Drew: Around the World

New Mexico

2009-09-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

What I was expecting: some adobe buildings, 0% humidity and dry skin, plenty of Mexican and Native American influences, vast desert expanses. What I've discovered: lots of adobe buildings (more than I was expecting!), incredible food, friendly and hard-working people, some pretty widespread poverty and inadequate education, spectacular landscapes from green flood planes to craggy canyons to massive mountains. This is New Mexico, and it is one hell of an interesting state. I've been brought down here for work, living two months here in the high desert between Los Alamos and Santa Fe. I'm definitely looking forward to getting home to Boulder, but I have had some good highlights and experiences here, which I'll share with you now.

Starting in Albuquerque, the largest city in the state, though at just over 500,000 people, it is not large by American city standards. The 845,000 people in the greater metropolitan area comprise around half of the state's population, so needless to say, there are some great big empty spaces here. Albuquerque is old too; it was founded in 1706 by the Spanish as an outpost. The two pictures above were taken in Old Town, which is exactly that..the oldest remaining part of town. This is where we started our Albuquerque exploring, in the Old Town square. There was a band playing and the buildings around made you feel like you had stumbled into the 1800's or something.

Some more old buildings in Old Town. The Basket Shop sells just about everything, from handmade blankets and ponchos to touristy shot glasses and t-shirts. Of course there are local Native American's who have set up shop selling silver and turquoise jewelry and handmade pottery as well. They do some amazing work, especially with the pottery. After Old Town we made our way out to a local restaurant, which is famous for "The Travis". The Travis is an enormous burrito, I'm talking huge here. There were 6 of us that went in there to eat, we ordered the Travis on a Silver Platter...the full Travis, and we couldn't even finish it! This burrito is about two feet in length and maybe 5-6 inches in diameter, stuffed with ground beef and red chile, covered with cheese and more chile, and then topped off with maybe two or three frier-baskets worth of fries. It was enormous, and delicious, and the price wasn't too bad either. We only ended up paying about 5 bux each for a meal that held us over for lunch and dinner.

Hatch chile peppers. This is the key ingredient to the state's incredible cuisine. These peppers are special. The best chiles come from Hatch, NM. It apparently has the perfect climate and soil conditions for them, and you definitely notice the difference. The joke goes that the state question is: "What color?" translating to out-of-staters as: What color chile do you want on your food. The options are green and red, and there are people who swear up and down by one over the other. I've found the green to be spicier, while the red is a bit more robust. All I know is I can't get enough of these things...they are incredible and so flavorful.

So the way it works is when you see one of these rotating roasters (and you see them all over in pretty random places...outside of stores, on corners, side of the street in what seems like the middle of nowhere...all over) you pull the car over and order up at whatever kind of makeshift counter they have running. When we stopped here in Albuquerque, the smallest order we could make was a garbage bag full of medium greens. Now, I can't even begin to describe the smell that engulfs you standing near these roasters...it's amazing. You can smell the fiery goodness of those peppers as they sizzle and roast in their own juices. When your order is done roasting, you walk off with upwards of 10 pounds of hot, roasted chiles. And what do you do with this many chiles you might ask? Well, use your imagination. We tried some just on their own...which is incredible, but a bit like Russian Roulette in that every once in a while you hit a landmine of a pepper, one that would definitely not qualify as medium in pretty much anyone's book. You can top burgers with them, eat them with chips and salsa, toss them in a variety of recipes. Use your imagination...the flavor is incredible and I haven't failed to be happy with whatever I've added them to so far. Just plane old stewed chiles is the way to go too...this spicy, saucy blend is incredible. I will definitely miss these things back in Colorado.

Albuquerque's strikingly communist-style flag flying outside the balloon museum. Ok flag first, when Maciej and I first saw the flag flying, our first reaction was "why the hell do they have a USSR flag flying in Albuquerque?!? Then we realize that was no hammer and sickle in the top left corner, it was a yellow sparrow, that just happens to really resemble a hammer and sickle. This is apparently the city flag.... I think they are trying to say something. Anyway, the balloon museum. Albuquerque hosts one of the largest hot air balloon festivals in the world every October. Balloonists from the city have also made history throughout the past century by being some of the first to circumnavigate the globe by balloon. The museum is actually really, really well done. I had no idea the history of hot air balloons was so interesting! Did you know they used to have scantily clad women parachute from hot air balloons without harnesses?!?! The parachute "rig" was just connected to a large hoop that the women would hang on to for the descent! This is just one of the countless interesting balloon facts throughout the museum. I'd highly recommend you check it out if you are ever in the area.

The Isotopes. We went to an Isotopes baseball game while we were there. New Mexico has no professional sports teams, so they take this AAA farm team to the LA Dodgers very seriously. The game was entertaining (the Isotopes won) and the park was quite nice. The next morning we ate breakfast at the famous Frontier, a massive 24 hour food joint near the university. The interior is decked out in random artwork, with a particular emphasis on John Wayne art. The food is amazing too. I had the huevos rancheros absolutely smothered in red chile. Delicious!

Shifting gears now. At the feet of the Sangre de Cristos in Northern New Mexico sits a famous old Native American pueblo (village): Taos Pueblo. Here visitors can come and wander around a living and working Native American community, who still live in the same style buildings as they have for hundreds of years and still pull their drinking water from the creek that runs through the pueblo. It's an incredible sight.

The little adobe domes in front of the buildings are cooking stoves. I loved the colors too...the blues in the doors just contrast so well with the adobe. Historically, they didn't have doors; people used to enter their homes through holes in the roof, which is why you'll see a lot of ladders around.

This is the main bulk of the pueblo and its huge. It reminds me of a hive of sorts...incredible.

Mmmmm, chiles.

The Pueblo church. Many of the locals are Christian, though a lot have a blended religion that incorporates a lot of their ancestral teachings.

The Rio Grande gorge near Taos. The gorge is so narrow, and the planes around it so flat that you don't even realize this massive rift in the earth is there until your practically falling into it. I also had no idea that the Rio Grande starts in Southern Colorado, in the San Juan mountains, before twisting its way all the way down through the massive state of New Mexico, going by Taos, Los Alamos, near Santa Fe, and right through the heart of Albuquerque before heading further south to define the border between Texas and Mexico.

Bandolier National Monument. The green canyon floors and honeycombed canyon walls in the area around the Pajarito Plateau, on which Los Alamos sits, was once home to a bustling Native American population. At Bandolier, you can check out the ruins of their settlements in the Frijoles Canyon. The pock-marked canyon walls are the result of this entire area once being part of a super-volcano, which now is referred to as the Jemez Mountains and the Valle Caldera. It's pretty impressive and the signs of old volcanic activity are all around...from the wile rock formations to places in the Caldera where the ground is glistening from all the obsidian. Pretty cool area.

Looking down at the main, round settlement ground from the old places along the canyon wall. This is definitely rattlesnake territory. I decided to do the 13 mile canyon rim trail, which takes one up on the far mesa seen here for just about seven miles west before dropping into the canyon itself to come 6 miles back through that to where you started. On my climb up the canyon, I nearly stepped on the first rattlesnake without even knowing it was there. My foot landed about eight inches away from it, which set it off nicely. When that rattle started from BEHIND me, I jumped and screamed like a small girl. The snake stayed coiled and rattling for a few moments while I shook in terror and shock from the safe distance to which I had leaped. Then it got out of there and disappeared under a big rock while I was still trying to process what had just happened and how close I had come to being bitten by the most dangerous snake in North America. I continued on in terror...realizing suddenly how much of a death trap this backcountry trail was...with its little narrow trail through dead leaves and fallen trees, massive rocks, and knee high scrub grass, all of which could be housing the next snake just ready to take a snap at me. I came across the second, much larger rattlesnake laying across the trail about 15 feet in front of me. At this point, I was well into the hike...about as far from help as I could be, so I'm thankful that I saw this snake from a far. It was huge. I'd guess about 4-4.5 feet long and about as thick as my forearm! It had no interest in moving either. It knew I was there but was obviously not worried. Since we were in a rock chute of sorts, I couldn't go around it. So I yelled, stamped my feet, and then finally resorted to tossing rocks at the ground near it. The rocks finally annoyed it and it slithered up out of the chute, which made me have to pass it within about 3 feet of my face. That was probably the most terrifying hike I've ever gone on. Supposedly seeing a snake is rare...but so far I've seen four here, two of which were diamondbacks, so I'm betting it's not that rare.

One of the old Native dwellings.

This wall once housed a long house. You can see the square shaped spots on the wall that used to be peoples homes. The round indents held the support beams.

Petroglyphs too.

The Kiva at the cliff dwelling. The Kiva was used for religious practices, basically their old version of a church.

The Upper Frijoles falls....beautiful and much higher than I was expecting. The Frijoles creek, which is responsible for the canyon, flows down to the Rio Grande (below). The hike down to the Rio Grande is a great one...though once again pretty terrifying when you start thinking about snakes.

I've been treated to some incredible sunsets here too.

Finally, Santa Fe...the oldest state capital in the country.

Burro Alley, now home to a French restaurant...Santa Fe is a quirky little city. It has an enormous artist population and a ton of wealthy retirees. This brings all sorts of cultural and yuppie influences with it. Overall, though, it is a cool little city to walk around, especially if you like art or architecture. They also have lots of public works of art, like the little Burro statue here.

The Lensic Theater...good example of the interesting architecture around town. Another great thing is that they have a city ordinance restricting the height of buildings and maintaining the old adobe styles.

The Cathedral.

A random hotel...lots of adobe buildings here in Santa Fe.

More public art.

A mural coated garage/shed along Canyon Road, which is just chock full of art galleries. There is also an awesome little teahouse down there, which makes great chai and sangria. I made an awesome afternoon around here, hanging out at the teahouse and doing some reading and then wandering from gallery to gallery taking in all the art. Incredible little place and some very interesting people around.

Around Colorado... Summer '09

2009-09-26T18:08:00.001-07:00

Colorado. I really, really love this state! The following post is about some of the more exciting things we did in Colorado over this past summer. I'll start with the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Yes, Colorado has sand dunes...great ones. See the pictures above and below if you don't believe me. Above you have a 13er (on the right) and a couple 14ers (background on the left) and then some several hundred foot high dunes on the left. Below shows the dunes and the view out over the massive, flat San Luis Valley.

So you might find yourself asking, how did these dunes (the tallest in North America) end up in Colorado, which is not a desert state? The answer is clear when you consider the geography. The huge, flat San Luis Valley (check out the terrain feature on Google maps to get an idea of what I'm talking about) lies between the San Juan mountains to the southwest and the Sangre de Cristo mountains that make a massive spine running north-south to the immediate east (all the mountains seen in these pictures). The prevailing winds blow east and slightly north...so what happens is small particles of sand are picked up in the San Juan's and blow freely across the broad flat valley. The winds, however, don't have enough force to carry the sands up and over the barrier formed by the Sangre de Cristos, so the sands begin to pile up. The dunes have formed in a kink in the Sangre's, which acts as a collection point. Give a few million years of sand pile-up and badda-boom badda-bing, sand dunes. Picture taken by Missy (MLK)

They are a truly incredible sight...they are huge, at hundreds of feet in height and covering thousands of acres. Then you have the mountain backdrop, making for an incredibly dramatic landscape. (MLK)

The dunes are fun to play on too...just expect to be finding sand in different places for about the next week or so (or indefinitely in your camping gear). This is me taking a nice spread-eagle leap off the top of one of the steep-sided dunes...I highly recommend this. (MLK)

As you can see from this sign...the dunes shift regularly. (MLK)

Like I said...huge! (MLK)

Bailey and I enjoying the view. The others from our group are on top of High Dune in the distance. (MLK)

We had an afternoon thunderstorm our first day there, but then the sky cleared beautifully and gave us the most incredible light on the dunes for sunset. Maciej kept saying how we should show people the pictures and tell them we took a trip to Northern Africa. (MLK)

The next day, we drove north in the valley to the small town of Crestone, right at the foot of the mountains. We were using the trail here to access a high-alpine lake and 2 fourteeners.

The Willow Creek trail...it's quite steep climbing around 4000 feet in just over 4 miles...and with heavy packs on, that can get exhausting. It is a beautiful hike though.

Columbines! (MLK)

Looking back at where we came from...Crestone is the faint town on the valley floor in the center (above and slight to the right of the big green clearing). As I said...steep hike.

This bighorn sheep hung around us for quite some time.

Willow Lake with it's waterfall. This was a spectacular area up here, though it was infested with other backpackers.

We had another brilliant show for sunset.

OK, these pictures are now from a different weekend. Having a Sangre de Cristo theme this summer, in large part because I was down in New Mexico, we decided to go climb Mt. Lindsey, a 14er. This is a picture of the valley we used for access and the massive Blanca Peak glowing in the sunrise light.

Mt. Lindsey's false summit. Missy and I ended up hanging back at around 13,000 feet. She was happy to have made it that far and didn't want to mess with the intimidating looking Mt. Lindsey.

In the distance here you can see the peaks near where we were at Willow Lake: Kit Carson and Challenger Point, as well as the Crestones. This was taken near the top of the Iron Nipple, a 13er near Mt. Lindsey. I took a nice scramble up this mostly because I wanted to say I had climbed the Iron Nipple, which is just a hilarious name! This is some nice exposure though...a tumble here would have landed me about a thousand feet below.

The point of the Iron Nipple summit.

Blanca massif from the Iron Nipple. Blanca is enormous and was a very holy mountain to the Native Americans living in the area.

From yet another weekend excursion: main street of Cripple Creek, CO. An old mining town which has now embraced the casino business. It's an interesting place, especially considering it was once going to be the capital of the state (and it is at 8,000 something feet!).

