Category Archives: Weather

Day 495 In Beijing: Trip To Prince Islands, Part 4.

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Another house in disrepair.

Another house in disrepair.

 

Jill and I wandered around the port area for most of the rest of the day.

It was very relaxing, calm and beautiful.

We really miss being near water, since we are so used to it living in San Francisco and the Bay Area for much of our lives, and this was wonderful.

We just walked, for a few hours, and took pictures of the people, the sights, and the scenery.

Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for more and it was just another fantastic memory that we will have from this trip.

One of the great benefits of being hired to work in China is that we get to travel to so many places and see so many different cultures.

So far, in just over one year, we’ve been to Malaysia twice, Singapore twice, Shanghai, Xian, Tianjin, Turkey, Greece, and Mongolia.  Add in all the places we’ve visited in Beijing and it has been a very eventful year to say the least considering Jill and I met only 8 days before I moved to Beijing and she had no intention of moving away from San Francisco until she met me.

I truly love ports, and the small boats, that are all over these little islands and would love to learn how to sail someday as that would give us another way to find freedom and visit places that others don’t get to very often.

I was thinking of doing that, but then was hired for my job, and that has been put on hold.

Who knows, maybe when I get back to the states, I will follow through with it and become a sailor.

Just one more thing to add to the bucket list.

 

Day 494 In Beijing: Trip To Prince Islands, Part 3.

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One of my favorite houses on Buyukada.

One of my favorite houses on Buyukada.

Jill and I decided to walk around the town and get a bit of exercise.

When I say a bit, I mean a lot.

Buyukada is mostly hills and some of them are quite steep.

It was also July in the Mediterranean and you can guess what the heat and humidity felt like.

We got nice and sweaty and it was worth every drop.

The houses, and the views, were amazing.

We actually stopped, many times, just to watch the horse drawn carriages, and their owners, cruising past us.

Some were at full gallop and others were just leisurely cruising and taking their time.

We were a bit jealous of the people that were sitting in the carriages because we were sweating away but not too much because it gave us time to look at the houses, and the flora, as we took our time and rested.

At one point, we crested the top of the hill and started going down.

It was also quite steep and we thought it would be nice to go for a swim.

Sadly, we didn’t have our swimsuits but we noticed a man made beach at the bottom of the hill and roadway.

We went in, asked if we could wade in the sea in our shorts, and they realized we didn’t have suits so they offered to sell us suits.

I’ve never liked Jill’s swimsuit (she can tell you more about it) and she found a super cute blue one and I bought some decent shorts.

All in all, it cost us about 20 bucks for two nice swim suits.

And then we jumped in the water and it was like jumping into perfection.

 

 

Day 492 In Beijing: Trip To Prince Islands, Part 1.

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I love capturing peoples' emotions and personalities.

I love capturing peoples’ emotions and personalities.

 

After leaving the funicular, Jill and I hopped on the ferry to Princes’ Island.

Buyukada was the specific island we wanted to visit and it was a about a two hour ferry ride.

We were hoping to get a good seat, outside, and be able to enjoy the trip.

For the first few minutes, since it was so hot, we decided to stay inside and watched through the windows.

However, we love the fresh air (something that is desperately missed living in Beijing) and decided to go out in the sunshine and do some real people, and scenery, watching.

We absolutely made the right choice and we are very thankful we did.

Each step in life is a step towards adventure or a step towards complacency.

We choose adventure.

 

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Day 489 In Beijing: Massage in Istanbul.

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The view from Nate's house of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge.

The view from Nate’s house of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge.

Jill and I head back to Turkey, figuratively, not literally, starting again on my blog.

We have about a month, or two, of blogs about Turkey, and Greece, to catch you all up on, so wait no longer!

I was having some serious back pain for the last month and my distant cousin, Nate Shanok, lives in Istanbul and suggested an amazing massage therapist, Nemrut.

Nate is a great guy and Jill and I got to hang out at his house the night before.  Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures of them, but we later had dinner with he and his wife, Emily, and I’ll post about that in the future.

I did get a picture of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, which is actually just called, “The Second Bridge” by everyone we know, including our Turkish friends.

The story is that, about 5 years ago, I was up in Tahoe.  I was with a bunch of buddies and we were going to have a little party up in the snow.

The ground was very icy and I happened to slip and slammed my elbow and shoulder into the ground.

I was later diagnosed as injuring my ribs and the muscles around my back and chest.

So, every so often, this pops up and causes a lot of pain.

Sadly, it started about a week before the trip and it was making traveling uncomfortable and limiting what we could do.

So, when Nate suggested I get a massage from his guy, I agreed instantly.

Nemrut is a slab of a man and about as strong as anyone I’ve met.

