Hmmm...this website determines the "rating" of your blog based on various words. Here's what it said... This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words: dick (3x) hurt (2x) steal (1x)

But our Vice President is a Dick. Don't they know that?

I'm adding this as a "permanent" (until I get bored) part of my blog. I'm going to try to include more stuff to get my rating a little more hard core. (I'm hoping typing hard core a few times will help.)

Edited to note that adding this one blog post has moved me up to PG-13. Psyched!

God hates red states?

Cause if something like this was happening in New York or California, I'm sure some loudmouth would be saying that we're being punished for being sinners, right? I assume this "logic" works for all locations, right?

New Yorkers don't like Fox News either

Watch this video of a guy grabbing a Fox reporter's microphone, cursing and running away...

Things are not going my way politically

1. Cheney really is a Dick. All previous Presidents and Vice-Presidents make their notes, etc. available to the National Archives. Some of the information is marked "Classified", etc. and is not available to the public, but it is all archived. Cheney won't turn over his data -- says he doesn't have to and is claiming he's not part of the Executive branch but rather in the Legislative branch cause he's the President of the Senate (or whatever they call the tiebreaker there). He is in the Executive branch when he doesn't want to testify to Congress. Then, he claims Executive Privilege. Oh yeah, almost forget - he tried to shut down the department who maintains the archives cause they wanted this information from him.

Also, he also keeps "man sized Mozler safes" in his office, according to the Washington Post. He's just a bad man.

For a refreshing perspective on Dick, see Maureen Dowd's piece "A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy" that starts off by saying "It’s hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month."

2. The Supreme Court recently decided several cases - 5 to 4. Same 5 guys voting for the conservative decisions every time. Does not bode well for any consititutional cases that might come their way if, for example, someone charged that the Executive branch was not honoring the constitution...

3. Speaking of which, President Bush will not allow Harriet Miers and others to testify in front of the Senate about the firings of prosecutors (which were obviously political). By the way, it's not illegal to fire prosecutors for political gain. Lying about it under oath is illegal. Remember when Congress held impeachment hearings against Clinton? That wasn't because he got a blow job. It was because he lied under oath about it.

So, the shrub won't turn over papers or let folks testify even though they've been subpoenaed. According to the NY Times, the stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

Hmmmm....the Federal Court is filled with political appointees. Folks that were referred to as "Good Americans" and "Loyal Bushies"in emails. I wonder how that will turn out?

And if it ends up in the Supreme Court, I am going to make the dramatic and outrageous prediction that it will be decided in Bush's favor.... 5-4.

How many days until 1/20/09? Ahhh....

Someone on Fox News I agree with?

Obviously, the rotation of the earth has reversed or something...



(Updated 6/28 - my friend Ken pointed out that this is from MSNBC, so I still don't agree with anyone on Fox News. What a relief!)

Dramatic Chipmunk

Best 5 second video on the net...click below to see the link.

Just about 5am Seattle time

Thank Gawd

this is correct for me:

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Northeastern Most people don't know it but this is actually what dictionaries are based on. If you don't believe me, pick up any American dictionary and look up "source" and "sauce" and you'll see they are written with the same vowel pronunciation.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Must still have a fever

cause this got me choked up...but still...

3 hours of chattering teeth != jetlag

I've never been more excited to go somewhere than I was to go to China. And I have never been happier to be back in the States. It was a great trip - Beijing is a fascinating place and I'm so glad that I got to have the experience. But when my flight landed, I was so happy to be here for a variety of reasons.

1. I could see the sky. Literally - it was blue and had puffy clouds. In Beijing, you do not see clouds or blue sky. The sky was gray every day from the smog. I shot this picture from the car on the way from the airport to my house. It made me so happy.

2. I can write anything I want on this blog and I can read all kinds of wacky stuff on the internet and it's up to me to decide if that information is valid or not. The government doesn't get to determine what I read (or come after me based on what I write) (although, I think this administration would very much like to have the option. But they don't. Hah.).

3. If I wanted to, I could have 92 children. (btw...I do not want to.) I told a Chinese woman that I have 4 brothers and 1 sister and I thought her head was going to explode with the mere thought of having brothers and/or sisters, let alone that many.

and so on. I totally disagree with our current administration's position on pretty much everything, but I am really proud of what our forefathers did for us. We're incredibly lucky people to have been born here.

