Category Archives: Weather

Day 441 In Beijing: The Spice Bazaar.

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Love this shot.

A man and his store.

Jill and I went through the spice bazaar on the way to see the other sites around Istanbul.

It was a quick trip, and this isn’t the huge bazaar that Istanbul is famous for, but it is very cute.

There are lots of spices, and other things, that are hanging on the walls and put out in front of stalls.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in this one because we wanted to get a move on and get situated in regards to our plans for the next week of what we wanted to see, when we wanted to see it, and how long everything would take.

We aren’t big time planners but we like to make sure we can get done what we want to get done and not miss out on things because we don’t set our plans accordingly.

We also knew we’d be back by the spice bazaar, a few different times, because our subway stop drops us so close to it and we could easily go through it.

It was probably about 2 football fields long and wide and full of all kinds of yummy looking spices.

It also had a lot of soaps that were made with spices in them and Jill said they smelled wonderfully.

That is another thing that hit us immediately: the smell of the city is so different from Beijing.

It smells clean and fresh.

People from Istanbul may not agree, but compared to Beijing, it smelled like we were in a place much closer to nature and much more clean.

We also didn’t see nearly as much litter and there was almost no graffiti at all.

We actually didn’t really notice this until we went to Athens where there is graffiti everywhere.

It was a shocking difference considering it was only a one hour flight and the two cities are so much alike in many other ways.

 

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Day 436 In Beijing: Galata Tower.

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The view from the Galata Tower.

The view from the Galata Tower.

Jill’s and my true vacation, and about 100 future blog posts, starts now.

We woke up, had a nice breakfast in the little cafe right around the corner from Andac’s apartment, and headed out to see the Galata Tower, or, Galata Kulesi if you want to see the Turkish name for it.  It used to be called Galatea, which is Gaelic, because the Welsh people originally settled there, built it, and named it.

Jill had been here before, since she’s now been to Turkey 4 different times to my 1, and she thought it would be a good starting point for our adventures.

We walked in and paid for our tickets.

I think it was about 9 USD or something like that.

It was worth 100x that for the view alone.

We went in the elevator and headed up.

The elevator was empty so we took a few pictures and I loved how the elevator buttons were set into a replica of the tower.

When we reached the top, we walked up a flight of stairs, and then out onto the tower ledge.

It was truly amazing.

There were only a few other people there so we had it almost to ourselves.

The Galata Tower was originally built in 1348 and is about 200 feet tall.  The walls are about 9 feet thick.  Just stop and think of that.  It is almost 700 years old.  But that is nothing compared to what we will see later on during our vacation.  It is truly mind blowing to think of the history and what has happened in this part of the world.

It was used to make sure the city wasn’t attacked and also for a few crazy inventors to jump off of with either a glider on their back or strapped to a rocket.  I imagine Wyl E. Coyote would have approved of this idea. Supposedly, both inventors survived and proved their products were reliable.  Have to be impressed with their salesmanship if not their sense of sanity.

It was a truly wonderful way to start the day and see so much of Istanbul in one simple tower.

We stayed up there for an hour or so and just breathed in the fresh air, watched the seagulls, and remembered what it felt like to be alive, free, and have the world at our feet.

After 7 months in China, we had forgotten a lot about ourselves.

We had become somewhat unhealthy, both physically and mentally, and both seemed to be coming alive again.

Just the feeling of the people, the culture, the architecture, the country, and the ease of everything was settling back in and it felt like we were home.

Jill had lived in Turkey for 3 months, at one time, and I’d visited for 3 weeks, and it seemed like everything was just right the second we arrived.

That feeling would continue for the next month and only become more evident and more true.

 

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Day 435 In Beijing: The Alpha And The Omega.

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The sun sets over Santorini. And over our life changing trip to Turkey and Greece.

 

I really don’t want to write this blog post.

It means that Jill and I have left Turkey and Greece and are headed back to Beijing.

In every way we feel as if we shouldn’t leave.

The friendliness of the people.

The amazing tasting, and healthy, food.

The cleanliness.

The lack of pollution and crushing crowds.

The ease of getting from one place to another.

The ability to quickly learn the basics of two different languages and connect with so many people.

The amount of different cultures intertwined and accepting of each other.

At some point, these countries will be our home.

We both feel like we have finally come home even though we were born in the USA.

