Image Folder - For URL Image References

 This is not a entry for readers.  I am using this entry so that I have a place to place images that I need to URL reference in my flight simulator forums.  Yup, I'm that nerdy.

Saturday, November 15, 2014 –Xi’an

Saturday, November 15, 2014 –Xi’an

After a decent nights sleep, I awoke to hallway chatter an elevator dings, showered, and got ready for a full day of tourism.  At 8:00 am, we headed out on foot for breakfast around the corner.  It was definitely a local’s restaurant with about 4 small tables inside and a couple outside - where breakfast was prepared.  We each had a bowl of hot soy milk with a touch of sugar along with a bowl of soupy noodles covered in a ½” layer of perhaps tofu?  We also each enjoyed a Chinese long John doughnut (I call it that as it was a non-sugary long john w/o any topping).  I believe Winson said the total was 9RMB for the both of us (~$1.50 – doesn't seem possible).

Winson then negotiated a 250RMB fee with a taxi driver for the long ride to and from a tomb outside of the city.  It was about an hour drive out to the country past an innumerable number of 50 story condo complexes under construction. I would guess was passed about 100 of them being built – no kidding! We arrived around 9:15am and paid 70RMB ($12US) each for the tomb grounds admission. There were not too many people there as we began the walk in medium fog and temperatures around 50 degrees. Specifically, the tombs are the Han Lan Ying Tombs. Technically, the Yangling Mausoleum is located at Zhangjiawan Village, near Xi'an city. Here is a link to the location on google maps.  It is a joint tomb of Liu Qi, a notable emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, and his empress, Empress Wang. It was built in the year 153 AD (well, over about a 25 year period around that time). I was told that 300,000 workers tolled for about 28 years to build. The tomb area was then guarded for about 300 years after. The overall tomb area actually encompassed an area about 40 square kilometers!

The tour started with a view of the ruins of one of the 4 gate houses that were located on each of 4 sides of the tomb.  The tomb itself looked like a giant man-made hill, but is now overgrown with trees and bushes.  To the south, we could see a reconstructed gate house complex, but we never had the chance to go over and check it out.  We then made our way down the ramp to the underground museum.  Apparently, on all four sides of the tomb, there are many parallel corridors underground that were filled with items the emperor could use in the afterlife.   The underground tour was really interesting - with glass floors that traversed the underground corridors from above.  I did have a problem at the start, as we were required to wear blue booties to protect the glass floor, however, none were large enough for my shoes, so I actually had to have two overlapping booties per foot - which somehow managed to stay on for the duration of the tour.

Photos do not do this justice, it was an amazing tour over these 2000 year old burial pits that contained many stone dolls, vases, chariots, and animals.

Here is a link the the museum's website.  They have some good photos and historical information as well.

After the tour over the corridors, we entered a medium sized underground museum with various artifacts available for view up close.  Additionally, we went into a side room with a small screen to watch a 30 minute video on the history of this particular emperor.  As the curtain raised, the small screen actually turned out to be a miniature set depicting some scene from ancient times.  Suddenly, some computer generated 3-d people in ancient wardrobe walked out and interacted with the set - it was fantastic - one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The people were filmed, but somehow animated in 3d fashion.  Picture looking at a miniature set in front of you populated with tiny people that appeared to be about 8 " tall or so.  It looked absolutely real.  Amazing.

We had the taxi driver take us across the street to a large rose garden and Gingko tree forest.  It seems the plantings were just a rose and tree farm that the owner realized that they could charge admission.  The trees were maybe 20 feet tall and in neat rows and columns and probably was a square mile or so in size.  Having easy access to walking in the woods in the US made me realize that folks in a giant Chinese city like Xi'an (8 million people) do not regularly get this opportunity.

Located on these grounds was a large museum that further features artifacts and information from the emperor and the tomb.  Many photos later, we were finished.

Google maps location of the museum is here.

Between 11:45am – 12:45pm we rode the taxi back to inside of the walls of Xi'an to the southwest side to a restaurant that Winson said was famous in China for its soup.  Organ soup… Intestines with bread.  We also had cold noodles and vegetables.  For dessert, yogurt in small glass jugs.  Total cost was about $10.  The intestine soup was actually very good, with the exception of the intestines themselves, which had a solid manure finish taste to them.

