A Three Hour Cruise

YANGTSE RIVER













Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip.
That started from a Chinese port,
aboard a tiny ship.





Brett was a queasy sailing man,
Nonie brave but not so sure.
205 passengers set sail that day,
for an eighty- three hour tour.
An eighty- three hour tour.

The weather started getting hot,
the tiny ship was roasty.
If not for the expensive lounge beer ,
the Cornell’s would be toasty,
the Cornell’s would be toasty.





The ship took ground on the edge of this
large and massive dam,
with Chinese, and some Danes too,
A German, and his frau,
Two German babes,
Whose names we can’t remember,
here at the Three Gorges Dam.









So this is the tale of our cruise,
we're here for a long, long time.
We'll have to make the best of things;
the five locks are an uphill climb.











The first excursion was a temple
but so unlike the rest.
It was dedicated to ghosts and devils
but the statues were the best.








Excursion 2 left us up a creek,
each Chinese had an oar.
Watching them paddle
made our muscles sore.





So join us here each week, my friend,
and read about our trip.
There will be more adventures,
once we get off this DAM ship

Beijing Beiby

Hello to all our faithful readers. All two of you. We have finally gotten beyond the Great Fire Wall of China and now have regular access to our blog and face book. So over the next few weeks we will catch you both up on our new adventures.

The first stop on our exit from China was the big, beautiful and busy Beijing. With 19,000,000 people crammed into it's ever expanding borders, it has become a very, very, very, very, very busy place and that sadly, will be it's downfall. It is too busy. No matter where we went, there were lines, jam and crowds. We did experience a couple of blue sky days that appear so infrequent in Beijing. Nonie and I took this exact same picture from the exact same spot in 2003 except that then we could barely see the Forbidden City because the smog was so thick. On the positive side, we did not have to line up to take the picture in 2003. I swear, there were so many tourists on that hill that it must have shrunk a couple of metres. ( 6 feet for our American readers)

Sadly the smog, crowds and heat increased with each day of our stay. It hit a high 0f 36 with a nasty humidex reading on the day we visited the Summer Palace. As you can see in the picture, the smog was back. The Summer Palace is our favorite place to visit in Beijing. All you need to do is find the nearest hill, climb the stairs to where ever and you escape the crowds and the noise. The Chinese seem to hate stairs and prefer to stay grounded and near the huge man made lake that inhabits a good part of the Summer Palace grounds. It was a lovely day until we tried to board the subway back to downtown. I believe that it will not be long before they start using pushers on the trains to ensure that every square meter (9 square feet for our American readers) of the subway car is filled to maximum. Tip to those of you planning on using the subway, try to find a spot just inside the doors as that is where the ventilation fans blow and if you are really lucky the air conditioning will also be working.


We were able to enjoy one last meal with Edoardo and Karen, along with Big Terry. As I reviewed our pictures for this blog, I realized that we did not take any pictures of what was a lovely feast of Chuanr (pronounced shwar) in a houtong (pronounced hootoong) near their new apartment. It was a steamy evening made much nicer with copious bottles of Hopi and good conversation. Karen and Edoardo seem to fit so neatly into the Beijing life style. To quote them and Big Terry, "Beijing is best lived at night. The darkness hides so much of the ugliness and brings out much of the beauty that is Beijing." Sadly Nonie and I are day people and we missed much of what Beijing had to offer. Perhaps next time but right now we are ready to leave.

A quick contest for our regular readers. FIND MAO! Count the number of Mao's you can find in the above picture and send us your answer. Only one guess per reader. We are looking forward to gettin outta Beijing.

FRAUD EXPOSED

IMPORTANT NOTICE

We here at Blogspot.com are very vigilant in assuring that our bloggers are kept to a very high standard and when we discover that one of our bloggers has perpetrated deceit and fraud on our valued family of readers, we feel that it is incumbent on us to expose the fraud and to set the record straight. (Ed. Note. Excuse the run on sentence)






It seems that brettandnonie have claimed in several past blogs that they have visited Africa, specifically a safari on the Serengeti. Based on our research and some judicious hacking into brettandnonie's computer, we have discovered the following. In fact they were never in Africa. All their pictures were posed, edited and photo shopped from a visit they made to the Beijing Zoo. We apologize to our readers and rest assured that we will be watching future blogs written by brettandnonie and they will be scrutinized with the utmost care. Should they be found to be again fabricating spurious stories, they will severely dealt with.