I will be posting, over the next month or two, our full travelogue in Turkey and Greece.

There will be many pictures, many stories, and many wonderful experiences.

At this point, however, I am deeply saddened to be leaving and don’t want to even start blogging because it means that it has ended.

The closest I can remember to feeling this way was one time when I was returning from a trip to New York City after seeing my mom‘s art show at a gallery.

I was flying back to San Francisco in a plane loaded with passengers.

I can’t remember every feeling so alone.

I started to cry.

Not because I was sad but because of the amazing humanity, kindness and connection that I had felt on this trip.

It was just after 9/11 and people in New York were so kind and loving that it blew me away.

I wrote 5 pages of notes, on the flight, and still have them in my storage boxes back in the USA.

I’ll post them when I get a chance to find them on a visit home someday.

I know people think New Yorkers are rude, but they aren’t.

They just don’t suffer fools lightly.

If you are lost, and want help, they will be there in a second.  Just don’t stand in the middle of the sidewalk and block everyone else.

Honestly, I respect this and that they have places to be, lives to live, and things to do.

People in Turkey and Greece are the same way.

They help you whenever you need it and constantly amazed me at their laughter, happiness, and joy about life and living it.

This is what being in Turkey and Greece also brought out in Jill and me.

We remembered how to be happy, carefree, and safe.

Most of all, we felt like we fit in.

It was a wonderful feeling and I almost don’t want to see any of it end as we get ready to pack up our belongings and get on a plane flight back to Beijing.

By the time you read this blog post, we will have landed, and been in Beijing for a a few hours.

Give us a little time, and we’ll be fine, but right now, it is hard.

Day 433 In Beijing: The Flight And Arrival In Xinjiang.

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I love the look of the woman beside us.

I love the look of the woman beside us.

Jill and I heard our flight called and headed out.

One of the interesting things about Beijing airport is that it handles 73,000,000 people a year.

That is utterly absurd and insane number.

I can’t even get my mind around it.

It is also one of the worst on time arrival and departure airports in the world.

This I can get my mind around after living in China.

However, we’ve been quite lucky since almost all our flights have been on time and quite enjoyable regardless of which airline we’ve used.

If you check out China Southern or China Eastern, they are ranked quite lowly overall.

However, I have to say we’ve had decent food, good service, and very comfortable seats every time we’ve used them and would definitely recommend them as they didn’t seem very different from United, Delta or any of the American airlines we’ve used previously.

Turkish Airlines, on the other hand, is amazing and we love flying them whenever possible.

But that is a blog for another day as we flew them numerous times inside Turkey and took lots of pictures.

We had a layover in Xinjiang, where our ex-roommate comes from, and it was beautiful.

It was also boiling outside.  It was somewhere around 113 degrees according to our pilot.

We hopped off the plane and after checking through customs, hung out in the waiting area for our next flight.

It was 6:30 pm.

An, interesting, and confusing part of China is that even though it is the size of the USA, it only has one time zone.

So, when it is 6:30 AM in Beijing, it is also 6:30 AM in Xinjiang.

Even though the suns rises and sets 3 hours earlier.  So, basically it is really 3:30 am in Beijing when it is 6:30 AM in Xinjiang.  It doesn’t make any logical sense.

It is silly rule that the government enforces for no particular reason that I want to attempt to explain on this blog but not while I’m living in China.

Either way, it was a beautiful sunset and a gorgeous landscape.

 

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Day 432 In Beijing: Getting Ready For Vacation!

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Getting ready to go on vacation to Turkey and Greece!

Getting ready to go on vacation to Turkey and Greece!

The day had finally arrived.

We were OUT OF HERE!

Trust me, we needed it.

I absolutely love my job and wanted to make sure I didn’t start suffering from burn out and Jill has her own website SF TOURISM TIPS and works incredibly hard on it.

As you may know, the internet in China leaves much to be desired.

It seems to come and go, depending on the whims of some unknown entity, and this makes it quite difficult to be able to keep working on a website that requires a lot of detail, information and access to the USA.

We are essentially blocked from using Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, unless we are on our Virtual Private Network (VPN) and the VPN is much slower than our usual internet feed here in China.

In other words, we needed a break and we needed it now.

We got it.

We got ready for our flight and already were feeling relaxed.

