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It's September 14th here in Berkeley, California.

I've put up the Uighur music that we brought back from Xinjiang province [http://www.tentacle.net/~chrisr/music/ here]. Enjoy.

It's August 30th here in Berkeley, California.

Our photos are in the process of going up, they can be found [http://www.tentacle.net/~chrisr/photos.html here]. Andrea has a best of set in the works.

It's August 10th here in Martinez, California.

And we're back safe and sound after two and a half months of northern and western China.

It's August 3rd here in Beijing, China.

And boy is it hot and muggy and smoggy all at once. We're looking forward to nice balmy California on the 10th, when we'll be coming home and picking up a day by flying east with the turning of the planet. (That is we leave Beijing the morning of the 10th, and get to San Fransisco the morning of the 10th as well.) See everyone soon.

It's July 27th here in Urumqi, China.

We've been staying with a friend we met in Kashgar, Jenny, whom is a Canadian living in Urumqi. She's studying languages at the University here and has shown us around the city. Its quite nice to have the stress of traveling around taken away for awhile, and things like finding decent places to eat taken care of. We've book our train tickets back to Beijing, they are for Thursday the 29th, the ride there from here is 49 hours long, so we'll bring a book or two. We've already read through several books while we were in China, an interesting one being Wild Swans, which takes the personal account of three generations of women in one family and follows it through contemporary Chinese history.

After Beijing we will be turning up August 10th in California. We look foward to seeing you all.

It's July 18th here in Kashgar, China.

Hopefully we'll be departing tomorrow to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province. There, we'll visit a friend we met while travelling, a Canadian who lives in Urumqi. Then we'll all go up to the lake nearby where we can escape the heat and the dust.

It's July 13th here in Kashgar, China.

The road between Hotan and Kashgar is paved for five hours worth, and under construction for 3 hours worth. Hotan was much less touristed and fun to see, unfortunatly we couldn't find a cheap place to stay and had to shell out 100 yuan (12.50 US) for our double room. But when a room being 12 bucks a night is your biggest worry you have a pretty good time. We checked out a hand made carpet factory, a hand pulled and loomed silk factory, the Hotan river (from which the white and brown jade Chinese jade comes from), and the sunday market.

I can safely report back that the Chinese think jade is very valuable. Any of the carvings that were nice enough to consider picking up were in the hundreds of dollars US. Carpets are plentiful in the bazaar there, put aside from some particularly nice natural wool colored ones they were mostly low quality machine made ones that reminded me too much of the carpeting in US suburban tract housing. I did though, find one little piece of jade in the river, which I'll proudly bring home. The sunday market was really a nice highlight, it being very busseling and down many little twisting dirt roads, it was mainly local goods and produce and factory made clothes, but then not many people in the region are rich enough to have lots of material possesions to sell in a flea market.

It's July 6th here in Kashgar, China.

We celebrated the Fourth of July, which as a holiday also doubles as our (2nd) anniversary, near a lake that reminded us of Lake Merritt in Oakland. There were even fireworks. Okay, they weren't actually fireworks, they were cheesy permanent light installations that resembled fireworks. It was all very patriotic.

We are moving on to Hotan tomorrow, a center for rug and silk making and jade deposits as well. We will stop at a small town to break up the trip along the way, and probably come straight back to Kashgar. After that, it's not much longer until we take the epic 3-day train back to Beijing. We'll keep you posted.

It's June 29th in Kashgar (Kashi), Xinjiang Province, China.

We're finally in Kashgar. We took the bus from Turpan eleven hours to Kuche, an unremarkable Vegas like Han Chinese town, and then from Kuche a twenty two hours to Kashgar. Pretty much the seeing of the country side is better from the bus, but we'll definitely take the train on the way back.

North of the Gobi desert is an almost unbroken string of oasis and farm land that stretches from Turpan to Kashgar which is feed from the snow capped mountains to the north.

The Kashgar oasis is feed from the river that gathers snow melt from the glaciers of the Pamir moutains (of which K2 is numbered amoung). We took an over nighter up to a small crystal clear lake that reflected the 25,000 foot mountains and their permant covering of snow, and stayed a yurt. The drive was amazing coming up from the plane of Kashgar and the desert, up into some of the highest mountains I've seen. And not a tree to be found, only broken slates and granites, and tumbled stones and sands. Amazing.

It's June 23rd in Turpan (Tulufan), Xinjiang Province, China.

We are in a city in a low-lying basin that holds the record for the hottest temperatures in China. Luckily, delicious refreshing melons are only 1 yuan (about 12 cents) and our dormitory room is air-conditioned. Today we went around and saw the sights with a girl we met in our hotel. This region is an agricultural oasis, with an empghasis on grape growing. Many of the city sidewalks are covered with grape vine trellises. The grapes won't be ready till late summer but I tried some anyway. We also got to try some of the finished product, wine, today at a touristy area where you can see the karez, the ancient irrigation system that uses gravity to bring water from the mountains down to the desert basin, and that is still being used today. Raisins are also a big product here and the perforated brick structures that they're dried in are everywhere around the outskirts of town. We haven't decided where we're moving to next, but we'll be here in Turpan for at least a few more days.

