Yesterday as I wandered aimlessly around Shanghai, this time in a direction I hadn't been before, I found bootleg dvds (which cost less to buy than they are to rent in the US), Chairman Mao stationary, and much more, including tea shops. One tea shop that I went into was in an "L" shape, with the longest side being about 7' long. Meaning it was tiny. I felt like a bull in a china shop with my messenger bag on my back...every time I turned around I listened for the sound of falling china or ceramics.
The woman working at the shop was incredibly nice, but geiven the amount of chinese I speak right now there was a lot of repeating what she said, but not a lot of comprehension. I found a ceramic container that said "black tea" and gestured that I would like to buy some. She took one bag (probably weighing a kilo) of tea out of the container. Oh crap, that's a lot of tea. But how do I convey "less"? Apparently the gestures I meant to convey "less" were more indicative of "try," so she and I sat down on two little stools and she began a wonderfully intricate tea tasting process.
To start, she poured some of the tea leaves into a white bowl which we then both smelled. After that, water was heated in a kettle, the tea leaves were poured from the white bowl into a ceramic container that would hold about 1/2 a cup of water, and water was poured onto the leaves. From there the tea was poured through a strainer into a mini-tea pot. She and I smelled both the tea leaves that had been soaked and the tea in the pot. She poured tea into my cup; it was the tiniest cup I've ever seen, equivalent to about 1 tablespoon made of thin white china. Both she and I tried the tea that had been prepared, and she refilled our cups until the mini-tea pot was empty. Then the same ritual was performed to try another kind of black tea.
At the end of all this I was still struggling to convey that I wanted to buy somewhat less than 1 kilo of black tea. She took out a bag, and I filled it with the amount I wanted. I attempted to ask how much it would be, and she declined my money. She smiled and indicated that it was a gift (at least I hope so, because I didn't pay). I said thank you numerous times and walked out feeling wonderful.
I think I'll go back and buy (really buy this time) some more tea from that store, luckily I took a business card so I could find it again.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Trek It Out
I just got back from a jam-packed 6 day trip to Hong Kong (almost 2 full days) and Chengdu (almost 4 full days). I'm posting pictures in reverse chronological order...starting in Chengdu and working back to HK.
Pagoda in a bamboo park in Chengdu...it was a very peaceful and quiet park, probably because there was an admission fee.
Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu (probably as close as I'll get to Tibet given the fact that no visas are given to foreigners). These are people playing an intense game (of what I couldn't tell, but it did involve tiles) on the sidewalk.
Tibetan monk regalia.
Pandas at the eco/research center in Chengdu...these are the baby pandas after they had their bottles...actually the one on the top right still seems to be working on his bottle. It's amazing how cartoon-like they were.
Temple at the top of a sacred mountain.
Tram up to the top of the mountain. The tram covered the middle of the mountain, but the beginning and end had hundreds upon hundreds of stone stairs carved into it.
We visited a place where there were thousands (literally - believe the actual number is somewhere around 2400) buddhas carved into a rock wall overlooking a river. This is the picture one of the kids took of me in front a rock carving...you can sort of see me, you can sort of see the carving.
HUGE Buddha...apparently the tallest in the world - 71m high. If you look at the Buddha's feet, you'll see lots of little Liliputian people.
HK sky line -- tall buildings that go on and on and on and on. Then there's a break (because of the water) and then more tall buildings on islands. Pretty incredible.
In HK we took the tram up to the top of Victoria's Peak (apparently one of the must-do things)...on one of the foggiest days ever. There wasn't much to see, but this is the tram's track, and from the post cards the view's spectacular on clear days.
Pagoda in a bamboo park in Chengdu...it was a very peaceful and quiet park, probably because there was an admission fee. 
Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu (probably as close as I'll get to Tibet given the fact that no visas are given to foreigners). These are people playing an intense game (of what I couldn't tell, but it did involve tiles) on the sidewalk.
