Boog's Blog

BSL West Yellowstone

Slightly overcast

By van along Gallatin (successor to Alexander Hamilton) river to the west entrance of the park. First a stop at earthquake lake, a 7.5 quake which backed up the Madison river. 1959 many killed

The Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin rivers all flow South and are parallel.

Hebgen lake fault line evidence of twenty two foot drop. Mountain side came down and caused giant winds.

Rolling walk past ghost village and onto spillway.

Short rain storm just as we headed back for the day, crossing the continental divide into Idaho..

Bar N ranch for the evening, will remain so for three nights.

Oh, one picture has a moose.

BSL Boogs stalk lobster

Bozman Montana
Too warm. Very smokey due to canyon fire. Locals claim this is the most smokey day.

Sits in a bowl with various bits of the rockies on the periphery. Nicely scaled downtown, historical district.

Everyone is so….. nice.

Tomorrow we meet up with our fellow walkers and head off to Yellowstone. Today we walked around Bozeman.

Drive to Santa Barbara for biking South.

Santa Barbara Brophy brothers
Port Huemene – Oxnard. Fishermans Catch with Nick.
Santa Monica. Bar Pintxo
Dana Point. Harbor grill. Scallops
Carlsbad. Nickow Asian fusion
San Diego. Michelle and George. Lunch Jane and Dennis

Hotel business excellent, mostly full.

Dinner at Bar Pintxo

Jambon Serrano
Patas Bravas
Duck breast with lentils
Chicken stew with lime
Zarzuala

Good local red ale.

Nice bike too

Family run Fishermans Catch in Oxnard.

Nick, the owner, and his sons are primarily fishing people. Fifty years in the trade. Less than two years ago he got roped into opening a restaurant.

Address is wrong in Yelp. Address is wrong in Google. Oxnard then issued an address on a different street name with a number not listed as valid.

In spite of all he is fighting off the clients. Claimed he does not want to work this hard. He greets all, gives extra value, and has fresh fish and seafood. Good Manhattan clam chowder.

BTC shanghai day 3

Sunny, yes sunny. Forgot to put on sunscreen.

YuYuen garden, longevity for parents, built for his parents by a rich merchant mid 16th century. Pictures in bonus shots sent earlier (as are new area and some dumplings). An interesting oddity. In the roman Empire they did not have waterproof cement so they used a mixture which contained a lot of figs. In the garden here they used sticky rice.

Then off to X’ian Tien Di, New Earth area, basically a new part of town that is like a European pedestrian area. Lots of western brand name and Asian branded restaurants and shops. People eating dumplings, noodles, turkey club sandwiches, hamburgers with fries, whole compliment of Vietnamese, etc. Boutiques of all sorts.

We ate at Di Tai Fung, a place known in the LA area, there are six in Shanghai. Excellent dumplings, the best we have had to date. In LA it is called "the dumpling house"

A three hour stroll back to the hotel led us through more shopping than can be imagined. The watch business looks like very high end swiss watches are all marketed next to each other and the same collection of seemingly independent shops are cloned about a km away and they again….

A new find in town. Re’el a new underground food court. Maybe 50 shops, many very interesting. One was selling a Japanese cookie, shaped as a fish, bean paste inside. A large pool of people were trying to buy. Turns out to be well known and doing a half price new store opening promotion. Found gaufe (aka waffles) but filled Asian style with green tea or pastes. Bought a chocolate covered one to try as well as a standard Hong Kong style custard cup.

A fine farewell dinner. Duck, and dumplings along with other goodies.

The tour is over. Short recap of where we rested our heads.

Beijing. 4 nights
Luoyong. 2 nights
Xi’an. 4 nights
Yangtze river. 3 nights
Yichang and Wuhan 1 night
Changsha 3 nights
Kaili 2 nights
Guiyang 2 nights
Shanghai. 3 nights

BTC shanghai day two

Overcast

Shanghai has borrowed a number of western words. One of my favorite is the use of on sale as an adjective meaning cheap, used for people too.

One word not learned is fan. The room a/c is insufficient for us, so I tried to get a fan. The concierge never heard the word. Required a translator who got the concierge laughing at the concept of needing a fan.

Shanghai museum, reputedly the best in china. Certainly quite good. After viewing for two hours, painting, sculpture, jade carving, etc.notice not a single piece came even close to being erotic art or touched on the topic. No idea why as I sure their artists could not have escaped seeing opportunities. Censorship is my guess.

Vegetarian restaurant for lunch. Beautiful presentation. Much looked like meat or fish. Excellent work.

Met an ex-pat while out wandering the city. Had a several hour walk and a good chat. He came to shanghai with no job. Easy to get a job here, especially teaching English. Pretty well paid too. Now maying 15000 yuan a month.

Shanghai acrobats topped the evening; that and the excellent hot in the spa. Very Asian set up, down to the scrubbing station, sauna, large soaking tub and smaller hot tub and cold plunge. Naturally sit on small stools to groom.

