China (Part I - Beijing)

China - The land of dragon, communist autocracy, the future superpower, the manufacturer of almost everything man made these days!! My perception wasn't very different looking at the land of Mao from USA and from India growing up. I always had an opinion of this country as - love it or hate it; but you can't ignore it!

What I knew for sure was that I am going to have a chance to rebuild or repair or form new perceptions from the point I decided to go to China. Starting with getting a simple visa - took me 3 days including postal delays get a visa in hand - Quite impressive for a country with so many nationals and immigrants spread all over the world!

First stop: Beijing. The capital of the ancient empire that built a humongous wall to keep away the outsiders was quite welcoming from the get go. I was sparingly using (with a reserved tone of voice so as to apologize in advanced for butchering their beloved national language). Be careful about Beijing. There's so much pollution there you can't see a man standing next to you! - So I was warned! I was greeted with a clear spring day with sunny skies and clean air! :|

Moving on to the hotel wasn't very difficult. I couldn't resist my urge to use up all the childish sentences on the cabbie on my way to the hotel. All I got was that he was from a Manchurian town 10 hours away from Beijing and he lives and earns his dough in Beijing! Hmm, very much like the city of dreams I grew up in. I thought. After getting fresh and in a conscious effort to conquer the jetlag, I decided to take a stroll and go to a restaurant next door (of course with my kindle loaded with that Mandarin crash course ;))

I was dumbfounded to find Hagen Daz, TGIF, Starbucks and Subway just across the street. Dang! There goes my efforts to try dat broken Mandarin!  - I sighed. I decided to skip all those places and go to local restaurant and see if I can order something. After breaking my head for ten minutes, wasting time of a busy waiter (which he kindly tried to hide, but was quite apparent from his body language); I got Kao ya rou - roasted peking duck! With a joy of victor I gulped the whole thing while sipping on Hong Kong milk tea (second based after Indian cardamom chai, at least in my world!)

Next day, I took a tour to famous Tiananmen square, Mao mausoleum and the forbidden city! With tourist population of around 5000+ in that area, I wondered why it is called Forbidden! I was less impressed by the architecture, but started realizing that the country of Billion+ people better photo ops in faces and expressions rather than the timeless, but overcrowded palaces! So I obliged..

Men at work!

Flaunting that hat!

Next stop was Temple of Heaven. I feebly tried to reach the Chinese heavens! That effort lasted for about a second ;)

Trying to touch the heavens!

Again, I was mesmerized with the people more than the temples and palaces!

Origin of V sign!

Couple starting a new life at the doors of heaven!

The day ended with trip to a pure silk museum and a gift shop where I ended up noticing some breathtaking t-shirt art! (no comments!)

No comments!

The next day, we headed to Ming Tombs. We were greeted with with sonorous tunes and colorful costumes! Just when I thought it was some gimmick, a procession formed right in front of us and came together a four hundred year old spring cleaning ceremony that pays respect to the ancestors in the form of animals (now replicas) and gourmet food (this was real!) The whole experience was a bit of a time travel into the ancient china like you see in docudramas!

Where's my horse?

I don't like you, kid..

Your highness!

It's  a job..

Let the action begin..

Attention!

  This was enough to put some fire in my belly and I managed to scare an old soldier with my over enthusiasm!

Western touch to the warrior pose!

And now was the time for the freaking Great Wall of China! The one and only thing (I feel) people come to see and take patel shots (apologies to my Gujarati brothers) against (which I did too!)

No grafitti! 

Patel shot ;)

Long way to heaven!

Day 3. I wake up and look outside the window and a white cloud stares back at me! Whoa! What happened? Aaah, that famous Beijing smog.. That's what they were talking about.. I decided to venture out ignoring my common sense! This time decided to stick to the city itself. The olympic stadium and this time a really gorgeous Buddhist temple that brought back my memories of Bodhgaya 15 years ago! Also, saw a distant relative recent favorite pupil of Master Shifu ;)

Taking a break between Kung Fu lessons!

Smoggy days!

The enlightened one!

Last stop was Hutongs - Government controlled ancient living houses where people still live and travel in hand-rickshaws! 

Rickshaw!!

On my way back to the hotel, I randomly stopped at some public parks that revealed the secret of the seemingly innate pingpong skills among all asians I know of!!

Practice makes one perfect?!

All in all, this one image summarized Beijing for me - a modern city dealing with administrative problems of Amazonian scale, while tending to its ancient roots and forming a melting pot for cultures, (probably and unfortunately) surveilled by the big brother (notice that camera on top right!)

Forbidden(?!) city

Alaska!

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. - John Muir

This seems like an innocuous statement, until you actually visit Alaska and experience it for yourself. I consider myself fortunate to have gotten time, resources and company to visit Alaska or the last frontier, so it is referred.

When you think of Alaska, you think of snow and probably lot of it, igloos, native american tribes, auroras, grizzlies, whales, bush-planes, elks, hunting - basically everything a remote icy cold land could be like. What you don't realize (until you actually are there) is the diversity and range of adventures this land offers!

When we (me and my friends) started Alaska trip planning, we spent lot of time trying to cover as much land as possible and do as many things as humanly possible while doing that. As naive as we were, we quickly realized that Alaska is unlike rest of the mainland US states, wherein it is practical to drive from one end of the state to another in a day (Maybe Texas, Arizona, NM are exceptions or maybe not!). The relative lack of generous road connectivity and humongous land mass of the state makes it impossible to cover the whole state over four wheels! Roughly there are three parts of Alaska (there are ? ideally, but these three stand out for somebody visiting Alaska for the first time).

1. Arctic circle and Fairbanks region way up north!
2. Glacier bay national park, Juneau, Alaskan marine highway, Kodiak down south-west!
3. Denali national park, Anchorage, Kenai peninsula, Chugach national forest and Prince William Sound covering most of the central-western region.

We decided to focus on the third part as it offers great diversity within relatively short driving distance (1200+ driving miles i.e.!).

First stop, Denali national park! My first introduction to Denali was through Netlflix documentaries about crazy snowboarders sliding down through deep and pristine snow-filled crevices of the Denali mountain range while landing on to them through helicopters in the movie - Art of Flight. As awe-inspiring the movie was, the landscape was enough to fall in love at first sight. Then I read a bit about different part of the park and realized that the park is so big that there are three different ecosystems living in place neighboring each other. The jungles, the meadows and the mountains!


To be continued..