52

Picture taken out of the taxi window on the way to the airport, late Sunday morning.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be worthy of inclusion in this album, but it was (thanks to a windstorm earlier that morning) the only time we saw blue sky the entire trip. Sure, the sky ended up appearing blue in earlier shots, but... it wasn't.

(Besides, I couldn't end with that shot of the marketplace, could I?)

It was a good trip, but I was ready to return to the U.S., where I stand out due to my odd personality rather than my height and skin tone.

51

Marketplace, Beijing, Saturday (the 1st): The day before we leave, some of us do more shopping.

Really, there's only about 3 things to do in China: eat, sight-see, and shop. (Well, 4 if you count getting massages.)

Here's a typical alleyway in the market in Beijing. It's only because we really spent so much of our time there doing this activity that I felt compelled to include this.

50

Chaoyang Theater, Beijing, Friday night: We went to see an acrobat show. [Yes, that's a man balancing on a board on cylinder, holding curved bars on his head from which a woman hangs on either side and on top of which a boy balances on a board on a cylinder... and rolling the board so he can flip bowls on to his head. You know, nothing overly impressive. Impressive would be doing it without the three guys standing around.]

In answer to the question of whether it was better than Cirque du Soleil: I haven't seen Cirque du Soleil. It was undoubtedly far less expensive that show--that much is certain.

1

Me sitting in the park at Jingshan Gongyuan. (I'm guessing "gongyuan" means park because all the parks on the map have that in their names.) This was taken on Halloween morning (hey, it was as close to a costume as I had on hand).

49

Forbidden City: A pagoda or something.

(I really make you feel like you were there, don't I?)

48

Forbidden City: A small tower atop a rockerie in the Imperial Garden. (We'll keep this caption simple.)

47

Forbidden City: A pigtailed little Chinese girl eyes me with wonder in front of a bronze lion statue. (I won't tell you how long I had to wait for her to turn around for this shot. Stop thinking that.)

46

Palace Museum, a.k.a. the Forbidden City, Friday morning:
Just north of Tiananmen Square is the palace where, long ago, the emporer lived and the commoners couldn't go. (The haze was pretty bad that morning.) I believe this is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

45

Sacred Way, near the Ming Tombs (yet another thing to pay admission for).
This is a really long path with large stone statues of people, animals, and mythical beasts lining it on both sides. (You can see how we desecrated some for photo ops in other albums.) Hey, it was better than the Tombs.

44

Ming Tombs, Thursday afternoon:
After walking all over the Wall, we rode in the vans for about 90 minutes through the Chinese backcountry to get to the valley where the Ming emperors were buried. The one whose excavated tomb we got to walk through: Dingling. (I'm not making that up.)

The thing they don't tell you up front: They've taken pretty much everything out of the tomb, making it more or less just an underground room with fluorescent lighting. (Particularly disappointing after the grandeur of the Wall.) Here we are making our way out and on to his monument where they note his accomplishments. It was blank. No joke.

43

Great Wall: Here's a shot of the other direction, after we'd walked back quite a ways. However, coincidentally, we made it about to the second guard tower. Really, we walked a great distance.

42

Great Wall: Looking through that guard tower at the next. Which was farther than Saul and I wanted to continue. We did go back the other way past where we started, which is more than those go-getters who went all the way can say.

41

Great Wall: The wall stretches for over 6,000 km, but this restored portion only went about as far as that last hilltop in the distance. I'm told that a few of the faster-walking members of our group made it all the way to the end; they weren't stopping to take many pictures, I bet. Me, I made it to that second guard tower in the foreground.

40

Great Wall: Looking down from one of the guard towers at Hans, Debbie, and Wila. That's the thing about building in the mountains: It's got it's ups and downs. (Ba-dum-chink! Thanks, I do two shows on Sundays...)

39

Great Wall: We were expecting cool temperatures, but it was very pleasant (I bought a new jacket in Shanghai in preparation, which I ended up carrying). And after the climb we were more than warmed up. (No, I'm not obsessed with getting the subjects of the picture to actually LOOK at the camera. That's rather obvious.)

