History Museums Ruins

Saturday September 10th
I have actually felt fairly non-touristy so far here in Cusco since I am actually working, but today I felt as touristy as it gets. Vivi and I started early to walk to town, buy the obnoxious ´tourist ticket´ that every tourist must buy to see the ruins (it includes the ruins around Cusco, ruins in the Sacred Valley, a few others, and then some museums in Cusco as well), and then visit as many museums as possible before our City Tour this afternoon. We went to the Popular Art Museum (just a bunch of art and sculptures made by people in the community), the Regional Historical Museum (my favorite of the day. It had history of Cusco, the Spaniards, Tupac Amaru, food, Pisco Sours, Garcilaso, and more. It was very interesting and had plenty of information in English), and the Contemporary Art Museum (pretty cool, but I´m not one to stare at a piece of art for an hour so it was a pretty fast walk through), all three of which were included in the tourist ticket. When we got to the Plaza de Armas there were tons of people, no cars, and some sort of ceremony going on. We managed to weave our way through the plaza to find the Inca Museum (not included in the ticket). It looked like it was a big ceremony celebrating all the military, police, security groups, city beautifiers, cultural groups, etc. from Cusco and its surrounding provinces. The Inca Museum was pretty interesting, there were a bunch of artifacts and information (most of it in spanish). They could have done a better job with the presentation, with more english, but it was still good. Back to the Plaza to eat lunch and watch the parade of the different security groups before heading off to join our group for the city tour.

The first stop was the huge cathedral in the main plaza which looks amazing, but costs 25 extra soles to get in as a tourist. Turns out you can get in for free if you go super early in the moring during mass, so Vivi and I decided to save some money and do that another day. So then we had another hour to wander around before we rejoined our group. With the group again, we walked to the Qoricancha temple (now a church but which has Inca ruins reserved inside) where we learned about the temples of the sun, moon, stars, and lightening. During Inca times the temple used to be the center of a huge system of holy sites and temples spreading out like rays of the sun from Cusco. Our bus took us up the hill to Sacsayhuaman (not sexy woman) which was probably a religious site but has three layers of outer walls for protection making people think it was a fortress. Supposedly the Incas first built Cusco in the shape of a puma with this site as the head. The site has HUGE stones that make up the outermost wall that must have taken hundreds of men to move, an incredible task. Sacsayhuamen ended up being my favorite ruin of the day. We also visited Tambomachay (a water temple), Pucapucara (but we were running a bit late so we didn´t get out of the car to wander around the ruins), and Qenqo (it was dark by the time we got there, but it was just a huge rock in which the Incas had hollowed out a passageway with an alter as a worship site). We got home late and it was a very full day, so we just went straight to sleep.

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Great Barrier Reef

Um kurz nach acht werden wir abgeholt und ums Eck zum Hafen gebracht – irgendwie haben wir uns den Weg weiter vorgestellt, nachdem die Dame im Büro des Campingplatzes uns erkl?rt hat dass es viel zu weit zum gehen sein.
Dort wartet ein ehemaliger Hummerkutter - nun umgebaut zum Ausflugsboot, der so etwa 30 Leuten Platz bietet, die zum Schnorcheln ans Riff wollen. Und genau das machen wir. Die drei sympatischen Mitglieder der Crew (Kapit?n, Marinbiologe und Marinbiologin) geben uns noch die n?tigen Sicherheitshinweise und ab geht’s eine Stunde Fahrt zum ersten Schnorchel-Stop.
Die See erweist sich als etwas rauh, Wind so um die 25 Knoten, was immer das auch in km/h hei?en mag aber auch wir f?hnerprobten Tiroler finden, dass man diese Briese als Wind bezeichnen kann. Auf jeden Fall, die Wellen sind gro?, das Schiff rollt aber die Sackerl bleiben unbenutzt.
Dann endlich, das Meer wird ruhiger wir sind am Riff und nun endlich raus ins Wasser. Wir schnorcheln um bunte Korallen, durch bunte Riffe und k?nnen nur staunen über die unglaublich bunte Vielfalt im Meer.
Wir werden an noch zwei weitere Stellen am Riff zum Schnorcheln gebracht und das Staunen h?rt nicht auf. Auch wenn wir die gro?en Fische, Haie und Rochen leider nicht sehen bleibt es ein unglaubliches Erlebnis.
Bei der Rückfahrt haben wir noch das Glück, dass ein Buckelwal unseren Weg kreuzt. Er springt aus dem Wasser und verschwindet mit lautem Platsch im Meer. Noch einmal taucht er auf und winkt uns mit der beeindruckenden Fluke zu. Er wird wohl weiter nach Süden ziehen und wir müssen zurück ans Land.

