To Bangalore we go

Once we were finished in Beijing we flew down to Shanghai for 2 days and looked at potential venues for another show. We didn't have much free time but did manage to get in a foot massage.














Once we finished in Shanghai it was time to make our way to India. Our flight took us through Singapore where we had a 6 hour layover. One of my lovely travel companions lived there for 2 years and gave me a whirlwind tour of the city. We went to a place where locals eat called a Hawker stall and had a great lunch.














We also walked down Orchard Road and took in some of the sights. I have to say it is definitely the most western city I have ever been too (outside of the West). We didn't have much time and I'm sure there is much more to see. So we headed off to Bangalore.

I must admit that I had pretty low expectations for Bangalore. In fact I don't think they could have been any lower unless I was going to Branson for a week of Mannheim Steamroller. Bangalore is way down in Southern India in the middle of the jungle and like most major cities it is over run with cows and monkeys. Cows are sacred in India which means they are allowed to eat from the huge piles of garbage that are also everywhere. The place is filthy and generally looks like it's falling apart. The power also goes out several times a day, so everything we did had to be run from generators. The hotel was very nice and as long as you stayed in your little bubble it was fine, but once you ventured outside you see complete abject poverty everywhere. I didn't venture far - just far enough to see the monkeys and cows. But we all survivied and no one got sick! I do have some nice things to say about it. The food (at the hotel) was great. They have the best tortillas ever (naan bread they call them) and the people we were working with were all fantastic. It's just not much of a place for tourism. Getting home was another adventure. I started a stopwatch when we left the hotel. We had to fly through Delhi. Normally when you have a connection you drop your bags off once, change planes in the middle and you're on your way. Not so in Delhi. They are 2 different airports. You claim your bags, wait in a line so they can check your name for international transfer, wait in another line to get on a bus (with your luggage) ride the bus for 30 minutes then start the whole check in over again. Once I was on plane and settled in the captain came on the intercom and said the words I had been dreading: "Our flying time to Chicago will be 15 hours and 50 minutes" AHHHHH! I did a pretty good job sleeping and it felt really good to get off the plane in Chicago. Quick 3 hour flight back to austin and I was home. 32 hours door to door! But anyway - it was a great trip and it's great to be home reconnecting with Andrea and Collin and I'm excited to turn this blog back over to the little guy! More to come...

Gates of the Harmonious Divineness

I've been home from Asia for about a week now and have had ample time to reflect upon my travels to write an honest, heartfelt entry about how much I loved the Forbidden City in Beijing and the city of Bangalore in General.

After we went to the Great Wall we went to the Olympic Village. Which was so awesome I can't bring myself to make fun of it. Although it did look taller on TV. Seeing the bird's nest and the water cube was probably the highlight of the whole trip. I definitely recommend that everyone go there as long as someone else is paying for your travel.

The Forbidden City and Bangalore are a different story and will not fare so well on my blog. Let's start with The Forbidden City. They call it that because men are forbidden to enter unless they are either castrated or have the patience to wait in line and buy a ticket. Even though the lines can be quite long, tickets are still the way to go, but back in the day the men were castrated to protect the bloodline of the emperor. I also heard they had a lot combines around but I didn't see any (didn't see any crops either). The city was home to the emperors of the Ming, Ping and Pong dynasties dating back to 1410 where they carried out all of their imperial duties and hung out with the Eunuchs and Combines. Once you go through the main gate you are greeted by a big courtyard surrounded by big ornate buildings with sloping roofs. There are also lots of tour groups wearing matching hats and following someone carrying a flag.

Someone made a bet with me to try and get someone to say "Go Texas" or something similar on video and the most fun I had there was goofing with the tour groups.


Once you cross the courtyard you can walk up to a big building and if you want, fight your way through the tour groups and look in the window. You can't go inside because it is forbidden. As far as I could tell each of these rooms has approximately 3 vases and 2 chairs and based upon the number of people trying to look inside they are of extraordinary cultural significance. Or maybe everyone else was doing what I was which was thinking that there must be something really cool in that room because there are 200 people trying look inside, but then you make your way to the window its just more vases and chairs. There are about 900 rooms like this with names like "The Hall of Glorious Harmony" and "Place of Heavenly Purity" or my favorite, "The Hall of Mental Cultivation". What was hard to find was "The hall of the heavenly toilet" or the "divine place to sit down for a minute".


