Back on home soil

So last night, I arrived back in Chicago, safe and sound. I treated Friday as a very long day-- eating breakfast in the air somewhere over France, lunch on the street in Amsterdam, and dinner in Detroit's airport. I was pretty disappointed with my planning in Amsterdam-- I arrived back at the airport after heading downtown an hour earlier than I would have needed to so I could have spent more time seeking a nice sidewalk cafe. As it was, I ended up eating a sandwich on the go as I made my way back to Amsterdam's Centraal Station to catch the train to the airport.

I should should mention that on the plane ride home, I had a lot of time to think. The product of all of that thinking was the realization that I have been going through separation anxiety. Looking back further, I think my posts and private journal writings prior to departure have some of the same elements. I don't know what to make of that realization yet, although I think it's positive that I have learned a little something about myself on this trip. As I sat in Kilimanjaro International Airport on Thursday evening, drinking my last Tusker beer and watching some World Cup, I felt relatively at peace. I was leaving this "other world" behind but I felt like I was able to accomplish something productive while I was there and so I guess that relaxed me.

If my previous trips have taught me anything, it's that once I get back, I have a difficult time staying awake past 6:00 pm for about a week, so I'm not going to be getting bent out of shape to make sure I get everything posted this next week. I'll be posting another entry about the fun times with the kids closer to July.

A conundrum

So I'm just sitting here relaxing for a bit and realized a few things. First, I haven't said goodbye to any of the kids at Amani. I'm going to go resolve that in a few minutes on my way to KCMC to finish packing.

The second is more complex: I've been writing about how I'm looking forward to my old routine. I just realized that my old routine also means I'm going to work on Monday (and actually I'll be logging a little time on Friday night to book travel to Grand Rapids for Monday). One of the worst feelings at the end of a vacation (especially four weeks away from work) is the disappointment that work is just around the corner. I enjoy my job, but there are certain aspects following a return from vacation that are not fun. The one that comes to mind first is all of the e-mail that I will have to deal with. Second, the stress that there might not be any available seats on a flight to Grand Rapids for next week (or no hotels). I need to take care of Advisory University registration (even though I'll be registering late-- the registration period was entirely within my vacation period.) I'm certainly not going to take care of this work stuff now while I'm on vacation, because keeping clear separation between work and vacation is very important to me. I have been periodically downloading my work e-mail to stay somewhat loosely informed. I absolutely do not act on anything during vacation (and seldom on the weekend for that matter). I need the clear split.

The conundrum: So even though I'm looking forward to a return to things I am familiar with, I just realized that I'm also not looking forward to the routine because it is exactly that: the old routine. It's a perplexing contradiction and it's leaving me feeling uncomfortable. I'm saying two things: I want the old routine and I don't want it. There is too much change for me to be happy and not enough change for me to be happy. I haven't figured out what separates one statement from the other yet. Maybe my experience here has been so jarringly differrent from what I'm used to that my three weeks here have become some sort of alternate reality within the construct of my mind. That's not a helpful way of trying to describe how this feels I guess--a bit over the deep end on the sci-fi factor. I'm not going crazy, I promise.

Now, just to provide some reassurance after all of the doomsday junk, I'm not going to leave PwC anytime soon--like I said before, I enjoy my work, so basically I just have to suck it up and deal with the fact that returning to the US is just as major of a change as coming here, and I obviously survived here for three weeks. I should be able to pick up my life in the US where I left it. I would bet that what I'm feeling now is just a reflection of the same fear I felt on my way to Tanzania. Major change is hard and frightening.

Last day in Africa

Today is my last day in Africa. I have some mixed emotions. There is certainly a lot to look forward to back home, but I have met some wonderful people here and had so many memorable moments. Over the next few weeks, I will be spending some time thinking about how I can integrate this experience into my life. I don't think I would be a good fit for Tanzania specifically long term, but I would like to spend a couple years living and working abroad somewhere.

I've told Phil and Alison a few times while out here that I'm looking forward to a double quarter pounder with cheese from McDonald's (terribly unhealthy, I know, but quite delicious). While that's true to a certain extent, I think what is closer to the root of what I'm looking forward to is a return to the familiar for awhile. This contradicts my previous paragraph about wanting to live abroad somewhere a bit, but I think in the end, it comes down to me forcing myself to adapt and accept change. I want to further push the boundaries of my comfort zone and personally develop greater appreciation for all of the diversity in the world. I really want to become conversationally fluent in about six languages so that I can reduce some of my fear of being lost in a sea of unfamiliarity. I have the advantage of already knowing English, but even that only gets me so far. Every once in awhile though, it's nice to return to your roots and feel warmth and security of predictability, you know?

Also, it turns out that I have an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam, making my total travel time back to the US about 35 hours. I'm going to make the best of it though, and spend the morning tomorrow in Amsterdam visiting some sights like the Van Gogh museum. After having lunch in central Amsterdam, I'll head back to the airport for my flight to Detroit and then finally on to Chicago.

A final side note (possibly my last post before returning to the US): I'm looking forward to a little welcome home gathering this weekend at BW3's in Chicago. It'll be lunch so that we can watch a World Cup game. I can't wait for 18 wings, half mild and half medium, with ranch dressing. What yummy goodness. It's amazing that such simple things are held so dear when we think about "home." I guess in our own little ways, we all cling to the familiar, resisting change to some degree.

Sunrise over the Serengeti

As we drove through the park to return to Arusha, we witnessed a spectacular sunrise. You can't tell from the photo very well unless you look away from the area of the sun, but in the distance, you'll see some distant clouds. Sunrise is normally earlier, but these clouds kept me from getting this photo until about 6:50 am. Serengeti National Park, Monday, June 12, 2006.

Africa in shadows

Full moon setting in the west. The exposure was relatively long (1 second) so you can see some stars in this photo. From campsite just outside Serengeti National Park, Monday, June 12, 2006.

Wildebeest

Hundreds of wildebeest. The migration was already almost to Kenya, and the park is so big, so we didn't make it to that. However, this was a pretty substantial herd, perhaps even a few thousand wildebeest. Serengeti National Park, Sunday, June 11, 2006. 

Zebras

Many zebras. Serengeti National Park, Sunday, June 11, 2006. 

Thompson's Gazelle

We saw both Thompson's and Grant's Gazelles. Pictured here is a Thompson's Gazelle, marked by the black stripe among other characteristics. It was pretty common to see the two types of gazelle in herds together. Serengeti National Park, Sunday, June 11, 2006.

Elephants

Large herd of elephants crossing the road. We were close, but not too close as elephants could freak out and smash our vehicle without too much effort. Serengeti National Park. Sunday, June 11, 2006.

Giraffe

In Swahili, the word for giraffe is twiga, or in this case, since there are two, you could say twiga wawili (two giraffe). We saw quite a few along the drive from the crater rim to the Serengeti gate. 

The Circle of Life

Here you can see a spotted hyena eating an elephant. There were two other hyenas nearby, but they were a bit skitish because we were around. N'gorongoro Crater rim, near Simba campsite. Morning, Sunday, June 11, 2006. 

N'gorongoro Crater

N'gorongoro Crater is quite a sight to see. This large caldera is about 12 km across and supports an active ecosystem. Animals can and do enter and exit the crater at their own will. Vegetation along the rim during this trip tended to be fairly green with a good number of trees and shrubs, while the crater floor was fairly dry. There is a large lake in the crater; a small portion of it is seen in the background of this photo. I'm not sure why I was wearing a jacket at the time of the photo as the temperature was really comfortable. N'gorongoro Crater, Saturday, June 10, 2006. 

Me with lions

This lion is enjoying the shade of our Land Rover. N'gorongoro Crater, Saturday, June 10, 2006.

A Weekend of Adventure

This weekend, I spent two nights on safari. For anyone who thinks it's expensive, a safari is as expensive and luxurious as you want it to be. For me however, with camping and preparing my own food (consisting of peanut butter sandwiches, apples, carrots, peanuts, and other small staples), the two nights cost US$292 for driver/guide + tip, camping, and park fees, + 15,000 TZS for food and water.

Everything came together very suddenly on Friday when someone called Phil to respond to a sign I placed at The Coffee Shop. I met up with the group at 4pm to understand the detailed logistics, headed back to KCMC and had a half hour to pack before I needed to head back downtown to catch a bus to Arusha. That night I stayed at a place locally called the Danish Centre, although it has a longer, more official name. The room cost a hefty $48, but included dinner and breakfast buffets. We departed from the centre at about 7:30 am and made our way to N'gorongoro Crater with a brief stop in Arusha for me to buy food.