From there, we walked to the southern gate and bought some sort of snack that looked like small tree twigs for 5RMB.  They tasted like a slightly sour apple, but had some small hard seeds inside that one had to be careful of.  Upon reaching the gate house, we paid 54RMB each to enter wall and tour the gate houses.  Eventually, we made our way on top of the giant wall and walked along the top for a quarter-mile or so.  What a tremendous amount of labor had to have gone into it's construction.

At 3:00pm, we went on one of the mini-taxis for a scary taxi ride to the Shaanxi History Museum that lasted 15 minutes.  It is located here on Google maps.  Although free, we paid 20RMB to avoid the line for free tickets (and also gave us special exhibition pass – for Tang Dynasty exhibit).  I also rented an electronic translator unit for 35RMB - Amazing sights, but VERY crowded.

For my notes:
Quin Dynasty – 2200BC  (Terracotta Warriors, Great Wall, Unification of China)
Han Dynasty– 2000BC (Han Lan Ying Tombs from the morning)
Tang Dynasty - 500AD
Ming Dynasty - 1400AD (rebuilt the Xi'an walls to their current form)

One interesting note from the museum was that they features a special exhibit from the Tang Dynasty.  Apparently, the most elaborate items on display were from two giant vases (also at the museum) that was found during construction in 1976 in Xi’an.  Amazing quality.  We raced through the  museum until it closed at 5pm.  Again, 100's of pictures will cement this terrific memory.

As we exited the museum, I notice the skies actually cleared to nearly blue as we walked through a nice, modern, and clean tourist area.  I had a Pepsi and as dusk slowly set in we approached a tall Buddhist temple.  From a website reference, "It remains as one of the oldest (built in the 7th century) structures in China, and was originally 60 meters high. Damage in World War II resulted in the reduction of the original ten stories down to seven; however it still remains one of China’s most distinctive and outstanding landmarks. A well preserved ancient building and holy place for Buddhists, Wild Goose Pagoda is said to be the most beautiful building in Xi’an today." (you can see it at night in the background of the fountain show below).  Here it is on Google maps.  Just to the north is a large fountain area where we later saw a show located here on Google maps.

We stopped in a Starbucks at 6pm to rest (and I entered the day’s activities on my tablet).  Eventually, we left and stopped at a KFC where I thought I ordered a chicken sandwich - but it turned out to be a shrimp patty sandwich - pretty tasty - just not what I expected.  By 8:30pm, the fountain area (about 100 yards wide and about 500 yards long) had a automated show with lights and music to boot.  It was again, a great experience.  It was during that show, I reflected on just what an unbelievable day this has been.

Around 9:00pm we walked for about an hour, through the nightclub district, until we finally were able to hail a cab (regular cab this time).  After a 30 minute ride, we were back to the market area by the bell and drum towers at the center of Xi'an.  There we spent another hour wandering the streets enjoying more snacks and enjoying the cloudless 50 degree evening.

Finally, exhausted, we made it back to the hotel around 11:00pm where I fell asleep immediately - ending one of the top 10 best days of my life.  It was that good!

Friday, November 14, 2014 – Off to Xi’an

(NOTE: Thanks for your patience, I am back from China now, recovering from jet lag, and generally getting caught up enough to resume the rest of my posts from the trip.  I will actually get these posted over the next week - I don't promise them to be great, however, I do promise that the Xi'an trip will be much more interesting than the rest of my work days in Dalian!)

Friday, November 14, 2014 – Off to Xi’an

Taxi from work back to hotel 11:40am.  Grabbed clothes and taxi to airport.  There, Winson and I sat down for some lunch at an airport restaurant.  We had Beef and Shrimp dumplings - decent, not great.

At 1:45pm, it was finally time to board.  We hopped on a shuttle bus which took us on the 5 minute ride out the the airplane.  Apparently, to save a few dollars, a number of flights at Dalian, don't have a gate, but instead a parking area out on the tarmac.  Without incident we took off on-time at 2:30pm.  Strangely, as we climbed up and away from Dalian, we circled back over airport (I think because China's only aircraft carrier was out to the west doing trials.  By circling back over the airport, we reached a high enough altitude that we would not be too close to the carrier.  About 45 minutes into the flight we approached the western edge of the Yellow Sea where I did catch a glimpse of something like 75 large container ships moored off the coast.  Lunch on the plane consisted of 2 rolls, a cup of water, and a cup of Pepsi.  Eventually, after a 2.5hr bumpy and cloudy flight, we landed in fairly decent fog around 6pm.  We seemed to taxi forever (it sure appeared we were lost in the fog as I could swear we went in a circle) before arriving at our gate.  The Xi'an airport was large, but appeared desolate as grim light rain began outside.  Winson negotiated taxi into town (130RMB) and began our trip.  During that ride, the country portion ~10 miles) was sparsely traveled but exciting as we u-turned on the hwy to get on an off-ramp that took us to another highway w/o speed limit tracking (which the taxi driver took full advantage of).  Winson said to buckle up, so I reached behind me to grab a seat belt only to find there were none in the back seat.  As we approached the city of Xi'an, traffic rapidly ramped up and after 1.5 hours in extremely heavy traffic (Winson said heaviest he has been in!) we reached the city center.