So, I got home and ordered a Margarita pizza and I have to tell you, it was the best thing I've ever eaten in my life. I don't think I'll ever eat Chinese food again. Seriously, I am so over it.

Fell asleep at 7:30pm and slept until 11am. Woke up and felt kinda like my brain was leaking out of my ears. I was incredibly thirsty and drank a lot of water. I was shivering for three hours before it occurred to me that maybe I was dehydrated and I remembered my doctor in LA telling me that if you are dehydrated, drinking water won't make you better. Luckily, I keep Gatorade around for just this scenario and I drank some and started to feel better. It then occurred to me that maybe this wasn't the way really bad jetlag feels (hey, I warned you that my brains were trickling out of my ears), so I took my temperature and it was 101.4.

Since I just returned from a part of the world where really icky things come from and since I was having trouble breathing and some intestinal issues, I demanded that my doctor see me right away (which in true Northwest fashion was in two hours). They took some blood and it turns out that I have a bacterial infection. She gave me 974 prescriptions (including an antibiotic) which I have begun taking.

I think that my temp is finally normal-ish cause I'm feeling much better finally. It could also be the rx's as well. This is all good because a person can only stand so much of her brain falling out of her ears before bad things start to happen. I intend to sleep in a lot this weekend and continue with my new obsession -- crossword puzzles. Hopefully, by Monday, I will have overcome the Asian bugger (bugger in the American sense rather than the British sense, of course). Since I'm starting to feel better, I'm pretty confident.

And once again, things work out for our girl. I left a day early cause we finished up a day early, which means that by the time I was incredibly miserable, I was home and not sitting on a plane thinking I was going to die. And so it goes...

Another interesting China fact

All of China is on one time zone, based on Beijing time, since Beijing is the capital. If the US worked like that, when it was 9am in Washington, DC, it would be 9am in Honolulu.

If China were divided into multiple time zones, it would be five separate zones. Apparently, each government gets to decide how many zones there are for that country. Before the Chinese Civil War in 1949, there were separate time zones. They observed summer daylight savings time from 1986-1991, according to Wikipedia.

Everything's different here.

George Bush was robbed!

So, President Bush went to Albania recently where he was mobbed - apparently he's very popular there, which I'm sure was really appreciated since he's not popular anywhere else. Anyways, while "pressing the crowd", his watch was stolen. It's pretty amazing to see - you can watch the guy grab it. This video is in Dutch, but watch it anyways - it's remarkable.

Almost everything is backwards here

I mentioned that you switch a lightswitch down to turn on a light here in Beijing. The escalators are reversed - meaning, that you go to the leftmost escalator to go down or up. Ours are usually on the right. They do drive on the same side as us, so I assumed that this would affect escalators, but I guess not.

And in the cars, they have the handles or whatever you call them to make the windows go up and down. You young'uns many not remember them but they pre-dated automatic windows. The thing is you wind it back towards yourself to make the window go down - the opposite of what we used to do when our cars had those types of handles.

I'm pretty sure they're just messing with the West. It's very interesting though.

Oh yeah

I peed into what was effectively a hole in the ground today. I was gagging the whole time. I'm just not built for this part of the world. I'm a first world kinda gal.

It's my birthday and I'm in China!

I'm so lucky. This morning I met the guys I'm working with in the lobby of our hotel. Two of the Germans on the project brought me a bday present - a tour book (in English) about their city in Germany cause apparently I need to go there for this project. The thing is, I just met these guys and I always think that Europeans (Germans in particular) are kinda hard to get to know, but they took the time and energy to bring this for me (and wrap it up and make it look pretty). They were also telling me about some things we should do when I come there to work. They like me! They really like me! Seriously though, it makes me really happy that the people I am working with enjoy spending time with me. I am enjoying their company as well, which makes everything nicer...

Our tour guide Peggy picked us up at 9am with a van and we drove out to the Great Wall. It was about a 2 hour drive - Sunday morning traffic wasn't bad at all. Her English was very good and she answered a lot of questions and provided background on China, the wall and Beijing. We went to a less popular (for the tourists) part of the wall, which was great. One of our group had been to the other part and said there were too many people at the other location + it wasn't as pretty as the section we went to.