Three of the casinos in Cripple Creek. They have done a great job preserving the old western-expansion era buildings. The town has an awesome feel to it...like you've stumbled into the old west (except for the cars).

11-Mile Reservoir, revisited. Missy and I love it here, so we decided to come back (the same weekend we went to Cripple Creek). Once again, we lucked out with the lighting at sunset.

We also took a nice hike around part of the reservoir this time...venturing significantly further than we had before. This area is incredible.

The camping was alright, though we had a pretty nasty storm...

and I managed to snag a shot of lightening, without even messing with the exposure time! After a really terrifying experience with lightening in the mountains earlier in the summer, I dragged Missy and Bailey back to the car for shelter while the storm blew over. From the safety of the car, we were treated to an incredible show! I figure that the closest strike was within about a quarter mile or so...pretty incredible showing of nature's power!

Vive la France: Paris, part un

2009-09-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

Paris: I was here in July for 10 days to attend the ISSS9 conference. I really liked this city a lot more than I was expecting! It's beautiful, and despite their reputation, the people are just fine.

We were treated to this incredible sunset the night we (a few of the guys from the conference and myself) decided to go hang out at the Parc du Champ du Mars. Needless to say, we had a great view. The random lights on there were sparkling for a little while the glorious sunset painted the clouds.

Looking behind us at the park. This is one of the things I loved about France: the people really know how to relax and enjoy life. I loved it! They get together with their friends and just hang out and have a good time...most often in incredibly beautiful places!

Attention to detail....the Eiffel Tower is huge, an intricate tower of trusses. But they even made the steel-work fancy...impressive.

The tower is also graced with the names of some of France's most famous individuals...including many a physicist and mathematician!

It's quite a bit bigger than I was expecting really...and quite phallic too. One of our French friends kindly pointed that out to us.

Like the Parliament Building Tower in London....I couldn't take enough pictures of this iconic structure.

And moving on...cafes, bistros, and restaurants. Of course Paris has some amazing food. Our French friend Hugo took us to a little place for a traditional French meal, which was delicious. I was also a big fan of the Southeast Asian and African influences. I had Togoan cuisine for the first time in my life...and it too was delicious! People watching here is incredible too, but I preferred to be wandering while doing so...some of the cafes (which all have tables outside on the sidewalk) in the more people-scenic (or scenic-people?) areas were packed...I'm sure you probably had to sacrifice a small animal or profess your home country's inferiority to France in order to get a seat.

More relaxing in beautiful places...seriously, I love the French. This is in the Jardin des Tuileries, which used to be a palace facing the Louvre. It was destroyed during the Paris Commune in 1871 however. Now it is a very pleasant garden/park with lots and lots of monuments and statues.

One of the off-axis arch's...looking through to the Louvre, another old palace that is now the most famous museum in the world.

This is the same arch (Arc du triomphe du Carrousel), but now we are looking through the other way. The Louvre and this arch line up along the Jardin des Tuileries and further down along the Champs-Elysee. Here you can see Cleopatra's Obilysk and the Arc du Triomphe (both along the Champs-Elysee) in the distance. As with other history rich places, it was incredible to be wandering around this area.

The Louvre. I actually did NOT go inside on this trip....I'm saving it for when I come back in a couple years with Missy.

I like the pyramid. I think the blend of old and new is awesome, so long as it's done with taste (as is the case here in my opinion).

The Louvre is huge. Most people only think it's an art gallery thanks to it's most famous painting, but it is so much more than that....I did go to the Musee d'Orsay, which is also massive, but nowhere near the size of the Louvre. I spent a good 3-4 hours wandering and only saw one floor worth of paintings (which was incredible by the way). I will have to devote at least one full day just for the Louvre.

The River Seine. As part of the conference, we got to go on a river cruise on one of those glass ceiling boats (like the one seen here). It was pretty classy enjoying French cuisine while the beautiful city seemingly floats by.

The Metro. Paris' underground network is extensive, with stops so close together that you can sometimes see from one platform to the next underground! It's a great system, but it has a major problem. The vast majority of Paris' public transportation shuts down between midnight and one, which really puts a damper on any good, fun, late nights out on the town if you are staying outside of walking distance from the center. There are night buses, but they only run once an hour and have terribly confusing routes. Oh, and if you want to get a cab, you better speak perfect French WITH a Parisian accent or you can just forget about this service. Seriously, one of our French friends (not from Paris) had to haggle with a Parisian cabbie for a good 10 minutes or so to convince him NOT to rip us off and that he could indeed drive us to where we needed to go. Crazy...I just wish the Metro ran late.

Liberte. Egalite. Fraternite (put accents on all the e's except the one in the middle of Fraternite-->fraternit-ay). Anyway, this translates to "Liberty. Equality. Fraternity." if you don't speak French and couldn't already figure that out. This is the national motto of the Republic of France. This motto graces the Palais de justice de (Palace of Justice of) Paris on the Ile de la Cite. The Ile de la Cite is one of the oldest parts of the city. It is a small island on the river and is home to some beautiful old buildings, including Notre Dame.

It is also home to Sainte Chapelle, with its walls, yes...walls, of stained glass. If you are ever in Paris, you must go see this from inside. It is incredibly beautiful.

L'Arc du Triomphe and traffic in the cirque. There is always traffic in the cirque. It was still incredible to see this arch though....the details on it are incredible, and every time I see it, I think of those old WWII videos of Hitler and his Nazi army marching down the Champs-Elysee and through this very arch. I have heard, and have no idea if this is true, that Hitler originally planned to destroy the arch when he first conquered France. However, somewhere along the way, he changed his mind, and instead, he decided to build a much, much larger one in Berlin upon his utter victory in the war. Fortunately for the world, Hitler lost and the Arc du Triomphe still stands.

A capoeira demonstration near Montmartre.

View of the city center from Montmartre and the park at the base of the Basilique du Sacre Coeur (Basilica seen below...the park is another popular spot to bring some wine, cheese, and bread and enjoy a good sunset with friends). Paris was immensely more of an all-around beautiful city than I was expecting, and it is massive. It would take several lifetimes to uncover even half of it's secret places. I really enjoyed it here. I spent a lot of time wandering at night too, but I didn't take many pictures. There are countless little neighborhoods, each with their own feel...everything from the tres chic Champs Elysee to the flashy neon and working ladies of Pigalle, the red-light district (and home to the Moulin Rouge) to the notorious suburbs (we stayed in the suburbs, and yes, there are some hooligans...be wary walking around at night, but for the most part they are just teenagers looking to hang out and get drunk with their friends...and just remember: Je ne fume pas. Je n'ai pas une cigarette.) . The pictures here do nothing...absolutely nothing for a taste of the city. To see Paris is to wander aimlessly in it's labyrinth of streets and stumble from beautiful sight to sight, whether it be an incredible work of architecture, a quaint little winding street lined with restaurants, cafes, and artists' studios, or a vast green garden. Paris is an incredible city, and I look forward to coming back.

Vive la France: Paris, part deux

2009-09-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, quite literally the heart of Paris and France too. It's not the biggest cathedral in the world. It doesn't have the highest towers or the largest crypt, and it surely doesn't dominate it's city's skyline. However, this is one of the originals. A marvel of architecture, and it is graced with details that just get better and better and better as you get closer to this ancient place of worship.

Construction started on this cathedral in 1163...yes...that's right it's going to be coming up on its 9th centennial in only a few decades. People, just like this guy here, have been walking by these doors for over 800 years. THAT is mind-bending for someone from North America! Even more amazing, this building doesn't stand in ruins; it's been renovated and repaired and is still a functioning cathedral. Paris, and France are proud of this building, and they should be.

Notre Dame IS Gothic architecture. Many of the techniques and designs used for this building were imitated throughout Europe's many, many other (newer) cathedrals. Architects hired to design and build a cathedral would travel to Paris from throughout France and neighboring countries to study this incredible feat of architecture and engineering.

The vaulted ceilings are high, thanks to the flying buttresses on the outside of the structure. It's amazing and utterly terrifying that those stones, weighing I have no idea how many tons, hold each other in place, distributing their collective mass down into the load-bearing columns. As an engineer looking at this, and even better, standing underneath them, I was simply in awe.

More vaulted ceilings in a side-passage of the main hall.

One of the massive round stained-glass windows and the famous flying buttresses (the arching stone beams connected to the main walls along the portion of the structure in the middle of this picture). Notre Dame was one of the first buildings to use these additional support structures, which allowed them to build higher walls than what was thought possible at the time.

Notre Dame's facade is intricate. One of the many, many small details: I'd love to know who this guy is, and why he is standing on a person instead of a pedestal. I'm betting he was not a nice guy.

Above the central doors...this is huge by the way.

Lots and lots and lots of figures

At the Musee Rodin. The Thinker sculpture, which is world famous, is found here along (center in this picture) with many, many other works by Auguste Rodin.

The Musee Rodin consists of the old Hotel Biron and the surrounding grounds (which are now a beautiful garden populated with Rodin's works). The Hotel Biron was one of Rodin's favorite haunts...he even lived here for a time. When he died, he donated his works to the Republic of France under the condition that they turned the Hotel into a museum for the art.

La Porte de l'Enfer: The Gates of Hell. This was by far my favorite sculpture at the museum. Rodin died before completing this masterpiece, yet it looks incredible, with its maze of details and horde of figures. It's massive too, standing at nearly 20 feet high and more than 13 feet wide!

The inspiration for the work was Dante's Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy. You find yourself mesmerized by the details and the damned figures, who appear to be writhing and tempting from the fluid-like backdrop.

The Thinker makes a key appearance at the top center of the Gates. He is surrounded by naked female figures, who are engaged in a series of erotic and provocative poses, yet he seems too deep in thought to worry about that. Could this Thinker represent Satan, contemplating his eternal predicament? Or perhaps it is the lost soul focusing on how he ended up damned to Hell. According to Wikipedia, some people think it represents Dante, looking down on his characters...others think it represents Rodin or Adam (biblical Adam...the original man) concentrating on the original sin. Whoever it is, the figure is intriguing considering the chaos and temptation surrounding him. I particularly like the one figure with the skull for a head amidst the naked women. Can you find it in here?

Inside the Musee Rodin.

Rodin was a very famous sculptor. It really is true that sex sells.

The tri-color.

Versailles: the old imperial palace expanded to its present form under Louis the XIV, the Sun King. This is only a small part of the complex by the way. This place is huge. It's really no wonder that when the King and court were living in palaces like this (and the Louvre in Paris), the normal people revolted so fiercely. "A TOUTES LES GLOIRES DE LA FRANCE" seen in this picture translates to: "To all the glory of France". I don't think that was really the case though; it was more like: To all the glory of the absolute monarchy, we construct this haven and sanctuary to ignore our people and escape from reality.

Fortunately, the revolutionaries did a great job with the monarchs and managed to spare the buildings at Versailles, which is now a suburb of Paris (it was originally chosen for its location in the country, well away from Paris). While there, we only had the chance to tour the grounds, as we were on a tight schedule and there was a long line to see the extravagances inside. I've been told that Versailles takes multiple days worth of visits to fully explore. I barely scratched the surface in the gardens, and I look forward to spending a full day here when I return to France.

As with anywhere steeped in history, I loved Versailles, even with the hundreds and hundreds of tourists swarming the grounds. Louis the XIV was one of the greatest statesmen to ever live. He was immensely powerful. His court is famous for it's grandeur and intrigue, and this palace was where much of it all went down.

Looking at the backside of the palace.

Turn around 180 degrees from the previous picture and this is your new view. Looking out over the gardens. There are hedge mazes, massive greens, countless fountains and statues, hunting grounds, and a man-made lake (seen here in the center background).

Being July, the gardens were in full bloom, and the current caretakers have done an excellent job with them. The flowers were all soft pastel pink, rose, purples and off-whites. It had a very dream-like effect to it. It made you feel like you were no longer alive amongst the troubles of the world...instead you have escaped to some uber-pleasant world of soft grass, fragrant flowers, and singing birds. Even with all the other tourists around, it was easy to escape. Just like in the Forbidden City, you only have to go a short distance off the main-axis to find yourself mostly alone!

There are really a lot of people in this picture...take that into account to get a sense of how massive this place is.

In the hedge maze. This is a legit maze...those "hedges" are mostly small trees; the wall heights have to be around 20 feet or so.

Hm, golden gates. Nothing says "I'm filthy rich and I want the world to know it" like golden gates. Seriously, this royal family got what was coming to them. Let them eat cake? More like let you eat the cold, hard steel of the guillotine.

Hong Kong and the New Territories

2009-09-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong. This was the last stop on our travels through China, and it was my least favorite by far. Hong Kong is a beautiful and bustling city. Though, like many large cities, it has a seedy underside...and thanks to the massive business opportunities that Hong Kong provides, this underside was much, much seedier than I have experienced before. The hostel/budget accommodation options are all pretty terrible. We ended up in the Chunking Mansions in Kowloon (across the harbor). I would never, ever recommend staying in Chunking Mansions or Miriador Mansions nearby either. They are not mansions. They are vertical slums, and it was this revelation that was one of my first strikes against Hong Kong, which boasts such better conditions compared to the mainland. There is a very wealthy ex-pat population, who are being paid disproportionate amounts of local currency for their occupations; in any Western country, they would be paid much less compared to the national average income. So sure, for these wealthy foreigners, the opportunities in Hong Kong abound. They are normal middle class people that are suddenly made millionaires. This heavily skews the system. Prices in many places are on a high, Western level (like that of a large American city). Though I have to admit, food and (some) beer prices weren't bad. The limited space, which drives real estate up to overwhelming levels, also plays a key role, especially in the housing options. Don't get me started on the "Hostel Association", which I genuinely believe is controlled by the Triads. Basically, what I'm getting at, is Hong Kong CAN be an incredible city, IF you have a lot of money to throw around.