We said our final goodbye to our dear friend, Gulzar, and jumped on the bus.  We took it two stops and headed for the Airport Express Subway.

It is a fairly new subway line and only has 3 stops total.

It costs about 5 bucks each to go 45 minutes so it is a heck of a deal.

After we arrive at the airport, we hung out and just relaxed.

We spent a lot of time talking about Jill’s website, as that is going to be how we fund our world travels and live the life we want.

This is going to happen in a few years but we are very much into planning and making sure things work out, as much as possible, how we set them.

Jill has been working on her site for over 4 years and I’ve been editing and helping her with ideas since we met.

It is, to be honest, her baby and I’m just helping but it is becoming more and more of a team effort each day.

It may seem strange, since I have a blog that I update every day, but I don’t like writing factual stories based on research.  I enjoy writing fiction and making stories come alive (although, as far as I know, everything I’ve written on this blog is absolutely true).

So, Jill writes her website and I edit it and it seems we make a great team.

In so many ways since we also make a great team traveling, supporting each other emotionally and financially, and in pretty much every other way I can imagine a couple would want to support each other.

i’m not sure if you’ve traveled with your partner, but if you haven’t, you will learn much more about each other, in a week or two, than you will in years of living a stable life at home.

I think this is because each choice, moment and change happens so quickly, and so often, that you quickly learn how the other reacts, how they think, and what their strengths and weaknesses are without having to wait years for a stressful event.

Jill and I have been to Shanghai, Mongolia, Malaysia and Singapore twice and we met only 8 days before I left for China.  She arrived 1.5 months later without knowing anyone other than me here.  And she only truly knew me through emails, my blog, and Skype.

Talk about a leap of faith.

We both believe deeply in planning while also living in the present.

Day 431 in Beijing: Goodbye Drinks!

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Goodbye drinks at Schindlers!

Goodbye drinks at Schindlers!

As you , my faithful readers know, we have a ritual of good bye drinks when we go on a trip.

This actually started because our friend, Thorsten, from Schindler’s restaurant, suggested it.

If you haven’t read my earlier posts, Schindler’s is run by Mr. Schindler.

He has lived in Beijing for somewhere close to 30 years.

His life, like so many expats living in Beijing, is not what most restaurant owners lives usually seem.

He was actually the attaché for the East German Embassy during the Cold War.

He has run the restaurants for most of his time here but more importantly, he actually physically handed over the keys to the attaché for the combined German state when the wall fell and they became a single nation.

He is also a wonderfully jovial man and a heck of a person.  His wife made sure that Jill had a birthday cake for her 40th birthday party 5 days after Jill arrived and we celebrated her coming to Beijing.

Thorsten is the manager of Schindler’s and one of my first friends from my travels to Beijing.

Thorsten always makes sure that we come by and have our farewell drinks and we have a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.

It seems many people leave Beijing and it is a nice way to say goodbye and make sure to connect and show you care.

This was for our upcoming trip to Turkey and Greece and we were very excited and could not wait to get out of Beijing and to some place that had beautiful views and beaches, was less crowded and clean.

We’d had enough of pollution, masses of 25 million people, and cement and skyscrapers for as far as the eye could see.  It was definitely time for a change.

We’d been in Beijing for 7 months straight.

Every expatriate we know has said that they need to leave every 3 months or they start to get depressed, anxious and angry.

We had hit that point a few months ago but weren’t in the place to take off.

We won’t make that mistake again as it affected our emotional and physical health way too much and is advice that needs to be respected going forward.

It is the same thing I’d tell my clients so i might as well pay attention to my own prescription!

Day 416 in Beijing: Installing the Air Conditioning Unit, Part 5

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Testing to see if the air conditioning actually works.

Testing to see if the air conditioning actually works.

After all that craziness, we supposedly had a working air conditioning unit.

Just like in the USA, when someone installs something, you always want to make sure it works right before they leave the apartment.

Well, this is doubly true in China because all of the controls are in Chinese script and we sure as heck can’t read those instructions.

So, we let our landlords check it and then explain it to us.

They seemed to have bought the most simple remote control because this one only has about 5 buttons and we’ve seen some that have over 20.

Yes, over 20 different buttons for a simple air conditioner.

Thankfully, when our landlord pushed the power button, the air conditioning turned on and it works perfectly.

