China

 I have all my stuff packed (your stuff too), I am ready to go.  See you on the other side.  Or sooner.  I'll try to post in the meantime. 

I'm Packing for China

Interesting point.  Things that are easy to buy ...  shirts, socks, shorts.  No problem.  Things that are hard to buy, be sure to pack.  Just imagine yourself trying to buy a laxative in a store without being able to speak the language.  Or imagine trying to figure out the difference between laundry soap and breakfast cereal in a store where you can't read any of the packaging. 

Camera:

3 lenses (10-22mm, 17-85mm, 70-200mm)
2 battery Chargers
Canon 20D body
about 10 gigabytes of Compact Flash Cards (Thank you Kristina)
card reader
3 batteries for Camera
Small ultralight backpack

Clothing:

2 shorts
1 pants
6 socks
5 Undies
3 xford Shirts
4 t-shirts with America on them!
Running Shoes
Flip-flops (yay!)
Raincoat
Umbrella

Hygiene:

Razor
Shave cream
Soap
Hand towl
Shampoo
Toothbrush and tooth paste, floss.
Toilet paper
Condoms
Wet wipes

Meds:

Ibuprofen
Immodium
Laxative
Bandaids
Antacid
Cipro
Vitamin C
Copy of insurance card
Vaccination Record

Logistics and Navigation:

Passport
Money in the right currency
Visa
Phone
Guide Books
Phrase Books
Light
Maps
Gps
Monocular
Extra Glasses + a copy of current perscription

Entertainment and Electronics:

Ipod
Cords, adapters and Card readers, chargers.
Computer

Gifts:

Booze for the men and food for the women is always a good approach.  Adhoc gifts to augment the pile and offer to new people isn't a bad idea either. 

Something to carry it all in. 

Trip day in just 36 hours away

I'll have a Gin and Tonic

Apparently, If I go to Yunnan province, I've entered the malaria enchanted region of the world.   I went out to the CDC website and read a -- well, way to many advices -- and found out that I need to go to the doctor.   I need to get some gin and tonic -- or perhaps a real anti malarial. 

And there's this:

Avoid Injuries
Car crashes are a leading cause of injury among travelers. Protect yourself from these injuries by:
•Not drinking and driving.
•Wearing your seat belt and using car seats or booster seats in the backseat for children.
•Following local traffic laws.
•Wearing helmets when you ride bikes, motorcycles, and motor bikes.
•Not getting on an overloaded bus or mini-bus.
•Hiring a local driver, when possible.
•Avoiding night driving.

OK -- so this is an advisement for China.  Did anyone even consider mentioning that you should "Stay the heck out of the street," if you want to stay alive? 

The link is here:  http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/china.htm#notices


New China Plan ...

.. there isn't one.  We are bantering, my travelling companion and I, around two basic ideas.  A grand daddy tour going from Shenyang to Myanmar Yunnan, including destinations like Xi'an and Chengdu, with a side trip to Beijing ... or a coastal adventure around Shanghai ... plus Beijing.

I am just a few days from leaving and ... again, I have no plan.  On the phone tonight we decided to not worry about it, and figure it out as we go.  This might be the first person I have met to plan as I do.  After all -- I have a Blackberry, with navigation and an international data plan.  

China

Interested readers,

I am going to China again.  The basic plan is to fly to Shenyang, ride to Anshan and see my friend.  Then travel to Shanghai, and Beijing.  18 days, all tallied.  This is cool.  Shanghai is cool travel destination.  So is Beijing. 

Hotels in Beijing

I am thinking that parking may be a problem ... there are definately a lot of hotels

Searchqu Toolbar Browser Helper Object Removal from Firefox

Ok -- we ll I am not going to go into what an insidious piece of shit this is, but I think I managed to remove a search engine BHO from my system.

1.  Check the Add-ons and toolbars sections of your browser and disable any addons that are searchqu or datamanager.   Do this for all browsers.  Set the default search engine for each browser to something you like.

2.  Go to Settings > Add Remove Software and find "Windows Searchqu ..." and remove it.

3.  Find the c:\progarm files\Windows Searchqu * folder and use a powerful tool to remove it.  McAfee provides a tool with their anti virus software.  Destroy the entire folder and all of it's contents.   Check repeatedly to make sure it's really gone.

3.  Search the registry for "searchqu" and delete the folders or keys.  Be careful to delete all the searchqu matching keys and not any neighboring important ones.  Be stubborn, because there are many keys. Make sure you get them all.

4.  Restart your machine.

Good luck.  Feel free to send me an email if you have questions.







