China 2017: 2 - Air travel from hell

      I wouldn't want anyone to imagine that travel means just sunny days sipping Margaritas under low-slung palms and soft breezes with sussurating reefs and aquamarine breakers gently nipping at your toes. Nah and no, travel can be gritty and arduous. Listen . . .

     Travel arrangements to Xi'an did not go smoothly. We thought an hour would be enough for check in at Okayama Airport (to avoid getting up at the crack of dawn), but there was a long security line for two flights leaving around the same time in the early morning. We had no check in baggage but had to go through two security checks anyhow. By the time we finally got through the second security check all the other passengers had boarded so we were the last ones to board, or almost the last, departure was delayed to await one more passenger. Take off was through a low heavy cloud ceiling but smooth enough. Have you ever noticed how all your senses are hyper alert on take offs and landings--listening for unusual sounds from the engines and sensing banking turns and little turbulence bumps that deviate from the smoothness of the ascent or descent?

THE AIRPORT

Pudong Airport Immigration 

       The weather for landing at Shanghai's Pudong Airport was the same heavy cloud and low ceiling so that the ground only became visible near the actual touch down. The immigration line at Pudong was horrendous and we didn't have much time to spare for transit to the flight to Xi-an. By the time we finally got through immigration and reached the boarding gate it was already closed so that we missed the flight.

      Our travel agent had said there was no other flight to Xi'an that day. Anxiously wondering what to do we retraced our steps to the China Eastern Airlines check in counter and explained what had happened. Fortunately they were able to schedule another flight for two hours later (the travel agent had happily been wrong). I emailed the hotel from the airport and asked them to change our pick up for the new arrival time and our driver was waiting at the Xi-an Airport thanks to the efficiency of the Aurum Hotel staff. Yay staff!

THE DRIVE, IN


      The drive, in from the airport, was tedious and morbidly interesting in that it was so unsightly with smoggy skies, smoking factory chimneys and endless depressing looking rows of high rise apartment blocks—a hazy grayish brown color predominating.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Beautifully preserved and maintained wall of Ancient Xi'an lit up in the evening

     Soon after transiting the dreary burbs, however, the city wall of Ancient Xi'an came into view at dusk and, once through the looking glass, the scene was transformed by red lanterns gaily lining the streets until we reached our hotel. 



DAY IS DONE

     After a rather stressful day (beyond the normal stress of air travel) we were pretty wasted and our hotel room looked very inviting (except for the view) so we stayed in had an interesting hot pot dinner in the hotel restaurant, crashed early and woke up with heavy heads--not particularly surprising under the circumstances.

the view

China 2017: 1 - Between Xi'an and Yangshuo

our travel route 

the Bell Tower in Xi'an's walled city

     Having enjoyed traveling in the Chinese Province of Yunnan last year, Road Buddy and I decided to give China another chance to host, dazzle and entertain us again this year. We planned to travel from the Ancient Capital of Xi'an in Shaanxi Province, famous for the Terra Cotta Warriors discovered by a farmer in the 1970s, to the world famous terrain of the karst mountain formation along the Li Jiang river between Guilin and Yangshuo in Guangxi Province. We planned to stop in Wulingyuan National Scenic Park, Hunan Province (the geology of which inspired the floating Hallelujah Mountains in the James Cameron film Avatar); the Ancient Town of Fenghuang, Xiangxi Province; the Ethnic Dong Village in Sanjiang, Guangxi; Guilin and Yangshuo in the karst mountain area of Guangxi.

Li Jiang (Li River) and karst mountains

        The travel was more difficult than we had anticipated after the relatively easy experience we had in Yunnan Province last year and the weather was basically various shades of gray with intermittent days of rain and showers—it even snowed in Xi'an adding a extra shimmer to the old buildings and landscape gardens. A glimpse of a rare patch of blue sky and a ray of sunshine was cause for celebration, but, oddly enough, the weather grew on us and I actually began to like it. For one thing it added an aura of mystery to the karst mountains shrouded in fog at times or draped in white clouds in the valleys that gave added definition to the peaks that looked like goose bumps on the earth or maybe crazy mushrooms.

