Guangzhou (which is 7,434.4 km² and is the capital of the province Guǎngdōng) is described to me as the size of 6 Hong Kongs (land size). A Cantonese student in Hong Kong has invited my sister and I to stay with her family for the week of Chinese New Year.
I had seen reports of four inch thick, clear ice on the roads and mass transit trains frozen in place without power. People are mobbing buses. People have died. One was crushed to death in a human stampede. For days people are going hungry and sleeping where they stood on trains. Tanks, military tanks, have been deployed to attack the ice.
Her mother informed us that everything was O.K. and so we decided to go.
I guess that this city must be huge because when I arrived it was 55F and there was no sign of disaster at all. In fact, it was the largest celebration that I have ever seen in my life. It was also the most well behaved crowd that I have ever seen in my life. At one point there were tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of people shoulder to shoulder, front to back in a seamless crowd that was slowly and constantly changing its members and their positions. The crowd spanned a hundred feet across each road and all around a lattice of city blocks.
The family that I stayed with could not have been more welcoming. I felt like I was a visiting cousin. They took us out to climb a hill for a great view of the city and forests, a circus, festivals down town, we all had a fantastic time. ..and when it came to mealtime, I had to learn how to say in Cantonese "Full! Full!" as self defense.I have found a beautiful old bonsai tree to give as a gift to their beautiful old great grandmother (92y.o.) for having such a great family to treat me like they did. I will never forget them.
This is the year of the Rat.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
North Pole
Captain's Log Approximate Skydate 1/21/08
I don't know what time or date it is where I am right now and am wondering how time zones work here. I am about 37,000 feet almost directly above the north pole. I have been travelling for 16 hours and still have at least 11 more to go. The time of year, location, and height make it somehow possible for the outside air temperature to be -86F. It's too bad that I won't have an opportunity to take a photo in the daylight because this will be one long night here (it will still be night here even through my return flight in five weeks from now.). Nonetheless, it is a bright full moon and crystal clear skies for an unobstructed aerial view of the ice below. There is an incredible, expanse of mountains everywhere in every direction as far as the eye can see. It is as if billions of tremendous (2000 feet tall maybe. I have no frame of reference.) ice bergs were froze in place to be drifted with snow and weathered into mountains. There are also vast plains (maybe 50 miles across and hundreds long) between groups of mountains like great flood plains of rivers.. but rising sea water instead of rivers. These plains would be the only reasonable passage on ground. The mountains eventually give way to an abyss of flat, fractured ice. This is how I have always imagined the Arctic.. not the mountains, the abyss.
I am bound for Hong Kong from the US Statue of Liberty, over Greenland, the North Pole and the Arctic Circle, Siberia, and the thick of mainland Asia.. 100 pages into "Xenocide" and have plenty of time to read.
I don't know what time or date it is where I am right now and am wondering how time zones work here. I am about 37,000 feet almost directly above the north pole. I have been travelling for 16 hours and still have at least 11 more to go. The time of year, location, and height make it somehow possible for the outside air temperature to be -86F. It's too bad that I won't have an opportunity to take a photo in the daylight because this will be one long night here (it will still be night here even through my return flight in five weeks from now.). Nonetheless, it is a bright full moon and crystal clear skies for an unobstructed aerial view of the ice below. There is an incredible, expanse of mountains everywhere in every direction as far as the eye can see. It is as if billions of tremendous (2000 feet tall maybe. I have no frame of reference.) ice bergs were froze in place to be drifted with snow and weathered into mountains. There are also vast plains (maybe 50 miles across and hundreds long) between groups of mountains like great flood plains of rivers.. but rising sea water instead of rivers. These plains would be the only reasonable passage on ground. The mountains eventually give way to an abyss of flat, fractured ice. This is how I have always imagined the Arctic.. not the mountains, the abyss.
I am bound for Hong Kong from the US Statue of Liberty, over Greenland, the North Pole and the Arctic Circle, Siberia, and the thick of mainland Asia.. 100 pages into "Xenocide" and have plenty of time to read.
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