tbaroundtheworld

The long day it takes to travel home always has a variety of little things that often become a grand panorama of the human condition. Today was no different. It’s a long way from Dalian to Albuquerque and the day starts early. It began for me this morning at 6 AM in an unexpectedly long line to check out, one in which everyone in front of me had some sort of silly little problem that was important (I’m sure) to them and that vexed the hotel staff. Prior to that I had another rotten night’s sleep, better though by way of my decision to strip the last of the down products off the bed. Waking up every day in a histamine coma takes its toll over the course of a week and I thought that one healthy night’s sleep warranted such drastic action. So I peeled off the sheets, removed the bed pad and the down mattress topper and rolled them up at the foot of the bed as though at camp. The topper did not inspire salubrity – it was old, yellow and covered with what appeared to be little gray pigeon f...

Spent the morning working and the late afternoon wandering up into a part of Dalian I had not visited on foot. The area is up towards the hills that limit the expansion of the city to the east side of the peninsula. We walked up to the Botanical Gardens that were far less than expected and down through some very prosperous neighborhoods with homes of a type I'd not seen before. Sort of a brick Sino-New-England style with shutters and gables. Most of the neighborhoods were bustling with street vendors selling the makings for dinner, both fresh and cooked. Crossed through Children's Park which had a nice lake. Parents were out running on the boardwalk with their kids. It started to get cold and began to sprinkle so we headed back down to the hotel and dinner at "The Olive Garden." I took a lot of pictures and wanted to share the ones I found most interesting. .

It was a day of contrasts, new experiences and extremes. But it began plainly enough with the commute out to work in Ka Fa Qu. As promised, I said I would get to the bottom of the Sichuan restaurant name. Bringing the napkin along, I asked my friend Ling for a translation. The answer - 川人百味 - chuan ren bai wei. Chuan is the nickname for Sichuan. In the olden days, Sichuan was known as the province of 4 Rivers. "Si" means 4 and "chuan" means river. This came to me as a thunderbolt, hours later during a cross town taxi ride. But back to the topic at hand. 川人百味 translates as "Sichuan People Hundred Tastes", and that it is. We spent most of the morning meeting and greeting and then moved out to the construction site for more meeting, more greeting and a tour of our part of the facility that is under construction. Punctuating that was lunch in the worker's canteen, my second favorite place to eat in Dalian. Today I had a great soup made with raw bacon, glas...

Well the reason I was sleeping so poorly back in the world became pretty apparent this morning - I'm still on this time zone. After the Trans-Pacific long-haul, I went to bed last night at a reasonable hour and slept right through until the alarm woke me up. I guess now I understand why I've been waking up back in the world at weird early hours, ready to go. Pretty much a day at work today whose highlight was our driver taking us to the wrong office at the start. The Development Area is just a tad beyond my grasp in terms of me being able to recognize landmarks and call out a missed turn to a local driver. I did see a building on the way in that I remembered was the place to turn, but I was so unsure of my directional ability that I didn't call it out. Only when I was absolutely sure did I tell him that we wanted to go the other way. Comfort in these situations comes with familiarity I reckon. For dinner tonight we decided to visit my favorite little diner in the mall, hith...

More on that later. After sitting around the lounge for a good spell, like 4 hours, feasting on Danish and Cheese and Crackers and a nice mix of orange and cranberry juice, we headed out to the gate to meet the rest of our party. There was nothing exceptional about the 12 hours over except that I seem to be getting used to it. Punctuated by panic attacks and feeling of self-pity the haul actually seems to go by pretty quickly. This time, armed with a new sleep mask, I was able to literally zone out for nearly 7 hours, a personal record by a long shot. There was only one person in my row, which is always nice, except he was one of those that does not follow the unspoken rules. He had no compunction in tapping me on the shoulder any time he wanted to get out, which was fairly frequently. At least he was polite and waited while I unstrung my iPod, took off my blanket, unclipped my neck brace and unstrapped my mask. We landed about 1/2 hour early into a gray, misty Shanghai, weather that d...

I had forgotten that I had used one of my storehouse full of "regional updgrade" to move myself into First Class on today's early flight. It didn't really sink in until I took a look at my ticket and realized I was in the first row. What a nice way to start the day! Today's flight left at the unholy hour of 6 AM which meant up at 4 and out of the house by 4:40. Surprisingly, I made it with only 10 minutes to spare, the big hang-up being the security check which was absolutely mobbed. I guess people like to take to the air early on Monday morning. I settled myself into my extra wide seat with facing a bulkhead and stretched out. The attendant brought me a nice little glass of orange juice to slake my pre-take-off thirst, such as it was. We got up in the air and the service got better from there. I guess I understand why people pay a premium for these seats, but I doubt I ever will be able to bring myself to that point, unlimited orange juice is just not that compel...

The first true month of spring, and for me the one spent everywhere but home. Sitting in Denver International Airport pondering the remainer of the month while waiting for yet another delayed flight. DIA is the 9th unique airport I have been since venturing forth that past March 29th. Certainly a personal record. For those planning on passing through here, the best food options are located in Terminal B and the rest rooms double as tornado shelters. I wonder if men and women are expected to separate during such an event? Aside from the largest Crocs store I've seen, the only unique thing here are the birds - little flocks of House Sparrows, ever the opportunists, living in a predator free environment subsisting on food court droppings. They sit high up on perches, tiny representations of their lofty cousins Peregrine Falcons surveying the areas under the tables for prey. A french fry, a bit of frosting from a croissant, a bit of hamburger bun. No challengers in this unique biome as...