So after that rant...Hong Kong. It is DEFINITELY a beautiful city. I didn't take too many pictures at all in the city itself. Missy and I ate some good food. We had Macanese food (from the nearby city of Macau) and I even found a French Canadian place that served decent poutine. I can't even find poutine in the States! Basically, you can get ANY kind of food you want in HK, and it is probably going to be good food too. I did like that. I also liked the Peak. Victoria Peak basically IS Hong Kong Island (the main bulk of it at least) and there is an amazing old tram that takes folks up to near the top. There is quite the establishment set up there for tourists. Missy and I enjoyed a coffee on the balcony with these views. Then we took a little stroll and waited for the sun to set to get the city lights. This was a really nice feature of the city. As you can also tell from the pictures above, our luck with the weather persisted in HK. It was overcast the entire day with periods of light rain.

So this is a bit of a story. You probably find yourself thinking, ok, Drew has gone mad. These pictures are not of Hong Kong. First of all, I did go mad in Hong Kong. I genuinely hated the double bed-sized, solid tile (to keep pest levels low) closet that Missy and I had for a room in the Chunking vertical slum. I could not spend another night there, and I was also upset with the weather. So Missy and I decided the next morning to check out early, and get the hell out of the city. We had heard of an amazing place called the Sai Kung Peninsula, which is a territorial park that occupies the east of the New Territories. We also heard that we could camp on the beach there, which we were both excited about. So, we decided to do something random. We spent the morning looking for a place to rent/buy a tent, which is a lot harder than you think it would be in such a big city. Apparently, there aren't THAT many outdoor enthusiasts in HK. We finally found a decent place that sold tents. So, we bought one. I was very, very upset that despite the fact that this tent was made in China (like everything else), it was not sold at Chinese prices. No, it was sold at Western prices...just about 90% what I would pay for this tent at REI. Frustration. Then came the ordeal of finding a place to store our excess baggage. We found out that one of the main train stations (and only one) had such a service. Fortunately, it was on our way to get to Sai Kung. So, we consolidated our necessities into my backpack (including the tent) and a small pack for Missy. We stored Missy's pack and an extra bag with a whole lot of extras (mostly our various souvenirs picked up along the way) at the train station. Then we were off, for what turned out to be an interesting adventure.

We got to Sai Kung town in the mid-afternoon after a couple rounds on the subway system and a long distance bus. We quickly found ourselves in a cafe, which had amazing burgers (to Missy's delight) AND local seafood dishes (to my enjoyment). The cafe owner was a very nice and friendly woman. She was intrigued to see us show up as we were, with our plans to get to the park and hike in before dark (which was still possible at this time). She even helped us get a cab, which would take us in and drop us off along the park's main (and pretty much, only) road. So we were off again after a very filling meal and a quick stop at a 7-11 to get some extra food and water. The cab ride took us into the park and literally dropped us off along the side of the road, in the middle of a Southeast Asian jungle. This was the trailhead, and we started on our 5 km hike to the beach. I also had a nice map of the park from the store we bought the tent at. Anyway, I was shocked to find that the trail was paved most of the way in, and also to find a couple ghost villages and livestock along the trail. Missy and I were scared to the point of loud screams by a cow (or bull? ...we couldn't see it through the dense underbrush) that DID NOT like us walking where we were, but we quickly realized it was (somewhat) domesticated and got by quickly. We finally got to Ham Tin beach, seen throughout these beach pictures. It didn't look like this at the time though as we got there just about at sunset and there were thunderstorms rolling in. We got our tent set up and a small fire started just in time to make a mad dash for the tent due to a large thunderstorm (NOT fun). We were tent bound the rest of the night thanks to the rain and lightning.

We woke up the next morning to more dreary, cloudy skies. Hooray. I was not happy. We decided to wait it out another day (the weather forecast had only said 30% chance of rain with scattered thunderstorms...) to see if the weather improved. We took a short walk up and over one of the hills to a more remote beach nearby. I say more remote because we had the luxury of "a small fishing community" (we only ever saw one fisherman and his daughter). You can see their buildings in the second beach picture, with the dominating Sharp Peak in the background (we saw this and the peaks around us get struck repeatedly by lightning the night before). The fisherman provided food and drink for very, very good prices. He also rents sleeping bags and sleeping pads, but it was so hot and humid, and the sand was soft, so we didn't need these. Missy and I ate brunch and dinner here, and the food was amazing. Once again, the meat and seafood were as fresh as it gets. The beef probably slaughtered and cut up by a neighbor somewhere up the valley and the seafood was whatever he caught that morning. Amazing. There was beer too, which was a delight. So we hung out with the fisherman and his daughter for the day. Some ex-pat and local hikers came through, and we were briefly entertained by another local fisherman, who was really friendly and quite the character, in his big broad-rimmed round glasses and what appeared to be a massive diaper (really his form of a bathing suit...if you've ever seen old Japanese movies, you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about).

That night, we had just got the fire started when we started to notice that we were being bothered by some kind of winged bug, which we couldn't see well in the dim light. The problem got worse, much worse. It got to the point where Missy and I were literally slapping ourselves silly to keep the building swarm off us and running around the fire screaming "What are these things?!?!" We got in the tent and spent about the next half our killing all of the bugs that were on us and that got in the tent for the brief seconds we had the flap open. We had no idea what they were. I called them "zombie bugs". They were a somewhat transparent orange, about a quarter inch long, with much longer wings. I referred to them as "zombies" because their wings fell off very, very easily (turned out they shed them), but the little creatures would just keep crawling around as if nothing had happened. As far as Missy and I could tell, we hadn't been bitten, but it seemed they were definitely attracted to us and wanted to get in the tent. With our headlamps, we could see thousands, yes thousands, of the little things swarming the outside of the tent. This was somewhat unnerving. And by somewhat unnerving I mean pretty damned scary. The things reminded me of flying ants (the male/new queen versions), and that made me think of termites. However, I'd never heard of flying termite swarms, so I continued to be on edge about the situation. After being absolutely certain that there were not any more living zombie bugs in the tent (I did NOT want to find out the next day that these were some kind of horrible insect that burrows into skin, or even worse, orifices...yea, use your imaginations on that one), we fell into a very uneasy sleep. Missy and I both had nightmares involving bugs. When we woke up in the morning, the only evidence that we weren't absolutely insane were the dead zombie bugs in the tent, and lots and lots and lots of wings scattered in the sand around the tent and the fire pit. When we stumbled our tired and terrified and confused selves up to the fisherman's hut, we found lots more wings and even a few live specimens. Unfortunately, the fisherman could not speak too much English, definitely not enough to tell me what they were. And I had no Cantonese, so we essentially could not communicate outside of the English/Canto menu. The real kick-to-the-you-know-where came in that we woke up to clear, blue skies. All of the pictures you see here were taken that morning.

Needless to say, after the experience with the zombie bugs, we wanted to get the hell out of there. We had no idea if the bugs would return at night. Frankly, at that point, I was ready to head home to Colorado. I really, really was not liking HK and the New Territories. We took a quick hike up the trail to get a nice view of Ham Tin beach and the coastline before packing up and going. Once again, it was teasing us with how beautiful it was. The hike out was mostly uneventful other than the two cobras along the trail. Yes, cobras. Missy and I were making great time in the lovely weather getting out of that zombie bug infested paradise when I saw off about six feet to our left, just off the paved trail, two very large black snakes. Then, the instant I put my arm out to halt Missy and said "wait, snakes" they let me know what they were by putting their hoods out. They didn't stand up to eye level (which they nearly could have done...these were very, very large snakes...I estimate an easy six feet if not more), they just laid there and simply put their hoods out. Well at that moment, I somehow avoided soiling myself and said: "Holy $h!t Missy those are cobras!". Then I had the awful realization that I didn't know what continent spitting cobras lived on...I knew that it was EITHER Africa OR Asia, but I didn't know which. That was scary. So I told Missy not to look at them, I got between her and the snakes, and we very quickly shuffled past them. We got far up trail before we turned around and stopped to think about what we just experienced. I apologize now that I have no photographic evidence, but Missy had the cameras and she absolutely refused to let me go back to get a picture (which I was honestly debating). If I had known then that these were King Cobras and NOT spitting cobras, I would have insisted, but I couldn't remember under those conditions that spitting cobras are only found on the African continent. I also didn't know that King Cobras are found in the New Territories and Southeast China, though they are supposedly very rare. I have troubles believing the rarity considering we saw TWO very large ones on a well traveled hiking trail.

Back in civilization. We had a rather shell-shocked lunch in the nice lady's cafe again. Then we wandered around Sai Kung town a bit, while debating where we were going to head to. I'm one to normally have a good plan and book a hostel ahead at least by a few days. Not so for this leg of the trip. Sai Kung is awesome, I wish we could have stayed there the rest of the trip. It is a cool little town surrounded by water and these amazing mountains, but for some very, very odd reason it has absolutely no public accommodation. This is really odd; it is a significantly large coastal town (I'm talking 10's of thousands of people here), well known for its amazing seafood, and definitely is well known amongst the yachting and sailing communities. Many of the seafood places, with their tanks and tanks of all sorts of live shellfish and fish of all kinds swimming around in them, are quite expensive simply because their primary clientele consists of wealthy yacht/sailing ship owners who just pull in and eat. There are NO hotels, NO guest houses, NO BnBs, and NO hostels. It's an outrage, and I highly recommend getting to Sai Kung, and it's territory park peninsula. It turned out the zombie bugs were a swarm of termites, which is apparently not common either (we just had exceptionally poor wildlife timing on this part of our trip). They are mostly harmless, unless you live in a wooden structure they can infest and cause to collapse down on top of you. Supposedly, there are similar swarms in other semi-tropical areas, including the southeast US. Once again, we apparently had really bad luck with our timing here.

So, with Hong Kong city off the list of places, and absolutely no accommodation in Sai Kung. We headed for Lantau Island. I tried to book a hostel near Lantau's giant Buddha statue, which was supposed to be quite nice, but that involved dealing with the mafia, aka the Hong Kong Hostel Association. It's impossible to deal with them. There are random closures of the hostels, and the "managers" are apparently never in. The hostel owners that I talked to were not big fans of the "Association", to which they had to pay fees for "services" that did not work (like calling to book ahead). They also block much access to booking online, which really made the whole thing frustrating and kind of scary since we had no idea if we could get a room when we showed up. Anyway, Lantau is a heavily forested and mountainous island to the west of Hong Kong. HK's airport and HK Disney World are both also on the island. We took the subway out to it, which is awesome, and then took the long cable car ride up the mountain to the Giant Buddha statue complex.

People clamming/shrimping in the shallow bay below us. It was funny to see them halfway across the bay and still standing waist deep in the water. It was also cool to see their mud trails being taken by the currents.

We got up to the Buddha just in time for another torrential downpour. We had a quick bite at the overly priced restaurants between the statue and the cable car complex before making our way out to the hostel, which was in the middle of the jungle on the next hill over from the Buddha. I thought it was abandoned when we got there, and we were both nervous about the warning signs for mosquito-borne illnesses like Japanese Encephalitis and Dengue Fever. The owner was there however, and we were the only people staying there, up on the mountain in the middle of the jungle, with him. It was kind of like the Bates Motel, Hong Kong style. Yay. Honestly, the owner was nice though, and I really felt bad for him since he said a lot of troubles were caused by the "Association" and their fees and "services". The hostel was really decrepit, with cracks in the walls and inescapable dampness thanks to the ongoing rain. It was just another uncomfortable night, but at least there were no bugs!

The giant Buddha statue. It's actually quite amazing to see, even in the rain. They were doing construction on the site though, which really, really took away from the atmosphere. Somehow, heavy machinery and jack-hammers just don't seem to go with Buddhist Monasteries in my mind. Maybe I'm just weird. Anyway, once again, we found ourselves getting the hell out of there the next morning. It was raining, tropical storm style. We took the first public bus out to Mui Wo, on Lantau Island's Southeast corner. Silver Mine Bay there was supposed to be beautiful with a nice beach. Once again, Lantau is a beautiful island, heavily forested and mountainous. Mui Wo seemed like a cool little town and we ended up just splurging for a night at the Silver Mine Beach Hotel. We paid a decent price and got a great room that looked down over the beach and bay. However, the torrential rains continued the ENTIRE day. We braved the storm to go get lunch at an ex-pat pub and also to wander the town market, which was not bustling and exciting thanks to the weather. Then we just headed back to the hotel to watch the dragon boat races from our room, which was awesome. Dragon boat racing is a big thing in China, and HK was having it's big annual festival for the races. It was incredible to watch the teams training and racing, all in the downpour, loud drums and all. It reminded me that as much as I did not like my experience in Hong Kong, it was still an amazing place with an incredible culture and history. We flew back home the next day, after our 3+ week journey through China. I don't know if I'll get back to Hong Kong at some point in the future. If I do, hopefully I'll have more money at that point to afford staying in hotels, or maybe they will improve their hostel situation between now and then. I definitely hope the weather is more cooperative.

China: Xingping, Guangxi Province

2009-08-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, we did not stay in Yangshuo since we found it too big and bustling for the relaxation we had planned. Instead, we went back upstream to the small village of Xingping. This is an old, but well-known village. The image on the back of the 20 yuan note was taken from the scenery near Xingping. It is right at the heart of the karst mountains, and Missy and I stayed here for four days. This was the view from our hostel's rooftop patio.

