helping another attain a life's goal

Some think that we climb to eat - after all, when one is on one's feet for hours on end, one can usually eat whatever one wants, and either maintain, or possibly still even lose weight. So, surely, climbing is to eat, right?

Some think that we climb for the exercise. This is sort of similar to climbing to eat. But, yes, there's nothing like a climb up (and down) on a mountain for some good, wholesome, exercise. Feels great, and I've no problem sleeping, afterwards. . .

Some think that we climb to die. After all, that's what many see on the news. 3 climbers climbed Mount Hood last December, and one was found dead on the summit, and the others are still up there, somewhere. And years ago, many, all over the world, saw the helicopter do a nose dive and fall into pieces, rolling down that same Mt. Hood, when trying to lift off a severely injured climber from a climbing accident that left 3 dead and several wounded. So, surely, climbing is to die, right?

Many of my friends are definitely puzzled about why I climb. There are so many reasons - it's just plain FUN. It's exercise. It's about being outside. It's about being in nature. It's about challenge, sometimes. It's about the sheer joy of being on the summit of a mountain and looking down and around at all of the other mountains, seeing everything from a different perspective, seeing things that most people never get a chance to see - the crevasses, the glaciers, the wildflowers, the rime ice covering the rocks, the boulders/rocks/rock spires, and it's about sharing all of that with others.

Having the ability to climb, and being at least moderately good at it, allows me to share this opportunity with others. I've taken several people up South Sister, a 10,000ft peak in Central Oregon, just so that they, too, can have "climbed" a mountain, see a glacier up close, and experience the joy of being up so high and looking down. I've also taken people up Mt. Hood. My second climb this year was up the south side of Hood, and specifically to help two guys, David and John, meet one of their life's goal of climbing that mountain.

In Oregon, climbing Mt. Hood tends to be a fairly popular life goal, since the mountain is there, every day (whether or not you can actually see it, since it's usually cloudy, here!), looking bold and beautiful, the tallest thing in the Oregon sky. It beckons to people. And it's not just the walk-up that South Sister is, although one CAN frequently "just walk up" the south side. One should have a few skills before going up, and, there is what we call "exposure" - it gets steep at the top, and if one slips, one can go many hundreds of feet, before coming to a rest, unaided. Hence, it's good to have some skills before going up. David and John did have some of the basic skills, and we'd all done Mt. St. Helens the previous weekend, with another experienced climber, Duane, so this shorter, but more technical climb, was just a next step.

The lower part of the climb was no problem for anyone, just a matter of placing one foot after the other. There weren't so many people on the mountain, which was rather surprising as this was the beginning of May, where there is usually a stream of climbers going up. Above the Palmer ski snowfield, the climb gets markedly steeper, and crampons are usually in order, as they were this early morning (I think that we left at midnight). The next 1500 ft are fairly easy, especially if someone has already kicked steps, which someone had - so that we were able to put our feet flat on each step. Then, there's the walk around Crater Rock - a huge rock coming out of the center of the crater that is the whole top of the mountain. While going around this huge rock, the terrain is very steep, and on our right we could look down and see the steaming "Devil's Kitchen," a place where Mt. Hood vents - one can smell the sulphur that is exuded from those vents. This is the first place that it gets really steep. I usually stop to eat just before this, as it's inconvenient to stop while on this part (too steep). A climber in front of me heard me telling the others that I was going to grab a bite to eat and turned around and said "the Hogsback is just over there!" Yes, I know. The Hogsback is a flat ridge of snow where everyone rests before the final summit push. This is where everyone ropes up, if they're going to, or unropes if they're coming down. And it takes a while to get there from the just below Crater Rock, and I see no reason to go without food to reach it (after all, climbing IS about eating!). Anyway, we ate a bite and then trucked on up to the Hogsback. At this point, we could look down onto the side with the Hot Rocks, where the helicopter mentioned earlier, had rolled down, or, on the side we were on, down into Devil's kitchen, or up to "the Pearly Gates." Steep in all directions. It was here that one of the guys said "I can't do it." He'd gotten dizzy just going around Crater Rock. He looked up, saw the steepness, saw the exposure, and decided that this was a good stopping spot for him. I remembered my own similar experience years ago when I'd begged my friend, Peter, to take me up a mountain, and he dutifully tried, but when I got to a place over a cliff - I couldn't go any farther. It didn't help to have Peter tell me that, look, I'm not going to go very far, even if I were to fall - I'd stop before I got to that cliff. Nope. I'd just heard about a fatal accident on Mt. Hood in gory detail from a friend whose husband was involved, and that had translated into paralyzing fear in this particular instance. I couldn't go further, and we had to turn around. I'm sure that I wouldn't even notice that "exposure," now. So, it was very undersandable, hearing this same sort of thing from my friend, now. There would be another time, and I'm sure that he'll be able to do it. Meanwhile, David was still itching to get up there. We looked at the conditions, and they were good. The bergschrund (crevasse in a specific place) was only slightly open, with a good snow bridge over it, and the snow was good - we should be able to self-arrest if one of us should slip. We were three of us, David, Duane, and I, and we elected not to rope up. We walked in the footsteps of the people before us, to a flat place where we either had to go right through the Pearly Gates, or left through what one guide had told me was called "the Chute." I'd heard reports from others who'd gone up previous weeks, and turned left, heading up the chute. It was quite steep, and just one person wide. I went through, then David, and then Duane. David stopped to take this picture at the top of the Chute (still another hundred or so feet to go to get to the summit) - the camera didn't work so well without full light when looking down onto Duane, so it's a bit blurry, but it gives you a good idea of the situation, I think:
We summitted, and David was thrilled! And I was thrilled to have helped him get there! We still had half the trip, yet, to go - getting up is great, but most of the accidents happen on the way down. We downclimbed through the Chute, to the flat spot. I looked up, saw a huge chunk of ice, just being hit by the morning sun, and dallied no longer, heading down. I didn't hear footsteps behind me, so turned around and saw Duane and David standing there on the flat spot. I yelled to them about my concern about the ice above them - they looked up, and immediately made their way down. David had stopped on the way up in this same spot to take this shot:

That line of snow in the middle of the photo is the famed Hogsback running right into Crater Rock, with one of the 3 dots along the Hogsback being John, waiting for us. Further down on the left of the photo, you should be able to make out the straight line of the Palmer ski lift. That lift heads down to Timberline lodge, and the Day lodge. We'd a ways to go before we could call the whole thing, successful. And down we went, and successful we were. I was very happy to have been a part of allowing David to meet one of his life's goals. It made me happy to be competent enough at climbing to do such a thing for another.

the first of 10 climbs. . .

(you can click on the above picture to get the bigger size)

Hi, all - it's been a while since I've written anything, and it's been a pretty good climb season, with a good mix of routes and mountains. I've done the South Side, Leuthold, and Sunshine routes up Mt. Hood, "winter route" climb up Mt. St. Helens, a good attempt on a southern route up Mt. Jefferson, a couple of south side climbs up Mt. Adams, part way up the Kautz Glacier up Rainier (again - one day, I'll get up there. . .), Mt. Baker, and an epic climb up Mt. Shuksan (see Blog for a good writeup on this one by one of our team-mates). I thought I'd mention a few highlights of some of these climbs in various "lore" writings, as well as include a couple of pictures from some of the folks who brought cameras along. I leave the picture taking to these guys/gals who have these cute little digital cameras that they can whip out at a moment's notice. . .

So, the first climb (April 28th, 2007): A friend wanted to do Mt. St. Helens, so we set a date and planned around that - he invited people, I invited people, and then he couldn't join us, but the die was cast. . . One of my friends at work wanted to use it as a "conditioning hike" for our Mt. Hood climb scheduled for the following week. So I brought a rope for him to carry, and pickets and a harness. He was a wimp, however, (ok, not really, but the story sounds better if I say so), and one of the other guys gladly took the rope for the rest of the climb. Mt. St. Helens doesn't require any of this stuff to climb - crampons and an ice axe, in this early spring season are plenty. But since we'd taken all of this, and observed a large cornice with a nice fault line some 10 to 20 feet from the rim when we got up there, we decided to use our equipment to safely peer into the crater. The weather cooperated, although it was socked in when we first got up there, by the time we started checking out the crater, it started to clear up, and so we had great views of the growing dome, and of Rainier, in the distance (with 3 lenticular clouds over it!). After we'd taken our looks and were getting ready to head down, a couple casually walked over to where we'd been peering, without any protection whatsoever. We called over to them, telling them that it wasn't a particularly smart move, given the cornice, and they retorted that "well, someone ELSE was here!" Good candidates for the Darwin Lemming awards, in my book. Do something stupid, because you think that someone else did it. We did inform them that, yeah, that someone had been us, with anchors set and use of a rope in case the cornice decided to give way. . .

Alas, the cameras of my co-climbers were safely in their owners' backpacks when we were all peering into the crater, so I only have this one to prove that we were there, with a shot of Adams in the background. . . You can also see that there *is* a cornice. And yes, there were lots of people up there - something like 127 people had applied for permits for that day - the 100 permits/day hadn't yet gone into affect.

A good start to the season!

