Happy Holidays!
Slow Train To Spain
Well, it was time for me to once again get out of town and start some traveling! I hadn’t been to Spain since the springtime, so I had my sights set on a trip there.
I decided that on the way, I’d visit my daughter (and her husband) in Wilmington, Delaware, and also my brother in New Jersey.
I had some Amtrak rail-travel credits burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to go by train. The distances were long, and American trains are excruciatingly slow, quite unlike the high-speed options in Spain and China. So, to get from Denver to Wilmington (through Chicago and Washington, D.C.) would take three days! Well, off I go!
First it was the bus, then Denver’s “light rail” to get to “Union Station”, which was all decked out for the holidays, and buzzing with activity!
The train was late. Ah Amtrak, SLOW *and* LATE!
So, I had a beer and some fries to kill time and take the edge off my hunger.
The train finally arrived, so it was time to board the clunky, vintage (out of date) double-decker coaches.
I had a sleeper-compartment, so that meant I would travel in the lap of luxury! Well, sort of… the “roomette” is a bit cramped, but at least it is private space. And traveling in a sleeper, all meals are included! Hello dining car!
Of course, since I had snacked at the station, I did not have much of an appetite, so I just ate a salad, and half a dessert.
Th next morning, we were traversing the great plains. One of my favorite spots along the Denver-Chicago route is crossing the Mississippi River! Many years ago, we used to see Bald Eagles along the river, but not recently, and not this trip.
Eventually we arrived in Chicago’s Union Station. The train platforms are dark, cramped, and smell of diesel fumes. Pretty hellish.
Please, let me out of here and get me to the remodeled magnificence of the public areas of the station!
Well, the “Great Hall” did have some nice holiday displays, but Chicago’s station has none of the vibrancy of Denver’s remodeled station. Basically it was new walls, new paint, and no new features.
Time to brave the cold and walks the nearby downtown Chicago streets!
Outside, the weather was actually pleasant! Every other time Rhonda and I stopped over in Chicago, there were freezing cold winds and often snow. I had looked forward to visiting the showroom of the “Paragon Book Gallery”, a specialty book seller that I used to go to in New York City with my Dad. It carries a vast stock of obscure books related to Asia. But alas, I had contacted them ahead of time, and they do not currently have any physical store-front, doing all their business online while they keep their eyes out for some suitable retail location. Next time!
As I lazily wandered the streets I did pass a few nice restaurants. When I saw a Potbelly sandwich shop, (which I love) I considered picking up a sandwich “to go” that I could eat on the train. But why? As a sleeping car passenger, all the fancy dinner options on the dining care are available at not extra cost!
So I returned to the lounge and waited until it was time to board my next train, heading to Washington D.C.
OK, mega-fail! Some background. America is doing its darnedest to kill off the few remaining long distance train routes, and push all travel to heavily polluting aircraft, and heavily polluting private cars plying the highways. So far, try as Amtrak may to make riding the train a disagreeable experience, people still ride the rails. So, in a more recent move, they have started eliminating kitchens for the dining cars. Now all passengers except those in sleeping cars are banned from the dining car. And rather than cooked food, they offer some crappy TV-dinners. To go along with this new experience, they hand you the new “Flexible Dining Menu”. The dining room staff, in an effort to not be ejected from the moving train by passengers, did offer a free beer along with “supper”. Well, the beer was good, the food terrible. Bummer! I really wished I had known ahead of time and picked up a sandwich in Chicago!
And no more pancakes, waffles, eggs etc for breakfast. Now you choose which boxed cereal you want. Well, the banana was real. The coffee? None available. I had to go back to my sleeper car and bring some from there.
Ah! Washington, D.C.! My birthplace! I was able to check my bags and wander a bit. Union Station… the Capitol building…
I decided to head to the White House to see what was shakin’
Machine gun toting cops (don’t dare take their photos!) were keeping the protesting crazies at bay.