A Few Last GOTCHAs

Gottcha 1

It has been a tradition with Nonie and I that we do what ever it takes to surprise each other with a party on our significant birthdays. This year Nonie will celebrate a significant birthday but as a gentleman, I would never consider divulging her age. Let's just say that when we return to Canada, she will be eligible for some serious discounts, special menus and dedicated seats on the bus. Chaching!

Well, mission accomplished last night. With the help of Doctor J and Mr. President we got the apartment decked out while branson and Vicky kept Nonie busy at yoga. For my regular readers, you will remember that Chinese birthday cakes are all show and no go, so a fabulous carrot cake was ordered from Hamamma's, thanks to Brian and branson. I cleaned out the campus supermarket of birthday candles and a fire extinguisher.

Gottcha 2
Planning for our exit from China this year included an itinerary that would have Nonie wake up on her birthday in a Tibetan monastery at the base of Mount Everest. Sadly, Big Brother has decided to close Tibet for the month of July. No official reason, but this year is the 90th anniversary of the CP and they are concerned of civil unrest so don't want any foreigners witnessing it. Left a big hole in our itinerary but China has no shortage of beautiful places to visit. More on this later.

This will be my last entry from Harbin. The next five days are filled up with lunches and dinners, saying goodbyes and lots of tears. I had planned to write something eloquent about our thoughts and feelings as our time here winds down. But I find myself struggling and its is difficult to find the words to express them. There are too many emotions swirling around to make sense of them now. I think that I will wait till we are back in Penticton and time has dulled and perhaps clarified our feelings.

We leave Harbin next Wednesday for a week in Beijing and area. We need the time to apply for a tourist visa to India. We will leave Beijing for a five day cruise on the Yang Tse. then for the next 10 days we will explore the western parts of China. We will cuddle some pandas, visit way to many monasteries and spend a day or two in Shangri La. Nonie will wake up on her birthday in Kunming, Yunnan, China. Due to the closure of Tibet,we will fly to Kathmandu and spend three days on a trek in the mountains, hopefully getting a view of Mount Everest. A few days to relax in Kathmandu before flying to Delhi and a six day drive by tour of Northern India. We fly into Montreal, meet up with our grandchildren and spend a week in Mount Tremblant. We will be landing back in Penticton on August 25 just in time for Ironman.

Busted and Busted

Irina's birthday celebration didn't go exactly as planned, but what else is new in China? Busted by the campus pigs. Oops, sorry,that was a 70's flashback, the campus security police. It seems that the use of a barbecue on the grounds of HIT is verboten. We played the dumb foreigner card and managed to quickly cook most of the Shashliks before he returned to check on us.

Shashlik is the Russian version of Chuanr (Pronounced chwar not shwar) with some delicious twists. First, the chunks of meat are much bigger and much leaner than Chuanr. (Pronounced chwar not shwar) It is then marinated for 24 hours in a lovely garlicy sauce and eaten hot off the grill. Thanks to Irina, who hosted her own party and spent hours preparing the shashlik and assorted salads.

It didn't go eggactly as planned. There were some eggstenuating circumstances that made it eggstremely difficult to eggsplain but the 1st annual Egg Drop contest went off with a very small group of participants. It is eggspected that someone will hatch another contest next year. The participants were challenged to create an egg transportation device that would survive an eggstreme 5 story relocation leaving the egg available for sunny side up and not scrambled.

Five participants entered the contest, some spending minutes preparing their egg relocation devices. Our own Nonie, spending about 15 minutes in total, creating her eggstravigant egg mover was the only participant who's egg survived the five storey relocation. Sadly, she did not read the fine print on the entry form which prohibits family and employees of the contest organizer from winning the contest.

With the most time put in, almost five hours to create and 1 second to relocate, the Eggscaliber while clearly the most intricate of the transportation pods was unable to safely transport it's egg. Three crush zones, handmade confetti and an egg cushion module failed to protect the egg when the pod landed on it's side and not on the end as planned. The yolk was on me.

Our overall winner was Doctor J thanks to her simple yet eqqsquisite design of plastic bags which she used to gently float her egg to the ground. Only a slight yaw at the end saw her egg break. The egg stuffed inside a roll of toiletpaper with wings took Irina to the best design prize with her egg breaking when it squirted out of it protective cocoon on landing. Even the Chairman was happy with the results. A lunch of various egg dishes saw us close out this year's competition. Congratulations to all the participants.

