To celebrate the pending “expansion” of PatandMeg.com, Meghan was kind enough to let Pat tear across the country on his motorcycle, and play the mud with a bunch of other goofballs for the weekend in Colorado. You can follow his adventures on on Advrider, complete with witty commentary and stunning (well, mostly mediocre) photography.

You can also fulfill your big brother dreams and track Pat’s progress across the country, brought to you by Satellite tracking devices and Internet Elves (note that this only shows updates from the past 7 days).

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I know, I know, I’ve been pretty bad with updates on this trip, despite being gone for a month. There were several highlights to this visit: my first trip to Beijing, two visits to the Great Wall, a side trip to Xi’an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors and most exciting, Meghan joining me for the last 8 days. The last point was perhaps the most exciting; I’ve deluged Meghan with stories about all the crazy and wonderful things that happen out here, from the traffic and Chinese lack of respect for lines, to the dirty air and beautiful buildings and now she finally had a chance to experience it herself.

This trip started with some “old hat:” a flight into Hong Kong and a fairly boring evening spent at the Sheraton Hong Kong. I generally don’t sleep particularly well on the flight to HK, so upon arrival the best I can do is get to the hotel, unpack my toiletries and promptly hit the sack, generally waking up at some ungodly hour due to jet lag. Luckily it was a fairly nice morning, and I walked along Victoria Harbor taking a few pictures and taking in Hong Kong’s amazing skyline before taking the ferry over to Shenzhen in mainland China.

Being a China veteran I knew to pass the “hustle taxis:” unlicensed taxi drivers that had a good enough command of English to understand China neophytes and make them comfortable, then charge them 200 Yuan for a ride that should be 12.50. I walked to the hotel, settled in and then began work the next day. The purpose of the trip was to make presentations and gather information from three different business units, and the first several days went off without a hitch. I spent Friday evening out on the town with a few colleagues near my hotel, and then spent Saturday night in Hong Kong with a coworker at the very flashy W hotel. Not one to fit in with the “beautiful people,” we found a night market and outdoor restaurant where we were able to enjoy 6 rounds of Tsing Tao beer for around $120HK (about 12 USD). My buddy was a bit more of a hipster, so we made our way to one of the HK hotspots and I was shocked by a $260HK tab for two drinks. Not having anyone to impress, I’ll stick to the street from now on!

The following day my friend and I returned to Louhu Commercial City, the 5 story market with everything from counterfeit iPods and clothing to jade jewelry and bicycles. I’ve described the utter chaos that is shopping at this type of mall in a previous email, and must confess that I’ve come to really enjoy it. Once you get past the standard marketing pitch of someone grabbing your arm and shouting “HEY MISTER! YOU LOOK NOW! GOOD QUALITY! YOU BUY NOW!” it’s actually quite fun. I developed a defense for the touts that hang out by the escalators at each floor, who follow you around endlessly asking: “Hey mister. What are you looking for? Copy watch? North Face? Camera? iPhone? Sexy massage? What are you looking for?” About the third time they ask what I am looking for I look them straight in the eye and say something ridiculous that they likely won’t understand, my favorite being “Redemption.” Stumped, they finally admit defeat and seek an easier mark.

I love the art of bargaining in China, the seller punching an insanely high amount into the calculator, and me responding with an equally insulting lowball offer, both of us feigning disgust as the counteroffers, insults, compliments, and grave mumblings fly. I’ve learned to say “pretty girl” in mandarin (it sounds like the English word “menu” with a bit of extra ewe on the “U”) so when they butter me up with “You are so handsome” I can play right along . One of my highest bargaining compliments came in Beijing when I scored two pairs of “Puma” sneakers for about $12 US, and the seller, frowning gravely said “Feel good price for you, feel BAD price for me!”

In addition to bargaining, I’ve come to enjoy the “interesting” English translations that abound in China. At the request of my client, I now have a Blackberry that has an unlimited international data plan which allows me to post frequent picture updates on Facebook and via email so I’ve captured some of the more colorful examples and I am hopeful that the Chinese get a good laugh out of whatever strange translations we’ve placed in Chinatowns across the US. Perhaps the highlight of the bad translations (no, I am not making this up) was a sign for an apartment building in HK that proudly advertised the “GOFUKU Towers.” This was even better than the “Yuppie Building” in Beijing and perhaps equal of the sign that advised that “Drunkards and insane people are prohibited” on the cable car up the Great Wall.

The next week was fairly uneventful until Friday, when the team flew up to Beijing. For a reason unbeknownst to me, our team leader decided to fly out of HK rather than the local airport in Shekou, which generally would not have been a problem save for the Swine Flu scare. HK is considered an international border, so we were prodded by officials in medical coats, subjected to a questionnaire and a thermal camera at each side of the flight. Given a clean bill of health, we arrived in the amazing Beijing airport, my first clue to the fact that every top-notch architect and civil engineer is apparently welcome to express his or her most daring and innovative ideas in Beijing. From airports, bridges, train stations and skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes, the communist style of drab concrete block structures apparently has been long dead and buried in Beijing. Structures that seem impossible or impractical abound, with modern steel and glass within eyeshot of traditional Chinese wood buildings that are hundreds of years old. I’m still not sure whether I’m more impressed by the whimsical modern structures or the ancient temples and palaces held together with elaborate wooden joints that don’t use a single nail.

Our team spent the weekend visiting all the tourist sites, from the Great Wall to the Forbidden City and the various markets around Beijing. Travelling with six adults of various levels of endurance, degrees of whininess and varying demeanor made me all the more eager for Meghan to arrive on Thursday.

Work flew by, the one highlight being a visit out to a Chinese factory my client is considering acquiring. I love manufacturing in general, and was excited to see what was behind “Made in China.” No one from the client’s local office was available to escort me to the factory, so I was left to my own devices to get to its location, in a town about 100 miles to the southeast. A train was suggested, and high-tech Beijing did not disappoint. I took a car to Beijing South Station, an incredibly modern and airy building that rivals most international airports I’ve seen. Being a high roller, I sprung for the extra 10 Yuan (around a dollar) to upgrade to a first class seat, and found myself on the ultra-modern high-speed rail connecting Beijing and the city of Tian Jin. The display in the car indicated we were cruising at 340km/hr, or just shy of 200 mph, blasting through fields and countryside at a pace that puts Amtrak to shame.

After some trouble finding the factory, and my taxi driver and I delighting in the stoic silence induced by mutually incomprehensible languages, I finally arrived. The factory was about what I expected, and would likely cause minor heart palpitations in an OHSHA inspector. No safety goggles or eye wash stations were to be found, and three dogs lounged next to the CNC machines. The reception hall was given over to an impressive looking ping pong table, and I was later informed that after 5PM there were “table tennis” sessions between all employees.

The owner took me to an amazing place for lunch. It was essentially a giant greenhouse, completely made of glass and filled with all manner of tropical plants inside, including a faux “river” running through the jungle that was inhabited by two seals. A menu would be far too gauche for such a place, and to select your food you entered a room with about 60 fish tanks where you could select your fish, crab or lobster, and a wall with pictures of the approximately 100 meal choices, each plated and displayed on a counter below the picture. I deferred to my hosts, and we were escorted to our table, which was surrounded by a thicket of live bamboo, making it seem like you were the only person eating in a strange and intimate jungle. Living up to Chinese standards of efficiency, the food was delivered by waiters on roller skates, who tore through the jungle at high speeds with overloaded trays. Despite the intimacy, my host told me that the restaurant could seat approximately 6000 people on two floors.

I made the mistake of informing my host that I enjoyed Chinese beer, and he ordered me a large pitcher of the house brew (apparently there was a micro-brewery somewhere in the jungle) and proudly announced “We will drink the delicious beer!” It was extremely tasty, having a smoky finish that I’ve never experienced in a beer and giving me pause to consider that I was in an unfamiliar city in a strange country, having one of the tastiest beers I’ve ever drank in an indoor jungle, next to a live seal during business hours AND getting paid for it!

On Thursday evening I met Meghan at the airport. Apparently she was given the 5th degree in terms of medical screening, with people in biohazard suits boarding the plane and looking for anyone making oinking noises or smelling like bacon, both clear indicators of the swine flu, at least as I understand it. Meghan and I spent the next day doing some easy touring around Beijing, and visiting the Forbidden City. We also visited the Great Wall, neither of which I can describe with any justice, save to say that both were structures I remember staring at in grade school social studies books, daydreaming about who could ever build such marvels and trying to repress the tiny glimmer of hope that I would one day see them with my own eyes, a possibility that seemed so remote as to not even be worth considering.

