M-whY

The love of plants has existed almost since the dawn of mankind. Cave drawings from the Cro-Magnon and Homo-Erectus Man Era clearly show their reverence for plants (many of these plant specimens are long extinct). However, to truly gain an appreciation for Flora, we need to start with the pre-Jurassic Era, before the existence of the Dinosaurs, when ferns, which pre-date most all other surviving vegetative life on Earth? Wait! Hold on! Before you stop reading, this is all a cruel hoax. This isn't Mark's Day because this is Jon's Day.

Let me tell you what's going on. First of all everything you're been reading has been written by me Jon. Mark has graciously offered to let me contribute one day's worth, 'your day' as Mark put it, to his famous/infamous blog. I was more than happy to do it to gain some of the notoriety that Mark has acquired, but wanted to know what the rules were. 'Can I write anything I want, or will it be censored?' I asked Mark. 'Why, what do you want to write?' Mark replied. The end-result of this conversation being that Mark has foolishly allowed me to corrupt, disrupt, and otherwise ruin what is to date a fine corpus of his one-man traveling show. His only warning to me was that while I had one day's worth to do my worst, he had many months left of entries to levy the full power of his vengeance upon me. To this, I say 'Bring it on travel-boy!'

First, allow me the pleasure of an introduction. I'm a former coworker of Mark. Yes, a long time ago, in a land far far away (this is starting to sound like Star Wars) Mark actually had a real full-time job where he spent long arduous hours trying to claw his way to the top, so he could be given more responsibility, so he could become the boss and work even harder and longer hours.

But enough about Mark, it's all about ME now. ME, ME, ME, ME (see I can write whatever I want). I'm 41, married, and live in Pittsburgh. I'm an Electrical Engineer with an MBA, and work in the Company Division's Sales and Marketing Group. In spite of Mark's 'Veghead' comment, I actually have other interests and hobbies; traveling (Kenya, Tanzania, Canada, Portugal, France, Italy, Turkey, Japan, Egypt, and 46 U.S. states), hiking (many U.S. National Parks, Mt. Fuji (highest peak in Japan), and Mt. Kilimanjaro (highest peak in Africa), photography, former runner (finished Pittsburgh Marathon), biking (150 mile bike ride between Pittsburgh and Erie), martial arts (15 years worth off and on), and scuba-diving (recently open water certified). I've tried skiing, horseback riding, canoeing, kayaking, jet-skiing, and dragon boat racing. I became a Polar Bear Club member when I jumped in the river on New Year's day when it was 17 Deg. F (I even got interviewed on TV for doing it). Oh, and by the way, I do a little gardening, by far the number one hobby in America. So there Mark (I'm sticking my tongue out in defiance as I'm writing this). I just hope some day Mark will be able to tell his astible from a hollyhock in the ground.

At first, I didn't necessarily want this particular day that had been granted me. I thought to myself, why couldn't it have been the day we went to the Great Wall, or when we went to the Forbidden City, or on a day we had visited some other well-known site.

On this day, we were visiting Datong. We were visiting this city in part because it happened to be somewhat on the way to Xian (where the Terra Cotta Warriors are located). In any case, in my experience, any day that starts at 4:30 AM has at least one strike against it already. In my world, it usually means some sort of business trip, or some sort of other extra-ordinary event that will probably involve a lot of work, and if not a lot of pain, at least a degree of discomfort. Honestly, would anyone be up that early for fun?

But there we were. It was either get up and disembark the train, or miss the stop. Yes, the day began on a sleeper train. We had purchased 'hard sleeper' (cheap sleep) as opposed to 'soft sleeper' (the more 'luxurious' type, and I use the term loosely). There were six bunks in our tiny compartment, but more than six people-so you do the math. Actually, there was a whole family in our compartment, which wasn't too bad, other than the fact that they spoke at full volume late into the night. Some members of the family actually shared a single bed, which was hard to believe, since I barely fit in mine (I'm 5'10" and 180 lbs).

Anyway, while these folks had each other for company, Mark and I had some of our belongings. Let me explain, Mark suggested that we might be light by a few items if we chose to leave these unattended. So yes, I was sleeping with my most valuable possessions in this confined space. Also, I shouldn't fail to mention that I had the top bunk, which was at least 7 ft. off the ground. This would have been a short blog indeed had I fallen out.

Mark said that I might have trouble sleeping if I wasn't used to this arrangement. Gee Mark, you think? Anyway, a sleeping pill and earplugs did the trick. I (and my possessions) was soon fast asleep.

I barely heard the alarm go off (remember the earplugs?) I had not slept badly, but was not entirely awake when I turned off the alarm. It was time to get off the train a little after 5:00 AM.

