China – Xi’an – Terracotta Warriors

Posted on December 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by patrice

Xi’an Terracotta Warriors

What a truly amazing site to see! The whole place is really set up to be a contained tourist trap around the pits where the Terracotta Warriors are. Even at that it is worth the time. I should explain that rather harsh statement too.

Once inside the gate, you need a ticket for about 110 CYN you will see a few places to buy souvenirs and there are places to buy stuff in each of the “pits”. Back behind Pit #1 there is a restaurant. If you go on a tour through a company and lunch is included this will be the place you will eat at. Food is good we thought too. All over the grounds there will be people selling sets of the miniature versions of the Warriors. So far doesn’t it sound like you will be followed outside the buildings by people wanting you to buy things; then each building has a store and don’t forget the stores that are standalone selling stuff too. Believe me shopping is not a problem there.

Now the guys that are selling the sets, and they do everywhere, do sell pretty cheap. You just have to negotiate with them. Our guide steered us away from buying any from these guys. I guess he did that because he took us to a factory store. I can tell you though these guys do give pretty good deals if you want to get something for gifts and not have to pay the store premium price. But it is street goods so you have to watch what you buy.

Pit #1 is the one that you see when you see a picture of this place and there are other pits you can go through but if you want to see the other pits – go through them before going to Pit #1. Now that seems strange you are thinking. It would seem like going through them in order would be the best way. Well, you can do it that way if you want, but I wouldn’t having gone through them. Pit #1 is the best; I think you could spend a couple hours in there taking pictures if you had the time. There are other things worth seeing in the other pits but it seems like they don’t have the impact pit #1 has. Another thing to keep in mind is we were there on the off season and there wasn’t as many tourists there. I can only imagine what it is like during peak season.

There is an ok overview film in the theater the guides usually have you watch before going to the Pits – it does give you a sense of what happened and why no one knew about them. But I am not going to spoil that surprise – oh no not me 

Legal Immigration – the other side of the story…

Posted on December 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by patrice

I know you are thinking an odd topic for a place about travel and food. But everyone talks about illegals and amnesty, the Arizona bill and so on. But no one talks about this side of the story…until now [insert dramatic music here]
Patrice is a Canadian, well at least until 12/16/10 when she saluted Jose. Ok the Jose reference might have been just blown past a few of you reading this so let me digress. When the national anthem starts says “Jose can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars, ..”, you know we are in trouble – But back to the story at hand, that being Patrice’s immigration story…

Let’s start by jumping into the “Wayback Machine” with Sherman and Mr. Peabody…and set it to 1998 when Patrice got here to the US. We spent many thousands of dollars getting her “legal” status. More than I care to even think about. Whether it was a wise investment or not is still the subject of huge debate. Especially now that I brought it up again. Now as the “Wayback Machine” quickly passes us to just a few days ago. We see Patrice sitting there huddled by her computer calculating what the costs of becoming a citizen is, of course not taking into account the previous sums that we mentioned. $700 is what it cost to APPLY!!

Now get this… You send in all the stuff and they send you a letter telling you when you come in for an appointment. It is impossible to call them and get an answer about anything, let alone deal with changing the appointment. What you have to do is send them a letter, registered of course so you have proof that you did attempt to contact them. Because if they think you didn’t respond, you go back to square one and start over and pay another $700. Now if your proactive when you send a letter you provide them with the days you are available. Little do you know that they are incapable of putting things together and saving time and effort. This is the government after all. Go through that same loop of receiving a letter and returning a letter with the dates you are available through the end of the year about 3 more times and you get your “biometrics” done. It doesn’t matter that she had them done to get her green card – gosh that was before “Homeland Security” was invented and they of course are protecting America from alien threats so they have to have their very own biometrics on her.

Finally at last something is completed!
But no, wait there is more, she receives a letter saying she needs to go in for her biometrics, (am thinking she just did that), and another letter saying she needs to come in for an interview. Huh, no sorry, in Canadian speak that would be “eh”? Just as she comes out of the fog of bewilderment, two more letters arrive. One cancels the Interview and the other gives her a new interview date. Immediate confusion sets in. Does she need to retake her biometrics or not? What day does she go for her interview…or not? Oh the suspense, frustration, what should she do. There is no time for a letter. The only thing left for our heroin to try is the phone…Can she get answers this time. Oh My God!!! What is going to happen?
Fortunately I can answer those questions  Nope, nope, and yup. I know you want more details than that. She got on the phone and wouldn’t let up until she got her answers – you know how she can be. They couldn’t explain why all the letters and wanting biometrics, but 12/16 was the date for the interview. A time of intense studying sets in. Patrice studies her Civics day and night. If there is a moment she is working on it.