I had the singular experience of traveling through the brand new Terminal 3 (T3) in Beijing this morning. It’s one of the crowning architectural achievements associated with the upcoming Olympics, and I must say it’s magnificent. At least as a monument. As an airport, it leaves a lot to be desired. I was doing a domestic to international transfer, so my row was a bit more difficult hoe than that of the average visitor to China’s capital. Which is a good thing since if they all had to do what I had to do, it would result in chaos. We made it into Beijing at 9 AM after a one hour flight from Dalian. The early flight had been chose since a 3 hour layover is generally recommended for international travel. Unlike regular travel, the big birds generally fly once a day – miss it and you’re scrambling to find a hotel for the night in an unexpected port. So we got on our early shuttle and made it to what has now become the domestic side of the airport. In the olden days, like last week, you use...

Sometimes I realize just what a rube I am. There are so many sophisticated, big-city, guy things that I have not done. So many that I wonder if I've failed to live up to the unpublished expectations of my gender. We decided to spend the final night on this tour doing the genuine expat abroad thing. A sausage dinner in the brewhaus and a trip to the downstairs hotel bar. It was so hard to beat last night's authentic meal, and the follow-up soup I had today in the worker's canteen - based on those devilish little peppercorns - were hard to top. So rather than try we decided to go full bore western. The Pauliner was as smoky as ever, populated by well-heeled locals out for a big Friday night. Dinner was its usual self - giant beers, Pretzel Tree of Carbs, lard, wurst and mustard spreads, breaded veal and onions and Black Forest Cake. The band, your archetypal 3-piece Filipina oldies generator started off with Average White Band and went down from there. Tonight though, no slo-...

Sometimes it seems like the only thing we ever do is eat. Well, at least most of our time seems to revolve around it. Tonight we went to my favorite restaurant. Don't even know the name of it, but it's easy enough to find in the basement of the Victory Plaza shopping mall. VP is a pretty fancy place - Armani, Burberry, Omega, Choppard - and this little spot is not what you'd expect to find in such upscale digs. It's more like a diner, very low rent and I've never seen a foreigner in there. Such is China though where the sublime mixes easily with the quotidian. We were last here in January following our freezing trip to the Lushun Buddha. That day we had one fluent person with us so most of the work was done. Tonight, I filled that role, one which daily is becoming mine and mine alone. This place does have pictures menus (recall the shots posted on my last visit) but that's about it. There is no English on no one and so the challenge is set. We ordered a mess of ...

We went for lunch today to one of our favorite places - Oh Ho, or "the happy pig" as we like to call it for it's logo is a smiling porker in a chef's hat. We love this place, it's muy autentico - populated at lunch time by workers from the Kafaqu - development zone - and with nary a foreigner in sight. We barged in as usual and declined a private room, preferring instead to sit upstairs on the main floor. In the past they had a great book-style menu with nice big pictures that had apparently been replaced with a single sheet under the glass table top. We whined and received an old one as there was no way we were going to get anything from the new one. The pictures were just too small. I stood up and took charge and managed my way through ordering chicken pork, "sheep" and shrimp dishes while having a good laugh with the server. When we thought we had enough, she decided to go over the list with Matt and I jumped in telling her that he didn't speak a ...

I woke up in the wee hours of this morning and took a look outside on returning from taking some aspirin. The 78 degree temperature in my room was in conflict with the beer I had with dinner and my head was developing a split down the center. Looking over at the boat yards, a large container ship had taken a place along one of the slips. Kleig lights were illuminating the unloading process and creating a eerie sight - the ship and the harbor were masked by a giant donut of fog. By my rising time of 6, the fog and grown and enveloped everything, even the second tower of the hotel. The two pictures below, taken about the same time of day, one on Monday and one today show you what I am talking about. Pea soup at its finest. It lasted all the way out of town to work, some 40 kilometers away. As always, work days do not produce many grand and interesting stories, but if you keep your eyes open and your wits about you, some things pop into view. For example, the notion of "driver."...

Dawn breaks early this time of year in a place with no Daylight Saving adjustment, the sun starts streaming in the window about 4 Am. I resisted the urge for a long, long time until I finally gave in and got up about 30 minutes earlier than planned. The day looked pretty nice with the shipyard across the way clearly visible through the light haze. The weather held and we had sun all day long, although at the end, with the sun still pretty high up in the sky, the light looked like dust, such was the filtering power of the stuff pumped into the air during the work day. And speaking of work, I had plenty of it today including a decent tour of the construction site. This of course mean little of interest from a blog standpoint, but as is often the case, dinner trumps all. We decided to make it easy tonight an visit Pizza King, an old haunt from visits of the past. It's smack across the street from the Shangri La, the food is good and it's just plain simple. Besides, where can you...

In an effort to minimize the effect of another 7 hour time zone shift, I slept in until the decadent hour of 9 AM. I went up and grabbed breakfast in the penthouse, which was mobbed, and ended up sitting in the smoking section as there was but one table left. Thankfully no one was smoking. From there, I decided to gear up and head out into the street for a walk around town. When I arrived yesterday, spring was in the air. The temperature was mild and although the sun was somewhere up above the haze, there was no threat of rain. No such luck today, it was cold, windy and the clouds were lurking. Not dissuaded, I zipped up and headed on down Renmen Lu. There was not a lot to look at over the first couple of kilometers, just an endless line of tall buildings. Construction at one site - a big condominium project – proclaimed an honor roll of forthcoming stores. Prada, Armani, Dior, Vuitton and other luxe brands. The diet for high end luxury goods here is China continues to amaze me. Marchi...