Myanmar: Yangon and Schwedagon Temple

I keep wanting to say "Burma Shave". Well, that goes back in time, but near as far back as Myanmar, which was renamed Burma by the British.

During the van service to Pudong airport for our flight to Myanmar another teacher asked: "And where are you going on spring break." I was tempted to say Fort Lauderdale, but Susan answered: "Myanmar...ever been there." To which the other teacher replied: " I wouldn't go there for political reasons." I was so tempted to say: "Umm..you're living and working in China and you won't go to Myanmar?" But I bit my tongue....

You can read all about the political problems in Myanmar, but then again name a country that doesn't have something wrong with it. Right now a world poll has the U.S. in an ugly light with close to 60% saying the U.S. sets a bad example.

Bush's embargo sometime ago caused a number of banks to leave the country. There is not an ATM machine to be found and you can't use your credit card in most places.

Guess what they want: U.S. Greenbacks. We took a pile of George Washingtons, Abraham Lincolns, and pretty much ignored the other presidents.

Only one day was planned in Yangon and that was to see the Shwedagon Paya Temple. Well worth the trip. These photos are only a sampling and don't near at all show the size.

Posting these now. Will be back later to tell you about Miss LaLa, the Three Season Hotel, and my flirtation with a drag queen...well I didn't flirt.. I was flirted "at".

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BALI: Ubud and More

Space holder

BALI FLOWER OFFERINGS

A bit of a rant: I am beginning to really HATE Google. When the internet started if you typed something in a search engine, you got reference material, articles, college library hits. Now I get tons of commericial advertisements.

To wit: I wanted to learn more about "Bali Flower Offerings", and typed into the Google search engine: "Bali Flower Offerings". So what did Google return? A bunch of stock photos I could buy. Some flower companies. A couple of wedding websites where I could buy my Bali flowers. Oh yeah, and of course, the 1-800-Flowers website. Reminds me of the definition of an economist: "Gives a lot of data and tells you nothing."!!

I do know that on Bali the Hindu population makes prolifc offering to the Gods. Yes, the Gods as there are many,both good and evil, for almost everything or spirits if you prefer. At Ketut's Place in Ubud, he explained that offerings were made each morning to the spirit of the ravine to appease the spirit for disrupting the area when he built his house.

This was left as a comment by Tanas Aramuk:
An offering is something tangible, presented to appease the Gods in times of prayer. Philosophically, an offering is a sort of self sacrifice. One spends a significant amount of time and money in making an offering, putting something of oneself into it.

The most common form of offering that is seen everywhere in Bali on a daily basis is known as canang. It placed in temples, shrines and strategic locations of importance with a waft from a stick of incense and sprinkle of holy water. Shop keepers place this kind of flower offering in front of their stall upon opening up for trade and taxi drivers invariably have one on the dashboard of their vehicle.

At the hotel in Legian, I was there for only two mornings, but each morning the design in the bowl was different. Next time I want to be there when the offering is made and designed. I wonder how long it took to create one of these.

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MONKEY SHINES

Ubud Monkey Forest. A vast park with monkeys everywhere. I don't know how anyone can take a bad photo with these guys. Yeah, I was thinkin' "...more fun than a barrel of ......"

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BALI DANCERS

Bali was such a great week long vacation that I've got to do this in a couple of posts. Here's the skinny:

Bali has the beauty of Hawaii, the landscape to match, and the people are some of the friendliest, funnest folks you'll find. In my travels over the past three years to such places as India, Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia, and Turkey, after one week I said: "I'm coming back here next year." Why...because being in Bali felt like a vacation and not an excursion. Excusions are fine mind you, they're just not always relaxing. Bali was just that.

I digress.

In two separate towns, Ubud and Permuteran, I stumbled across young children practicing traditional Bali dances. Just pure luck. The first time was down the beach from our bungalow at "Puri Taman Sari" where I found out we were one day too late to see the nightime show. The next was in Ubud, at a temple where young girls were practicing dances.

What amazed me was the grace, poise and sheer determination of these young dancers. As you can see from their faces, it was concentrate, concentrate..and then think really hard about what to do. No monkey business here. That comes later at the monkey jungle.

To read more about Balinese Dances:
Bali Dance Info <--Click Here

For example: "The typical posture of Balinese dance has the legs half-bent, the torso shifted to one side with the elbow raised and lowered in a gesture that displays suppleness of the hands and fingers. The torso is shifted in symmetry with the arms. If the arms are to the right, the shifting is to the left and vice-versa."





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What a Long Strange Month It's Been

Now if I could only remember the song with something like that line in it.

Ze Problem has been that for some reason my BLOG would revert to strange characters that looked like this [] [] [] [] [] instead of words. I got it fixed only for it to happen again. After three weeks, I can now see my BLOG again. I was just about to head on over to the Geocities BLOG site, but that really lacks a bunch of features.

So coming to a BLOG, like this one, near you will be.

BALI: Everything you thought it was and more.

CHINESE NEW YEAR: More Bang For Your Buck.

BACCHETTA SUNCOAST RALLY: The passion for a new recumbent was fueled and I can't find a fire extinguisher!!!!

SHANGHAI TO SUZHOU

In preparation for creating a 200K ride for the Randonneurs of China (ROCn), I decided to bike from Zhudi Town to Suzhou, about 40 miles away.

Depressing.

Village after village of squalor and garbage everywhere.

Why didn't I take photos? I don't know. Maybe I was just in one of those blue funks because I just can't seem to find a "nice" place to cycle.

So I said to myself: "Self. Take some photos. You promised yourself you'd do that every day and you're failing miserably.".

These first three were of "River Front" views but what got to me was how hard it must be for these folks to eek out a living. Not exactly beach front property.