12/16 finally arrives and the appointment was for 7:00am DOWNTOWN. I didn’t think the government had rolled out of bed by 7 let alone be at an office. So to be there on time it was a 4:30am alarm to do that. See it would be rush hour traffic and it is easily a 1 and a quarter hour drive to downtown. But she made it. Parking in the lot of the government building, was $7 with no ins and outs (you will see why I say that in a moment).
Patrice goes in and finally gets her interview, and passes with flying colors; even the part about speaking and reading English if you can believe that too. Now she is free to go until noon for the swearing in ceremony. So she drives back home and we get ready to drive back for the big show. We arrive and pay another $7 for parking and go through security again.

Now we take a seat and wait…

They tell all the people that are there, like me, that are not being sworn in to go downstairs and take a seat. While we all go down stairs and stand like a bunch of cows outside the barn door waiting for milking time, we get to hear what they say to the people being sworn in. They tell them to go downstairs and take a seat too. Now there is this huge crowd filling the stairs and hallway waiting. Even though people are slipping in and out of the auditorium door they aren’t opening it. Wait the door is opened now.

We go in and sit, Patrice and her gang of 71 from 32 countries files in and are seated. The ceremony begins. I should tell you about all the pomp and circumstances, but there wasn’t any, it was all pre-recorded. In fact they started the Star Spangled Banner – with no music playing, we just saw the words for it on the screen. Finally they started the music and we got through all the who ha stuff and Patrice was sworn in and became a US Citizen. But wait there is more to the story. They took her Green Card – without it she can’t get back into the US. This poses a problem, you see we are leaving the country on 12/24 and on the weekend there are activities in Canada with her family that she was thinking about doing. OH NO! If they had told her they would take her Green Card she would have put it off. Oh what can our heroin do now? Now that she is a legal US citizen will she be trapped in her new country with no way of getting out?

Alas, there still is hope. She can go and get a passport and expedite it. Of course that is an extra charge, but maybe that will work. She calls, it is an automated system. She gets a confirmation code for a 8:30am appointment in downtown SEATLLE!!! Maybe this will work; after all it is only another day blown, along with another tank of gas, doing government stuff that you get to pay for. Oh and in this case pay for a government mistake too – oh the joy that this new found freedom has given her.

We make it there on time and I drive around to find parking, we get her stuff in and it is accepted. Now we can come back at 2pm to pick it up. What it is 9:15am now. Ok back home and then do things we have needed to do for the past couple days but couldn’t have because we are doing this streamlined government stuff. We show up precisely at 2pm and I park in the street with the truck running as she goes in and goes through security yet one more time.

Upon arrival she finds out the passport isn’t done she has to wait. Now these are the same people that warn you not to come early to get your passport be on time. After a 20 minute wait she has her US Passport; now only a 1 – 2 hour drive back home through rush hour traffic to go.

In summary, this has only cost us thousands and thousands of dollars, many days of preparation and work; many days of standing in line and waiting; many times paying for mistakes the government has made. But finally she is a US citizen and has a passport too.

Now that we are sitting back trying to rest after the ordeal…Why did we do this again?

Hong Kong – Sitting at the dock of the bay

Posted on December 25, 2010June 25, 2011 by patrice

Well not really exactly what the title says…

We are actually sitting in the lounge at the Hong Kong airport and trying to catch up on some of the blogging while we wait for our flight. So I thought I would put this little note in here in case you think some of these blog entries aren’t exactly in order, cuz they aren’t.

We have been so busy that we haven’t had time to keep making timely entries. After all we have been touring around and have been joined by some friends too. So at the end of the day we have to sit around with a glass of wine or something and discuss the events of the day.

Now perhaps you can understand the grueling schedule we have been under while over here. It is hard work being a tourist…

We have had to deal with the “Mongolian Express” in Beijing. Ok I will explain that phrase.

It was about minus 3 zillion degrees Celsius the day we went to the “Forbidden City” and the wind was approaching gale force. In hurricane terms it was approaching a level 5, just to give you a scale to compare too. Everyone was dressed in as much warm clothes they looked like colorful penguins waddling around. They would have been over dressed for the Ididarod we were at in Alaska earlier this year. But not I, no I dress for what is needed, nothing more, nothing less. I had a t shirt with a long sleeve shirt over it, buttoned of course. The shirt was black and had that “Territory Ahead” look if you know what I mean. That would have been fine except for the wind. I happened to have a light wind breaker along that fit into it’s own pocket and took it out to break the wind, hence the name. But there was no need to zip it up as it was for blocking the wind and nothing more.

