12 Months of Eye Candy

I have finished wrapping 90% of my gifts, hubby is in charge of the Christmas cards, there is very little baking to do for our calorie-conscious time. Therefore, I am going to sort my photos of this past year and give you one from each month as a thank-you for reading, contemplating and commenting this year. Since I have thousands of photos from each month (addictive), the first quickly selected six will be delivered now and the next six...whenever I can grab a little more time. Happy Holidays to you all and don't forget to save the wrapping paper and recycle!

Natures decorations in January.

My neighbor's sailboat in February.

At the feeders in March

A spring trip to the Kennedy Center in April.

Getting the Grands bird-watching across a restored meadow in May.

Here's looking at you, kid, in the summery month of June!

Patience, something I keep opening files and trying to find....

Juggling Christmas:  card mailings, gift buying/wrapping,  decorating and maybe a little baking is about all I can handle this month.  I am not religious, but I am NOT anti-religious...and yet...someone who rules this universe has decided I am stronger than I think or just not worth worrying about.

I love my husband of 49.5 years... I really do! And somedays I have to tell myself that out loud. He is great at editing my Christmas newsletter filled with all our brags for the year. He is great at giving me a definition of a word when I come across something I am reading in a paper book. He knows history, chemistry, and biology and explains stuff to me.  He remembers the names of people I have long forgotten.  He is the social animal that keeps me from being a hermit.

BUT...he does not know how to use a computer. I will never understand how he got through decades of bureaucracy using computers when he does not understand the difference between save and save as, the difference between Adobe files and Powerpoint files, how to connect his laptop to the Internet when the signal gets dropped, or the difference between a browser and an operating system!

He is a (very) friendly soul and when someone asks if he will give a talk using Powerpoint slides he jumps right in (he loves to expound). I groan inwardly as this means hours ahead for me helping him find lost photos, lost files and various saved versions of the slide show as he plunders ahead.   I wish I was a more patient person.  I have taught all age groups in my lifetime and did not find it so frustrating as I do with him.  While I did not teach computers, except briefly to my son's high school teachers, I think  I would have done well.

I will try to be more understanding as he does get frustrated with himself.  Will you all light a candle this season for our silly problem?

The Wind Up

The world revolves too fast these days, at least for me it does. I am holding my own, but I think we are like those Afghanistan wealthy citizens that hung out at bars and restaurants before the war many years ago.  We can bury ourselves in the fun and craziness of life while a storm builds in the distance. Something big and loud is coming that will make our hair stand on end.

I am back from our quick jaunt south with the family for Thanksgiving.  It was fun, but as my prior post indicated, it was a rush job.  We said goodbye to them at the airport and then drove north to visit our friends for a few days and then a retreat for just us at our local timeshare.  The place was all decorated.

The beaches were so peacefully empty and the cold was very tolerable.

I finally had time to just breathe.  Now I have to pull our small Christmas tree out of a box and decorate the living room so we have a little bit of holiday before it rushes by so fast.

A Post Thanksgiving Post

It is an odd day as I sit only 200 yards from a white sandy beach and a tropical ocean. The beach has been re-created by man and is soft and mushy. It is surrouned by concrete cubes of architecture that block the sun by 2:00 in the afternoon.  Like migrating birds this sends all the beached whales that had flopped on towels around the pool inside to other activities. All around are people having too much fun. Lots of curvy skin (those large cheeks of tanned cellulite are really distracting) and their shiny gold bracelets demand respect as their bleached locks with streaks of carnival red are intriguing. The music is loud, the children are hyped, the drinks flow freely and I am feeling lost on an alien planet bracing my feet in the event that there  is a black hole sucking up ahead.

At least a third of the partcipants at sun and surf are well- toned runners with  phones  strapped  to  their arms and  water bottles  in hand as they gazelle along the beachwalk and weave past the rare homeless  man whose bicycle is piled with stuff.

The last of the group are elders like us who trod and plod from one gift shop to one restaurant and finally back to our beach chairs with some beach  drink in hand and a good book tucked under our arms.

I am here with grands who never leave the pool except to visit the hot tub or run in the surf and then back to the pool.  I exchange less than three words with them during the day, because when they return to the bedroom they focus on small screens snapchatting with friends back home.  Snapchat is  a  frightening way to communicate, I am thinking, but I am old, what the hell do I know?

We go with hubby to visit the home he left over a half century ago and oddly enough the house next door had younger (now old  and retired) neighbors that remember him from past visits! We talk about the history of  the neighborhood and are surprised  that while people have  passed and new people moved in,  it has not changed much  in culture or  architecture. 

Later in the afternoon we all tried to find the  gravesites of the great grands wandering  over the cemetary reading plot after  plot,  but with the cemetary offices closed on  TG day we will  have to do ask them directly another day.

Our meal on the holiday is an extensve buffet of TG favorites at some famous chef's restaurant,  and although it is expensive,  it is  really delicious.  No leftovers to take  home, though.

The crazy week comes to an end tonight and we drive back north and visit friends in Central Florida for a few days while the kids all fly home.  Then by mid-week we return to the land of  wintry storms and cozy fires. 