His hands are huge also.

He, however, was incredibly tender and even the deep tissue work wasn’t painful.

During the massage, it started to rain and I’ve always loved getting massages in the rain.

It just allows me to let go and feel the flow.

I actually am a Certified Massage Therapist, back in California, and I’m very critical of the massages I’m given since I have a very high standard.

Nemrut was amazing.  We actually had him come back, 2 more times, and my back felt about 95% better each time.

Here’s a little video of the rain and then you can see Nemrut running to his car at the very end of it.

I had no idea I’d catch him in the video and it just seemed cute.

 

 

 

Day 484 In Beijing: Trip to Tianjin, Part 1.

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Another shot of the South Beijing Railway Station.

Another shot of the South Beijing Railway Station.

After spending a week back at work, the Golden Week holidays arrived and we decided to head down to Tianjin to see our dear friend, Nuria.

We bought the train tickets about 4 days ago and love that we can buy tickets, on a High Speed Train, so easily and so cheaply, whenever we want.

The tickets cost us about 60RMB each, or about 10 USD to go 150 kilometers on the fastest possible train in China.

That is really pretty cool.

The only problem with traveling in China during the October Golden Week Holiday is that about 150,000,000 of my closest friends are also traveling at that time.

Just for information’s sake, Golden Week is the world’s largest human migration.

And it happens every single year.

The actual number may be more around 200,000,000 but whose counting 50,000,000 people?

The trip was actually amazingly easy and we have to guess that most of the Chinese nationals actually traveled the night before and were already heading to their destinations.

It was still pretty busy, and there were lots of people, but it wasn’t the insane crowding and pushing we’ve seen on movies and videos.

 

 

The train ride down was great and incredibly smooth.

After we got off the train we found our friend Nuria and hopped on the subway.

We then grabbed a cab to her apartment and had a delicious lunch that she made based on Spanish dishes that mixed in some yummy Chinese foods also.

As we’ve learned, you make do, and make your own recipes, when living in China since so much of what we are used to isn’t available.

It is one of the joys of being an expatriate because you learn to make new things and live outside the box.

We also had a Chinese sparkling wine with lunch and were surprised at how it tasted.  It was a bit too sweet but, overall, was drinkable and an excellent value at 28RMB (about $5 USD).  One can’t argue with that when having a fun meal with a dear friend.

 

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Day 479 In Beijing: The Xian Wall, Part 1.

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The gang with our bikes. From left: Jill, Phil, me, Eleni and Annie.

The gang with our bikes. From left: Jill, Phil, me, Eleni and Annie.

Jill and I have been to the Great Wall of China two different times.

We are actually going again in about one week.

We will be going with a bunch of students from Eseune Business School and our dear friend, Nuria.

I actually met Nuria when I first moved here and went salsa dancing.

She’s from Bilbao, Spain, and a wonderful person.

She works at the school and invited us to come along with the new students and stay at a farm house.

We immediately accepted and thought this would be a wonderful way to spend the Autumn Holiday in China.

However, since we were still in Xian, at the conference, we decided to check out the Xian Wall.

Now, it isn’t as long as the Great Wall, obviously, and is actually inside the city itself.

It runs about 16 kilometers long and is about 50 feet high.  It is also formed in the shape of a rectangle that protected much of the old city.

Most of the houses and businesses inside it are the “old style” but they are being torn down, like so much of China, to build new and “civilized”housing which is not very interesting or exciting.

This is the way of progress, I guess, and it makes us quite sad.

We ended up going with a bunch of friends, from many different countries, and riding bikes on top of the wall.

We had been told that it had rained for 2 weeks straight in Xian, and the skies had been hidden by “fog” that whole time.  A word to the wise, when a Chinese National says “fog” they mean smog but they don’t want to admit it.  Trust me, it is smog.

Tonight was absolutely gorgeous and we were able to take a lot of fantastic pictures with our new friends.

Phil is the tall guy and he is from Austria, Eleni is blond and from New Zealand, Annie is a brunette and from Sweden.

 

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Day 463 In Beijing: Topkapi Palace, Part 2.

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A gorgeously designed room and ceiling.

A gorgeously designed room and ceiling.

Jill and I both realized that Turkish, unlike Mandarin, is actually quite easily to learn.

Their written language sounds exactly like it is spelled, unlike Mandarin, and we were able to have minimal conversations with people within a few days.

Nothing more than “hi”, “thank you” and a few other comments but it was definitely easy not to have to try to figure out the tones and indecipherable written language.

I lived in Japan, back in 1996-1997, and I was able to get along after 2 years of college Japanese and some time there.