At the center of the city we were met by a large imposing wall - 50 feet all and 100 feet thick.  This wall, originally built some 1600 years ago, was rebuilt many times, including a major rebuild in the 1400s that is the form the wall is in today.  It runs as a rectangle around the center of the city and is an impressive 15km in length (over 9 miles!).  The taxi took us through one of the few large gates to the wall to the exact center of the city.  Very impressive site, with a variety of very modern shopping plazas as well as architecture from ancient China.  This is the first time I have really experienced the ancient feel of China - it was impressive.  For example, the drum tower is an imposing structure, well let, that was built 600 years ago and was elaborately decorated.  It was there the taxi dropped us off.

This can be found here in Google maps.  Note the corresponding bell tower located about a block to the east on the map at the center of the circle.

We exited the taxi, now around 7:30pm in a light rain and temperatures just under 50 degrees.  With our backpacks, we walked around to an amazing street market for the next 2 hours where I enjoyed grape drink, kabobbs of spicy tofu, crazy candy (hand made toffee, wrapped in white sugary strings), pomegranate drink (it turns out that pomegranate is from this area), dumplings, and miscellaneous meat skewers.

Eventually, we grabbed a mini-taxi (a 3 wheeled motorcycle with an enclosed seating area in back wrapped in clear plastic) for the 10 minute ride to hotel where we checked in around 9:30pm.  The hotel was located just outside the southeast corner of the city center wall - not in a tourist area.  It is located here in Google maps.

We got adjacent rooms located on the 4th floor - just across from the elevators - boo!  I hate the sound of elevator dings as it comes to the floor - it has messed up a few trips of mine in the past, so I generally avoid it like the plague.  I was too tired to put up a stink, so I opened the door to my room and hoped for the best...

The room was a bit sparse, with flat screen tv and smaller beds and a thin curtain.  The walls were paper thin, both out to the hallway as well as to adjacent rooms.  The flooring was a bit cold and of a laminate type wit a light wood grain pattern.  The floor seemed not quite clean enough to want to be on it barefoot, so a slipped on some of the hotel provided slippers which were about 10 sizes too small.  Luckily, I was soo tired, that the small bed, thin walls, and outside honking didn't interfere with a decent nights sleep.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Sunny and colder.

Lunch w/ test team at a small Japanese restaurant within a few blocks of the office.  At least 3 floors of dining with about 10 tables per floor.  Had a bowl of rice with beef, basic side salad, and a side plate of 3 items: Potato Salad, Kimchee type cabbage, and an orange slice.  Each one about one large spoonful in size (although eaten with chopsticks, of course).

Thursday evening – Dinner with Ryan and Winson.  Walked south from the office to Ryan’s home where we grabbed his car.  His parking spot was located in a back alley type street that is lined with vendors selling miscellaneous items and some food, fruits, and veggies.  After managing to get his car out from among the obstacles, we drove a short ways to a local restaurant featuring seafood.

Food was ordered in standard fashion, picking out the live seafood from aquariums, and pointing out other dishes from photos on the wall and samples on display.  We sat down at our traditional table – circular – with a large lazy Susan in the center.  Dishes were – green veggies, firm pancake type items, some fried oysters (I passed on those to play it safe), and some cooked sea urchins – that I had to try.  It was served in shell, with some scrambled egg mixed in – I doubt many at home would have enjoyed it.  Finally, the main course arrived – the flying crab.  We each had two and they were delicious.  A bit of messy work, but sweeter than any crab back home – no butter needed (or available).

