Christmas, Mt Humphreys, Birmingham, Boston

Had a bunch of great Christmases – drove home to Birmingham from Chicago, stopped by South Bend to pick up my 92 year old Grandma, she’s great.  We had a nice time chatting and sharing a meal on the drive to my folks place.  Great time there as well with my sister, her husband, and my two awesome little nieces, Brooke and Courtney - so much fun!  9 months and 2 yrs old, the 2-yr-old is great, running around, having a great time, talking.  Bright red hair.  They took off and it was just my folks and Grandma and I, Lisa went home to Boston for the week.  Went to a beautiful presbyterian church celebration where my 92-yr-old Grandfather still plays the caralon on Christmas Eve – amazing man.  And his wife, my Grammie was there as well.  At the end of the service they shut the lights off and everybody has a candle and flame is passed from one to the next, very cool as the place slowly lights up with a warm glow.  Then I headed back to chicago for a day or so, then hopped a plane to Boston for another terrific Christmas with Lisa’s family and aunt and uncle and cousins – 8-yr-old twin boys – how fun and crazy they are, what a great time that was.  I feel like I am stressing ages in this post for wahtever reason.  Had a nice time at their house.  They are very much into food and have a Christmas tradition I really like – lobsters and tater tots!  Yum yum.  And a bunch of other delicious meals, as usual.  They know how to eat.

I head to Arizona for a conference in a couple weeks – will stay an extra day or so and attempt to summit Mt. Humphreys, the tallest mountain in Arizona at about 13,600 feet.  It will actually be a pretty serious undertaking.  Lots of snow.  It shut me down last year as I climbed the wrong peak in the snowstorm that prevailed – Mt. Agassiz, which shares a a saddle with humphreys.  Terrific beautiful and refreshing day despite the mishap – which was also due to extremely deep snow, which was very difficult going – forcing me onto the groomed ski slopes.  My friend Jeff will be joining me this year so we’ll have two to break trail through the thigh-deep snow.  We’ll see how it goes.  3500 feet of elevation gain.  Half the fun of an adventure trip is the planning of it and I’ve spent the better part of tonight doing research and printing out topographic maps and reading trip reports.  Figuring out what gear we’ll need.  I don’t think crampons but probably snowshoes.

China thoughts, Beijing Chicago comparison

Got back tonight from Beijing.  Flew over the north pole and took only 12 hours or so, got three seats to myself  so was able to sleep – which was good except now it’s 3 am and I’m wide awake.  Landed at 4:30 and made it home and to a dinner at the Ritz by 6:15, just a few minutes late, what a schedule.

Walking around Chicago tonight, I had the impression that it’s a bit slow and sleepy – how funny is that?   Coming from the action of Beijing, that’s how I felt.  Very interesting.  I didn’t like China the first time I went and I didn’t like it at the beginning of this trip but near the end began to really get into it.  I don’t like that the people are standoffish, and are not too interested in speaking with you or helping you out if you are lost.  I found they don’t really help one another out either as strangers as I watched a taxi driver of mine ask around and get ignored by several passerby.  But it was so action packed and once you did find some nice people, they were great – also a huge impact is when you make even a small attempt at speaking Mandarin to them – they light up and smile – and then jabber away unintelligably (to me anyways) and are much more engaging.  The Forbidden City was spectacular as the largest palace in the world.  Also the many winding tight alleys called “Hutongs” throughout Beijing were very cool – all with open shops selling about anything you could want, the oldest around 900 years.  Yummy street food being cooked before your eyes, meat that’s been sitting out for days it seems.  Then you walk out of those onto a street with the most modern of buses and cars, Mercedes, jeeps, bikes, rickshaws, and skyscrapers and traffic and people, it a crazy culture and contrast.  Lots of new buildings going up – but many Hutongs being destroyed.  China is making a point of breaking with its past it seems, and coming into the world a strong modern power.  It’s interesting that the government owns all the property, not good for the many poor folks that get booted out when a new building goes up, but great for progress.