Tibetan monk regalia.
Pandas at the eco/research center in Chengdu...these are the baby pandas after they had their bottles...actually the one on the top right still seems to be working on his bottle. It's amazing how cartoon-like they were.
Temple at the top of a sacred mountain.
Tram up to the top of the mountain. The tram covered the middle of the mountain, but the beginning and end had hundreds upon hundreds of stone stairs carved into it.
We visited a place where there were thousands (literally - believe the actual number is somewhere around 2400) buddhas carved into a rock wall overlooking a river. This is the picture one of the kids took of me in front a rock carving...you can sort of see me, you can sort of see the carving.
HUGE Buddha...apparently the tallest in the world - 71m high. If you look at the Buddha's feet, you'll see lots of little Liliputian people. HK sky line -- tall buildings that go on and on and on and on. Then there's a break (because of the water) and then more tall buildings on islands. Pretty incredible.
In HK we took the tram up to the top of Victoria's Peak (apparently one of the must-do things)...on one of the foggiest days ever. There wasn't much to see, but this is the tram's track, and from the post cards the view's spectacular on clear days.And that's my trip. I have much more to tell -- little stories, observations, panda videos, but for now this will have to do!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Digging to China
It took a 13.5 hour plane ride and a grueling stop-and-go 2 hour drive from the airport, but I arrived safe and sound to my new abode here in Shanghai. So on my first full day, what did I do? Well, I started by putting the boys on the bus to school (it picks them up at a brutal 7:20 every morning…luckily this morning I was up at 6 all on my own!). After spending a bit of time unpacking I went with Mr. Wu (the family’s driver) to…IKEA…!! And while Ikea is pretty much the same as it is in the states – the first floor is all displays, the bottom floor is all of the stuff, and it winds around like crazy on both floors -- there are two big differences I noticed: first, that there are tons of security guards, they were scattered all over the place! Second, Ikea is bumpin’ here! I went at 9am on a Tuesday morning, only to learn that the restaurant opens at 9, but the store part doesn’t open until 10. But at 9 in the morning, when the store wasn’t even open yet, there were tons of people, milling around, eating breakfast, chatting, Ikea seems like quite a social scene. I may have to go back and meet some new people…
I also took myself on a little walk down the street to huge shopping area of town to buy a voltage converter. The place I ended up was an indoor mall, but it was completely full of kiosks; 4 floors of kiosks selling everything electronic -- from video surveillance equipment to ipod ear buds to computers themselves and much, much more! And all I had to do was find one where I could successfully communicate that I needed “a voltage converter…from 110 to 220.” That’s definitely in my phrase book. In the end I managed to figure out that the power cord my computer has is a universal voltage cord; which meant that I didn’t need anything. Luckily I got a rocking walk out of it, and a bubble tea drink to boot (I opted not to have lunch at KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, or Starbucks…all of which were in the mall).
And now my early morning/late night/the international date line are all catching up with me! Luckily, there’s tomorrow (not to mention the 2 months after) for me to visit the park at the end of the block, the French Concession, and so much more!
Oh! And this weekend I’m going to Hong Kong, and then onto Chengdu, woohoo!
I also took myself on a little walk down the street to huge shopping area of town to buy a voltage converter. The place I ended up was an indoor mall, but it was completely full of kiosks; 4 floors of kiosks selling everything electronic -- from video surveillance equipment to ipod ear buds to computers themselves and much, much more! And all I had to do was find one where I could successfully communicate that I needed “a voltage converter…from 110 to 220.” That’s definitely in my phrase book. In the end I managed to figure out that the power cord my computer has is a universal voltage cord; which meant that I didn’t need anything. Luckily I got a rocking walk out of it, and a bubble tea drink to boot (I opted not to have lunch at KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, or Starbucks…all of which were in the mall).
And now my early morning/late night/the international date line are all catching up with me! Luckily, there’s tomorrow (not to mention the 2 months after) for me to visit the park at the end of the block, the French Concession, and so much more!