A Perspective and Farewell to China

Our last two nights were spent in Hong Kong. It was a very quick visit and my part was cut in half as the second day I skipped the bus tour due to a mild intestinal issue. By early afternoon I was fine, but the tour had departed early morning! The point I am making is that my view of Hong Kong was very limited. It is a huge and magical city with so much to see! So much was not seen and certainly worth a return trip someday. 

This is a lengthy post so grab a cuppa.

We arrived by train which is a much better way to transition into another area of a country and to give some perspective. Locals traveling with us were in a pretty good mood, so I am guessing they were on holiday. Our train, not the famous bullet train, went very fast and extremely smoothly through the countryside.

We had been provided lunch by our guide, but the train also had lovely ladies coming through with hot and cold items.  Click on photos for larger view as usual.

Our train actually got up to 308 km which is over 191 miles per hour.  Not a single shake or ear pop or even much increase in noise!

We crossed rice fields as we left Guilin, the karst area of southern China.

And in a couple of hours after two stops we were entering the Hong Kong District, one country and two governments.  

Now for a brief history and essential rant.  They have another few years before they are supposed to be totally melded into mainland China rules and laws.  If you are following the protests closely, you know that the young people are willing to die to prevent this, and I am afraid this may happen!  I am guessing they remember Hong Kong's form of democracy based on the British rule.  If you want to know how all this started in 2014 you can go to this or this link and read the history.  It is complicated but seems to have begun with the disappearance of a number of booksellers in Hong Kong who sold books critical of the mainland government, which was legal to criticize your government as Hong Kong had freedom of the press.  A few managers of the bookstore called wives from mainland China saying they were on business for some time and to excuse their sudden disappearance.  They all never came back. Governments that are fascist are good at making citizens disappear or putting them in jail under false accusations and suppressing freedom of the press by claiming it is false news rather than bringing facts to argue...sound familiar?  You cannot rule with an iron fist if the press spews out facts against you. 

If you are following the U. S. impeachment hearings the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was told she had better watch her back when she said to her supervisors that she was confused by Guiliana's work in Ukraine without him going through normal channels ...she received vague threats with no specific comments on how she could improve doing her job.  This is what mobsters do.  (Those two Russian/Americans, friends of this U.S. administration, that were arrested at an airport with one-way tickets out of the country a while back, were involved in this false effort.)

This year mainland China stated they were going to extradite people who had been arrested and send them to the mainland for trial. That set off a major eruption of protestors.  There are rumors that some mainland Chinese are being paid to enter Hong Kong and incite more violent protests to make the real protestors look like terrorists.  Also, mainland soldiers are now being stationed at the border.  History in the making is breathtaking. 

OK, now back to my trip.  In just a little while we crossed closer to the water and began to see the industrial shipping areas that Hong Kong is famous for.  They used to be the number one port on the globe, but now they are 4th with other mainland China ports being more active and bringing in more money.

Can you see the high rises in the distance across the suspension bridge?

In no time we were into the city of high rises and gleaming buildings. There were just a dozen of us that took this extended tour and we were amazed at how the two luggage porters could accommodate those of us (NOT ME!) who had to have tons of luggage with them.

Once again lots of high rises where people live!

Below are two photos of the central promenade which we walked to from our hotel, once we got settled. Earlier protests had occurred here although we saw no damage. At the time we were there most protests were happening on the weekend and we did not see any part of it. The University is a bit of a distance from here as well.  You can see local tourists below.

Our guide was barely subdued in his anger at the protestors and how they were pushing Hong Kong into a recession.  He said that the hotel rooms were now going for 1/3 of their usual prices making people who lived there say it was cheaper than their rent.  Since he made his living in the tourist industry, it clearly impacted his earnings.  That is the cost of freedom.  What is freedom worth?

Well, I do hope someday to return to Hong Kong and see a much more in-depth tour of the city.  I may have a friend moving there for the U.S. government in the coming year, so maybe I will go visit them!  Thanks for reading all the way to the end, and now you can reheat your tea.

Take Off the Rose Colored Glasses

I fell in love with China and its people. As I have written, everyone was polite and helpful (someone who likes the "straight-talk" would say they are intimidated and know their place.) Both of these things are true. The Chinese government is trying to keep control of more than a billion people, people who are no longer hidden from the real world. The government blocks Facebook and Google and other social tools, but the Internet is still rampant with information that leaks into the homes of a very diverse culture that embraces a capitalistic culture and is eager to learn about the world.

China has 302 living languages, 276 indigenous. They are called "dialects" rather than languages...not accurate! The national language is Mandarin since 1913 and schools are required to teach that. We were told many times in our tours about the indigenous people and how they are given extra points to get into colleges or get special privileges, etc. The Hans, the largest group in China, is somewhat jealous of this, much like our white folks are angry that minorities get special treatment.  They also have discrimination issues between the various religions.  (Click on the photos for a larger view.)