Saturday was spent mostly in the crater, but we did stop for a moment along the way to get a view of Lake Manyara, home to a huge flamingo population. We were a bit far away to be able to actually see the flamingos, but I'm sure they were there. We saw quite a variety of animals in the crater including elephant, gazelles, zebras, hippos, etc., but the highlight was probably seeing some lions laying in the road, relaxing in the shade of a Toyota Land Cruiser. At some point, the Land Cruiser took off and one of the lions moved over into the shade of our vehicle.

Sunday morning, we discovered that a recently dead elephant was being eaten by spotted hyena a few hundred meters from our campsite. I'll post the photo. I thought I had taken some video of this also, but apparently did not. (I'm up to about 5.5 GB of photos and videos from this trip by the way. 7.1 megapixel images take up a lot of space!) Along the drive to the Serengeti, we stopped at Oldupai Gorge, the site of some early homanid tracks and a significant amount of other items that are relevant to human evolution. The Serengeti is an amazing expanse. The amount of space is really breathtaking, not to mention the variety of wildlife. We saw many of the same animals as in the crater, but in much larger numbers. At one point, we were surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of zebras. As we drove toward our camp that night, we found a sizable herd of wildebeest (this was not the migration though- those millions of wildebeest are already near the Tanzania-Kenya border, too far for us to go given our time constraints).

Monday, we got up at 5:00 am to make the 7 hour drive back to Arusha. I'll try to post a Google map of our route at some point if I can figure out how to make Blogger like Google maps. We were the first to re-enter the park when it opened at 6:00 am and saw a little more activity at that hour as we drove through, although we didn't see as many animals. The route back to Arusha also took us along the rim of the crater. I got back to Moshi at about 3:30 pm and took a much needed shower!

We also watched the USA/Czech Republic World Cup game last night. The USA didn't look very good at all.

Update on the electricity: we have power but it has been spotty and the voltage has been generally lower than it should be. Usually at 7:00 am, the power goes out completely for an hour or two.

Hakuna Umeme

Everyone who has seen Disney's "The Lion King" knows the phrase hakuna matata. There's a new phrase I've learned: hakuna umeme, or for those who do not speak Swahili, "there is no electricity." Tanesco, Tanzania's sole supplier of electricity announced today that beginning tomorrow, most of Tanzania will have its electricity cut from 7am to 7pm daily, through December due to low water at the hydroelectric power plant. As a side note, it's typical in Tanzania to announce something with little warning. School vacation that starts on a Monday is announced the previous Friday, for example.

For a little more background:
http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2006/06/07/67914.html
http://english.people.com.cn/200606/08/eng20060608_272152.html

Amani is going to try to buy a generator to keep the office up and running. Of course, I have a laptop, but without power, it'll die eventually. Without power, we won't have any Internet, and we don't know if the cell phone towers will have generators.

Talk about a GDP killer. It's stuff like this that really hurts growth in East Africa. While 80% or more of the population here does not have electricity, and many of those that do tend to only have a light bulb, there are many organizations and others that rely on electricity to get through their day-to-day operations. People are pretty annoyed that they'll miss a lot of the World Cup.

The next week will be interesting. Unless we do some work at night, I won't be in the office to post anything while there is no electricity.

Since we still have the pizza from last Thursday (the power was out at KCMC for several hours last Thursday--interesting to see a major hospital in the dark, at least they have generators for the most important stuff) in the freezer, we are planning to eat that tonight. Last night we pasteurized some more milk and now the milk is sitting in the refrigerator separating. It'll probably spoil. Hopefully there isn't much else that will spoil.

Kigali Genocide Memorial

There are seven mass graves of approximately this size or a little bigger at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. All of these bodies were reburied here at the memorial site. All of the other mass graves are sealed. This particular gravesite is open to show visitors that the victims were reburied in caskets (three people to a casket) when the memorial site was built. 

Hotel Rwanda

This is the Hotel des Mille Collines, the setting for Hotel Rwanda's storyline. The hotel in the movie was actually in South Africa and looked quite a bit nicer than the exterior of this hotel. We ate an 8,000 RWF (about US$16) brunch here on Tuesday morning. 

Lake Kivu

Here's a nice picture from Lake Kivu. I thought the way the Coke bottles had been arranged on the table was pretty artistic and would make a nice picture. 

Rwanda -- part 1

I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable after our return from Rwanda. Reading about genocide in a book simply is not the same as walking the streets of Kigali and imagining the chaos that took place there 12 years ago.

Seeing the mass graves, bones, skulls, etc. was unsettling. More than that though, I'm feeling a sense of shame that while I was enjoying 7th grade, a million people were killed in the span of about 100 days. Even worse, the international response was to essentially ignore the genocide. Even the Catholic church condoned it.

Anyway, we visited Kigali, Kibuye and Ruhengeri. We visited the tourist office in Kigali on Friday evening and found out we were no longer on the list for Saturday. Apparently since we had not paid for our gorilla permits, they dropped us in favor of someone who was paying. The lady put us on the list for Monday even though that caused the total number of people to be 41, one more than allowed. She said she'd have to remove someone's name. The lady took our $375 apiece and we were set for Monday.

Since our itinerary shifted, we spent the night in Kigali at the Hotel Isimbi and had dinner at a Greek restaurant across town. Saturday, we rode a daladala style van (but thankfully with nobody standing) to Kibuye. The road had many twists and turns but given the fact that this is the land of a thousand hills, the continually curving road is understandable. We rode moto taxis to our hotel to drop our stuff and then pretty much walked all the way back to townto check out the Sunday mass schedule for St. John's church. On our way back, we enjoyed some mighty fine bottles of Coca-Cola. When we were almost back to the hotel, we decided to check out a really long hike that took us out to the end of another peninsula. Ultimately we rewarded our efforts with a nice swim in Lake Kivu.

Sunday, we attended mass at St. John's and boarded the van back to Kigali. Once at Kigali, we purchased tickets for the bus to Ruhengeri and ate some lunch. For the ride to Ruhengeri, the tour company had an actual bus. Not a large bus, but at least everyone had their own seat and there was no overcrowding.

At Ruhengeri, we stayed at the Hotel Marahaba, apparently the best hotel in town. Unfortunately, there didi not seem to be any hot water in our water heater for some reason. We took a hike to the top of the hill by the post office to try to get a better view of the volcanoes, but apparently there are some important communications towers up there that are guarded by the military and it was not ok for us to be up there. We were surrounded by local kids who had led us up there, so they didn't do anything but escort us back down. The views of the volcanoes were not that spectacular anyway as there were too many trees. I had goat stew for dinner that night. Not too bad.

On Monday, we visited the gorillas. The park has eight habituated groups-five for tourism and three for research. Eight people are allowed in a group, but our group only had five. The other couple with us had just retired from the organic food business. Ever heard of Silk brand soy milk? Yeah, we met the guy that invented it and took the company to the top. He said that they had the best selling chocolate milk in the country at one point, and it wasn't even milk. He also told Alison to tell her friend that drinks Silk, "Thanks for sending me around the world." Too funny.

More about the gorillas and Rwanda in my next post. 

Mt. Kilimanjaro

This is a photo of Mt. Kilimanjaro, taken just about two hours ago, as Phil and I were walking from the Amani office toward the children's home. Phil was giving a tour to some people from Buffalo, NY.

The kids played drums and played soccer. I took some pictures of that and some video also. The video files are a bit too large to post, sorry! 

Food, Tanzania style

Today, Phil, Alison and I had lunch at a local place where I had 'mix wali' which means 'rice mix'. The rice was served with beans, a small bit of meat (probably beef or something similar), stewed cabbage and some sort of soup/vegetable broth.

Other memorable lunches: at Amani, I've had rice or ugali (some sort of basic starch, maybe corn meal based-- piled like mashed potatoes but with a consistancy not unlike that of unleavened bread) with chopped spinach and meat. I should mention that the spinach isn't really like our spinach in the US, and the meat served isn't USDA prime. I avoided eating the intestine, but the actual meat was fine if you ate around the fatty parts and the bone. I've also had rice and beans, again with the suspicious meat. We also had a tastier rice/meat dish at Amani on the first Sunday I was here. It was a special meal apparently. The kids love it all, demonstrated by their eagerness to eat whatever I (and the other staff) have left on the plate.

Better, but still somewhat traditional meals have included the lunch today, rice and beans, and spaghetti with sliced carrots, a small amount of garlic and onion, and tomatoes (no sauce). Those were all made in house though, not for the kids at Amani or at a restaurant. I'll explain what that means a bit more in a post at a later time.