Adventure in my backyard

I figure that if my uncle can have an adventure in his kitchen (furniture tumbling down upon him), and my cousin can have one in his garage (ever try to shoot a rodent in an enclosed space and have the bullet ricochet? Seems to be a common thing on the farm - only happens once per farm, though), then I can have an adventure in my backyard (my backyard consisting of miles of a mixture of private and state forest land).

My adventure started when I was re-reading my mountaineering book in order to prepare for helping a friend teach a basic moutianeering class. "Navigation is easy," it says. It even goes further to say "Navigation is fun." As I read these words, and subsequent pages outlining how to find out where you are and where you're going, I decided that today was the day. This was the day that I would find my way from my house to the logging road in back of it, with no difficulties, no getting lost (as I have the numerous other times I've tried it, dragging along friends and dogs along the way), just pure and simple, walk up the hill, make the appropriate turns, and Voila! The road would be before me. Then, I did what I've never done before, but what the book suggests that one do. I prepared. Prepare!!! Eek! It occurred to me to look at just how far I should have to walk before making various turns, and, it turned out that everything was really quite close. It shouldn't take hours, it should take minutes. I set out, I constantly checked my time, my altitude (how high above sea level - I have an altimeter that does that for me), my direction, and the map. And, rather than heading for the road, which juts out just a short distance, I headed for the much longer, and "can't miss" landmark of the power lines that the road crosses. And, Voila! I did, indeed, make it! It took me about 50 minutes. I'm thinking that it should take about 30 minutes if I were to do the same thing, again, without checking the map every 5 minutes. . .

At this point, I could head back on the road, and get back in about 10 to 15 minutes, or, I could head back, through the woods, and see if I could repeat the success in the other direction. I decided to repeat my success, except that I knew my way, now, and so didn't need to look at the map, and I decided that I'd stay on the top of the ridge, where it was easier to walk. It was looking as though I'd be back at my house in about 30 minutes, except, that all of a sudden, nothing looked familiar, well, actually, it did look familiar - I saw the clear-cut area, I'd seen years ago, when Hoa and I had this same adventure, and he threatened to buy me a GPS. But this time, I was not going to cut through the properties, as we did back then, I was going to find my way back, so out came the map, and compass, and I saw that I managed to swing too far west, so I did my course correction, which meant going over a couple of ridges (reminiscent of my St. Helens climb many years ago, only there, they were MUCH bigger ridges), and soon I was on MY ridge, and heading down into my backyard. My error was that while I was on the top of the ridge, I didn’t notice my "branching off" ridge. Dang, 50 minutes to return, too. However, the 50 minutes each way still seemed tons better than my previous attempts. I finally conquered my back yard! (I'll be even happier when I can repeat it in about 30 minutes, each way, without deviations. . ., but I'll settle for having done it, according to the map, for now.)

leora
P.s. I still don't have the last Turkey write-up on my blog (pictures take so long to upload over dialup. . .). As soon as I get a picture from my week of ice-climbing in Ouray, Colorado, I should be posting that. That was FUN!
I do have 2 pictures from my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary party this January that I should show you (click to get large image):
Our family + Leslie's (my brother's) girlfriend, Sherri

And a cute one of my folks:

Transportation in Turkey

I thought that I'd focus on the transportation, as we experienced it, in Turkey, with all the associated stories. After all, it sort of felt that a lot of what we did in Turkey was get transported from one place to another, in spite of doing our best to try concentrate on the eastern part of Turkey.

Turkey is about 1000 miles west to east and about 300 miles north to south. It's slightly bigger than the US state of Texas.

We (Ed, my high school era buddy and fantastic traveling partner, and I) flew from our respective abodes to Washington Dulles airport, met there, and continued on to Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to Istanbul, Turkey. There, we high-tailed it to the domestic terminal to book a flight to Trabzon. Unfortunately, most of the flights during the day were already booked, so we wound up having to get a flight in the early evening, thus, pretty much wiping out a potential day for exploration in our destination. And, the flight was late. They told us about it in Turkish and English. But, arrive we did, into Trabzon, a big town in the eastern part of Turkey, up on the Black Sea. We flew in the dark, and could see the city lights dotting the coastline, with evidence of mountains behind, and the Black Sea on our left. We wondered where they could put an airport in such terrain, but eventually, a wide area next to the sea opened up, and the long runway appeared.

When we got out into the airport, all we saw were about 4 car rental agencies, and crowds of people. Eegads - no "information"? We were counting on this to find a hotel!!! We had already decided which one we wanted to stay in, by using the Lonely Planet guide that was our other constant traveling companion, we just wanted help in calling them. Ed had the brilliant idea of talking to one of the rental car people "does someone here speak English?" (We knew that knowing how to count or to say "hello" were not enough at this point to even pretend to try Turkish.) Immediately, someone held up a finger or hand and told us to wait a moment, and went running away. We weren't quite sure what was happening, but, eventually, a guy came and started speaking English to us - they'd found the one guy that everyone knew spoke English to help us! We told him our troubles, and he agreed to phone the hotel. But, he said that he couldn't get through. I asked why would that be, and he said that, well, it was raining, so maybe the power or phone lines were down "it's far away," he said. So, I was wondering, again, oh dear, what do we do? Ed said, "Well, we need a hotel, what do YOU suggest?" He was perfectly willing to go to this guy's cousin's hotel or whatever, since we needed a place. It'd been something like a day and a half since we'd last slept, and so getting squared away SOMEwhere seemed the most important thing. The guy thought a while, and then suggested something - "and it must be ok, because English people and German people - they've stayed there" and it was in our price range. I can't remember if he called them or not, I think not, because he was so sure that they would have a spot. Then he took us outside to tell the taxi coordinator where we needed to go. So, this was a guy that was supposed to be attending to his own car rental business, helping us this whole time. We were very grateful. The hotel wasn't very far away, and it turned out to be fine, except, of course, for the smoke that seemed to drift everywhere. . .

We slept until we heard the Esam, the call to prayer, at the mosque right next door to the hotel, at something like 4:30am.

We wanted to see a castle ruin that was supposed to be fairly nearby, went in search of a bus to get there, and finally gave up and went into a posh-looking hotel to find out where the bus station was. We told the woman where we wanted to go, and she asked us to please follow this man, whom she'd been talking to - it was her father. He would take us there. He told us that we'd have to go to another town, Goreme, and then back to the town that we really wanted to go to, to see the ruin. (This part was done with pen and paper, as he didn't speak English.) We followed him the quarter mile or so to the bus station. We were impressed that he took us so far, to get us where we wanted to go. He told the bus driver where we were headed and they rounded us up into a van-type vehicle, called a Dolmush. We rode this all the way to Goreme, some 60 kms or so, at a fairly slow speed, stopping and dropping off and picking up people all along the way. We couldn’t quite tell how they knew where to pick people up, since sometimes it appeared to us to be in the middle of nowhere.

In Goreme, we started to ask about our true destination. We were told that it was near Trabzon, the place we'd just left! This town did not seem to have any hotels (that was the first thing that I asked for, since I wanted to use a bathroom, and hotels tend to be handy for that). But, no, no hotel. Did we speak German? Only a bit. Were we Italian? No. American. Ah, Americans. Smiles all around. Big crowd all around us. We asked for Turkish coffee for Ed, since we'd heard all about that, before coming here. "Ok, ok," they motioned us to sit down, the crowd was still there, and then, finally, a young man came up to us and started speaking in English. He translated for us, and for the crowd. We established that yes, the place that we wanted to go was really near Trabzon, and that meant another bus ride back. Meanwhile, he took us to a bathroom. And then Ed wanted to go up into the tower of a mosque, and so the young man took us to his mosque. We had to wait for the keys to the tower, and while we waited I bought a scarf to put over my head for mosque visits, having not brought any with me. We saw the tower, and the mosque, and then we were invited to have tea across the street. So far, the only thing we paid for was the scarf. The young man was quite pleased that he was getting this opportunity to practice his English, and we plied him with all of the questions that we had come up with, so far. Eventually, he put us into a dolmush going back toward Trabzon. The sun was setting at 4:30pm around here (early November), and so we decided that we just wanted to get back to the hotel as it was just too dark.

On the Dolmush, there was typically a bench seat in front, and 2 3-seater benches, and one higher-set 4 seater bench in the back. And maybe another individual seat on the side. When there were more people than could fit in the seats, no problem, they would pull out a stool, and someone would sit on that, in the aisle. Oh - too many for even that? Ok, just stand here, next to the door. At one point in our ride, all of the floor space was taken, and there were 3 young men squeezed together standing, bent over, right next to the door. No discounts for them. . . But the 60 km ride was only about 3 US dollars, and their ride, even less, as they didn't go as far. When we got fairly near to Trabzon, an older man started to talk to us. We asked him how he would suggest that we get to our hotel, and he knew just the right little dolmush to take us there - less than 1 dollar (we'd assumed that we'd take a taxi, which would have been more than 10 dollars). He walked out of the dolmush with us, and flagged down another, told the man where we wanted to go, and went on his way. Such hospitality!!!