Oh! And this weekend I’m going to Hong Kong, and then onto Chengdu, woohoo!
Friday, March 13, 2009
TFT
TFT: Tanzanian Flex Time ...meaning that sometimes things don't happen in the time frame that you'd expect. For instance: I wanted to post pictures about 3 weeks ago, but it's only happening now.
But hey, the pictures are the same as they were 3 weeks ago!!
After climbing Meru, Tim and I went back to Moshi for a night and then continued onto Mombassa, Kenya. After we spent a few days in Mombassa with our fellow volunteers Dana, Michelle and Lou, we headed down to Dar es Salaam and then took a ferry to Zanzibar. Whew, there were a lot of buses involved in all that travel.
Once in Zanzibar, I abandoned all buses in favor of my own two feet (for anywhere in town), shared taxis (to get between towns), and finally a plane or two (to get back state-side). Zanzibar had more mzungu than I'd seen since getting to Tanzania, and it took a little while to adjust to that, but the white sand beaches and beautiful turquoise water really helped. Here are some pictures from Zanzibar:
Here are some pictures from Zanzibar:
Market in Stone Town.
Girls walking home from school in Nungwi, on the north coast of Zanzibar.
Tim and Dana playing frisbee in the Indian Ocean.
Part of our Spice Tour...who knew that so many spices came from here? Vanilla, cinnamon, cardomon, cumin, cloves, and on and on!
Dhow, a traditional boat, coming back in from a day of fishing...if I liked fish Zanzibar would have been the place to eat it. Fresh octopus, squid, swordfish, tuna, baracuda, and more!
But hey, the pictures are the same as they were 3 weeks ago!!
After climbing Meru, Tim and I went back to Moshi for a night and then continued onto Mombassa, Kenya. After we spent a few days in Mombassa with our fellow volunteers Dana, Michelle and Lou, we headed down to Dar es Salaam and then took a ferry to Zanzibar. Whew, there were a lot of buses involved in all that travel.
Once in Zanzibar, I abandoned all buses in favor of my own two feet (for anywhere in town), shared taxis (to get between towns), and finally a plane or two (to get back state-side). Zanzibar had more mzungu than I'd seen since getting to Tanzania, and it took a little while to adjust to that, but the white sand beaches and beautiful turquoise water really helped. Here are some pictures from Zanzibar:
Here are some pictures from Zanzibar:
Market in Stone Town.
Girls walking home from school in Nungwi, on the north coast of Zanzibar.
Tim and Dana playing frisbee in the Indian Ocean.
Part of our Spice Tour...who knew that so many spices came from here? Vanilla, cinnamon, cardomon, cumin, cloves, and on and on!
Dhow, a traditional boat, coming back in from a day of fishing...if I liked fish Zanzibar would have been the place to eat it. Fresh octopus, squid, swordfish, tuna, baracuda, and more! And, as promised weeks ago,
here are pics from the trek up Mt Meru:
Here's Mt Meru...just a little bit to go...
I've fallen and I can't get up...
If you look closely at this picture you will see green spots painted on the rocks...that's the path that we climbed at 2:30 in the morning...the green was not visible at that time.
Another part of the path cutting along the mountain's edge up to the top.
View of Kili, you can also see the path we walked up to the summit.
Apparently I no longer have the strength to keep my body upright. But by golly I'm throwing a thumbs up through all my black outerwear.
here are pics from the trek up Mt Meru:
Here's Mt Meru...just a little bit to go... 
I've fallen and I can't get up...
If you look closely at this picture you will see green spots painted on the rocks...that's the path that we climbed at 2:30 in the morning...the green was not visible at that time.
Another part of the path cutting along the mountain's edge up to the top.
View of Kili, you can also see the path we walked up to the summit.