I haven't taken any photos of the food because I haven't thought it would be appropriate, especially not at Amani.

On another food note, tonight, we are going to have dinner at El Rancho, Phil's favorite restaurant in town. Despite the name, El Rancho is an Indian food restaurant. Apparently, the owner of the restaurant had lined up a mexican food chef and applied for all of the necessary government permits, etc. but then at the last minute, the chef couldn't come for some reason. However, there was an Indian chef available. Thus, "El Rancho: Indian Restaurant" was born. They recently added some Chinese food and pizza to their menu apparently.

Moshi also has a tasty Chinese place called "Panda Chinese" (with some delicious spring rolls) and I've already mentioned that there are a few pizza/Italian style outlets in town and other Indian restaurants. A handful of places serve food that is fairly close to American staples like ham and cheese sandwiches and burgers (but the ketchup here is different--it has a different consistency and taste). Plenty of local food restaurants as well of course. Still no mexican food though, so there's an opportunity to break into a market here!

So I'm living in Tanzania

After 26 hours of travel, I finally arrived in Tanzania. I can't say that my travel experience was spectacular since I missed out on lunch in Detroit and paid $25 for a meal in New York, but since then, things have been much smoother. I think most of my concern was from reading the book about the Rwandan Genocide, "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by Philip Gourevitch.

I tried to sleep on my flight to Amsterdam, but of course, dinner and breakfast got in the way to some extent. I napped on the flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro as well, so I was fairly rested upon arrival and all things considered, jet lag has not been too bad. The Mountain Dew for Phil survived the trip and I picked up some Belgian chocolate in Amsterdam for everyone to enjoy.

I made my first visit to Amani last week Thursday and spent a little time interacting with the kids and getting to know their names. Even now, I'm still having trouble remembering some names, but many of them are fairly memorable, like Rama, Amani, Fortunatus, Paulo Pascali (everyone calls him by his first and last name--it's cute), just to name a few. Some of the kids have mental handicaps and can be difficult to handle. Technico likes to pinch and bite, and he tends to hang around and cause problems. Doudy does not speak, although he does sing the first couple notes to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on occasion. Doudy likes to run away, but unfortunately he cannot tell anyone that he needs to get back to Amani, so a lot of attention is paid to keeping track of him. He's a nice kid though. Zena also has some mental handicaps, but is very friendly. I'll write more about the kids another time.

Phil and Alison live in "the compound" at KCMC, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center. This is a regional hospital, a step up from the district hospitals in Tanzania. If a district hospital cannot handle someone's illness, they are sent to a regional hospital. Unfortunately, people are often sent to places like KCMC to die. Along the main road nearby, there are a number of shops selling caskets. At least I can take comfort in knowing that if I get bit by a stray dog, I can go to KCMC for rabies treatment.

Transportation in Tanzania is interesting. People ride daladalas, which are essentially vans packed with people. The fare is currently 250 shillings for adults, equivalent to about 20 cents (the current exchange rate is about 1 USD = 1,250 TZS). Children's fare is 50 shillings I think, and if there are adults that do not have a seat, the children have to sit on the lap of an adult or stand. They do their best to pack people in and it's not uncommon for the konda (conductor) to be hanging out the open door a bit, although they do try to get the door shut. It's important to keep track of your valuables on the daladala. I saw a passenger take a glance into a woman's outer pocket where her cell phone was and open the pocket a bit to see better. He grinned at me and I shook my head. The people here don't just steal from mzungu (white people), but from their fellow Tanzanian. When the guy got off, I think he must have told the konda that she should protect her valuables better, because the konda said something to the woman and she moved her phone into her bra and looked a bit embarassed.

Phil and Alison have a nice routine each week. On Thursdays, they have their Swahili lesson followed by pizza at 'Uptown,' a shop near the compound. On Sunday, there's church. On Monday, some expats (from various countries) working at KCMC get together to play volleyball (and I have an interesting story about that). Tuesday evenings have bible study. I don't want to get all philosophical, but I think that the simplicity of life combined with a good dose of routine and some periodic "special" things can make for a happy life. Granted, after living here for 8 months, Phil and Alison are certainly missing some of the nicer things we have grown up with and become accustomed to. Like the blooming onion at Outback Steakhouse for example.

The interesting volleyball story: we played volleball at Will's house. During the course of the games, the ball bounced away to this tall plant and the hedge at the road. Will suddenly noticed the plant, saying "where did that come from? Wait a minute, is that dope?" Turns out, within the last two weeks, a marijuana plant grew to a height of about 5 feet!! (I've seen some corn stalks that are 14 feet tall--I should take a picture.) The theory is that someone threw a joint over the hedge and it had seeds in it. Will joked that he would need to have his gardener burn the plant (it's common to burn trash here). I've never seen weed before but it looked like the characteristic picture you see on t-shirts. I held a bit of the plant up to my nose and thought it smelled kinda minty. I don't really have a good concept of what it should smell like, but some others were confirming that it was marijuana. One of the girls apparently dated an "agronomist" for a bit during college and had been exposed to the process. She thought the plant had already developed seeds.

I have some photos and will post them as I can, however, the Internet is very slow here. At best, I can get a 14.4 Kbps connection, so have patience. At least we haven't fully lost power yet. Last night, the lights were randomly going out for a few seconds at a time during dinner.

Finally, we leave for Rwanda tomorrow. Although I have been able to withdraw cash from the ATMs here in Moshi, It turns out that there are no Visa ATM's in Rwanda, nor any major African bank like Barclay's or Standard Chartered, so we will need to take cash and exchange for Rwandan Francs. We will be going to see the gorillas on Saturday morning.

NYC - Kennedy Airport

Northwest uses Terminal 4 at JFK, specifically the 'A' gates. This is the main international terminal. This has made things really easy for me as my KLM flight is right next to where we came in.

Of course, the ramp service folks at Detroit couldn't get their act together and move a stray luggage cart for 15 minutes, so our arrival at the gate in Detroit was delayed about 15 minutes. That left me with about 45 minutes before we departed for NYC and unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to grab a bite to eat. I did get out into the airport for a few minutes though to use the restroom and generally check it out since I've never seen the new airport. Since I usually fly United, my Detroit experience has been limited to the old crappy terminal.

We couldn't depart Detroit on time either. We boarded the plane on time, but there was still a lot of luggage to load. I was pretty annoyed because I was really hungry and now here I am in NYC spending $25 for a burger, some chicken fingers, and a soda. We arrived at the gate in New York at 3:40, ten minutes late. If I leave the 'A' gates, I'll have to go through security again (and since I have a lot of electronics packed, they had to do some extra screening in Chicago).

I'm looking forward to the trip at any rate, but I'm still feeling bouts of nervousness. I just met some people at the airport bar who are headed to Ireland and so that has helped buoy my spirits. I guess the lack of food in Detroit probably added some to my previous pissy mood.

I'm planning to sleep for the JFK to Amsterdam flight as that will somewhat closely match nighttime in Tanzania. I want to stay awake for as much of Amsterdam-Kilimanjaro as possible as well so that I can minimize the effects of jet lag. Getting some sleep will surely help me feel better too as I didn't get much sleep last night.

I don't know what life holds in store for the next three and a half weeks. After Phil picks me up from the airport on Wednesday evening, the next thing set in my itinerary is the trip to Rwanda, but that isn't until the first weekend of June, and I honestly don't know too many details yet. Clearly, I don't fully know what to expect. You might say that the fact that I'm stepping into the unknown is admirable. The fact is, I'm not very good with such ambiguous circumstances and I'm way outside my comfort zone--It's hard not to think of all of the potential bad things that could happen. I've set myself up to expect almost nothing for modern conveniences. With Phil and Alison already on the ground and surviving, I'm comforted that I won't be stepping into the unknown alone.

So since I doubt that I'll be able to post for a few days at least, I'll leave the blog for now with this note of thanks: thank you to everyone who has contributed time, materials, or money to help me fulfill my mission at Amani Children's Home. I am very thankful to have so many generous friends and colleagues. Together, we can all help make the world a better place, one step at a time. Even though I'm flying halfway around the world into one of the poorest areas in the world, we can all find people near our homes that need help just as badly.

In the airport

I'm currently in the Chicago airport about to catch my flight to Tanzania. The itinerary is pretty crazy--Northwest for Chicago to a stoppover in Detroit, then on to New York City (JFK), transfer to KLM and fly to Amsterdam, then catch the flight to Kilimanjaro. My flight leaves in about a half hour, and I will arrive in Tanzania at 8:30 pm Wednesday there, which is about 12:30 PM here in Chicago, also Wednesday.