On Sunday we headed to the airport for the flight to Xi’an, a city in the northwest of China and home to the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was hear I solidified my “theory of third place,” which states that every city in China is the third <something> after Beijing and Shanghai. Shenzhen was the third richest. Tian Jin was the third largest, and Xi’an had the third highest number of universities. I would imagine that even the most remote farming village has the third highest number of Maoist cattle or some other third place claim to fame.

The city itself was fairly standard for China: overcrowded, polluted and filled with drivers, bikers and walkers careful balanced on a fine line between life and death. Xi’an does have one of the only intact city walls in China, and Meghan and I spent our first full day walking around the city, and walking a portion of the wall. Nearly as thick and high as the Great Wall it had a similar purpose of keeping unsavory characters at bay, and provided a great view of the city. The next day we signed on for a tour that made several stops, saving the warriors for last.

The emperor who built the warriors was the first emperor of the Quing (pronounced “Chin”) dynasty that conquered and unified several disparate states to create a country that largely resembles modern China. Constantly worried about subterfuge from the people’s he conquered, he decided to build an elaborate tomb complex to maintain his reign in the afterlife. Needing protection, he commissioned an army of clay warriors, estimated to number around 8,000, each life size and with a unique face, weapon, rank and function. Each warrior apparently took around 10 years to complete, and an army of slaves was commissioned to make the warriors and build the tomb. In the 1970’s, a farmer digging a well found pieces of the warriors, and today around 3,000 of them have been unearthed. Most of them were smashed during an uprising shortly after the emperor’s death, and they have been painstakingly reconstructed and replaced in their original positions. Each was equipped with a weapon, most of which were stolen by the revolutionaries and used in combat, since they were life-size, combat ready weapons.

It is an amazing sight to walk into the hangar-like structure covering the warriors, as you start down upon row after row of warriors, horses, archers and generals, all precisely lined up and awaiting battle. The warriors are finely painted, but the paint disappears a few weeks after they are unearthed, so excavation has largely halted until some way of maintaining the paint can be found. Each is marvelously detailed, from fine hair to treads on an archer’s shoe.

The emperor’s tomb is a few miles away, and it remains sealed since legend has it that it is surrounded by rivers of mercury, and enough mercury vapor to kill anyone who breaks its seal. This type of extravagance is so mind boggling it makes Michael Jackson look like a stamp collector.

The next day brought an early flight back to Beijing, and Meghan and I explored various temples and a Chinese mosque through the intermittent rain. The rain had the great benefit of clearing up the air, and we spent a heartrendingly gorgeous day at the Summer Palace yesterday. Needing somewhere to relax from the stressful duties of “managing” 81 concubines, the Ming emperors built a summer retreat about 30 minutes outside Beijing on 70sq km of hilly land, complete with several lakes and ponds, pagodas and temples. It was like a giant park filled with what you would imagine traditional Chinese architecture to be, and it was a perfect day to explore it. While the entrance gate was mobbed, the park was so large and filled with so many meandering paths, we had much of the day to ourselves, delighting in wandering with no particular direction in mind. We ended the day with a fancy dinner, and Meghan made her way to the airport for her 9AM flight this morning. I fly out at 6PM, and after a morning run am wrapping up some work and then saying goodbye to China until my next trip. Until then…

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It has been just about a week since I arrived back in Shenzhen, China for my 3 week trip. I started this trip with an evening in Hong Kong, one of the most futuristic cities I have ever visited. I managed to score a harbor view room at my hotel, which overlooked Victoria Harbor with a fantastic view of the Center side of Hong Kong. HK is essentially a large island, a few smaller islands and the portion connected with the Chinese mainland, and I was staying on the mainland in Kowloon overlooking HK Island. The cityscape was incredible, with tall modern skyscrapers trimmed in every imaginable color of neon, and hundreds of animated billboards hawking everything from casinos to Chinese brands. Imagine Times Square extended to the whole of Manhattan and you would have the right mental image. I half expected a flying car to zoom past my window as I admired the view.

The next morning I walked around the city, getting a good dose of dumplings, checking out the jade market and passing myriad high-end watch and jewelry stores. Rolex seemed to play the role of Timex in Hong Kong, and I admired several $50,000-$100,000 Swiss watches sitting proudly in seemingly every other store window. I picked up a lowly Citizen Asia-only model with several timezones and other neat features that I found particularly fitting for this city of the future.

That afternoon I took the ferry over to Shekou and checked into my home for the next several weeks. I’m staying in the heart of the expat area, in a part of town (Shekou) that is renowned for expats. I have an apartment-style room with a sitting area, kitchen and bedroom which is nice, although my sparkling kitchen is equipped with a tea serving for four and no other utensils or cooking implements. I guess I look like a man that enjoys his tea.

The hotel is a couple blocks from an area called “Sea World,” which has nothing to do with Shamu (other than cooking quite a few of his cousins) but has a docked cruise ship-turned sportsbar/hotel, and about 20 restaurants. There is everything from McDonalds to Starbucks, a few Chinese and Asian places, and a mix of Italian, Indian, Irish and everything in between. I had dinner at an Italian place with our project manager who generally refuses to eat Chinese food, and was amazed to find that the lasagna was actually quite good, and on par with anything I’ve ever had in the states. No small feat for a country where cheese is virtually ignored and unknown. Not only can the Chinese come up with a decent copy of an Italian suit, but they also have the food down pretty well.

After a relatively uneventful week of work, yesterday I ventured into Lohou Commercial City, cited as a mecca of counterfeit goods and apparently where people from Hong Kong go to shop for cheap stuff as it is literally right on the border. The city I am in, Shenzhen, is home to China’s 2nd busiest port, and also many of the factories churning out goods for western companies so counterfeiting runs rampant, to the point that some factories making legitimate goods have been busted producing exact counterfeits during the night shift. The market was five stories of madness, with literally thousands of small shops most of which were hawking some combination of bags, luggage, watches, shoes and clothing. You could drink and smoke in the market, so there was a haze that seemed to go well with the crowds and shouts of “ROLEX! DVD! NORTH FACE! IPHONE! HANDBAG! YOU LOOK NOW! YOU BUY NOW!” Hawkers would firmly grab your arm in an attempt to corral you, while proudly displaying catalogs of designer copies. While I was told the market once had the latest Gucci copies proudly displayed, several bands are no longer on the shelves after some high-profile police actions, but a western face and 30 seconds got you’re a look at glossy full-color catalogs of copies of varying quality. You could get everything from low grade knockoffs to what seemed like quality stuff, with brands from Adidas and Nike, to relatively esoteric once like Mountain Hardware and IWC.

At one point, I was looking at jackets and the lady produced a catalog of North Face knockoffs. I told her I would take a look and she said someone had to go to the “warehouse.” She shouted to a colleague, who pushed aside a rack of coats revealing what seemed to be a wall. He pushed open a panel, crawled in, and returned a few minutes later with a bagged North Face jacket. The bag even had the correct logo, and the jacket had North Face and Gore Tex tags (despite there being no actual Gore Tex in the coat). It was quite amazing and while the jacket did not fit, it seemed to be about 80% of the quality of the genuine article for 20% of the price.

A colleague picked up an “iPhone” that does not resemble any current model, but had Apple branding and even had the “Designed in California by Apple” quip on the back like the real thing. The phone actually works, and includes a copy of Apple’s operating system and everything, although it looks only vaguely like the real thing and a few programs were still in Chinese. Despite that, it plays video and music, includes a GPS chip and was his for about $40US. Fake Nokia phones also abounded, and even Shure wireless microphones and Panasonic DVD players were not safe from being knocked off.

There were even some legitimate goods. My iPhone friend also bought what was billed as an “MP9 Player” (and here we Westerners are still stuck on MP3) which looked like a large pen, but was actually a working video and sound recorder. The pen would even write, and at the press of a hidden button the device would begin recording video and audio, in what was every James Bond fan’s dream. Once done, you unscrewed the pen revealing a USB plug that connected to your computer and allowed you to download the captured video. All this for about $14US.

China clearly places more stock in the doing rather than the conceiving, and no compunction was shown for painstakingly ripping off major brands. Most of the items were high quality, and I got the sense that there was a pride in workmanship and that if you could build something that was similar in quality for a pittance of the price you were actually doing the world a service. This even seems to extend to China’s adoption of a market economy. In talking with people here it seems relatively easy to start a business, and government interference and taxation is minimal to the point that China’s “wild west” capitalistic economic system is arguably more open (for better and worse) that the US. The area I am in was one of China’s first “Special Economic Zones,” where China essentially “knocked off” market economics as an experiment and then ran with it. This seems rather unexciting today, but when you think about it this would be like the US declaring California or Massachusetts a “special economic zone,” then coming back a few years later to find everyone wearing a grey smock, calling each other comrade and leaving to go work on their five year plan at the village commune. The Chinese seem to have no compunction whatsoever about taking anyone’s ideas and making them their own, a trait that might just well be an asset despite giving Intellectual Property lawyers a bad case of heartburn.