The Art of Chuanr

What if I said to you, "Hey, lets go out for a feed of spicy, barbecued, fatty, meaty bits, shoved on a stick?" I suspect that you would be searching quickly for any excuse why you couldn't join us. But if I said "Hey, lets go out for some barbecued Chuanr" (pronounced shwar), I am sure you would jump at the chance to sample an exotic and mysterious Asian dish. Chuanr (pronounced shwar) is one of those dishes that you don't really want to know what it is, just know that it is very tasty.

Chuanr can be cooked anywhere, which is why you can find Chuanr (pronounced shwar) restaurants on any street. A Chinese barbecue is typically a long metal trough that is filled with the dirtiest charcoal you can buy. If you are at all concerned by the cancer causing issues around barbecuing food, then Chuanr is not for you. The smoke that pours from these barbecues is a major source of summer pollution. It is the epitome of the term "street food"

A typical Chaunr (pronounced shwar) restaurant consists of a sidewalk, a barbecue, small tables, stools and access to beer which makes a Chuanr (pronounced shwar) restaurant with access to a bathroom a definite plus especially for those of us in our senior years. Eating Chuanr (pronounced shwar) is a leisurely process with lots of time to socialize, drink beer and watch the world go by or in some cases, through the restaurant.

Is Chuanr (pronounced shwar) popular? Well, if I could corner the sharp, pointy stick market in China, I could fund a small country. Chuanr (pronounced shwar) is Chinese Islamic cuisine introduced by the Uyghur people. If you think about it, just about every culture has some kind of pointy stick with meat shoved on it in their culinary repertoire. Shashlik, kabab, souvlaki, shiskabab and kebabi to name just a few.

Some of our fondest memories that we will take away from China will be the warm summer nights sitting around the Chuanr (pronounced shwar) table with greasy fingers and good friends. You know who you are. We are now just over two weeks away from leaving Harbin for new adventures. Stay tuned.

A Feast of Festivals and Ping Pong Too

Seems like a bit of a cliche to travel almost five thousand miles to China just to play ping pong. But ping pong diplomacy was once again the order of the day. No Richard Nixon this time but Brian, our own Mr. President stood in for him as well as capturing the C event. No diplomatic incidents and the third almost annual HIT ping pong tournament went off without a hitch. Once again we were a multi-national group with the Russians and Iranians dominating both in numbers as well as placing first and second in the A event.

As proud Canadians, it was our pleasure to host a Victoria Day bash for all our foreign friends. All came with most not caring what the reason was, they just came for Nonie's baked goods. Games of Pin the Crown on the Monarch and That's Definitely Not Cricket kept the gala from going gaga or perhaps it was the Chinese Stout I managed to find in the grocery store.

Next up in the festival lineup was Dragon Boat Festival. All Chinese Festivals have a back story and the Dragon Boat Festival has the best one I think. As the story goes, the festival commemorates the life of Qu Yuan who was a wise and erudite (Their words not mine) official in the court of Emperor Huai. His stand against corruption and bureaucracy angered others in the court. They poisoned the Emperor against him and he was eventually exiled. He witnessed the failing of his country and when he heard that it had been conquered by another warring state he become so despaired (Their word not mine) that he threw himself into the river Miluo and drowned. Fishermen rushed to the scene but were unable to find the body. To prevent the fish from eating his body the fishermen threw zongzi, eggs and other food into river. Zongzi is made with glutinous rice and wrapped in a banana leaf. It can also include meat, dates, eggs and other fillings. It is given as gifts to friends, family and colleagues much like moon cakes.

Celebrating Dragon Festival involves staying up all night and then watching the races that start at 5:00 am, or so we were led to believe. Lined up on the rail ready to go at 5:00 we discovered that the races would start at 7:00 and precisely at 7:30 the first boat arrived then over the next 30 minutes saw another handful of boats arrive. Nonie provided an ongoing commentary as she had raced dragon boats for three years. And that was that. Thankfully Nonie and I found a hotel down by the Songhua and managed to fit in a few hours of sleep between the pre-race dinner and the race itself.

It has been our goal to introduce "Brunch" to as many Asian and Middle Eastern cultures as possible because as a meal, it does not exist in their cultures. . We manage to fit in a brunch introduction with our Iraqi neighbours in May. They enjoyed pancakes with maple syrup along with a batch of Nonie's Wife Saver an egg and bread dish covered in corn flakes. Tastes better than it sounds. What we have discovered in these attempts is that every culture has a pancake like food that sounds like it could be covered in maple syrup. Maple syrup, don't leave home without.