They say, pictures are worth a thousand words…
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Well, after another couple of months of post-LSAT fun living it up in Oregon and Huntington Beach, CA we are currently in a little place called Binghamton, NY. Before I get started about Binghamton let’s get caught up with our time in California.
After bringing Paige up to Oregon where we went on our excursions getting the best of North Bend and hanging out at the lake, we headed back to California where we entertained Paige’s cousins and extended family from her mom, Cynthia’s side of the family.
It was awesome meeting Todd and Connie, (Cynthia’s brother and sister) as well as all of their children, Kyle, Alex, Anna, and Jimmy. Anna also brought her friend, Jennifer, who was nice to meet. We got a chance to hang out at the beach a lot at Crystal Cove, and the Huntington Pier.
We also got a chance to play a lot of volleyball and beach soccer. Both Kyle and Alex play soccer in high school. Overall it was a great time and my game, Aggravation, which has been in the family for many years kept us all entertained. Other than that it was other games like Risk and the card game ‘Oh Hell’.
Once they left Paige and I had a chance to focus on securing our wedding venue. After beginning to lose hope, we stumbled across this amazing place after Paige convinced me to drive down near San Diego to check out Condor’s Nest Ranch.
This place is awesome. As much as I would like to elaborate, however, just check out their site and I will write more a bout it later. I have a lot to cover today.
Next thing, Paige’s best friends from high school, Jordan and Amanda, came to visit us in Huntington Beach. We picked them up from the airport and we all had a great time together. We had ANOTHER long day at the beach where my Dutch friend, Sjoerd, three of his friends met up with us while traveling down the west coast. What a great time! Those guys were awesome and the day went by really fast. I hadn’t seen Sjoerd in two years since I was living in Costa Rica.
Later, the girls and I took a little day trip up to Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and Korea town in Los Angeles. They did a little window shopping and we ran the gauntlet at Venice beach trying to keep all the guys from hitting on the girls. For dinner we ate at an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurant called “Manna” which was amazingly very authentic. We all loved it.
The last day we took it easy and I played in a soccer game with a Latino team who I played with once before. It was a good time, having won the game, and I also scored a nice goal early on. Somehow, though, from a header I hurt my neck from some kind of muscle spasm and for this last week my neck and upper back has been really killing me.
Paige is feeling great now having chosen our wedding venue and now we are focusing our efforts on booking the photographer (which is proving to be VERY expensive). We have a few in mind and are excited about it. The official wedding date is August 6th, 2011. It will be right before I am scheduled to start attending law school. Oh, and on that note, I officially have everything ready for my law school applications except for my written personal statement. I was excited to get my last letter of recommendation in TODAY. The other day I got my transcripts from SOCC, the Community College where I have about 7 credits (not exactly meaningful but required none the less).
Monday night we left for Binghamton, NY to visit Paul’s side of the family. We flew in on the red-eye flight and with my neck injury I slept a total of 0 minutes to arrive to Binghamton 9 hours later without our suitcases. But the next day we got our bags and got comfortable. The last few days were spent just hangin out in this economically depress city, but without the depressed feeling being surrounded by family. Paul’s mother and father are both wonderful people. I am slowly learning how the complicated relationships fit together and have been delighted by the presence of all parties. Paul’s father’s (Paul) girlfriend, Joan, as well as Paul’s mother’s (Jeanne) husband, Charlie are both great.
We spent the day yesterday at a lake doing some swimming at sat near the bonfire with Jeanne and Charlie and Paul’s half-brother, Brian and his family. The little kids tend to follow me around a lot which is often annoying, but fun as they keep things interesting. We had a great time taking pictures of our sparkler art work by the fire.
We have a lot going on soon. Today we are going to the Annual Spiedie Fest. Read up on Spiedies to find out how important they are in this area. I am excited. Tomorrow is a best ball golf tournament for a pancreatic cancer research fundraiser. Then, Sunday we will be running in a 5K race (not sure the cause).
Wow! That’s a lot. Keep tuned in and I will follow up on all this stuff.
Love to hear your comments!