I'm a little nervous about the trip. I hope I got everything packed.

One of the amazing things about technology-- Phil just sent me an IM. "See you in 26 hours!" he says.

Tanzania/Rwanda

So here's the first post about my trip to Tanzania this summer. I have set my vacation time at work: May 22 - June 16. No plane ticket yet or other details. I need to call United to see if there's some way I can use some of my 280,000 (and counting) frequent flyer miles.

Phil sent me an e-mail last week indicating that during my time there, he and Alison would be taking a trip to Rwanda to "see the gorillas." So yes, of course I'm in for that.

I've picked up a few books from the used book store down the street and am currently reading Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Also, I bought a lot of books and DVDs from Amazon today to help me understand what I'm getting into. I'm also doing my best to learn some Swahili, although at the moment, the only words I remember are 'ndege,' which means 'plane,' and 'mbwa' and I don't remember what that means.

Asian Languages

Asian languages are interesting. The character set is entirely different -- Chinese uses pictures as the base for the character set and Thai has a gazillion vowels but fewer overall characters thankfully.

Not all phrases translate directly. For example, the Chinese phrase "ni hao" is used in the sense of "hello" but literally translates to "I'm good."

Asian languages are also tonal. Similar to how English uses tone to establish emotion, Chinese and Thai use tone to establish the actual word being spoken. If an incorrect tone is used, the meaning of what was said can be entirely different.

Also, word structure uses some simple prefixes to change meaning. As an example, in Chinese, appending the latin sound "bu-" to a word generally negates what was said. "Bu hao" would translate to "not good."

Conversationally, I was surprised that the courtesy of saying "please" is not really used. I don't know enough of the language to say how respect is conveyed.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year was celebrated on January 29 this year, and surprisingly, there's not much that goes on. In fact, Beijing pretty much shuts down. The closest thing I can equate this holiday with in the US is Christmas, but without the same level of commercialization. Granted there's plenty of people buying little paper dogs and other various decor.

For the most part people travel to their homes to visit their families and the company I have been consulting for shuts down for a week. Apparently that's pretty common.

One of the most classic examples of Chinese New Year is the lantern. I visited the lantern festival in Chaoyang park this week and took a bunch of pictures. Some of the lanterns are as large as a parade float!! Traditionally, the lanterns would have been lit with candles, but that's quite dangerous this day in age, so they're all lit with light bulbs nowadays. One of the coolest lanterns was themed on the 2008 olympics. There was even a dog playing baseball!

Pollution

Beijing is seriously polluted, and for the most part, I've already adjusted to it so I don't notice the smells anymore. However, when I wake up, I usually have to blow my nose to clear things out. As I do this, the burning smell of the pollution overtakes any other scent in my room. I can only guess that my lungs are not happy to have this nasty air in them.

Working in Beijing

Spending time in Beijing as a tourist is different from spending time in Beijing as a businessperson. I've met a number of interesting people who are also here on business, perhaps temporarilly like me, or perhaps permanently.

One of the interesting things I clued in on this week was in the China daily: President Bush: is amazed with China. This country needs to create 25 million jobs a year just to stay even. Given the current stress over the economy and job creation in the United States, I'm wondering if we will be able to keep up.

Still, many of the jobs here are unskilled. It seems like every streetcorner has a soldier standing guard. There are plenty of people working at the hotel to attend to my every need. It seems like things that could be done with a machine are done by hand, simply because someone needs a job.

Of course, the best perk about being here on business is that I can interact with the local people and learn more about how they live. A lot of it is just day to day stuff, like the wife of the main contact at client I am working for just had a baby, so there's some excitement about that. Everybody has been talking about the holiday and asking me how I enjoyed my trip to Thailand. All around good times.

Personal service

So during my second week here in Beijing, I'm not feeling the personal service that I felt my first week here, so I'm going to write about it.

My first week, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the executive lounge and chatting it up with the friendly staff. It was really easy because my room was on the same floor. One of the staff members, Dee, was always saying hello to me, and all of the staff knew my name from day 1. Dee is pictured to the right. When I was brought to my room for the first time, the bellman turned on lights and mentioned one particular light that he liked to have on because it created nice ambiance.

This week, I didn't feel the same friendliness. I was not shown to my room. The staff in the executive lounge were a bit too professional. I called upon my 'personal butler' occasionally for some tea or hot chocolate, and that was nice, and the people were very friendly, but nobody was particularly chatty. I suppose it's possible that the typical traveller at swanky hotels doesn't want to be bothered. On the flip side, the young gentleman that served as the door man in the evenings always welcomed me to the hotel, recognizing my face. He would ask how my dinner at x location was, etc.

I should mention that both hotels had a very professional staff and I think that if I had made more effort, I would have made my second week more memorable.

Getting around Beijing

How, when competing with a population of 12-15 million people does one navigate Beijing? [population: 1, 2, 3, interestingly, 2 and 3 are from the China Daily, a daily English language newspaper, months apart, and reporting different counts.] Beijing's highway system reminds me of Houston: there are a bunch of expressway rings around the city.

I can think of these:

• On foot
• Bicycle
• Bus
• Subway
• Taxi
• Personal vehicle

Foreigners are not allowed to drive in Beijing, with the exception of ex-pats in residence, who may endure the red-tape for a Chinese driving license. Still, with that license, you cannot drive outside of Beijing proper, period.

Driving in Beijing is not for the weak however: traffic is chaotic, but somehow, it seems to work. There's no such thing as a left turn signal, even at major intersections. Vehicles just push their way through an interesection when making a left turn, and oncoming traffic actually stops. The basic rule is that the larger vehicle has right-of-way, although my taxi drivers slightly cut off busses once in awhile.

With the expansive scale of the city, only nearby destinations are reasonably reached by taking bus number 11 - Chinese slang for walking. Most visitors will travel from place to place in a taxi.

Chicken, anyone?

KFC continues to be really popular over here. I've mentioned chicken in some other posts, but figured I'd point out that there have not been any concerns about catching Avian flu from cooked chicken. In fact, I ate chicken for dinner tonight.

Catching up

I've started re-posting following Blogger's troubles. I tried my best to line the datestamp of the post up with when I actually wrote the post, but some of this is admittedly guesswork. I've posted most of the stuff I already wrote but there's a couple that I want to attach pictures to and will do that later. Stay tuned.

Blogger trouble

So I posted a couple of things last week, but apparently, Blogger had some difficulties over the weekend and my posts were lost. Thankfully they were short. I'm a little nervous about putting a post up right away after the outage, so I think I'll wait one more day before I get back into talking about the trip.

Things I miss

There are some things that you miss while you are out and hear about later and think 'Oh yeah...'

Some of these are:

• The State of the Union address
• Groundhog Day

It's a bit odd to forget about an event as large as the State of the Union address, but then again, I was on vacation. Granted Groundhog day isn't as big a deal as, say, Memorial Day, but it's still one of those days that everyone hears about in anticipation of a short winter.

Of course, there are other things that I am completely aware of but will miss and cannot do anything about it.

• The Super Bowl

One night in Bangkok (and the world's your Oyster)

Last night was my first night in Bangkok. I met up with Thana and we went out for dinner to a cool pizza place. We milled around a bit, but I was tired and Thana had to work the next day, so we didn't stay out.

I had been traveling all day. Ban Luang is serviced by a non-air conditioned bus at roughly 8:30 am. This route is the northern equivalent to my trip from Chiang Mai to Nan, passing through Phayo. Sean was not able to see me off as he had to head out into the country on a school trip, so his friend Peafoy came over at 8:00 to make sure I got on the bus. It was very nice of her to do that, and she even brought a couple small bags of some sort of mini-cookies (looked like a mini fig newton as the inside was dusted with chocolate, but tasted slightly like regular Cap'n Crunch).

I was really proud of myself when I understood the 'bus-attendant' tell us that we'd be taking a 15 minute break at some random town's bus terminal. I looked for some fresh fruit for sale, but couldn't find any and settled on a Magnum ice cream bar instead.

Anyway, I've been to Bangkok before, so the world is already my oyster I guess. Here's a photo of the Bangkok skyline.

Friends, and a home cooked meal

One of the nicest things about seeing friends while travelling is getting a home-cooked meal. After arriving in Ban Luang, Sean and I visited one of his fellow teachers and prepared supper. It was essentially a cashew chicken stir fry. I cut up the vegetables and Sean cut up the chicken. We were having special chicken that night: boneless chicken breasts. The photo below is of Sean cutting the chicken out on the back porch.