38

Great Wall at Mutianyu, Thursday morning:
Again Mrs. Chen got us vans and drivers and even a guide and we headed north about 90 km to a restored part of the wall that isn't as tourist-laden as Badaling. Here we are, forgoing the cable car up the hill to the wall. Just to give you some idea of how far up it was, I took three pictures of us just climbing the stairs (the other two I'll save for another album), mostly because I had to stop to catch my breath. It was somewhat disheartening when the elderly Chineses folk passed me. (Notice the autumn colors on the leaves.)

37

Tiananmen Square: Here Wila snaps a shot of young soldiers (in suits too big for them) assembling to march through the Square, with a monument in the background. I couldn't tell exactly what was on the monument, as ropes and guards prevent one from getting within 50 meters of it.

36

Tiananmen Square, Wednesday late afternoon:
The vans took us here after the Summer Palace to meet up with the rest of our group. When it isn't filled with tanks and whatnot, it's a... big, open space, with big communist buildings surrounding it. For obvious Westerners like myself, it's a near constant exercise in warding off street vendors. Here's the Mao portrait on the north end; if you want a cheap book of his wisdom, there's no shortage of people selling that in the Square. Trust me.

35

Summer Palace: Eventually we made our way back around to Longevity Hill to try to find "the 200 steps". I don't think we found them, but we definitely took more than that many to get to the top. I think that's the Temple of the Sea of Wisdom behind me.

34

Summer Palace: On the other side of the island the 17-Arch Bridge connects it to the shore. (I'm hoping the untranslated Chinese names are more interesting. However, at least we don't have to guess how many arches there are.) [Yes, I took this with the B&W filter.]

33

South Hu Dao (Lake Isle), an island on the... south side of the lake. (Efficient, these naming conventions of theirs.) Saul prays for good fortune (or for cute single Chinese women) on the rocks below the Dragon King's Temple.

32

Summer Palace: Here's the... I think it's a Cloud Dispelling Hall. (Apparently it doesn't dispell haze, however.) The hill is called Longevity Hill; I can discern that much. The palace grounds run along the side of the rather large Kunming Hu (lake). David and Pete hiked all the way around the lake, while the rest of us took the our-powered ferry across the waters to...

31

Summer Palace, Wednesday morning:
Our contact in Beijing, the very nice Mrs. Chen (no relation to our Dr. Chen) arranged for vans to take us outside of town to where the Emporer used to spend the balmy summer days. [Scaling the rocks, bottom to top: Saul, TK, Henry, David, Pete, Wila]

30

Tiantan Park: TK and Saul at the Circular Mound Altar. As the name implies, it's a circular... uh... altar, with concentric rings of blocks in multiples of nine (symbolizing the nine layers of Heaven--so it says in the brochure). However, the center was way too crowded for us to get a shot there.

29

Tiantan Park: Me in lotus position in front of the Temple of Heaven, meditating something or other. (Let's not ruin the moment.)

28

Tiantan Park: I think this is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. (I hate to say this, but after a while it gets hard to remember one temple from another. I'm an awful Westerner, I know.)

27

Beijing, Tianan Park, Tuesday afternoon: Earlier in the day those of us who had the vacation time to spare flew up to Beijing to be tourists. We took the subway and a bus to get to the park where the Temple of Heaven (pictured) is. [Posing on the higher step: TK, Saul, Froi; lower step: Henry, David, Talal; way up front: Alain]

26

Shanghai, Monday (the 27th):
Looking up through the rotunda atop the Shanghai Museum. (Gotta love that zoom.) Those of us who didn't go to the museum the week before took it in. And the first exhibit we saw: Etruscan artifacts. With Gregorian chant playing in the background. (Really.) There were more traditional Chinese exhibits as well, but photography wasn't allowed (and with all the guards around I wasn't going to try it. I wasn't about to end up in a Chinese prison just so you all could see a painting or jade carving.)