-Kyle
Just to say I got some photos up for you to see before we go back to Korea. Getting on the boat in one hour. (sad face)
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Photo by Carpe Feline via Flickr (not mine)
Well, after a rough flight delay we made it to the Philippines! In fact, we have been here for a total of about three days now an two nights and have already done a lot of diving. In about 5 minutes I am supposed to go take the final test to get my certification, but my instructor has already allowed me to essentially do two full on dives.
Well I wrote that on our 2nd day here and we had virtually no internet access because of island maintenance for the service provider. A lot has already happened but I will tell you one step at a time. First of all I got my certification quite easily and went on a couple of dives with Paige and other more experienced divers. Diving is awesome. I am already hooked.
Most of our time here is spent around diving. The town is pretty small and full of old men trying to pick up younger local girls. Kinda sad, but also funny. Paige sticks out like a sore thumb because there are hardly any foreign women tourists. Also, for us as a couple we aren’t really interested in the same sort of things as most of the older male divers or tourists looking for some lovin.
However, we are still thoroughly enjoying this place. The beer is cold, on draft, and cheap. And we are talking San Miguel, not some cheap local beer with no flavor. It’s awesome, but you’ll find that drinking heavy quantities of alcohol and diving does not mix well. The sun is hot and draining and the diving is fun but tiring. You don’t even really feel it when you go, but you really burn a lot of calories. I’ll leave you there and the next post will have some pictures I took for you!
Small Town China – A Place to Remember
Posted on: 19-01-2010
Category : China Backpacking Trip, Travel
The Yongshuo River show was an amazing experience, and the last thing we thought was that the village would only continue to blow our minds. Again we awoke with huge towers of rock surrounding us like gentle giants there to protect us. After some mediocre western breakfast food and coffee which came free with our room, we decided to experience the riverside villages with bicycles.
Originally we were pointed to a certain part of the river where the majority of tourists started their float down the river on the locally hand made bamboo rafts. After biking up river a while with the picturesque Karst Mountains all around us, passing through many tiny villages undergoing small construction operations by the locals, we arrived to the starting point of the float. We decided to go further down to road and see what we could see.
On the way we stopped a couple of times to take in the sights, sounds, and smells. It was just like we were dropped in the middle of a beautiful movie set. Nothing seemed entirely real. It was a special high I’ve never experienced before. Everything was pristine, and any sort of stress my mind tried to conjure up for whatever reason just seemed irrelevant as I communicated with some of the local people. The men were all hard at work doing some kind of construction using the simplest of tools such as bamboo, twine, simple machines my grandfather used to use, occasionally an old tractor, but mainly carts pulled by water buffalo. Some people had a skill saw, but it was obvious that it was probably shared by many people in the town and was frequently passed around and shared.
Along the streets we passed by stalls with old rickety tables with fresh meat just laying out for sale. Men would herd their cattle across the village, while you could find most of the older women and small children in a broken down shop sitting around a large metal bowl with glowing coals to warm their hands. Or perhaps they were sitting around a table playing Mahjong or a Chinese card game. I met some ladies in a shop and got a few pictures with them. They were excited to see the pictures I took of them. Life was simple, yet blissful perhaps.
Eventually we ran into a fork in the road where I saw a sign advertising a hotel serving coffee. I love my coffee, but what sold me was that they were Dutch people. We headed up to the rustic hotel and met the managers and drank a cappuccino. They weren’t Dutch, but were running the place during the Winter while the owners were vising the Netherlands. The cool thing was, they told us a place we could catch a raft further up river for a much better price. In fact, the boatman actually met us at the hotel and we followed him there.
We were a little skeptical at first when they insisted on taking our bikes from us when we boarded the raft. We were told to not let the bikes out of our sight, but we were willing to take the risk. Paige was literally bombarded by three ladies offering kumquats and a flower tiara with fresh wildflowers. After avoiding them and saying no about 15 times we got on the raft and I handed them 5 yuan (75 cents) for both and everyone was satisfied.
