Tomicles' Blog » Travels

Cross Country Trip 2009

tomicles — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:34:15 +0000

I am writing this as I sit waiting for my delayed flight to Boston from San Francisco. My younger sister decided to move from Boston to Portland and I am helping her move her car across the country. I’ve brought some toys to keep me connected and report my position along the way. Tomorrow there will be more photos of my setup as I get it installed in her car. My tracking site is located at the following URL: http://whereami.tomicles.com/ and if everything goes as planned it will update my position every 10 seconds or so while on the trip.

Travel to Nanning, Meet Elita’s Family, 1-19-2006

tomicles — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:24:48 +0000

Today we had to get up very early for our bus ride back to Guilin. All was going great and we made it outside for our bus to pick us up, and they sent a ‘bus’ which could have easily fit 7 Chinese people with no luggage, but there was no way this thing could fit 7 of us plus all of our luggage. We ended up getting on a public commuter bus to Guilin that leaves every day. It took us an hour to get to Guilin, and from there it was about a 1-block walk to the train station. We got on our train at around 9:30 I think and it was a 5-hour ride to Nanning, Elita’s hometown. I slept for a decent amount of the train ride since we were up on the Internet all night in Yangshuo. It was cool to see Elita’s face light up as we got closer and closer to her home. It was not so cold when we got there, not cold like any of the other places we had been. It was however colder than it had been, as the day before we arrived it was about 80 degrees.

Our hotel was very nice. It was one of the nicer hotels we stayed in for the trip, and Elita got it down to about $30 a night for a suite. Like in other places in China, there are lots of people that will work for cheap, so at the hotel front counter, they had about 15 people twiddling their thumbs not really doing anything. Internet at the hotel was fast but had a very crappy connection server. It was clearly designed to keep track of time for the dialup accounts and was then ported to work with Ethernet, and there was a popup window that had to remain open for the connection to work. I got my own room at this hotel, and the beds were as hard as rocks again, but I can sleep well on my back in that situation.

That evening we went over to Elita’s house and met her parents. They were very nice and very welcoming. Her dad was very into tropical fish and had two large tanks, one with clownfish and anemones, the other with a variety of delicate saltwater fish. They had lots of candies and fruit for us to eat and they showed us the large wedding photo books that had been made. They were filled with the same images as found on danandelita.com with Chinglish and some random Chinese poems written on each page. From there we headed to a very nice restaurant downtown Nanning called the Seafood Tower Hotel or something like that. The bottom three floors were all private restaurant rooms with the bottom being an aquarium and hotel lobby. Next-door was a very large aquarium with many different types of live fish. Instead of looking at a menu, Elita’s father went downstairs next door and picked out the live seafood that we would eat. They then prepared the meal and brought it to our room. It was again a large round table with Lazy Susan, but the utensils, chopsticks and china was all top notch. There were couches and a big screen TV in the room, as well as a private bathroom. I don’t remember the specifics of what we ate, but it was all very good. I remember eating way too much and feeling very full afterwards. When we were done, we walked downstairs and across the parking lot to the larger aquarium to check it out. Elita’s father showed us what we had just eaten. They also had for display, two very large sea turtles, each in their own tank. As of writing this I have not looked at the video from this place, but it will be online soon.

Yangshuo 1-18-2006

tomicles — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:05:22 +0000

1-18-2006
“Western food” in china is nothing to be proud of. I guess it could be classified as bad Chinese food in the States. We woke up after our first night in Yangshuo and all went out for breakfast at a western restaurant. The place was called “Mei You” which means ‘don’t have’ in Chinese. The sign continued to say ‘don’t have lousy food, warm beer, rip offs…’ etc and was a joke about other places in china. I had the ‘American Special’, which consisted of Hash browns, scrambled eggs, and sausage, which was really more like sliced ham. Nobody got sick from the breakfast, but Barbara didn’t do so well with the ‘Mexican food’ from the night before. I guess, when in Rome, do as the Romans, or something like that. After breakfast, we took a little rest, and I had a little time to organize my pictures and decide what to put online. I’ve now collected a large number of pictures from the trip and will make a special gallery for it when I get home.