The next day we wanted to move on. We had our idea of what we'd do, and then we went down to discuss it with the hotel proprietor. He asked us a whole bunch of questions, and finally told us that he suggested a different plan - that we should go to a town called Ayder, and hire a guide and go for a hike, there.  He told us how to get a bus, there. First, take a small bus to the station, and from the station, take a big bus. We took another inexpensive dolmush - telling them where we were headed, and when they dropped us off on the street, they motioned to where we should go. We weren't quite clear, and asked some people at a nearby bus-stop, and they motioned to the same place. We went down to the place they'd motioned to, and realized that it was the building that housed the ticket offices of many bus companies. We kept stating our destination, and people steered us to one bus company. We went on a medium-sized bus (click on pictures to see the enlarged size):


This took us to a town that was still 17km away from our destination. The bus driver indicated that we should get out, take out all of our stuff, and wait. We were left at the edge of town. After about 5 minutes or so, he came back, came running out to us, and gave us part of the money we'd given him for the whole trip, and motioned that someone else would come to whom we should give the money. We trusted that someone would come and take us the rest of the way. Meanwhile, we took pictures of our surroundings. This is our "street corner" with all our stuff, and a sign that indicates the way to our destination, Ayder:


And this is what we had to look at:

Eventually, someone came running over to us, and indicated that we should get into another dolmush, with a load of hay on the top and a whole bunch of schoolgirls piled in, and a couple of older adults. We went on our way, and dropped schoolgirls off all along the way, in the mountains. The houses were similar to this, the roads, one lane, and carved into the steep mountain terrain (this was our dolmush, by the way - just looks like a van):

By this time, all the school girls were gone, and the driver helped another man remove all the hay from the roof. The Dolmush seemed to be the central life-blood of the surrounding mountains - ferrying school children, adults, and their stuff. The ride took us almost the entire day, but ended at the doorstep of our hotel.

Getting out 2 days later, we took the same Dolmush, with the same driver. When he went to pick up all the school children, in a circuit in the mountains, they dropped us, and other adults, off at a building and motioned us to stay, but not to take our bags off of the dolmush, returning, later, minus the school children, and picked us up, again. When we got near the exit of the canyon, the driver called out "my friend!" and the name of one of the towns. We wanted to go in the other direction, but had assumed that we'd have to go back to the big town a bit in the wrong direction, but we yelled out the name of our destination. This enlivened the driver, he pulled out in the direction of the big city, but then stopped on the side of the road, and indicated that we should get out. We were puzzled - here? In the middle of nowhere? And he came running around to the side, and pointed across the 2 lane highway - a medium-sized bus!!!! Headed into the direction we wanted to go! The Dolmush driver repeated the name of an intermediate town, and then our destination. So few words. Such a lot of meaning. . . We went to another bus station, and to another bus.

Later in the trip, leaving the city of Van, in the very east of Turkey, we went on our first big bus. These buses were the size of a USA Greyhound bus, but without any toilets on them. We were given seat numbers. Getting out of Van - there were only 2 seats left, and they didn't offer them to us until we kept asking if there was ANY way to get on the 9am bus out of Van, and after I'd gone to all of the other bus companies in the area. The 2 seats left were not together, which is why it took so long for anyone to offer them to us. When they did, we took them without hesitation! They knew the sex of the passengers - and told me that I would be sitting next to a woman. This didn't strike me as odd until writing this. . .

There were 2 stewards who "managed" the passengers. They would provide water, tea, or, sometimes, a carbonated beverage during the trip, and little refreshments, like a little cake, or some cookies. After eating the refreshment, and at other times, the stewards would come around dousing everyone's hands (if they wished) with some "refreshing" liquid - this was sometimes a cologne (which I did not like at all, and was extremely difficult to wash off) and sometimes a pleasant-smelling lemon water. People would rub it all over their hands, and sometimes all over their face, neck, and hair.

The stewards would make sure that no one used their cell phones, as cell phone usage was forbidden on the bus (except for the bus driver - just like smoking - forbidden to the passengers, but most bus drivers smoked while driving, much to our dismay). The stewards would reprimand the passenger, and would also take the phone and speak to the caller. The one guy always did so with a smile on his face, and would cause discussion among the passengers.

Another job of the stewards was to make sure that the passengers stayed seated. We discovered this when I went back to talk to Ed, and was therefore standing in the aisle. We were surprised at how strict they were on these big buses.

The big buses didn't stop as often as the little buses. They would stop at least once an hour at some place where we could run out and go to a bathroom (it would typically cost a little less than 1/2 dollar to use the facilities). And every several hours we would stop at a place where we could eat a hot meal. These places were incredibly efficient. They were cafeteria style, but would invariably have someone running over to our table to give us the requisite (free) bread, if it wasn't already included as part of the walk through the line. Our fellow passengers would tell us how long we had to eat. The following is a picture of one of these buses parked outside one of the buildings in which we ate:

And every time the bus would stop, everyone would pour off the bus in order to have a cigarette. Going from Van to Malatya, they had plenty of extra opportunities, as we were stopped some 5 times for paper checks by soldiers. Ed and I would have to give our passports, and others would have to give their national IDs, EXCEPT for one gentleman and I believe it was his wife. For some reason, they would ask the man for his document, and he would say something to them, and they would move on. The soldiers would take away our documents, and, after we got going, again, the stewards would return all the documents to the passengers. A couple of times the soldiers would check some of the luggage, and once the soldiers checked everything that was on board the bus. I have no idea what they were looking for. The bus schedules seemed to take these checkpoints into consideration, since where-ever we went, they seemed to leave on time.

When we arrived in Malatya, it appeared that we were dropped in middle of the street, which Ed didn't care for, and, as I was exitting the bus, I managed to fall, striking my shin on the curb as I went down. This discombobulated me. A guy was asking if we needed a taxi. I was thinking that we were a mere 300 ft from our destination, which I judged to be in one direction. But everyone was pointing in the other direction. Something was wrong (besides my hurting shin). Finally, I actually listened to the people - they were trying to be helpful - if we didn't want to take their taxi, it was ok, but they could tell that we had no clue where we were. I think that we finally asked if there was a dolmush into the center of town. They pointed across the street (many lanes) - and look - there it was! They made sure that it didn't leave until we got on. I think that Ed and I were talking to each other in English saying something like "now, we just need to figure out when to get off." A young man turned around, told us that he could speak English, and asked us which hotel we were going to. We told him, and he offered to take us there - it was pretty much on the way for him. He told us when to get off, and then we started walking to our destination. It was dark, and some of the roads were narrow and fairly deserted. The young man told us he was an electrical engineer going to the University, there. He winded his way until, behold, there was our hotel. However, he didn't just walk away, he went in to make sure that we had a room. It turned out that there were no rooms available (a first on our entire trip!), so he discussed with the person, and asked us if it was ok to go to another hotel down the street. Yes, of course. He took us there, made sure that they had room, and only then left. Soooooooo very helpful! I don't know how we could have found our hotel with out this young man's help.

Frequently, we would have to change buses - either from a big bus to another bus or dolmush before we attained our destination. Whenever that would happen, the person would repeat our destination, and then motion us to wait, and then would usher us onto the next vehicle. They seemed to take so much care to make sure that we reached our destination. They would use passengers to translate if there were any who could speak English. We always made our destination (excepting that first day to Goreme, which we are sure was just a mistake).

One time, we entered a bus station, and asked for our destination, I think it was Bolu, and the guy got excited and had us run after him out to where all of the buses were, and then had us follow him into the parking lot - Ed kept asking me "does this seem right to you?" and I just countered with "everyone has gotten us to our destination, before, right?" (forgetting about our first day). Finally, though, I noticed that there was a big bus parked on the highway - the man was flagging down that bus for us, saving us hours of waiting for the next bus.

A final comment: I can't remember where, but there was one place where the bus terminal looked just like an airport. It was abosolutely enormous! Unfortunately, they only stayed there a moment, so I couldn't go outside to take a picture, so you have to look through the bus window to get an inkling of just how enormous this place was:

leora

Dildo Valley

I know that this is what many of you were waiting for, so I thought that I'd cut to the chase:For more cerebral stuff, you'll have to wait a bit longer, however, I can give the short version:

Way too much second hand smoke: from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_demographics, 65% of males and 24% of females in the country smoke, but it felt like 99% and 65%.

FanTASTic scenery in the eastern (Ayder, Dogubeyazit, Van) and central (Cappadocia, from whence the picture, above, came) parts of the country, where we spent most of our time.

Wonderful people who made sure that we got to where we were going, sought out people who could speak to us, volunteered to help us WITHOUT thought of "compensation" (except for one unfortunate incident in Van), and IF they were negotiating for providing us a service were very up front about it. We followed lots of people around fairly blindly, and never had the problem we've encountered in other countries of someone just ripping us off (or worse, kidnapping us, given the news we constantly hear from that general area of the world!). No, people would tell us (or motion us) to "get on that bus", or "into that van" and then charged us extremely reasonable rates (many times verifiable by written rates, or just so ridiculously cheap that it didn't matter, although we could see others were being charged the same thing). That's not to say that we didn't get ripped off, ever, but we did so, knowingly, if stupidly ("He's asking us for X amount of money to show us A, B, and C - it's ridiculously high. Let's do it, anyway.").