 
 

8/15/2011 Takasaki, Japan

I'm standing facing the mirror in a somewhat less than private area where there is a sink next to the washing machine. I'm shaving. Frankly, I am trying to be extremely careful not to cut myself, but I am nervous because 郭洁 (Guo Sie) is watching very intently. Because she is an adult with some experience in the the world, one might guess that she has seen a man shave before – but it seems not. Perhaps she has never had an opportunity to study it in any detail. Perhaps, like other Asians -- her body virtually hairless, she has never bothered with a razor. I muse a bit in a very Murrayesque way that she is just wanting to see if I shave up or down. I am trying very hard not to cut myself as we discuss hair removal using out fingers, shaving cream and a razor.  

Without good use of a common language, the best way to describe what I am doing – shaving, in case you've forgotten – is to point and touch and scrape, and strangely she is surprisingly interested. I grow concerned when she starts pointing out the hairs I have missed. It's a surprisingly intimate moment. I secretly wish in some abhorent fantasy, that she is holding the razor.  

She's not however, so I continue not to cut myself because it's in the world traveler's guide that I hold in my head. This is the list I've compiled over the years, advise of veterans, doctors, things I read in guide books, tidbits from my personal experience. “Do not shave.” it says. “Do not enter a body of water, even if it's a bathtub.” What about a shower? “Never eat pizza in Korea. Don't drink the tap water.” What about ice cubes? “If it's not baked, bottled, or boiled … it goes on ... “Carry Cipro, get vaccinated before you go.” The list goes on. “Never go barefoot.” It's exhausting. “Never try to program the toilet ...”  

In my mind I know that the risk of a trip ending event increases if I break these rules. When I went to get vaccinated, Japanese encephalitis had been dropped from the list of vaccines and there were no advisories of any kind regarding health, health care, or behavior. They did mention however, that if you will have a new lover, an hepatitis B vaccination is recommended. It seems that Japan is somewhat safe to visit as long as you don't have sex with the natives, or get hit by a car because you forget that they drive on the left side of the street. It seems Japan has actually managed to escape from the third world.

When you leave the cities and travel with local residents things can get out of control. You find yourself being offered hot, fresh home grown corn on a farm in rural China that your generous host has just rinsed in well or rain water to cool it off. Suddenly, there's an awkward decision. Do I take the corn and run the risk of dysentery, any sort of odd unknown parasite, bacterias and viruses, or even typhoid, or do I decline and insult everyone, including my kind friends that brought me here. I enjoy the corn and take my chances. I have no idea that just being on a farm in rural China is going to result in a interesting shoe sanitation problem in Customs in San Francisco. But the corn was quite good.

So I have been here in Japan just a few days now and I think I have broken every rule. We went to an outdoor onsen, or hot spring. We hiked in the water at Lake Haruna. Gou Sie is apoplectic, because of my tendency to just walk out side barefoot, and then back into the house. Apparently there's a mysterious invisible barrier where outside shoes and inside feet must never cross. I drank the gifts of the God of Water the at the top of Haruna Shrine. I have been in several bath houses. I have eaten raw fish, there's been an earthquake, I mostly likely have been radiated, and I possibly was struck by lightning.

And now, I have cut myself. It might be a good thing that I brought the cipro.

The Other Side ...

I am back from Japan.  I spent 12 days in Japan.  I am suffering from jet-lag and strep throat.   I am recovering.  I have stories to tell about Japanese baths and rice growing in the front yard, and Kyoto and Tokyo ... subways trains and ... umbrellas and thunderstorms.   see ya soon.

Did I mention the toilets ... because they were generally good, and funny. 

It's a small world after all ...

... and I have friends all over the place.  It's trip day.  Tomorrow morning, I will fly to Japan to explore the wonders of the world, yet again.  It turns out that I have some friends there. 

New friends and old friends.  I am excited.  I'll see you all on the other side of the world.  Or when I get back.

 

Planning ... and Asia.

I tried. Really tried.  To make a comprehensive plan for my trip to Japan.  This has happened before.  Everytime I have been to Asia.  There's no way to plan it,  Every time I have been to Asia I have had a host.  There's no way to plan if you have a host. 

In 1997 I went to Tokyo as a teacher of a software application.  My host was Ohmura-san.  and I had 8 students.  Every day they picked me up at my hotel.  They took me everywhere they could.  We ate, drank, and explored Tokyo.  We drank tequila and scotch.  Went to clubs, restaurants, old Tokyo.  They dropped me off at my hotel each night.   

When I went to Korea in 1996 I had a bit more freedom.  I taught at a hogwan ... we would explore the city ... and just take a cab home.  AI learned my way and took cabs and found my way around. 

When I went to China my friend took care of everything.  Crossing the street.  Everything.  Where to eat, what to do.  Where to go, When to nap.  what to see -- where to travel.  Awesome. 