I'm sure there was some fascinating history and culture there, but I missed it. I did find the Imperial gift shop where the Emperor bought his T-shirts and Yao Ming snow globes.































Across from the Forbidden City is Tiannenmen Square, where the big student uprising in the 80's took place and the iconic photo of the person standing defiantly in front of the tank was taken. There weren't any tanks there, but you can rest assured that security is still very tight. We ran across this officer standing guard to quell any unauthorized protests.














But it was very cool to stand there and take in the sights. We also had the bizarre experience of having people want to have their phot taken with us. It probably happened 6 or 7 times, where Chinese people (most likely rural) wanted a picture with one of us.














We also got our photo taken with the world famous Peking Duck!

Solid Foods

Collin is 4 months old now and while we were expecting to wait until 6 months to introduce solids his pediatrician said we should go ahead and start now. He's not sleeping through the night and something with a little more sustenance might help. So we gave it a try last night for the first time.

Since he's only ever eaten from a boob or a bottle, we expected a bit of a learning curve to get him to eat from a spoon. That is correct - it doesn't work very well. I really think a turkey baster would be easier, but he has to learn this sooner or later so it may as well be now. It goes something like this:

The first thing you feed him is a rice cereal paste and you can expect to get it everywhere. Strip the baby down to his diaper and put down a tarp. If the weather is nice I suggest using the driveway for the first few times. The goal is to get 3-4 tablespoons all the way into is stomach, but because the actual percentage of food that will make it from spoon to stomach is quite low (0.0001%) you need to make a lot more paste than needed. 3-4 gallons should do it. Once you have the paste, tarp and baby prepared, take the tiny little spoon and try and put it in the baby's mouth. Collin now has pretty good control of his hands, so he of course grabs anything you put near his mouth. The first few dozen spoon fulls will end up on his hands and ultimately in his hair. One of those speedo swimming hats or a shower cap might be a good idea, but we didn't think of that. Be persistent. Once you can get past the hands you can smear it on his face. This is getting closer. Eventually, after a couple of hundred tries you'll get the spoon in his mouth and he'll spit the food back out. But don't give up - eventually he'll actually start to suck on the spoon and and swallow some of it. The next problem is that he doesn't understand that we have to remove the spoon (unlike a nipple) to refill it. He just wants to keep sucking on the spoon. Once you pry the spoon from his mouth, refill and try again. It takes patience, but after a few hours he'll eat a few tablespoons worth.

Now all you have to do is hose down the baby and the tarp and you can get ready for bed. This is our new nightly ritual - until I can talk Andrea into using a turkey baster.

The Great Stairs Of China

After the show finished in Beijing we had a couple of days off and decided to go see the great wall and Olympic village. Since the great wall is one of the wonders of the world of the world I had pretty high hopes. It was about an hour drive from our hotel and I was a little disapointed at first. The first thing we saw was the Great Wall of Souvenir shops.














But we kept walking and finally came to the wall. It was not very impressive. I don't think the Mongols would have had a very hard time scaling it. I realize Asians are shorter than westerners but I could have stepped right over the thing.


















After a bit more walking we came upon the real Great Wall which is really more of a Great Stair Case. There are steps and steps and steps. It goes on forever and they obviously did not anticipate western tourists when they built this because the stairs vary in height from 2"-24" with no real rhyme or reason.














We went up the first few thousand steps when I came across this sign which I think means we should be on the lookout for anyone with a heart condition. I'm really glad we didn't, because if someone fell going up those steps they could have taken out several thousand tourists on the way down.














Cell phones are also forbidden but only during thunderstorms.














We climbed and climbed and climbed. And got tired. I really hoped there was a water slide that went down the back side, but you just had to turn around and go back the way you came.















But it was totally worth it. Once we reached the top we were greeted by - you guessed it - another souvenir shop that offered certificates for climbing the Great Wall but they also had beer.

Its an amazing sight and I have no idea how they mange to get all those souvenirs up there, let alone all the damn rocks it took to build the thing!











































I think next time I will opt for the Great Escalator of China!

