CRABS!

Last night we had one of my favorite foods- boiled crabs! Actually, I love any kind of seafood boiled. . . crabs, shrimp, crawfish, it really doesn't matter what kind of crustacean, I love them all. Boiled in Zatarain's crab boil with whatever else happens to be around. Potatoes and garlic are my favorites, but it's also common to throw in corn on the cob, sausage, and onions.

We also make a concoction that we call a seafood dip made of mayonnaise, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, tobasco hot sauce, Tony Cacheri's seasoning, and a dash of ketchup. It's a great all-purpose dip and goes well with any type of boiled seafood.

Boiling seafood is a fairly easy process- they go in with blue claws and come out red! You just put the crustacean of choice and water into a 30 gallon pot on top of a propane burner and bring to a boil for 12 minutes. Then you let it sit there soaking up the sasonings for another 3-5 minutes. The length of time required to soak in the seasoning depends on how "fat" the seafood is. Depending on the season, crabs might be "skinny" inside the shell, so fluid can seep into it with lots of seasoning easily. That's when you find every cut on your hands and mouth, because if it's really seasoned, the spices will cause a burning sensation on any open wounds!

After the crabs are boiled, we drain the water out and then pour them over a table covered with newspaper. It's our best place setting, so if you're ever invited to a Cajun's home for boiled seafood and you're presented with a newspaper-covered table, you should be honored!!! The only utensils required are your hands and a butter-knife for cracking claws. Growing up, we would get fussed for breaking off the pinchers (claws) and not eating the rest of the crab. It appears that grandchildren are not subject to this same rule since they seem to get this choice meat without much ado!

We bought the crabs from a crabber in Leeville on our way back from Grand Isle the other day ($8 per dozen). We wanted to buy 6 dozen, but the old guy was generous and threw in an extra three dozen. I'll shell whatever we don't eat as leftovers this week and freeze it to take back with me to Colorado! The old crabber didn't say much. He apparently lives right at the boat landing that he runs because as we were leaving, his wife stuck her head out of a doorway right next to the warf and yelled something in French. She ended the string of French words with "come get your coffee!" My dad confirmed that she told him the same thing in French before saying it again in English. I don't know if she reiterated her command in English for our sake or if he just didn't usually listen to her so she tried two languages!!

As you can see from this post, I am very much enjoying my visit home, especially the eatin!!! My niece and nephew are here today, so with 70 degree weather, we'll enjoy the outdoors again until the rain comes this afternoon.

This last picture is of the Louisiana state bird- the Pelican. I don't remember seeing very many when I was a kid, but apprently they were put on the endangered list a while back and have made a come-back over the years. They were everywhere! My dad says that sometimes they cast their lines when fishing and will snare a pelican flying by. These birds are huge and according to him, put up a decent fight when you're trying to unhook them from your line!

Redfish Courtbuillion

My Aunt Ruth and Pyran Wayne came over last night for supper and my mom made a redfish courtbuillion (pronounced coo bee yon). She makes a modified version of her dad's recipe. My Papa Babin was a GREAT cook, especially with any dish that calls for seafood in it.



My Papa was a jack of all trades! He worked on barges, built bridges & houses, was a Wildlife and Fisheries agent and was a trapper for a good part of his life. Although I don't think he had formal schooling past the second grade, he was one of the smartest people I've ever known. He could do math in his head that I can't even do on a calculator and could perfectly square up a house seemingly by feel! Of all his talents though, his cooking took the prize! He made everything from spicey turtle soup to scrumtuous smothered duck.



Here's my mom's modified version of his recipe that I like even better!!

Redfish Courtbuillion

6 lbs tenderloined fish

4 Tbsp flour

2 8-oz cans tomato sauce

1 bell pepper, chopped

4 bay leaves

6 Tbsp oil

2 10-oz cans whole tomato

4 large onions, chopped

4 ribs celery, chopped

salt, pepper, & tobasco sauce to taste

Make roux with flour and oil.

Add seasonings and saute until tender.

Add tomatoes and smother.

Add all other spices and seasonings and enough water or fish stock to the thickness desired.

Cook over low heat for several hours to blend.

About 30 minutes before the sauce is cooked add fish to cook in the sauce.

Serve over rice.