        In well known places like Xi'an and Guilin/Yangshuo that host foreign (read Western) tourists English is spoken well enough to make it fairly easy to travel and stay there. However, once off the beaten path where relatively few foreign tourists yet go, English is practically non-existent or rudimentary at best. This makes travel difficult since communication is essential for finding places to stay, eat, make travel arrangements, etc. One is reduced to the most basic of communication tools—facial expression and body gestures—that actually work with varying degrees of efficiency, or sometimes have to be abandoned as hopeless. For example, when we stopped at a roadside restaurant I asked the proprietress for a toilet, but she didn't understand the word. The only thing I could think to do was mime taking a leak and she caught on immediately and laughed uproariously. Then she showed me where a pubic toilet across the road was located. An interesting thing in this age of technology is that many Chinese have smart phones that can do translation, dicey translations at best, but that proved to be a big help in getting things done in the hinterlands.

a family on the boat to Yangshuo

       Nevertheless, we survived inclement weather and communication difficulties and I have some tales to tell and photographs to show; and that, after all, is what travel is all about—taking you out of the ordinary and having some extraordinary experiences—and, by the way, testing your mettle and unplugging from the sound and fury of a world in extraordinary turmoil. Because, on the most basic of levels, ordinary people are involved in the very ordinary business of living their lives as best they can—something I think we can easily forget when plugged in to the seemingly non-stop controversies of the day.

        Xi'an, the ancient capital of the “First Emperor” Qin Shi Huang 秦始皇, was the first stop on our Winter 2017 travels in China.

The Great Firewall of China

     I will be travelling in China for a few weeks. Certain websites are blocked behind the "great firewall" in China, such us Google, Facebook and many others. Blogger is also blocked so I won't be able to blog here while in China. I hope to have some good photos and interesting stories to post on Noilly Prattle around April. Hope you see you then.

our itinerary

Winter Afternoon

      I took my camera on an afternoon walk in the neighborhood and shot at random and then played with the results as the serendipity moved me. 

      Not a bad way to chase away cabin fever. 

Bright Valley

Russet Ridge

Golden Valley

Plastic Narcissus

Bamboo Wall

Street

Snow Bank Coming

This is the one I want.

A House Divided

The View from the Dark Side

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 86% of Americans think that the United States is more politically divided than it has ever been. 

The atmosphere surrounding the election and inauguration of Donald Trump justifies that depressing assessment and foreshadows continuing and unending disarray is the body politic of the nation. The question arises not only how the day to day operations of a government can be conducted under the nearly obsessive demonstrations--with no apparent constructive goal--against the administration, but, more to the point, how any nation can exist as a rational entity with such enmity among its citizens.

The specter of a house divided against itself arises in the acrimonious slogans and insults hurled across the ideological divide. The one-time peace advocating liberals, seeking revenge for the defeat of their own flawed candidate, thirst for blood—some even hoping for an assassination. 

Conservatives, gloating in the “victory” of their flawed candidate, taunt the losers to “get over it”. Liberal progressives who supposedly support divergence and tolerance post a smutty photo of two naked women in an embrace, one of whom is identified as Melania Trump. Harley Davidson bikers gather on the Mall in support of Trump and vow to take law and order into their own hands if necessary. Probably the lowest smears are against a 10-year old boy who happens to be the Trump’s youngest son. One Hollywood celebrity purports to have video evidence that Barron Trump has ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and a SNL comedy writer quips that Barron would be the “first homeschooled shooter” although he goes to a private school, and so on ad nauseam.

It is a dilemma as old as history; societies corrupted from within implode as a result of their own corruption. The expression “a house divided” is at least as old as the bible. It appears in the Gospel of Matthew: “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto him. Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”

Photo of Lincoln by Abraham Byers

Thomas Hobbes said that “a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand” in 1651 in his Leviathan. In 1776 in Common Sense, Thomas Paine said in relation to the Monarchy: “this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself . . . “

Abraham Lincoln used the expression in an 1843 speech accepting his nomination for United States Senator by the Illinois Republican Party. Lincoln’s “house divided” referred to the free and slave States. He said the Nation could not remain divided but would become all one thing or the other—all free or all slave States. He would then fight a bloody civil war to ensure that it not remain ”a house divided against itself”. But today, once again, our house is divided against itself.

Are we going to need another civil war?