Sent from my iPad

BTC. Shanghai. One

Sunny and clear blue skies when leaving Guiyang. Rain in Shanghai

Last evening QB and I took an after dinner walk. On a main streetwepased what appeared to be a largish club (similar in appearance to a restaurant but a man was handing out leaflets). Several young women were outside shilling. QB and I were walking and holding hands. This did not inhibit two women from approaching me for what appeared to be an invite to the club. Ditch QB? Bring her in? No way to ask but suspect the former.

On the flight met a well spoken minority person, in the financial services business. His view of America, never visited but has been to Canada and has a canadian passport, is rich, religious, many driven to succeed, and much more equal distribution of wealth.

As we were discussing social welfare systems he described the need for the Chinese to save ( non-existent safety net) as a hedge fund.

As to food he said Americans eat junk food, then paused for effect, but we eat poison.

Shanghai, the Bund with its Huangpu river promenade; iconic art deco and neoclassical architecture dating from the ‘foreign concessions ‘ period can be seen from Pudong. ( pu is the river, dong is east).

Facts and fiction from guide and elsewhere. One third of shanghai is migrant population; .56 fecundity; maglev to airport can go 450 km/hour, in WWII Shanghai, alone, welcomed the Jewish people without any hassles, urban housing runs about $500 per square foot purchase price.

Pudong by subway. Newly developed section, farmland to modern business building, a glittering forest of skyscrapers, almost overnight. Guide lived in 200 sq. ft. House, five people, outhouse and now lives in a modern city, considered the best part of town at $2000 per sq. foot ( I checked twice). She is twenty two.

Major highlight : our visit to jing’an temple. See bonus pics

After dinner walked the French concession area by ourselves. The hotel is across the street. Good wonton place bypassed but a likely fusion restaurant found.

BTC. Guiyang day two

Some sunshine and blue skies

Geology lesson on the route to Han village, old Han group, about a two hour bus ride southwest from the urban area. Karst formations and landscape. One of our group knew quite a bit about Karst history. The rest was revealed, where else: wikipedia.

The Han chine army defeated the locals about 600 years ago, and the Ming emperor got the 200 thousand strong army to stay. This village, isolated, has their decendents. Guide explained, to see modern Han dress go to Shanghai, for traditional Han culture come here.

The village, Jiachang, is made mostly of stone. Greeted by traditional dance symbolizing the old war, masks, drum beating and some chanting. The village is poor, dirty with winding alleys. Slits still evident in the stone structures.

In the main areas a few vendors. One selling shoes., embroidered, with front point (had a blade in it for fighting in previous perood). Feet still too big so the vendor took us through a Warren or alleys to see other shoes and maybe sizes. QB got to go shoe shopping in an old Han village!. No success.

On a road developed for buffalo the bus managed not to overturn, though it was close at times. Headed east to a botanical garden looking area about 90 minutes away. Decent lunch with good dumplings and broccoli as well as spicy beans.

Up another mountain road, about 90 minutes of tortured terrain in a bus that felt as if it had no shocks. Hairpin turns with impossible grades and clearances. Finally we reached the tea plants at 1600 meters.

These are very special plants. A few are thought to be 2000 years old. The area is being supported by the government, means lower taxes to encourage development.

At the top of the world, still Karst geology, we get to sample teas from this farm. Black, white, and green. Done somewhat formally we were able to quiz the owners and servers for an extended time. Got tastes, process and species questions answered. Then down the mountain and bit to see Green tea processing. A new plant was being built. There are three crops a year, no winter crop, and harvesting for the spring crop was over. Naturally we were told how they pick, with fingernails not fingers.

In the store, not yet really built, we looked at a box of tea, maybe 500 grams. $580. We passed. Suspect we drank three or four cups of this fine tea. Good, but we like the black tea of India and Sri Lanka better. Overall a very useful education in tea growing and processing in exchange for a very difficult ride. But the views..and the air quality are memorable. Could feel the difference in my lungs as soon as we returned to Guiyang.

Leave very early for Shanghai.

BTC. Guiyang, a bit further west

Overcast, some sun peaked through.

A visit to a Sunday Miao market in Kaili. Cultural performance in Guiyang

Yesterday when I asked one of the Miao leaders in the village if she left the village often she said no. She had been to another village a few hours walk away but not to Kaili. I assumed it was due to distance and the roads. No. No longer Miao people in Kaili, wear tee shirts, becoming too Han like, giving up the customs. She did not like the Han as they were not respectful of her culture.

Sunday market. Hum Fat’s Waller’s "feets too big". QB has not yet been able to get a single pair of shoes, not for lack of trying, feets too big. Outdoor barbershop still doing straight razor shaves and razor haircuts. Outdoor dentists reminiscent of 19th century, wonderful fabrics and almost all sorts of wares.

Guiyang, 1.8 million inner city, 3.2 million total. 87% Han. No Starbucks or McDonalds. KFC and Dairy Queen are popular. No frozen yogurt.

Cultural performance of Dong and other minorities peoples. Dong well known for their a capella chorus. Theatre large, maybe 1000 seats in a better part of town than our hotel. Big, loud, las Vegas type show. Not to our tastes but the locals appear to have liked it.

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