Happy Fathers Day !!!

It's June 17th in Dun Huang, Gansu Province, China.

To reach here we took a 5 hour train ride over from Jiayuguan along the Lanzhou-Urumqi railway. Jiayuguan was at one point the western most outpost of the Chinese empire and consists of a magnificient old fort that stands out in the barren desert with endless empty dunes stretching away northward and towering empty snow capped mountains rising southward.

We took the "hard seat" class, and it cost us 24 yuan each, which comes out to 3 dollars. For going something like 150 miles that's a pretty good price and we got the added pleasure of hanging out in the shared seats and tables car with all the locals on their way out to the middle of nowhere.

After hours of passing through barren and sun blasted earth, we lost sight of the mirage-like snow capped mountains and started passing through little rolling black stone hills, finally getting to our stop of Liayuan, which was a meer two hours north of Dun Huang.

Dun Huang is a welcome rest to the traveling through the desert, its an oasis of a town with tall thin white barked trees that have soft silver green leaves, its surrounded by farm land and has quite a little tourist industry going with respects to the Buddhist caves that are near.

It's June 13th in Xiahe, Gansu Province, China.

When we arrived in Lanzhou after a night of fitful sleep aboard the sleeper train, we decided to immediatly board a bus for a six hour ride to Xiahe. Lanzhou is well known for stranding travellers for a few days, so we decided to take this side trip first, and to visit Lanzhou afterwards, in case it takes a few days to get tickets onward. Xiahe is a small town couched between mountains on the North and South and endless farmland and grazing pastures to the East and West. It has one major thoroughfare that runs alongside a small river down through the valley. The raison d'etre for this rather remote town is the Tibetan Monastery that was founded here in 1709. The places that we've seen thus so far have been either Han Chinese or Hui, the muslim ethnic minority that dominates in many of the westward cities. This town, however, is 50 percent Tibetan, many of whom are the 2,000 or so monks and nuns that live within the monastery. The monks are easily discernable by their fucsia robes and shaved heads-- the rest of the Tibetan population consists of religious pilgrims who have journeyed here from Tibet and who dress in traditional costume. The huge monastery complex, which takes up half the town, is surrounded by a perimeter wall that is filled withe prayer wheels-- spinning cylinders with tibetan religous script painted on them. Each day the pilgrims circle the monastery clockwise, turning each prayer wheel as they go, sending thousands upon thousands of prayers to heaven.

This place has been quite the welcome respite from the smelly, stifling cities we've been through so far, wuth their rampant consumerism and the accompanying trash piles and frantic sales pitches. The climate has been perfect so far, warm for part of the day but often refreshingly brisk in the mornings and evenings, with surprise showers that mist rather than drench. Today we took a bike ride up the meager highway that snakes along with the river on to ever remote areas. The idea was to visit the "grasslands", the pastures where the yaks graze and people live and work in yurts. We saw some animals, and some yurts, but the mountains and the sky were the real attraction. We had been jonesing for these kind of surroundings since we arrived in Beijing, where one can't see the sky through the blanket of pollution. The people here are nice (the tibetan women are fascinated with my nose piercing) and room and board is very, very cheap. We would like to stay here for a while , soaking in the landscape and the absolute absence of anything to do. After seeing the local women knitting, I picked up some needles and yarn and am well on my way to a nice scarf.

It's June 7th here in Xi'an, China.

It would appear tentacle.net, which some say resides in Oakland, is on the direct opposite side of a vast ball of rock hurling through outer space from where I am. Interesting features of this phenomena include that each click takes around 10 minutes to load. Which is in part to say that as we head further west there is some possiblity we might be out of internet range. We've got tickets tommarrow night to Lanzhou, which is about 400 kilometers away in the province of Gansu, its supposed to be set in a long and jagged valley, and is 1600 meters above sea level. Which by the way is one mile up, the same height as Denver, Colerado.

Present day Xi'an is on the site of ancient Chang'an, the historic capitol of Northern China up unitl the period of the Ming (Bright) and Qing (Pure)dynasties which spanned an epoch of 1350ish until 1908. Of note was a particularly good mueseum containing an extensive collection of Shang dyanasty (1200 - 500ish B.C.) bronzes, and Ming and Qing pottery, amoung other things. It was western in style, having dates and names and locals of the objects, which differed greatly from some of the other historic Chinese artifacts we've seen which had a lack of western historic background, but rather poetic discriptions. That was yesterday. Today we took in the Terra Cotta Warriors the Qin dyansties (221 B.C.) first and last Emperor. Absolutely amazing, the detail and scale of undertakings that could be completed 2000 years ago. People have been in this valley for a long long time.

It's June 5th here in Ping Yao, China.