I went out one night to the bars section of town – they have paid karaoke people singing at most every place, so semi-live entertainment.  Pretty fun, pretty different.  In the Sanlitun area I went you get accosted every 3 steps for “ladies”.  Similar to Thailand.  Apparently there is a more chilled out area I tried to go to but with the lack of communication my cabbie took me to Sanlitun as he made drinking motions the whole ride there.

I had a delicious Peking duck dinner last night at a very fancy restaurant specializing in it – I’ll post my videos later.  They restaurant had at least four floors of diners – and huge rooms on each, all packed with patrons.  The duck was yum.

The Chinese in Beijing seemed more alive and vibrant than the ones in Shenyang.  In Shenyang there was next to nothing to do, and the people seemed sullen.  Plus the air was exhaust-smelling all the time, everywhere.  Beijing was great by comparison, though still polluted.  Not near as bad though.  I was struck by the modernity of Beijing – big wide avenues, three and four lanes wide, highways, the works.

It will be interesting tomorrow going downtown chicago – lots of white faces will be different I’m sure, I’m used to ebing in a sea of asians.  In Shenyang I don’t think I saw more than a handful of other white faces in the week I was there.  Beijing there were a bunch at the hostel and walking around.

The Great Wall was amazing.  I did a 10k hike on it with a big group.  So incredible, snaking up and down these mountain sides.  What a piece of work.  The funny thing is apparently it was never all that effective at keeping the Mongolians and others out.  The Mongolians would just bribe a guard or two, and they’d let them through.

China day 5

Been hanging out and working over in Shenyang (Shay-young), a very industrial city.  We’v ebeen trading stocks on the US exchanges so we stay up all night and sleep during the day.  Today we got up early and went to “dinner” at 8 though it was really breakfast for us.  Saw a couple’s first hoe yesterday, nice tiling and cost about 50k US, was about 30 minutes from town.  WEgot to see some shacks too, though nothing too ugle.  Lots of rubble and new buildings going up.  Many skyscrapers have all sorts of neon on them, it’s similar to Las Vegas in a way, not as much, but it’s funny to see.  People aren’t super friendly but once you break through they are great.  A little stnadoffish and not interested in helping strangers is my impression.   I haven’t seen more than a handful of other white folks in a week.  We really don’t draw much attention, especially relative to what happens in Africa or India where they openly stare.  Have had some good food hot pot today, noodles last night – or yesterday rather.  Head to Beijing after the market closes, tomorrow morning.  Having fun, great to spend time with my buddy Ty.  And fun to teach the Chinese about trading.  500+ people in the company trading stocks, making great money.  Especially by Chinese standards.

China! Shenyang, poor air, neon buildings

I’m in China!  How crazy is that?  Working (not really – more hanging out with my buddy) at a trading firm my friend works for – they offered to fly me over to check it out and I couldn’t say no.  It’s pretty cool – these guys and girls trade all night long, they trade the US market hours.  It’s cool to see – probably 400 kids banging away on the keyboards, making money.  And lots of it by their standards.  Cool business model and good for everybody.

One thing that struck me was the air after stepping outside the airport in Shenyang (an hour flight north of Beijing).  It smelled like an exhaust pipe.  And that hasn’t changed much so far on the trip.  And my room is an ashtray it seems, in a pretty nice hotel.

Another impression was the tons of neon lights on the big buildings – it was very reminiscent of Las Vegas but no centralized strip – it’s like the government paid for it or made a law or something.  And the buildings go on and on – 7 million people here and nobody’s heard of it.  Pronounced “Shay-young”.  Ty says six months ago the skyline was dark at night.  Now it is very active and colorful, rainbows appearing to run down the corners and faces of buildings, huge video screens, giant glowing blue and green circles on the facades of buildings.  Like nothing I’ve seen.  And contrasted with small run-down filthly buildings.  A layer of soot is on everything.   This is a very industrial city they tell me, and I believe it.  Took 21 hours of travel to get here.  Enjoyed a massage and haircut at the airport in Beijing during our layover.  I’m a bit tired.