We could not be more thankful and happy to be living where we are and to have the amazing landlords we have at this time.

Also, thanks to the wonderful installation guys and the quick work they did.

Overall, it probably took about 45 minutes to remove and install the air conditioning units.

By the way, it has been hovering around 95-100 degrees a day in the past week in Beijing.

Luckily, Jill and I have been sitting by the beaches in Turkey and will soon be headed to Greece instead of having to deal with the heat and pollution of Beijing.

 

Day 412 in Beijing: Installing the Air Conditioning Unit, Part 1.

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Hanging from the 5th Floor.

Hanging from the 5th Floor.

This is going to be a 5 part series.

One of the reasons is the photographs, and story, deserve their own page.

The other reason is each video that I filmed deserves it’s own page because you don’t want to skip any of them.

This is how installations in China are done from what Jill and I have seen so far.

We’ve been outside of apartments that have air conditioning units being installed and we’ve been rather amazed at the guys sitting, or standing, on top of them and just working away.

Most of them don’t have any safety equipment and do their work so quickly it is hard to follow with the naked eye.

Suffice to say, Jill and I always stop and stare at them and then shake our heads in amazement and worry.

Well, we were able to see it up close, personal and from the inside for the first time last month.

Let me just say that it is even more terrifying when someone is hanging out the window of your apartment and removing a air conditioner without any safety gear.

The one thing that gave us a slight bit of calm was when they installed the new air conditioner and actually used some climbing gear.

I do have to state that when the guy climbed out, with only the lighter and smaller dude “anchoring” him, Jill and I both held our breath until he climbed back in the window to safety.

By the way, there are loads of horror stories regarding landlords in China.

We were incredibly lucky and are incredibly thankful to have some of the nicest landlords ever.

Their son, Zhang, also speaks amazing English and is incredibly kind and helpful.

We’ve invited him out to dinner a few times and look forward to hanging out with his soon!

 

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Day 408 in Beijing: Beans. Beans. The Magical Fruit.

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Beans drying with the store owners sitting in the shade.

Beans drying with the store owners sitting in the shade.

Jill and I were walking home and she noticed this rather innovative way to dry beans outside our apartment.

It has been incredibly hot the last week, averaging around 90-100 degrees, and quite sunny.

We have been enjoying it and have been going out and having fun in the beautiful summer weather.

The pollution, after a week of being horrible, has cleared off and allowed for gorgeous weather.

These beans belong to a couple that owns a small restaurant right beside out apartment.

We haven’t eaten there yet but we may just have to try it when we return from our vacation to Turkey and Greece.

By the way, when you read this, we will be about 4 days into our vacation in Turkey and probably having dinner somewhere near the Bosphorus.

The weather there is supposed to be perfect and we are looking forward on posting about our vacation once we get back to China.

Day 405 in Beijing: Bird’s Nest At Night.

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This is where the Olympic Torch was located outside the Bird's Nest.

This is where the Olympic Torch was located outside the Bird’s Nest.

Continuing Jill’s and my photo shoot at the Bird’s Nest from a few months ago, I thought I’d post these pictures of the actual structure.

It is quite imposing and very impressive.

The sad part is it isn’t really used for anything at this point.

There was a concert here, in the past year, but that is it.

The concert, by the way, was Justin Timberlake.

I almost bought tickets to see him, since I actually like his music, and think he is really quite funny, and it would have been an amazing blog post if I had gone.

It was basically a great night for photographs, because the moon was full, but by the time we arrived, the pollution was pretty horrendous.

If you look close enough, you can see little dust specks in the photos, and it was hard to breathe.

It is definitely a major problem in Beijing, and much of China, at this point and hopefully it will be taken seriously.

Jill and I only plan to be here for my three year contract so we aren’t that worried about it but if I had kids, or planned to be here for the long haul, it would make my choice a very difficult one.

By the way, since we took these pictures, Jill’s camera has not been working correctly and we are pretty sure it is because of the dust and grime that got into it.

Sadly, we know a lot of professional photographers here in Beijing and they don’t trust anyone to fix their cameras so we are stuck only using my iPhone 4 while we are traveling to Turkey and Greece.

Hopefully the pictures will turn out nice enough and we won’t lose much in memories.

Then again, we plan to live in Turkey or Greece, sometime in the future, and we can take more pictures when we live there!

 

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