Jen Mueller is a Washington DC mom, environmental advocate, communications professional, amateur photographer, habitual runner, novice yogi, and owner of a small green pacific parrotlet named Bug.
It turns out that the zoo in Bois de Vincennes is closed for renovation and since that was a big draw to that park, we went to a cemetery known for its 64,000 ornate and even ostentatious tombs of the rich and famous: Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Eloise and Abalard, and more.
More pics here.
We're having a lazy day here. With the exception of Mac and Maya nipping to the corner to buy croissants, we hung out in the apartment all morning. At 11, Mac and Alex went to the art museum around the corner (yep) while Maya napped. We're planning a visit to the Bois de Vincennes for running about, a palace(maybe), and the zoo in the afternoon.
We're resting up from a visit to Versailles - part of which Alex keeps referring to as the forced march: the walk from the palace to Marie Antoinette's house. Versailles is tough for toddlers. You can't touch anything - not even the walls or doors. I also would have appreciated a warning that once you went into Le Chateau, there's no exit until you've been through every room - eek. Maya was in need of running around. We thought we were going to stick our head in and see a few rooms, hit the grounds, and then come back for more. No such luck.
Maya liked the Hall of mirrors very much though, even though she couldn't actually go touch them. She also enjoyed the grounds. She didn't care a bit that it's the off-season and there are no flowers yet. It was 60 degrees and sunny (a bit too sunny for us slightly reddened adults who didn't nap in the protection of the Ergo for a bunch of the walk). Sticks and rocks in France are just as interesting as at home, in case you were wondering.
The palace was impressive. I feel like I need to go look up all sorts of stuff. And it was very interesting to contrast the main building with the little estate given to Marie Antoinette. While the inside is distinctly different, following the queens tastes, the grounds are the biggest contrast. The grounds near the palace are as imposing as the building, with little shade and grand walks. There is (or would be were there leaves) more shade further out and, as you get to Le Petit Trianon, you find yourself in an English-style garden and more rustic-looking grounds complete with an entirely fabricated far eastern-style rock and water feature (which I'm really hoping Alex photographed).
Oh well, more tea and snacks . . .
I had intended to get a whole blog post done this evening but I hadn't intended Maya to nap through dinner and stay up late. Oh well. She's doing pretty well with the time shift, generally, but this traveling thing is tiring. Anyway, you can track our trip though pictures in my Ah, Paris. set on Flickr.
(Ed. Note 9/18/06: Now over at Flickr)
So we're settling into a post-travel routine. Mac is off at a dance workshop in Maine for the next week which gave me some time this afternoon to finally post photos. (And completely demolish rearrange the bedroom.)
My initial edit to 220 balloned to 344 once I added Alex's pictures and Mac's special requests. Have Fun!
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Just a sample of a few of the new images.
Lastly, I won't be updating this blog until we embark on the next voyage. In the mean time, read the Bug Blog.
Puddling Jumping in DC at Typepad. (Ed. Note 9/18/06: see entry dated 9/17/06 Ed. Note 10/9/06: All travel entries have been imported into Puddle Jumping in DC and categorized under travel.)
Between 7pm and 8pm Alex/Jen/Mac time yesterday, we squeezed in 14 hours of air travel (aren't time zones interesting). I slept about 7 hours of that awaking at about 4:30 pm New York time. We landed at 8pm. Through immigration, customs, baggage claim, airport transit, the subway, a bus, stopping at a grocery, and we finally made it to Don's house in Brooklyn at a little after 11pm.
We're in Shanghai for one more day and then we leave China! Alex pointed out that we will have spent 8.5% of 2006 in China.
Unfortunately, you will have to wait until we get back for more pictures of Shanghai, etc. It turns out to be too tough in Shanghai/Beijing to find a computer that can both connect to my camera (or a net cafe that allows that) and can resize the pictures (or will let me download a little program to do that). See you all soon!
It's amazing how busy a vacation can be. Finding time to post can be challenging - especially when one hostel shares only one or two computers. So, were did we leave off.
We filed into an airplane hanger built over an archeological site to view the results of one megalomaniac's insanity - The Terracotta Army built to protect the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China.