That said, politically this is still a socialist country. This hotel is connected to a Chinese internet connection, and I’ve already ran into several websites blocked by Chinese government firewalls, including my own company blog at www.itbswatch.com, as it’s hosted by a major blog company that also carries blogs the government might find unsavory. Articles about Tibet on Wikipedia are blocked, as well as the Chinese-language versions of several western media outlets. Mao still smiles benevolently from the currency, and immaculately uniformed police and military still stroll the streets. Despite all that, this is an incredibly exciting country and I’m quite happy to see it.

This should be a busy workweek, and then on Friday I grab the ferry back to Hong Kong and catch a flight to Bangkok, where I’m staying for the weekend and meeting my good friend Sean. He working in Jakarta and Bangkok is about half-way between us, had cheap flights and does not require a visa in advance, a perfect combo for a quick reunion as I have not seen Sean in quite some time.

Until next time…

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One of my favorite aspects of being in China is that I generally don’t have a clue as to what is happening when trying to read or communicate with others. I thought the Chinese language would be a bit like a pictograph, a more advanced version of hieroglyphics perhaps. While you might not initially know the meaning of the Egyptian dude with a bird and a stick, once you found out that the symbol meant “Tasty chicken” you could readily pick him out on future menu and order accordingly. With languages that use the traditional alphabet and 26 characters, give or take, it’s only a matter of time before you figure out that poullet or pollo are chicken, and bier/beer/cervesa makes for a nice pairing. Not so with Chinese characters. In some cases it seems that a fairly simple word like “Welcome” (posted at the door to our office) entails 8 seemingly complex and almost indistinguishable (to my western eyes) characters. In other situations, a complex English word like “Incorporated” is a single character. Spoken Mandarin also seems to be a challenge, and only last night, with the help of a Cantonese speaker on our team, did I expand my Mandarin by 100%, adding “yes” and “no” to “hello” and “thank you” (although I’ll give myself a half point bonus for an ability to order my beverage of choice, Tsing Tao beer, which is procured by demanding, in a rather gruff tone: CHINGDOWBEER!”)

There are also strange things that happen without explanation. For example, when paying in cash at a restaurant, it usually takes a bit of pantomime and pointing to get a receipt. Where we dined last night, a modern establishment with what looked like a very high-tech cash register, the waitress painstakingly generated a handwritten receipt for our meal. You also get a wad of certificates when paying in cash. I picked up pizza buying duty yesterday (yes, we did have pizza for lunch EVERY day we have been here) and for my 400 yuan I received four certificates with lots of Chinese writing and a 100 in the corner. There are also a few scratch off areas, so I’m unsure if this is a lottery ticket of some sort, or a certificate that must be presented to some government official lest you be summarily executed when leaving the country, so I’ve dutifully stashed the certificates in my passport, ready to present them when and if they are demanded.

Apparently the difficulties go both ways, as the English translations to various phrases range from prophetic to fairly amusing. A billboard at street level a few blocks from our hotel admonishes the Chinese (according to the English translation) that: TIME IS MONEY, EFFICIENCY IS LIFE. On of my favorites gives me a chuckle every morning. Our office building houses several of the major oilfield services companies, familiar names like Halliburton and Weatherford are matched with local companies, the most amusing of which is translated as “OILFIELD DECORATING ENGINEERS.” I have a mental image of slim men with pastel hard hats, designer shirts slightly open at the chest and perhaps an ascot or pocket square, prancing around a drilling rig considering the feng shui between a paisley submersible pump and a diamond drill bit.

On Monday I finally convinced my colleagues to eat some bonna-fide Chinese food for dinner. We were all dealing with the lingering effects of jet lag so we tried the hotel restaurant, and it ended up being fairly good. One section had several fish tanks with various aquatic treats. Occasionally a chef would walk to a tank, net a fish and presumably send him to his early demise. Luckily several years of eating a Noche Buena pig had me a bit used to being closer to the start of the supply chain for your dinner, but it unsettled the other American on the team a bit. We also ordered Beijing Duck (the more familiar Peking is the old name for Beijing) and Donald came to our table, head and all. After some of our team still in the states expressed some concern about the food and went so far as to lookup locations for the nearest McDonalds, someone took a picture of the duck to email to the rest of the team and suggest this would be a frequent delicacy.

Last night three of us decided to take a quick shopping expedition. Along the way we passed everything from a dingy strawberry field to high-rise apartments while our taxi driver attempted to set a new land speed record, passing on what seemed to be double lines and running red lights for no discernable reason. Taxis are surprisingly cheap, with what must have been a good 9 mile ride costing approximately $3.50. I finally had a chance to witness what I had imagined China to be like, and realized that we’re staying out in the boonies. The palm trees and greenery around our hotel were rapidly replaced with tall buildings, neon signs, cars and people everywhere. Once again, save for the occasionally green uniform, random slogan and red flag, there is little to indicate you are anywhere but a mecca of capitalism. The mall was as modern as could be, and frequented with well-dressed and obviously moneyed individuals. Interestingly, the shops had almost as many staff as there were customers. An average-size jewelry store had six or seven staff eagerly standing by, and whichever store I went in would have a staffer shadow my every move. This was a bit unnerving, and I’m unsure if this was to ensure the large gringo did not do anything uncouth, or if this is high-touch Chinese customer service.

The last few days have also been marked by an unfortunate aspect of China’s economic boom: pollution. On my first day, I woke up to relatively clear skies and thought the stories of China’s air pollution were overblown. The last two mornings however, I awoke to a nasty grey-brown haze. At home, when it’s naturally foggy you generally get grey and depressing light, and can’t see the sun save for when it peaks out from behind a cloud. There’s a sense of depth to the cloud cover and a sense of motion; you can feel the fog lift and eventually succumb to the sun’s light and gradually dissipate. Here, you can actually see the sun, but it’s a muted white disc behind a ubiquitous layer of smog. It’s almost as if you’re surrounded by an opaque bubble rather than a shifting, cotton-like foam of natural fog. The buildings and trees also have a thin coat of dust and funk, and most buildings look rather unkempt, despite them being relatively new as this area was all farmland a mere thirty years ago. This makes for an odd contrast. A particularly grim and depressing housing block on our way to work is lit up with vibrantly colored laundry hung out to dry, and dingy buildings and offices are brightened with up to a hundred baskets of flowers and orange trees celebrating the Chinese New Year. It’s almost as if there’s no time to clean and rebuild and abandonment and starting anew seems to be preferred to refurbishing.

It’s easy as an American to turn one’s nose up and indict China for spewing pollution into the air and water, but it is difficult to reconcile this smug moral high road with the fact that the US more or less invented the consumerist society, and who are we to deny others that dream. Not having lived during the industrial revolution, I can only imagine what our air was like in the late 1800’s, and I wonder how the world will reconcile China’s aspirations with the demands of other nations already secure in their post-industrial boom comfort.

Moving away from the deep moral quandaries, it seems our team has selected Indian food for tonight’s dining. Unfortunately, Papa John’s and other non-Chinese dining establishments will get the majority of my Chairman Mao’s while I’m here. I have insisted that we push dinner back a bit so I can spend some time on the treadmill. After seeing the drivers and battling my way away from crazy old ladies, not to mention the air quality, I’ve abandoned my plans of outdoor running for the moment. The China-made scale in my hotel room indicates I’ve either gained 30 pounds or lost 40 in the 4 days I’ve been here, so apparently I have some work to do, or the gravitational pull on this side of the world is a bit unstable. Until the next update, remember that time is money, and efficiency (combined with Papa John’s) is indeed life.

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I arrived safely in Hong Kong last night after the 14 hour flight. Despite the length it was not too bad; I managed to get a lot of reading done as well as catch up on a recent James Bond movie. The Hong Kong airport was easy to navigate, and despite some minor missteps I met up with a client colleague and we made it to the bus terminal for the ferry. The ferry terminal itself was a fairly drab white building, but was decked out with paper lanterns and large flower displays, apparently for Chinese New Year. Everything from the boat to the hotel and taxi had similar decorations which leant a festive air to our arrival.

I had a mental image of an overloaded boat, livestock and choppy seas, but the boat was a modern catamaran and was not particularly crowded. Lists of rules and regulations on the wall admonished mariners that they could dump their trash overboard as long as they were 25 miles from the mainland, except when they were in the Antarctic, Caribbean or North America. Luckily the 30 minute ride did not deviate into any of those waters and we arrived at the mainland in one piece.