The written language there, which is quite similar to the Chinese written language (I’m not going to start an war about who used it first) was much easier, in my mind, because the kanji was the first part of the word and then there were two other written alphabets that let you know the rest of the word.

Being that there were three written alphabets, it would seem much more complicated but it wasn’t.

This is because you only had to learn about 2,000 kanji, and the two other alphabets that were “add ons” and you could know everything.

In Chinese, it seems like there are around 14,000 written characters and that is just way too much.

Especially when they become something totally different as they are lined up and added onto each other.

I just don’t have the time, or energy, to figure it out.

Call me lazy.  I don’t mind.

The reason I bring this up is the “i” in Topkapi is actually pronounced like “uh” so it sounds more like “Tope-kap-uh” if it was pronounced correctly.

However, I actually never heard it pronounced that way so I’m guessing, since there are so many tourists that pronounce it, “Topkapi” that the Turks have started to do the same.

I could very easily be wrong, and probably am, and it would be interesting to find out.

As for the palace, it was built in 1460 and finished in 1478.  It takes up 700,000 square meters.  It was turned into a museum in 1924 and is one of the largest museums in Turkey.

It is truly impressive and Jill and I would like to spend more time there the next time we go and just sit and relax.

 

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Day 462 In Beijing: Topkapi Palace, Part 1.

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My love and me.

My love and me.

Topkapi Palace is huge.

It is stunningly beautiful and it is also hot as heck during the summer months.

This may or may not be obvious, from the shorts and tank tops we are wearing, but just to make sure of it, it was boiling.

That is why so many of the Turks go on vacation and the city is more empty than usual.

It still has around 14,000,000 people in it, which is a lot, but it seemed quite easy to navigate and take mass transit without being crowded and knocked over all the time.

When we hit Athens, it was similar but when we hit the Islands, they were packed because of everyone being on vacation and getting out of the cities.

It was an interesting experience since being “packed” in Greece meant about 1/1,000,000th of what we’ve become used to as being “packed” here in Beijing and China.

We could move easily, not have to deal with much traffic, and people seemed much more content to take their time and be courteous to each other.  It is the island lifestyle, I guess.

As for the Palace, there are a number of different buildings and exhibitions.

The Crown Jewels, for example, you are allowed to visit but you are not allowed to take pictures.

We probably saw more gold, and jewels, there compared to anywhere else we’ve been.

Maybe, in my case, the Vatican would have an equal amount but I don’t quite remember.

Either way, it was stunning and breathtaking.

We also had a light snack overlooking the Bosphorus and enjoyed that immensely.

 

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Day 460 In Beijing: Yenikoy.

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The Embarcadero at Yenikoy.

The Embarcadero at Yenikoy.

Jill’s friend, Kaan, lives in Yenikoy.

It is just north of the 2nd bridge and a world away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Istanbul.

We walked around, checked out the views and the dogs, and just took our time since Kaan wouldn’t be home for an hour or two.

It was so peaceful and so relaxing that we didn’t want to leave.

We stopped by the little market and bought a few beers and just sat down and had a break.

There were a few older men sitting by us and they were doing the same thing.

Since Turkey is a Muslim country, drinking is somewhat looked down upon.

However, we saw loads of people drinking and doing whatever they wanted so we weren’t really worried.

That being said, we made sure to keep our beer in a bag and put it under the bench we were sitting on, so as not to attract any attention.

Yenikoy really reminded me of Marin and Sonoma County and both Jill and I felt a little bit homesick.

We were able to get over it, pretty quickly, since we were having so much fun and enjoying seeing this beautiful bit of Istanbul.

 

Day 458 In Beijing: Ferry Ride to Besiktas.

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Vacation time!

Vacation time!

Jill and I headed off to the ferry terminal and hopped on one that was just about to take off.

We had to take two different ferries, since we couldn’t figure out how to get a direct one, and we were fine with that.

Jill and I love ferries, trains, buses and any way to travel that doesn’t include us having to drive or do the work of paying attention to where we are going.

The two ferries cost something 3 or 4 Turkish Lira, which comes out to about 1.50 USD.

We sat outside, on the top level, and just took pictures and enjoyed our trip.

Thinking back, as I write these blog posts about 1 month after the trip ended, I’m still stunned as to how much we did in on our first full day in Istanbul and how easy it is to get around, get things done, and not run into problems.

It was such a welcome relief from Beijing, where things are so hectic, changing constantly, and confusing.

I know this sounds repetitive but we will definitely be living in Turkey, and now Greece, in a few years.

There is something so special, about both these countries, and we instantly felt at home.

The joy of being able to ferry all around Istanbul, and other parts of Turkey and Greece, is such a blast and so freeing.

We just sat back, let the wind flow through our hair, and met people that were smiling, happy and probably on vacation too.

 

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