The meal was fantastic. One of the interesting elements was glutenous rice, also known as sticky rice. The meal was entirely finger-food style. We formed small rice balls and grabbed some of the main dish. It's amazing how quickly this fills you up!

Things any traveller should bring to Thailand

• Toilet paper
• Alarm clock (added bonus if the alarm clock is inside your cell phone)
• Compass

Also, a cell phone is handy as you can call ahead to a guest house to see if they have room at your leisure rather than from a pay phone. Also very useful when meeting up with someone.

I brought toilet paper (wet wipes actually--they're useful for washing your hands, face, feet, etc.) and a cell phone with an alarm clock, but didn't bring a compass. I was a bit uncomfortable at the bus station in Nan since my Lonely Planet map told me where the Nan Guest House was, but it was dark and I had no idea what direction to head in. I decided to call the guest house, and the owner was nice enough to come pick me up, on a motor bike…. It was a short, fun ride, and it's a good thing I don't have too much luggage!! Holding on to all of it was challenging enough.

We speak English; therefore, we own the world

Especially in touristy areas, English and the local language always seem to be available. I'm surprised that even in remote Thailand, I'm seeing periodic signs in English (most recently, 'Police Station') and running into people that speak some English. Americans have it pretty easy and it's a shame that there isn't more emphasis on a second language, especially when kids are young.

Left or Right? Vote now!

Around the world, countries differ in driving practices. Some countries drive on the right and some drive on the left. Which is better and why? Why do you think these differences exist?

I suspect that since most of the people reading this are accustomed to driving on the right, most will say that driving on the right is better. I doubt there's any scientific evidence out there to support any claim, but I'll be curious to see people's opinions, and if somebody's really ambitious, a reference to some Internet debate on the subject.

The most important words to know in a foreign language

This is a list of absolute basic words one should know, at minimum, in the native language before entering a foreign country.

Critical:

• Toilet
• Hello
• Goodbye
• Please
• Thank you
• Water
• Common numbers

For a little added convenience:

• Hotel
• Police
• Telephone
• You're welcome
• I do not speak
• Beer
  

Do you think I missed something? Let me know whether you think the word is critical to getting around or whether it just adds convenience.

Getting around Thailand

Even for anyone without their own mode of transportation, travel in Thailand is quite easy. For large distances, all of the traditional options are available: air, train, and bus. Of course, air and train options are somewhat limited. Thailand has a government-run bus system, like Greyhound, but many other bus companies compete for travellers as well, especially along the Bangkok-Chiang Mai route. Busses offer different classes of service, depending on the bus mainly. My experience relates to an air-conditioned trip with movie. I was surprised to be offered a small snack box and a glass of cola. It turns out that the bus system has some equivalent of flight attendants: people to help you out with minor services during the trip.

When in a local area, the traveller can make use of local buses (although this is not efficient for those of us with time constraints) or taxis. Generally in Chiang Mai, there are two types of taxi: swangthaews and tuk-tuks.

Swangthaews are basically a pickup truck that has been outfitted with a somewhat enclosed rear and seats in the cargo area. (In Thai, swangthaew translates into 'two rows' as in two rows of seats along the two sides of the cargo area.) You flag one down, state your destination, and if the driver agrees to take you, you negotiate the fare. In Chiang Mai, anything more than 15-20 baht is generally a rip off, except for trips that cross between two outer depths of the city, or the trip from the zoo to Doi Suthep. I have found that negotiating in Thai (and using polite phrasing like '20 baht, is that ok sir?') is better than negotiating in English. The drivers will try to swindle you if you're not careful, and even though it's an insignificant amount in USD, it's important to play the game and talk the price down. On my trip from the city center to the bus terminal today, I was originally quoted 50 baht and insisted right away on the legitimate fare: 20 baht.

Tuk-tuks are like a miniaturized and open-air version of a London taxi or a PT Cruiser in that they have a narrow front and wider back end. Generally fares on tuk-tuks are higher due to the novelty factor I suppose. They are quick to get you to a destination though, and especially pleasant during the hot part of the day due to their open-air nature.

A meter-taxi company just started up in Chiang Mai as well, but there are not very many taxis, so if you really wanted to use this option, you'd have to call ahead to schedule it I suppose. The swangthaew drivers have been doing their best to shut this down apparently.

Thai food

Many people associate Thai food with spiciness, however, Thai meals are really organized around balance between all of the various flavors: sweet, spicy, sour, bland, etc, and all food items are served at the same time (except of course, dessert items). Unlike China, where chopsticks are the norm, Thai food is eaten with the usual utensils. Dishes are meant to be shared, family style, and as a result, are slightly small. Individual servings of rice compliment the main dishes. When eating, one chooses whatever suits their fancy and adds it to their own rice. Generally speaking, northern dishes tend to have a bit more spiciness. Thai curries do tend to burn intensely but briefly, due to the balance between pure and strong spices and softer herbs like lemongrass and galangal. Thai meals are a communal event of two or more people, primarily because the greater number of people leads to a greater number (and variety) of dishes ordered.

Stepping out of my comfort zone

So far, it has been really easy for me to get around with just English and *very* basic Chinese and Thai. Today, I boarded a bus to Nan, a small city Lonely Planet describes as little known but steeped in history. The population is listed at 24,300, but looking at the map, the city seems very small for that sort of population. I figured, since the ride is 6 hours or so, I might as well catch up on some of these topics I've been holding out on.

I've already called the Nan Guest House when I was sitting at the bus terminal and confirmed that they have a room available. I think the lady that answered was trying to say something about the bath being attached or shared, but I wasn't sure, so we agreed that I would come take a look first.

So a recap from my update yesterday:

Monk Chat was very interesting, yet again. I asked a lot of questions about Buddhism, the five precepts, the process of becoming a monk, etc. and it was all very interesting. A pre-med student from Chiang Mai University also joined in on the conversation so he could practice his English. Both had been studying English for awhile and did fairly well. I think they could be stellar with some great teachers, but even they admitted that Thailand is short good English teachers. Anyone can teach English here--no degree in English is required. Not even a basic teaching certificate! They helped me with some key words in Thai as well. We focused on some numbers and phrases that help establish the price.

I stayed at Monk Chat well past the designated finishing time, but nobody seemed to mind. After Monk Chat, I caught a swangthaew to the Night Bazaar and checked out the various wares. DVD's were expensive at 100 baht each. I wouldn't pay more than 40. Generally, I wasn't really in the market for anything, but it was cool to look around and see all of the fake name brand clothes/watches, and the various local crafts. Everything was quite overpriced.

I walked from the Night Bazaar to the Bar Beer Center near Tha Phae Gate. Monday nights are Muay Thai night (Thai Boxing), and since I was arriving so late, I didn't pay the 400 baht cover that everyone else apparently paid. I had a couple of beers, the local beer is Chiang, and at 6.75%, it packs a nice punch. My waitress told me that it's the number one beer in Thailand even better than Singha apparently. I chose it because it was cheapest and I hadn't heard of it before. Thai boxing is interesting as it's quite legitimate over here. They flight with gloves but have no other visible protective gear. They punch and kick hard, and will throw each other around violently. Over all, there is still a sense of respect between the fighters though, both before and (if the losing fighter can get up) after the match. It certainly seems like healthy competition at any rate. I think it caters to the tourists quite a bit, but there were a good number of locals at the event as well.

Today, I went to Doi Suthep, pretty much the thing you have to see when you come to Chiang Mai. This is one of the most sacred temples in northern Thailand. This wat is situated in the hills northwest of Chiang Mai. Legend says that during the reign of King Kuena (1355-1385), holy relics were discovered. It was determined that they would place the relics on the back of a white elephant, and the elephant would stop at the location where the wat should be built. The elephant walked all the way to this location, where it died from fatigue due to the long journey. I thought the wat was interesting, but since I do not subscribe to Buddhism, it was just another wat to some extent. Certainly, I appreciate its importance to Buddhism however, especially since I was told the legend of how it came into existence. I was pretty annoyed by this guy from Switzerland (originally from Malaysia). He kept comparing Thailand to various other places and complaining that Thailand didn't meet his expectations. It was ironic that he was talking about how knowledgeable he is (he knows 5 languages and two dialects) but he seemed to hold a number of false impressions of Americans, couldn't say a nice word about the Chinese, etc. He really seemed quite overeducated and intolerant.

I felt like I was running a bit late, so I grabbed some take-away lunch from Mike's burgers. The burger was ok, not like In-N-Out, but it had all the trimmings and was a nice break from Asian food. I should note that I feel like my concept of eating here is similar to in the states. Back home, I'll eat Italian, German, Asian, fast food, etc, but my primary staple back home is probably European based food. Over here, I'm eating mostly Asian food, with a periodic burger or whatever, to keep things interesting. It's also nice to have a taste of home.