Once off, we headed in the direction of a hotel to find a room. Now in the U.S. check in time at a hotel is usually around 3:00 PM. They'll usually let you check in earlier, but generally not before noon. It was now around 5:30 AM, and we were looking for board.

We walked in to one of the hotels, a large multi-story with a decent-sized lobby. But where were the people who worked there? They were of course all fast asleep on various couches. The person behind the check-in counter actually had a cot conveniently located right there behind the reception desk as well. Hmmm,a cot? Maybe I could talk my boss into such an arrangement 'Yes, just wake me a few minutes before the meeting starts so I can freshen up first.'

Anyway, the price of $30 (including all taxes) was of course too high (this price would usually only cover the taxes alone in the U.S). Too high, can you believe it! So we went across the street and got one for $20.

I should also mention that there was a young blonde (I mention this because she really stood out in a crowed) sort of tagging along with us. She carried a huge backpack, and was apparently traveling solo. I have to give her a lot of credit. This was a small, poor town, and almost no one spoke English. I would have been a little concerned myself, if Mark wasn't around. But there she was, apparently oblivious of the situation.

When we got to the hotel, Mark wanted to take a nap. I was wide-awake by then, so I decided to go look around. Although, it was early, there was no lack of people and activity. Vendors selling everything from knick-knacks to dumplings, where everywhere. Many people approached me, trying to sell me something, although I have no idea what, as they spoke not even a single word of English.

Finally, a guy approached me who actually, spoke maybe a dozen words of English. It was so refreshing to have the slightest clue as to what someone was trying to communicate to me, that I decided to listen to his pitch. I could still barely make out what he was trying to say (it was like listening to some of our software engineers where I work trying describe why something was or wasn't working as predicted, in other words almost completely incomprehensible). He wasn't too pushy and had a nice smile, so I tried working with him. He had a badly worn brochure in English, with pictures of some of the different tourist attractions. Pictures I understood. He said he would take me to two of the sites for $30 per person. I negotiated with him until I could see four sites for two people for $25 total ($12.50 each). Keep in mind that some of these attractions were hours apart, and the trip would take most of the day. Had I had the inclination, I could have probably negotiated an even better deal, but as I said, for some reason liked the guy so was willing to pay him a little extra.

One of the attractions was the Lower Huayan Monastery. It was nice enough, but after seeing some truly remarkable ones in Beijing, it really couldn't measure up. I had the usual architecture-to my eye anyway- and some Buddha's and other religious artifacts appropriate to the Monastery. However, I had a blog entry to write, and didn't want to disappoint my audience with a rather dull and mundane description. So I needed to find some interesting, something unusual, something that would make the visit worthwhile.

We were getting ready to leave when a spotted one of several smaller buildings I had not gone into before. For the sake of completeness, and frankly out of boredom, I went in. And there it was, just what I was looking for. Here in the Monastery, among all the ancient religious artifacts was, you guessed it, a huge 'And I mean huge- Mammoth tusk, along with the skeletal heads of other prehistoric beasts. I have no doubt that at some Natural History Museum in China, there are some equally out of place Buddha's wondering what the heck they are doing there, staring at the stuffed saber-toothed tigers.

However, if you fancy carved statues of Buddha, read on, I know just the place. The Yungang Caves-guarded by vicious attack camels-are a truly remarkable set of 20 caves with, count them, roughly 51,000 Buddhist statues. This is a World Heritage Site, and after seeing it, I think rightfully so. We paid $7.50 to get in, so by my calculations that's 68 Buddha's per penny. What a deal!

Actually, I was in the mood for seeing a lot of Buddha's. There were medium-sized Buddha's, little wee Buddha's, and truly gigantic Buddha's
. There were times in the caves when I felt completely surrounded by Buddha's, an ocean of Buddha's. I'm convinced that if the good people of Datong were given enough time, they would turn the whole world into one giant Buddha, just a huge Buddha-shaped-planet hurling through space. Still, it was hard to quench my thirst for these statues. I wanted more. Too much was never enough. It had become one man's obsession to see them all. That is until I saw this image, and decided it was promptly time to leave.

After that last sobering experience, I felt justifiably drained of my energy, so Mark and I decided to get something to eat. I should preface this by noting that Mark and I have fallen into a habit that we usually adhere to at the time of ordering food. Since the menus are incomprehensive to me, being generally written only in Chinese (even if they weren't, the English is hard to decipher, for example an item on one menu was called 'pimple soup', and I'm not familiar with many of the dishes anyway. Mark just goes ahead and orders stuff for both of us. This arrangement has worked out pretty well.

