OK, Here's one more.......

More than 150 years ago, Jardines Company relocated from Canton to Hong Kong (the company is still in operation here today). Because of piracy on the high seas, Jardines maintained a gun and military unit on the shore here acros from their company headquarters. When the head of the company arrived or departed by ship, Jardines would fire a ceremonial round to salute him.

This annoyed the senior British Naval officer who ordered the practice stopped. When Jardines refused and kept saluting they were hauled before the magistrate who then, as punishment, ordered them to fire the gun EVERY day precisely at noon. Rather than consider it punishment, Jardines saw it as an opportunity to create a new tradition and that practice continues today--and has uninnerrupted except for the Japanese occupation during World War II.

Today, precisely at noon, a Jardines employee in full dress uniform arrives, rings a brass bell twice, fires the gun, and then rings the bell two more times. The punishment having been taken, and the mid-August noonday task completed, what else is there to do but retire back across the street (now the Excelssor Hotel) and have a tea and light lunch. How uncommonly civil!!!!!

I'm at the Hong Kong airport now--got here early and was pleasantly surprised to find I could make a flight four hours earlier than originally scheduled. This is good because I was on a tight transfer schedule in LA and this will probably not get me home any earlier but will insure I make my flights.

Later......

This blog will be officially closed after this posting......

Hard to believe it's been almost six weeks since I started it in the middle of the Australian winter. Thanks to all who've commented or emailed me concerning my journey. For those who've followed this odessy I've eaten food that was good but probably best left unknown. I did find out what it was that still had the skeleton inside--it was a fried spider. Actually it wasn't bad and we ate more of them later as snacks--kinda like popcorn. I also ate a noodle soup ladled out of a huge pot with a sheep's head boiling in it and tried pickled duck's feet. On a more conventional level, I tried my first Peiking Duck and lots of other traditional Australian, Thai and Chinese foods.

I've met some interesting and unusual people on this trip. We stumbled across an Old Salt on Melbourne Bay who opened a World War II battleship and gave us an impromptu tour, I watched drunken Australians chasing sheep through a shopping mall, jogged through a human zoo of weirdos on the Pattaya Beach sidewalk, and had to block the door to keep a Buddhist monk out of my room around midnight in Xian.

Some of the things I've seen include the beautiful city of Canberra, the Port of Melbourne, Pattaya Beach, the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Warriors of Xian as well as the unbelievable skyline of Hong Kong.

If this last posting seems to be rambling, it is. I just wanted you to experience some of the things that makes my job and these overseas trips so meaningful to me. I probably won't do this again. Unfortunately, the security issues of carrying a computer (airport and hotel issues), the damage that occurs (I've cracked the hinges on my laptop), and the cost of Internet service in some hotels makes maintaining a travel blog a headache on many days.

Again, thanks to all who followed me and shared this experience. See you in a couple of days.....

Gary

I'm on a two-night layover in Hong Kong and on the way home......

Hong Kong is one of the world's most compacted cities and the streets really are teeming with people everywhere. I arrived around noon yesterday, bought an unlimited three-day subway ticket, found my hotel, and did some prowling in the afternoon. It didn't take me long to figure out this is no place for beginners so today I'm taking an organized morning tour of the city and this afternoon I'll try it again on my own.

The views to the right are the opposite of the street scenes--my hotel room faces the mountains and this is what I see when I open my curtains.

The trip to Xian was a highlight--far more than I had anticipated and I enjoyed so many things there in addition to the Terracotta Warriors. That exhibit alone would have justified the overnight trip.

I did get stuck out at the Xian airport, though, and was over three hours late departing which put me into the hotel in Beijing around midnight with a 5:00 am flight the next morning to Hong Kong--that's the reason for the hasty post without any comments on the Warriors.

I anticipate the tour will be intereresting this morning and I should have some good photos this afternoon. I will probably make one--maybe two--more posts before heading back to the States.

This is gonna be short and sweet cause I'm tired and not getting much sleep tonight before I head to Hong Kong in the morning.....

Here are those famed Terracotta Warriors

Went to the ballet last night......

That's right, I actually went to a ballet--a Chinese ballet with imperial music and dancing and even enjoyed it.

It was a dinner theater event and I went solo but ended up sharing my table with three Dutch tourists and we had a pretty good time.

Xian is pretty fantastic--it's far more "Chinese" than Beijing in that the architecture and general "feeling" is far more Asian. It's an old feudal capitol, and once the capitol of all of China. It is literally filled with old historical structures but of course the main drawing event is the Terracotta Warriors which I will visit tomorrow.

The Wild Goose Pagoda is a working Buddhist temple--one of the few remaining in Communist China today. Strangely enough, the hotel where I'm staying here is having some kind of Buddhist "convention" and around 11:00 at night I had a monk trying to get into my room--he had the electronic key card mixed up but it kind of makes you wonder what these guys do for fun at night.

There are a lot of old buildings here and the city has a HUGE brick wall much like the Great Wall that extends over nine miles around the city. I went around it this afternoon on a golf cart and it is in many ways as amazing as the Great Wall.

This is how they do Peking Duck in Peking.....

Today was my final work day and Chevron took me out to a final lunch--Peking Duck at what they claim is the best restaurant for it in Beijing. I have to admit it was good but I'm not really a duck person. Still Chevron--and especially my students--have been wonderful to me while I've been here.