So now I'm on the bus. They showed a Hollywood movie- I'm not sure what movie, as I missed the beginning of the credits, but it was a Don Roos movie (ND graduate) so I definitely thought that was interesting. I was able to follow the basic storyline but had no idea on the details as it was all in Thai. We're something like 100+ km from Nan right now, so I still have a few hours to kill.

Questions about Thailand?

Here's your opportunity to ask me questions about my time in Thailand, using Blogger's comments feature. Please limit yourself to questions about the Thailand trip; I'll have another post for Beijing later.

Sawatdee krap

I've arrived in Thailand, safe and sound, and even have a roof over my head! Just a quick recap, as I only have a few minutes before I need to head out. Also, the keyboard at this Internet cafe sucks, so I'm having to go back and correct a lot of stuff.

I arrived without trouble on Saturday, although of course I had to go through security three times - Beijing, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. I had a little trouble getting the bottle of Margarita mix through Beijing (they kept saying I had to declare it), but I played stupid. After I opened it and the customs agent took a whiff, he must have decided there wasn't enough alcohol in it for there to be a problem.

Recall that my itinerary is officially with Cathay Pacific (to Bankok). The firstl left was operated by Air China though, so they could only get me checked in to Hong Kong. Air China was nice- I watched part of some movie in French (with English subtitles) and they came around with a hot towel often. I was even given a free model of an Air China 747 because I was in business class and it's Chinese New Year.

Just a note to you travellers out there: when making international connections and switching airlines, it is easiest to deal with carry-on luggage. The benefit is that I didn't have to go through customs and back just to retrieve my luggage and get checked in again. All I had to do was go to the transfer desk and get my boarding pass. I also had to go through security again, as it seems like they keep international arrivals and departures quite separated. I did have to go through security though. It was nice to leave my laptop in the bag while going through security... it made the whole process easier. The Hong Kong airport is amazing. I took a few photos, but I won't post them here as they're not very interesting. Toward the end of the trip, I'll post everything to a gallery so you can see all of the photos if you like.

In Bangkok, I had to go to the transfer desk again to get checked in for my Thai airways flight. I also tried to find a place that would sell a SIM card for my phone and an ATM so I could load up on baht. Unfortunately, they don't sell SIM cards at the airport and my only option for cash was an exchange station. Not knowing the situation in Chiang Mai, I figured I would change 200 RMB, which got me about 800 baht, enough to get started. I gave Sean a call from a phone at the airport to see when we can meet up- looks like Wednesday will be best.

In Chiang Mai, I went through Thai imigration and found both an ATM and pay phone. I loaded up on a couple thousand baht and started calling guest houses. I found Smile House for 350 baht/night and since it was midnight and I was tired, I took it. The room was basic but clean.

Sunday was a bit of an orientation day for me. I got up at about 7:30 and went to Wat Suan Dok just west of the old city to check on a meditation program that was supposedly offered on Sunday nights. Well, the program changed to Tuesday nights, and was cancelled this week anyway, so I wouldn't be able to do it. I met a couple novice monks (and have a photo that I will post later), and we chatted until lunchtime about Thailand, the language, differences with English, their life, etc. Turns out that Sunday was Buddhists day and today is Novice's day, so there's a lot of celebrating going on right now.

Once back in the city, I bought a SIM card and started to hunt for replacement lodgin. Smile House seemed to have a lot of people who were into trekking, and generally had an odd environment. I lined up the Pagoda Inn, which is also clean and basic, with a much nicer courtyard area. The room unfortunately does not have a window (except in the bathroom) and has a double bed, but they charged me the single price, 250 baht/night. Since I'll only be sleeping there, I didn't mind too much about the window, and as for the price, it's busy season apparently. By this time, it's about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

With all of that sorted out, I decided to head to the bus station to get information on the schedule to Nan, near Sean's location. It's quite a long walk,m but I stopped at a small market along the way. If you've ever wondered where the random crap from garage sales ends up, it's all along this street. They had some VCDs and Levi jeans and other stuff too, but of course I didn't buy anything. On the plus side, many items had marked prices and were very cheap. At the bus station, I decided to buy the ticket to Nan right away- 295 baht for the 4-6 hour ride, in air conditioning. Not too shabby. I depart tomorrow in the early afternoon. Finally, to close out the day, I browsed the Sunday market on Tha Phae gate. The notable nearby attraction that I didn't visit was Starbucks Coffee. My 5 baht bottle of water was more than adequate. Lunch and dinner at the market cost a total of about 50 baht, and everything was quite tasty. I had some egg wonton sort of thing in a sweet sauce (a dessert item it turns out), some quarter-sized fried egg with soy sauce, and pad thai (Thai style noodles). One of the oddest things about the market was the music that was playing: Christian rock. I'm not sure if it was intentional or if the DJ just didn't know. Seems like kind of an odd thing in a mostly Buddhist state. I thought about going out to a bar, a club or heading to the Night Bazzar, but I was still tired from the short night before, so opted out.

This morning, the roosters were crowing early, but I stayed in bed until 7:30 again. Unfortunately, the shower was fairly cold and uncomfortable, but that motivated me to be quick. One note on the shower that I initially thought was odd, but have since grown accustomed to: the shower simply hangs on the wall in the bathroom and there's a drain in the bathroom floor. Of course, at the door, there's a little lip to keep the water from leaving the bathroom. The shower is slightly separated from the toilet at the Pagoda Inn by a partial wall, but at Smile House, that was not the case. It's a basic setup but works well in this tropical environment. I wouldn't be surprised to see the setup at a beach house along the oceanfront or in Hawaii.

I bought a banana for 5 baht this morning, but still felt quite hungry and succomed to the temptation of the regular American breakfast for 95 baht (including fresh squeezed OJ and hot tea). Then began a further celebration of food. I took the Thai culinary course offered by Gap's House. This lasted from 10a - 4p. The class started with a tour of a local food market, offering all of the typical things-- vegetables, coconut cream, meat, fruit and fruit juice, and of course, various insects. (Insects are not a major ingredient in Thai food however. We were shown them mostly for the wow factor and everyone took the obligatory photo.) We cooked about 5 things for lunch, made roses from tomato peelings and some sort of flower looking thing from an onion. Don't think that's really amazing or anything, because once somebody shows it to you, you realize how easy it is. Really cool nonetheless, and I look forward to dressing up a serving platter some day. We also made a few items for dinner and I have those in some styrofoam for later. Among the items we made are green curry chicken (with homemade green curry paste), stir fried chicken with cashew nut, fish souffle, Thai fish cake (with cucumber sauce), and lemongrass soup with shrimp, plus some item that I'm forgetting. Food for take-away (mmm, dinner tonight!): Thai spring rolls (to be dipped in some plum sauce that they provided us), pad thai, and steamed pumpkin with coconut custard. An overwhelming amount of food actually. More on traditions around Thai meals later.

If it isn't obvious, things are very cheap in Thailand from the perspective of a foreigner.

Anyway, now I'm off to Wat Suan Dok again for 'Monk Chat.' After that, the Night Bazzar.

Tomorrow, I'd like to head up to Doi Suthep (if there's time), and of course, the afternoon will be spent in transit to Nan, where I'll be meeting up with Sean and unloading this heavy bottle of Margarita mix (among other gift type things).

Back to Chiang Mai on Thursday, and I'll catch a flight to Bangkok on Thursday evening, where I will meet up with Thana.

Sawatdee krap!

It's official: I'm on vacation!

I just finished a 21:00 (Beijing)/7:00 am (Chicago) conference call and am now on vacation!

Well, almost. The only other thing I need to do is submit my time report. I'll do that tomorrow before traveling to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

My flight leaves Beijing at about 13:00 and after two connections (Hong Kong and Bangkok), I arrive in Chiang Mai at about 23:30. Thailand is 1 hour behind China, so it will take about 12 hours to get to Chiang Mai. Amazing that it would take only another hour if I was flying direct Beijing to Chicago.

No accommodations are arranged yet, and it's Chinese New Year, so the lodging options appear thin, but I'm confident that either tomorrow morning or upon arrival, I will be able to sort something out.

It's a small, small world

My uncle Alan works for Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) and has been making some trips to China in recent years to help develop barley varieties and brewing practices. Today, I had lunch with one of his contacts here in Beijing, enjoying several glasses of Tsingtao. Incidently, Tsingtao is 75% or so owned by A-B.