Well, this is America. The tens of millions of people who are disgusted by the actions of the occupant of the White House, (who sneaked in the back door with three million votes less than his opponent), just spend their time jogging, staring at sitcoms on the boob-tube, watching sports, and (mostly) sleeping.
From Washington I took the Northeast Regional to Wilmington, Delaware, where Andrea, Jimmy, and Rhonda picked me up at the station. (Rhonda did not come on the train, opting to travel to the east by plane)
Andrea and Jimmy had moved into a new house since I last visited them. Nice place. We spent the first evening listening to Jimmy’s records. Yep, records… those vinyl disks. Remember them? Heard your grandpa mention them? ha ha.
From Wilmington, I next took a train to Trenton (Capital of New Jersey), where my brother picked me up and drove me back to his house in Pennington. We had a great weekend, starting with a few slices of pizza at “Beniamino’s” in the Montgomery Shopping Center. This is the new incarnation of pizza at the old “Rudolfo’s” which I adored. They told me that the guy who last ran Rudolfo’s, who since moved back to Italy, does stop by when he is in town.
Chris and I had a great time driving around New Jersey, then Pennsylvania, then New Jersey again. Lots of memories from our youth! We even got near the site of an old Boy Scout camp that our parents packed us off to a few years during the summer.
When the day came from my flight to Spain I took the train up to Newark Airport. Good lord! the terminal was out of control. Everything there seemed to require interaction with one of the thousands of fixed tablet devices positioned *everywhere*. You couldn’t order food at a restaurant by just telling a waiter/ess what you wanted. You had to negotiate an inane set of screens. I couldn’t figure it out Neither could anyone around me. So staff and to press the screen selections for everyone. And then, in the end, it disconnected the humans who worked there from the customers. Every person around me (and including me) ended up with a problem with the order and the “customer service” ended up horrible, because the “computer” was the waiter, not the person.
Out of control technology. “Fixing” a system what was not broken, and in the end, breaking it.
Then, on to Spain!
Prudence / Paranoia
It’s that time again. Soon I will head out “on the road”. This time (yet another) trip to Spain. In transit, I will be away from home, and face the constant challenge of keeping electronic devices including my mobile phone and tablet charged. Often that means plugging a charging device into an electrical outlet (“mains” to you Brits). But sometimes, the convenient place to charge is at a public charging station that provides a “USB” socket for a charging cable.
OK, although I think of myself as “prudent”, others characterize me as a raving paranoid! Let’s just say that safety is a good policy. There have been reports of public charging stations that take advantage of travelers plugging in cell phones etc,. will use that opportunity to either steal data from the device, delete files, or plant malicious files on the phone. After all, that USB cable you use to charge your phone is the same cable you can use to transfer data back and forth between your mobile phone and your computer.
When we read stories like that, there is always a bit of doubt as to whether the reports of data theft are real, or just an excuse to sell a solution to the “problem”.
I have a fair amount of experience with USB charging/data cables from my work on the ESL-Kiosk project. I knew that USB cables involve four wires: two that transmit power and two that transmit data. I had experienced difficulties as I did intensive market research to find suitable cost-effective (cheap!) MP3 players for the classroom. Sometimes cheap USB cables used only two rather than four wires. This made them usable for charging but not file transfers.
Armed with that knowledge, I thought that somebody must make a simple USB dongle that blocks transmission of the data signals from one end to the other. Easy-peasy! (and obviously very cheap to make).
Well, indeed such devices are available. On Amazon, they sell for $7 – $20!! Hardly cheap!!
OK, full disclosure, Amazon is usually NOT the cheapest source for consumer goods. I did check eBay and Aliexpress, where I found devices for as little as $3. But, procrastination leaves me without the option of waiting a couple weeks to a month to receive something from Aliexpress!
As I pondered my (paranoid) dilemma, I glanced over at my bookcase and noticed a couple of (cheap!) short USB extension cables. I have no memory of what possessed me to ever buy uselessly short “extension” cables. But, there was my answer!
I grabbed a couple nearby tools… (Don’t try this at home folks!)