We were expecting Xi'an to be one of the hottest places we'd visited. We couldn't beleive our luck when we found it to be cold and rainy.
We all enjoyed Xi'an and found it to be a pleasent, attractive city.
The day after visiting the warriors (and the lovely vegetarian restaurant down by the Small
Goose Pagoda for the second time), we boarded a bus for an overnight climb up Hua Shan – one
of the most western of China's holy mountains named for the flower petal like peaks at the
top.
As we got off the bus on Monday, we were approached by an Australian college student who,
like us, didn't understand more than two words of the very extensive instructions of the bus driver
or, apparently, orientation guy at the restaurant. The Australian, Luke, quickly befriended a
Chinese college student who called himself Chad. Chad had planned to take the cable car up to
the top and walk down the following day but decided to join the, now, four of us walking up
instead. So, five of us climbed the mountain.
It was a great climb, though extremely steep and the terrain uneven at times, and, although it was 1000 meters and shorter and quicker than Emei Shan, was more tiring than the other climb.
The views were just stunning. The signs warning "No walking while looking; no looking while walking." bore advice worth following.
. . .
Try watching it with the sound off or, as in our case on our last night in Xi'an, dubbed into Mandarin when we were expecting subtitles. It's surprisingly easy to follow. It's slightly harder to keep Mac from inventing his own dialog out loud.
We may have to get someone to explain the finer points of the plot, though.
Again, the weather was unbelievable cooperative. Instead of a heat wave, we found rain and fog (mostly fog). After standing in an orderly and quite line of thousands and thousands to view the Mao mausoleum (yes, he's in there, under glass) we headed for the old imperial palace.
We found that by the time we hit Beijing, we were a bit glazed by more Ming and Qing architecture and temple-like structures. A wildly overpriced frozen coffee from Starbucks (yes, you read that right) revived us a bit and we tackled some excellent exhibits within the palace museum including some absurdly complicated clocks made in England and France in the 1800's and given to China as gifts.
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The private quarters of the palace were fun though – lots of more intimately sized corridors and courtyards and a great garden in the back.
The following day, we headed for the outskirts of Beijing to check out the palace into whose renovation the Dowager Emperess Cixi funneled money intended for the Imperial Navy at the end of the 19th century.
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It is truly lovely, even in a steady drizzle.
Last, but far from least, we boarded a tour bus bound for JinShanling – a semi-restored section of
the great wall about 110 km to the north east of Bejing
We hiked the 10 kilometers hiked from JinShanling to Simatai
It hasn't all held up equally well or been equally
restored.
Here, it's barely wide enough for me to walk on it. Mac went around.
Pretty cool, though.
Look, wildlife!
We've been off email for a bit as we've been popping in and out of Chengdu. In between our visits to Leshan, Emei Shan, and Wolong (see previous entries below), we've been catching glimpses of Chengdu. Dragons seem to be a theme here.
Dragons scale the cauldrons at the Green Ram Temple
Workers create a dragon design in the concrete
Mac and a dragon
The real reason we took the many hour (although barely 100 km) drive from Chengdu was to go hiking on a less traveled path. Emei (See previous entry.) was beautiful, but the Yichang Valley near the Wolong Nature Reserve is simply stunning.
We spent far to little time on the only trail available to us. You see, the Valley of Hero's trail, which heads off in the other direction, is under construction. Enterprising developers are buidling a hotel at the trail head and paving the path. The workers wouldn't allow us through because "It's not beautiful, yet."
Experiencing nature "in the raw" doesn't seem to have really taken off in China. Paths must be paved; cable cars through stunning scenery must meet new age music from loud speakers; nature must be augmented.
The residents of the Wolong Valley are as entitled to benefit from increased tourism that accompanies China's hard earned affluence as anyone else. They clearly have more rooms than visitors right now but are widening the road and building more facilities in anticipation.
Hiking Yichang this morning was both exhilerating and sad.
I don't think they can help it. Wolong Nature Reserve Panda Research Station has about a dozen baby ones.
Can you say "awe, how cute, a panda pile up"?