Best hike: in the Kackar mountains from the town of Ayder. The guide felt that we did about 45km (about 28 miles) in that one day (about 27km(16.7 miles) of that was just on roads to get to/from the trails since it was off-season). Two pictures from that:

The lake we visited, and:

just some of the scenery from our mountain pass view.

The NEXT best hiking (and running!) was in Cappodocia.

Best food for me: these crepe-things filled with spinach, eggplants (aubergines, for you Europeans), and chili that we found in the undocumented (in the Lonely Planet guide) city of Bolu, and lentil soup that I tried to have for breakfast, lunch, and supper (frequently successfully!).

And. . . we crashed a wedding reception, and were forced to join in the merriment - it was a Kurdish wedding in the town of Van. We were just following the music, and the next thing we knew, we were part of the line dance at the inSIStence of the groom and guests!

leora

What's up with leora?

People have been complaining that they've not seen much of anything since the climbs way back in May. Since then, I've tried to summit several different mountains (Hood, a couple more times, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Jefferson), summited several (Adams a couple of times - I HAD to get on the summit of SOMETHING, and Adams is easy if doing the south side, which is what I did, St. Helens, Old Snowy, Ives, and Gilbert in the Goat Rocks Wilderness area), and took the Advanced Ice climbing class that the local mountaineering group, the Mazamas, offers.

So, now, it's time for VACATION!!! Yeah! 3 weeks in Turkey, with my high school era buddy, Ed (of previous trips, like Spain and Morocco, China, Peru and Chile, and Belize and Guatamala). I leave this Saturday. Our plan is to spend most of the time in the eastern (pretty) part in the mountains, on the Black Sea, near Lake Van, and over in Cappadoccia, where I'm looking forward to seeing what I call "the valley of the dildos" - which, if you can't figure out what it looks like, I'm sure that I'll have pictures that will make it really clear, when I return! Oh, yeah, we'll spend a couple of days in Istanbul. As usual, Ed has done all of the planning for what we'll be doing. . . On the way back, I get to spend a day in Frankfurt, Germany, (so that I can catch the non-stop from Frankfurt to Portland) and get to catch up with Addy, who, by luck or goodwill, will be town that weekend. I'll be back in Portland on November 19th, and back at work for the short Thanskgiving week on the 20th. And, no, I haven't been cut, yet (people hearing the news about Intel's layoffs keep asking me), but there's always a possibility, as cuts have been promised by Otellini all the way through mid-2007.

A couple of comments on the ice climbing: as relayed by our instructor, after doing vertical ice - almost anything on snow seems a cinch! I'm still not sure how I feel about vertical ice. Vertical feels like about 10 or 20 degrees overhanging to me. I wasn't doing so well scaling those crevasse walls, but if there was the slightest incline (80 rather than 90 degrees, say), it felt great, except, of course, that my calves didn't feel so great, as one has to have one's heals lower than one's toes, and to me, that is NOT a comfortable position. I hope to have some pictures of the ice climbing, eventually.

So, for those who like pictures, here are two favorites from this summer. One, by a friend, Jae, leader of our Rainier climb, while he was waiting for us down below him to get ourselves in order at about 12,000ft (~3650meters):

You should be able to click on the picture and see my cute little yellow tent in the middle of the picture. That is Adams in the distance. And between this, Rainier, and Adams, there is Goat Rocks Wilderness, that the same guy, Jae, led several climbs a couple months later, that I joined.

There was one scene that I just HAD to have in a picture to send to you all, but, wouldn't you know it, no camera was to be had at the time. So, what to do? I dragged someone else back there a couple of weeks, later, and I got my shot:

Goat Lake is nestled in the mountains on the left, and that's Mt. Rainier in the distance on the right, framed by the closer range just so perfectly.

After getting to the top of Old Snowy (a shorty at about 7900ft (~2400meters)), I had a photo taken with the same Goat Lake and Rainier in the background, but from that angle, it just didn't seem as spectacular to me, but I'll put it here, anyway, lest people complain that I'm not in the picture!

Ok - it's late, and I have a ton of stuff to do to get ready to head out! (US folks, don't forget to VOTE!!!)

leora

My private zoo

In April, the elk visited me several times, but sharp pictures with meaningful profiles were hard to get, and so I was happy to get this one:
A doe and her fawn visted in late July:
They first caught my attention when I saw something running away from the house, near my bedroom door. I went to see if I could see what had run by, and was treated to the fawn running in cirles in my backyard - round and round and round, and then kicking his back legs in the air. I managed to get a video of it, but couldn't upload it to the blog site (I think that the site only allows pictures, not videos).

A week later, there was another pair - the fawn looks different to me:


Alas, I saw just a deer in my yard about a couple of weeks ago, a couple of nights in a row (she seemed to like turning my motion-sensitive light on) with no sign of a fawn. . . It may be the same doe, or not - I couldn't tell in the dark, even with the garage light shining on her.

leora

A couple of climbs of Mt. Hood. . .

My return from that little island in the Pacific called "Taiwan" coincided nicely with the start of the snow part of my Advanced Snow and Ice class that I signed up for through the local mountaineering group, the Mazamas. The class consisted of lectures and playing in the snow, learning, and practicing, practicing, practicing placing anchors, belaying people, steep ascents and descents, and crevasse rescue. The class broke up into two groups one weekend (night of May 5th and early morning of May 6th) and climbed different routes up Mt. Hood. Our group went up what is called the East Crater Headwall, nicely shown here:

and here:
(this 2nd picture taken from "the Hogsback" on the south side of Mt. Hood, and looking east to where we'd gone up several hours, earlier.) The pictures for this climb are all compliments of one of the guys (Chris) in my class, who was on the other rope. We had 3 people to a rope, and 2 ropes in our group, and 5 people on one rope for the other group that went up a different route. The assistant for our Advanced Snow class was our group's climb leader, and he's the one who put in our "protection" - pickets buried in the snow, while climbing up the steepest part of the East Crater Headwall route. Since I was the last on the 2nd rope team, I "cleaned" the route, that is, I took out all of the pickets. You'll see them hanging off of me in another picture near the summit, later.

Here is a shot looking up the headwall route, with our illustrious leader putting in some protection for us:
Looks really cool, doesn't it?
And here, Chris is at the top of the headwall, looking down, taking a picture of the central person on my rope, and me:
Also pretty cool, eh? However, that wasn't, in my opinion, any big deal. The big deal, again, in my opinion, had yet to happen, and consisted of climbing around the gendarme (the peak-looking thing) that is pictured, here:
Doesn't look like such a big deal, does it?

Also in the above picture is the other group that took a different route up Mt. Hood. They took a much longer route, but walked faster than we, and so we met in the place where the two routes meet, which is getting ready for going around the gendarme. And here is the leader of our class, David, heading up, followed by another of that rope team:
His job (besides just climbing) is to put in protection for both of our teams, which now consisted of 3 rope teams. Again, I was last, and so the "cleaner" of the route, not wanting to leave any of our gear on the mountain. Now, this innocent looking little peak is very near the summit of the mountain. This means that it's high. On the back side of it, it drops down thousands of feet. When there, it looks like straight down, for those of us who haven't yet climbed vertical waterfalls (that's left to the Advanced Ice part of the class). . . I was sure that I would fall. I was hoping that my rope mates were paying attention, and that protection above me was firmly in place. Every time I put my foot down on some snowy ice crystals, I wondered if it would hold until I got my next foot placement. It was also at this time that I realized that I didn't exactly know how to use the "2nd tool" that I'd been given as part of this class. It's a shorter ice-axe looking piece of equipment. I whacked at the ice and rock, and when it stuck, I used it as leverage to pull or push myself up and around what appeared to me to be a rock face. Going around it, I saw a carabiner hooked into what looked like a bolt for sport rock climbing. In my altitude-induced wonderment, I was surprised that someone had "bolted" the route (it's a wilderness area - there are not supposed to be any bolts, here), and, furthermore, that David had actually found the bolt. I unhooked the carabiner, sling, and other carabiner that were attached to it, thinking that this was the best protection that I'd seen, yet, on the climb, and so sad to say goodbye to it, since that meant less protection, should I now fall. I looked down. I decided that that was a mistake, and decided to pay more attention to continuing the route around and up. The next part of the climb is pictured here:
where my rope mates are already on the other side of the gendarme, making their way to a ridge of snow, where they then sat and belayed me as I climbed up. In the next picture, you can see them in almost the same position, but you can see more clearly the snow ridge to which they were headed, and the nice drop off to the south side of the mountain from that snowy ridge. It's so hard to tell that the land that you can see in the distance behind them and downward is really, really, really far: Notice the rope between the two of my rope mates. They are some 60ft apart from each other, and I am another 60 ft behind the 2nd guy. When we got to the snowy ridge, the guys suggested that I lead the rest of the way to the summit, which was now a rather gentle slope up. Chris, on the summit, already, took a snap of me and my rope team!:
The amazing thing about this photo is that my rope team was apparently completely in line with me, and even though they are stretched out some 120ft behind me, are almost completely eclipsed by me. You can just see some orange of the middle guy between my legs, some 60ft behind me. In this picture, you can see the pickets hanging off of me. (They sound like cow bells when walking as they clang against each other.) In my right hand is the 2nd tool, and in my left, my normal ice axe. We spent just a little time on the summit, shifting gear, mostly from me to the others, and then waited in line to go down the south side of the mountain to the Hogsback, where the 2nd picture, at the start of this tale, was taken. This next picture is taken from the Hogsback, looking back up the South Side route. I could be one of those dots on the mountain coming down - not sure. You can just see the Bergschrund (crevasse) opening up just a little on both sides of the route:

While we were all on the Hogsback, taking off the rope, harnesses, crampons, giving each other our respective gear, the leader came by and asked me for his ice screw. Ice screw? What ice screw? OH NO!!!!!! You mean that "bolt" that I saw on the back side of the gendarme was actually an ice screw!?!?!? Everyone within earshot turned around and looked at me - "you mean you left the most expensive piece of equipment there on the mountain!?!?!?!" (They are in the area of $45-$55 dollars, each.) I was horrified! I turned around to David and assured him "David, I owe you a screw!" Of course, all those same people within earshot, now started giggling, and Chris suggested that now would be a good time to head down. I couldn't figure out why - he was so mad at me that I'd left that screw there? And then I realized that they were interpreting "screw," differently. . . I realized that even when speaking just plain English (as opposed to my previous gaffs in Chinese and Spanish), I manage to get myself into trouble. . .