The Great Wall is on top of mountains, ya know. We walked up a little and were surrounded by folks who wanted to sell us "I Hiked the Great Wall" t-shirts and Mao watches (which are pretty amusing, I have to say) and there was a bit of a discussion about whether we were going to hike up the mountain. I immediately announced that I was going on the chair lift and would meet them up there. Seriously, I would have not made it - I've been walking a lot here and all, but it's a 3,000+ foot climb. Peggy convinced the guys it wasn't a great idea, so we all took the chair lift up.

The wall is pretty overwhelming. I mean, they had to get all that material all the way up there and then they had to assemble the darned thing. It's massive. You see it on top of the mountains in every directions. Wolfgang and I walked for maybe an hour and then went down (on China's longest toboggan run, which was way fun) and Roger and Michael climbed to the highest point we could see, which was very impressive.

We then drove to a government owned cloisonne factory. Cloisonne is an ancient method of enameling and it's all done by hand and is very time consuming. It was interesting and their work was beautiful and very expensive, so none of us bought anything.

After that, we then went to the Summer Palace, which is where the Emperor and his posse went when the Forbidden City was just too hot. Like most everything else in Beijing, it's all being worked on so that it's pretty for next year's Olympics, but like much else in Beijing, it's beautiful. We walked around there, took pictures, watched Michael inhale several ice creams, went on a ride on a dragon boat and then called it a day.

Came back to my hotel and there was a happy birthday card from the Hyatt. Nice. Ordered room service, cleaned up and posted my pix and I'm about ready to pass out.

Oh yeah, I melted my alarm clock last night. Sigh. I put it on top of a lightbulb so that the stuff that glows at night would be really bright. Then I forgot about it and took a shower. When I came back in and pulled it off of the lightbulb, the glass cover (which turned out to be plastic) had melted onto the lightbulb. Sigh. So, I have to depend on wake up calls, which always makes me nervous.

Anyways, this pretty much ends the tourist part of my trip. We start working again tomorrow and are hoping to wrap up early. If we do, I'm going to see if I can fly home a few days earlier. It would be nice to have a few days to acclimate before having to go perform an audit on the campus at home.

Bottom line is, I had a really great birthday. New friends remembered and went out of their way to do something nice for me, old friends emailed and sent mp3's of them saying nice things and it's only 9:30 (on my birthday) on the East Coast. In Seattle, it's only 6:30am on my birthday, so if you've forgotten, you have about 24 hours amnesty! I just feel like I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to experience this world in this way + I have the best people in my life. I know it's totally dorky, but I am truly blessed. I'm promise to be pissy and sarcastic tomorrow for your reading pleasure. In the meantime, just deal with it.

Fairly quiet day today

Went to the Temple of Heaven complex today. It's in a park, which was really nice. I enjoyed being able to sit down on a bench and watch people and relax. There's some beautiful buildings there as well. Posted pix.

Tomorrow, we've got a van, a driver and a tour guide to take us to the Great Wall and the Summer Palace, which I'm really looking forward to. (And it's my birthday...)

Monday, it's off to work...

Pix from the Forbidden City are now up

This really is the other side of the world

You flip the light switch down to turn on the light and up to turn it off. Hmmmm....

Chinese people stare at you on the street. So did the Indian people, but the Chinese people stare you in the eyes. I strongly recommend dark eyewear. It helped with the staring but not the 4 million people who tried to strike up conversations in English while I was walking to the Forbidden City today. I'm sure not all of them were trying to take my money, but after yesterday, I either didn't react when people talked to me or when they asked if I was American or if I spoke English, I shook my head no. Sad. I would have liked to talk to people, but several of them used the "artist/art student" scam my book mentioned, which definitely kept me walking. Acting like a deaf mute also appears to work. Unfortunate.

The Forbidden City rocks. It's massive - I walked from the South Gates to the North Gates and it took more than 2 hours and I didn't see everything. I skipped a couple of galleries because there was a massive tour group right behind me and there's nothing more annoying than when you're trying to look at art and you're surrounded by a tour group. (I'm sure that individually they're lovely people, but en masse, they scare me.)

I took lots of pix and will post them if/when my internet access allows me to hit that site. For some reason, my picture site and the NY Times site only work sometimes from my hotel. Keep checking cause between the walk to the Forbidden City and the Forbidden City itself, I think I got some really nice shots.