Apparently I no longer have the strength to keep my body upright. But by golly I'm throwing a thumbs up through all my black outerwear.Tuesday, February 17, 2009
My First Mountain
Alright! Oh Yea! Uh-huh!
Climbing Mount Meru was quite an experience, and if I had a list of things to do in my life, I could now check of "climbing a mountain" with a big bold check mark. It took us 3 days to climb up, and one day to descend. We climbed about 1000m/day. Except on the day we summitted.
On the summit day we were up at 1am, starting to climb the mountain at 2am, and reached the summit around 6:45am. It was like I was back rowing, accomplishing that much before 9am! Luckily for us, there was a full moon just a few days before summitting, so even though it was the dead of night, there was hardly any need to use my headlamp. In fact, often times we were casting shadows across the rock faces. It was pretty darn cold up at the top, between the elevation and the wind, I was all bundled up and glad of it (quite a change from the first day, when I wore shorts and sneakers). And then after summitting, there were 4 more hours of hiking down to follow. I slept quite soundly that night.
After climbing Meru, Tim and I spent one last night at CCS (where we'd left the majority of our gear -- don't need too much on a mountain). I was lucky enough to talk to Isaac and the new volunteer at CCS. Isaac said that E's case is still being "investigated" (harumph!!), but that he's going to school now as a day-schooler. And he and I checked with the registrar before I left to make sure that he could switch from day-schooler to boarder whenever his case is resolved. So it's freaking annoying as all get out that he's still staying at Juvi, but it's good that the warden will let him go to school during the day (and it's lucky that this wonderful school is just a 5 minute walk away). The new Juvi volunteer said that he loves Juvi, would love to add some musical notes to the mural, and I made him promise to send me pictures.
And now I'm in Mombasa. An eight hour bus ride across the country side on Saturday (Valentine's Day) brought Dana, Tim and I to the shores of Kenya. But tomorrow we're heading out again (with one more person, Michelle decided to extend her stay, yessss!), down to Dar and then on the ferry to Zanzibar.
I'll try to post some pictures from the mountain, etc soon.
Climbing Mount Meru was quite an experience, and if I had a list of things to do in my life, I could now check of "climbing a mountain" with a big bold check mark. It took us 3 days to climb up, and one day to descend. We climbed about 1000m/day. Except on the day we summitted.
On the summit day we were up at 1am, starting to climb the mountain at 2am, and reached the summit around 6:45am. It was like I was back rowing, accomplishing that much before 9am! Luckily for us, there was a full moon just a few days before summitting, so even though it was the dead of night, there was hardly any need to use my headlamp. In fact, often times we were casting shadows across the rock faces. It was pretty darn cold up at the top, between the elevation and the wind, I was all bundled up and glad of it (quite a change from the first day, when I wore shorts and sneakers). And then after summitting, there were 4 more hours of hiking down to follow. I slept quite soundly that night.
After climbing Meru, Tim and I spent one last night at CCS (where we'd left the majority of our gear -- don't need too much on a mountain). I was lucky enough to talk to Isaac and the new volunteer at CCS. Isaac said that E's case is still being "investigated" (harumph!!), but that he's going to school now as a day-schooler. And he and I checked with the registrar before I left to make sure that he could switch from day-schooler to boarder whenever his case is resolved. So it's freaking annoying as all get out that he's still staying at Juvi, but it's good that the warden will let him go to school during the day (and it's lucky that this wonderful school is just a 5 minute walk away). The new Juvi volunteer said that he loves Juvi, would love to add some musical notes to the mural, and I made him promise to send me pictures.
And now I'm in Mombasa. An eight hour bus ride across the country side on Saturday (Valentine's Day) brought Dana, Tim and I to the shores of Kenya. But tomorrow we're heading out again (with one more person, Michelle decided to extend her stay, yessss!), down to Dar and then on the ferry to Zanzibar.
I'll try to post some pictures from the mountain, etc soon.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Climb this!