This afternoon I went to the Temple of Heaven and after the Great Wall I'm afraid everything else is going to be second-best. The temple was a worship spot for the emperor to pray for good crops and harvests. It is laid out geometrically in cadence with the solar system. In fact, this is were Fung Shei began.

This round worship area is aligned with the solar system. It is circular to symbolize yin-yang and it is surrounded by twelve columns symbolizing the twelve months followed by another ring of twelve to symbolize the twelve periods of the day. The stones are set in series of nines to represent the nine heavens....and the math goes on and on.

The temple itself was very impressive. The government had just reopened it after restoring and repainting it and it really was a work of art. So much of the city is preparing for the 2008 Olympics--it's the main topic of discussion here.

After the Temple of Heaven I went to a craft market called Pearl Market and bought a few small items but wasn't overly impressed. Hope to find some better stuff in Hong Kong this weekend.

I'm up early tomorrow and off to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors. I should have Internet service in the hotel there and if so, I should be posting some pretty amazing stuff.

Until later.......

Enjoyed the Great Wall so much I
thought I'd post some more photos......



This section of the wall is old--really old--dating back to the year 386 and these restored remains were rebuild during the Ming Dynasty around the year 1368.










There are 22 blockhouses and watchtowers along this remaining stretch. The blockhouses still have the fireplaces in them--it gets freezing during the winter here. This particular section was definintely built as a military defensive position rather than a barrier. The upper openings are located approximately four feet apart and are designed to allow a cannon barrel access while the smaller holes near the floor were for archers and are sloped downward so the arrows would be pointed toward any invaiders charging up the side of the mountain.
In the end, though, it didn't work and the swarming Mongols overran it and controlled China for centuries. Just like the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, the proposed barrier with Mexico, and the West Bank barrier stones and mortar can't contain human ambition.

Gonna try to visit the Temple of Heaven tomorrow.....

Frankly, folks, I have a problem with this.....

That's right--a Starbucks INSIDE the Forbidden City. Chairman Mao must be spinning in his grave--actually he's not because he's on view across from Tiananmen Square and one of the things I didn't get to see on my list.

Surprisingly, items from the Cultural Revolution are hawked everywhere here--not the Socialism of Lennin and Mao's period I'm sure. But Starbucks is pushing it too far.....

It was called the "Forbidden" City because only the Emperor and his Court were allowed inside. Obviously it was a fortress and a grand one at that. If I ever have the good fortune to visit Beijing again I would like to spend considerably more time here.







I work a day and half this week and then Wednesday morning I'm flying to Xian to spend a night and view the Terracotta Warriors, the Wild Goose Pagoda, and the ancient city walls there.

I plan to post again before I fly to Xian--I do have a half-day free on Tuesday to see some more sights. Until then........

I gotta tell ya......this seems like a long way from Friendswood, Texas

Today is Sunday and one of my students drove me about two hours north of Beijing to one of the most spectacular sections of the Great Wall. Unfortunately it was foggy the whole time but that didn't spoil getting some great photos. I got there early and actually had much of the wall to myself for nearly two hours. You'll notice on the photo to the left there are no other tourists. It is as amazing as you've ever imagined.

I spent the better part of two hours hiking this section to the end and back. There are buildings constructed into the wall--guard huts and temples--and since it crosses the top of the mountain range I'm sure the vistas are great on a clear day.

We returned to Beijing early afternoon and I took the subway back to the Forbidden City. On the way I made a new friend..... This kid was sporting a Houston Rockets cap and I flashed him the peace sign and said "Yao Ming" and he came running over to me and his father started taking pictures of me (???) and I got a picture of him. Houston far and away has the corner on sports merchandising here and it's obvious why. I didn't try to tell him I'm not a Rockets fan.

This time I got there early enough and went in and toured it. They rent audio tapes that "walk"you through and it was interesting and it truly is impressive but I'm afraid after the Great Wall it was second-best today.

You actually walk through a series of huge--and I mean really huge--archways before you reach the city itself. Even with a professional guide it probably wouldn't be possible to visit everything in one day.

I'm having trouble downloading photos so I'll start another post of the Forbidden City.
It's been a good day......

Ran across this on the road today......



I'm having email problems and have set up a temporary account. You can reach me at garybrown4432@sbcglobal.net As usual, I welcome any email.

We got off the main highway today and just happened upon this relatively isolated stretch of road. Check out the stone wall to the left of the photo--the Ming Dynasty is best known for the Great Wall but also built many series of Lesser Walls and some sections, such as this one, still survive today. This is actually one of the few "Chinese" architecture sights I've seen in Beijing--mostly its the "chrome and glass" skyscrapers. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s much of the "old" Chinese influence was torn down because it was thought to be too connected to colonialism.

Yesterday we stopped and had lunch on the road and ate at a Chinese noodle house--they're roughly the equivalent to a Texas icehouse. Some are pretty disreputable others are clean and the one we ate at was a good one but very "local." From the looks I got I don't think a lot of Westerners visit there but the food was good. Basically you order from four types of noodles and then order side dishes to put on it. I ate wheat noodles with marinated mushrooms and loved it. Chopsticks, of course, cause I doubt they even stocked forks. I'm getting better with the chopsticks but the noodles did give me fits.

I'm almost half-way through the China job and it has gone really well. I'm in the process of negotiating an overnight trip to Xian to view the terracotta warriors next week. Will keep you posted.....