And this was the view from our room. Not too shabby.

Looking down at one of Xingping's streets from the hostel roof. This is one of the "new" sections of town, that has sprung up as a result of tourist money. Still, the town has only about a dozen streets and only takes ~5-10 mins to walk across the entire thing. Missy and I found it to be perfect.

Bamboo graffiti. Bamboo is a very important plant to China, and especially so along the Li river where it is used for construction and, of course, bamboo rafts.

Near Xingping's docks. The only thing we didn't like about the place was the nearly constant barrage of "you like bamboo?" or "you want bamboo?" from the various people trying to sell a ride along the river on their bamboo rafts. It was mostly women (often the wives of the raft operators) offering, and they would show you a little picture of the river scenery with a raft and happy tourists on board. I told them again and again (in Chinese) that we were waiting to take a ride when the weather was nice, and they consistently answered that the weather was better upstream (I guarantee it was not). Also, never, never take the first price they offer. As with anything, bargain. They want your business. Make sure you check a guidebook for a fair price though, this is the major source of income for a lot of these people.

There is a little cafe on the corner here, which served both Chinese AND Western breakfasts. We ate there quite a few times.

Xingping is old. The town originated over 1000 years ago, and it was once the largest town along the river. The village has a very, very rustic feel...not run down. You can tell that each place is lived in and maintained. The restaurants here were great too. The food was incredible and SO FRESH! You could tell everything, all the ingredients, probably came from within a 20 mile radius of the place. The chicken and beef were especially flavorful. Missy and I found a favorite in the sweet and sour chicken, which is not at all what anyone familiar with Chinese food in North America thinks of. I also really liked the Sichuan beef and the spicy snails, which were just fried up, shell and all, in a beautifully spicy/tangy brown pepper sauce and were meant to be eaten by picking them up and sucking them out of the shells.

The sunset's from the rooftop patio were absolutely perfect. Missy and I would grab a couple beers or coconut juice (so good there!) and just relax up there watching the sun go down behind those jagged peaks. You can see here too that the sun went down just perfectly between the mountains.

We rented bikes from the hostel (only US$1.50 for the day!) and took a good ride through the hamlets and countryside around town.

The Li River Valley with the mountains fading in the distance.

Alongside the river, much of the land is quite flat, which allows for a great deal of farming.

Did I mention these mountains are huge? They rise up thousands of feet from the base plains (or the river). This is also becoming a popular area for rock climbers, as it should, and of course, the Chinese are embracing that in good entrepreneurial fashion.

The weather was quite nice (relatively) the day we rented the bikes, so we decided to make a couple people's days and go for a "bamboo" ride upstream to Yangdi and back.

Many of the mountains have been given interesting names like Moon Hill, Snail Hill, and Nine Horse Fresco Hill. I'm pretty sure there are some good legends about most of them as well.

I had a conversation with our raft drivers wife. It was pretty basic, since she spoke no English, but in it, I told her how beautiful Missy and I found their home (the Li River area) to be. She said: "Yes, it is beautiful, but we don't have any money." That really stuck me...I wondered what she and her husband must think of Missy and I. There were some people we came across who understood well that we, as students, really didn't have much money compared to many other Westerners, but to this woman and her husband, we were quite wealthy. That really got to me... it just isn't fair really how we are born into different lives, some of us given nearly endless bounds, while others have to struggle under extreme limitations just to get by.

Some river traffic.

If I remember correctly, this is Nine Horse Fresco Hill, just taken at an off-angle. The hill, when viewed perpendicularly to the face, is really quite wide and absolutely massive.

Back at the hostel, enjoying some good lighting.

Beijing Opera masks aren't just found in Beijing apparently...

One of the older streets in the village. It was amazing how the villagers timing was set up around the tourist influx, from around 10 AM to about 3 or 4 PM. Most people only come to Xingping as a tiny side-trip from Yangshuo on arranged tours. The tourists are mostly relatively wealthy Chinese, and the money is great for the people of Xingping.

Rice paddies just outside of town.

There were many, many old graveyards around the village. This is one of them. The people believe that the dead should be buried on hillsides, the higher the better for the spirit.

Missy and I said a quick hello ("Ni hao!") to this farmer. He was shocked that we spoke Chinese, and tried to start up a conversation. As normal with me, I made it about 4 questions in before I had to apologize for not understanding. It was quite frustrating at this point; there were many people like this farmer (and like the raft driver and his wife) who I found to be intriguing, and I would have loved to have a good conversation with them about their lives. I guess I'll just have to wait until the next time I go to China, when hopefully my grasp of Chinese will be better.

Missy and I decided to take a hike after sitting in the hostel for half a day of strong rain. It took us some time to actually find the trail through the mountains to a fishing village, but we eventually did (it was tucked in between a couple of farmers houses and honestly looked like a private lane for them).

Just about halfway along our trek, the skies opened up and we were blessed with beautiful sunshine and blue skies!

We also got some nice views of the river, which was in heavy flood after the rains.

The fishing village was small. It took us longer to get there than we had expected, and we were hoping to be able to pay a raftman to take us back to Xingping, but apparently they weren't running any boats because of the high and fast waters in the swollen river. We wanted to stick around and see their village (access to which was 5 yuan each), but we had to apologize and depart quickly so that we didn't get stuck up in the mountains after dark.

We got some more nice scenery and lighting on the way back too...and we made it back in time for sunset.

Looking out over pretty much the entirety of Xingping from the hostel rooftop.

It is such a quaint little village. The people are beyond friendly, the food is fresh and delicious, and the scenery is like something out of a fantasy. I honestly hope this place does not just become another bustling tourist hub like Yangshuo. Missy and I hope to return there at some point in our lives for another period of relaxation, and we honestly hope that the only thing about it that has changed when we do return, is that the locals are blessed with a bit more money and comfort.

Xingping, one of the brightest highlights of our trip.

China: Li River area, Guangxi Province

2009-08-23T14:10:00.001-07:00

This area was one that Missy and I were looking forward to most on our trip through China. We'd seen plenty of pictures of this picturesque river basin, but we knew it would be more spectacular in person. We ended up staying five days here, and it didn't let us down.

We first arrived in Guilin by air from Xian. We got in at night and had an interesting time finding our hostel. We ran into two travelers from Spain who spoke great English but no Chinese. Turned out they were staying at the same hostel, and thus, I became responsible for trying to use my broken Chinese to figure out first which bus stop to take (Guilin is much bigger than I was expecting) and then how to get a cab to our hostel. I had some help from a friendly Chinese businessman on the bus, whose English was just slightly better than my Chinese. We managed to get to our hostel (despite it being marked on the wrong place on the map in my guidebook...tsk tsk Rough Guides...), and we ended up wandering down one of the main streets and strolling through a nightmarket. Oh yea, and the hostel was well worth it! It was a bit like a hotel, but Missy and I were not complaining; our room even had a balcony that overlooked one of the rivers (Guilin has several)! The picture above is of Elephant Trunk Hill. If you haven't already figured out, the Li River area is blessed with these jagged, karst mountains. The birds and the raft in the foreground are popular in the region, where the river defines daily life. The birds, cormorants, were used historically as fishing birds; cormorant fishermen would tie loose ropes around the birds necks so that when they dove to catch fish, they would be unable to swallow them. The fishermen would treat the birds to every seventh fish they caught. While some people still fish by this method, it has become more of a show for tourists.

Once again, the river defines life in the area. Mostly everyone lives off of it in someway and most definitely gets the majority of their diet from it (or the livestock and fields that it nourishes).

We didn't stay in Guilin long (only overnight); it is a very, very big tourist city, which we wanted to avoid. Many more adventurous travelers head downstream to the bustling tourist town of Yangshuo, which is smaller than Guilin and closer to the heart of the densest mountain scenery and is the town where most of the large river cruises end at. We decided that this town was still too big for us and moved on from here, but not after wandering around a bit first.

I'm lovin' it...the mountains that is. Plus, here in Yangshuo, we were treated to our first truly blue skies of the trip!

The town sits in a valley that is surrounded on three sides by the mountains and the other by the river. It is a beautiful little place and has a lot of neat shops and market stalls, though some of them are quite spoiled by rich tourists who don't know how to bargain.

At the docks, looking upstream towards the heart of the karst mountains. It was up that way, in a small village, that Missy and I decided to lose ourselves in for a few days.

It's amazing seeing the river being shared by fisherman on those tiny bamboo rafts right alongside the massive sightseeing boats, which can hold a few hundred people!

This cormorant fisherman didn't do too much fishing with his birds, more posing with tourists for a few yuan. He was very friendly though, and really, the pictures are worth it!

I would highly recommend checking out Yangshuo on a market day. There is a vegetable market (with fruit, fish, and other river goodies included) as well as a meat market. The vegetable market is well lit and very colorful, as you will see in the next few pictures, while the meat market is dark and dank. Missy made it about two steps into the meat market before turning around, much to my disappointment. There was pretty much every part of a variety of animals available for sale, with much of the butchering being done on the spot. I was quite intrigued! However, we did spend some time wandering the vegie market. The picture above shows some of the edible delights from the river, namely, snails, toads, eels, crayfish, freshwater shrimp, and the odd fish or two. I had the snails and shrimp while there, and I must say, the snails were superb in a spice pepper sauce.

Ah, the colors of market...and the peppers too!

China: Xian, Shaanxi Province

2009-07-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

Xian is another city graced by a full ring of ancient city walls, but that is about as much as it has in common with Pingyao. Xian is a much, much larger city. It was another important city along the old silk road, and it was one of the ancient capitals of China. We spent three days here on our trip, which wasn't nearly enough to take in all that the city and the surrounding area have to offer. Unfortunately, the wet weather came with us here, but it still worked out well. Overall, we had a really good time in Xian.

Songbirds are popular pets in China. People keep the birds caged, but they also take them for walks and to parks to socialize with other people's pet birds.

Xian is well known throughout China for its great food. There is a strong Muslim population in the city, with an entire quarter of the walled portion named after this fact. The Muslim Quarter is a great place to wander, and the central Asian influence on the food is amazing. They thouroughly enjoy their barbequed meats, which are always done out in front of the restaurants...so you can just imagine all the amazing smells you encounter as you wander around. Having such a great love of barbequed meats, the Quarter is also home to a great deal of butchers shops, which are almost all open to the street so that passersby can see all the raw, butchered animals and parts (which I really enjoyed honestly). My favorite meals here were all in the Muslim Quarter. The barbequed leg of lamb was incredible. They use this amazing mix of spices for the bbq'd meats...so spicy and so good. Also, late at night vendors with carts come out to make fried meat and vegetable sandwiches, which were literally life-changingly good.

In the mornings, breads and soups are popular. We had a great meal of meatball soup, gelatinous chicken soup, bread, rice, and salad at a tiny little place in the Muslim Quarter. The place was obviously family owned (the Mom ran the show, Dad cooked the soups, and the kids just enjoyed us foreigners stumbling in and loving the food....the family obviously lived upstairs), and despite them speaking no English and my Chinese being absolutely terrible, we managed just fine. The best is that the whole meal came out to $0.80 each! Can't beat that.

A tiny alley lined with market goods. Bargaining is a must in Chinese markets (just not in official, government stores and most official food markets or quick-stops), and I had a great time doing it there.

A normal backstreet scene in Xian.

Xian has two old city towers...the central Bell Tower, seen here, which lies right in the heart of the city, and the Drum Tower, seen below, which lies on the border of the Muslim Quarter. The pedestrian only street that runs north behind the Drum Tower into the Muslim Quarter is lined with amazingly delicious bbq restaurants.

About an hour bus ride from Xian is the Terracotta Army sites. Missy and I were going to skip this to go check out Hua Shan, a holy mountain, instead, but due to the rain, we changed plans.

This site is truly amazing, despite the throngs of tourists. The army is split up over three "pits". The largest is the first (shown in these pics), and I would recommend, should you ever go, doing the pits in reverse. Start with the third and then work back down to the first. This is what we did, and each pit gets more and more impressive this way. I'm not going to give too many details here, if you are interested, just look it up.

There are just row after row of soldiers, horses, and charriots. The army was built by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, to guard his tomb. It was never supposed to be seen by living people, though since his death, it has been raided by enemy armies and most recently discovered by a peasant in the 1970's and excavated to the state it is in today. I wonder what the Emperor would think if he knew that thousands and thousands of people visit his "secret army" every week?

This is the second pit, which is also huge...though not fully excavated. Also, a lot of the figures here are broken.

The small, but important, third pit.

Each figure's face is different!

Back in Xian, at the Great Mosque, the largest of its kind in China. It was absolutely amazing to see the mix of Arabic and Chinese architectures and written language.

The roofs were tiled in blue...pretty cool. The complex is huge and well worth taking the time to wander and just relax, it is a very peaceful place. Also, the staff is very friendly and welcoming. The old Chinese guy that took our tickets spoke excellent English and French and I believe we also heard him greeting a couple in Spanish!

China: Pingyao, Shanxi Province

2009-07-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

Pingyao, it is a small town to the southwest of Beijing, about halfway between Beijing and Xian. It's historical city center is a nearly perfectly preserved Ming Dynasty walled city. Thanks to this, it is very, very popular with Chinese tourists as well as the odd Western one.