My leaving the ice screw on the mountain was then the butt of many, many, many jokes for the rest of that weekend and following weekend. The ice screw, alas, was not found by anyone we know, and either was melted out, and went down the mountain, or was a nice score for some other climb group. . .

Last weekend, I was hoping that I could get someone to go with me up another route on Mt. Hood, but everyone was busy doing something else (the nerve!), so I decided to just go up the south side, after all, you saw the picture looking up from the Hogsback - just a walk up. . . Except. . . In between the May 6th weekend and this May 20th weekend were 2 weeks of record high temperatures in the Portland area. This left the Bergschrund quite exposed. It was HUGE. I looked at it. It stretched far to the left, and far to the right. Some guys from southern California came by and we assessed it. They didn't have a rope. Was there another way around? Hmmmmm. I decided that I wouldn't actually finish the climb this time and turned around to go. But, wait - there were a couple of guys going up unroped. I watched them. Then I watched another group go up, roped, and with protection. I walked around a little bit and realized that the snow was really, really nice. The likelihood of slipping was close to 0. It was nice and solid. And the fluffy stuff that was blowing around right then wasn't effecting the solid stuff. I decided to go up. I set off to go to the right of the crevasse. It was a bit steep. Hmmm, maybe not. . . Oh, for Pete's sake - if I'm not going to go up this, then why the heck did I spend all of that time the last month taking classes? I decided, once and for all, to go for it. There were nice huge "steps" that all of the people who went before me had made in the snow going up, and I just made sure that I planted my ice axe firmly to the hilt on every step, just in case one of the steps blew out, or I slipped or something else happened. I wasn't keen on being another statistic. On the way up, another group was going up, and one of the guys stopped and took this picture, which I absolutely love:

On the summit, I was sitting there drinking, eating, rearranging stuff. There was no view - visibility was poor due to the snow and clouds. It was a popular time on the summit, with some 4 or so little groups, there. At least 2 of them were guided. I discovered that the 2 guys that I thought went up unroped were, in fact, roped - I just couldn't see the rope between them, as it nicely disappeared in the snow. I started to worry about the trip down. Someone in one of the groups told me that they were the group that I'd passed in the middle of the night. I had been walking up, and post holed up to my hip, and then couldn't get my leg out! There was a group camped out on the rocks and I called over to them, asking them if they were wearing snowshoes, as I was concerned that the rest of the way would be like this, but they said no, and wondered if I'd had similar problems, earlier, which I assured them I hadn't. I had to take off my backpack, get my ice axe, and dig out my leg. Upon success, I walked by their little camp, and they asked me if I were going solo, and then offered me coffee, which I declined. So on the summit, this guy was telling me that they were that group, and then said, "yeah - we were talking about you all night!" One of the guys came over, asked me my name, took my picture, and then walked away, mumbling something about having to get me the picture, somehow, by email or something, but since he was walking away, I figured that that was that. I changed my glasses into goggles, as the wind was whipping up a bit, and then ran down to join one of the guided groups because I wanted to follow his route down. They had a nice route down, going down through what REALLY is "the Pearly Gates", and then swung around and down the left side of the crevasse. It was a nice descent, but my back was killing me from bending over so very much, since I wanted to be really sure that my ice axe was always firmly planted. . . Down on the Hogsback, the picture takers made it down while I was "refueling," and yelled out an email address that after a couple of spellings, I finally got right, so I was able to get the above picture, and this summit picture:
from the guy who took it and went away. . .

I asked my picture benefactor if he also had any of the crevasse so that you all could see how enormous it was, but with the snow fall and cloud that we were in, he just couldn't capture the sense of depth, and told me that it just looked like a pile of snow. . . Maybe I'll go up there, again, soon, and be able to take a picture of it in all its gaping glory. . .

I post holed one more time on the way down, and, again, had to dig my leg out. I'll swear it was around the very same spot as on the way up. . . Going down was more interesting than ever before, since this was the first time I went down while it was snowing and visibility was so poor. I followed someone else's footsteps all the way until I noticed a drop-off. A little check with the compass confirmed that I was heading toooooo far east, and just had to course correct and go south. I soon reached the ski slopes, from which it is a piece of cake to find the way down, even if it is a long slog, as they say. . .

The next day, when I was calling my Mom for her birthday, telling her that I'd survived yet another climb, I realized that that solo climb was 6 years to the day of my very first climb of Mt. Hood, when I didn't even know that there was a crevasse to worry about, and one of my team mates fell, pulverizing her ankle, causing us to stay an extra 8 or so hours on the mountain in order for the volunteer Portland Mountain Rescue folks to come and litter her out, setting her on her course of recovery which took over 2 years before she could start walking (she has climbed a mountain, since then). My mountaineering friends all yelled at me to take mountaineering classes after I admitted to being on the climb. . . I did, and, counting it up, this was my 22nd successful climb, and 7th successful climb of Mt. Hood. Not toooo shabby, considering I've been in PRC or Taiwan for a good part of the last 4 years. . . I hope that I can have many, many more successful climbs in the future, though!

Sorry this was so long, but I really, really wanted to share these climbs with everyone!!!! (This weekend - rafting!!!! Or, rather, inflatable kayaking, for me!)

leora

US-bound with bath towels

Gosh this is a tough week - saying good-bye to so many people who have become part of my daily life, so many fantastic people - all of my employees, my co-managers, other friends at work, hiking friends, family (Jeannie's), and friends of friends that are now friends. Last day *in* the office is tomorrow (which will be "today," very shortly!), and then I'm flying back on Sunday. I knew when I started that the months would fly by, and they have.

And I have so much to tell you all about, and so much that I've even written up, but haven't sent out, yet. I need to at least tell you about the bath towels. . .

I've had the pleasure and honor to be able to visit a lot of people in a lot of different houses, and stay over at a lot of different people's houses. If someone has lived in the US, before, it's a little different - they know the US ways, but for people who haven't, I sometimes am surprised by something that is so normal here, and not so normal in the US.

In general, when visiting people, here, along with your toothbrush and toothpaste, you're expected to bring your towel and soap. Well, I, of course, forgot this the first (and second and third) time I stayed overnight at someone's house. So, there I was, I needed a shower, and I'd forgotten to bring a towel with me. I requested one from my host. Sure!!!! He came back with a US-perspective "tiny" towel, which I thought was a kitchen towel (maybe 1-1/2foot by 2-1/2feet long?), and he proudly said "here you go!" It was obviously nice and new. Wow! Was I surprised! Besides my surprise, I remember asking myself how I was going to dry myself with that small piece of cloth. But then I thought about it. Here was a big guy giving a smaller me a "bath towel". Well, if HE can use something like this, than SURELY *I* can. I did, of course. And then I thought some more about it. Maybe that is why everyone has such small luggage when they travel, while my pack is pretty big. I started taking the towels that I bought for my kitchen dish towels (to dry dishes & hands) as my bath towel when travelling. At one point I realized that it's bigger than my US camping towel. . . My kitchen towel-cum-bath towel works, and it saves room. At home, I'll still be quite happy to use my big towels. . .

And home I shall be, in just a matter of days. I know that there are a ton of people that I'm forgetting to say goodbye to, here. I will just have to come back to say it, later, I guess. . .

Stay healthy.

leora

the art of survey taking. . .

I went to Taipei Eye with my cousins when they were here last week. There was a puppet show, and a little Chinese opera/dance show, as well as some free "tang yuan" - the hot soup with little chewy rice balls filled with various things, hand puppets for sale, a chance to see the actors and actresses putting on their makeup, and a myriad of other little sweet (as in nice) little things. . .

I was going through my stuff while packing for this trip that I'm on back to Oregon, and I noticed the survey for the little theater. I had to laugh - it asked questions and then had as the choices:

Excellent
Very Good
Good
Not Bad

It was very, very funny. Had to share. . .