Customs was surprisingly low-key as well. No submachine-toting members of the People’s Liberation Army or patriotic music, and other than asking if this was my first visit to China, no questioning from immigration. A poster of Jackie Chan admonished us to avoid counterfeit goods, and with that, I walked out of the ferry terminal in Shekou into mainland China. I had pictured hustle and bustle and a highly urban environment and was instead greeted with lush greenery swaying in the ocean breeze, and tree-covered mountains rising up just beyond the hotels and skyscrapers. Shekou is where China first dipped its toe into a market economy, setting up a free-trade zone in the city in the 1970’s. Being right across from Hong Kong, Shekou provided access to international capital and markets, and provided a buffer between mainland China and those pesky remnants of the British empire in Hong Kong, like a free press.

Our hotel was right next to the ferry terminal, so check in was easy. We met up with a third person from Denmark and hit the town to grab some dinner. My request for Chinese food (we are in China after all) was panned by the group, and we headed for where else, but an Irish pub. I did have some Chinese beer to wash down bangers and mash, and with that we called it a night. On the walk home I picked up some cash, and was pleased to get a fist full of 100 yuan notes with a benevolently smiling portrait of Chairman Mao on them… Finally some proper propaganda. We did manage to be accosted on the walk home, first by a woman and her 7-8 year old child, who walked up saying “MONEY! MONEY!” while the little boy grabbed each of our arms in turn. A few hundred yards later, a toothless woman avoided the formalities and simply locked onto my arm with a kung fu grip. I squirmed my way out, and was comforted that the scantily clad ladies in the local red light district kept their distance.

Beds in China are deceiving. The one in my hotel room was large and comfortable looking, yet warnings I had heard that Chinese beds are a bit firm were absolutely true. Despite the comfortable appearance, the bed was hard as a rock. Firmness aside, I promptly fell asleep until 4AM, when a barrage of fireworks was launched from a nearby park, apparently an ongoing salutes to the Chinese New Year that was followed up with another volley around 7:30am.

This morning we were off to the office after waiting for our car. We had a quick introduction to driving in China, when our driver went through a red light and then went into what appeared to be oncoming traffic. Apparently the four lane road we were entering had alternating lanes in each direction, so while we were facing three lanes of cars, technically the middle lane should have been going in our direction. A bout of horn honking ensued, and not giving up his ground, our driver eventually prevailed.

The office I’m in is fairly generic, save for the bright red New Year’s decorations. Despite my gentle suggestion, my two colleagues again opted out of actual Chinese food in China, and had Papa John’s pizza ordered. I can’t say I though my first two meals in China would be from an Irish pub and Papa John’s, but I am trying to go with the flow, although I may mutiny if they suggest McDonald’s tomorrow. We have our first bout of meetings in fifteen minutes, so I’ll close for now and update all of you later in the week.

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A couple of weeks ago a friend and I took a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the premier motorcycle roads on the east coast. Rather than recount the entire trip here, you can follow the link for the ride report at Adventure Rider.

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a good travel rant, and after a long (and delightful) absence from the friendly skies, Monday morning marked my return to that ethereal entity know as “the road.” I’ve picked up a new client that promises some interesting international travel, but the experience kicked off with a trip to the decidedly non-international area known as “north Houston,” a stone’s throw from the airport.

I was relieved to find a Sheraton near the client site, but rebuffed by Starwood’s website as the red lettering informed me, in no uncertain terms, that the hotel was fully booked due to the flood of construction workers helping rebuild damaged buildings left in Hurricane Ike’s wake. Orbitz informed me, much to my dismay, that my only option was the Clarion Inn. I generally have a no-Inn travel policy, but in this case, it was the Clarion or a park bench.

The motel itself was OK, and the cheerful check-in agent informed me there was a “Shopping Center” next door with myriad dining options (he didn’t actually use the word myriad, but the small ghetto blaster behind the desk playing “All up in the Club” inspired me to class up his act). After depositing my suitcase, I sauntered over to the “Shopping Center” with visions of grandeur. The shopping center was a strip mall, the anchor store, JFK Liquors, presumably playing a humble tribute to the fallen president. It was flanked by an anonymous Chinese Food place, and a pizza joint featuring an all-you-can-eat $5.99 buffet. Hoping for healthier options further afield, I continued my walk to find a Taco Bell and Jack in the Box. I hung my head as I traded haute cuisine on the Champs d’Elysses for Mr. in the Box, opting for a chicken strip salad.

My next trip remains a mystery, but hopefully will not involve any more Jack in the Box!

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I got back from the Bahamas yesterday afternoon around 5. It was a great trip, and the resort was really nice. I stayed at Atlantis, and it’s almost a self-contained city. They have 5 hotels on the property, four of which are almost Vegas-size. Two of the larger towers have what looks like a huge crosswalk connecting them, and it’s actually a 2500 sq ft. room that Opera and Michael Jackson reportedly frequent. It can be had for a mere $25K/night.

The property has around 30 restaurants, and many of them are Vegas and NY favorites. I ate a Nobu which was excellent, and another restaurant on the property where scenes from the latest Bond movie were filmed. There’s a Vegas-style casino, complete with Chaholie (sp?) glasswork reminiscent of the Bellagio and a complete water park with pools and slides everywhere.

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I am sitting in the lobby of the Embassy Suites "Outdoor World" hotel, located near the Dallas airport, and in the middle of nowhere, save for a gigantic Bass Pro shop next door. We are here for a convention of Meghan’s school network, and why a bunch of young fun-loving teachers decided to hold their convention next to a hunting and fishing supply store I am not entirely sure. For once, I get to play the role of "tag along spouse," and set to planning my weekend in earnest.

Excited to have a day to myself in Dallas, I arranged a couple of meetings and visits to favorite restaurants. Living up to the old saying about the best laid plans, ours began to unravel once we heard it was snowing in Dallas. Our departing flight from Charlotte was several hours late, pushing our slated 7PM arrival in Dallas to an actual 9PM; not too bad for a snowed in airport that was not used to dealing with the white stuff.

After a few false starts, we located the hotel where we were promptly told there was no room at the inn, and we were being sent to the "Great Wolf Lodge." I have a policy about never staying at a chain with "Inn" in the name, but Lodges were uncharted territory. We rolled into the drive and were greeted with a strange combination of the Mohegan Sun casino, and a gigantic greenhouse-looking structure. With a bit more investigation, I discovered the greenhouse was actually an indoor water park!

We walked to our room in a state of general confusion, especially once Meghan presented me with my room key. Rather than the traditional key card, the room key was a yellow wristband, much like one you would get at a nightclub. The plot thickened when we saw "Kids Club" bodily noted on the door to our room. The "Kids Club" featured ended up consisting of a large log cabin-like structure in the middle of the room, with three bunk beds and appropriately cheesy wolf and bear decor. Our window overlooked the outdoor portion of the water park, now accented with snow.

At this point, we needed a drink. We located the only open bar and restaurant, and were told by the hostess "There’s a wait." The hostess and I stared each other down, me waiting for the rest of the sentence, the "Would you like me to add you to the list?" and her doing a fine impression of the carved wooden bear next to her. Noting the slew of open barstools, and figuring close proximity to the booze was a benefit at this point, we bellied up to the bar.

The waitress asked Meghan for ID, which as usual she had left in the room. On returning, she expressed confusion over Meghan’s South Carolina ID, explaining that they usually don’t accept out of state ID but she would make an exception. As if the water park and bunk beds were not enough, this was a "hotel" within spitting distance of an international airport that assumed no one from another state would ever arrive.

Beers finally came, as well as surprisingly good food, well appreciated after the long day. Adjourning to our log cabin, we hoped for a better, or at least less confusing day!

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I spent the first week of December in Paris for work, and decided I would rent a car to get around. For some odd reason, I rather enjoy driving in foreign cities. First, there is the difference in vehicles, with most countries have vastly smaller cars than the US, from the go-cart like machine we rented in the Caribbean, to the standard European car, which is sized like our compact cars. Secondly, there’s a sense of adventure. Signs are different, rules of the road are different, and there is mystery around each corner.

This was especially the case in Paris. I’ve spent years driving in Boston and New York, generally considered quite bad by US standards, so driving in a major city is not particularly intimidating. It was quite fun to drive in Paris… there are essentially no rules that I can ascertain, except that every possible space must be filled. In the roundabouts, space that in the US or UK would hold 5 cars driving next to each other is completely devoid of any lane markings, and has about 9 cars in all manner of configurations. Some are sideways, some are going from the innermost lane to the outermost, and there are motorcycles and scooters going every which way in the midst of all the madness. Any unfilled space will soon have a car or motorcycle in it, and while it seems very aggressive, people let you merge or move where you need to be without much fuss, remaining calm in what would result in violent road rage in NY or Boston.