After dinner, we took a short driving tour near my hotel to the newly rebuilt castle.  This high-end hotel (very high end) is built to resemble a fairy tale castle and the scale is immense.  Located about 500’ up the side of a mountain near the sea, this castle has to be 25 stories tall and has to have > 1000 rooms.  We drove up to check it out and was blown away.  My photos and videos could never do it justice.  It would fit right in with the hotels in Vegas – in terms of scale, and grandeur.  We actually walked inside for a few minutes to check it out and was equally impressed with the inside.  The main reception room was at least 100’square, with 50+’ ceilings in back lit intricate stained glass – probably 80’x80’…

Soon, it was time to get back to the hotel so I could pack for my weekend getaway – Xi’An city.  Home of the terracotta warriors!

I know the post have been pretty uneventful - but in posting this (Monday morning, November 17), I can tell you I had an absolutely amazing time in Xi'An - Location of the famous Terracotta Warriors.  This ancient city was a fantastic experience - one of the best of my life.

I do not know if I will have time to publish more posts before my return to Milwaukee (tomorrow, November 18), but, I will certainly add them upon my return.  Plus, if you stop by, I can show you my vast amount of pictures and videos that I took from the weekend.  It was amazing!

See you soon - Dave

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Lunch at Lotus restaurant w/ 4 coworkers – we arrived late – maybe 12:00pm) so food came very slowly.  Some very comfortable dishes for an unadventurous Americans: Sweet & Sour Pork – 1^st time ever in China – awesome – nice and light and not very sweet.  Also Kung Pow Chicken too – pretty good – also beef squares and shrimp (whole and in the shell).  One of the plates featured a fruit from a Ginkgo tree.  I was having a hard time understanding the word, so Winson said, there is a famous song about it and started to sing “Jingle Bells”.  I started to laugh and he realized that he meant to sing a Ginkgo tree song – funny.  He then played a bit of the actual song from his phone for me.  I wonder if I can find the Ginkgo tree song somewhere…

Dinner was at Korean BBQ with 4 of us.  Meats, Squid, Shrimp, mushrooms.  Excellent side plate of chilled red something – turned out to be beef tendons.  The restaurant featured self-serve drinks – this was a first for me in China – it had Coke Sprite, etc., but also about 8 different fruit juices – yum.  Dinner was about $18/person – but nearly unlimited food.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

The day started off a bit overcast and developed into some very light sprinkles throughout the day.  Lights winds with a high around 50.  Lunch with about 4 coworkers down the street at a Japanese style restaurant – similar to one of my favorites that was behind our old building downtown.  I had the following: Beef strips with cooked onions over rice.  Side items was a salad with tuna salad topping, fish pudding (yup), fish soup, and some small vegetables.  Pretty tasty – but not as good as the old place.

After getting out of work a bit late, dinner was again with Winson at a newly redecorated small restaurant near the office.  We had squid with peanuts and hot Chinese peppers, black mushroom with green pepper, mushroom soup, and the main course:  A whole fish (baked and lightly fried) covered with tofu and hot Chinese peppers.  All pretty tasty.  Afterwards, a short stop at a Starbucks for some more work until 7:30pm when a taxi was finally available to take me back to the hotel.  This is pretty standard evening for Winson, where he eats near the office, then hangs out at the Starbucks until a bit later when traffic has died down.

More observations – It is really nice to eat out in Dalian – there are an amazing number of restaurants – from the very small, to the unbelievably large - spanning 4 stories or more and seating of probably 500+.  One thing is common – there is ALWAYS a table available to sit down immediately – even at peak times.  It must be torture for the Chinese to come to the US and be told to wait an hour (or more) for a table – and then get slow service.  Tonight, for instance, was a very fancy decorated restaurant with maybe 15 small tables.  At peak, it was half full – but since labor cost is small here, they are still very profitable.  The food was even reasonably priced costing about $43 for the two of us.  I estimate a similar meal in the US, if you could even find one that offered this – would have easily been $100 – but they just do not have dishes like this anywhere that I know of – at least not in the same ballpark of quality.  In the US, when you think of Chinese food, I picture less than top quality, with Americanized versions of dishes that don’t even exist here.  Best yet, you never have to wait more than 5 minutes for your first dishes to arrive.  Remember every meal here (except the Japanese lunch today) is many plates of food – all shared.  I really enjoy this style.

Another miscellaneous observation – I just realized that some of the walls in my hotel room are movable!  Two perpendicular walls slide to close off the shower/sink area.  Another wall slides to close the walk-in closet – cool.  Finally, I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but the Chinese seem very determined to choose the perfect table at a restaurant to sit at.  It seems that no matter the restaurant, there is always a discussion back and forth with the staff to find the best table available – I suppose they can since there are always so many tables available.  Back at home, we are usually just happy that there is a table at all.  By the way, Tuesday evening marks my half-way point on the trip.  It sure is going by fast – just a bit too busy so far!