As I said, the city center is well preserved, and we can now benefit from the recently repaved streets, which are beautiful. We had quite a bit of rain for the couple days we spent here, and I was very thankful for those paved streets. Many of them used to be dirt, and with the amount of rain we had (quite unusual for the normally dry Shanxi Province), they would have been very, very muddy if they were still in their old form. Anyway, our hostel was the first building here on the left (look for the Hosteling International triangular sign), and like many of the "Western Hostels" here in Pingyao, it is an old Ming-era mansion. Ours was specifically built as a residence for the Emperor when he came on trips to Pingyao (though he never got to stay there unfortunately).

The courtyard at our hostel. It was beautiful, though unfortunately, it wasn't well maintained. We even had an issue with bedbugs in our first room, but fortunately I caught the little buggers before we went to sleep, so neither Missy nor I were bitten. When we moved rooms (across the courtyard), we had no problem.

Pingyao was an important city along the old silk road. Because of it's key location along this important trade route, it sprung up as the financial center during the late Qing era in China (the Qing Dynasty, aka Manchu Dynasty, was from ~1644-1912 AD and came after the Ming Dynasty). The city now has many, many museums and historical sites (other than the city ITSELF which is one big historical site). This is inside the old county capital complex.

Symmetry...always key.

This is the old county prison. The character translates to "prison".

Courtyard at the county seat.

Typical main street in Old Pingyao.

One of the few gates through the old city walls.

Outside the old city walls. A fun thing to do in nice weather is rent a bike and go around the full circumference on top of the wall.

Entrance to the Confucian Temple. The fact that so much here survived the Cultural Revolution is a miracle.

Bridge inside the Confucian Temple.

The little red things hanging everywhere are apparently people's prayers, written down and then hung up in the temple.

Incense offereings.

There was plenty of greenery in the temple grounds, which was nice.

A Christian Church...this was unique, though Christianity is a somewhat popular religion in China.

Pingyao rooftops from the central tower.

Pingyao street in the rain.

This was in the old guard training complex. Since Pingyao was a financial center with plenty of banks and large markets, lots of money, wealthy people, and goods came through here. Thus, body guards and armored carrier services were necessary. This old complex is one of the many museums in town and it is one of the places used to train and house the mercenaries used to protect wealth while in transit between cities. It is an interesting little complex, though I must say the highlight is being able to shoot real bows and arrows in the back courtyard (pictured here) for only 10 yuan for 5 arrows! Fun, even in the rain!

Like I said, lots of rain...I would have loved to see this town with bright blue skies, but oh well. It was still incredible.

Our hostel from the outside at night. I'll say some stuff about the food now. Shanxi is famous throughout China for it's various noodle and sauce dishes. While Missy and I were in Beijing, we ate at a Shanxi noodle joint called the Noodle Loft (Mian Ku), which I would highly, highly recommend. You can get a massive bowl of noodles (all different types, shapes and sizes too) for 12 Yuan (~$1.75) and then help yourself to a plethora of different, and delicious sauces. The food uses a lot of dark vinegar and tomatoes, though the sauces ranged from a very beef-gravy like thing to a very-marinara like tomato sauce. Anyway, the famous noodles are the cat's ear noodles (triangular and somewhat flat) and the very long (several meters) green noodles. In addition, Pingyao is famous for it's beef. Needless to say, while we were here, we sampled a lot of the local style dishes in the smaller cafes and restaurants sprinkled around town. This particular style of Chinese food was one of my favorites!

The city tower by night.

Many of the shops stayed open late. Notice the dry streets too; it was incredible how fast everything dried up after a day and a half of nearly constant rain! This is testament to how dry the area normally is. Overall, I would highly recommend a short stop over in Pingyao. It is a beautiful old city, and though we didn't get the chance thanks to the weather, there are supposedly many beautiful things to see in the countryside around the city. Pingyao is definitely worth about a day or two stopover.

China: The Great Wall

2009-07-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Missy and I were brought to the Great Wall by one of my Chinese colleagues, Dr. Yan. We went to the Badaling Great Wall, which is by far the most popular and most restored. This section of the wall lies North of Beijing about one hour by bus. There are several other sections in the mountains North of the city which are accessible for a day trip, and of course there are many other sections of wall throughout the North of China itself. We met a guy from the Netherlands who had even seen a remote section in the desert in the far West of the country; that would be quite the different experience from what we had at Badaling. Overall, it was breathtaking and unbelievable to walk around on such a phenomenal feat of engineering.

Go South at Badaling. This section has a longer walk and is much, much less crowded than the North section. We found ourselves alone quite often towards the end of the open area.

Protective statuettes here as well.

There were some very, very steep sections fo the wall...and in the heat, it made for quite a good hike!

I tried to figure out where the rock was quarried from to make the wall, though I was unsuccessful. The walls here at Badaling are over 25 feet high (7.8 m) and 16 feet (5 m) wide!

This familiar Great Wall is part of the more recent, Ming Dynasty Great Wall. There are much, much older sections from various other time periods, dating back to ~200 B.C. when the Chinese simply used packed earth as the first walls.

These are serious mountains...I cannot immagine invading armies coming through these...the vegetation is dense and the mountains are steep. Apparently, those Mongolians were unconcerned by this however.

The much more crowded Northern section..

China: Beijing, Part II

2009-07-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

I was in Beijing for work, but we were fortunate to get some time during the week we were there to see some of the amazing sites around the city. My favorite by far was the Summer Palace, Yihe Yuan. This massive park and historic area sits in the far northwestern corner of the city. It is a great place to get away from the hectic atmosphere of Beijing itself and just relax by the lake, or one of the historic buildings, or in the many gardens or woods. It was a remarkably peaceful place, and the grounds are so huge, you can easily find a place all to yourself.

Painting on the ceiling of one of the old buildings...the hilly grounds are sprinkled with old pagodas, temples, and palaces.

A woman practicing her flute. The locals definitely appreciate the beautiful and tranquil surroundings here.

The Summer Palace was started in 1750 by Emperor Qianlong. His artisans took the garden and archtectural styles from various regions throughout the Chinese Empire.

This palace was built in the Tibetan style.

This area near one of the few entrances has a bunch of little shops along the river.

Another person practicing the flute.

These walkways wind throughout the grounds...which are absolutely massive. We gave up on trying to figure out where we were...we just wandered and enjoyed everything we stumbled upon. Guides will try and intimidate you with numbers when you enter. They say the place is 3.0 sq kilometers, which is true, and that it is easy to get lost, which is also true. However, the reality is that while the property itself is around 3 sq km, 3/4 of that is covered by the lake, so the grounds you can actually wander are much smaller. A map is included with your entrance fee, and overall, the place is small enough that you can just walk in relatively one direction and find something major pretty quickly...finding the way out isn't hard.

A bridge near the Marble Boat (seen in the background on right).

This massive complex overlooked the main lake...it was enormous...once again, pictures do no justice.

Catching the late afternoon sun.

There were many statues of dragons, lions, and phoenixes scattered throughout the grounds. Dragons represent the Emperor, while the phoenix represents the Emperess. Lions were to protect people from evil spirits.

Once again, the painting and detail on the woodwork was intricate and absolutely stunning.

Looking out over the rooftops to the lake.

Attention to detail...and symmetry.

The newly restored Qianmen area, due south of Tiananmen Square. Unfortunately, not many of the stores and restaurants along this main street were open yet, but renovations are nearly complete and they will be open soon enough. This was a great area to come at night since all the buildings are lit up. There is also a cool night market just off of this main strip.

Back through there is one of the most famous Peking roast duck restaurants in Beijing.

The moon cooperated nicely for this shot...

Qianmen by day.

This was the little side street where the night market runs...though don't let the name fool you...most places are also open for business all day as well. One of the most famous tea shops in Beijing is down here.

Inside the Forbidden City. This place is old...and massive. It was built in the early 1400's, and these main courtyards were supposed to be large enough for the entire imperial court, which was comprised of around 300,000 people!

Many lion statues here.

Put these next three photos together to make a panorama of one of the main courtyards...

This place is enormous...impossible to translate by photos. There were throngs of tourists here too...mostly Chinese, but fortunately they stuck primarily to the main North-South axis through the City...so going off-axis a bit is a huge relief!

The Emperor had thousands of concubines and servants. They supposedly had a code system using the color of the roof tiles to let them know which buildings they were allowed to enter.

These carvings were amazing.

Lots of people crowding around trying to get a glimpse and picture of one of the thrones. The complex is set up along the North-South axis, with a series of large palaces separated by massive courtyards and gateways. To the flanks lie a maze of smaller passages and buildings. I didn't like it here nearly as much as the Summer Palace. There is a severe lack of living things other than a few small gardens scattered here and there (ignoring the throngs of tourists that is). The massive, paved courtyards give a very dead feeling to the whole place.

I couldn't get enough of these tiled roofs with the various protective statues on them. As you can tell...I love historic architecture.

Beware when you exit to the north...you WILL be accosted by people trying to sell you stuff...and it seems impossible to get a taxi from here, despite tons of them sitting around.

China: Beijing, Part I

2009-07-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

China, where to start? This country is huge in pretty much every way. It is the fourth largest country in the world by way of land area and the first by way of population. It is one of the strongest nations in the world in terms of military and economy. The Yin and the Yang are fundamental concepts in Chinese philosophy, and these opposite yet interconnected and interdependent forces are seen throughout China. The country is home to some of the wealthiest individuals in the world, yet it also claims some of the poorest. It has several of the worlds most densely populated cities while at the same time, some of the most remote regions, which are practically devoid of human life. It is home to the world's highest piece of land yet its coastline stretches for thousands of kilometers. Its cities are infamous for their polluted air and waters, yet its less known national parks and preserved areas are pristine and beautiful. It is a massive country of contrasts with an incredible and very, very long history. Where to start? I will start where Missy's and my trip started, Tiananmen Square, at the center of Beijing and the heart of the country. Here, I will do my best to relay the incredible three weeks we spent traveling through this country. We did our best to see a lot, but we barely scratched the surface in China.

The picture above is of a guard at attention in Tiananmen Square with the southern gate in the background.

One of two nationalistic statues flanking Chairman Mao's Mausoleum.

The Mausoleum of Chairman Mao Zedong. As with other Communist leaders of the past, like Lenin and Ho Chi Minh, Chairman Mao was embalmed (against his wishes; he wanted to be cremated) and entombed in a crystal coffin so the masses could look at his body long after his death.

The other flanking statue. I particularly like the SKS (assault rifle) in hand, but it is fitting as Communist China was founded by revolution.

Tiananmen Square is the largest open-air city square in the world... and it is absolutely massive! The square itself covers 100 acres and it is named after the Tiananmen, which translates to Gate of Heavenly Peace and is the famous red gate featuring the enormous portrait of Mao. Missy and I walked through here...taking our time to take in the enormity of the place as well as the incredible history it has seen.

Looking south down the main axis of the square, and also of Beijing itself. Feng shui is very important to Chinese architecture and civil engineering, and a good North-South axis through the city's center (i.e. where the leader lives...the Emperors Palace in the Forbidden City for Beijing) is vital.

Tiananmen, Tianan Gate, the Gate of Heavenly Peace. This is of course one of the most photographed places in China, and thus, there are plenty of people around it...even more so when you consider that it is one of the few ways to get access into the Forbidden City, which lies directly North (along the main axis) through the gate. It was near here that Missy and I first had the feeling of how few Westerners get to China. We had a couple groups of students ask to have their pictures taken with us as well as plenty of stares from some of the Chinese tourists. Overall, the people were very friendly though, and they got a kick out of my terrible attempts at Chinese. They particularly liked when Missy and I would smile and thank them in Chinese, xie xie.

They must have been repairing some of the tiles on the roof...gives you a good idea of how big that portrait is though.

A traditional gate outside of the Yonghegong Buddhist Temple near sunset. Beijing has a brand new subway system thanks to the Olympics, and Missy and I found it most useful (and extremely affordable) to travel around using it. We hopped on at Tiananmen and got off right outside the temple...unfortunately it was already closed by the time we go there though.

With the temple closed, we decided to go check out a cool little hutong we had read about. Hutongs are the old neighborhoods in Beijing...the old Beijing that is. They are networks of alleys and lanes with old houses, shops, and restaurants. It is in the hutongs, and there are many of them, that you will find some of the best food in Beijing...you just have to be willing to dive in, and probably get lost once or twice, to find it. We ended up going down into this one, North of the Forbidden City and West of Yonghegong, where we found an awesome little cafe with a rooftop patio to enjoy a snack, some Tsingdao beers, and the hazy sunset.

I don't know what it was, but I loved the fact that there was an active skate culture in China. I think it is because it goes so much against the strict, rigid and overwhelmingly studious stereotype of the Chinese youth.

A typical house entrance in a hutong West of Yonghegong Street. Missy and I wandered down here looking for a cafe. We didn't find the one we were looking for, but we stumbled onto the beautiful, tree-lined and historical Guozijian Street and a cafe that was just perfect.

One of the entrances to the Confucian Temple along Guozijian Street.

Guozijian Street is a very well preserved historical street in Beijing. It, as well as the area around it, is well worth a stroll down if you are ever there.

Pagoda inside the Yonghegong Temple grounds. The colors of the paint and the intricacy of the architecture are just absolutely stunning.

There are lots of lion statues in China...this is because lions are believed to protect humans from evil spirits.

Symmetry is very important to Feng Shui and Chinese architecture and planning.

We were blown away by the roofs in China. This is still in the temple, so we expected the intricate rooftops here, but this style is seen on so many buildings, including the some of the average homes and shops, not just the large palaces and temples!

One of the statues flanking the masterpiece of the Yonghegong Temple...an enormous statue of Buddha inside the last building, which you can see some of the intricate painting on here in the background. Despite literal tour busses full of tourists, it was great to see that the temple was still run by monks and used by the devout as well.