After our little rest, Audrey Dan Gina and I went on a ‘bike ride’. For me it was really a bike ride, as I rented a very rickety, but full suspension ‘giant’ brand bike. The others however got little electric bikes that could do 30km/hr and looked like mini vespas. I was able to keep up with the electric bikes no problem, but it was a bit difficult at times. It was a good thing they slowed down quite a bit going up hill. We got the bikes on the walking street downtown Yangshuo and took them across the river and into the countryside. We first cam across this old falling apart factory of some sort, the windows were broken and parts of the building were falling down, but it was still in production. We took a few pictures, as it was the first place we stopped, Dan looked around a bit and told us to follow so we did. He took us to this sheer cliff, and said watch out as we got within about 15 feet of the edge. The brakes on all of the bikes were not so good so 15 feet of ‘watch out’ was cutting it a little close. I got some good pictures of everyone and the view was spectacular. The mountains in this region of the world were amazing, and seem to be quite unique. Next we got back on our bikes, and went down the road a bit more. Audrey wanted to go somewhere where ‘there are no cars’ so he found this little tiny dirt road and said ‘lets go this way’. Gina Audrey and I kind of looked at him funny and then just followed. He led us through this little group of farmhouses and animals. At a few points we were riding along the top these little dirt levees between two fields. They were quite muddy and very slippery at points. Eventually we cam eto this little tiny lake with a set of houses on the other side. Dan wanted to go left into the farm fields, and Audrey followed, but Audrey slipped a little and ran into and broke down a stick of a bamboo fence. There was a loud crack sound and someone told us that the road was the other way in Chinese. Dan and Audrey had a little trouble turning around their bikes, but they figured it out eventually. Eventually we found this place called Lin’s Café. It was identified by a sign and an overhead bridge thing to go under as we went down a little hill, but it was not so clear where the café actually was. We had to park our bikes at the bottom, as there was a large stone staircase with eroded dirt on either side leading down to a concrete dam on a small river. The waster level was quite low, and there were pieces of bamboo to be made into rafts lying around. The little lake created was just big enough to show a complete reflection of the mountain at the other end and I got one of my favorite pictures from the trip. We walked across the dam and found the entrance to Lin’s Café. It was across a large field filled with free-range chickens and a puppy. Inside there was a man with his young son, who like so many other people in china, like to stare. The man fed the largest of the chickens a large worm, and it ran off with all the other chickens chasing. We didn’t purchase anything at the café as there was nobody really working in it, and as we started to leave the puppy followed us. The puppy followed us half way across the dam until the man called for him, and he ran back. At this point it was getting a bit late and we needed to get back so Audrey could get on a taxi to start her trip home for school. We took a slightly different route back to the main road and made it there eventually. I was quite scared of my bike at this point because the brakes didn’t work very well, and the front and rear leavers were switched, so the right brake was the front wheel, instead of the rear. There were a few hills to climb up on the way back, but I kept up for the most part with the electric scooters.

When we got back from our ride, there was still a bit of time to ride around before we needed to be back for dinner. I didn’t want to go, but the others did, so I turned in my bike, and walked around the town with my mom. We saw much of the very small downtown area of Yangshuo. It’s shaped in sort of a triangle, with one side being the walking street we came in on. The other two sides are busy with traffic, both car and bike traffic, but not so bad compared to the other cities we have been in so far. We came across a few little shops that Barbara poked her head into, including two little shops with antique sewing machines ready to fix or hem clothing on the spot. There was also a good deal of not so good-looking street food, stir-fried on the spot and placed aside to cool and wait for a buyer. Who knows how long they let the food sit there before someone buys it. There were also a few chickens running around the little alley where they were making most of the street food. On our way back I checked prices from a few places for new digital camera batteries, but didn’t end up getting any. Dan told me to be weary of any Chinese batteries. I did however find the mini tripod I’ve been looking for. It has 3 flexible legs about 5 inches long so it can be formed into any needed tabletop shape. Same thing Matt has had for a while and exactly what I’ve been looking for.

We ate our dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, and we had enough people to get our own room. It was again the classic round table with a Lazy Susan in the middle. My dad had the great idea of using the new tripod on the Lazy Susan. I put it on the opposite side of the table aiming across, instead of in the center. This way the resulting video has a dynamic moving background relative to the people sitting at the table. I got about 15 minutes of great footage while we ate our dinner and that was enough time for some of the funny characteristics of some of the people we were with to come out. After we finished our dinner, Audrey had to be on her way. She had to get back home for her audition at school in Hartford.