On our visit to a local family (a friend of a friend), my sister-in-law had an app on her phone and we were able to communicate with about 80% accuracy.  It was fun and certainly helped as we had to take the local bus to their home and also to the restaurant!

The greatest variety in people is seen at the temples and tourist areas.  This is also the place you see more police and military keeping the peace(?).

Our tour was full of shows in cheesy costumes and basic folk dancing celebrating the diversity and the history of the country. They reminded me a little of our American Indians who used to do traditional shows years ago.

This post has gotten a little long, so I will talk about our final days and visit in Hong Kong next, since they are in the news so much these days.

Did I ruin your appetite?

Perhaps somewhere in the world there are people who do not like Chinese food, but I have not yet met them. We really enjoyed all our meals even though we were ready for something different at the end of the three-week-long trip. Perhaps NOT wanting to eat something as different as some of the photos I took at a local food market below:

Stomatopods--one of the most ancient of creatures

Grubs and chiles!  Yum!

Wondering what these long caterpillar-like insects are.  Once again with chiles.

Ah, something familiar, squid tentacles ready to BBQ.

The famous durian that tastes better than it smells and is illegal to have in some apartments.

Candied fruit for dessert.  These tiny apples were everywhere including on a plate in our hotel room.

Some Yak cheese, hard and a little sweet.  Would you like some with your rice wine or Chinese beer?

Huge grapes and some persimmons?  These did look good.

I have omitted the Peking dinner, and maybe will get around to that sometime in the future.

Just the Highspots

With three weeks to tour a country (the Chinese land area is about 2.2% bigger than the United States, 3.5 million square miles) and we did get to see all the high spots that are on many tourists' bucket lists and I would like to share.

We visited two monasteries, one for monks and another for nuns.  These are the nuns below who allowed us to wander through their meeting before lunch.  We saw lots of yak butter candles and monks debating.

I just love that whimsical face in the lower right!

We visited the museum with the Bronze Age bells that were buried in 443 BCE and re-discovered in 1978. For the whole story if you are a musical history buff, go to the link. While we did not get to hear the original bells played, we did get a very nice concert using their exact replicates. It was most pleasing to the ears.

We also visited the very impressive Tomb of the Terracotta Warriors.  Much larger than I thought and still ongoing in its exploration and reconstruction of tiny pieces.

We did not visit the Panda Preserve but did visit the Beijing Zoo where the Giant Panda was so over all the fame that he gets.  I did learn that they have to use porn films of other Pandas in heat to get those in the zoo or those in the preserve to be interested in the opposite sex.  No wonder they are endangered.

We toured the large Tienanmen Square and the palaces in the back through the gates.  One of my readers asked about the pollution and there were many days that we could not see into the distance.  Above you can see one of the days.  I was surprised how isolated from high rises this square was.

We hiked to the top of the Winter Palace of the Dalai Lama who is now a refugee in India due to his extreme and loyal following.  The air in Lhasa has only 68% of the oxygen of the air I have here at sea level.  It took me 48 hours before my head felt that it was not floating above my shoulders or that I could walk without looking like I had downed three margaritas in fifteen minutes.

We also walked the Great Wall of China during a time that the crowds were not too crazy!  That took some effort and I am glad I did it at my age now!  I barely got my mind around it and really think you have to backpack the area for a bit to really understand its importance and size.

I see my readers have now fallen asleep, so I will put writing about this trip to rest for now.  Someday I may talk about our wonderful food experiences and a Peking dinner with some friends of friends.  Thanks for allowing me to reminisce my opportunity.

Rural Contrasts

In the cities, the people were younger, looked more professional, or looked as though they were students. As we moved into the more rural areas of China we were able to see a broader contrast of people..both the younger and older...much like the United States.

We visited a rural school that is sponsored by the cruise line and that was a lovely experience. We each were "assigned" a first grader to work with on English for about 15 minutes. My little gal was very shy and it took lots of drawing and hand motions to bring her out.  The school was very rustic and there was no example of technology.  A big contrast with our rural elementary schools.

The teacher was dressed very professionally and kept a tight reign on the little ones.  There were marks on her desk where she had banged the ruler with passion. I can imagine her in her house getting ready for this visit  by a group of old, rich, Americans. Chinese teachers can get credits toward further education if they teach for some time in rural areas.

Automobiles are expensive and hard to come by.   Getting a license involves a lottery and your license plate allows you to drive on the streets only certain days! There are many cars on the streets, but most people travel by motorcycles or motorcycle versions of transport or via bicycle.  Streets were crazily crowded, but I saw no accidents in the three weeks of my birds-eye view from buses.  I saw only one car with a dent. When there was a problem with two drivers I saw it handled with moderation and politeness, and usually finished before the authorities could arrive!

Chinese are very Zen about their lives.  It was not unusual to see someone playing jazz in the park.  There are always groups doing Tai Chi in the early mornings before work in the city parks.  I did see a few beggars, but they were severely handicapped in all cases, missing arms or legs or being blind.

These gentlemen greeted us on our walk toward one of the many pagodas we visited. Go ahead and caption it, or tell me what you think they are thinking...