Standing on the Great Wall

-

Here we are.....
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NO8DO

-
Image
Last fall I decided to get a tattoo - not so much to express my individuality (as just about every other person has now done) but more to have the experience of getting needled as well as to see how having a permanent piece of portable art would make me feel. The problem was what to get. Tattoo shops are loaded with catalogs of both standard drawings and freelance work. The breadth of options is staggering if you only want something canned. My thoughts went in the other direction - I wanted something that meant something to me, characteristic of my life experience. So I thought about meaningful statements, written in Sanskrit or some other obscure language, or maybe something to do with a bicycle. Or maybe something Chinese. Or who knows, the only thing I did know was that I didn’t want a giant orange Japanese Koi wrapping around my biceps. One day it came to me. While wandering around Sevilla last year, we saw the same logo over and over, on anything that had to do with the m...
Read more

Yet another dinner to remember

-
Image
We had our traditional team dinner last night at 海之幸, Hai Zhi Xing or "Fortune of the Sea." It's a mile down the road from the hotel, and I am sure I have walked passed it a dozen times without a thought. As always, some of the jewels in life are overlooked and right before your eyes. This one certainly was. It turned out to be great. The walk takes about 45 minutes, not so much due to the distance as the fact that it can sometimes take 10 minutes to get across the streets. This happened a couple of times when our group fractured due to picture taking opportunities, but we made it intact, even beating our local hosts. We sat and enjoyed a couple of 1 liter Qingdao beers until they arrived. It was Japanese for a change with a bit of Korean and Chinese thrown in for color. The plates and the beer and the sake kept coming and of course much was left on the table. The spirit was great and we had lots of long conversation reprising our various adventures together, my favori...
Read more

The Ghost Ship of the United Fleet

-
Image
It's beginning to feel that way. I have now had delays or cancellations on 5 straight legs of the Flight 857/858 pair, to and from Shanghai. Makes me wonder if this is system wide, or if there is something special about that route. After bidding adieu to the Traveling Hillbillies and wondering how they would be feeling post-Bloody-Mary-binge on their longish haul to Hawaii, I got off the plane and headed towards the International Terminal. My regular routine is to go out and back through security and cool my heals until the lounge opens at eight. It was pointed out me that there is another lounge, right there in the United concourse which presents a better alternative, so there we went. Hung out in there until about 9 when the shuttle started running, which allows you to miss another pass through the checks. My companions went off for the 3rd and 4th breakfasts, I being content with only my second went off to the bus. I know I've mentioned it before, but it's a fun little r...
Read more