Fire in the year of the dog; emergency 119; balding rain

The new year, the year of the dog, has officially begun. The year of the chicken is over. If you bear a child in this new lunar year, you can expect him/her to act like a dog. . . well, ok, I exaggerate, perhaps. The book I looked at mentioned honest and loyal, and keeps secrets well. Loyal - that's what I think of as a dog characteristic. And most dogs I know keep secrets very well, at least none have told me any. . . If you were born after Chinese new year in the years 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, or 1994, you're a dog. . . This is because, as many of you know, the Chinese zodiac system is a 12 year system.

(For the curious, after dog comes pig, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, and then chicken.)

Sometime around 10:30pm or so, someone rang my door, and, upon seeing me switched from Chinese to English and warned me that there was smoke coming out of the apartment across from me, and that they'd already called "911." Sure enough, I don't know if a minute had even passed by the time a (small) emergency vehicle, with siren howling showed up in front of the door, and some guys came in. I don't really know what they did. They seemed to have a conference in the hallway, and later, another. I'm not sure if they tried various ways of getting into the apartment or what, but I decided to get dressed into running clothes, in case I had to make a quick exit - might as well go for a run. . . Before I headed out, the door across the hall was open, and things seemed to be settled. I didn't see any big plumes of smoke or flames of fire, so I supposed that the quick exit would not be necessary. The "911" phrase kept running in my head, though. I thought that it was quite interesting. 911 is NOT the emergency number, here. 119 is. All that I can think is that the woman who told me this wanted to convey that emergency number had been called, so she translated it to 911 for me. .

I finally ventured out at 11:30pm for a run. The 3 temples that I passed before midnight were all open for business, although only one of them had people in it. One of them was very well stocked with the paper money ready to be bought to be burned in hopes of good fortune. I ran along the river during the midnight hour and was treated to a rather continuous display of fireworks. One place in particular seemed quite well stocked. Not only are they rather nice to look at, but they're also supposed to have the practical purpose of scaring away the evil spirits. One store I ran by had someone firing off an amazing sparkling, noisy firework candle thingie - right on the sidewalk, so about 2 feet max from the front of the building, and a foot away from the scooters parked in front. I started imagining scooters exploding, and backed farther away. Since the houses all are made of cement with metal doors, I guess that fires aren't such a fear, but it still freaks me out. Another store had someone throwing in the paper bought from the temple into the little burning container in front of his house or store, which resulted in a roaring fire, again, just about a foot or two in front of the door. The container looks like:

This particular one was just inside the front door of my apartment building. There is another one near the door on the roof of the apartment building. These containers are used very often - at least twice a month.

I did pass a couple of apartments where it was clear that there was a big gathering, but not so many - possibly due to the great exodus from Taipei, although I couldn't tell much other evidence of that. I'll see what the traffic looks like on Monday.

I returned soaking wet, due to the rain. Which reminds me, did you know that rain on your head can make you bald? Well, that is the theory, here. I don't know if it is a new idea, due to acid rain, or a long held belief, but I was reminded of it when I saw a man with a tiny square handkerchief covering his head on my run. I was thinking that that makes a poor umbrella, but then I remembered the warning I'd been given by others when I've gone hatless in the rain. . .

Keep dry, be safe (wear round jade things to be protected), and may you have a healthy and prosperous year of the dog!!!

leora

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! On the Gregorian calendar (no, it's not named after me in any way), the calendar which is used in the universal time codes for things like earthquake recordings, Chinese New Year's eve is January 28th, and Chinese New Year's Day is January 29th. This is definitely the holiday season, here. I can feel it. In fact, I've been feeling it all year round, since people have been talking about it since before I got here: "will you be there for Chinese New Year this time?" And then, for the last couple of months, the questions and planning and discussions have been going on pretty constantly, with the frequency getting higher as we neared this day. In the last couple of days, discussions of hongbao (red envelope that contains money) have really increased. The guys in the group that I call my "sons" started demanding hongbao (meaning money), and then I found another employee getting the hongbao ready for her and her husband's parents. I had them explain, and got a few more explanations from others, and came up with, in general, when you are a kid, you get hongbao from your parents and aunts and uncles, and then when you become an adult, it's payback time, with interest. . . You start giving it to your parents, especially if they are retired. Armed with this new information, I went back to my "sons" and started demanding hongbao from them! Of course, none of us were serious, but it sure helped to get some explanations about the finer points of who gives hongbao to whom. . .

Also, it seems that children get very demanding about this hongbao, which, to me, as a westerner, borders on downright rudeness, but doesn't appear to be taken in a rude way at all, here. I got a taste of this when I started saying "gong xi fa cai" to people, a phrase I'd learned more than 20 years ago from Jeannie, which means "congratulations, become rich" but is a common greeting that I had always thought simply meant "happy new year," since that's what everyone said to each other at this time. Anyway, now that I understand the translation, having the response be "hongbao na lai" something like saying "where is the red envelope?" makes a heck of a lot of sense. It's sort of like saying "I'm happy to have you contribute to my becoming rich", which no longer seems rude.

In Taiwan, you're supposed to go visit the parent's of the man's side of the family on New Year's eve and Day, and then on January 2nd (of the lunar calendar, so, January 30th on the Gregorian, this year), you're supposed to visit the parent's of the woman's side. This has a whole bunch of interesting ramifications. For example, this means that if you are Mom and Dad, you can expect to see all of your sons and their families on New Year's Day, and all of your daughters and their families on the 2nd, but you won't have ALL of your kids, together, during that time of year.

Since a big percentage of all of the people who live in Taipei are actually from somewhere else in Taiwan, and have only moved up here for their jobs, many families head down to their hometowns. No-where is *really* far in Taiwan, of course, but even a 5 hour ride is considered a fair distance for people like me, especially for just a couple of days. So, if you're a man and your family heads down to southern Taiwan to be with your side of the family, and your wife is from the north of Taiwan, this could present a problem, and, indeed, does, for many families, since this January 2nd at the wife's family is a very, very strong tradition (no matter if you spend most of the rest of the year near your wife's family! People can be very irrational when traditions are concerned. . .). For all of those folks who married someone from their hometown, they get to avoid this mess.

I've heard a few firecrackers, but not what I'd been expecting. I hope to stay up to midnight to see if anything special happens, then, but I'm suspecting not, since the new year celebrations seem much more about spending time being with the family. I seem to remember that this is supposed to be a 10 day festival, but that, in the new era, lots of people just take the week off, and certainly all of the companies give the week off. I met a couple of Americans flying to Taiwan for the holiday, so that they could do all of the maintenance to various equipment while everyone was on holiday. It was funny, since their perspective is always of a Taiwan in festival. . .

Speaking of Chinese New Year, and family. . . here is a picture of parents, my brother, and me, taken on my parent's 49th wedding anniverary, taken in Michigan, at my Brother's house (I didn't notice, but it's kind of cute that there is an anniversary clock in the background, above my head - how fitting). leora

Weather, hikes

First, the weather - The lowest I've seen, here, has been about 9C (48F) on the SongShan Airport thermometer that shines out across the road from my place (I have to walk to the corner to actually see it, so I only see it when going to and from work). Invariably, it goes down to 9C and starts to rain for a week when I have visitors, and then the sun comes out and the temperature shoots up to about 27C (81F), when they leave. . .

On one of the Richard Saunders hikes, I lucked out because our fearless leader's roommate had a car, and joined us, and there were only 4 of us, so we went around to the far side of Yangmingshan Park, where the buses don't go, and we went up the 2nd highest mountain in the park (Juzhi Shan). This was particularly nice because, besides being a dirt path, we got to fight our way through a short bamboo jungle up the side of the mountain. The views out to the sea were spectacular. And I can gloat, because I was on a mountain that few of my native Taiwan friends and none of my employees have scaled. (I've since taken a few up!).

Two weeks before that, I went up the highest mountain (cising) in YangMingShan Park, which is about 1120 Meters (around 3675ft) high, which, while it was a concrete stair climb was still quite enjoyable because of the group I went up with. It is an incredibly popular hike because it's pretty easy to get to the trailhead, goes to the highest peak in the park, and is very short (only about 5km (3 miles) ROUND TRIP!). There was a slightly shorter peak that we went to on the way to our goal, and as we glanced over to our destination, we saw that there seemed to be a lot of people, there. Part-way there, we decided to break while we waited for a bunch of people to leave, and saw a big group of maybe 30 or so depart, so we thought we'd have it to ourselves. HA!!!! There were probably another 100 or so people up there!!!!!! It seems that there was a company outing, so a lot of folks and their families were up there having a big picnic lunch. We took a couple of pictures to prove we'd made it, took in the views (unfortunately hampered by the pollution, that day), and went back to the other peak and were greeted by one of our group members making tea for us!!! (He was willing to make coffee, but most of us wanted tea. . .) No roughing it, here!