The last point was the most interesting. The driving seemed amazingly aggressive, yet everyone was as calm as could be, almost as if it was all a well choreographed show put on for a foreigner, and everyone was trying to maintain a steady face just before bursting into laughter.

A flick of the turn signal would result in a space magically appearing as someone waited for you to merge, and there was never a polite wave of acknowledgement, nor was there a “one finger salute” should you violently cut someone off. Somehow in all the madness was a sense of respect and amusement, rather than rage and frustration.

Perhaps the best part of Parisian driving was that getting lost would result in suddenly happening upon some marvel of architecture. Missing the entrance to my hotel for the fourth time (it was in a 9 lane roundabout, again with no lane markers), I randomly turned onto the Champs d’Elysse, with l’Arc de Triomphe staring me square in the face. On the commute home from my client site, rounding a curve in the highway brought me a beautiful vision of the Eiffel Tower.

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Running on Mountain Dew and sheer stubbornness, I pulled my trusty rental truck into our driveway around 5:30AM and hunkered down for the night. I was tired and, how you say, not so fresh, and was asleep before hitting the pillow.

The next day brought a call from the Charlotte airport. They had my bag and would arrange delivery for that afternoon. Rested and cleaned, with the truck unloaded, all that remained to complete the equation was my bag.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang, and I leaped to the door expecting to find my trusty companion of the last ten years. Rather than a black, ballistic nylon rollaboard Andiamo suitcase (about how I had described it when completing the missing bag claim in Erie), there was a red backpack. Like a mysterious sprite, the delivery guy was bounding back to his truck and was greatly displeased when my yelling and arm waving prevented him from making a fast getaway.

“This is not my bag; it’s not anything like it” I said. He shrugged, mentioned that he’s “just the delivery guy” and of course “there’s nothing I can do,” and I would have to call my friends back at the call center, and scampered off. Stepping inside, I made the first of about fifty conversations that would go like this:

(after navigating several voicemail prompts) “US Air, can I have your baggage claim number?”

ME: “Yes, it’s OU812ICUP”

Call Center Drone: “Please wait while I look it up… that was YC973ICEU, right?”

<repeat claim number at least four times>

CCD: “Ahh, here it is, let me read through the notes.”

Me: “It says that it was found but actually..”

CCD: “Yes sir, I see here that you bag was located and is currently being delivered!”

Me: “Yes, that was three weeks ago, they delivered the wrong bag.”

CCD: “I understand sir, but it says that your bag is out for delivery.”

Me: “Right, what’s the date on that note?”

CCD: “I don’t have that information sir, your bag is being delivered, thank you for calling US Air!”

Me: “WAIT!!!”

(and so the dance would continue for 10-30 minutes, until they finally acknowledged there was no bag, and I should just wait “a bit more.”)

After about four weeks, I resigned myself to never seeing the bag again and purchased a shiny new replacement and filed a claim with US Air. I guess it was time for a new suitcase anyway, and baggage technology has actually improved in the last ten years.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, two months after the bag originally went missing when I get a call from a strange North Carolina warehouse asking for Mr. Gray. I responded in the affirmative and he proceeded to tell me that he was holding a bag with not one, but two of my business cards attached, each with phone numbers, address and email. He was in the Charlotte warehouse, the last stop for luggage before it was put out to pasture in the midwest, to roam free with the wild mustangs and lost umbrellas.

Unbelievably, after over two months, my bag was returned. The contents were all intact, down to the small pile of change I put in an outer pocket so as not to incur the wrath of the TSA metal detectors. Things were a bit crumpled and one shirt had an odd stain, and I wondered what strange adventures my bag had endured as it bounced around the country, somewhere between Dallas, Erie and Charlotte.

Like a Greenwich hedge fund manager who trades his trusty wife in for a new model, I have left my old suitcase dejected in a corner, replaced with the fancy new model with shiny wheels and fancy ratcheting handle, rather than the scars and tatters of age. Meghan tried to pull a fast one, suggesting she get the new suitcase since “you loved that old one so much,” but I’ve relegated the old battleaxe to Meghan’s service. I figure he needs a good break after all the strange happenings he must have seen during his two months with US Air.

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The sunset of Part 1 left our weary traveller at the Philadelphia Marriott, approximately 500 miles from his final destination, without a suitcase, hoping for a better day. The next morning started well, despite a return to work clothing that I had been wearing in a hot airplane for most of the previous day. I endured TSA scrutiny unscathed, and wandered over to the gate denoted on my boarding pass.

What they neglect to mention about gate 16 is that it is a portal to another dimension: the loser gate. My first clue was the large woman alternatively shouting over a walkie talkie and at the massed line of people, her barked orders providing neither guidance nor order. Rather than a conventional gate, gate 16 led hundreds of people down an escalator to the bowels of the airport, huddled them together in an unordered mess, and then left them to wait for a bus that came every ten minutes. Like the “just off airport” Quality Inn US Air had tried to send me too, the loser gate was “just off” the regular terminal, and required a bus ride that was consistent with US Air’s usual scheduling MO: it arrived and departed when it damn well pleased.

Once the beat up bus arrived, glass doors would whoosh open as harried travels pushed past each other for space on the infrequent bus, while US Air staff looked on as one might observe the running of the bulls.

Once at the loser gate, things begin to look up. My plane was there, I had an exit seat, and we pushed back from the gate a few moments early so US Air could record an on-time departure. Once pushed back however, we spent 90 minutes on the tarmac due to some unknown reason.

I eventually arrived in Erie, PA glad to be on the ground and looking forward to fresh clothes. Standing like a lost child at the luggage belt, I watched as my fellow fliers retrieved their bags, until I was alone in the small baggage claim area and the conveyor eventually grated to a stop. As expected and feared, by friend and fellow traveller who had already survived two lost luggage incidents was back on the MIA list.

I filed a claim with the US Air agent on duty, who told me I should have demanded my luggage back in Philly, and that PHL was a “black hole” for lost baggage. Thanks for the comforting thoughts, pal. He said it would likely be on the next flight, which arrived at 6PM, two hours after I was supposed to be on the road blazing a trail towards Charlotte in a rented moving truck.

I met my aunt, picked up the truck, and noticed that fine aged cheese and I now had more than our humor in common: I was beginning to smell a bit ripe. Borrowing my aunt’s car, I made a beeline towards my favorite store for cheap clothes: Kohl’s. I got a funny look from the counter girl, standing in my cuff link-adorned Thomas Pink shirt, custom tailored pants and shoes, smelling bad, looking frustrated and depositing an odd collection of replacement clothes on the counter. Since I had to load the truck that afternoon, and fulfilling a long-suppressed desire for the “militant college-football hiker” look, I had selected some cammo shorts, hiking shoes, and a Texas Longhorn’s T-shirt. I’m not much of a college football fan, but apparently Texas paraphernalia is not a big mover in Erie, PA, since the shirt was less than ten bucks.

I returned to my aunt’s house, changed and headed to my grandfather’s to load up the truck, the original intent of the trip. All missions accomplished, and now funkier than James Brown in his prime, I bid Erie adieu and pointed my truck south.

About two hours outside Erie I got a cal from the Erie airport. They had found my bag! Not wanting to add an additional four hours to my trip, they said they would send it to Charlotte and I would have it the next day. Tearing down the highway (if doing 55 in a rented moving truck that shook violently about 57mph can be described as tearing) it seemed my ordeal was nearing it’s end.

To be continued…

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The horror that is the summer travel season of 2007 has finally claimed it’s first victim from PatandMeg.com. As many of you know, I travel on a nearly weekly basis, and have indulged in most of the major airlines. I’ve had some nasty experiences before, but sit right back and you’ll hear a tale of what should have been a three-hour tour, and takes the cake as, what Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons would call “worst. trip. ever.”

It all started on a sunny Dallas Thursday. I was booked to fly US Air, my current airline of “choice” since they have a near-monopoly on flights to and from Charlotte. I was a little disoriented since I was flying up to Erie, PA. rather than flying home to Charlotte, since I had to move some stuff out of my Grandfather’s house. Rushing to catch my flight I had accidentally left my toiletries in my bag. I usually leave them at my client office, since according to the Hitler Youth TSA only a terrorist would travel with more than 3.0oz. of liquids, so to avoid TSA harassment I decided to check my bag. As an aside, plastic toiletries do not show up on the TSA’s X-Ray machines, so I generally ignore the 3oz rule and just leave them in my bag as my own private act of civil disobedience. I also recommend putting your boarding pass through the X-Ray machine as that really agitates them.