Audrey was off, and we had nothing to do for the rest of the night, so Gina, Dámaris and I went off to the Internet Café. It was just a few blocks down the walking street from our hotel, and it was the best Internet in china so far. The place was not very obviously an Internet café; it actually was a movie bar of sorts, playing all kinds of movies on a standard projector in the bar, and the sign on the street in small letters said ‘free Internet’. I don’t know what was on the 2nd floor, but the 3rd floor was just a bunch of tables, with low light and Ethernet jacks at each station for people to plug in their laptops. It was a bit cold and isolated, but a waitress came up and took drink orders every once in a while. I plugged in my airport express so we could both sit near the power outlet, and the owner of the place couldn’t believe how much the little device cost. I started to play with Google Earth a little bit, and the owner of the place saw me and thought it was very cool. I set it up on his Chinese laptop and it worked just fine. Frankly I was surprised that Google even let me download the thing, let alone let me login to it from China. I learned a lot about China from this guy as we had a lengthy discussion about Chinese taxes, social status and many other things as compared to how things work in the States. In China, you are taxed as a business at a flat rate depending on the location of the business and how many square feet it is, not by a percentage of your income. Dan and Elita eventually showed up to come take us away for some late night Rice Noodles. We asked for about 15 more minutes of Internet, which turned into 45, but eventually we headed out and got our very tasty noodles. I think the rice noodles were my favorite food to eat in china.

Wedding Photos.

tomicles — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 05:26:07 +0000

Ive posted some wedding photos, but i used a new flickr uploader, so they appear in reverse order.

Here are also a couple of videos from the morning section of the wedding. I was not at this part as I was the first to get very ill from some bad food. These videos are directly off Gina’s digital camera.

Wedding Parade

Dan Singing

Also, be sure to check out Gina and dámaris’ blog, as they have more pictures and much more up-to-date blogging than i do at this point. it can be found Here

Digital Camera Videos

Tomicles — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:27:42 +0000

here are two digital camera videos.

Mom making Pig sounds on concrete pigs in Guilin Mom Pigs Guilin

Our bikeride in Yangshuo… Post about it coming soon Yangshuo

1-17-2006 Boat trip to Yangshuo

Tomicles — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:23:38 +0000

Taking a boat down the Li River is something many tourists do, and it was a very beautiful trip. Our boat left port at 9am so we had to leave the hotel in Guilin by 8:15 in three taxis. The taxi drivers tried to sell us on the idea that the boats wouldn’t take our luggage, and offered to drive it down for us, but it was just a scam. The boat trip itself was about 5 hours long, and by car the trip is only an hour and a half, but from the water the view is magnificent. It rained a little bit on and off while we were on the boat, and when it wasn’t raining we went on the upper deck and took pictures. Mom and I talked to some Japanese businessmen that were just thrilled to talk to Americans. The mountains were very awesome, with parts where sheer rock cliffs came down to the water’s edge, and other parts where there were the fog made the distant mountains up against the close up mountains look like a 3d picture, where you have to use the red and blue glasses to see the image. The boat was a little over 100 feet long I think and had two restrooms, a large diesel engine and a kitchen to cook lunch for everyone on board. The food was not so good on the boat, it was very greasy and I also didn’t feel very well so I only ate the steamed rice. I was surprised that many little boats came up to our large boat with things to sell. They took a large metal hooks and attached it to the tire bumpers on our boat, and tried to sell things to the tourists on our boat. Audrey bought something, I don’t really know what it is, but I’m sure we’ll see a picture of it later. The boat arrived as it was supposed to, about 5 hours later in Yangshuo, and again all the high-pressure sales people came up and tried to sell us postcards and everything else we didn’t want. Time is up for now, we’re leaving for Nanning tomorrow early and I need to go to bed. I’ll write on the trip there about Yangshuo and everything else that has happened.

Chinese characters

Tomicles — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:54:52 +0000

Ive started to use the correct chinese character for Yuan. You might see funny text or get a prompt to install foreign language support. If you see funny text after a number, its for that symbol, which means yuan. 8 yuan = 1 dollar. If you dont see the character, ive attached it as an image on this post.

Three more days. Shanghai and Guilin

Tomicles — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:51:34 +0000

1-14-2005 Shanghai has lots of places to go shopping and its one of the more common things to do here. This time we went shopping at an old temple, which had a really nice garden in the middle. It cost about 10元 to get into the garden and it took quite a while to get through it. It was very nice though and very old. It looked like it had been restored and was maybe several hundred years old. There were little buildings through out with large ponds filled with fish. All the buildings had the classic Chinese roofs with the curving up of the corners. Audrey bought some more stuff at a few of the small little shops and we took lots of pictures. I discovered that Elita is quite a good photographer as she took most of the pictures with my camera. Unfortunately I uploaded all the pictures at the same time and they are not all in the right order. Once we were done shopping we took a cab and found this little Japanese restaurant. It turned out to be not that great, but we picked it because it started to rain a little, and we didn’t have our wet weather coats or any umbrellas. Dan ended up ordering two meals because his first one wasn’t very good. We took two cabs home, I went with my mom and Dan, Elita and Audrey went by the mall to pick up Audrey’s new glasses. Mom and Dad went to bed when we got home, and I went out with Dan Elita Gina and Dámaris for Hotpot once again. It was very good once again. We had to pack when we got home for our flight the next day and I didn’t make it to bed until about 3:30am. It was too late to stay up as we planned on meeting at the hotel across the street from Dan’s apartment for breakfast at 8am.