For a bit of nightlife, check out the area around Houhai and Beihai (lakes North of the Forbidden City)...though I must admit, the price for a beer is outrageous for China (~35 yuan = $5.00...like prices back home!). There is a cool little, but touristy, night market street near here when coming in from the Drum Tower and some awesome restaurants around the area between the Drum Tower and the lakes.

San Francisco

2009-06-08T14:39:00.001-07:00

This is going to be a very short post...not much talking, just sharing some pics from December when I attended the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Overall, I thought San Fran was a beautiful city, with plenty of life and atmosphere. It's huge, both in population and size, but it has somehow avoided the super-massive city feel, which I loved! I'm sure you all know this familiar bridge....the city's most famous icon.

View from Telegraph Hill...well worth the climb up the steep streets.

I love the sign...

Quirky buildings...

Delicious chocolate is made here... and you can't miss the the Ghirardelli store near the heart of things around Union Square...they have free samples!

The Fisherman's Warf area...lots of seafood...high, touristy prices, but still as fresh as it gets (lots of live stuff out in front of the restaurants themselves!)

Alcatraz Island

Sea lions just hangin' out by the docks

There REALLY were bay windows on almost all of the buildings! I loved the architecture in the city and how well everything worked with the many hills. I was not expecting the bay-windowed town homes to span more than a few pockets, but they were throughout the city, which was great! For some reason, they make for a warm, inviting atmosphere.

As I said, it was December, and apparently San Franciscans have a Santa Fest of sorts where everyone dresses up, drinks heavily, and then wanders the city. I was lucky enough to catch them at the assembly point in Washington Square Park!

North Beach: San Fran's Little Italy (really its huge!)... as with the rest of the city, there is some spectacular food here!

Chinatown...also some AMAZING food here!

This is actually a pic from Colorado, but it was on my way to the airport on the morning of my departure to San Fran, and it was just way too beautiful not to include.

Yellowstone National Park: Part 1

2009-02-28T09:30:00.001-08:00

Coming in from the South Entrance, we drove North, making our way through endless pine forest and the odd lake to the geyser basins near the famous Old Faithful. We planned on spending our first day taking in the Southwestern part of the park, where the majority of geysers and prismatic pools are found. Our first stop was just randomly along the side of the road in to check out this cascading river. It was quite a way down to it where we were standing and the water was no more than a foot deep and just streaming over the dark rock beneath it.

One of the smaller guys in the Upper Geyser Basin, with the Old Faithful Lodge in the background. This was one of the most built up places in the park since it is here that visitors get the regular showing from the Old Faithful geyser.

Some of these geysers were absolutely massive, and they can spray boiling hot mineral water hundreds of feet into the air.

The geyser basins are like alien landscapes... much unlike anything I've ever seen. Yellowstone is blessed with more geysers than any other geothermal area in the world. A couple other hotspots are Iceland and Rotorua, New Zealand.

Trees bleached white from the chemical steam.

The aptly named Firehole River.

The Morning Glory pool. I talk more about the colors in the next post, but this one isn't nearly as bright and vibrant as it used to be (the center used to be a bright, bright hue of electric blue) thanks to idiot tourists throwing garbage into the pool (which blocks up the vent at the bottom). Missy and I witnessed idiotic people doing a lot of stupid things in the park, like dipping hands into the mud and bright bacterial pools and acting like full-blown babbling morons at the sight of wildlife (running wildly, while drooling, flailing arms, and making weird grunts and squeals). It's people like that that I don't feel bad for when they are burnt horribly by the boiling steam of a geyser they got to close to or are horribly maimed by a wild animal to which they showed no respect. If people can't respect nature and what is there, if they do things to ruin it, then those people should never be allowed to go to such a wonderful place.

The geyser basin is just peppered with these venting white piles and swathed in massive open areas that are too unstable for trees to take root. This is the Old Faithful geyser before blowing its top....any second now...

There it goes...few minutes late....but it didn't fail to deliver.

Near-boiling hot mineral water streaming down into the Firehole River. Rudyard Kipling once visited Yellowstone and wrote about the immense courage it took to stick your head in one of the steaming vents along the Firehole. He said he never worked up enough courage to do it...which is why he was intelligent enough to be allowed in the park by my reckoning.

At most of the colorful pools, the steam was just too dense to see the full out beauty of the electrically bright colors. However, you do catch sudden glimpses through the shroud.

Once again...the landscape is so totally alien, yet here you find it in Wyoming of all places. If I didn't tell you, couldn't you mistake this for a picture taken from the air of the surface of some distant planet's icy moon? Meanwhile it was taken by me along one of the walkways in the Lower Geyser Basin. Amazing place!

Yellowstone National Park: Part 2

2009-02-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

Along the Grand Prismatic Spring. I highly recommend you look up aerial shots of this massive color pool. The colors come from various types of bacteria that thrive in certain temperature waters... as the temperature gets hotter or cooler, the color of the bacteria changes. It is surreal that these are so natural and so vibrant. Seriously...google image: "Grand Prismatic Spring from the air"...it is incredible.

Unfortunately, the main part of the pool (with the crazy blues, yellows, and greens) is mostly shrouded by the clouds of steam, but you can catch the faint glimpse of intense color from time to time. Also, the parts that you can see from the walkway aren't too bad either!

I'm not going to write much about most of these pictures. As we traveled through the park, we were absolutely floored by the views and its enormous size. Hopefully these pictures do some justice for that.

A massive geyser along the Firehole Lake Drive...

And a little guy shooting off some steam.

More prismatic pools...

Missy and I loved how the steam would just rise out of random places throughout the park. If you had no idea where you were, you would think that you were surrounded by forest fires in several parts of the park.

Near Mammoth Hot Springs

Missy and I took a drive to the North Entrance. This is the Roosevelt Gate, named after the President who was so important to the National Park system in the US. It is also in southern Montana, which is a state I have always wanted to spend some time in.

The old post office at Mammoth village.

The Lamar Valley.... we saw wolves!!! The Lamar Valley pack was out and about, sitting up on a ridge line and looking down on the massive buffalo heard that makes the valley its home. We saw about ten wolves total and they were really far off (across the valley), but fortunately several others with telescopes and really nice binoculars were there and willing to let everyone take a gander. It was amazing seeing these predators in their natural habitat...wolves are by far one of my favorite animals.

Another dramatic vista...

Missy's entire trip was made when we saw this bull moose. Moose are dying out in the park mostly due to lack of water supposedly, which is hard to believe considering how much water there seems to be. However, the ranger that was overseeing the sighting was telling me about how few there are in recent years compared to before and how there is a direct correlation to the amount of water in the park.

This park is enormous. It is so spectacular seeing so much unspoiled wilderness. There should be many, many more reserves of land that are this large and off limits to human development.

In the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.... it's from here that the park derives its name.

Our last night camping in the park; it hailed and was very, very cold. Each night we camped in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton, I woke up in the middle of the night to howling wolves; I loved it! This last night was really, really cold though, but fortunately we were all pretty tired and went to bed shortly after dinner and sunset. We woke up to an ice covered tent (the condensation from our warmth inside had frozen into a thin sheet of ice all over the rain slick), but the weather seemed to have cleared, which was very promising for our last day.

One of the first things we saw on our drive back to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was this: two buffalo swimming across this misting river!

They got out, had a quick drink, and then just wandered around a bit, crossing the road and moving off into the woods. They were very close and it was pretty spectacular.

The Hayden Valley, we saw another pack of wolves here! The two big valleys in the park (Lamar and Hayden) are famous for their wolf packs, though we were extremely fortunate to see both packs within two days! The Hayden Pack was feasting on a kill from the night before; I wonder if it was the cold or the wolves that got whatever kind of animal it was. Once again they were in the distance, but there were others with telescopes and binoculars that were generous with their gear.

Further along the valley we came across a herd of buffalo.

Artist's Point and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We returned here because we really wanted to see this canyon in full sunshine...it was well worth the extra 40 minutes of driving!

Our last stop in Yellowstone brought us to the West Thumb thermal area.

After another drive through Grand Teton, we stopped and had a full lunch at the Snake River Brewery in Jackson Hole, WY. Jackson Hole is a pretty cool, though super touristy, western town. The drive back was long (~11.5 hrs), but the scenery was amazing. We came back along the west side of the continental divide, which runs diagonally up through Wyoming in a massive ridgeline of 12-13 thousand foot peaks that bee-lines from south-central WY right up to Teton and Yellowstone. There were some spectacular mountains in that range that I would love to spend some time on, especially considering how few people lived around them (and thus how few actually visit them to hike, climb, and camp).

Grand Teton National Park

2009-02-27T20:45:00.001-08:00

Missy, Bailey, and I woke up early to this sunrise at our campsite in Northwestern Wyoming. We were on our way to spend five days and nights driving, hiking, and camping through Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks over an extended Labor Day weekend (September 2008). We had left after work the day before and drove into the early morning to cover the huge distance between Boulder and the far corner of Wyoming.

Entering Grand Teton National Park from the Eastern, Moran Entrance. The Teton range bursts out of the valley running the length of its Eastern sides. Grand Teton itself (the tallest mountain in this picture) rises nearly 7,000 feet above the 6,800 foot base plain to an altitude of 13,770 ft. It is spectacular seeing these massive mountains towering so high above you and dominating the landscape for miles and miles around them.

Mt. Moran and its reflection on the way in.

As I mentioned above...the mountains dominate the landscape. These pictures do little justice to the real thing. I found it absolutely spectacular to have such a broad, flat valley (the Snake River valley) and this behemoth of a range right next to it that absolutely ignores the notion of foothills and gradual inclines.

Mt. Moran, from the side this time.

Yet another of the spectacular features of the valley is the series of lakes that run along the very feet of the mountains themselves. They are crystal clear, glacial lakes, carved out by the spectacular forces of those receding rivers of ice. I heard from a geologist once that the fault along which the Tetons lie is still very active (obviously when you look to the activity in Yellowstone to the North) and causing the Tetons to grow higher while the lakes get deeper. I haven't confirmed this, but if true, that is pretty cool.

Mt. Moran from the beautiful Jenny Lake and just a short hike from our campsite.

Grand Teton and Jenny Lake. I absolutely fell in love with the area around the Tetons. As for what I look for in nature, you can't get much better than this.

The Tetons. Their modern name derives from what some apparently sex-deprived French-Canadian fur traders called the three dominant peaks: Les Trois Tetons (Translation: The Three Breasts). Somehow, this perverse nickname stuck, and now the United States has a National Park named after a grand tit.

Menor's Ferry. This ferry is part of a historic area in the park, where settlers once made their livelihoods and homes. Menor's Ferry used to be one of the only places for miles to cross the formidable Snake River. The ferry itself is an ingenious design, the guide rope above it restricts its motion to basically one dimension (along the line), and due to the angle on the two pontoons in the water, the side-to-side (in the direction of the guide rope) component of the force moves the ferry. So with the set up in this picture (ferry angled left into the stream), the ferry wants to move left but is stopped by the wall; to move right, just angle the ferry the other way (right into the stream) and let the river do the work for you!

The old General Store at Menor's Ferry historic area. They still sell goods, and the interior is decked out with antique, settler-era furnature, stove, and memorabilia. It is definitely deserving of a walk around inside.

One of the barns along Mormon Row...and yes, that is a herd of buffalo behind it on the left! I can only immagine living in this area in the 1800's...it would have been amazing and terrifying at the same time being so secluded in such a beautiful part of the world. I was blown away to find that there are still private residences INSIDE the park limits! They are left over from before the area had national park status. Lucky, lucky (and probably filthy rich) owners.

The area around the Snake River is lush.

Another old settlement.

And more spectacular views. I found myself as I was in Australia at Uluru...I could not stop taking pictures of these massive peaks. Each new angle, setting, and lighting provided another opportunity I couldn't let pass by.

I was surprised and a little disappointed to find a full-out marina at Colter Bay Village along Jackson Lake, the biggest and least natural (it is pretty much a reservoir created by a massive man-made dam) of the lakes. Though taking a couple kayaks or a canoe out would be spectacular, I just don't enjoy the sound of gas motors so much when I'm in such a beautiful area....though I'm hypocritical now since we drove in a car to cover the parks large distances.

On our second morning in the park we woke up to find this thin blanket of cloud resting midway up the range. The picture does little justice to just how cool this looked, especially since the clouds morphed and evolved in real time, disappearing within about an hour of when we first noticed them.

Crater Lake, Indian Peaks Wilderness

2008-12-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

4th of July weekend, 2008. A small group of us had wanted to get into the heart of the Indian Peaks Wilderness to see Lone Eagle Peak for quite some time, so we planned a trip over the long weekend. The small group exploded quickly into more than a dozen friends (and 3 dogs) that were up for the long, ~8 mile each way, hikes in and out and 3 days of backcountry camping without fires! The picture above is of one of the more spectacular waterfalls we passed on the way in.

Missy and Bailey about 2.5 miles away from the campsite. Each of us was carrying our own gear, food, and water for the 3+ days we were in the wilderness....plus every other person or so also had a tent.... and Jack also had a wiffle ball set (according to him, it wasn't 4th of July without a baseball game or something like it). Most of the packs weighed between 20 and 30 lbs.... so needless to say our backs and shoulders and legs were happy to finally make it to the campsite.

One of our first views at Crater Lake, where we camped.

Our first view of Lone Eagle Peak, our initial inspiration for planning the trip.

Me crossing one of the many makeshift creek crossings.

Lone Eagle through the trees...

Crater Lake is surrounded on all sides by 12,000+ ft ridges... makes for quite a spectacular setting. It was definitely more beautiful than any of us had imagined.