If bunny boots would have been available our little troop of penguins would have been wearing them for sure. But not I, no not I, for me it was sandals, with light socks of course. What a sight we were.

The group of Penguins going through the Forbidden City all huddling together waddling through and listening to a tour guide fill there heads with trivia they would never remember. As I, your roving reporter, in true Alaskan form, broke the trail for them and snapped some of the most fabulous and memorable pictures that have been ever taken in the Forbidden City.

But I digress… My main point was to let you know just a hint of the extremes that have been endured during this trip. At least now that we have a few moments to reflect on the trials and tribulations we have had to deal with. That is while sipping a glass of wine in Cathay Pacific’s First Class Lounge. They have respect and know how to treat a travel warn passenger like us

Thailand – Floating Market Food

Posted on December 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by patrice

Floating Market

One of the places we visited was a floating market that we seemed to be about the only white people at. It was way cool. Look at this picture closely.

Just off the picture to the right were many rows of people waiting for food and eating food that was / is prepared by these boats. What I wanted to show here was the boats and what is being cooked and how.

If you look closely you will see at the bottom of the picture a lady grilling whole scallops in the shell midway up you will see a lady grilling whole squid or calamari. Another detail to take note of is, under the sign you see what looks like a plate or pan with a long, very long, rod attached to it. Do you know what it is for? Tic tic, time is up… They place the ordered food into the pan and use the stick to give it to the people that ordered it. They in turn put money in the plate for the person that cooked the food. The young lady you see sitting down facing the boats helps in that process also.

If you haven’t noticed already…on the boats are tanks of propane used to cook with or, they have charcoal for the grills to cook the food on. Think they could do it that way in the states? I don’t think so, but it is so very common here. We like it.

China – Airplane Boarding Verification

Posted on December 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by admin

Boarding Pass

Let me set the stage for the above picture. You are boarding an aircraft for a flight in China. They have given you the boarding pass and in the picture you can see a portion of it in the background. What they did In this case was give you that yellow card as you walked out of the building toward the plane. When you arrived at the steps up to the plane there was a Chinese military looking guy checking your boarding pass and taking the “Boarding Verification Card” from you before letting you board the plane.

You are thinking cool, good idea someone could have forged a boarding pass and walked on the plane, but not with the card right? Now look at what the first part of what is in parentheses says. Let me quote it for you so you don’t have to strain your eyes, what a guy huh. Ok this is what it says, “Showed together with the boarding pass”. I am ok with that because that is exactly what we did and then they took it from us. They didn’t let us get to know that little yellow card, but maybe that is ok too. We might not wanted to part with the little fella if we had gotten attached to it. So to speak that is. Ok let’s get back to the yellow card.

Let me quote the last part of what it says, “and retrieved under the aircraft”. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean that we got them under the aircraft? Because if it does, that clearly did not happen, we got them both when we left the building. What do you think the meaning is?

Could there be a secret meaning to the words on the card; something like playing a recording backwards? Or, and this is the most insidious of all, is this a diabolical plot with communistic intentions, intent on taking over the world, and starting with this little yellow card? Bet you didn’t see that one coming did you. I didn’t think so. You be the judge, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

China – Shanghai Nights

Posted on November 25, 2010July 28, 2017 by patrice

Shanghai at night

I know the title almost sounds like a Jackie Chan movie doesn’t it. Well it isn’t, it is a picture taken from our hotel room, and what great nights there are in Shanghai too. Ok the days are pretty good too. We even got to the highest points in Shanghai too, the Pearl Tower that you see in the picture. We will have to put in a shot or two in the pictures section when we get a chance for you to appreciate the view from there.

It stays all lighted up until 10:30 pm and if you come here – do a river tour in the evening. They are about an hour or so but there are some amazing views from the river too. We did notice that all the tour boats have more lights on them than a Xmas tree, but the local boats / ships seem to lack any lighting. Our tour boat came up on a barge that had no lights on it. Even with repeated horn blasts the barge just lumbered along. Finally the barge moved out of the way – not by much though.

So that is the short version of Shanghai. We hope to get some time to put in reviews of the hotel and the like when we get a bit more time. So stay tuned…