Unfortunately I had a Costco-size metal can of shaving cream in my bag so I thought checking the bag would be the easiest bet. Mistake #1.

We pushed back from the gate on time, and I closed my eyes, thinking all was well. A few slots from takeoff and the pilot came on in his best Captain America voice to announce that there was rain at the end of the runway. He provided no other information, and I remained confused during our one hour runway sit until I saw what was clearly an omen of things to come. It was literally beautiful and sunny on one side of the runway, and grey and storming on the other. Very strange. Mistake #2 was not pulling the emergency exit door, running for my life and joining a Buddhist sect that believes air travel is a tool of the devil as soon as I witnessed that strange weather pattern.

Once airborne I checked my watch, smug in my realization that I had booked a “US Air f-up proof” 2:30 hour connection. With the delay in Dallas, I still had well over an hour to grab a bite in Philly and make it to the looser terminal (more about that later). No one likes vanity, and I was about to be sorely punished for my sins.

If you fly too much, you get a sixth sense about various flight patterns, plane noises and altitude changes. My spidey sense was tingling was we neared Philly. Something was amiss. Captain America left his next announcement for the first mate; I believe his name may have been Gilligan. He announced that there was a minor backup in Philly, and that the plane was “dangerously low on fuel” and was being rerouted to Baltimore to refuel. The bastards had run out of gas.

Some more bobbing and weaving and we landed at Baltimore and parked on the tarmac to await the fuel truck, which came after about 20 minutes. I marveled while contemplating the darkening sky that after five minutes of apparently doing nothing, the fuel truck was speeding away. As my brain searched for answers, the intercom clicked on once again with more good news. The fuel truck that arrived did not have enough gas to fill up the plane, so they needed to fill up the truck and send it back.

When the truck returned after another 20 minutes I made mistake #3. Rather than squaring my shoulder and doing a Terry Tate to shove the stewardess out of my way, duck through the open door, douse myself in Jet-A and self-immolating, I merely sat there and looked at my watch. There’s still a chance.

The stewardess spared us the lecture on how to fasten your seat belt, as the natives were getting restless at this point. Passengers were commiserating over missed connections to Europe and other exotic locations while I still held out hope for Erie. We finally landed at 9:55PM, with my connection departing at… 9:55PM.

I nearly strangled the attendant who was supposed to help us with missed connections. He called the gate at the loser terminal but to no avail. The one time I needed a late flight, US Air left right on time. Beaten but not yet ready to submit, I accepted a rebooking for the first flight in the morning and asked about a hotel voucher. The guy looked at me as if I had asked if I could take his wife out for a night on the town, then tickled his computer and said his information indicated we had been delayed due to that infamous airline excuse for when they screw up and don’t want to pay for it: “weather.”

This elicited a roar from the crowd that was forming behind me, and after some furious typing he generated a voucher and scrawled in the number for the Quality Inn. Finally beaten into submission, I backed away to let my comrades in arms fight out their connections.

I have a travel policy that has severed me well during my years of business travel, that may seem snooty to my readers but has been gleaned from hard-won experience. While I’m more liberal when travelling on vacation, when traveling on business I refuse to stay anywhere with “INN” in the name of the establishment. That rules out the likes of Holiday Inn (I am not on holiday, and if I were, I would avoid an Inn if possible), and I know from experience that there is little that is Quality about the Quality Inn. Nonetheless, I was willing to bend the rules to end the day with any kind of bed.

I went to baggage claim to attempt to retrieve my bag. The people said that was entirely impossible. Rather than attempting to beat the employees into submission with a rather large car seat they were carelessly kicking around, I accepted a tiny bag filled with single serving China-made toothpaste and other toiletries in exchange for entrusting them with my bag, and I dialed the number for the “Quality” Inn.

The gentleman that answered explained that they were “off airport,” but did in fact have a shuttle service. It was on its way to the hotel, but would be back for another airport pickup in “about 45 minutes.” I was a bit frazzled at this point and thought I might have misunderstood, and perhaps he had said 4-5 minutes. Querying for clarification, I discovered “off airport” met “right across the bridge” in New Jersey. The QI was “off airport” like Michael Jackson was “just a little” odd.

Making some small restitution for my previous litany of mistakes, I marched over to the decidedly on airport (as in walking distance) Marriott, and negotiated the $269 rate down to a more palatable $149. The gent took pity on my and provided a “stranded traveller” shirt that had some cute remark about an unplanned visit to Philly on the back. I am writing the hotel to have it changed to “Yes, my limp is due to US Air bending me over and…” you get the picture.

Broken and beaten, I adjourned to the bar for a lacklustre cheeseburger, half-decent Manhattan and a few beers. Properly nourished with Vitamins M and B, I called it a night. My final mistake of the day was thinking that tomorrow would be a much better day…

Part II follows our hero as the schleps through the loser terminal, gets his Texas on, sweats to the oldies and makes some new friends in Guatemala. Stay tuned…

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My latest client engagement carries with it the benefit of less than a full week spent at the client site near Philadelphia. While I get more nights at home, I also spend far more time in the car, making high-speed roundtrip runs from New York to Philly generally twice a week. Growing quickly bored with listening to the news or music for the six hour roundtrip, I’ve turned to audio books to pass the time and hopefully feed my noodle.

The time in the car makes for quick progress through even the unabridged editions I prefer, always suspicious of some faceless editor deciding which pieces of fine literature make the cut for “abridged” versions. Lately I’ve been on a Hemingway streak, having listened to Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, after having only skimmed them in school in order to complete the required assignment at the time. Being able to trade the drab scenery on the NJTP for a hillside in Spain, or the grim and smelly refining towers in Newark for the flash of a mortar and thick stench of high explosive certainly makes the drive go faster.

Papa, who I do not think would mind me using his familiar nickname since we’ve spent the last thirty hours or so of driving together, has had a profound effect on me. The hard-drinking lead in Farewell to Arms had me drinking brandy one evening, while considering Hemingway’s stark portrayal of life, love and of course, death. There are no feel-good endings, and you are left with a vaguely disconcerting feeling after finishing each. The leading men hold a certain appeal to me, quietly taking a stand for what they believe in, maintaining their composure while still representing the ultimate in self-assured manliness. The kinder, gentler recent times that have coined terms such as metro-sexual would have no room for a Robert Jordan, clutching a submachine gun waiting to kill just one more fascist as he lay waiting to die, hemorrhaging internally from a snapped thighbone, and quietly contemplating his impending death. The romanticized man portrayed by Hemingway does his duty, not out of necessity or circumstances compelling him, but because it is the right thing to do according to his internal compass. Once that duty is done, he dies, quietly and alone, or sees those that are dear to him suffer that fate.

Papa and I are going to take some time off while I contemplate his message, lest he provides any further encouragement to pack up and ship off to fight for a lost cause in some distant land. We will see what the holiday driving season has in store next. For fear of snow slowing down the roads, my car will be packed with literary greats to keep me company.

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I just posted pictures of my weekend motorcycle/camping trip with my buddy Steve here:

 

In addition, Meghan and I have been exploring a new home for PatandMeg.com, and made some house hunting progress over the weekend. Pictures of that trip, which include a model of the home we like, some shots of the area and perhaps even our future lot are here:

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My buddy Steve and I are heading on another PA motorcycle adventure, in our attempts to keep this as an ongoing annual tradition. Bad jokes, motorcycle talk, farting and too much beer are on the agenda and for the sake of common decency, the wives are staying at home.

With various things going on such as staring up a new project for a new client, and still soon to be disclosed exciting news (and I reiterate: Meghan is not pregnant) my bike has lain dormant since we returned from Nova Scotia. It will be good to dust the beast off, fill up with some fresh gas and hit the roads once again. Fall should be in full bloom, so I’ll try and get some pictures and post them when we return.

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This morning was our last morning waking up in a tent, and our last morning in Nova Scotia. Since the last update, we made our way down the northeast coast of Cape Breton, crossing back into mainland Nova Scotia at the Cansco Causeway. We rode along the buffer zone between rain and sun all morning, luckily we were on the sunny side but clouds threatened until we returned to the mainland and sunny skies.

After a stop for lunch, we proceeded down the southern coast of Nova Scotia, since we came up to Cape Breton along the northern coast. While the roads were not as good, the scenery and isolation were better. Several times we looked around and commented to each other about the absence of other vehicles, homes and people. We traveled through miles of unspoiled coastline, interrupted occasionally by a tiny village, each complete with a church, although most missing a gas station or any other basic services. Off the main route were many dirt roads, beconing for a future adventure with a more appropriate motorcycle and some more miles under our belts.

The day bordered on sensory overload, and the only thing keeping us from becoming tired of scenic shoreline vistas were a few twists and turns through thick pine forests, where the growing smell of funk in my helmet was drowned out by the smell of pine.