Nearing sunset on the first day.

Smaller than Crater Lake, Mirror Lake is aptly named. It was pictures like this one, with the perfect pinnacle of Lone Eagle viewed head on like this, that inspired us to go up there. We originally wanted to climb the peak (a class 4 scramble is the easiest route), but once there, we opted to just relax (mostly) for our full day and enjoy where we were.

Another of the views from Mirror Lake and by far my favorite picture from the trip.

My tent: home for Bailey, Missy, and I for the weekend. It was July, but at almost 10,400 ft altitude, the air was only warm in the Sun, and as you can tell from the pictures, there was a fair amount of snow left up there. Our worst bit of weather came in the form of a short, but solid bout of rain and hail. Overall, we did have great weather though.

Oh, Jack also hauled up American Flags...AND an apple pie.

Along the creek connecting Crater and Mirror Lakes...

While most of the (harder-core) crew tried to tackle the West ridge line, Missy and Bailey and I took a more leisurely hike partway around Crater Lake. This is looking back East from the West shore.

Lone Eagle's true form is given away from the West side of the lake. What appears to be the "perfect mountain" from the North is really just the end of another ridge. Lone Eagle's summit isn't even the highest point along the line!

Missy and Bailey waiting on one of the bigger rocks below, I climbed up a bit for a better vantage. From up here, I enjoyed full views of Crater Lake like this.

Another profile of Lone Eagle.

I went partway up this waterfall. Turns out the rest of the crew took this the entire way to the top before doing a bit of glissading down the larger snowfields above.

The ever-present, and ever-beautiful Colorado columbine. We actually saw a few red columbines on the way down. According to Jack, our local expert, the red ones are extremely rare... he had never seen one before this trip! The red ones were much smaller and not fully in bloom, so they weren't as photogenic as the one above.

Northern Ireland

2008-09-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

Derry city, Northern Ireland. I was personally expecting some kind of border crossing after our day of driving through Galway, Sligo, and Donegal. Yet, when we got into N. Ireland, the only thing that gave it away were the license plates and traffic signs. It took me a couple minutes to realize that the speed had switched from kph to mph, which meant the people behind me weren't too thrilled. Anyway, Derry city, also known as Londonderry, has long been an English stronghold in the country (since the 1500's). It is an interesting and lively city with an even more interesting history. Its city center is still surrounded by its medieval city walls. Still fully encircling their original perimeter, these represent some of the best preserved city defenses in Europe. Missy and I walked around on top of half the circumference, but had to get down since they access points are locked up at sunset.

One of the 4 gates along the wall. The wall has plenty of placards discussing the history. Bishop's Gate is seen here with its placard and a few tidbits.

Derry has plenty of murals. Many are republican, but this is a unionist one. Derry was one of the hottest of hotspots during "the troubles." Bloody Sunday occurred here, and for a time, there were sections of the city, called Free Derry, which were essentially run by the IRA and definitely not places where English or Unionist citizens were welcome.Derry City Independent hostel...by far the comfiest, welcoming, and clean hostels I have ever stayed in. I don't even know if you can call this a hostel....it was more like staying at a good friends lovely townhouse. It was decked out in various Asian art, furniture, and Buddha statues and had amazing washrooms.

Our double bed room. I wish we could have stayed here for a while...it was a great hostel and a cool city to explore, but we were nearing the end of our trip and still had plenty to see!

The Antrim Coast....a must see stretch and a must do drive. The Antrim Coast road runs around the northeastern coast past picturesque coastline and many amusing attractions, both natural and man made.

The Giant's Causeway...remarkable to see despite having to share it with way too many tourists.

Walk around while at the causeway, especially if the weather is as nice as we had when we were there.

These polygonal basalt columns are the Giant's Causeway. There are an estimated 37,000 of them ranging in height from a few inches to 10's of feet. Hexagons are the most common shape, but they can have as many as 10 sides. Irish legend has it that Finn McCool (actually Fionn Mac Cumhaill in Irish), a warrior from Ulster, fell for a woman giant from Scotland and built the causeway to cross the sea to get to her (the fault line along which the formation lies does indeed resurface on a Scottish island), and another legend tells of Finn building it to go to Scotland to fight another giant. The legend goes on to say that when Finn got to Scotland, he was surprised by the superior size of his Scottish foe. He fled back to Ireland and was pursued by the other giant, but Finn cunningly had his wife build a giant crib in which he hid cuddled up in blankets. When the Scottish giant showed up to fight, he in turn was frightened by the sheer size of Finn's "baby" and fled back to Scotland...good moral to that one eh?!?

According to geologists, the causeway actually formed by a massive subterranean explosion that shot molten basalt up to the surface where it cooled and basically crystallized into these shapes.

We had a beautiful day while we were driving the coast road. It started out overcast, but the sun cleared the clouds away, leaving perfect blue skies and this amazing ocean of turquoise.

The Carrick-a-rede rope bridge...definitely worth checking out. The island is connected to the mainland by an old rope bridge (which is now reinforced by steel cables), which was originally built by fishermen. It was hilarious to see how frightened some people got when it was their turn to cross, I loved it!

Belfast, the capital of N. Ireland. Belfast is a very large city, and Missy and I only spent a few hours here. Overall, I found the cities of Northern Ireland to be much too big and industrialized compared to their equivalents in the Republic. Both Derry and Belfast seemed like they had lots to offer though, and I hope that if I ever get back to either, I will be able to spend a bit more time enjoying them.

There was a continental food fest going on outside of City Hall, seen here. There was plenty of food from all over Europe here, which was really cool. Missy and I ended up going for a bit of French (a potato and cream with ham dish...and absolutely delicious) and a bit of German (bratwurst). This will end my Irish post. Our last full day, Missy and I drove back from Belfast to Dublin via Dundalk and the Bru na Boinne site, with its prehistoric tomb-mounds and passage graves. Overall, I absolutely loved Ireland, and will do my best to return again sometime in the future.

Ireland: Counties Sligo and Donegal

2008-09-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

This picture is totally out of place, but I wanted to start out with a good one. So on this day, we drove from Galway city to Derry in N. Ireland, but we decided to take a little bit of a roundabout route (see map in previous post) to explore a bit of County Donegal, which is famous for its beauty. At this point though, we were well aware that practically the whole island is famous for its beauty, but we just didn't want to miss out on this, especially since Donegal is the birthplace of my now infamous patchwork cap.

This was actually taken in county Sligo. We pulled off to see a waterfall shortly after the town of Drumcliffe. The body of water is Glencar Lough, which sits beautifully between the tree-lined slopes of the Dartry Mountains. It was a beautiful setting. The waterfall was nice too!

We zipped pretty quickly through County Sligo and up into Donegal. When we got into Donegal town, we were expecting to stop for lunch, but were met by some heavily armed military personnel (and I do mean heavily armed...these guys had fully automatic assault rifles) in the town-square, which seemed lovely. We were quite intimidated and figured there must be something special or dangerous going on and just passed through. It seemed like a nice town though! Anyway, we ended up stopping at this beach slightly west of town to picnic.

Looking west along the Donegal coastline.

After our disappointing day at the Cliffs of Moher and our unfortunate bit of luck with the cliffs in County Kerry, we really wanted to see some of Ireland's famous west-coast cliffs in full sun. Donegal happens to have reputedly the highest cliffs in Europe! It just turns out they were hard to find...we knew where they were, but couldn't find the road (turnoff really) to get to them! Anyway, these cliffs lie on the southernmost peninsula in the county, almost at the very tip. We ended up driving around their backside, which were still scenic, but not what we wanted, through a very country-side setting with a lot, and I mean a lot, of peat extraction by the locals. We drove out to the very tip, to a small community called Malinbeg, and found this little gem. This beach was boxed in on three sides by these cliffs...and though the pictures do little justice, this beach is one of the most beautiful I've seen thanks to this setting.

A steep staircase takes visitors down to the sand. It's a huge strip and walking around you are surrounded on three sides by steep, emerald green cliffsides with the odd crags sticking out here and there, and on the remaining side by the beautifully blue (when fully sunlit) North Atlantic Ocean. There is even a waterfall! Truly amazing setting.

And don't forget the sheep...they were all over the cliff-tops too.

Anyway, we finally found the turnout (on the other side of the cliffs from where we started), and here they are. The Bunglass Cliffs shoot up over 600 meters from the ocean below...3 times the height of the Cliffs of Moher. From up there, the ocean below seems unbelievably distant and leaves one with the false sense that you are too high and too far separated from the waves below for anything to go wrong...weird feeling. Anyway, once again, these pictures don't do justice to the real setting...but they will have to do until you see them yourselves.

A "road" brings you quite a ways up the cliffs. It was pretty sketchy at times since they apparently don't believe in guardrails...or two lanes...or warning signs.

Visitors can hike all the way around to the top of the cliffs....actually they can go all the way around to Malinbeg if they really want (we saw a couple returning from such a hike while we were lounging on the beach). Missy and I hiked part of the way up, but were forced to turn back due to time. At least we finally got to see some cliffs in pleasant weather though!

Ireland: Connemara, County Galway

2008-07-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

On our second day in Galway, we woke up to more rain and decided to get some much needed sleep. By about ten, the rain had stopped, but it was still quite overcast. We started wandering Galway city some more and by about noon, the sky had cleared and the air had warmed. We decided to go for yet another drive. Connemara is the region of lakes, mountains, and rugged coastline west of Galway. Our first stop was the old tower house seen above, Aughnanure Castle. This castle has been remarkably preserved. It still has most of its outer defensive walls, and for a small entrance fee, guests are free to wander the grounds as well as inside the tower itself.

The tower house is built right beside a creek, which definitely acted as part of the castle's defenses.

Inside the Great Hall. Standing in the room, it was so easy to imagine a medieval, wealthy family sitting down to a feast with a massive fire roaring in that equally massive fireplace. The tower also housed some more impressive defenses including a trap door, arrow slits aimed along the main staircase, and a murder hole (a grate above the small area between the two main entrance gates through which boiling oil, arrows and other nasty surprises can be rained down upon intruders).

Connemara countryside...this was right up there with the Iveragh Peninsula for me. The landscapes were so beautiful and welcoming, yet another little corner of Ireland I could easily see myself retiring to.

Mountains and lakes define the countryside here. MLK

I honestly wasn't exaggerating about those roads...MLK

Clifden is a relatively large town at the heart of Connemara. The streets are lined with little shops and pubs, restaurants and cafes, all of which are filled with that Irish charm. Missy and I stopped here for a cup of tea and a snack.

The view out the window at the cafe. The day had become perfectly pleasant, and with the delicious tea and fresh scones (with black current and raspberry jam and fresh butter and cream), it was a surreal little stop that made us linger much longer than we first planned. Clifden is yet another little gem that I will try to stay in the next time I'm traveling around Ireland.

After our break in Clifden, we continued along the road, planning to make a big loop of Connemara before returning to Galway for the evening. These are just some of the scenes we came across during the drive.

We made a stop at Kylemore Abbey. This picturesque old manor house is now a girls boarding school, but the nuns that run it keep a few choice rooms open to tourists (for a fee of 12 Euro). Needless to say, Missy and I were fine enough just lounging about the grounds for a while and taking in the scenery.

Looking down the lake at Kylemore Abbey. While we were there, we saw some plans for the future at the site. They are working on expanding the walled gardens, which are just a short drive from the Abbey, into a massive garden complex.

MLK

Just a little waterfall at the side of the road... MLK

And just the view across the road from the little waterfall.

And some more mountain majesty along R336 on our way back to Galway city.

Ireland: Galway City

2008-07-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

Galway, a city by the sea and well known now for its vibrant festivals, music, pubs, and nightlife. Missy and I were pretty tired after our dreary day of driving, but we still decided to take in some of the city before taking an early night.

Galway center's streets are alive and bustling, with plenty of restaurants, shops, and pubs. We ate dinner at a restaurant called Couch Potatas, which specializes in all dishes made from the staple of Irish cooking: the potato. After this, we stumbled upon this place which claimed to have a trad music (traditional music) set starting at 8:45. Meanwhile, the Champions League Football championship was going on between Manchester United and Chelsea. We watched the first half, which was awesome, and then we headed over to catch the music at Tig Coili

The music was phenomenal and the pub was so atmospheric. Between sets, I had a chat with the guy sitting across the table here playing the stringed instrument, which he informed me was a bouzouki. We also met and talked to this incredible old, one-handed Irish drunkard in this pub. He was a fan of the Irish cider, Bulmers, and seemed to drown his troubles and sorrows in the sweet draught. Incredible character though with some interesting stories that just added to the whole genuine feel of the place.

Much to the chagrin of a couple local guys we were talking to in the bar, after the Champions League final was won by Man U., a large celebration poured out of the bars (namely the King's Head seen across the street, the same place Missy and I had watched the first half) and into Quay St. There was singing and chanting and the ringleader standing on a trash can. It was quite the sight, but kind of odd that such a large celebration was being held for an English team winning. Though part of this was explained to me by another local musician, who I talked to at the bar. Apparently, since football is "an English sport" and is frowned upon by the hardcore Irish, who much prefer their native sports of Gaelic football and hurling, many Irish footballers pursue the sport in England, and a good many of those go to Manchester.

Quay St. Galway City. Quay St. and the adjoining High St., Shop St., and William St. are a long, pedestrian only series of shop and pub lined streets, which would take quite some time to fully explore considering all the cool little off-shooting alleys and side streets. Like Kilkenny, Galway has old medieval buildings scattered about it. One of the largest is Lynch's Castle right in the heart of the city center, which used to be the home of the city's leading family from the 15th to the 17th century. Now the massive stone structure is a bank.