This morning, in just a few short minutes, Tim and I are heading up and out. Two days ago, on a whim, we decided that we're going to spend the next 4 days (until Friday) climbing Mount Meru. It's the second highest peak in Tanzania, 5th highest in Africa, and it's supposed to be a pretty cool trek.
Keep your fingers crossed for us and I'll let you know how it goes!
Keep your fingers crossed for us and I'll let you know how it goes!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Law Day
Today was three things:
1. My last day at Juvi
2. E's court date
3. Law Day
Let me explain "Law Day." It's a annual holiday for law enforcement and judicial officers. What does that mean? That means that all defense attorneys, prosecutors, police officers and magistrates have an in-service type day. They all get together and learn about interesting cases, have guest speakers, and don't hear any cases. It's not something that was a surprise, this event was planned way in advance (so why was E's court date scheduled for today?...) That means that when I showed up at Juvi this morning, E was all dressed up (black slacks, collared shirt, leather shoes) with no where to go, literally. Court date #18, moving right on to #19.
This unexpected turn of events (although looking at the evidence --18 court dates-- perhaps I should have expected it more) left me in a dejected mood for my last day of Juvi. A day which I also hadn't planned any activities for. So we passed the time with music, a bit of chess, a bit of soccer, and then Issac and I went to the court to see if we could talk to the pp (polisi prosecutor) for E's case. He said to come back on Monday and they could talk.
Basically, what E's case is boiling down to is money. The people who accused him have stopped coming to the court dates but the magistrate is prolonging judgement in the hopes of getting money. E's school will allow him to go as a day-schooler while he's still in Juvi and once he's released he can attend as a boarder. But to see the look on his face this morning, all of his things in a pile on his bed, ready to go, ready to leave, and he can't. So, I've decided to participate in the oh-so offensive practice of bribery. Apparently the magistrate can delay the case as long as s/he wants. But, if I can give the magistrate some money, and that will make the magistrate show up and dismiss the case, fine.
Well, today wasn't the happiest of endings, but and ending isn't the whole story. I've greatly enjoyed my time at Juvi, getting to know the boys and providing a distraction. I suppose that today is just an example of the reality of these boys' situation. You do what you can, with what you have.
1. My last day at Juvi
2. E's court date
3. Law Day
Let me explain "Law Day." It's a annual holiday for law enforcement and judicial officers. What does that mean? That means that all defense attorneys, prosecutors, police officers and magistrates have an in-service type day. They all get together and learn about interesting cases, have guest speakers, and don't hear any cases. It's not something that was a surprise, this event was planned way in advance (so why was E's court date scheduled for today?...) That means that when I showed up at Juvi this morning, E was all dressed up (black slacks, collared shirt, leather shoes) with no where to go, literally. Court date #18, moving right on to #19.
This unexpected turn of events (although looking at the evidence --18 court dates-- perhaps I should have expected it more) left me in a dejected mood for my last day of Juvi. A day which I also hadn't planned any activities for. So we passed the time with music, a bit of chess, a bit of soccer, and then Issac and I went to the court to see if we could talk to the pp (polisi prosecutor) for E's case. He said to come back on Monday and they could talk.
Basically, what E's case is boiling down to is money. The people who accused him have stopped coming to the court dates but the magistrate is prolonging judgement in the hopes of getting money. E's school will allow him to go as a day-schooler while he's still in Juvi and once he's released he can attend as a boarder. But to see the look on his face this morning, all of his things in a pile on his bed, ready to go, ready to leave, and he can't. So, I've decided to participate in the oh-so offensive practice of bribery. Apparently the magistrate can delay the case as long as s/he wants. But, if I can give the magistrate some money, and that will make the magistrate show up and dismiss the case, fine.
Well, today wasn't the happiest of endings, but and ending isn't the whole story. I've greatly enjoyed my time at Juvi, getting to know the boys and providing a distraction. I suppose that today is just an example of the reality of these boys' situation. You do what you can, with what you have.
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