tbaroundtheworld

We live in a funny kind of town. A thousand years ago, the area was dotted with tiny pueblos, home to the descendants of the Anasazi who built the magnificent stone castles up in the Four Corners area. They were followed by the Spanish who settled the extreme northern edge of their country’s North American empire. A hard scrabble life at the end of El Camino Real in a forgotten colony, their dominion lasted until the westward spread of the American Empire engulfed them in a war that saw little change beside their putative government. Around this time my village gained its name - “Corrales” – home to the stockyards food for Albuquerque a few miles to the south. During the American Civil War an expedition from Texas rolled in and rolled out, sent packing by a clever rear guard movement executed by Union volunteers from Colorado. Their supplies destroyed, they had nothing to do but shake the white dust off of their coats and slink back down the road to await their final destruction in 186...

We had a most unusual driver on our last trip to the airport. The weather had changed to rain – the first bad day we’d had over the entire trip. Sometimes travel planning just works out that way and it’s especially nice in a country like China where, unlike the great cities of Europe, there isn’t a lot to do indoors. Fewer museums than you might imagine. We packed up, checked out and asked the doorman to get us a cab. A red one pulled up, fourth tier in the Shanghai Taxi Quality Spectrum but it was what it was. The driver got out – on the short side with shoulder length hair, dressed all in black and sporting gold metallic painted inch-long fingernails on both hands. We spent the ride to Pudong alternately gagging on the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke and theorizing about this guy’s night job. Check in was a breeze as it always is, far better than the olden days when you’d have to stand around waiting until the gate agents would march out in single file, identical in their pri...

Through no plan of my own, My Lovely Wife’s birthday happened to fall on our final day in China. This was a nice turn as I had managed to miss her previous two. Little milestones like these are important to a romantic like me, and so I was happy that the string of misses was broken. And in such a nice way. We started the day with another leisurely departure. A big breakfast meant to forestall the need for lunch and a taxi ride into town, my concession that our vacation was finally wearing me down. Sometimes the thought of a long walk to the subway station is reason enough to pay for a much easier ride in a car. Today’s taxi driver thought he was clever, zigzagging through the city streets in order to jack up the fare. It was obvious to me what was going on, and confirmed when he dropped us off on the south side of Yu Gardens, the touristy shopping district in the only remaining old district in Shanghai. The cost was almost double what it should have been, but still only an extra four ...

It’s been a solid 3 years since I spent any real time wandering around Shanghai and I’d forgotten how much I really like the place. Xi’an is my favorite city in China because it wraps you up in warm blanket of history, culture and a comfortable pace. It’s an easy city to visit and there is a lot to do. My time living over here was spent in the north, where life really doesn’t offer much. It’s cold, it’s hard and it’s often bleak. I came to really like Beijing though as I spent a lot of transit time there on my way to and from the US. And when you get to know your way around a city, it finds a place in your heart. The capital city though was tough to love as it comes across as crowded and stark, a tribute I think to the generations of hard men who built and ruled the place. But being here in Shanghai after a long absence, I was instantly reminded of what a special place it is. Sophistication, excitement and a comfortable pace, not unlike what you might find in Paris or Madrid. Here yo...

Lily and the airport ticket agent had a nice time laughing at my Chinese. I asked her why - confused since she is always complimenting my on my ability – and she told me that while I am capable, I have a habit of using too many words. First time I’ve heard that. We said goodbye to her for probably the last time before entering security. I handed her an envelope with a nice gift for her impending wedding. I’ve never tipped her on previous visits and I thought this was a nice opportunity to make up for that with a nicer gift. Our flight to Shanghai was uneventful aside from half a plane full of American students and their handlers. Some sort of band or orchestra judging from their carry-on luggage which was a wide variety of instrument cases. I had an intimate encounter with one of them when I was bent over in front of my seat on the plane and one of the youngsters decided that he wanted my space in the overhead bin. He was trying to jam his case into the spot that I had momentarily vac...

There are three major Buddhist grottoes in China. The first, Mogao, is far out in the west and difficult to reach. While supposedly the best due to its extensive collection of unspoiled frescoes, it was often a topic of travel conversation for me but never one that I felt was worth the challenge. Too far, too hard and not much else to justify a day of airport hopping and bus rides. I visited the second site at Yungang near the coal mining city of Datong back in 2010. While not easy to reach its difficulty is due more to the lack of flights than remoteness. It’s only an hour by air from Beijing on a plane that lands, turns around and leaves again until the same time on the next day. Datong turned out to be a nice city with some other attractions that were worth the trip and I was glad to have gone. Besides, my visit there allowed me to complete the Chinese 9 Dragon Screen Hat Trick, a goal I had no idea that I had until I was within walking distance of the other two on one hot afternoo...