So now I am going to Japan; to visit my friend.  And she is doing everything, as much as I try, she is going to make the plan.  I think I am just going to go with it.  

   

Per Volquartz

My friend and mentor, Per Volquartz passed away on Sunday morning.  I feel a profound sense of loss, I am lost, my spirit bereft of inspiration, adrift, at least for the moment.  I weigh the cost of a flight to Pasadena, the value of seeing the body, the presence and weight of my friends at his service.  Our value to each other as we find a way to carry on.  My unemployment and my lack of miles ... perhaps I can find a way there.

I imagine myself there, at his service.  I stand at the podium before eighty or so of our friends, to eulogize about a great friend.  I look into the eyes of my friends and tears begin to flow.  I begin.

Knowing Per, brings change to one's life.  I first met Per online.  First thing he says is can I bring someone I don't know to Lake Shasta.  When I got to Shasta, it was comfortable to meet him. It was as though I had known him all my life.  His greeting was filled with joy and kindness and laughter.  I sensed instantly that I had found a kindred spirit.  I remember I got thrown out of the hotel we were staying in. 

He had some people with him.  People warm and welcoming, the people in this room, people who would grow to be my friends.  They were other people like Per, that liked Per too, and thought he had something interesting to say.  Per was clearly a leader in his community.  In this community, and in a bigger community.  In places like Denmark and Shanghai, where Per was admired, respected and rewarded for a lifetime of work.  Of good work.  He studied with some great men.  I think I remember him telling me that he studied with Minor White, met Ansel Adams.  Per was an academic and a scholar, and a humble teacher, and a good mentor.  In places like Zion Canyon and Joshua Tree, and his quiet kitchen in Pasadena.  He taught us his tedious love of photography.  We soaked it up.  He gave his love for art and photography freely and with love.  He was inspiring.   I want to remember him standing up talking, sharing his love.

Per Volquartz taught us something much richer than his love for photography.   Per loved life.  There's a glimmer of love in my past that Per reminded me of so many times, a girl in a Springdale, Utah restaurant that I might have loved.   "You should go and find her," he would say.  In a quiet unassumimg way, Per repeatedly reinforced a much richer notion than photography, that we should be inspired to live well.  Through his example, we saw an appreciation of life, of living.  An example that we can long admire.  He taught us to love, and to care for each other, and to care for what we do, the way that he so kindly cared for us, nurtured us. 

And now, he is gone. He is teaching us to grieve.  In the midst of that, he leaves me with all these friends, that I know will share the joy I can feel at having even a few brief moments to share with a great man.  We are the lucky ones. 

We need to drink some port and make some platinum prints, and celebrate a life well lived. 

Open Faced Crabcake "Sandwich" with Cucumber Salad

When I was young, Friday night often was started with salmon patties, a fairly simple dinner that my mother used to make involving a can of cleaned red salmon, an egg, a handful of soda crackers, a bit of tartar sauce and some french fries.   We didn't know that this was an exercise in thrift, turning one can of salmon into dinner for a family.  For us it was just Friday night. 

So, this quick Saturday lunch with my mother is made in that general spirit.  Clean, simple fun with food.  I also made one of mother's favorite dishes to go alongside, a simple cucumber salad ala Jacques Pepin, julienned cukes with a simple olive oil and basalmic vinegar dressing with cracked pepper and salt. 

The crab cakes are of the Maryland style, using my free sample of Old Bay Seasoning (that's like being sponsored), soda crackers and an egg, along with mustard, mayonaise, dry mustard, and worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and fresh parsely, and 1/2 pound of crab meat.   1/2 t. of each of the Old Bay and dry mustard.  1/2 T of Lee and Perrins. 1/4 cup mayo, and 1 T. Dijon mustard.  Juice from 1/2 lemon. 

A simple tartar sauce using a t. of relish and 2 t. mayo, plus a skosh of lemon juice and black pepper, finishes it off nicely, and adding a pan seared slice of whole wheat french bread under the crap cake rounds out the meal.   

Japan

















I was in Japan, in 1997.  I am going back in August.  

The Potter, a poem by Pablo Neruda

Your whole body holds
a stemmed glass or gentle sweetness destined for me.

When I let my hand climb,
in each place I find a dove
that was looking for me, as if
my love,they made you of clay
for my very own potter's hands.

Your knees, your breasts,
your waist,
are missing in me, like in the hollow
of a thirsting earth
where they relinquished
a form,
and together
we are complete like one single river,
like one single grain of sand

San Bruno Mountain

From San Bruno Mountain Summit Loop Trail

The Dating Lesson 2

Well ... Faithful readers ... I am sure you all remember the dating lesson.  As the Old Bag said in the comments of that post, "She's out there" (I liberally paraphrase).  I just have to have to find that mythic woman. That wilderness savvy beer sipping goddess, river running ... sculpture lovin' babe. It's going to happen. 