First day in Beijing

Walked from my hotel to Tiananmen Square. It's in the 90's here, so it's awfully warm. While walking, a young couple started talking to me (everyone wants to talk to you - they all say "Hello" but I quickly learned to pretend I don't speak English). Anyways, they asked where I was from
and I told them I lived in America. They asked where and I told them "Seattle". The woman immediately said "Bill Gates!". She said that he's very famous.

They walked with me to Tiananmen and I started taking lots of pictures. I pointed to the big portrait of Mao and told them that Chairman Mao is very famous. She said, "Yes, he's our first Great Leader". We walked over by Mao's tomb (currently closed, so I can't see dead Mao), and there are huge statues on either side of the entrance. She told me that these were statues of the "Leaders" and explained that the "Leaders" are the farmers and soldiers. Not what I expected from my American perspective, but from a communist perspective, that makes total sense.

I told her I was going to the Great Wall on Sunday and she said that Chairman Mao said that anyone who climbs on top of the Great Wall is a hero. She said I should climb up there. Sounds like a plan.

We then walked by two massive "gates", one of which is pictured to the right. Originally, Beijing was surrounded by a wall for protection. There were nine gates that were used for entering and leaving the city. The wall no longer exists, but the gates are still there.

We were going through tunnels and crossing streets and I was wondering if they were going to mug me or scam me and sure enough...

They took me to this really cool little old street named Dazhalan Lie. We went into a really super-0ld (well, for Americans it was old - from the 1600's) pharmacy. There were nurses there to diagnose your problems and two floors of various Chinese remedies, including sea horses, giant old ginseng roots, and a jar with a snake and a bat floating in it.

Then she insisted we go into a shoe store where she told me about how there were so many shoes she wanted there. Whatever...

She asked me if I wanted tea. I thought she was asking if I wanted to purchase some tea, so I said yes. We went into this shop and they took me to the back where we sat down and I realized that this was the tea scam that I had read about in my guidebook. Dang. They had been so nice to me and were really interesting to talk to and now they were scamming me. I would have rather just given them money for showing me around. I didn't want to make a scene - not sure how that would play and quite frankly, I'm not sure how the police would react if I insisted on getting them, so I decided to just go along and try to enjoy it.

The tea ceremony was interesting, but not worth the $100+ they charged my Visa (including adding more $$ cause I was charging it). I figure I'll dispute the charge and see if Visa will help me. I was ripped off in NYC when I was a kid, so I kinda figure it's a rite of passage or something. Sigh.

Lee and her cousin and I walked around a bit more and then they took off. We had walked 2 or 3 miles at that point, but luckily I had paid attention and was able to make my way back to Tiananmen and to my hotel.

After a much needed shower, I went downstairs for dinner (MASSIVE SHRIMP) (seriously. Like, 9" long. If offered, stick with the smaller ones - I think they're tastier.) and then sat in a lobby bar and had some tea. They offered me a newspaper in English - the China Daily - "the national English language newspaper". I will say this for them - the English in the paper was perfect. In India, their English is a bit mangled, even in official signs, business documentation and newspapers. In China, they are totally on top of it, which impressed me. Of course, I know that the paper is monitored (if not written) by the government, so this was the news they wanted me to know and with their own spin... I'll just include one sentence to give you a flavor of the paper: "Full employment has been put at the top of the government agenda now that the nation is engaged in building a society of harmony."

And with that, I'll close. I'm going to the Forbidden City today. I am going to pretend I don't speak English when folks try to talk to me and I'm sure I'll take lots more pictures. Be sure to check out the pictures from yesterday on my website.

Travel to Beijing & First Impressions

Overnight flights are tough and in this case, I was flying to Singapore from Bangalore, which was only a 4 hour or so flight. I say only because when you're on an overnight flight, you want enough time to fall asleep and 4 hours means that if you fall asleep, you land in a foreign country and you're trying to pull yourself out of sleepiness. At least that's what happened to me.

Singapore Airport is a trip. Everything is in English and it's a huge mall. You can get anything there - really upscale clothing, all kinds of electronic equipment, etc. I was able to change over some dollars and some leftover Indian Rupees into Yuan so that I'd have some local currency when I got to Beijing. They had computers set up with free internet access, so I was able to get online and check my personal and biz mail and IM with a friend. I was hungry and after much wandering, I settled for a tuna fish sandwich. It was the first time I'd eaten tuna fish for breakfast, but if you're hungry enough, everything (familiar) tastes absolutely yummy.