1-15-2006 Today we got up early and had a buffet breakfast with the parents and everyone else staying at the hotel. It was a buffet with just about anything you could want for breakfast, including many different types of Chinese food. After breakfast we went to a museum down town where the most interesting thing was ancient bronze pots, sculptures and instruments. They also had ancient clothes, cloths, and ceramics. The ceramics were also cool but I don’t think they were as old as the bronze. We didn’t have too much time at the museum because we had to catch a flight to Guilin and be at the airport by 2pm.

My head started to get a bit congested on the way to the airport. I didn’t really think much of it until the air pressure on the plane felt wrong. My head felt like it was going to explode for the two and a half hours I was on the plane, and about half way through my ears plugged up, and I couldn’t hear anything. We took a private bus for about 45 minutes into town from the airport and the driver, who didn’t speak any Chinese, must have thought we were crazy because we were playing a song game the whole way there. Someone would pick a theme and we had to think of songs that fit into that theme. The catch was you actually had to sing the song, not just think of its name.

We got all settled into the Sheraton Hotel and then headed for dinner. There was a walking street just around the corner, on the same block as the hotel and we found this nice, brand new restaurant where we had some excellent local Chinese food. It was a long day, and after dinner we used the Internet for a little bit before going to bed. This hotel didn’t have wireless or Ethernet in every room, so they wired DSL through the hotel. If you wanted Internet, like we did, it was 50元 per day for the DSL modem. The Internet seemed faster than it was anywhere else on the trip, but I think that’s because nobody else in the hotel was using it at that time.

1-16-2006 Elita found and hired a private tour guide today with a bus, to go see some of the sights in Guilin. Our first stop was the football hill. At the bottom was a nice little park and garden with a few statues, a model of a little ship and a large bush about 15 feet tall shaped as a peacock. There was a little cave that went under the hill and on the river side it opened up again with nice statues carved into the rock of the hill. There was also a very large arch, but the bottom of the outside part didn’t touch the ground at all. There was just enough room to put your hand under it. The rock was very smooth from people touching it so much. We then hiked up the hill. There were 365 steps up to the top and I ran it all the way up. There were gnats at the top that sort of blocked the view, but it was a very nice view.

Once we were done with the football rock it was onto the caves in Guilin. Our guide explained that many people were saved in the caves when the Japanese came through about a hundred years ago and wiped out the population and destroyed the city. She said the caves could hold about 4000 people, and it was only know about by the locals. The caves remained hidden to the public until about 1970 when the government made it into a tourist attraction. Seeing the caves was very cool because it wasn’t really in the city. We had to drive about 20 minutes on a not-so-great road to get there, yet the tourist sales people were still everywhere trying to sell whatever they could for way too much money by Chinese standards.

We headed to see a silk factory after seeing the caves. The silk factory wasn’t really a factory, but instead a mock factory for tourists to see how the silk is made. There was also a showroom to buy silk quilts and bedspreads. The process was kind of cool, but I’ll let you guys watch the video of it when I get it done instead of writing about it in detail now. Our last stop was the Elephant trunk rock. This rock was very near downtown and was just off the main road. They put up big signs and tall bushes so you couldn’t see it from the street without paying. Our guide said that if you don’t get a picture at this rock, then you have not been to Guilin.

We got foot massages after dinner. They were an hour long and the place was really cool. It cost 100元 per person for a 1-hour session and we all got to sit in these nice chairs in the same room. This place was like a compound; it had many different buildings with separate rooms of different sizes. One of the girls said they could do 150 massages at the same time, but she was happy they weren’t busy so she could rest in between customers. None of the masseuses could speak any English so Dan and Elita did a lot of translating. One comment that Dan’s masseuse said was that “everyone is happy when you [Dan] are around”. Dan is always talking and the Chinese people thing he is the funniest thing in the world. He likes to speak his Chinese and sometimes he slips up because you can say every word with four different accents, and each accent has a completely different meaning. Our massages were great, though for Dan, it was not hard enough. We went shopping for snacks after our massage so we could have some things to eat on the river boat on the way to Yangshuo.

More to come soon

Tomicles — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:39:08 +0000

Just finished uploading 30+ photos and will have lots more to post soon. In 8 hours, tomorrow morning for me, we get on a boat for 5 hours and go through the tall pointy rocky mountains from Guilin to Yangshou. After the mountains get old I’ll have plenty of time to type up better descriptions about what we did in the pictures you see on flickr right now.