The old inner city of Ping Yao, which is surrounded by its original wall, is an odd mixture of Ming Dynasty and modern technologies. The sewer system: Ming Dynasty. This computer I'm using: modern. Our hostel is a traditional guest house with a beautiful courtyard and carved rosewood furniture. The food here in the hostel is quite good, my favorite dishes have been the soups they make with fresh broth made from ginger, garlic and green onions. For our one night in Ping Yao we splurged on a private room, and tonight we take a sleeper train on to Xi'an, home of the famous Terra Cotta warriors. I bought my first souveneers here, a couple of old communist military badges from the 1940's and 1950's. They are a dime a dozen here. Well, not quite that cheap.

It's June 3rd here in Beijing, China.

We've got over night sleeper train tickets to the old town of Ping Yao, its about two hundred miles south west of Beijing, half way between Beijing and Xi'an, it's supposed to have quite a nice old city and wall in it, and was recommended by other travelers. Just when we've figured out where to get good breakfasts in Beijing we're on our way west. I'd highly recommend the fried egg naan with green onions, its painted with black bean paste and comes hot and crispy off the frier. Also the yogurt drinks are absolutely wonderful, they make them fresh and reuse the jars that they come in for the next days drinks. They reminded me very much of the fresh yogurt I had in Paris with my mother. Starting with the entry below Andrea and I have will have been doing alternating entries by the way.

It's June 2nd here in Beijing, China.

Ways in Which Beijing is like Burning Man

1. Its really damn hot.

2. One must surreptitously pick ones nose due to the giant mongolian dust cloud that creeps its way into ones orafices.

3. Piles of bikes are parked on the sides of the roads often with leopard seat covers.

4. Large structures are being built at a fantastic rate.

5. Hastily put together jalopies careen around the perimeter of the city taking residents and looky loos to various sites.

Its May 28th here in Beijing, China.

After a long long flight to the other side of the world we caught a late night shuttle into Beijing, then an exciting motorized tuktuk ride to our hostel. We liked the hostel enough to book through next Wednesday night there at the Feiying International Youth Hostel. Its 100 yuan a night for two people here, which works out to be slightly more than 12 dollars or so. We're slightly jet lagged, and spent the morning looking at Beihai Park and Tienanmen Square.

The smog is really hideous, there are definitely passing pockets of something with lots of sulphur in it, and its impossible to see the sky, but the wide tree lined avenues are really quite nice, and all the people we've met are friendly.

Its May 24th here in Berkeley, California.

We will be flying out on Wednesday, which just so happens to be the Buddha's birthday as Andrea pointed out. More to come after we aclimatize from the jet lag -- after all China is on the other side of the world.

Its May 16th here in Berkeley, California.

[http://www.tentacle.net/~chrisr/images/04.5.15.fishing/ Fishing] with Rob and Nick was great, we caught eight big ones. Packing up the apartment commences.

Its May 1st here in Berkeley, California.

Our FlightInfo is here. Copies of our visas and passports are with our mothers. The time table comes forth as we have a little less than four weeks to our flight. We'll be gone until August, and have payed our last rent check today, atleast until we get back that is.

Its April 22nd here in Berkeley, California.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3648583.stm|Capitalism is blossoming Yahoo is a communist collaborator] in China, but still unregulated. And in other news, American search engine company [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2234154.stm].

Its April 21st here in Berkeley, California.

We picked up our visas from the San Francisco Chinese Consulate today!! They gave us 90 days, no problem.

This is our ThingsToSeeInBeijingList, as always, feel free to add to it. Check out this [http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa070700a.htm/ article] about dim sum. Of course if you're not in China, the best dim sum on the west coast is at JadeVilla in downtown Oakland.

Its April 20th here in Berkeley, California.

This is our ThingsToBringList, feel free to add to it.

Its April 16th here in Berkeley, California.

We're hitting up the [http://www.chinaconsulatesf.org/eng/|Chinese Embassy map] today to get our visas. Our flight out is on May 26th, and we'll be returning to the States on August 10th. Looks like we're going to be traveling the route of [http://www.ess.uci.edu/~oliver/silk.html the old silk road]. After flying into Beijing we will head west through Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu, finally reaching the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang a total of 2127 miles (approximately the distance between New York and California). We might take a more northern route, passing through Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.

We also got some nice Mandarin language cd's from the [http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/ Berkeley Public Library]. If anyone knows how to display pinyin tone markers in Wiki let us know.

Its March 31st and we return from Stinson Beach, California.

There are some pictures up [http://www.tentacle.net/~chrisr/images/04.3.31.dipsea/ here].

Its March 25th and we return from Tahoe, California.

Slightly bruised and battered from learning how to snowboard, but otherwise in better shape than we started. It snowed on our final night on the mountain, about six to eight inches I'd guess, luckily the plows came around very early in the morning and we didn't have to wait to drive out. There were lovely snowy spring views all the way down to Auburn.

Its March 18th and we are currently in Berkeley, California.

Today we found Kevin's nifty WikiWikiWeb server and set up a travel log.

Check back after May 26th for entries of a more exotic nature. tentacle.net/wiki/ErFurtWiKi