After supper, my nephew Andy and his girlfriend Lauren took me about a quarter mile up the road to a place that serves beignets. Just about every culture has a version of this fried dough with powdered sugar on top (think funnel cakes, chorros, etc.). The nutritionist in my cringes at the thought of it, but I allow myself this indulgence a couple of times a year! I used to take Andy to the French Quarter in New Orleans when he was younger and we'd have cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde. Yummmmmmmm! When he was younger, I'd wait until he got the beignet right up to his face, then I'd blow on the powdered sugar and he's end up with it everywhere! He's a lot bigger now though and he had his girlfriend with us, so I refrained this time!!!

OK, stand by for a boiled crabs post later!

Trip down da bayou

Yesterday I took a ride down to Grand Isle with my dad and Ms. Paulette. Yes, Paulette is her first name, but here in South Louisiana, we take language ques from our French ancestors. If the adult is "familiar" we tend to use the person's first name and stick Mr. or Ms. in front of it as a sign of respect. If the adult is "unfamiliar" and therefore formal, we'll use Mr. or Mrs./Ms. with the last name. Anyway, Ms. Paulette was my mom's best friend in high school and has been around our family for as long as I can remember. Her husband, Mr. John, and my dad spend

a lot of time fishing together and on their boats.

Although the common response to my stating that I grew up south of New Orleans is "I didn't think there was anything south of New Orleans", we went even further south yesterday. It's actually another hour to get all the way to the "true" southern section of Louisiana. Lafourche parish sticks out farther south than Terrebonne parish (which is where my hometown of Houma is located), so south Lafourche is way down there!

There's a little island that's connected to the "mainland" by a bridge. My grandparents had several camps as I was growing up, and one of them was on Grand Isle. This beach was heaven to me as a kid and it wasn't until I was a teenager and went farther down the Gulf Coast to Biloxi, MS and Pensacola, FL that I realized that "ocean" water isn't really brown and sand isn't really like dirt/mud. Look real hard at the horizon over the water in the first picture and you can make out the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. But it was Louisiana's beach and I was satisfied with it! The camp in this picture was built by my dad, Mr. John and Ms. Paulette. It's as nice as my house in Colorado, just up on stilts! Although most of Grand Isle was wiped out by hurricane Katrina, this camp, and a few other camps and homes, made it intact. Just about everyone who lives on the island (population before Katrina was about 1500-2000 people) are shrimpers, crabbers, fisherman, or oilfield workers. That population jumps up to near 20,000 during the summer and during the tarpon fishing rodeo though.

On the way back from Grand Isle, we took the "old" road that follows Bayou Lafourche all the way back to Houma. My mom and Ms. Paulette grew up along Bayou Lafourche in the towns of Mathews and Raceland. My Pyran (cajun God father), used to drive his boat to school. Drawbridges still connect the roads on either side of the bayou and shrimpboats line the waterway. The highway straddles the bayou on both sides and folks live right on the bayou. As you can see in the picture, they just park their shrimp boats out in front of their houses.

We stopped along the way and bought some crabs in Leeville to have for supper tonight. I'll save that story and those pictures for tomorrow though. Today is supposed to be in the 70s and my brother has loaned me his motorcycle again, so I'm anxious to get this day started! I'll do one more post though, before I head out!

Christmas 2006

A fairly recent tradition to my Cajun Christmas holidays is the game Pictionary! Every year when I come home, my sister's boyfriend, Dean and his two kids come over for the highly anticipated event of the year! It's usually the boys vs. girls. The boys team this year consisted of Dean, his son Matt, and my nephews Andy and Philip. The girls team consisted of me, my sister Monica, Dean's daughter Lexie, and Andy's girlfriend Lauren. Although the guys were fired up and actually leading for the first half of the game, the girls made an astounding comeback and crushed the guys. Wounds were licked and a challenge issued for next year. . .

Christmas morning saw me awakened at 6:00 a.m. to the excited chatter of kids opening Santa gifts! OK, for those of you who know me well, you know that I would've gotten up that early anyway! It was pretty fun to see them opening gifts and get a preview of what kind of stuff I'd be playing for the next week and a half that I'm here!! As coordinated as I am, I'm a little leary of the pogo sticks!