With our rear ends and backs at their limit, we stopped at one of the few campsites after logging a long day in the saddle. The campsite ended up being a gem, with a pretty lake literally within five paces of our tent. We cooked and ate our nightly “gruel” watching the sun set over the lake, and then adjourned to our sleeping bags where we weathered out a cold night in total comfort.

Before going to bed Meghan put a big smile on my face when she commented that she had missed spending time in the ten during our last two nights in motels, and was glad to be camping again.

The next morning it was clear fall had arrived in Nova Scotia. In the short time we were here, the temperatures had dropped several degrees, and the nights were downright chilly. A few “early bird” trees along our route were also beginning to change color. We were once again glad we had decent gear and consistently had a good, warm night’s sleep when camping.

The next morning was more of the same, not that that’s a bad thing. Rugged coastline, broken with small villages and short detours through pine forests. At one point, in the distance we saw a large white church atop a hill, and I thought to myself that it was too bad we could not figure out how to get up there and see it. Our good luck continuing on this trip, the road we were on went right past it. The church was built in the late 1800’s, and was a large white wooden structure, with a small graveyard in front. While relatively unremarkable, the church and cemetery overlooked an expanse of coast interrupted only by islands dotted with stately pines before merging into the limitless sea. I commented to Meghan that they certainly gave the dead the “million dollar view” in this town, and regret not stopping to take a couple of pictures.

The evening found us in the most expensive campsite of the trip, and overall the worst. It was filled primarily with RVs and other more permanent trailers, and our neighbors spent the evening drinking and holding court at 3AM, after letting an alarm clock buzz from 1 until 3.

We left as quickly as possible, and made our way towards Peggy’s Cove, supposedly one of the most photographed lighthouses in the world. We switched to a minor highway for most of the morning, and with some minor technical difficulties, made it though Halifax to the Cove. We enjoyed a fresh Lobster roll near the lighthouse, and then took an obligatory lighthouse photo along with the rest of the busloads of tourists milling about the rocks much like the skeptical seagulls that observed them.

We left Peggy’s Cove and followed the Lighthouse Trail, a road hugging the southern coast and passing several lighthouses. We were back to ourselves on the road once clearing suburban Halifax, and took a detour to one of the lighthouses, a small structure on a deserted cove. While not as pretty as Peggy’s Cove, the solitude made it worthwhile. We noticed some men working the rocky shore in small boats with what looked like a rake with a very long handle. We saw a man sitting in his car, previously unnoticed by us and asked what the fishermen were doing.

“Irish mollusks. You eat ice cream?” He said in a strange accent, almost a much thicker version of the most backwoods Maine accent. Puzzled by his question we both nodded and he said that apparently Irish mollusks are used to make ice cream. Who knew? After he asked us about our travels we parted ways and headed for the town of Acadia, right outside Yarmouth and the ferry back to the US.

The campsite in Acadia was not particularly noteworthy, save for having little real estate on which to park and pitch our tent, and having free showers. We awoke 30 minutes earlier than planned, around 6AM when a bunch of Harley guys near our site began warming their engine by revving them and letting the entire campsite delight in the sound of their loud pipes. We packed up and made a quick stop by Tim Horton’s, the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin Doughnuts, and our only stop at a chain restaurant of the entire adventure.

Bearing breakfast, we waited in the long line for the ferry, answering the rudimentary questions and finally riding aboard, strapping down our bikes and finding a place to sit out the six hour trip. We arrived in Portland, Maine later in the afternoon, and spent most of our time on US soil waiting for Customs to process us.

Once legally admitted to the US, we made a beeline for North Conway, NH, where my parents were staying at their mountain house, supervising an addition. We spent two nights with them, catching up with family, airing out and drying our gear, and checking out the addition. Unfortunately the next day was a long and increasingly wet ride. About 100 miles from home, the cold and rain was getting to us. We pulled over and Meghan was able to get one of her friends, Jessica on the line, who graciously volunteered her parents’ home for lodging that night. Tired and wet, Jessica and her parents graciously sheltered us for the night, and we got an early start the next morning.

Luckily there was little rain and the ride home was uneventful. It was quite an adventure, considering we had been on the road for over two weeks, and Meghan started the trip with 120 miles on her odometer, ending over 2400. We saw many beautiful sights, sun, rain, different and interesting people from many parts of the world, and lived with nothing but what we carried on our bikes. Aside from the beauty and new sights of the trip, I really enjoyed living a dramatically simplified life. Your existence consisted of a motorcycle, the clothes on your back, and the gear you could strap onto the bike. In a space smaller than a couple of suitcases, we had everything we needed: shelter, clothing, food and drink.

Our days were completely absent of meetings, plans or agendas. We’d wake up in the morning, consult our map and establish a general plan, and then change the plan as needed. The only item on the docket each morning was eating, breaking camp and riding. With beauty all around, and the hum of the motorcycle in your ears, each day was spent largely in the comfort of your own thoughts. Being on a bike allowed us to experience the environment with all our senses. Warm days riding through forest would bring smells of pine, and rides near the ocean would let your skin feel the minute changes in temperature, or the slight increase in humidity brought on by proximity to the sea. All of this would have been missed in the “saftey” of a car.

Reflecting on the trip over the days since returning home, we’ve decided to postpone plans of a more involved, multi-year trip through South America and the rest of the world. We need some more experience riding, and some recent good news percludes dropping out of society just yet (will post said good news once some more things are worked out, and no, Meghan is not pregnant). I am hoping to hit Alaska next year or the year after, and perhaps make my way across the entirity of Canada and return via the Northern US. Time will tell…

Pictures can be found below:

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Since our last update, a long 300+ mile day has brought us to the highpoint of the trip, as well as our first rains while riding. After a restful night at the campsite on Digby Neck, described in the last update, we rode on the “highway” to make up some time and get to Cape Breton Island, the north eastern part of Nova Scotia that is separated from the rest of the province by a small channel. The highway was what I would imagine travel was like in the US before the superhighways. It alternated between a high-speed two lane road, and a one lane rural road that meandered through a town built with the road as its centerpiece. Interestingly, while many of the towns did not have gas stations or any other services, two buildings were nearly always present: a church and an ice cream stand.

The long day got us almost to Cape Breton where we camped overlooking the water. Threatening clouds had been following us all day, but we made it safely into the tent before any rain fell. The next morning the clouds were still with us, as threatening as ever. We made a record time packing and getting ready to leave with the promise of rain adding speed to our usual morning routine. Perhaps as a courtesy due to it being our one year anniversary, the clouds waited to unload until almost the second we had zipped our last zipper and fired up our engines.

The rest of the day a persistent cold, light rain was with us. Although it was raining all day, our new gear kept us dry, and watertight bags on the bikes kept our clothes and gear dry. Despite the rain, the country we were driving through is beautiful. Rugged coastline with few, if any houses gradually rose along climbing hills, where small farms and evergreen forests hid in the clouds and mist. Pictures unfortunately were not on the agenda due to the rain and our objective of getting somewhere warm and dry to spend our anniversary, rather than cold and wet. Around 2PM we arrived in the town of Cheticamp, an Acadian town on the northwest shore of Cape Breton. The Acadians were French residents of Nova Scotia, who were scattered to various parts of the province by the British, and forced to live in exile. French is prominently spoken, and Acadian flags, similar to the French flag with a small star in the corner are flown everywhere.

A warm lunch, followed by some Nova Scotia wine and scotch (yes, they actually distill scotch here, representing the province’s Scottish heritage) had us warmed up, and we were safely housed in a local bed and breakfast to celebrate our first year of marriage, rather than a tent.

The next morning brought us more rain. We left the small B&B we were staying at to questionable skies, although a brief lapse in the rain allowed us to load the bikes in the relative dry. Soon after firing up the motors however, it began to rain again. The rain was joined by rather strong winds, according to a weather report, gusting up to over 50 km/h, which is around 30 mph. When riding a motorcycle, especially for someone with limited experience, a strong wind can be a bit disconcerting, and since the day’s agenda called for riding into the highlands of Cape Breton, Meghan was uncomfortable to say the least. After a quick conference we decided to turn around and head back the way we came, skipping the highlands.

Several miles into that trip, along a road that ran right along the coast, the strong winds continued, along with the rain, and after at least making an effort, Meghan decided she could not continue. We turned around again, and checked into a motel down the street from our previous lodging, perhaps for a change of scenery, or perhaps to avoid admitting defeat to the two Acadian women who ran the place that we left with a cavalier attitude scant hours before.