We began our trek to Leshan on Emei Shan late on Saturday morning. Slow breakfasts, troublesome
ATMs, and long lines at the bus station meant that we disembarked at the Leshan Long-Distance Bus Station at 12:30 pm. A few minutes of looking lost and a nice local pointed us to the right bus and then escorted us there. We popped off the bus at the docks to discover that we'd missed the last boat across the river to the Buddha. A taxi took us across the bridge for less than $1 - more efficient but less picturesque.
We wandered around the grounds and temple before deciding, at around 4 pm, that the line for 
the Buddha was short enough to stand in. 45 sunburnt & sweaty minutes later, we were standing at the foot of Dafo, the 71 meter high stone Buddha that took 80 years to carve from Lingyun Shan beginning in 713.
Dafo translates to great Buddha, but that really doesn't do him justice. He's enormous! "The Buddha is a mountain. The mountain is a Buddha," explains the brochures.
Unfortunately, the only exit was on the far site of Dafo and we had to race up the narrow stairs and down the mountain's far side to reach our bus to Emei Shan - which we missed. With a little broken Chinese, pointing at signs, and hand gestures, and a lot of luck, we ended up on a bus back to the long distance bus station and only the last bus of the day to Emei town, 7 km from the mountain.
The guesthouse we reserved near Baguo Si, at the base of Emei Shan, was overbooked. Andy, the nice, if distracted, proprietor of the Teddy Bear Guesthouse took us to his "sister's" hotel down the road, where, after a little discussion, we agreed to stay in one room with a gigantic bed. It had AC and a TV showing a newish Jackie Chan flick (no English, but you don't watch Jackie for plot anyway) and the bed slept three across quite easily. Back at Andy's for dinner, we had lovely chocolate & banana pancakes (crepes really) for dessert. Mac and Alex taught a local college kid who introduced himself as "Francis" to play gin-rummy - it's really a lot like Mah Jong - while I procured hiking tips from the staff.
Mt. Emei is amazing, though our first day was far from relaxing. The heat and the crowds between Wainnian Si and Qingyin Pavilion were oppressive. You might think you've experienced crowds, but until you've visited a major tourist site on a weekend during school holidays in China, you really haven't (doubtless there are some places in India that are similar). Of the two of us, Mac is more sensitive to heat but I am more sensitive to noise. I can take sweltering quiet for a a good long while, but add thousands of shouting tourists and vendors trying to sell them things, and my resolve simply fails.
We actually took a wrong turn and ended up heading down the mountain until and old man at a very quiet "snack counter" set us right. After selling us drinks, a map, a fan, some rice gruel and pickled cabbage, of course. The rest and food dis us some good and we plowed back into the crowds at Qingyin Pavilion where we got back on the southern route to the top. The next hour or so past streams of bathers and chaperoned monkeys wasn't bad and the crowds completely evaporated past the "ecological monkey habitat" as most tourists headed back down to catch a bus to the summit.
With the trail finally quiet enough to hear the birds and bugs and frogs and for butterflies (Emei has hundreds of varieties) to begin to make an appearance, we began to really enjoy ourselves. After 7 hours of hiking (though some of it in the wrong direction) we stopped at Hongchunping monastery for the night.
The second day was at once wonderful and grueling. The scenery is amazing and the temperature dropped some, but the whole climb involves well over 10,000 steps that seem endless.
We each had our own pace on the stairs. I found them rather meditative and can climb slowly and steadily for a long time when only thinking about one step at a time. At one point I passed Mac at a pavilion, "Can't stop now; I'm in a groove."
The demographic of the Emei Shan tourist had totally changed. Sunday's walk was dominated by middle class families with kids. Monday we saw a few families and groups of young people but far more older to elderly climbers, many wearing only hand woven rope sandals.
At one point, Mac said the climb felt a bit like Frodo and Sam. "Sure," I said, "If Moria had snack stands every couple of kilometers."
We climbed more on Monday than we planned. Xisheng Si (Elephant Bathing Temple) was our intended stopover for the night. However, we didn't realize it when we passed it - went through it actually - and kept on climbing until we hit the junction with the road the snakes up the other side of the mountain to the cable car to the summit.
After 9 hours of climbing, we were faced with a choice of going back to Xisheng (yeah, right), staying at the unappealing hotels near the road, slogging on for another couple of hours to the summit, or taking a 15 minute ski lift ride to the top. What do you think we did?