25

Hey, that's us! Here's a close-up of our photo on p. 8 of the Jiefang Daily morning edition. We're not sure why those chose this shot of us, from well after our race was over--as just noted, there were a lot of pictures taken of us in the other pose--but we suspect it may be because Froi has his shirt off (far right). [Wila, our borrowed steersman from Macau--holding the U.S. flag, Alain (Canadian), Hans, Debbie (originally from Canada), Froi (Canadian); yep, very representative of the U.S. In the background can be seen Brian (cap), me (over Debbie's head in sunglasses), Warren, Pete (behind Froi).]

24

Shanghai race: Here we are with our shiny bronze medals worn proudly around our necks. (When we posed for this shot, every photographer in the place was snapping away like crazy.) [front: Pedro; next: Pete, Dr. Chen, Dee, Phil, David, Justine, Beverly, Bryan; back: Brian, Henry, Debbie, Alain, Saul, Froi, Warren, George, Vince; very back: US flag, tree]

23

Third place, baby! Oh yeah. USA! USA! (Sorry.) Here Wila triumphantly holds up our medals at the closing ceremonies. I believe Seb and Hans were off being interviewed at the time; again, we got more interest from press than the teams that won.

22

Shanghai races: After our heats in the open (mostly all men) division were over we were able to watch the mixed division teams. Here's a shot from one of the bridges over the creek showing our new friends on the Macau team (whom we'd met in Jiaxing) crossing the finish line. Their men's team came in 2nd place in our division. Oh, and how'd we do?

21

Shanghai, Sunday afternoon:
The bus ride across town from the hotel to the race site only took about half an hour. The 800-meter races were timed events held on the Suzhou Creek, which runs right though town. (We marshalled in the lot where the bus parked.) This is the grandstand where the judges and VIPs watched the races, right in front of the finish line (which by our second heat we had determined exactly where that was). There were lots of people watching from the sides of the creek and windows of nearby buildings, and we nearly tired ourselves just waving as we waited for our turn.

20

Shanghai, Sunday morning:
After breakfast we had some free time, and while many others rested, a few of us checked out the neighborhood around the hotel. Saul, George (pictured from behind), David (who ditched us to get a haircut by this point), and I walked past little shops and a communist housing project. The streets were alive with activity. (I guess you kinda had to be there.) Anyway, this is what a non-touristy part of China looks like.

19

Shanghai, Saturday night:
After the races earlier in the day, we had to pack up and travel back to the big city. One would think the hotel where the race officials put up the teams would be near the race. One would be wrong. However, in the evening, they did arrange for busses to take us over to the Bund (which kind of has a Times Square quality with all the lights at night). Here's that Oriental Pearl tower and the other buildings across the river all lit up (an extended exposure shot). Okay, enough of this; it really wasn't that exciting an evening. Let's move on.

18

Jiaxing, Saturday morning:
I'm not sure why they schedule the 3,600-meter race after the banquet, but they did. (Yes, 3,600 meters is roughly 20 minutes of paddling without stopping.) Undaunted, we pulled ourselves together and came in 7th. Afterward at the closing ceremonies, with all the boats floating next to each other, we traded jerseys, talked with the other teams (as best we could considering the language differences); for the paddling back to the docks some of our paddlers (including me) switched boats with the team from Lin Dai (that's why, for example, the right side stroker doesn't look like Alain.) It was a good time. (The light in the a.m. is better for photos from the docks.)

17

Jiaxing, Friday evening, back at the hotel:
We put on our matching polos and khaki pants and joined all the other teams in the two banquet rooms. I remember on each table were bottles of wine, of rice wine (I think it was), and of beer on each table. And when we ran out, they brought more. We made the rounds and toasted each table, and all the other teams were delighted to drink with us. This was the best nine-course meal we had the whole trip, but that wasn't so much attributable to the food. (There was food, I'm pretty sure.) [Standing: Simon (Dr. Chen's partner in sponsoring us), Beverly, Pete, TK, Henry; seated: Justine, Hans, Debbie]

16

Jiaxing still: Here's the silhouette of us returning after one of our heats. The races on Friday afternoon only had three heats and were over in two hours. Of course, with only 12 total teams, and six lanes, it doesn't take long to get a winner. (If only tournaments in North America went this fast...) Oh yeah--we came in 9th overall. That ain't last!