The aforementioned highlands were supposed to be a highpoint of the trip. The northern tip of Cape Breton, effectively the northern tip of the entire province is nearly all national park, and supposedly resembles the highlands of Scotland. A winding road runs through the park, climbing along the coast into the highlands, making a steep descent, and then climbing and descending again. Knowing how much I had looked forward to this portion of the trip, Meghan encouraged me to suit up and head out on an unloaded bike.

As I neared the entrance to the park, the strong, bitingly cold wind began to give me second thoughts. I stopped in the information center, remembering the insulated layer to my motorcycle jacket, still loaded in the trunk of my bike. I went in to pay the admission fee, and zipped in the insulated layer under the waterproof layer, ready to do battle with the elements. As if in a bad movie, after paying the admission fee and turning for the exit, it began to pour, in what can best be described as a Florida rain. After fielding several astonished questions from other tourists, and saying yes, I was going to ride in this weather, the only thing I could do was pull out the bravado, don my helmet and walk out the door into the rain, with my best swagger and look of a motorcycle bad ass.

My three layers were keeping me dry, and despite the rain, wind and cold, the beautiful road along the coast was worthwhile. The park is the closest intersection between sea, earth and sky I have ever experienced, with the main road winding along the coast while climbing into the highlands. Having come this far, I put my faith in Canon’s engineering and made several photo stops in the pouring rain, not to be left without some recorded evidence of my ride.

As I climbed the first pass into the highlands, I entered the clouds that were creating the storm, and visibility dropped to around 30 feet. As I contemplated turning around for about the fifth time, a looming mass appeared in the fog ahead, and a large bull moose, complete with a massive set of antlers ambled out into the road ahead of me. He either regarded the motorcycle as some form of kin, or at least a beast he could best in a fight, and other than a passing glance at me, barely increased his gait as we passed in the fog.

Taking this as some kind of omen, I continued on, riding along alpine tundra and scrub pine reminiscent of the above tree line hikes I’ve taken with my father in New Hampshire. The scrub was occasionally broken with a small lake, and other than a few other cars, motorcycles and even a couple of cyclists, I was alone with the fog and my thoughts, somewhere between earth and sky.

As I descended on the other side of the park, the fog lifted but the rains increased. My goal was Meat Cove, a strange name for the northernmost point on the island, reachable only by riding about 10 miles of dirt road. Each time I contemplated turning around, I ‘d see an interesting bird or vista, and would push on, until I had gone so far as to make turning back an impossibility.

The road to Meat Cove was equally amazing. A dirt and gravel path, barely wide enough for a car was cut into the side of the island, with a sheer 500 foot drop to the ocean on one side, and windswept land on the other. My speed was limited as much by the condition of the road as by the amazing vistas. The cove itself was a jumbled mass of rock and land, with only a few houses dotting the otherwise raw coast. A campground and ice cream shop are the few notable features of Meat Cove, save for an handful of houses. The campground juts out into the water, and has several test sites for the brave that have a 270 degree vista of the rugged ocean, almost sticking out as if to bridge land and sea, with neither neighbor being particularly hospitable towards the other.

Snapping one last photo, again hoping my camera would live to tell the tales of the trip, I turned around thinking “I’m coming back here someday and staying at that very spot.”

The ride back was more of the same: rain, wind and fog you could smell, feel and almost taste. As I slowly made my way across the final section of highlands, a female moose again ambled across my path, in almost the same place. Unsure whether this was a coincidence or a sign of some sort, the thought had barely left my head when I began my descent, broke through the clouds and entered an absolutely beautiful day.

I gave the throttle a twist, rain flying off the windshield and my waterlogged gloves finally hitting dry air. I joyously flicked the bike down the mountains at just-below-unsafe speeds, happy to be alive and riding in a place and time few others will get to experience. I nearly giggled each time I stopped at a turnout, taking the same photos I had snapped through rain and fog in the clear sunny weather, smiling as I passed a minivan of tourists that were still in the visitors center when I had departed over three hours ago.

My bike and I bounded down the pass, stopping for a quick photo between sessions leaning into corners and doing my best super motoard impression. As I rode back into town towards our motel, I looked out on the water, in awe at the visible barrier between clear sky and storm front, hanging just at the base of the mountains. Looking out towards the sea, the sun slipped behind a cloud, creating what photographs call “god light,” the near-magical rays of light that stream out of a cloud like a laser beam. I snapped a couple more photos, and pulled into our motel with a huge grin.

“It cleared up right after you left, must have been a great ride!” said Meghan as I pulled in, and I rolled my eyes, beginning my tales of fog and rain. We spent the rest of the day walking around town, and had a supposedly traditional Acadian dinner, followed by an early bedtime.

This morning we were once again greeted with rain, although it let up as we packed, and we spent the day riding along the “no man’s land” between the clear weather and the storm front, eventually breaking out into a full blown blue sky as we left Cape Breton. We spent the rest of the day riding down the Marine Trail, a sparsely populated road hugging the southern portion of the island, just south of Cape Breton. While the road was occasionally rough, we were treated with views of the sea, small seaside villages and forests ranging from scrub pine to larger hardwoods.

We did not cover the distance we had planned, and a consensus among two sore butts decided on camping earlier than planned. We found a small campsite right on a lovely lake, and when I say right on the lake, as I am typing this I can see water about fifteen feet from where I am sitting. We’ve covered 1500 miles thus far, and while each day brings an adventure, it was a little sad waking up this morning and knowing that each mile is one step closer to the end of this tale rather than the start of some new adventure.

We’re hoping to cover some distance in the coming days, and if things go according to plan, spend a night or two with my parents in New Hampshire. We’re hoping she won’t be too scared by the dirty motorcycle-adventure bums that come through the door!

Pictures are here:

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We left our campsite in Bar Harbor and took “the Cat,” a high-speed ferry over to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Motorcycles were assembled together in the parking lot while waiting to load the boat, so a small “biker gang” was formed and we all chatted about bikes, where we came from and where we were going. This continued aboard the ship as we all congregated in one section of the boat, joking about the new biker hangout and the corresponding drop in the value of real estate. A few shared beers with two brothers from Ireland, and a woman from Ontario forged some new friendships, and our “gang” stayed at the same hotel and partook in some entertainment at the local pub. The bar had an open mic night of sorts, and anyone could play as long as they were playing a blues or “jam” style. The talent was actually very impressive, and we heard some great harmonica from a man with one tooth.

After a few too many “refreshments,” Meghan and I were a bit late getting out of our bed at the Best Western, the first time we had slept with a roof over our heads rather than nylon on the trip. We rode about 40 miles along the beautiful Nova Scotia shoreline, stopping to have some scheduled service done on Meghan’s bike. The mechanic was an interesting person, and explained the history of the French, Scottish and English influences on the area. After the service was completed, we headed north to the town of Digby, and out onto a long peninsula called Digby Neck. It seemed like we were the only people on the road, and the road ran along the ocean, making for a beautiful ride, the fresh salty air and scenery repairing our somewhat aching heads.

We picked a campground with no real method to our decision, and it turned out to be nearly perfect. Our tentsite is on top of a hill, with a view of the surrounding forest and ocean. This being our fourth night camping, our routine is becoming fairly efficient, and within about 10 minutes of our arrival the tent is up and the stove simmering. Less than a mile down the road from our campground is a small cove where we are heading to watch the sun set. Supposedly you can see whales from the shore, and with the exception of a couple of small houses, the cove is almost completely undisturbed.

The next installment will bring us to Cape Breton Island, the northernmost part of Nova Scotia, and an area famous for its riding.

The second set of pictures is also posted:

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This post is the first in a series about our motorcycle trip from NY to the tip of Nova Scotia:

We left on Monday August 14th and took a long ride up route 91 into New Hampshire, with plans of staying in the national forest there, but a late start and rapidly tiring backsides had us stop about 60 miles short where we spent the night in a fairly quiet and otherwise nondescript campsite.

On Tuesday we rode through the scenic Kancamagus highway, through North Conway and into Maine. There we camped at a fairly crowded site on Sebago lake, fighting with large campers and RVs for space. We then rode north of Portland, ME along Route 1, which runs along the ocean through towns that grow progressively smaller and more remote. We reached Bar Harbor that evening, and ate our fill of lobster and enjoyed a “civilized” meal rather than our usual campsite “gruel.” One of the interesting things about Bar Harbor is that all the local businesses employ help from eastern Europe and Russia. For a little town in Maine, it’s a bit surprising to hear young women giggling and conversing in Russian, and see a group of men conversing in Polish.

Meghan is adopting well to motorcycle adventuring, and our camping routine is slowly getting down to a science. We each have our particular “duties” and get the tent quickly setup and start cooking upon arrival at each site.

Photos from each section of the trip are below, and more will be added corresponding to each post:

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