Making a careful, sort incision (slicing open!) in the middle of the cable, I examined the wires. Black, white, yellow and red. Well, it was reasonable to guess that the black and red wires carried power. So I boldly clipped the white and yellow ones.
I tested connecting my phone to my computer. Using a regular USB cable, a message appeared on the screen to allow the option of just charging, or performing data transfer. I then plugged my homemade safety-cable into the charger and my normal cable from it to my phone. It charged, and did NOT offer to transfer data!
OK, one small detail about the USB standard is that normally it will not “charge” at more than one half amp. By “shorting” each exposed white-yellow pair, more current is allowed to pass.
All done, a bit of black electrical tape to cover the wound in the cable, and I am ready to rock and roll!!
Afterword: The less paranoid out there will point out that my phone did provide protection. It *asked my approval* before changing from charging to data-transfer mode. Most devices do that. So in the end, I suppose I spent a bunch of time in a useless exercise in paranoia. Well, I enjoyed it! 😉
Shanghai
Pudong-
Shanghai Tower
At 632 meters of height (2,073 ft), the Shanghai tower is the tallest building in China and the second tallest in the world (as of 2019). The public observation deck is on the 118th floor and it was exciting to be on the world’s second fastest elevator, with my ears popping while we ascended!
Maglev Airport Rail Link
China chose the German company Siemens to build a 30 kilometer “demonstration” maglev railway line that terminates at the Pudong airport in Shanghai. The technology is impressive, and the train is rated to go as fast as 430 km/hr. As a demonstration implementation, it only runs at this high speed for a while each morning. I took the conventional metro line to the airport and then rode the maglev line back as far as it went, completing my journey on the metro again. I rode in the afternoon, at “only” 300 km/hr. It was still and exciting and different sort of experience!
The ride was smooth and it was a bit exciting the way the line “banked” into curves!
Out and about
Based on various travel guidebooks i consulted, the shopping area adjacent to Yu Gardens seemed like a must-go attraction. The gardens themselves were closed due to some remodeling activity underway, so I went straight to the shopping sector. I was fairly disappointed. Brand-new “Qing Dynasty” buildings with glitzy silk, pearl, and souvenir stores, packed with people. More than anything, the crush of tourists in the area seemed ripe for pickpocket activity. I looked around a bit and left.
Nearby was a zone more to my taste: Tiny earthy shops with aggressive haggling and an eclectic variety of goods. I was really disappointed that the kite store did not have one small enough for me to pack in my suitcase! 🙁
Night Cruise on the Huangpu River
Just for fun I took a night cruise on one of the many boats plying the Huangpu River, passing between garishly lit skyscrapers on the Pudong side and brightly lit colonial period remnants of foreign dominance on the Puxi side. As the tourist boats sailed up and down the river, darkened cargo barges slipped silently by.
Guilin
I first visited Guilin in 2015. On that trip I cruised down the Li River, enjoying the world famous scenery of tree covered karst peaks. Everyone who visits China should include that in their itinerary!
I have been to Guilin two additional times. Last year I had a wonderful visit to a small Dong-minority town, as well as the famous Longji rice terraces near Guilin.
This year I continued to investigate Guilin’s less famous attractions.
Night Cruise
All three times I went to Guilin I stayed at a hotel in rooms overlooking a branch of the river. At night I would watch small passenger cruise boats go by. This year I finally got around to trying a night cruise. It was fun. Do it!
Ling Canal
North of Guilin, in Xing’an county, is a marvel of ancient engineering known as the Ling Canal. Completed in 214 BCE under Qin Shi Huangdi, first emperor of China, this canal is still functional. It provides a link between the Xiang and the Li rivers. These two are tributaries of larger rivers, so functionally the canal provides a transportation channel connecting the Changjiang (Yangtze) with the Pearl River system.
To accomplish this task, there were several design challenges:
1) The elevation of the Xiang River was lower than that of the Li River and
2) river heights were subject to seasonal variations, which created a risk that the canal could overflow its channel.