It's too bad we were so tuckered and didn't take photos of the summit when we arrived. The view is amazing, looking down on a sea of clouds with shadows of trees and lower peaks occasionally coming into view.
The following morning, the summit was wrapped in a cloud. Alex and I dressed by flashlight at 4:55 am (as not to wake Mac who does not do sunrise) and watched the fog grow lighter and lighter for about an hour. We were a touch early for sunrise (apparently the hotels do a wake-up call at 5:25 for all guests and were on the Golden Summit Temple viewing platform in the dark by ourselves for a bit. Slowly we were joined by shadows of other mumbling tourists. At one point it started to drizzle and all the Chinese tourists vanished, leaving me, Alex, and some guy from Boston huddled under an overhang watching the fog grow brighter.
After a nap, we checked the fog at the summit one more time and took the cable car and then the bus back to the base of the mountain for more chocolate pancake and a bus back to Chengdu.
Lijiang to Chengdu Flight 8694, Depart 22:50, Estimated flight time 1:05
While boarding, I asked Alex, "If this is what they do for a bit more than a 2 hour delay, what happens if they loose your luggage?" Alex didn't think it was a funny question.
The virus that knocked out Alex incapacitated each of us in turn over our three days in Lijiang. By Tuesday, Alex was beginning to recover but Mac was down with a fever. I napped a bunch that day, hoping to stave off the worst. I seem to have skirted the fever, but all of us got the congestion, cough, and exhaustion. We spent our three days in Lijiang mostly alternating between napping and sitting in cafes. Luckily, we were staying in a lovely guest house not too far from food.
Unfortunately, we didn't see much of Lijiang. The Old Town is full of shops selling tourist trinkets and bland food but the countryside is supposed to be lovely. Mac and Alex got to Black Water Pool park on my worst day (no picture obviously as I was asleep) and we all went to the reconstructed palace on the final day. By Thursday night, we were all on the road to recovery and off to Chengdu.
Alex is down with a cold and Mac may have eaten to many lechee nuts and didn't want to venture far from the bathroom. This is a rare opportunity to be alone with my thoughts, even among thousands of tourists crowding Lijiang's alleys and streets.
China is a multi-sensory experience. There are the sights but also the sounds, smells, taste and feel of the place.
Shilin's Sani and Lijiang's Naxi people wear colorful traditional costumes. In Shilin, it's clearly for the tourists; in Lijiang, perhaps not. The amazing karst strewn landscapes of Yangshuo, Shilin, and mountains of Lijiang contrast the dense and dirty cities.
There is an shocking haze in Kunming where the geography and prevailing winds are not unlike Denver or Los Angeles, creating a basin to hold the smog from its ever growing fleet of cars. The smog limits the view and the soot stains the buildings. The combination prompts some residents to wear masks when cycling to work. Still, there are bright patches. The colorful Yuantong temple provides an oasis of calm among Kunming's frenetic streets.
In a nation with 2 billion people mostly packed into eastern China, you are never far from another person. Sounds around natural and man made:
The roar
The chatter
The song
The hum
The whisper
Smells, pleasant, intoxicating, and repulsive, drift from all around. Some of the memorable smells include: 
What would China be without taste. Although ordering vegetarian in our limited Chinese can be a challenge, every meal is a treat. I hope to always remember the taste of:
While not unheard of, the directive "look but don't touch" is not the predominant one in China. Everyone touches. The bronze tributes to communist iconography in the city parks all have shinning coppery spots from countless fingers. The marble lions at the temples all have shiny heads from the petting of millions. The rocks in Shilin, too, are shinny from admiring hands. The freedom to touch is liberating; the tactile experience - satisfiying.
The senses take it all in as we've barely begun to explore all the places that make up China.