Oh, and on the way to meet up with the crew to go to Cising mountain, I took the bus. On some buses, you have to pay when you get on, and on others, you have to pay when you get off. You have to pay attention to the Chinese characters that are lit above the bus driver's head when you get on to know when to pay. This particular one was pay as you leave. I'd had very little sleep the night before (had a meeting that I presented at until 2:30am in the morning), and I was busy staring at the Chinese characters on the screen of the bus, where it said what each stop was in advance in both Chinese and English. I guess that I was sort of daydreaming, because all of a sudden, I realized that it was my stop, so I leaped off of the bus. I heard the bus beep, and in my fog, I turned around, very slowly, I guess, as the bus was continuing on, but I realized that the driver was beeping at me, because I'd forgotten to pay! I'm a criminal in Taiwan. . .

Do you know what the biggest news is here (specifically, in Detroit), right now?

(I wrote this for my Taiwan team, and then decided to send it out to others who may not be so familiar with Detroit, Michigan's biggest city, as well as other tid-bits).

The biggest news is. . . The SUPER BOWL!!!!! I'm not sure if you know that that is some football (American football, not soccer) game. It seems that it moves around, and it seems that this year, the Super Bowl (the football game over which some marriages end. . .) will be in Detroit. My parents told me that it's on the news every single night, and has been on the news for the last month. They can't wait until it's over, and it disappears from the news. . .

Today, it went all the way up to 3C (37F). My Dad was musing, yesterday, when the high temperature was around -4C (24F), that it was soooo warm. "Hard to believe that it's January because it's so warm. . ."

Famous things in Detroit: The MOTOR CITY!!!! Yes, folks, this is where it all began. This is where the first moving assembly line for cars, well, for anything, actually, was created. The Model T rolled off the line many years ago (in 1913), here, in Detroit! Henry Ford's contribution to history! Actually, he had another huge contribution to history: he realized that his workers could become potential customers of their own work, IF they earned enough money, so Ford paid them what was considered a lot of money in that era. From "http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt13as.html" it says "Ford was called 'a traitor to his class' by other industrialists and professionals, but he held firm in believing that well-paid workers would put up with dull work, be loyal, and buy his cars." This set the stage for high wages for this type of work, in the US. We will see if it lasts through the globalization process.

This is also where all the "Motown" (for "Motor City") songs came from. "Standing in the Shadow of Love" "Whenever you are near, I hear a Symphony" "Heard it through the Grapevine" and soooo many more. . . (REAL, singable, music. . .)
Detroit is also famous, well, infamous, for some other things, like:

• the 1967 race riots - I remember the tanks rolling down the streets - and we weren't allowed onto the streets after some hour in the evening
• Murder Capital of the world (i.e., we had the greatest number of murders here for a number of years while I was growing up - had to be proud of something - Yeah! We're number one in murders!) I remember having 800 or 801 one year. Just think, this was the city that had the most killings, not the only killings. We're pretty darned good at killing our own. We don't even need a war! I noticed that Detroit is down to about #5, now, with fewer than 400 murders per year (a small number unless you happen to be one of the lucky fewer than 400 people. . .) But, then, the population has shrunk to less than 1,000,000, when the all-time high was around 1,850,000 in 1950. Let's see, 400 a year. . . Nope even over a period of 50 years, that's "only" 20,000. . .never mind. . .

Detroit also totally surrounds 2 other cities: Hamtramck and Highland Park, which I think is a neat thing. . .(I lived in Highland Park in my early formative years.)

And then, there is Romeo, where my parents really live - 32 miles north of Detroit. We know that, because the big roads are set 1 mile apart, and named in "mile" roads north of Detroit. Some "mile" roads also have other names (like Big Beaver is 16 Mile Road). My parents live just south of 32 Mile Road.

Romeo is famous for peaches!!! It has a Peach Festival every year, and there is a Peach Queen selected. There are parades, art shows, home tours, garden tours, rides, and more. However, most of the peach orchards (and, later, apple orchards) are now gone, most becoming subdivisions. This is very sad as there used to be such a fantastic variety in peaches, here, and ohhhh so yummy! (I know, Cedric would disagree, since he likes those hard, lightly flavored, crunchy things called "peaches" that we have in Taiwan. . .)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to celebrating my parent's 49th wedding anniversary this Friday. I went to one of my Mom's medical meetings, tonight, and the other couple at the table had been married for 53 years, and told us that their four children had bought them a luxury cruise down the Panama Canal. Geez. Did I HAVE to sit at THAT table? Did they HAVE to tell my parents about that? The pressure mounts - what will my brother and I do for our parent's 50th?

Bags and Mosquitoes

Soon after I arrived in Taipei, last year, I met up with another expat whom I'd contacted to find out about his experiences. When he greeted me in Taipei, he gave me a cloth bag filled with something that looked like a shortish-handled`badmitten racket. The bag, he said, was a reusable shopping bag, so that I wouldn't have to keep buying plastic bags at the stores. The "badmitten" racket, was for mosquitoes. . .

First, the bag. I don't know if Taiwan ever had the brown paper bags for placing grocery items, as is very prevalent in the US. When I went to Taiwan some 25 years ago, everywhere there were plastic bags. The concept hadn't moved to the US. I thought they were neat. They were neat, but soon, the government of Taiwan recognized that there was a real garbage problem, and mandated charges to customers for the plastic bags. All the stores had to comply, but the street vendors are exempt. I read, somewhere, that this helped the garbage problem a little, but I don't have hard facts. . . I reuse my bags, and try to avoid having any vendors give me plastic bags, but, in spite of that, my plastic bag collection is still growing.

Now, the mosquitoes. The expat assured me that there would be mosquitoes, and that the solution was this racket thing. It has a little button on the handle, and when pressed, makes the paddle part of the racket become an electrocution machine. . . Fortunately, I went through the whole summer and never saw a mosquito in my apartment. Then came winter. Something happened. First, it was just one in a week, but gradually, it progressed to multiple mosquitoes in a night, which is annoying because 1) I get itchy mosquito bites if they manage to get to me, 2) I'm not really keen on all of the neat little diseases that they like to spread, and 3), they're noisy and wake me up when I'm sleeping (assuming that the upstairs neighbors haven't already done that. . .). So, enter the mosquito racket - push the button and swat at the air, and be happy when the sparks start flying. It's like having one of those bug zappers that people hang out in their yards in the US, except that there's no cage around it, so don't test it out with your fingers, as seems the natural inclination of all of us who are curious about it. . . ZAP!

FYI, I just made it to Michigan for the week of home leave that I get for this assignment that I'm on. I'll be back in Taiwan well before the January 29th Chinese New Year, and am looking forward to an empty Taipei as everyone promises me that folks head out to the home towns in the south of Taiwan for the week's holiday.

Happy New Year! (Xin Nian Kuai le!)

In Traditional Chinese characters: (these characters might not show for some of you)

My co-manager, Barry, invited me over to his place to have hot pot with his family, and ring in the new year with Chinese tea (is that why I'm still awake?) and watch the fireworks display at Taipei 101 (the tallest building in the world, which I FINALLY went up a couple of weeks ago, thanks to one of my guests). The display was highly dramatic - there are many lights on Taipei 101, and they use them to full effect, and at each section of the building shoot off fireworks. And we saw it all from the comfort of Barry's living room. We could hear the fireworks through the glass - he lives at most a mile away from the building. Mostly white fireworks coming out of the building. And, at the top, the lights spelled out 2006 on the north side and Taipei 101 on the west side, and, on both sides, BAVARIA by Sony. I have no idea what BAVARIA is, and neither did anyone in Barry's family. But, we know that whatever it is, it's by Sony. I'm assuming that Sony foot the bill for at least some of the fireworks.

Anyway, I've got to get up in about 6 hours for another hike (can't miss that!), so I have to get to bed, but wanted to help ring in the year for those of you who are just a little behind (tee hee). . .

Happy New Year! May you all have good health in the year and years to come!

I'm providing a slightly blurry picture of Taipei 101 a couple of days before Christmas, to show a sample of the light display, which, in this case depicted a christmas tree. I didn't bring my camera for the New Year's event, so no pictures of that. . .


leora
P.S. I've only 3 more months here in Taiwan! Time is flying. . .

The lights do go out, 0 hour, and the year is still 94

I guess that this is the first day that I ran after midnight, here. I thought that I'd done it, before, but this time, many of the streets were different, and I, who am used to running in the dark at home in Oregon on the dark logging roads, noticed that oh, the lights are no longer on. The streets and parks that I was running through were all dark, light only eminating from the apartment buildings and stores along the way (which provided plenty light - dark is really a very relative term, here). The well-lit hi-lite, OK, and 7-eleven stores stay well-lit and brighten up everything for quite a ways.

I ran by a thermometer/clock that read 0:00, and was thinking that it was malfunctioning, and then realized that here, where the 24 hour clock is used on any digital display, it was midnight. The temperature was 19C, by the way (66F), and 20C (68F) on the airport clock next to my house (where it always reads 1 or 2 higher). I'm still looking forward to it dipping down a bit more to where I can wear long sleeves and maybe even a jacket to work, but I can't complain too much, since it sure beats the higher temperatures of the summer.

I was reminded, today, that here, it's the year 94, for the 94th year of the establishment of the Republic of China. Conveniently, it started Jan 1, 1911, so one only has to add 1911 to the Taiwanese year to get the Gregorian Calendar year. People here tend to remember, when they are speaking English to change the year for us foreigners (but sometimes forget, causing great confusion - you were born WHEN?), and also to subtract a year from their age, since they consider themselves 1 year old the day that they are born. I can also usually get two birthdays out of most people - one for the Gregorian (solar) calendar and another for the lunar calendar, a calendar that is closely watched for those interesting holidays, and lucky days to get married.