The raft was great. Two seats in the middle reclined just right so you could see the river and the mountains. It reminded me of a gondola ride in Venice, only without some frills. Maybe this was even better. We had the whole river and mountains to ourselves. Normally the river is tainted with hundreds of boats in the high season. We were livin’. The views were amazing. I think we were laughing out loud with each other the whole time. I have never seen water reflect such a brilliant picture ever before in my whole life. Every once in a while we would get to a small dam with about a meter drop and the whole front of the raft would submerge. We had to keep our feet lifted to not get drenched!
From the river, the jagged and rocky mountains reflecting off the river really reminded me of something interesting. I’m not sure how many of you have ever seen a visual depiction of sound waves recorded digitally on a computer, but it’s a distinct pattern similar to the trigonometric function sine wave. I have done a little audio recording before, and have seen the way sound is displayed this way. Each little edge of the wave form represents minute details about the audio, which gives a recording it’s unique sound. I couldn’t help to think what the images of the mountain range on the river would sound like if transcribed and digitally performed. Take a look at the reflection pictures and compare them to the picture of the audio.
Finally we finished the trip and got our bikes back and we headed further away from our Hotel toward the town to get some food and money from an ATM. When we got back we were pretty tired and spent the rest of the evening by the fireplace in the lobby. We met with another couple from Malaysia and enjoyed a beer. What a great day. Something we never expected.
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We last left off departing Chengdu for Yangshuo. Yangshuo is located in the Guangxi Province and surrounded by the amazing karst mountains. When I decided I wanted to visit this part of China, I really had no idea how beautiful it would be in person. The Karst Mountains are similar to the limestone formations we saw in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam except they are surrounded by valleys, not water.
Kyle mentioned a while ago about our accommodation in Yangshuo. I arranged for us to stay at the quaint boutique hotel Yangshuo Village Inn to provide a respite from our hectic hostel travels. We arrived there at 12:30AM and were greeted by the very friendly receptionist Luna. She had the fire crackling and a pot of tea waiting for us and was very gracious and talkative despite our late arrival. The hotel is absolutely beautiful in my eyes. It is not a 5 star hotel, but was very tastefully decorated with interesting Chinese artwork and antiques. I guess you could say it was my kind of style! Naturally we were excited to sink into our nice comfy bed and…
Oh my gosh! Where the heck are we!?! We woke to an incredible view of our surroundings. Since we arrived in the dead of night we had no idea what our surroundings looked like. The Karst Mountains are insane. I think both of our jaws dropped.
After breakfast and deciding what were were going to do for our time in Yangshuo, we hiked up to the famous Moon Hill. It is a special rock formation that you can see through, ie. half a moon shape. Many visitors to Yangshuo make the trek to moon village and on that trek they are most likely ambushed by old ladies desperate to sell their beverages. These old women will follow you alllll the way up the mountain trying to sell water. As much as you don’t want to by any water, they make you feel guilty by following you up the mountain. Kyle compared them to Gollum from Lord of the Rings because even when you can no longer hear or see them, you still know they’re following you.
Once we reached the officially top there was a side trail that said ‘Do not enter’ but of course if there is a sign like that Kyle definitely wants to go there. So with a bit of trepidation I followed him all the way along a very narrow slippery cliff path. When we reached the top we realized we were on the very top of the Moon Hill rock formation. It was definitely worth the view!
After our Moon Hill hike Kyle finally gave the old women waiting for us a few yuan and we headed off to eat some lunch. Yangshuo’s local specialty is beer fish. Basically it’s a whole fish simmered in beer and vegetables. Rumor has it that it originated when someone forgot about their fish cooking and it started to burn. A passerby said “Your fish is burning” and dumped beer into the pot to try to salvage the fish. It ended up being delicious and there you have it. We devoured ours!
~Luna Village Pictures~
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After lunch we wandered around the little village we were staying in and I ended up by the fire reading a book and Kyle took a food-coma nap. That night we were headed to the famous river show “Impression Liu Sanjie”. It is choreographed by the same director that arranged the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. It also involves a cast of over SIX HUNDRED singers and dancers so it was bound to be good.