In this case I had my doubts whether Mark should be doing the ordering. For one thing, there was a menacing-looking cauldron of something brewing-it turned out to be some rather tasty noodle soup. But what was to the left of it? I could not figure it out. It looked like a pot full of maybe bird heads in a black (and I mean jet crude oil black) gravy. However these birds-if they were birds- had teeth. No, they must be something else. I asked Mark, and he didn't know either.

Anyway, when Mark asked the chef, you guessed it, rabbit head stew (by the way, I have a close-up of this taken with my camera, but didn't bring my USB cord)! I wasn't in the mood for rabbit heads that day. I was glad when they brought the noodle soup instead.

Another stop was ? Well here's exactly (word for word) the description written on the entrance ticket: 'Nine-Long Wall was built in Ming Hong wu 25 years (A.D. 1392) .It was originally situated in front of Dai-King Zhu gui's home who is Ming TaiZhu's thirteen son.it has had 600years history .The front of it fronting to south,the back to north .it has 45.5m long.8m high and 2.02m wide This Nine-Long wall is the biggest glazed Long-wall of China. It is the whole country important preservation of cultural relics unit.' Any questions?

We drove a long way up in the mountains to get to our fourth destination of the day, which was to the Hanging Monastery, so called because it is situated high up on a cliff using a series of stilts. Words and even pictures can't really describe the sensation of vertigo one experiences while at the top. The Monastery overlooks a river that has flooded many times over the years, and the reconstruction has been done at higher and yet higher altitudes until it's wound up where we were today. Seeing where it's situated-precarious dangling from a cliff- you have to wonder why they didn't just move it to an entirely deferent location. So what's at the top inside the Monastery? You guessed it, more statues of Buddha.

By now it was afternoon and our trips where coming to an end; or so I thought. Mark had read that there was an old section of the Great Wall in the area. The driver agreed to take us there for another $7.50. Again a relatively long drive, way out in the country along a dirt road. The setting was lovely. We were greeted by small villages, fields of crops, rolling hills, and a beautiful blue sky (this can't be said for most of the cities I visited which had a lot of air pollution).

There was not much left of the 'wall'. Most of it has been worn away by the elements. The towers were however, still somewhat intact, although these were also crumbling. I asked Mark to grab a handful of the rubble. 'That's the Great Wall of China in the palm of your hands' I said. Actually it was a piece of history he was holding.

By the time we returned to the hotel it was evening. It had been a long day. So, we started thinking about dinner. We ended up in an elegant-looking restaurant. The wait staff was very professional and attentive. They consisted of several very cute and petit young ladies, that couldn't have been over 18 or 19, standing around in identical pretty uniforms, at-the-ready to meet all our dining needs. Their boss was an older woman who was instructing them on the finer points. Anyway, things were oh so formal.

Duck soup was part of what we had ordered. It arrived in a steaming ceramic bowl. One of the youngest of the servers began ladling the milky liquid into a smaller eating bowl. Since I thought this would make an interesting picture, I took out my camera and pointed it in the young lady's direction. When she saw me with the camera, she was so startled that I thought that ladle, soup, and bowl were going to come crashing down. She immediately covered her face and started giggling uncontrollably. No amount of persuasion would induce her to come back and pose for the camera. Someone else had to finish the job (I wisely put the camera away). Mark told me later that the province she was from is one of the poorest regions in the country, perhaps she had rarely had her picture taken.

The young server did finally return when she concluded that the camera was safely tucked away. I was glad, the Peking Duck, among other delicacies, was absolutely mouth-wateringly good. Before I left however, I noticed that the shy young waitress had a smile on her face. I turned to her, and pretended I was taking her picture, using my index finger to push the imaginary shutter. She immediately started giggling again. I just hope her mother hen boss will excuse this brief departure from solemn 'professionalism'.

I feel like the guest host on the Johnny Carson show. Remember Johnny? In my view the all time king of late the late shows. My wife literally cried when Bette Midler was singing him a special farewell song on the last episode (I had a little tear in the corner of my eye as well, but don't tell anybody).

Anyway, the guests hosts on the Johnny Carson Show were, in my opinion, generally a poor substitute for the real thing. I feel a little the same about guest writing this blog. I feel like Im treading on sacred ground. I hope I've done Mark's blog justice-after all I'm a big fan myself. I hope the readers will excuse the fact that I've tried to have a little fun with it, rather than simply chronicle facts.

Thank you Mark for my fifteen minutes of fame. Thanks also for being my unofficial guide/translator, and a great traveling companion.

What would have made my day even better? Well, if Midler could have sang a little song?After all it was MY DAY.

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!