Monday, November 10, 2014

- sorry for the delay - solid meetings at work all week...

Monday, November 10, 2014

At breakfast in the hotel, the dining room manager made his daily stop at my table to see if there was anything that I needed.  I talked about the fantastic buffet that I had last night there – particularly the seafood.  He thanked me and stated that he would be sure to bring me a delicious Vietnamese lobster tail for me to try the next time I choose to dine in – how nice!  I’ll tell you this, if the hotel wasn’t grand enough on its own, the service here is simply the best I have ever received.  From the moment I exit the elevator near the lobby, no less than 5 workers greet me, some by first name.  Kind of nice to be one of the first from our company to do an extended stay here – as they are really taking care of me here.  I really do feel fortunate to get to experience this. 

For lunch, three of us ate in the software park facility at a newer restaurant.  Of note were the cool bamboo cups – they can’t last all that long, but are pretty neat.  The food was standard faire with beef slices and beef lung.  Other bowls were pork chunks (w/ plenty of fat), cabbage like leaves, and another place of green veggies – all fairly tasty.

After work, we took a cab to the Wanda mall near Winson’s home where we went up to the 3^rd level where maybe 40 restaurants were located (yup – it’s a big mall, and less than one year old too).  The menu looked more like a small book, with no less than 50 full color pages of a wide variety of foods.  This place had an interesting twist in that they put a large hourglass on our table after we ordered and Winson explained that if the food was not delivered in time, it would be 50% off.  Needless to say, the food was promptly delivered and no discount was earned.  For dinner, we started with some spicy stomach and believe it or not, the meal got better was we went along.  The next item to arrive was a hot and sour soup – very close to US style, although a bit tastier – my son Adam would have eaten the entire bowl.  Next was another large soup bowl – this time absolutely loaded on top with very hot spices (I recognized them from previous dinners).  I was all set to say that I would be unable to even try the soup as it would have killed me on the spot – but, just then, the waiter came by and carefully scooped out all of the hot spices as it was explained that is standard for this dish at this restaurant.  He loaded my place with what was buried in the soup – some sort of white material, but I couldn’t be sure what.  Winson explained that it was just a white fish.  I gave it and go, and while at the upper end of my personal spice/heat limit, the fish was actually quite delicious.  Finally, the plate that I picked out arrived – actually in a small wooden bucket – it was shrimp coated in some cooked syrup with various spices.  The flavor ended up being a very nice BBQ taste, with the only possible downsides being you eat the shrimp whole (except the very end of the tail) – shell and all.  Of course, the entire head of the shrimp was there too – the tastiest part, actually – no kidding!  This was actually one of the very best meals of my trip so far.

Walking through the mall we stopped in a Chinese book-type store and some interesting memorabilia was acquired.  We then went through the equivalent of a Super-Walmart and headed to the grocery section to have me pick up some snacks for the hotel.  It is there that it really hit me…  This mall, just one of many huge and brand new malls in Dalian, are of a caliber that we just do not see any more in the US.  It is actually beginning to remind me of Singapore – things are brand new, surprisingly high quality, with an excitement and energy in the air that we are simply lacking back home – sorry all – you just have to see this place to really believe it.  Sure, the majority of the city is not this nice, but that is true of most places in the world.  The point is, there is a fabulous wealth growing in this city – and, of course the country.  What I see here is a hunger in everyone to do their best knowing there is a personal reward for doing so – weather it be wealth and even health.  While the young dominate the mall scene, the older are out in huge numbers exercising, almost constantly – either walking up the hiking trail that I tackled over the weekend, or swimming in the sea at sunrise outside my hotel – this place is not for the sedentary.  I am noticing the large numbers of high end cars – not just high end car dealers – the marina full of yachts, the expensive condos going up everywhere.  Anyway, I picked up some dried fruit, and some almond snacks and left the gleaming mall to take a taxi back to the hotel.

One out of place note with regards to exercise that I must mention…  With the large number of old folks out and about exercising, I noticed an interesting thing; that is, I fairly regularly see the over 60 group on walking trails doing something peculiar – walking BACKWARDS.  Strange, but true, it seems that they are attempting to preserve their body by walking backwards to wear different parts.  Weird.