The Many Faces Of China: Food & Travel

We just returned from visiting Beijing, Tokyo, Kyoto and Shanghai. We got to see first-hand the luxury hotels and the huge liquor bills involved when deals are being made in Beijing...

and then we got to watch the minions, who travel two and sometimes three on tiny electric scooters and bikes literally held together with wads of duct tape. 

Click any image to view an enlarged gallery of photos... then click the X in the top corner to return to the post.

We saw the Beijing Apple Store, and the new Prada designer-brands skyscraper shopping mall with it's Salvador Dali sculpture, and the luxury cars waiting with their drivers outside that seem to belong to Communist Party bosses and Chinese entrepreneurs ... In contrast, we visited almost all of the historic sites - The Temple of Heaven, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall of China.

And we saw many, many, many people living in abject poverty in Beijing, eating pork belly and rice, and a dozen kinds of gourds floating in tubs of hot water on the streets. 

Surprisingly, food was more expensive in Beijing than it was in Tokyo. After a couple of failed tries at local restaurants, we took refuge at the Beijing Starbucks that served all of our regular favorites at exactly what we are used to paying in Orlando, Florida! One World!

We thought food would be cheaper in China than in Japan, considering the vast difference in lifestyles and wages. But we went over budget for somewhat decent food that seemed safe to eat in Beijing and Shanghai, and we could have spent $40 each for breakfast and $99 each for a steak dinner (not including drinks) at our luxury hotel (The Regent.) 

The room, however was big and fabulous and less than $200 per night. 

We also loved the Chinese subway system that was cheap, clean and very efficient. Every ride ticket was "2 yuan" about 33 cents, paid for at the entrance. 












There are few traffic jams in Beijing because new license plates are rare, and must be won at the annual lottery. Since 1999, all diesel buses have been converted to natural gas or electric, and the vast majority of motorcycles and scooters are electric in China. 

But even without cars, air quality is a real issue in Beijing. The toxic smog from massive construction and industrialized manufacturing gets trapped in Beijing -- just like it used to get trapped in Los Angeles in the 1960's before auto-emission and manufacturing regulations went into effect in California. Both cities are settled into valleys surrounded on three sides by mountains.


Travel 60 miles northwest of Beijing for a day at the Great Wall.

Put on your best walking shoes, bring a wet wash cloth in a baggy, bring a couple bottles of water, dress light and bring a hat or umbrella to beat the heat, May to November. The Great Wall at Badaling, China is the best location, in the best repair with plenty of little shops for food and souvenirs. A day at the Great Wall involves a lot of walking, some of it up steep walkways. But it's a marvelous way to immerse yourself in the Medieval World. You can take a bus, but the train is actually cheaper, and more comfortable. #China #Travel

Test-Rocket Launch at Spaceport America in Mojave Desert

Congratulations to Elon Musk and the Space X team. On August 13, 2013, the Falcon 9 test rig, aka "Grasshopper" flew to an altitude of 250m completed a 100m lateral maeuver and returned to the center of the launch pad. The divert test demonstrated the space vehicle's ability to perform new, more aggressive steering maneuvers.


Controlling the 10-story "Grasshopper" is a big challenge. "Diverts like this are an important part of the trajectory in order to land the rocket precisely back at the launch site after re-entering from space at hyper-sonic velocity," the team said in a statement attached to this raw footage of the Aug. 13th test.

These guys ROCK!

I first met the Space X team at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, just after they won the X Prize in 2004 with SpaceShipOne. The team told an audience of young pilots at the country's top flight school that commercial space travel would become a reality within a few years at their facility in the Mojave desert.


That is when I first heard about Virgin Galactic, an extension of the UK's Virgin Group, owned by flight enthusiast Sir Richard Branson. Virgin unveiled the world's first commercial spaceway in 2010 -- A runway for space craft in the Mojave in New Mexico.

The nearly two-mile long runway at Spaceport America was dedicated to Bill Richardson, who was governor of New Mexico in 2010. 

The Mojave facility in Upham, NM is the historic site where Burt Rutan's White Knight and SpaceShipOne captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize by reaching outer space (100 kilometers) in a privately financed, reusable passenger space craft. The $25 million initial price tag was funded by Microsoft co-founder, Bill Allen.

Test pilot Mike Melvill is photographed atop SpaceShipOne after his Sept. 29, 2004 flight into space. 

Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composite designed and developed the spacecraft, dubbed "White Knight" that carried SpaceShipOne into outer space. White Knight also carried SpaceShipOne to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. in 2005, where it is permanently on exhibit.

All of the historic flights were made at the Mojave Airport Civil Aviation Test Center, which reclassified itself as the part-time Mojave Spaceport.

On Oct. 22, 2010 Sir Richard Branson and about 30 of the 380 Virgin Galactic future astronauts were present for the Spaceport America Runway dedication. They watched a flyover and landing by Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo, along with guests from around the world, who hope to be on board future flights. The 42-inch thick spaceway is designed to support nearly every type of aircraft in the world today, and anticipated future space travel. 

Read the full story here.

Passo Giau 2012

Passo Giau is a top motorcycle and bike touring destination in Italy.

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Great Friendships Can Be Found In The Most Unlikely Places

Great Fiendship: Orangutan and the Hound

I was a bit tired this aftenoon when this National Geographic video floated into my Yahoo mailbox and caused me to relax and smile. I hope it will do the same for you - My Friends. ~ MJ 03/08/10