Here I am outside the Holiday Inn Lido with David Zeng.

Just as a side note, this Holiday Inn is really quite nice--5 star. It's close to Capital Airport and all of the flight attendants stay here. It's also conveniently near a great $1 DVD shop.

We had lunch at a Cantonese (southern-China) style restaurant at the Holiday Inn. It's David's favorite restaurant in Beijing. I have another post about food in draft, so you can look forward to that.

El presidente

Tonight, I met the president of Holland Loader Company. It turns out that we are staying at the same hotel and both visited the Hard Rock Cafe, Beijing, this evening. After a minor dinner of some chicken wings and Tiger beer, we went to Sanlitun (a street full of bars in the Embassy district), and had some Tsingtao.

We talked about a variety of things-- he lived in Beijing for a short period of time, but has traveled back and forth pretty extensively also. He has heard of the Falkirk (sp?) mine. Of course, I mentioned that my dad works at a mine, but really, very little conversation centered on business types of stuff. He's flying back to Denver tomorrow, but he's going to try to get me in touch with a buddy of his for the week after spring festival (Chinese New Year).

I'm just asking....

Why do hotels place towel bars IN the shower? Granted, they're at the other end of the shower, but the towels still get some spray. I'm sure they don't replace ALL of the towels after someone's visit either.

News censored

So I'm looking at my personalized Google homepage right now, and it has a headline from BBC about some violence in Nepal that left 20 or so dead, but I keep getting a "server timeout" error. I found the article from the New York Times with no problem, but of course, it's buried beneath a lot of other news because Americans do not generally care about world events. I bet that if I VPN, I would be able to read the BBC article. Over my two weeks here, I will definitely be keeping my eyes out for other potential examples of the Chinese government exerting its muscle over Internet content.

Chinese tea ceremony scam

I kinda felt that a scam was coming, but I still walked right into it. Now of course, my retelling of the situation is jaded, so I'm going to have more emphasis on the things that probably should have thrown warning bells, but understand that in actuality, many of these things things were quite subtle.

So I was milling about a shopping mall today and a young lady approached me. She said she had been studying English and now was in Beijing living with her uncle and looking for a job. Her english was quite good actually, and we talked quite a bit about Chinese customs and in particular, the Lunar New Year. I wasn't entirely truthful with her-- I said I was from Canada, but to cover for my obvious American traits, was truthful about going to school and currently living in America. After a long period of chatter and walking around, she suggested that we sit down for coffee or tea. As most of you know, I'm not a fan of coffee. So, she suggested a tea place that was nearby and that her uncle had taken her to. I figure that since she's local, she probably knows a few relatively decent places around.

We end up on the second floor of this place in the commercial shopping district near the Forbidden City. As we enter, I thought it was odd that they served tea in these individual little rooms, but it turned out that we had our own server who guided us through about 12 different types of tea, ranging from those familiar to me like oolong, green and black (lychee) teas, to those less familiar, like fruit, jasmine, dragon, etc. Having an individual room allowed me to ask a lot of questions about the tea preparation and kept distractions from other groups out. I wasn't told much about the origins of the tea ceremony, other than that it's a special occasion--the Chinese New Year. I found it interesting that they rinse the cup (slightly smaller than a shot glass) with a small amount of the tea you are about to be served, that while most teas are added to a pot before water, one tea is added after the water, and that some teas are prepared with specifically different water temperatures. I was also told about the various health beliefs attributed to the various types of tea.

At the end of the tea service, I was offered the chance to buy some tea in a nice looking box, which I expected. Although I might purchase a small amount of tea before I depart, I didn't take them up on the offer. Then I was presented with the final bill, and knew I'd been had. I absolutely refused to pay for some tea she had requested for herself and tried to split the bill, but was given some bullshit about the Chinese custom of giving the bill to the man. 1,184 RMB later, we parted ways and I can guarantee you that I just had my company provided (liquid) dinner and will still be footing most of the bill myself. Here's hoping the free hotel happy hour buffet has some decent food.

In the end, yeah, I feel bad/pissed about getting ripped off. All the same, I enjoyed the conversation, and the tea ceremony was indeed very informative. It's only money. Lesson learned of course: ask for the price before sitting down.

I chatted with the attendant in the executive lounge about it this evening, and he related a ripoff experience in New York City, so we Americans can't get off the hook, as we take advantage of foreigners too.

Mom and dad-- I don't need to hear your comment on this one. Since I don't exactly know what you are thinking right now, I'll cover my bases: I won't appreciate any pearls of wisdom or think your mocking comment is funny.

Ni hao

So yeah, I'm in Beijing. Pretty tired though, and it's almost 21:00 here anyway, so I'm gonna crash.

Upgrade!

So I am at the airport right now. Just wanted to celebrate my upgrade to business class. It cost me 30,000 miles, but it's not like I don't have any miles laying around.

I also had a freak out moment--I switched from the long-life battery on my laptop to a regular battery with a smaller profile, since it would fit in my bag a little better. Then I boot my computer up and get a nasty Windows 'STOP' error and apparently it couldn't mount the hard disk. I switched back to the long-life battery and now it's working fine. Time will tell I guess. *crosses fingers*

Time to grab a fruit and walnut salad from one of many O'Hare McDonald's, just in case there isn't a meal at the beginning of the flight.

Final packing list

All in all, I'm quite pleased that I was able to fit everything into my usual luggage and generally pack so light. So for three weeks, I will be limited to the following list of clothes, plus anything I might buy along the way:

• 3 dress shirts and undershirts
  
• 2 dress pants
• 4 pairs black socks
• 5 pairs underwear (Didn't your mother ever tell you, "you never know when you might get hit by a bus and you don't want to be caught wearing dirty underwear")
• 1 athletic shirt
• 1 athletic shorts
• 1 plain white socks (in case I buy some cheap running shoes)
• 1 pair jungle pants
  
• 2 polos
• 1 clubbing shirt
• 1 small towel
• 1 pair dress shoes
• 1 pair Chacos sandals (they're nice)
• 2 belts: 1 dress, 1 casual
  

Incidently, I'll be wearing my Columbia jacket and will have a hat and gloves along as well, since Beijing is quite cold right now. I don't expect to be needing it in Thailand!

I'm still thinking about whether or not I should bring a backpack to use as a day bag when I am out and about (mainly in Thailand). My gut says that I could probably buy a cheap one somewhere along the way.

As far as my schedule for today/tomorrow goes: I have a 15 min. conference call in the morning at 8:30 am. I'm going to head to the airport at 9:00, then chill until my flight leaves at noon. Thirteen hours later, I'll be in Beijing. During the flight, I need spend some time preparing some slides for a kickoff meeting on Monday morning, but since noon Chicago time is 2:00 am Beijing time, I think I will focus on getting a few hours of rest first to help in transitioning into the new time zone first, and work on the slides later in flight. (I've been staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning almost every night this week getting various things ready for this trip, and I could use the sleep anyway.)

Upon arrival in Beijing, I'll do the customs bit to exit the airport. The client arranged for a car service to transport me from the airport to my hotel. On Saturday evening, I'll grab some dinner and most likely stay in, but if I am not too tired, I might check out the night scene.

Since I'm staying in Chaoyang district, I'm going to try to check out the 2008 Olympics site, although I may come up with a more interesting option between now and then.

My luggage

 

Entertainment

I am bringing a few things along to help pass the time occasionally. A deck of cards, Pocket Farkel (a dice game I received at Christmas), and a book, Robinson Crusoe.

You might think that I should spend all of my time sightseeing, but I don't want to burn myself out. In Beijing, I'll be fairly busy with work, so that will help keep some normalcy within the day.

I'll write something later about how vacations can be exhausing, and how these types of items help keep my energy up.

Athletics

Previously, I asked for people's opinion on what shoes I should bring, either athletic or casual. Well, I didn't expect any responses because not that many people know about this blog and I doubt that many people check it daily.

In any case, I decided not to bring either type of shoe, for a couple of reasons. First, I already have my black dress shoes and the new sandals, and a third pair of shoes seems excessive. Second, I remembered that for the most part, in Beijing, I will be dressed in business casual so I really wouldn't need casual shoes, and in Thailand, I'll likely be wearing the sandals 24/7. Third, and finally, I did bring some workout clothes, and it will be easier to buy a cheap pair of shoes over there if I feel compelled to run on a treadmill, or I can wear the sandals if I'm just lifting weights.

Gifts

I'm bringing several items along with me as gifts.

