduled posts, I’ll do so – though my time is limited between now to tomorrow’s departure. OR, if I can find internet access while abroad, I will update the website with some degree of regularity.

For those with publishing abilities, feel free to log in and post on the site while I’m gone. Two hints:

1. change the tag. Quickthoughts appear on the right, Features on the left (not recommended). Everything else in the middle. The default is a Quickthought.
2. For non-quickthoughts, add in a short quip for the optional excerpt (it’s found in one of the expandable tabs below the text editor) otherwise the site will double post your work.

Good luck!

I’ve begun preparations for my fast approaching China trip. I’ll be taking a half day at work tomorrow to conclude my work priorities and then flying out of JFK on Friday.

My apologies for the lack of updates in the last day or so, my prep has taken a fair bit of time. Additionally, I’m trying to squeeze in as many extracurricular activities as I can, while I can.

Stay tuned!

Taishan!

My trip to China has been evaded!

FUN: no 13 hour flights in the immediate future
FUNK: It would have been cool to see ShangHai
FUN: I can help out at work here at home base (highly needed) and ease the burden of my boss
FUNK: I did enjoy my last trip to the far east and I’m sure the same would have been true about this one
FUN: I can return to my regularly scheduled kung fu classes and rock climbing adventures

hmm. this upcoming China trip might be as extensive as the last one.

we may be looking at another two full weeks of Asian adventures

So while in China I got the chance to hike up Tai Shan. It was extemely wild.

Tai Shan is a mountain in the Shandong province, just south of the capital city Ji’nan. It’s famous because many many emperor’s and notables climbed it. Each one was so impressed with the mountain’s spiritual beauty that they built tons of temples, gates, and plaques along the way.

I was excited.

The night before the customer was bringing me to the mountain, I prepared my bag, lunch, and gear so I’d be ready first thing in the morning. As I lay down to sleep I felt a little nauseus. A few hours later I was curled over the toilet seat wretching out the contents of my fragile stomach. By 6 AM I had had one hour of sleep and my alarm was blaring.

I picked up the phone and called a Chinese associate with mediocre English skills.

“I can’t do it. I can’t climb Tai Shan. I am very sick.”
“okay, I’ll call customer.”

a few minutes later there was a knock on my door, it was my associate.

“it’s okay mike, they probably won’t run pipe today. Your ride will be here in 30 minutes.”
“what?! no no, I’m SICK. vomiting. throwing up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“very ill!” I made the international sign for vomitting.
“oh bad health!”
“yes!”
“well, it’s too late to cancel, they will arrive at 7.”

So I nervously packed up my stuff and went down to meet the customer at 7am. We drove to Tai Shan and didn’t start the hike up this 5000 footer until 2pm. (this seemed late to me… I’m not sure what they were thinking)

The mountain was extremely strange. The entire path up the mountain was paved with huge stone blocks. The path was either very level or very steep stairs. It wasn’t long before my calves were screaming for mercy.

But they got no mercy. Especially in the last 1000 feet or so which was pretty much non-stop staircases. Thankfully my stomach had mostly settled so there was no vomitting on the mountain.

There were many highlights to the trip, including this next photo which shows me with a few trees that were promoted to General.

I kid you not. Apparently an emperor was climbing Tai Shan when a storm hit. He took shelter under these trees and then as an act of thanks promoted them to general.

Strange.

The whole mountain was commercialized to the extreme. Restuarants and rest stops were along each side of the path the whole way up. And at the top of the mountain there was a whole community of shops and temples. It was gorgeous and well worth the four hour hike and the burning calves.

The hike down was arduous. The steep steps were pretty dangerous and we didn’t reach the bottom until well after 9pm. We had to hike with the light of a cell phone.

Even in the dark people were starting up the mountain. Apparently the mountain is famous for its sunrise and many people hike up at night and stay in the lodging along the way so that they can be at the sunrise rock first thing in the morning.

If you ever get a chance to go to the Shandong province, I would definitely recommend spending a day at Tai Shan.

I’m back from China!

It really was a fantastic trip. Two weeks of new cultures and wild times. The work itself, despite a few equipment failures, went pretty smoothly. I’m really just beginning to get back into the swing of things, and I’m not sure exactly how to organize all my pictures and memories.

The last week of my trip was amazing. I ended up climbing Tai Shan last Wednesday. It was the strangest mountain I’ve ever climbed. With sore calves I left Dongying Friday and I got to a few last precious hours in Beijing. Those hours were exhausting, but I fit in some of the most exciting cultural experiences of my whole trip including an authentic tea house experience – rich with tradition and delicious teas.

I got home safely on Saturday after an annoying 24 hours of travel and was immediately hit with all sorts of daily life annoyances that I was able to so happily avoid while overseas (Bills, cleaning, lawn care, and the like).

Stay tuned for more pictures and tales of adventure!

The Temple of Heaven is located in Beijing just over a mile south of Tian’anmen Square. It is appreciated for its amazing architectural beauty. Constructed in the mid 1400′s, the temple was meant as a link between Heaven and Earth. Heaven round, earth square. Aparently all of the round alters and tables inside the park sit on square bases.

The ‘temple’ is actually a whole complex of many buildings of religious importance. The main building is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. Highly ornamental, this building is made entirely of wood without the use of any metal nails. Lightning struck the temple in 1889, and the legend is that the lightning was “divine punishment meted out on a sacrilegious caterpillar, which was on the point of reaching the golden ball on the hall’s apex.*” Over thirty dignitaries were executed for letting this happen.