Reed Flute Cave
This cave is a popular destination at the northwestern edge of Guilin.
I was able to catch the #3 bus on Zhongshan Lu (near my hotel).
For a mere 2 yuan (about 40 cents), it took me all the way to the cave.
The cave is quite accessible and the path inside is relatively short and easy.
Solitary Beauty Peak / Jingjiang Princes Palace
This is a great historical site. The downside is that it seems the only tours were in Chinese.
Pagodas of the Moon and Sun
Really
Guiyang / Guizhou
From Chengdu I traveled to the city of Guiyang.
I used this city as the launchpad to visit a variety of areas in Guizhou.
Zhijindong Cave
This is an immense series of spectacular, interconnected chambers within a limestone hill. Most of the cave is “dry”, with it’s collection of formations no longer “dripping” to continue adding layers to it’s stalactite/stalagmite array.
This is said to be China’s largest cave, with the stunning series of rooms and huge concert-hall sized chambers reputably stretching out 12 kilometers. I don’t know the linear distance of the publicly accessible areas, but they went on, in on, and on!
Xijiang Miao Village
Guizhou is peopled by a mix of ethnic groups, with minority groups making up a third of the population. One of the largest groups is the Miao people, and their villages and towns are scattered throughout the province.
Huangguoshu Waterfall
This is China’s largest waterfall. In addition to the main waterfall, there are several additional falls, and even a dripping cave.
Crazed lunatics can even climb to a passageway behind the roaring falls. It goes through a series of rooms that are open to the the exuberant veil of water cascading just a few feet away. Walking behind the falls subjects the visitor to heavy peripheral spray, and a slippery path. The spray was so vigorous and the passage was very cramped. I did not dare pause to take photographs it until I had reached dry safety at the far side.
Did I say crazed lunatics? Hey! I blame peer pressure! 🙂
Qingyan Ancient City
Quite close to Guiyang is the old fortified town of Qingyan.
Its foundation dates to the 15th century. My friend Molly kindly volunteered to help me get there, and then guide me around.
This was one of the few rainy days I encountered in China during this early autumn trip. When we arrived at Qingyan, the rain was coming down in buckets! We waited out the worst part of the storm in a tiny restaurant until the rain had subsided a bit. Within an hour of venturing out again, the rain stopped.
Back in Guiyang city
Yibin
Howie spirited me out of Chengdu, and we traveled south by high speed train to the city of Yibin.
Lizhuang Ancient City
Yibin at night
Sea of Bamboo
Not far from Yibin is the Bamboo Sea, a huge park filled with many varieties of bamboo.
This spot *claims* to be the location where a treetop duel played out in the movie “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”. But there appears to be some (prideful) debate on this issue! Some people disagree and say it was filmed in a forest in Jiangsu province. Others contend the location was in Anhui.
It doesn’t really matter, the Bamboo Sea is spectacular!
Double Nine
I planned my visit to Sichuan to coincide with the Chinese “Double Nine” celebration. The name refers to the timing: it is celebrated in the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, it fell on October 7fh.
One of the traditions of this holiday, is for people (especially old people) to climb a mountain.
So, Howie and I headed up Cuipingshan.
On the way up, we passed a variety of temples and shrines.
At the top was a tower, (which was under repair), and lovely views of Yibin.
Based on the advice of some other visitors, Howie and I descended Cuipingshan, crossed the river, and went up a hill to visit the “White Pagoda”. From that spot were great views of the confluence of the Jinsha and Min rivers.
Chengdu
This was my third visit to Chengdu. My friend Howie picked me up at the airport, and was a very gracious host throughout my visit.
It was great to see Howie again . He continues his mission to turn me into a total “foodie”! And, with all that great food in Sichuan, I am a goner!!
Howie drove me around Chengdu, giving me a peek at various landmarks.
Wenshufang Neighborhood
Howie took me to the Wenshufang neighborhood and we visited Wenshuyuan (Wenshu Monastery)
After visiting the monastery, we went to a shop owned by one of Howie’s old chums. There we relaxed and enjoyed some pu’er tea.