WOW. I don’t think words OR pictures could describe how amazing the show was. It is set in a section of the river with the surrounding karst mountains spotlit far into the distance. I really don’t know what to say. There were tons of people and performances including music, singing, dancing, rowing bamboo boats, fire, animals… Hopefully some of Kyle’s pictures can represent the show, although both of us agree they don’t quite give it justice. It’s just one the those things that must be seen in person.
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Hear Hear a little more in Chengdu City
Posted on: 18-01-2010
Category : China Backpacking Trip, Travel
So, Paige left you off visiting the cuddly little panda bears and hopefully all of you enjoyed the pictures! After the tour we kinda just hung out at the hostel a little. We caught up on the blog and I got to skype my parents for a short time. The picture below is a shot of the restaurant area we hung out in. I really liked the way they did the walls.
That night we went out to the Tibetan Quarter of town. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that it pretty much shut down during night time so we didn’t exactly get to see exactly what we wanted. We thought it would be more like the Muslim Quarters in Xi’An with awesome food and cool souvenirs. Either way, it was alright and we found some shops still open where I purchased a really cool old bronze lotus flower incense burner along with some incense from Tibet. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures to show you. It wasn’t really worth it.
We woke up the next morning very relaxed after getting a good night’s sleep in our comfortable room. This day we spent walking around town. We hopped on a bus across town to the People’s Park where we were interested in catching a game of Mahjong and drinking tea by the pond. We did find the park and the tea, and saw people playing Mahjong but didn’t really know enough about it to have them setup a game for us.
Instead, a man walked up to us holding metal sticks resembling pipe cleaners, tweezers, and what looked a lot like a tuning fork. He put the metal stick between the tuning fork ends and rang it giving off a distinct sound to attract attention. What could he be soliciting? He said something in very broken English much like “eeehh-uhh-kuh-leeny,” “eeehh-uhh-kuh-leeny.” With a blank stare I thought very carefully and doubtfully asked him if he wanted to clean my ears. Sure enough, he did. He wanted to literally clean my ears.
My whole life I have always considered certain personal hygiene to be just that, personal. However, after spending over a year in Korea I have kind of adapted to the idea that it’s ok for other people to help you with that. It’s common to have other people wash you and scrub you, massage you, etc. Very trustingly, after cutting his offering price in half from about USD$5 to USD$2 we settled on 18 yuan (about USD$2.50) Let me tell ya it’s a feeling I had never felt before and will probably never feel again. He spent about 15 minutes between the two ears sticking in natural cotton with the tweezers and cleaning out the main area of the ear. Each time he pulled out the tweezers, with a convincing look begging for my approval he would interject a “Huh Huuuuh!” while he showed me the bit of wax he was able to extract. This went on for minutes.
Then he moved to the tuning fork thing. That was pretty cool (this is the awesome feeling I was talking about). It was almost like someone was massaging my brain from the inside while cleaning out my ear tubes. After it was done he gave me a nice little neck rub and begged for a tip. I obliged and we went on drinking our sweet Chrysanthemum tea by the pond.
We then walked by another huge statue of Mao Zhidong by the main square and after a cappuccino we headed to the large Wenshu Yuan Buddhist Monastery. On the way we actually came across a pretty cool nunnery as well and stopped to peek in where we saw many nuns doing perpetual prayer chants. This one was called the Aidao Nunnery. I caught a little video of them chanting to share with you…
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The Wenshu Yuan Monastery was pretty cool. We saw more big Buddhas, temples, and the like, but many were very similar to those we have previously seen in Korea. It was a nice, peaceful place though, and I got to take some pictures.
We ate at a small local restaurant with great cheap food. From there we decided to take some pictures and look around at the little shops. Paige found a place with some hand-made jewelery boxes for half off the asking price, which made negotiation a little tougher for me, but we ended up with a great deal on a good sized Chinese style box. It’s really nice and antique style so it should last her a long time. Only thing is, I am going to have to carry it around for the rest of the trip, then ship it home!