Second flight was longer (a little over 6 hours) but was pretty uneventful. Both flights were 777s and they were full, which was kinda impressive. That's a lot of traveling people. I asked the woman next to me to put up the window cover so I could see China (so I thought), but the smog was so heavy, you couldn't see anything. Like LA, there was a line in the sky where the grey ends and the blue sky begins. It's much higher in Beijing though - in LA, it's just above the city. You couldn't see anything other than grey until we were maybe 1,000 feet above the ground. You could only see about 1/4 or 1/2 mile in the distance - everything beyond that was grey. While we were taxiing, my eyes hurt a little and I got a really bad taste in my mouth. I had been really cavalier when people mentioned the pollution in Beijing to me - after all, I lived in LA for 14 years! This makes LA look like it has crystal clear skies. There is no blue sky. It's just grey and you can't see virtually anything in the distance.

Landed in Beijing and I handed over my various papers - no problems, no questions so I got into the "Foreigners" line for immigration. I was surrounded by little (seriously) Korean people on tours. Their passports read "Republic of Korea", so apparently, they don't call themselves "South Korea" (I'm going on a limb here and assuming that North Koreans don't get to go to tours to China. Or anywhere.)

Passed through immigration and found my driver, John, who spoke virtually no English. Also, he didn't offer to push my luggage cart, which I thought was kinda funny. He was driving a new Toyota (I thought the Chinese didn't like the Japanese, but I guess I'm wrong or commerce trumps all). I had read that the hotel was about 17 kilometers from the airport, so I knew the drive would be pretty long and put on my iPod headphones cause John and I weren't able to communicate. The fact that I was listening to Julia Sweeny’s book “Letting Go of God” which was funny and made my giggle probably amused him. Or he thought I was insane. It won’t be the first time. (Btw, that book was excellent – very funny and smart and interesting and touching. Definitely worth a read or a listen.)

Drove up to my hotel and walked in and it was super-swanky. Seriously. Lots of white folks in business attire mostly, beautiful lobby, fancy. Not the best hotel I've ever been in (that's still the Singapore Ritz Carlton), but definitely up there - perhaps in 2nd place. Of course, it didn't hurt that they upgraded me to a one bedroom suite (and kitchen). It's especially nice since I'm here for ten days. I was looking through the hotel services stuff in that book they put in your room and apparently there’s a dress code for the hotel – it’s “Sporty Casual”. I’m assuming that since I walked in after 14 hours of travel wearing sweats and sneakers they were super-impressed and that’s why they upgraded me. (not.) It was likely my Hyatt Gold stayer card. I appeared to be the only one in “sporty” clothes…

I was really wiped out, so I unpacked and relaxed. I ordered shrimp fried rice (it's not on the menu, but they were really nice about replacing pork with shrimp for me). I never eat fried rice at home, but I'm in friggin' China! (I'm very excited about being here - more than any other place I've ever visited.) Turns out Chinese fried rice isn't oily at all - I don't even think it's fried. There was a fried egg on top though, so maybe that's what they mean. It was really good (of course, I hadn't liked what was served on the plane, so I was really hungry again). I stayed up until about 9:30pm and passed out until noon today (Thursday).

I will write and post pictures about today's adventures (and today was definitely an adventure) later. One funny thing though - today, I sent my laundry to a Chinese laundry. Really. (Heh.)

One of the forms I had to fill out to enter China

Seriously, I wonder if anyone has ever checked off "psychosis".

Greetings from Beijing

I arrived in Beijing a few hours ago. I have so much to say about it already...but am exhausted, so I'll start by wrapping up my Bangalore trip.

Finished up work early yesterday and went to MG Road (MG=Mahatma Gandhi). I'm sure I'm not the first one to say it, but really? Naming a road filled with consumerism and tourists after Gandhi? It surprises me.

We got there by taking one of the motorized rickshaws (see picture to the left). I learned a few lessons. Number 1: they are not meant for 3 people to squeeze in the back. Number 2: If forced to stick your knee out the side (it's open), be hypervigilant cause the gazillion scooters, motorcycles, cars and trucks really prefer to drive about 2-3 inches away from the side of your rickshaw and your knee sticks out more than that.