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Gengma and surounding

On the evening at 1988 November 6th, an Richter 7.6 earthqueak hit Gengma, killed more than 700 people and injuried about 8000 citizen. But look at Gengma town today, you wouldn't find any trace of that deadly disaster, only the memorial tower erected in the middle of the Baima Plaza reminded people of the event. At the back of the Plaza is the rebuilt Gengma Tusi mansion, in fact, almost all the historial relics had been destroy by the earthqueak, one more deadly blow after the culture revolution.
Gengma(@1100m) is a small town with the bus station stood near the beautiful built Jingge White Stupa could dated back 220 years hidden on top of a small hill behind the local high school, the Stupa was dedicated to the people of Burma and China after many year of war and conflicted, and finally both country could live in peaceful and friendly environment. The Stupa had been rebuilt at 1992 according to the original main tower, and 12 smaller stupa had been add around the main tower, each stupa stood for a month of the year.
Gengma is a friendly and welcoming town, so infomation for the surrounding could easily obtained. Not far from the Baima Plaza is Zongfosi Temple. Buddhism not coming into Gengma before the year 1473. Couples of traders went to Kengtong in Burma, and impressed by the faith and custom of Buddhism, and when the monk in Kengtong find out they had never heard of Buddhism and had no temple in Gengma, the monk presented the traders with a buddha statue and send 2 monks go back to Gengma with them, Buddhism spread the first time and Zongfosi Temple was built to took charge of all the other temples. Inside the main temple hall you could see a long banner depicted the whole life's story of Buddha.
25km outside of Gengma on the road to Shuangjiang, a huge cave on the side of the hill where they had find some relics could dated back 3000 years ago, said sthere was sign of building construction mean...there could be human activies in the pre-history time. they also suspected the tunnel inside the cave could lead all the way to Shuangjiang about 100km away, of course...no one ever made it that far. anyways...you could walk about one kilometer deep into the cave if you dare to, altough not hot but it was dark and humid, and many insects swarm around your headlight torch...annoying! They call the cave Shifodong - the stone buddha cave, as some stalactites inside the cave look like a buddha. In the old day people would take refuge here when natural disaster appeared, so it said to be a blessed heaven from the deity. every year during Water Festival thousand of people will come here to pay their respect to Buddha. and together of course...eat, drink and fun fair....a men-made disaster to the cave I would say!
Markets around Gengma area was a surprised as I didn't expected to find anything dressed tribal or something new. The less interest was Mengsheng market right inside Cangyuan region, a huge market hall but without much business. "normally I do business until 3pm" one vendor said by 1pm when we were waiting for the minibus to depart. seem like most of people were busy in harvest pineapple. In Mengsheng still could see some Wa in costume, and they wear thick round neck ring and ear-ring in disc and square shape. Batuan market further down from Mengsa was busy inside the small town. First I was attracted by the huge rugby turban. plain colour knee lenght long sleeve jacket open from the right and long trouser. Happily identified themselve "we are Han" when asked. Then I spot some dressed in a little bit more colour, long sleeve robe open in the middle, knot by a single silver button. the sleeve were in blue while the main body in black, there were pattern in lapel and cuff area, they wear baggy trouser and legging, most of them didn't speak Chinese. After enquired I find out they were Lahu. The closer Lahu village is about 15km further up the mountain, and they celebrate Torch festival, " a big event in their village" a local told me. I made a mental note of this. The majority are Dai in the market, the plain tight long sleeve shirt and the salong skirt was easy to identified. The Gengma market was also busy, although it all set inside the huge market hall, still...there are great atmosphere as the area was big enough to creat a market scene inside. Here you could see Dai of course, then there are Lahu but without costume, only could identified by their shoulder bag, you also could see Wa with simple costume, typical Wa skirt and a plain jacket, no headdress was in sight. In the market I also find couple of Lisu women, although no costume dress only an front apron and a shoulder bag, local told me they are Lisu. But the surprised was the Yi, I didn't know they had Yi in Gengma, they call themselve Mula Yi, they live near Mengsa area. they wear their headdress in a rectangular shape, and dress similar to the Dai but they wear legging.
I quite like Gengma, not only it is small enough to walk around, people were just nice and friendly. the only disappointed thing was I couldn't find a decent bakery for bread and cookie, and...a new bus station had been ready about 1 kilometer at the edge of town. I really wonder why a small town like this with tiny bus traffic, there not even a chaos scene during peak hour on market day, why you need a bus station a long way from town center????