 Kunming Bicycle |
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 Alex Under "Overhanging Rock" |
 Shilin's Karst Formations |
 Lush Greens Offset the Grey Rock |
 Mac Climbing Up One of the Lesser-Used Paths |
 Finally At The Top |
 Jen At The Top, Too |
 Black Pool |
 Mac Writing It All Down |
There is a road that follows the river north from Yangshuo. After passing some unused turnstiles, dozens of not-yet-active souvenir stalls, and a dock for the Li River cruise boats full of well-healed tourists from Guilin, the road hugs the river for several kilometers before turning west through farms growing rice and oranges. I am passed by commuters on bicycle, motor carts, moped, and on foot, but my run is generally quiet, save the hum of the cicadas.
Back in New York, I made a last minute decision that the sandals I had intended to be my primary shoes in China just were not providing sufficient arch support for the amount of walking we anticipated doing. I left those at Don's (thank you) and brought my running shoes with the orthodic insoles instead.
Every place we've been so far, folks are in the parks practicing Tai Chi, doing calisthenics and aerobics, and running in the mornings. Many of the parks have far more extensive exercise equipment than I've ever seen in the States. Far beyond chin-up bars, parks have elliptical trainers, treadmills, sit-up benches, and more, all made of metal and painted in the same yellow and blue. The culture of outdoor exercise is friendly and welcoming. I may not speak Chinese, but I get the same nods of comradary that I get from runners in Washington.
We can no longer access Wikipedia
Here we are in the Shenzhen bus terminal.
We fell asleep on the night bus
. . . and woke up in a picture book.
We had a little list of sites to see in Hong Kong but only saw a few of them. It's big; it's tall, it's bustling.
We stayed in an ancient high rise full of budget guesthouses and longer term boarding establishments in the heart of Tsim Saa Tsui across Victoria Bay from Hong Kong Island in an area called Kowloon. The Mirador Mansion is one of a few old high rises that remain among the new development and high end hotels that appear to be taking over the area. Comparing the dirty concrete facads of Mirador and it's neighbor, Cheungking Mansions, with the swanky department stores, Holiday Inn, and the "New Heart of the City" going up across the street, I wonder how long the budget establishments will last.
Queens Central Road, Hong Kong Island
Our first day, we planned a "lazy day". After a breakfast of congee (rice gruel) and noodle soups, we wandered down the the harbor and watched the boats for a while. Our day sort of went: food - see a little something - food - see a little something - food - and so on.
We saw the lovely Hong Kong Park including the Edward Youde Aviary, climbed Victoria Peak, and went back to Kowloon in search of vegetarian sources of protein.
Lilly Pads in Hong Kong Park
In addition to jet lag, I was definitely responding to all the carbohydrate the airline fed me (They seemed to think when I called to confirm the vegetarian meals that I meant to cancel one. The staff was very nice and found me stuff, probably pillaged out of the more flexible 1st class kitchen.) and the rice for breakfast and was starving all day. We've learned that eggs are an important part of breakfast and that they are perfectly fine floating on top of noodle soup.
Night Sky from Victoria Peak
Over the next two days, we saw market after market, a few more parks, ate some lovely food, and even found an English screening of Over the Hedge (It's not vacation unless you see a movie - Mac).
We've stopped in an airport cafe where cappuccino costs W4500 (about $5) and we purchased something translated as "peanut balls". It is unclear whether the squid on the package is logo, ingredient or both.
(1) DaVinci Code
(2) Nanny McFee
You're not sure where the verge is, that jumping off point, land to water, pavement/grass, but that there is a border, you're sure, something like an inlet: you follow the coastline and nothing seems to change, but it's obvious on a map, some point where the waves thicken with a red dotted line, tiny letters smacking of England or earlier, Scarborough Bay, Cape Whatchacall--you've crossed over, but you don't remember it.
Okay, nevermind. You've got a lunch in your pack and the sun won't set for hours.
Once you're in there, though, water slapping the rounded sides like ducktalk, and you've got your camera strapped to your neck, fishing buoy juggling just off port, you see that you're not really alone, not adrift apart: adrift, but a part of it all.
- macshute
In preparation for the weather in Beijing, Chengdu, and Xi'an, Mac got a haircut. 'Nuff said?
He doesn't look all that different, but the mop is smaller.
We're in full throws of packing/planning. Friday we did a mock travel day and carried all our gear around DC while we picked up our China Visa and ran errands.
Of course, we found ourselves in a tea shop playing cards.