It was a great way to see the city though and I took a bunch of pictures while we were driving. It's not very hard to shoot pix while moving because the rickshaw is motored by a eggbeater motor (or similar). It apparently has 4 gears, but they are seriously underpowered. And everywhere. I really enjoyed seeing the ladies in their saris driving their scooters. Most scooters had two people on them - only the driver wears a helmet. I saw lots of women on the back...sitting sidesaddle...some holding babies....in crazy traffic without regard for those things we call lanes in America. It was definitely an adventure.

Spent too much money on a beautiful carved elephant for my house, some gifts, pashminas (they come from India...the Kashmir region, from the wool from sheep's necks, up at 30,000 feet). At one store, one of the guys I was with was shopping & haggling and the owners brought us saffron tea (the saffron is also from Kashmir and apparently quite a luxury) while we were waiting. It had chopped almonds in it and God knows what else, and it was yummy.

Heh. On the walk to that particular store, we walked by a park and I suggested we go in cause we'd only really seen city and no nature. We didn't get far in...but were taking pictures and my German cohort was talking to a local man and two male couples walked into the park, walked by us, walked about 100 yards into the park and then turned around and left. I am convinced that it's a gay sex park, but the guys I was with were totally clueless. Teehee.

The picture to the right is a piece of art that was displayed on the hallway walking to my room. The thing is that the same painting is displayed 11 other times in that hallway. There is no other artwork. Not sure what that's all about and not really sure that particular piece deserves its own walk of fame, but I figured I should capture it for posterity (is that the right word?) I'm super-tired.

Had a 11:15pm flight to Singapore and then to Beijing. I'll write about Beijing tomorrow when I'm more awake, but check out the Bangalore pix in the meantime.

Miscellaneous India thoughts

Whenever I travel to a new country, I kinda run through all the things I know about it (which are generally pretty limited). Here's what I came up with for India:

Gandhi
Mother Theresa
Caste system/great poverty
Kashmir
Tibet/Dali Lama
British rule

That's about it. And the little I do know is pretty much from skimming newspapers and news weeklies (oh yeah, and the movie Lagaan, which was very good by the way). So, I get here and I go for a little walk yesterday. I'm staying in a fancy schmancy American style (Sheraton) hotel and the neighborhood around here appears to be pretty middle class (if there is such a thing here - there may not be. I think it's mostly that you either have money or you don't - no middle ground).

None of the zillions of folks working at the hotel tried to stop me as I walked off the property so I figured it had to be relatively safe. I was doing my NYC attitude - you know, walk confidently, have a good hand on your bag, etc. However, I was looking at people and smiling, which is not very NYC, but I thought a good move under the circumstances. I think that men have it much easier when traveling internationally - they don't have to be scared nearly as often. As a woman, you just don't know how people are going to react towards you when you're in a foreign land. Are they going to harass you? Try to steal your bag and/or jewelry? Assault you? That stuff definitely goes through my mind -- but isn't enough to keep me hiding in my hotel room (yet).

It turns out that I was definitely an anomaly (no one else on the street looked like me), but folks mostly stared and/or ignored me. There was one woman outside of a construction site wearing a hardhat looking at me. I gave her a smile and she gave me a beautiful huge smile in return. That made the whole walk worth it.

When I got back from the walk, I read through the Bangalore Times newspaper. I was interested in the news, but also in the ads. I figured I could learn a lot about the area from the advertisements. Lots of ads for schools and preparation for standardized tests. Speaking English is a big deal here - looks like it's the only way for people to get a decent job.

I was listening to an audiobook by a guy who was NPR's China correspondent for the last 20 years. The book is about a trip he took across China before he left there last year. He talks about the recent past and future of the country. One of the points he makes is that he feels that the peasants in China have a brighter future than the lower castes in India. Because of their inability to learn English, they are prevented from moving to a more prosperous future, but he feels that the peasants in China do (or will) have opportunities to change their lives.

Oh yeah, I woke up around 5am and started channel surfing. Lots of Bollywood movies (of course), MTV India (Indian women in scarce clothing -- who woulda thought?), a Dodger's game (live. seriously!), cricket, news and evangelists. I ended up watching Animal Planet until it was a decent time to order up an omelette.

I heart technology

I slept for 12 hours last night, but had very strange dreams. I went to bed around 2am and woke up around 5 and initially thought it was 5pm -- then realized I'd only been sleeping for three hours. The phone rang around 2pm and woke me up, which was fine. It was my local contact checking up on me, which was really nice. I've been futzing around my hotel room but I'm going to shower, get something to eat and go for a walk soon.