• 3 Chicago baseball-style caps
• 12 Chicago post cards (most likely to be used as thank-you cards)
  
• 1.75 L pre-mixed margarita (lime)
  
• selected 2005 college football games burned onto DVD
• playing cards (even though gambling is banned in Thailand)
  

I also mailed a small box of childrens' books to Sean today, since he's trying to get a small library going. "They don't know much English," he says, "so look for books with lots of pictures."

It's not much, but I do hope people appreciate the effort.

Packing

Since I travel a lot for work, packing for a trip is really no big deal. The types of clothes you need are very predictable. The So, for Beijing, I'm all set.

Personal trips make life interesting though. Taking a trip to Thailand means I need to leave some space for gift items and ensure I have adequate "casual" attire. In addition, Thailand is significantly warmer than Beijing right now (but can be cool in the evenings and at night), so I also need to consider weather in my planning as well.

Packing

So I've started to pull stuff together.

I'm trying to limit my amount of stuff. So here's a quick opinion poll- should I bring athletic shoes in anticipation of working out, or bring casual shoes in anticipation of not working out?

Additional itinerary detail

Saturday, Jan. 28, shortly after arriving in Bangkok, I will be catching another flight (third of the day) to Chiang Mai, the "capital of the north." I'm scheduled to return to Bangkok on Thursday evening. Inbetween all of that, I don't have any definite plans. Cost was just what I expected: 5,320 Thai Baht or about $133.00 (plus whatever extra transaction fees my credit card company will charge).

3 days and counting.

Picked up my business visa today from the Chinese Consulate. I waited for a few minutes while the lady behind the window examined a $100 bill. I guess she thought it was fake or something.

I also had a minor hiccup with the Chacos- apparently, Half Moon uses some credit card service that assigns a security score to every transaction, and mine didn't make the cut, so the order was denied. I contacted Chase about this, and they said that there were three authorizations to Half Moon (two from me trying to buy online and one from a staff member trying manually today) so there was no problem with my credit card. I contacted Half Moon and left a voice mail. I received a call back and the lady indicated that since I answered the phone with my name, it gives some legitimacy to my order and she said she would process it. Hopefully they arrive tomorrow or Thursday.

I did receive an e-mail from REI confirming that they have shipped my order from Washington, and I should be receiving that tomorrow.

I also picked up the remainder of my malaria pills prescription from Walgreens. While discussing possible side effects, the pharmacist reminded me to wear mosquito repellant (which to my credit, was on the list of things to buy or make sure I have), so I decided to make it easier on myself and just buy some. I picked up Cutter's mini bottle with manual pump, mainly because it will save space. It's also nearly 100% DEET, which I realize is incredibly unhealthy, but I'll be careful with it.

Finally, I received some recommendations on various places to shop....

More expenses

The small things for the trip are slowly adding up:

• $15.00 - office visit to my regular doctor to get a Td booster shot
• $144.00 - Northwestern travel clinic for a Typhoid Fever shot (they only take BC/BS, not Aetna--some of this may be reimbursable, but I'll certainly be paying at least $50 since they are out of network)
• $53.39 - Best Buy for a camera case and some MiniDV tapes for my video camera
• $16.88 - Best Buy for some universal screen protectors to put over the LCD of my camera (and it turns out that Aaron already has some of these....)
  
• $49.03 - Recently published versions of Lonely Planet guidebooks for Beijing and Thailand
• $20.00 - Walgreens for Azitrhomycin and a partial malaria pill prescription (I guess I ran them out of stock on the Malarone)
• $7.99 - Walgreens for Immodium AD (because you can't predict when a little bout of "food poisoning" strikes)
• $145.71 - REI for two pairs of jungle pants and an REI membership (one of the pairs of pants will be returned--online purchase and I just couldn't decide) and overnight shipping because getting to REI in the suburbs without owning a car is quite impossible
  
• $141.53 - Half-Moon Outfitters for a pair of Chacos Z/2's and overnight shipping (which is really where they make their money)

So an interesting story about the Chacos: I checked their website for the list of local retailers, and found three that were reasonably easy for me to get to: Hanig's Footware at Clark and Diversey, Patagonia near North and Clybourn, and Active Endeavors on Armitage. I checked out Hanig's on Saturday, but they didn't have any Chacos in stock. The person that helped me out probably thought it was a little odd that I was carrying around a DSW Shoe Warehouse bag. (I just bought a new pair of Sketchers to replace my blown out Nike's.) Today after work, I stopped at North and Clybourn to hit up Patagonia (and made a convenient second visit to Best Buy in just a couple days). I took a quick glance around, but it's a small store and it didn't look promising. I asked if they had any Chocos in stock, and again, no luck. Since they also carry clothing, I asked about jungle pants. I got quite a look when I described them by saying "oh they're great for hiking and riding elephants." The story would be more interesting if I left it at that, but seeing as how I really do want to buy some jungle pants, I explained what they are a bit further. They didn't have anything in stock. Finally, I walked from Patagonia to Armitage to pay a quick visit to Active Endeavors. Indeed my visit was quick. The store had closed permanently, and some time ago, by the looks of the interior of the building.

So I struck out by trying to shop locally. Granted, I didn't hit up The North Face store at the John Hancock building, but shopping online is just easier, especially when there's overnight shipping. Since I made these purchases pretty late in the day and REI and Half-Moon are not 24-hour shops, I don't expect to receive anything until Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how long it takes for them to process the order.

Other semi-interesting progress: I received the paper tickets for PEK-BKK from Fedex today and contacted my credit card companies to notify them of my trip. I'll be travelling on directly to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, but I haven't made those arrangements yet.

I'm also thinking about packing--specifically, how do I fit these two locations into one bag? Beijing is cold right now, right around the freezing mark, and Thailand is generally in the 70s - 90s depending on whether you are in the north or south.

More travel arrangements complete

Time is growing short of course, so I spent the evening researching my travel options, now that my business arrangements are complete. So first of all, the business arrangements:

Departing Chicago on United Friday, January 20 at noon, arriving in Beijing the next day at about 3:45 PM. Hotel in Beijing: week 1--Sheraton Great Wall, week 2--St. Regis Beijing. I opted to try two different hotels, figuring it would be nice to switch things up a bit. In the end, the decision came down to two factors: Both hotels are Starwood properties, and I like points and nights. The Sheraton is closer to the client, which is important to me for week 1 when I am less familiar with the area and how long it takes to get from point A to B. The St. Regis is closer to touristy activities. I will depart Beijing on Saturday, February 11 at about 5:30 PM, arriving in Chicago the same day at 4:30 PM. (I know it's weird but that's what crossing the international date line will do to you.) I had to book economy due to the client's policies, but I have enough miles to use for upgrading and succeeded in the flight home, but was waitlisted for the flight to Beijing. Economy on such a long flight will suck, so hopefully I am upgraded for the entire itinerary. We'll see what happens.

As for personal travel, due to the Chinese New Year, flights are pretty jammed that first weekend. Travelocity was able to locate an itinerary with Cathay Pacific to get me in and out of Bangkok for $1423 (business class for all but one segment), connecting in Hong Kong. It's significantly more than I expected to be spending and I'm not thrilled to have a connection as the total travel time will be around 8 hours each way. These negatives are totally outweighed by the fact that I'll get to spend some time with friendly faces. I'm perfectly willing to spend whatever it takes to see two familiar faces in a sea of a billion unfamiliar faces. So I'll be departing Beijing at 1:00 PM on Saturday, January 28, arriving in Bangkok at 8:15 PM after a 2 hour layover in Hong Kong, and departing Bangkok at noon on Sunday, February 5, arriving in Beijing at 8:00 PM, after a slightly shorter layover in Hong Kong. The final segment is economy class for whatever reason, surprising to me as a booking class doesn't usually split two service classes. It's also a paper ticket for whatever reason.

Roundtrip flights from Bangkok to Chiang Mai on Thai Airways are running about $130 right now (with the itineraries I tested), which is about what I expected. I'm not about to book though-- I need a day to figure out what I want to do. My first instinct is to spend the night in Bangkok and continue on to Chiang Mai on Sunday, then return to Bangkok on Friday.

In booking the personal section of my travel, I discovered that Orbitz does not allow you to begin a trip from Beijing. Expedia presented options but when I tried to book, it told me that the itinerary was unavailable. Travelocity ended up being the winner in this case. I tried to look up the itinerary directly from Cathay Pacific's website, but it does not allow trips to begin from Beijing but does allow you to end them there. (Indeed, my initial segment is operated by Air China.) As far as I can tell, Thai Airways' website only allows you to search by schedule, not by price, so while the display of flight options is nice, the lack of pricing information until you choose your exact flights sucks.