Ok, I must get to bed. I still have a ton more things to tell you all about. . . I just have to find the time to write it all!

Tang Yuan & and the first day of winter

Like the southern states of the US, it doesn't exactly get "cold," here, when winter starts, even though people here consider it so. I mean, how cold is 10C (50F), anyway? That's about the coldest I've seen it get here, so far, but of course, today is the start of winter, so maybe there is colder to come (looking forward to that!). Of course, 10C *is* considered cold, even to me, if I'm inside a building and that's what it is, inside. So, what is odd, at least to me, is that not so many people here have heat in their apartments/houses. Some companies don't have heat in their office-buildings, either. And even, here, where we *do* have heat, and the temperature is the same as if it were summer, people wear their down jackets. I find it very funny, and even took a picture of a couple of my team members with their jackets on in the normal course of their work. . .

So, for this first day of winter, the tradition, here, is to eat Tang Yuan, which is a nice hot soup of gooey rice balls. The rice balls can be smallish round balls, or they can be rather largish (US quarter-sized) with "stuff" in them. The "stuff" can be a watery paste of sesame (my favorite), peanut, red bean, or possibly others that I've yet to see.

So, happy winter to you all (I know that I've heard that Oregonians are enjoying a nice snow and not so nice freezing rain)!

leora

Typhoon Longwang, WHO video, a REAL hike

While my friends in Shanghai and Beijing are enjoying the National Day holiday (commemorating the now 55th year of the current government), we here in Taiwan are awaiting the onslaught of our 4th direct hit typhoon this season. Imagine - Taiwan is this tiny little island about 245miles long by 90 miles wide (394km by 144km for you Europeans, Aussies, Africans, and Asians. . .), and the typhoons completely envelope the island. When I looked at the US map and the area that suffered the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, it looked to be about the size of Taiwan, and this is Taiwan's 4th. . . The wind is picking up - I'm starting to hear the howling that I experienced with the first typhoon this season. . .

Well, I think that we'll survive.

I was forwarded this video url (WHO video) that is about Taiwan not being a member of the World Health Organization, a video published on the Taiwan's Department of Health website in May of this year (unfortunately, the video disappeared from the Department of Health's website, and so the url now points to one that is of lower quality, but does have the same content). This, of course, could spark political controversy, which I'm not really interested in doing in this list, but I did want people to see it, because I am extremely impressed with how well a whole bunch of unique-to-Taiwan images, as well as "Chinese cultural" images, were captured in that video. There are images of native-people-to-Taiwan dancers, a dragon boat race, lantern festival, Chiang Kai Shek memorial, a plane landing at what looks like the Taipei Municipal Airport, someone playing the Erhu (a 2-string instrument, and one that is being played for the music in the video - sounds somewhat like a viola), picking Guava (a very popular fruit, here - maybe by the time I leave, I'll understand why. . .), Taipei 101 (currently the tallest building in the world), the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit system) in Taipei, people showing the peace sign when people are taking their picture (index and middle finger creating a V), the sulphur vents in Yangmingshan Park, the red lanterns that decorate many streets and temple areas, the ocean with that majestic sky - sun streaking through the clouds, the Daoist temples, a big family gathering around a round table with tons of food, people doing exercises in a public park early in the morning, a waterfall with a flowering tree which was taken in TianShan - a snapshot of which I have from when I visited Taiwan 25 years ago for the first time with Jeannie and her then boyfriend, and now husband, David. Hey, the only thing missing in the video is a radar picture of a typhoon covering the island on the zoom-out at the end! (The wind is really picking up as I write this.)

On to hiking, which I've been wanting to talk about for months, now. . .I've been doing a lot of hiking here in Taiwan - various friends and colleagues have taken me hiking to various places, mostly around Taipei (there are several "mountainous" areas around Taipei - YangMingShan Park (Shan means Mountain), and GuanYin Shan), and I was put in touch with an English bloke (pianist) who has written a couple of Taipei area hiking books and who has some regularly scheduled hikes. Going with him (Richard Saunders, in case you're interested in purchasing his books, which come highly recommended by other hikers), has been very interesting, since it was the first time that I'd really gone out with anyone except for the locals, excepting my first week, and times when managers came from the US. People on the hike were from all over the world: Germany, Montreal, South Africa, France, Malaysia, Australia, with mixed abilities in Mandarin. The common language was English. Many of these people had lived all over the world, so it was interesting to hear of their experiences and find out what they liked and didn't like everywhere. One guy was telling me how he loved Hong Kong, and wasn't too impressed with Taipei, and then about 5 minutes later, I was talking to someone else who loved Taipei, and didn't care for Hong Kong! I told them that they should talk to each other. . . What people notice and care about, and what they can ignore is all very interesting.

Mostly, hiking in YangMingShan park, there are cement or rock trails and steps. Tons of steps. Un-even steps. And more steps. And more cement. It's rather rough on the feet, and the knees. And it's all covered with a nice thin layer of moss which turns especially slippery when wet. It was nice when a friend of a friend got a friend of his to take a bunch of us for a hike on one of the "challenging" hikes in YangMingShan park. There was a lot of stone and cement, but there was also a section where there was an extremely steep dirt and rock trail. There were ropes strung from tree to tree so that we could hang on as we went up or down the steep incline. We wore gloves. Here's a picture of us just before we descended. We all had shiny new gloves (the common painting and everything else work glove, here), which were soon not so shiny and new. . .




And here's a picture of a descent:

And then, last weekend, I did another Richard Saunder's hike - which was kind of sort of in the country-side to a nice waterfall, and then a couple more small hikes on Saturday, and then, a real treat, a REAL hike on Sunday. Sunday's hike had been planned weeks in advance, by my apartment's owner's agent, now friend (also now "gan meimei" - sort of adopted little sister), Amy. Amy said that we were going for a nice hike south of Taipei - a place called ManYueYuan near SanXia - and she would cook us a nice picnic lunch. Our little group consisted of Amy and two of her friends, whom I'd previously met, and one of my hiking employees at work, Simpson. People were asking me what I was going to do for weeks in advance, and I told them I had no idea, no idea how we were going to travel (I had assumed by train, since we were to meet at the Taipei City Main Train station), and no real understanding of where or what sort of hike it was. But it didn't matter, since none of the hikes were too difficult, and I didn't care, particularly, where I was going. It was a new place! Great! Let's go! Amy did say something about not having gone with this "climbing" group, before, but her English, while very good, leaves room for some differences in terms for describing things. When we all met at the train station, we were directed to a bus. On the bus, people with trekking poles, backpacks, and gaiters covering their lower legs got on. Amy commented on how "professional" they looked. The hike leader greeted me in English, and gave me the brochure, in Chinese, of all of their future hikes. And then gave me one with our current hike. The only thing that I could read was that we were going to be going 17km (10.5 miles). It made me a little concerned for my little sisters (Amy & her 2 friends), since 2 of them were dragging on our short little walk around the "town" of DanShui a month or so, earlier. However, I assumed that they all knew what they were doing, and I had been the only clueless one.
Later, I discovered that they thought that they were headed to a nice little park, where we would pretty much look around and take in the views, and have our little picnic. Instead, we all climbed 2 peaks, with a lot of ascending and descending. And with these hiking clubs, the good thing is, you get dumped off at one end of the trail, and picked up at the other end. The bad thing is, if you make a mistake, and think that you're going on a short hike for a nice picnic and views, you still have to do the whole hike. There is no turning back, just pushing forward . . My little sisters bravely trudged on, and completed the entire hike, not that they had a whole lot of choice. . . I remember Amy's elation when she made the top of the peak. I don't think that she understood that she was at the top of the FIRST peak at that time. Here is a picture of Patty and Amy, thinking that they had arrived! They had conquered! Before they understood that they still had another, higher, peak to climb and at least 1/2 of the hike yet to go. . .


This picture is looking North, by the way. Taipei is in the northern part of the island. Isn't it impressive how many mountains there are? We were not that far south of Taipei.
This hike crossed streams, was all dirt, except for the very beginning and end of the hike. The end of the hike was in a resort area, and so steps were provided - fortunately, most were wood. It was a very nice hike, even if my little sisters weren't expecting it. . . Little sister Debbie wrote up her tale of woe, and put more pictures on the web at:
http://spaces.msn.com/members/franbie/ (look at her September 25th entry, which she kindly translated into English for me, and at the photo album in the upper right hand corner, select the button that allows you to see the "full size" pictures, and then select the album that has a 9 and 25 and "car" in the name. She and Patty tried to capture how steep the trail was in places.)
I just noticed that on one website (http://www2.blogger.com/www.typhoon2000.com) our Typhoon has been classified as a category 4 (wind gusts of 131 to 155 miles per hour) expecting to hit Central Taiwan. However, even here, about 100 miles away, the wind is really howling now, and the rain is coming down quite steadily.
Dang - no hiking, tomorrow. . .
leora