I just downloaded the New York Times Reader, which allows you to download (for offline use, if you want) the NY Times. Yes, you can access it on their web page, but this formats it the same way as the paper, so it's way easier to read. It's a free trial and free for anyone who has a subscription (even folks like me who only get the Sunday Times delivered).

I just tested my Slingbox and it works fine from here. That means that I can watch the stuff I have recorded on my faux-Tivo DVR from my hotel room here in India. Now that's cool. I'm really hoping it works from China because the finale of the Sopranos airs while I'm there...

Channel surfing here shows that CNN International shows a "global" version of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I'm so happy that we're spreading the Jon Stewart perspective around the world. I wonder if folks "get it"? Maybe then they'll realize that not all Americans agree with this administration. I do worry a bit when traveling out of the US...

I can't access my blog from here (looks like *.blogspot.com is blocked). Interestingly enough, to post, I go to blogger.com which isn't blocked, so I can post, but can't read any blogspot blogs. I had heard that India and China block some sites, including blogspot, so this just confirms what I had read. Hopefully no one will tell them about blogger, so that I can continue to post while on this trip...keep checking in!

Traveling to India

I'm writing this from a Lufthansa jet on the way from Vancouver to Frankfurt. So far, it's been a pretty uneventful trip…
I flew from Seattle to Vancouver on a prop plane. It wasn't teeny tiny (like the one I was convinced I was going to die on in Costa Rica), but I did have the added benefit of sitting right next to the prop, which is kinda noisy. I jammed my headphones deep into my ear canals and cranked up the tunes. (Okay, full disclosure - I wasn't listening to tunes, but rather, an audiobook by NPR's former China correspondent about the current and future state of China as he travels through the country. But seriously, that's not cool at all, so let's pretend I was listening to the Clash or Eels or something interesting, okay?)
One interesting thing I noticed in the Vancouver airport - Canadians are really into wearing their maple leafs and flags on their clothing and bags. I was thinking maybe they're just more patriotic than us, but then decided they do it so that people don't mistake them for Americans in case they bump into folks who hate us. Sneaky.
So, last year I flew SAS to Europe and was surprised to find out that they had a window in the bathrooms of their planes. Well, since I'm on another European airline, I had to investigate and sure enough, there's a window. I think it's for the guys, cause it really doesn't do women any good…unless you're looking for natural light to put on makeup (that's my mom speaking…not me). (Women sit, so their back is to the window, fyi.)
Of course I can't sleep and of course it's 970 degrees in here. I made my seat lie flat(-ish), but they don't let it go all the way flat - it's mostly flat, with your feet lower than your head. That means if you're neurotic like me, you lie there wondering if you're sliding down the darned thing. And if you shift at all, you do slide down. Seriously, are they just torturing me?
We land in Frankfurt in about 4 hours and then I have a 1.5 hour layover and then it's another 10 or so hour flight to Bangalore. Perhaps I'll be so tired by then, I won't mind sliding down out of my seat.
(Is it bad that I was fascinated by the man next to me who kissed something in a little book that looked like his passport? Also, if you were wondering, it is incredibly unpleasant for others when you floss in public. Particularly when you chew afterwards…ugggg.)
Just got to my hotel room (okay, I got here and unpacked and turned up the A/C. Now I'm blogging.) It's about 2am here. My bag finally made it out at the airport and immigration and customs was super-easy. My driver found me and brought me here. These Bangaloreans really love their car horns. I'm not sure, but I think you just honk cause you're so happy to be in traffic. Or out of it. Right around the hotel, it looked pretty much like the other third word cities I'd been to - dirty, rundown, same type of shops. All the signs are in English, which is interesting. It was about a 20 minute drive to my hotel and about 15 minutes of it was driving through military housing and other military related stuff (hospitals, etc.). Once we got away from the hotel, it was much nicer. Saw an IBM billboard, saw a guy at the airport waving a sign welcoming someone from Cisco, saw a DeutschBank…I'm feeling pretty global.
I'm gonna see if I can get Skype going so that I can call my family and let them know I've arrived. Then I'm going to sleep as it's been 24 hours since I left Seattle and I only slept about 2 hours on the planes.