15

The marshalling area (where the six teams for the heat assembled before heading back to the docks). This is our rag-tag group that hadn't even practiced all together before three days earlier, in our racing jerseys. [The group hamming it up: Juan ('Aunt Jemima' bandana), me (dark glasses), Brian, Debbie, Justine; Hans refrains from admonishing us for losing focus, unlike the guys behind us.]

14

South Lake, Jiaxing, Friday afternoon (the 24th):
The Americans are here! Take cover! Oh wait. We weren't thre to topple the government, just to race. Here's our team getting lined up on the docks before heading over to...

13

Wuzhen, inside:
Dr. Chen said the village was supposed to be 1,000 years old, but I could swear in some of the buildings we saw TVs. Yes, in the buildings people were living; it was somewhat like putting walls around a really old neighborhood and charging admission to get in. These canals ran between the buildings; we saw someone washing clothes in the water. We just before dusk, so we didn't get a chance to see the whole place (and the fading light made picture-taking tricky, as you'll see in other albums). But there was no shortage of booths with vendors!

12

Wuzhen, Thursday, late afternoon:
After not one but two practices earlier in the day (and, of course, two buffets), the bus took us out to this tourist site in the middle of not much, a preserved ancient village in the town of Wuzhen, east of Jiaxing. [Posing out front: Saul, Justine, Wila, Hans, Brian, Dee, (kneeling) Beverly and Froi.]

11

Jiaxing, Wednesday afternoon:
In the morning we spent two hours on a chartered bus--a nice one--heading southwest to the location of the first race. In the afternoon... after (shock) a buffet lunch in the hotel, we walked around a bit and checked out the race site (a lake in Jiaxing). This is a little temple-like building and pond we passed to get to where the boats were docked.

10

Jiaxing, Wednesday afternoon:
In the morning we spent two hours on a chartered bus--a nice one--heading southwest to the location of the first race. In the afternoon... after (shock) a buffet lunch in the hotel, we walked around a bit and checked out the race site (a lake in Jiaxing). This is a little temple-like building and pond we passed to get to where the boats were docked.

9

Shanghai, Tuesday evening:
Here's a shot of us having another 9-course dinner in another restaurant (included more as an example of something we did a lot than as a great shot). It was a classy place--that red thing in the foreground is a cover they put over the jacket I draped across the back of the chair. [Around the table from my chair: Saul, David, George, Henry, Bryan, Wila, Warren, TK, and Dr. Chen.]

8

Quinpu, Tuesday morning (the 21st):
With our full squad now arrived, we rode on a bus for close to an hour to get to this practice site. (More about that in other albums.) However, I really include this shot more to show how incredibly hazy it was, not just there, but in the entire country. It was a good facility, however... even though this picture doesn't really show that. [That's Wila and Dr. Chen down by the boats.]

7

Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai, later Monday afternoon:
Our group ventures to the lovely ancient Chinese garden, built during the Ming dynasty... and now with a shopping area built around it. [Saul, Seb, and TK.]

6

The Bund (sort of the main drag in Shanghai), Monday afternoon: Seb, Saul, David, and (not wearing a KG shirt) TK, posing in front of the Huangpu River, with the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower (one of the tallest structures in Asia) across the river. (Yes, I wore a KG shirt as well; you decide whether we looked like dorks.)

5

Another angle in People's Square, with the Shanghai Museum in the background. [Dee, Saul, Wila, Henry, David (charging), Phil, TK, Seb (popular), Beverly] Some went to the museum that afternoon, but some of us instead followed David down to...

4

People's Square, Shanghai, Monday midday. Here I am with the Shanghai skyline behind me. (I found the architecture there to be far more interesting than what I see in downtown L.A.) I was not put in with Photoshop; I was really there. (Were it Photoshop I'd pick a picture of me having a better hair day.)