Plenty of pubs with plenty of charm and character.

There were tons of swans where the River Corrib meets Galway Bay. Missy and I also saw our first Irish rainbow here in Galway. From here on, I am going to give Missy credit for her pictures by putting her initials (MLK) at the end of the comments beneath them. MLK

Looking up a small canal beside the Corrib River at sunset. MLK

Cathedral at sunset in Galway City. MLK

Galway was a great city, but being there, I definitely realized that my travel tastes have developed into seeking out more natural beauty and small, charming towns and villages instead of wandering the larger cities, regardless of how culture soaked they may be. MLK

Ireland: Counties Clare to Galway

2008-07-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

Poulnabrone Dolmen, the Burren, County Clare. Missy and I woke up fairly late for our drive up to Galway from Killarney. This was mostly due to the weather, which was extremely wet and dreary. After eating breakfast at the hostel, which included some lovely black and white pudding for me, we zipped our way north through County Kerry to the Tarbert-Kilrush car ferry. Our timing was impeccable and we were able to pretty much drive right on with no wait. Fortunately, we could stay in our car for the ride, which was exceptionally windy and rainy...but still with some beautiful views up and down the River Shannon. When we hit the north shore, we booked it again north aiming for our goals of the day: The Burren and The Cliffs of Moher.

As mentioned above, this is the Poulnabrone Dolmen, a massive megalithic tomb that served as the resting place of over 30 people dating from around 2500 B.C. (yea...that is old). As with other prehistoric megalithic sites, it is absolutely mind-bending to think how people moved these massive stones around, let alone how they stacked them. Anyway, as you can see from the surrounding area, the Burren is an awesome landscape of limestone riddled (and often dominated) hills and plateaus.

The Burren is home to more than 70 megalithic tombs and countless other wedge tombs, ring forts, and rock circles. As we drove through this breathtaking and other worldly landscape, we saw plenty of these prehistoric human sites just from the road. I found the landscape itself to be the most awe inspiring, however. The amount of rock is just staggering, and the usually green and rolling Irish country is turned gray and craggy as far as the eye can see.

When we first arrived in the Burren, we stopped at the tiny village of Kilfenora, which is apparently well-known for its traditional music. Missy and I stopped at a local pub around one or so to have a tea (we wanted scones too to help lighten the mood of this dreary day, but unfortunately we couldn't find any cafe's open). Anyway, the tea was great and the pub was even better. The interior screamed of character and history, with a plethora of pictures covering every bit of wall space and all containing images of musicians and musical groups with their instruments. The best were the pictures behind the bar: a journey into the obviously very musical past of the old bartender (and likely owner). It was an interesting place, and I wish we had more time to spend a couple days in Kilfenora to learn some of the stories, but more importantly hear some of the music, of the people in those pictures.

Look at the hills in the distance in this picture, the stone just permeates the region.

The Cliffs of Moher. This is one of the sights I was most looking forward to on this trip, and of course when we got there, we were faced with what seemed like gale force winds and painful rain. The cliffs were still extremely spectacular...beyond anything these pictures can show. Imagine the Atlantic Ocean, 600 feet below you and just beating at the base of the cliffs you are standing on top of. There were plenty of seabirds braving the storm too, and their aerial acrobatics really helped give a sense of the true scale of these cliffs. They were incredible, even in a gale.

An awesome feature of the cliffs is O'Brien's Tower, which was built in 1835. I would recommend doing a google image search of the cliffs and this tower. You should come up with many a picture exactly like this one but taken on a sunny day, when the sky has some scattered white clouds, the sun is bringing out the amazing shades of green in the grass, and the sea is a beautiful shade of deep blue. That was what I was hoping to see, but I guess I'll have to wait until I return to Ireland sometime in the future.

Dunguaire Castle, just another roadside view along the road to Galway. This is just outside of the town of Kinvarra, which itself is a beautiful little seaside town at the end of an inlet on the southeastern end of Galway Bay.

A view across from the castle at the town of Kinvarra.

Ireland: the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry

2008-07-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

For day two out of Killarney, we decided to take a drive around the Dingle Peninsula, a more rugged and narrow finger of land due north of the Iveragh Peninsula. We woke up early, and one of our first detours took us to the town of Anascaul to see the South Pole Inn. This pub was founded by a local man named Tom Crean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean), who was a member of the Shackleton and Scott Antarctic expeditions. Now, if any of you have been following this blog for a while (Dec 05 -Jan 06 posts), you know that I spent some time on "the ice" at McMurdo and South Pole stations. I have already mentioned both of these expeditions in these posts, and basically, Tom Crean was a heroic man: Shackleton's expedition was stranded on the Antarctic coast for more than a year when their ship got stuck in the ice, and Scott's expedition was the second group to reach the pole in 1912 (Amundsen's was the first in 1911). Anyway, after spending just under a month in Antarctica in the summer, I have a profound respect for the early explorers of that frozen continent. Unfortunately, Missy and I were there too early to grab a pint in the pub, but I got to see it and pay some respects to Tom Crean, a good Irish adventurer and hero.

The Dingle Peninsula is another highly visited part of Ireland, though not as much (fortunately) as the Ring of Kerry. We came across a couple of tour buses, but for the most part, and barring the drives through Dingle's scattered towns and villages, we felt quite isolated and by ourselves on our drive about this rugged bit of land.

On Dingle, you are never far from the sea, and you are constantly reminded of that, whether it be by views like this, the crisp sea breeze, or just the distinct dampness and saltyness to the air.

Dun Beag: a Bronze Age promontory fort, which sit at the top of steep cliffs so that visitors, both friend and foe, can only approach from one side, adding to security. This fort is quite impressive with its fortifying walls and trenches still visible. It also had an underground tunnel which was possibly used as a last ditch escape route for the fort's inhabitants. Ireland is blessed with an incredible amount of ancient sites, and the Dingle Peninsula has a great deal of them. Wandering around these sites, it is difficult to comprehend that those stones and structures were put in place thousands and thousands of years ago by early humans, who actually lived there!

View from West from Dun Beag.

Just down the road from Dun Beag is another farmer who takes a couple Euro per tourist for the privilege to wander through his fields and check out some 4000 year old human settlements.

A 4000 year old "beehive hut". These thick stone walls are stacked in such a way that they are watertight and definitely took the bite out of the very damp and chilly wind that seemed to be a regular feature of the area.

No explanation needed...oh but the speed limits here were still 80 kph.

We had gray skies for most of the day, but it definitely added to the feel of the place, which I'm sure would be so absolutely different on a sunny day. As I mentioned above, the feeling of isolation is heightened in the country here and the bleak sky just added to the lonely feeling.

These roads were fun.

And the scenery spectacular...

Dingle is one of the strongest of the Gaeltacht areas. It was so great to be sitting in a cafe and to hear the original Irish language being spoken all around us. There is a great effort in Ireland to keep the language alive, but English is by far the most commonly spoken language throughout the majority of the country.

The 1300 year old Gallarus Oratory. This is an early Christian structure with a design like an upside-down boat. The fitting on the stones is amazing and there are even some carved areas where a door was in place and for a window at the back of the building. It is also quite spacious, quiet, and somewhat warmer (than the surrounding air that is) inside.

There is just so much charm to the Irish villages and towns....I wish that the pictures could convey that more.

Missy and I had lunch at a small cafe in Dingle town. This was an extremely charming place, and when I go back to Ireland, I will be sure to spend a few days based out of this town. Our lunch consisted of two delicious and amazingly fresh hamburgers followed up with some tea and scones. Missy had never tried scones before, and the combination of those with the fresh cream and jam definitely won her over.

More colorful and charming buildings in Dingle town.

Our little Nissan Micra (and a sheep).

Ireland: the Iveragh Peninsula, County Kerry

2008-07-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

As we left Killarney National Park and made our way down R568 towards the Ring of Kerry, the scenery started looking more and more like the Irish scenery most people probably think of when they think Ireland: rolling green fields with distant mountains and plenty of sheep.

We stopped in a small town along the Ring of Kerry called Sneem. We were really hungry and decided to try some good full Irish breakfasts. We were quite pleasantly surprised to find such a pleasant and peaceful town with some additional rugged beauty.

Missy and I got our full Irish breakfasts here at the Village Kitchen in Sneem. I had by far the best smoked salmon I have ever tasted served up with a large plate of scrambled eggs, tea, toast (with black current jam of course), baked beans, and a tomato. Missy had the legit full breakfast consisting of tea, toast, two sausages, rashers (back, or Canadian cut, bacon), two fried eggs, baked beans, a tomato, and of course, black and white pudding. Irish pudding is similar to a sausage but consists of a combination of grains, spices, and pig meat, and black pudding has the additional ingredient of congealed pigs blood. Missy is slightly squeamish about such things, and I really wanted to try them. So I ended up eating both and absolutely loving it! They reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving stuffing..the real stuff that has been cooked inside the bird...especially the black pudding. Anyway, I loved the food. As with Poland, the food in Ireland, particularly these lovely breakfasts, reminded me so much of eating with my grandparents and family whenever I visit Welland, which is always a warm memory.

My experience along the Rings of Kerry and Skellig was the Ireland I was hoping to find. It was all so stereotypically Irish, but so absolutely genuine nonetheless.

Ok...so much for the genuine thing. Sneem is another Tidy Town winner, and they have this weird Way of the Fairies thing set up. The stone huts may look old, but they were erected quite recently (I mean in the past decade, not century or millennium like the other stone huts in the area) and contain colored glass windows to make pretty colors inside when the light shines through. There are several of these set up in a little grassy patch beside one of Sneem's old stone churches. Just a weird thing we found along the way...had to mention it.

Back to beautiful Ireland. This little patch of heaven is called White Strand and can be found on the Ring of Kerry in the southwest corner of the Iveragh Peninsula. This was definitely one of Missy's favorite spots we found along the way. The water was crystal clear, and we were blessed with an equally clear blue sky. The land in the distance is the Beara Peninsula.

White Strand.

Missy being happy to be back in her natural habitat, the beach.

Another kind local showing off his dogs tricks, and he was even kind enough to get us in the picture too!

If someone asked me what my favorite viewpoint from the entire trip was, this would be it. This scene contained so much of what I loved about Ireland. Unfortunately, this picture does terrible justice to how grand it was in reality. All I can say is that I could easily see myself retiring to one of those farmhouses.

The road continued to wind its way up to the Coomakista Pass at the southwestern tip of the peninsula, and all along it, there were these incredible views. It made driving quite difficult, and slow.

Ruins on the beach near Ballinskelligs along the Ring of Skellig. This beautiful drive is seen by much fewer tourists and travelers as it is inaccessible to tour buses due to its often one lane, steep, twisty roads (with your usual 80 kph limit of course). This peninsula on the peninsula is also a Gaeltacht area, meaning that most of the locals speak Irish (Irish Gaelic) as their first language and English as a second. It also means that the signs are all in Irish only, which was fine by me.

Ireland: Killarney

2008-07-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Killarney: a beautiful town at the heart of County Kerry. It has been a tourist destination since the eighteenth century, and this is largely due to its location near the beautiful lakes and mountains district that is now Killarney National Park as well as its easy access to the Ring of Kerry and Dingle and Beara Peninsulas. Missy and I stayed 3 nights in Killarney, so we got to know the town a bit as well as the surrounding area.

Our hostel in Killarney. It was a very good hostel for the cost (one of the cheapest we stayed at in Ireland), and except for a bunch of noisy German high school students on our second night, we really enjoyed our stay here. I would definitely recommend it.

Looking down New Street to the Old Town Hall (seen across the intersection at the end of the street). This was obviously a tourist town: it had plenty of restaurants (most of which were way too overpriced) and gift shops. But it also had a lot of really great pubs (with some great deals for food).

I loved the color of this pub, and the flag hanging on the adjacent building isn't too shabby either.

St. Mary's Cathedral. I absolutely love this cathedral. The colors in the stones are just amazing, plenty of blues, greens and aqua, and the architecture is phenomenal (as with most cathedrals). Inside was also absolutely beautiful, plus no admission fee!

A little cottage just inside of the National Park. Killarney town literally runs into the park, which makes it a popular place for people jogging or walking. There are a lot of trails that go throughout the park near Killarney town. Missy and I took some lovely walks around this area in the evenings.

The trails lead you through pastures, forest, as well as by streams and lakes. It is absolutely beautiful and serene. There is at least one herd of deer living in there near the town, and they are pretty easy to find (I ran into them twice in my three walks in there). Some of the pastures are also home to a breed of cattle that is unique to Killarney. These cows are also quite delicious, as I found out by enjoying the house special roast at O'Meara's pub, which had great deals on dinner. The roast consisted of roast beef swimming in thick brown gravy, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. It was amazing, so fresh, and paired so well with a thick, creamy, draught of stout (Murphy's).

A view out on Lough Leane. I really loved Killarney with its peaceful and accessible park lands. The park is such a perfect place to escape to and just enjoy nature.

Ross Castle. This is about 2 km from town along one of the trails in the park. This is a really well preserved castle, and by far my favorite we saw on the trip, both because of its location and for its style... a classic castle all around.

Unfortunately, all the doors are locked (trust me, I tried), and Missy and I were too late each day to catch the inside tours, which are provided for a fee.

This is more of the park along the drive we took to access the Ring of Kerry.

Ladies View lookout point. After twisting and turning your way at relatively high speeds through the valleys boulder strewn forests, you pop out with this amazing view back towards Killarney (the North). As is almost always the case, this picture does absolutely no justice for how amazing it was in reality.