Beijing Part 1

Since I'm not at home to follow Collin's shenanigans , I thought I would document my own for a while. It's 4:30 AM and I'm in Beijing. I'm up at 4:30 AM because I am suffering from a condition known as jet lag. That's when your body desperately thinks you are on one continent but your watch insists you you are on another. Luckily it generally only lasts until the day before you go home then you get to do it all over again. I set one big goal for myself on this trip. I am not going to get sick!! Every time I have been to Asia I have gotten sick to some degree. The only way to travel here and guarantee that you will not is to to bring your own food, water and air. This is not very practical so you just have to do the best you can. The first time I came here I got horribly sick the first couple of days and couldn't eat much for the rest of the trip. The thought of food just grossed me out and I lost 7 or 8 pounds. I also found out that I can survive for quite a while on nothing but beer and water. Part of the problem is that they have a small pollution problem. It's sort of like walking though a forest fire while sucking on a muffler. After 3 or 4 days you WILL be coughing up globs of stuff. Stomach issues are just as hard to avoid. But not this time!! I hope.

This is the first leg of a marathon trip that will also take me to Shanghai and Bangalore, India ultimately flying 26,000 miles and all the way around the world. This is my 4th trip to China but my first to Beijing and its quite a place. I really like China, mostly because it is absolutely jam packed with Chinese people - they still like Americans here and you see it everywhere you go. There are things you can take for granted in the US like telling a taxi driver where you want to go. You can't do that here, but you can take for granted people will be generally nice, hardworking and very eager to please. But the thing that sticks out is their attitude. There is none of the whining and complaining that I run across so often in my line of work. People will do whatever it takes.

Anyway, my trip started at 4Am on Halloween morning. I left for the airport, flew to Chicago, waited a couple of hours then flew to Shanghai. A 14 1/2 hour flight. I'm usually pretty good at sleeping on planes, but for some reason I didn't do well and slept maybe 3 hours total. I did watch half of The Lost season 4 and a couple of movies so it was time well spent but by the time I got into Shanghai I was completely wiped. I flew on American Airlines over but my flight from Shanghai to Beijing was on Air China. I had to claim my bags, go through immigration, then customs, then re-check in on Air China. I wandered through the terminal hopelessly searching for the Air China counters. I finally gave up and went to another airline to deliver my usual appeal for help when in foreign country. First: "do you speak English?" If yes, then, "hello, I am a stupid lost American, can you please tell me how to get to..." It turned out that I had to leave the terminal and take a bus to another one that looked exactly like the first one. So I went to the other terminal, checked in, went through security and barely made the flight. Air China is a lot like Southwest Airlines only without the big comfortable seats and tons of leg room. 3 hours later I finally made it to Beijing. About 28 hours total door to door.

I managed to sleep until 6:30 AM the next morning and felt pretty good. I didn't have any work to do that day so I decided to do a little shopping and sight seeing. I love taking the subways overseas. Much faster than a taxi and it's a whole adventure in it's own to figure out how to get where you want to go - also westerners don't usually use it, so I get to be the tallest person on a packed subway car. So I got a map and headed off for the big crazy market where they try to pull you into the stalls and you haggle endlessly over prices. The Chinese should have definitely forced having haggling as an Olympic sport because they would have cleaned up. Specifically I needed cell phones for myself and coworkers. They are cheap and it's better to just buy a local one than pay crazy US rates overseas. I did some good haggling, got some phones then met a nice couple from Canada. This was their first trip over and they were a little wide-eyed at the market scene. I helped them with the shopping for a couple of hours and got a few things for myself.

Afterwords, I had a little time to kill before my co-workers arrived so I went to the forbidden city. I didn't really want to go inside, I just wanted to see that big photo of Chairman Mao that we all saw so much of during the Olympics. I also saw Tiananmen square, so I can check those 2 off the list.

I headed back to the hotel, met up with my coworkers and then it was nap time. Our load in started at midnight that night and I knew I had several long days ahead of me. I'm in full work mode now for a couple of days (which means I go from my hotel room to the ballroom at about 7Am then back to my room at about 10PM - so no free time), but we have Friday and Saturday off. I'll do some more sight seeing then, then its off to Shanghai. More to come...