But not tonight ... Tonight I sat at a bar in a swanky restaurant.  Waiting.  My date insisted on it actually.  I offered two very efficient, trendy and affordable alternatives. Su's Mongolian Barbeque and Ramen Dojo.  Neither is as swanky as Rok Bistro in Sunnyvale, however.  It's also mostly true, that you could not eat enough in Su's or Ramen Dojo to spend as much as any single item on the menu at Rok. 

"I really want to go to the Rok" ... So I made a reservation.  I am very punctual.  So I am early ... I go to the bookstore.  Cute gurl I met last time I was at that bookstore is not there, I pull some dusty travel journal out of the wood work.  I go across the street to the restaurant and I am still early ... and so there I was in the bar, waiting.   Forty minutes later my date calls from the grocery store, "I am buying food for my son. I have to take care of my son ... I'll be right there." 

Sure, I understand.  I return to waiting, and the battery on my phone dies ... pretty soon the bartender offers to buy me a drink ... feeling sorry for me.  Time flies when you're having fun.  After a while they inform me that if  I'd like to eat it would be good to order because they are starting to close the kitchen.  So I got to a table ordered a citrus salad and a sirloin medallion and ate.  The salad was quite good with spinach, some fresh friut and almonds, with a vinigarette.   Clean and simple and very effective. 

The Rok part of this comes from the service of the various cuts of meat basically raw on a slab of very hot stone ... you know ... rock.  The guest -- that would be only me by this point, then cuts the meat and grills it on the hot rock.  Sides were some large asparagus spears and mashed potatoes, which were pretty generic and unspecial.  Teo sauces for dipping were both grand, so the meat was the star of the show.  The sirloin was quite taasty, although at several points I had to use my poket knife to get through it. 

Over all, quite satisfying.  Unlike my date. 
I want to rant now about how having a son is not a reasonable justification for not being able to make a valuable assesment of one's own ability to arrive somewhere, or just calling to cancel. or saying, you know what ...I can't make it.  I am not going to do it.   Frankly, I knew better.  During our second date, she was 45 minutes late and only called when she had already arrived.  During our third date ...

Not going to do it. 

Recent Letter to a Friend ...

I looked at the spam emails I've been getting from your yahoo email ... they are redirecting traffic to a waurez site, which is geek jargon for a hacker resource site. The site has the extension "ru.gg." The original source of the email appears to be another yahoo email, but the headers in the email may have all been faked, so there's not necessarily anything to go on.

It may be that they've just farmed your email off the web and are using it to generate spam. However, it may be more hostile. If your computer had spyware or other software installed on it as a result of you going to a link like the one being sent in your emails, your computer may be generating the emails. It's possible that your computer is infected with some sort of spyware, malware or virus. I am afraid to look at the link to see what it does ... because I may not be able to protect myself from it.

I did some searches and there's enough traffic on google that it pops up a shortcut to the "ru.gg virus" so that I am just going to guess that you have a virus.

If you have back ups of your data then -- don't worry about this too much -- but I would spend some time backng up data on your computer to cd's or dvd's Then, I recommend that you update your computer's Operating System (I am just going to guess that it's Vista, based on what I read about this on line). Get all of the recommended security patches -- and then set your computer up to automatic update, especially if you are online all the time. Then, update your McAfee and manually run a scan on your entire computer. They may be using a thing called a browser helper object to reinstall itself when you start your browser ... Let me know if you notice anything unusual about the browser ... like it keeps going to some other page when you set it to go to your normal home page. These are often hard to fix.  If the virus is a worm, it will be equaly hard to fix, and sometimes your applications can be affected too.  You might need help.

You should really "scream" at yahoo, because they should be willing to join the community of people in the world that are trying to prevent and intercede against hacking. Asking you to change your password is not going to prevent this kind of attack from succeeding. They should know that.

If you want me to help you try to fix this -- I can look at it.

An Open Letter to the People of Egypt

This is what I recommend you tell your government, and I believe this should be the official US position:


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[72] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

... and so on. 

Godspeed to you in your quest for liberty. 

Rain (Rapa Nui)

... excerpt from  Rain (Rapa Nui) 

...
Bury your twin-burning breasts in my mouth,
and let your head of hair be a small night for me,
a darkness of wet pefume enveloping me.

At night, I dream that you and I are two plants,
that grew together, roots entwined,
and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,
since we are made of earth and rain.  Sometimes
I think that with death we will sleep below,
in the depths at the feet of the effigy, looking over
the Ocean which brought us here to build and make love.
...

Pablo Neruda