Above is one of my favorite captures, after popping in on a side street where lots of locals were playing Mahjong we got some more photos and headed back to the hostel for some R and R then left on a plane to Guilin where we caught a private shuttle to a small village outside of Yongshou.
Keep the comments coming! We love hearing from you. Please let me know which way you prefer to view the photos.
1) Dynamic View
2) Slideshow
3) Going to album page and clicking on the thumbnail links
I would love to know because then I can start changing the way I post them. If you want, you can also just e-mail me here, kpalaniuk@gmail.com. Thanks!
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Kyle and I are currently sitting at a hostel in Guilin frantically trying to catch up on our blogging before we hit our last spot in the journey Shanghai. What is Guilin you ask? You will just have to wait and find out when the time is right…
Kyle last left off with us leaving Xi’An on airplane. By the way, domestic flying in China is amazing. I really, really wish we had such cheap flights in the U.S. To give you an idea, it would normally take 18 hours on a train from Xi’An to Chengdu and cost about $50. For about $55-60 you can catch a 1.5 hour flight. Now what would you choose???
We arrived in Chengdu and the city was pretty cool but really foggy and misty. It kind of seemed like a city floating in the clouds. We went straight to our hostel, called Sim’s Cozy Guesthouse. Even though they moved in the last year to a new 100 room complex, they still managed to make it very cozy. In the middle of all the complex there is a really beautiful Chinese garden with bridges, fish, tons of vegetation and little relaxation nooks. It is too cold this time of year so we didn’t really get to enjoy it, but I can only imagine how nice it is usually. The best part of the hostel is the three story bar/lounge area. There are tons of couches and pillow corners on every story so you can find your ideal spot. The food was also quite delicious, my favorite being the spicy sichuan green beans:)
Our first night in Chengdu we went a Sichuan Opera held in a historic tea house. When I say Opera I don’t really mean the normal operatic singing style. It is actually nothing like that. The Sichuan Opera is a more relaxed synthesis of comedic acting, face-changing, shadow show, musical performance, fire tricks, puppet show… What you see really depends on what the cast feels like presenting that night so it is unique.
~Sichuan Opera Photos~
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The next morning we woke up to go see the Pandas! I am no panda freak and my experiences with pandas are not very extensive. The only times I have seen live pandas is after waiting about an hour in line at some zoo to look in a small opening, through bars, to see a part of a panda snoozing in the corner in a furry blob. This experience was nothing like that. The Chengdu Panda reserve is very natural. The space is very open with no bars and only a ditch and dirt embankment separating you from the pandas. You really feel like you are in the wilderness and I commend the reserve for the arrangement. We were there at about 9am which is feeding time so the pandas were very active walking around and munching. I finally saw a panda move!
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We saw grown pandas, teenage pandas, children pandas, and baby pandas! The panda nursery is in a glass room where a tenant is constantly tending to them completely covered in protective clothing as not to infect the babies with any foreign ailments. As many of you already know, pandas are endangered and they are very hard to breed. Even after decades of research, scientists have a hard time understanding their breeding behavior. The Chengdu reserve is at the forefront of successful panda breeding. Most of the breeding is done via IVF, but even if a panda gets pregnant it is hard to get her to carry the baby to term and very hard to keep the baby panda alive past its first year. About 50% of baby pandas survive to their first year and only 50% of those survive to adulthood. On top of that it is hard to breed pandas at all and, due to dwindling populations, it is also hard to avoid inbreeding. I think the reserve has a lot of work to do to revive the panda population, but luckily they have a lot of government support since the panda is a big symbol of China and attracts a lot of tourism revenue. Funny how that works isn’t it…
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Another fact about the pandas is that it is strange that they are docile vegetarians when they are built to be normal carnivorous bears. They have to eat tons and TONS of bamboo every day because their “meat-eater” stomachs can only absorb 20% of the nutrients. It is bizarre that some point in history they jumped from carnivores to bears. If you want to learn more about the Chengdu panda reserve click here.
I think I will now just allow you to ooh and aww over the very adorable pics.
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