note
bus Mengyong to Gengma 21 yuan
minibus Gengma to Mengsa 15 yuan
minibus Gengma to Mengsheng 15 yuan
minibus Gengma to Shifodong 15 yuan
entrance fee to Shifodong 15 yuan
There are more photos at the bottom of this page

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Go Yankees

I watched my first baseball game today at the Yankee stadium. Wonderful weather & amazing atmosphere made the game great fun. I learnt alot about the game & got on the smile cam without realising it. Also visited the natural history museum & saw the dinosaurs, which reminded me of night at the museum. On a walk through central park I found the statute of Balto, the dog that took medicine to Neem in the 1920s.

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Gay Buenos Aires

Since my last post i was getting ready to go to a Gay Milonga (tango club) for my Gay Buenos Aires class. I dragged my housemate and new partner in crime Susana (we"re the only 2 in our house the have to make the trek to the global campus in retiro/recoleta everyday so we pretty much stick together for everything) with me and after arriving 20 minutes late we finally found the club in San Telmo. I cant say it was awesome because the teacher wasnt super psyched that we were all there and we learned the same basic steps over and over again for an hour. it was cool though because it was a classic tango club in the neighborhood where tango was born (it was also kind of mysterious walking up the stairs and finding the class behind a black curtain :). Tango is beautiful and romantic but very slow, i think for me to enjoy dancing it, it would all depend on the partner. i like the faster latin dances like bachata and salsa that i got a small taste of while back in the states and have been dying to find a place to keep practicing. as fate would have it on the bus ride back i met a musician that plays at a salsa club that put the information about the club in my phone and gave me a card so i could contact him for more information. its times like these that make me love Buenos Aires, when people are helpful and excited that you are trying to learn spanish and immerse yourself in the culture. i only wish that all of my encounters could be so pleasant.
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Hong Kong is weird. Really weird.

It feels like it's been quite a quiet week this week but i'm probably forgetting stuff. Well it was mid-autumn festival a week ago so me, gemma and amy headed to causeway bay to the carnival thing. It was slightly disappointing because despite the persistent rumors of chinese people being really small I couldn't see over their heads to see the dragon dance! Maybe I am also really small. But there was lots of pretty lights, including a giant fish made out of lanterns, and a fairground that wasn't a real fairground but actually made of lights. Of course. Why not. Children don't want to actually go on the teacups anyway. So after wandering around a bit we retired to a bar for a few drinks. The next day I went to the temple of 10 thousand buddhas with Maeve and Danielle, which is in Sha Tin in the New Territories. It was beautiful, you walked up about 400 steps to get to the temple and there were buddha statues all the way up, but every one was different. 'Pick the one that looks like...' kept us entertained for most of the walk! The temple at the top was lovely, the weather wasn't totally stifling and it was great to get up and out of the city for a few hours. The rest of the week was spent at work, and then at the weekend we went for our friday afternoon cocktails but it wasn't a late one because I had to work on saturday (which was really annoying because everyone was going on an activity day in the New Territories!) But it was an open day for the pre-school kids and they were so cute it made up for it! Straight when we finished Maeve dragged me to the irish bar to catch the end of the match (she's irish and loves rugby, and I have to say it's really growing on me!) Standard night out in Lang Kwai Fong on saturday and then a day spent recovering with some crap tv on sunday, it was nice to have a rest!