I hope that Tom and I have the opportunity to stop by this temple. It is described simply as a wonder.

*The Rough Guide to China, Leffman, Lewis, Atiyah; Rough Guides

Provided all the work went well in China I will likely be returning home tonight. My flight leaves Dongying tonight (9:30pm China time, 9:30am EST) and brings me to Beijing. I’ll spend the night there and then head to the airport for a 1pm direct flight to JFK. The flight (Flight 4451: United Airlines operated by Air China) will be 13.5 hours and I’ll get back to New York at 2:30 local time.

I am least looking forward to the drive from JFK back to Meriden. That should be extremely interesting.

The 2008 Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China.

The Dragon is often associated with China, yet this is more true for western cultures than in China itself. The Chinese dragon is often connected to water. In fact, there are four Dragon kings that represent each of the four “seas.” The East China Sea, South China Sea, Lake Baikal, and the Indian Ocean.

Many Chinese associate the dragon with an aggressive relentless beast. This is not always the best impression to give in a business or trade environment, so China prefers to use the Giant Panda as its animal of choice.

Pandas, because of their rarity and peaceful nature, are considered a Chinese natural treasure. Recently they have been only given away as gifts of friendship. It became illegal to kill or capture a Panda after western cultures discovered them and hunted them all hardcore like.

The other big Chinese animal is the Tiger. The tiger is seen as the foe of the Dragon and more of a brute force animal than the strategic graceful Dragon. These characteristics are carried over into martial arts styles. I haven’t personally seen any dragon forms or stances yet, but when I do, I will confirm or deny this fact.

Neat huh?

The Chinese Flag is a red with five stars. Red is the color of the revolution and was mirrored in the “little red book” that was passed out all over the place during Chairman Mao’s reign (The book was a collection of quotations from the Chairman.)

The large star represents the Communist Party. The four smaller stars represent the Chinese people. Apparently their yellow color indicates the bright future of the country.

For more information, check out the website where I got that graphic. It is located HERE and talks more about the symbolism of the flag.

The other night as I was eating some hot pot, I struggled with my chopsticks momentarily as I de-skinned a shrimp.

Immediately, one of the highly attentive, highly attractive, table assistants zipped over and placed a knife and fork at my placemat.

I sighed a sigh of relief. YES! REAL UTENSILES! Get a clue China! Chopsticks are of the past!

So I gleefully picked up my sharp shiny tools and immediately became enlightened…

Knifes and forks are completely static tools. Nothing more than stabby sticks with which we pitchfork our food and stuff our faces. Chopsticks are not a utensile of the past. nay. Chopsticks are dynamic forceps, graceful and alive. With chopsticks, I can manipulate and grip my food.

I put down the fork with disgust and returned to the chopsticks. Chopsticks are my new utensile of choice.

The yellow river is really the life of northern China. Its name comes from the yellow silt that it carries and distributes along the coast. It is commonly compared to a dragon because of it’s curvy path and rough temper. It also has the nickname “China’s Sorrow” because it has caused much destruction and flooding in the past and has helped stifle the economies of the yellow river provinces. Some of the devestating flooding have been caused by huge influxes of water after dams of glacial ice burst in inner mongolia. These days, aircraft drop bombs on the ice to prevent a buildup of structure that could pose a risk to the low lying yellow river towns.

The yellow river is about 3300 miles long and starts in the Kunlun Mountains in the Qinghai province. It flows from east to west down the “steps” of china. China’s far western area has the greatest elevation and that drops in a series of steps down to the eastern coasts. From highest to lowest elevation the steps are:

The Tibetan Plateau (13000 ft)
The Mountains of Sichuan (5000 ft)
The Fertile Lowlands (<5000 ft)

With this in mind, it’s easy to understand the force with which China’s rivers reach the Eastern coast.

The drivers here use the horn like it’s their job. My hotel window is outside a busy street, and you can’t count to 8 without hearing more horns. It’s remarkable.

On the way to work in the morning, the bus that drives us usually uses the horn within 10 seconds of leaving the driveway. It’s not out of anger, just general “LOOKOUT! I’m here!”

So here’s a monster pictoral update to my China trip thus far.

In Beijing, they know how to rock.

The Great Wall!

.

It was steep at times. Here’s Tom on the Hero’s slope

This is our standard lunch here in China. Clockwise from the outer circle inward, starting at 6pm the food is as follows:

soup #1, rice, raw garlic cloves, pork, squid legs, razor clams, tomato egg drop soup, hot peppers and unknown meat, sliced sauteed cucumber, bean sprouts, thousand year old eggs,
(inner circle)
steamed bread, dumpling like things filled with veggies, soup #3, sliced potato

The girl shown here is ALL about mike d.

I’ll spare you the contest, this is the skyline of Dongying, China

Me, like a dragon, in the Forbidden City.

Tom shocked at the size of the Forbidden City!

Team China takes on the Temple of Heaven.
That’s Tom, Theresa, and Florence

Me crushing the head of a dragon

And finally, the hacky sack series. That’s me in the forbidden city, Flo in the forbidden city, and me at the great wall.

The sign behind me on the great wall says “Do not climb the battlements!”

That’s all for now! Rock on!

Food update:

Cow Bone Marrow
Cow Ligament and Tendon
Chicken Hearts

San is leaving tomorrow for Taiwan, and with him he will be taking one of the last few computers with internet access. So I fear that it is very unlikely that I will be able to post any more Real Posts. I have added a few more auto posts for next week, but next week won’t be quite as full of posts as this past week.

San is also the only other American here. so from now on… it’s me and the Chinese.