Mac learned that his bags are uncomfortable and awkward. We all agreed to ditch the bags before the 3-day hike at Emei Shan and made list of things that we'd forgotten to pack, didn't leave room for, or should leave behind.
I've accepted a new job. I will be the media coordinator for Food & Water Watch when we return from China.
Many blogs have a distinct voice, an obvious audience (often grandparents and far flung relatives), or a particular theme (small birds, green living, going on a trip). I'm not sure that the Bug Blog has really found its voice, especially since Bug's presence comes and goes. So, I will be experimenting with voice and theme for a while.
One common blogger device is the game of questionnaire tag. You've probably gotten one by email. Those do not bring focus to a blog unless the author is very creative and they do not appeal to me, personally.
However, some participatory blogger devices are more flexible and visual in nature - this is a visual medium, after all. I'm a particular fan of what used to be Self-portrait Tuesday, the Self-portrait Challenge. (June is Pop-Art so, watch for it.) Stephanie at little birds is prompting a Color Week. She does some nice color themed blog entries and I just might play along this time.
Ok, one last thing:
While there are a few more things to do in here, one of them is the breakfast dishes.
Alex - Is a systems administrator, dancer, and, sometimes, aspiring accountant. He has been dancing with in the Washington area for 20 years in a variety of dance styles including modern, tap and ballroom. He is a certified movement analyst through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. Alex holds a degree in biology from Oberlin College and likes to cook, which is a lot like science only tastier. He has been known to listen to German opera and watch Bollywood movies. Alex met Mac while dancing for Jane Franklin Dance. He, Mac and Jen have since traveled to Sri Lanka and London together.
Jen - Is likely the primary author of this blog. She's an environmental and public interest advocate who just completed a master of public management degree from the University of Maryand School of Public Policy. As of this blog post, she is unemployed, though job hunting (see resume), and will hopefully find something before leaving the country. When she's not fighting injustice, Jen likes to take pictures, do yoga, and run. She completed the Marine Corps Marathon in 2001 and again in 2005. Jen also maintains the Bug Blog where she comments on life, the world, and the exploits of a small green Pacific Parrotlet 
. Mac and Jen met at the University of Massachusetts in 1993 and were married in 1998.
Mac - Is a dancer, teacher, movement analyst and writer. He just completed a master of fine arts at the University of Maryland. He previously performed with with Nancy Havlik’s Dance Performance Group and Jane Franklin Dance in the DC area. Mac's poetry has been seen on buses all over Arlington County, VA. He has also published poems, stories, and articles in The Voice of the Hill, The Hill Rag, and on Poets Against the War and founded the Writer's Way. When Mac is not making art, he likes to do Tai Chi, play board games with friends, eat ice cream. Mac is not a fan of the heat which makes it ironic that he spearheaded a trip to a part of the world with cities nicknamed "The Furnace" in July.
- - Click on Image for Gigantic Version - -
| As requested on our visa application: | |
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The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.
- Louis L'Amour (1908 - 1988), Ride the Dark Trail
Yet. (click for a larger image of the map)
But, we bought plane tickets (
) and travel insurance (
), so we're committed!!!!
But, they won't let us on the plane until June 28th (I'm pretty sure pleeding wouldn't help.).
How will we stand the wait?
We are, however, getting away in a more domestic manner this weekend.
I survived my second full semester as a graduate student and left for Costa Rica a mere 8 hours after finishing a 4-hour macroeconomics exam (got an "A" but yuck!). I hadn't packed before the exam so got very little sleep before the trip.
We made up for it over the course of 11 days in San Jose (capital city), La Fortuna (rainforest & active volcano), Monteverde / Santa Elena (cloud forest) and Brasilito / Playa Conchal (little village & beautiful Pacific coast beach). Photos will be posted as soon as I get them back (I still use old fashioned film for non-web applications). At some point, I had dreams of developing a travel log that would capture my trips in detail, but you can see that I haven't gotten very far.
I didn't, however, do much running. I squeezed in a short (very sweaty) run at the beach on Sunday morning and did a 5 or 6 mile run last night, but I missed two long runs with the group. Even though we hiked most days in Costa Rica, I'll be counting on residual fitness to get me through my 8-mile run this weekend.
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