I promised to talk about some things that I find really odd about Hong Kong, so here's a few of my favorites -
- The kids english names. A lot of them are normal, but some are very odd. Some of the best girls ones I've heard are cutie, angel and manchester. And of the boys the winners have to be happy and vodka. Happy is possibly my favorite student, after he was filling in his school profile and said 'can I put Mr Happy Miss Wallace?' Also, apparently Wallace is a really common boys name over here so it really amuses the kids when I introduce myself to them!

- The total obsession with not eating on the MTR. I made the mistake of finishing my chocolate bar on the MTR in the first week, people actually turned and stared me out until I put it back in my bag. I think they just want people to have their germy mouths shut as much as possible.

- This isn't odd, it's lovely, the way they really do respect the older generations. There are exercise corners for the elderly to help them do their tai chi. And I walked past a 'sitting area' today with lots of old men just sitting playing chess, there's no vandalism on any of these things, and it's really nice to see. Sadly respect doesn't always mean provide for, the welfare system is very poor in Hong Kong.

-People put shoes on their dogs. And sunglasses. And they wheel them around in prams. Every time i see it I think sally and Katie would really like it here!

There's loads more, it really is a very strange place. But it's time for bed now, so i'll think of some others for next time.

Love to everyone. xx

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fjerde blogindlg.. Eller er det femte

Hvad har jeg s? at fort?lle? Jaaaa. Jeg har nok f?et mig et job som engelsk l?re p? det lokale sprogcenter! Jeg h?ber p? at starte i denne uge, det kunne v?re rigtig sp?ndende. Dog ville det blive lidt kompliceret, samtidig med mit arbejde p? fabrikken, men jeg h?ber det g?r. Men hvis jeg bliver tvunget til at v?lge, v?lger jeg jobbet som l?re. Det tror jeg passer bedst til mig, trods alt.
Udover det er jeg begyndt at kigge lidt p? studiejobs til n?r jeg kommer hjem. Men det er selvf?lgelig sparsomt. Jeg fandt dog et opslag med et job som juletr?ss?lger! Det kunne v?re super fedt! Men det passer, sjovt nok, ikke rigtig ind i mine planer. N?ste ?r skal jeg v?re juletr?ss?lger. Der er ingen vej udenom!
I g?r blev jeg v?kket da vi skulle spise frokost. Vi skulle ud til det helt store familie tam-tam, s? jeg var lidt malplaceret. S?dan f?lte jeg i hvertfald. Men de fleste af dem har set mig f?r, og de synes bare jeg er interessant.
Jeg m?dte en amerikaner der hedder John, som roste mig til skyerne. Han var rigtig flink, og en RIGTIG amerikaner. Han havde v?ret i fl?den og da han var f?rdig der, startede han sit eget firma.
Jeg slog ham i bordfodbold, (3 gange) og han slog mig i pool.

Ellers er der ikke helt overdrevet meget at fort?lle. Jeg sidder p? arbejdet, i frokostpausen, imens de andre sover. Det er ?benbart meget normalt at tage sig en time p? ?jet imens der er pause. Der er en eller anden der snorker. Sp?ndende sp?ndende. Den havde nok ikke g?et i Danmark.
Jeg har for resten for f?rste gang f?et en manicure med damen jeg var til jobsamtale hos p? sprogcenteret. Anny. Hun er virkelig s?d! Selvom hun er 33, gift og mor snakker jeg rigtig godt med hende! S? jeg h?ber at skulle v?re meget p? sprogcenteret s? jeg kan se en masse til hende.
Jeg er l?bet t?r for ting at sige.
Udover at Rune lige har v?ret i byen med mine venner. Snyd!
Over and out

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