Wuhou Temple
A famous period of Chinese history is known as the Three Kingdoms period. It was a contentious time, with China divided into three areas, each struggling for overall supremacy. The historical novel about the period, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” generally takes the side led by Liu Bei. The territory of this faction changed over time, but ultimately its capital became Chengdu.
Liu Bei was buried within the grounds of what is now the Wuhou Temple.
Liu Bei was not an overly forceful or successful ruler. Credit for their successes really belonged to his chancellor Zhege Liang. This man was a brilliant strategist, as well as an inventor.
Zhege Liang is still well admired, and great things of visitors flock to this site.
Bridge over the Jinjiang River
Sanmenxia
The city of Sanmenxia holds the historical and geographic key to the name of Shaanxi Province!
More about that at a later date!
Xi’an
Rhonda says that for me, Xi’an is a home away from home. She is right!
I feel comfortable in Xi’an.
I know my way around the city.
I have visited a growing number of local landmarks,
I can easily navigate the city by subway.
I know a few bus routes. In the worst case, take a (dreaded) taxi.
I like the food, and even have some wonderful friends here.
This year when I arrived, the city was finishing up preparations to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. There were flags everywhere, and a general buzz of excitement. Well, the fact that China’s National Day also includes a week long vacation (for most people) helps!
The old center of Xi’an is surrounded by a (very picturesque) protective wall. The main gateways through the wall correspond with the cardinal compass points. I headed for the North Gate so that I could reach a (huge) historical site.
Daming Palace National Heritage Park
Don’t be mislead by the presence of “Ming” in the name. This is not a “Ming Dynasty” site. Rather, it is the sprawling imperial palace site from the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 CE).
Except for the huge Daming Gate that was reconstructed at the location of the original, almost no rebuilding or reconstruction has been done.
It is an archaeological site. Like a number of Roman sites in Europe, only foundations are visible. At Daming park, these foundation-platforms have been tidied up, but they are bare.
Researchers have a good idea of what the most important buildings looked like. Using a variety of sources, including textual descriptions from the era, scale models are on display in glass cases adjacent to the associated foundation platform.
Scattered throughout the site, creative artwork has been placed to help provide an image of the former imperial city.
I found this to be a very creative way to present the obliterated palace.
A comprehensive outdoor model of the entire site helps visitors visualize the complex as it had been in its heyday.
The modern grounds also include several museums.
I visited one, positioned partially underground, that included various artifacts that have been excavated from the site.
Ruined sites from previous eras of a civilization tend to be reused. Over the centuries various building get constructed for a variety of uses. This site was no exception.
By the time the decision was made to create the heritage park, the area has become home to thousands, many of whom lived in ramshackle houses.
All of that had to be removed. (this same treatment occurs everywhere in the world)
In most places the cleared out housing is quickly forgotten. However, in the museum I visited, a section was dedicated to respectful acknowledgement of what was removed.
Those houses too are a part of the area’s heritage!
Xi’an Friends
I had a great time while I was in Xi’an catching up with friends!
This meal was at a restaurant just inside the old walled part of the city. Fantastic food!! Afterwards we “walked off” the food with a stroll along the “moat” outside the old walls.
Qinglongsi
After adelicious meal with Shirley, we took the metro to Qinglongsi. There, She guided me on a tour of this wonderful, tranquil temple area.
Small Wild Goose Pagoda
I saw the “Large Wild Goose Pagoda” on my first visit to Xi’an, in 2015.
So this year I finally visited its smaller brother.
Unlike the Large Wild Goose Pagoda, you cannot ascend this one.
However, for a few yuan, you can sound the bell! 🙂
Xingqinggong Park
On the site of the (no longer present) Tang Dynasty “Xingqing Palace”, this park is a nice place for families, and the general public to relax, or exercise, or enjoy various rides such as a good sized Ferris Wheel.
Farewell Xi’an! I will be back!