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Other images along the way:
Caution Sign. But for what? Ummm, watch out there's a house with a big shade tree ahead???

LU WAN WALKING TOUR

 

A walking tour.   One of these days I'm going to do one in New York City again where a tour guide said: "Take a walking tour, but only look up."  You'd be surprised at what you see. 

Got a late start but from one of the guide books decided to head down to Fuxing Park and then to Sun Yat Sen's residence and museum. I've got to go back to Fuxing park and do a complete photo essay. We were short on time, so it was a dash through the park to get to the right street exit. Just some quick glimpses of life in Fuxing (Foo Shing) park.





Figures that the person standing in front the Marx & Engels statue would be wearing a "red" coat.

Leaving the park was a set of rules. Rule 2 was pretty blunt

Heading to Sun Yat Sen's residence I came across a photoshoot. It become photographer taking pics of photographer taking pics of photographer......



The guide book describes Sun Yat Sen as the equivalent of the U.S. elder statesmen, Benjamin Franklin. Sun counseled young hotheads in his circle--with the tragic difference that Sun's circle was divided. The museum had an excellent collection of personal and political mementos, with enough english sub titles to breach the language gap. Take some time and read about Sun Yat Sen, a fascinating political figure in the history of China. Right down the street was the residence of Zhou Enlai.



Too soon the sun disappeared, literally.

Moved Back Again

Finally BLOGGER figured out ze problema. So I'll now be posting back here. Hmm.. you could get caught in a BLOG LOOP. This one sends you to GEOcities which sends ou back to BLOGGER which.......

Moving On

Can't blog from China for some reason. After searching the Blogger help files I've thrown up my hands and now am throwing in the towel.

This blog has moved to Geocities.

Holiday Season

For the holiday season, there's a nice break given my wife by her school and that means heading home for the holidays:

A flurry of shoppers, wrapped packages in arms, jostling, bumping and careening off each other in crowded aisles.

The kiosks that pop up in the malls offering those last minute stocking stuffers and unique products.

Other "Christmas" special kiosks with tons of decorations, much of which you wonder how the ideas for something new just keep coming and coming.

Christmas season music in the background, especially over and over and over hearing "Rudolph" and "I Dream Of A White Christmas".

Street trees turned into light shows all aglisten with every shape of lightbulb imaginable.

Store clerks wearing their best Santa hat and festooning themselves with garland, and glitter in their hair.

Kids getting their picture taken with Santa Claus lined up and waiting to whisper that special gift only the jolly old elf can deliver.

Oh you thought all of that is in Oregon? NOPE...this is what I saw last night in downtown Shanghai and I'm still shaking my head in wonderment. What an unexpected early Christmas present I got.

Now if it would only snow in Shanghai before I head home.

"SHOT FROM GUNS !!!"

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Photos by Ellen Levenhangen and Andy Marks cuz Dumb Joe left his camera home.


On the "FRASTTBITV" ride (oh..that's the "Friday After School To The Bar In The Village") we came across a guy in front of a mini fire on the sidewalk. Lou, one of the leaders says "Stop. You gotta see this." We said "What?" Sitting on the sidewalk was a guy rotating a huge blackened object that looked like an urn. Attached to the bottom of the urn is a wheel that he turns with a gloved hand while the other hand pours coals into a small furnace area and alternately stokes a mini bellows.


The crowd looked to be as interested in us as we were in this street vendor. There were quite a number pointing and smiling at us good naturedly as we tried to talk to them about what was going on.
Lou says "Okay..get ready for a big bang". He takes the blackened urn off the fire, drapes a long heavy fabric sleeve over it, turns a couple of levers and BLAM!!. Smoke surrounds him as he reaps his wares: Puffed Rice!!!




That blam and seeing him gather his rice reminded me as a kid of an advertising slogan I remembered for Quaker Oats Puffed Rice and Wheat: "Shot from Guns".

I asked a couple of the teachers on our ride if they had heard the slogan and well let's just say there is such a thing as a generation gap...chasm?

A bit of a google and here's the history of "Shot From Guns" according to the Minnesota Historical Society. The following is an ad from about 1930 where Quaker Oats urged people to buy Anderson's puffed cereals.

Food Shot From Guns Of Peace

Over 125 million explosions in each grain of wheat and rice make Puffed Grains virtually as nourishing as hot cooked cereals.

Grains of wheat and rice, as completely digestible, as nourishing as though they had been cooked for hours... yet crisp...... flaky... alluringly crunchy!
This is what the discovery of "food shot from guns" brings to your breakfast table.

Professor A.P. Anderson, their inventor, knew that wheat and rice grains contain millions of tiny food cells. He knew that even prolonged Lengthy. overcooking sometimes fails to open all these cells. Hence these finest of cereal grains are often not completely digestible.

Discovers way to explode food cells.

So he seals the grains in huge guns. Revolves them for hours in fiery ovens. When the guns are fired, 125 million explosions occur in each grain. Every food cell is broken open. The grains become more perfectly cooked than hot cooked cereals. And virtually as nourishing. These 125 million explosions not only make wheat and rice more assimilated, but also easier to digest. They are made flaky, crunchy, flavory...utterly delicious. All their natural nut-sweet flavor is developed. When the guns pour forth their shower of Puffed Grains it smells like an old-time kitchen on baking day. It smells so good you can hardly wait to lift a handful of these grains to your mouth. No wonder Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice have been found to be the children's favorite cereal!

Puffed Rice is a creamy rich dainty treat. It digests readily. Turns to energy in a hurry. Puffed Wheat is made of whole wheat. It offers rich minerals. Plus 25% bran.

The Quaker Oats Company.