I hate buying gifts just for the sake of buying gifts for a holiday, so this year I collected memories over the year and gave them as gifts for Christmas! I spent quality time with many of my family members this year, so it was fairly easy to put together digital books of our experiences. I made a book for Andy (and one for Alexis) of our backpacking trip to Europe this summer, a book for Julia and Gavin of their first trip to Colorado, and a book for Monica of our trip to Hawaii this fall. Poor Philip was the only one who didn't get a book. Not because we didn't spend time together, but because we didn't do anything all that exciting while he was in Colorado this summer. We shoveled lots of rocks, but we never made it to the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame or to the Figure Skating Museum. He's dying to go though (NOT!), so I promised him I'd take him this summer!!!! Anyway, if you want to make really professional looking photo books with a personalized dust jacket, check out this website (www.blurb.com).

Although the weather was in the 60s the first day I got here, we have been in the low 50s and upper 40s ever since. Although chilly, I took my brother's HD Road King out for a spin this afternoon. I was a popsicle after an hour, but what a nice ride!!! I'm hoping to get a few more rides in before it starts raining in a few days.

That's it for now. I'll check back in in a couple of days and let yall know what I've been up to. I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and is looking forward to the New Year!

Waiting for Papa Noel!

It's been a very busy day for me. First I got up and did a little run on the treadmill. After that, my day consisted mostly of eating gumbo and visiting with my nephews and niece! What a great life!

As you can see from the pictures, Gavin and Julia put out some reindeer food as a snack for Santa's reindeer. Funny how everyone remembers to put out cookies and milk for Santa, but nobody thinks to refuel the reindeer!!

They are so excited about Santa coming tonight that they've gone to bed already so we can get an early start in the morning! The kids are anxiously awaiting their gifts in the morning, but mine has already been delivered in the form of available airline seats between Colorado and Louisiana!

Sleep well family and friends and trust that Santa will bring you everything you need (maybe not want, but NEED!). If not tonight, then hopefully during 2007!!

Home for the holidays!!!

First of all, THANK YOU ANITA! My friend Anita talked me into accompanying her to the airport yesterday morning for her 6:30 a.m. flight. She made a good argument when she pointed out that I might as well sit at the airport and try to go stand-by on one of the 7 daily flights from Colorado Springs to Houston.

Long story short, on the fourth flight of the day, I got a seat to Houston. It must've been meant for me to make it home for the holidays, because I was able to get a seat on the very next flight from Houston to New Orleans! By 7:30 p.m., I was sitting in my momma's kitchen eatin gumbo and home made bread with my family!

It's 55 degrees out, I'm walking around it jeans and a t-shirt! There's just enough chill in the air for it to feel like winter (from a Cajun's perspective)!!!!

I'm a little busy "visiting" right now (oh, the beauty of this Southern past-time), but once I tear myself off the swing and my cup of coffee, I'll post some pics!

Happy Holidays and thanks for all those positive thoughts sent my way! It worked!!!!

Still in Colorado

It's been a long year for me and the thought of two weeks back home in Louisiana had been keeping me going for the last few weeks. I want to remain positive, so I won't rant and rave over the blizzard that has postponed my Christmas holiday. I was supposed to fly out this morning, but now the earliest I'll be able to leave Colorado is on December 25.

I feel like I'm back in aircrew school when we were out for our daily run. We knew the three mile loop like the back of our hands, so it was easy after a while to pace ourselves accordingly. It's called "smelling the barn" when you get close to the destination and pick up the pace because you know you're almost there. So, the class leaders would sometimes wait until we were "smelling the barn" and then announce that today would be a five-mile run instead of a three-miler. Yesterday, my run turned into a five-miler just as I was sprinting up to the barn!

I'm much better today though. There's absoutley nothing I can do about it, so I've resigned myself to accepting that I'll be able to get a little more work done before I leave. I'm waiting for the snow to slack off though so I can go to the grocery store. I knew I was leaving for two weeks, so I've been trying to use up the groceries I had before I left. I actually did a really good job of rationing out what I had left- it lasted until this morning! My poor little VW Fox can't get out the driveway, so I'll take a little hike later today when the grocery store opens. Good thing I only live a half mile from the nearest grocery store!

That's it for now. I'm warm and safe in my house. Keep your fingers crossed that I can get out on Christmas day!

Next week

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I'll be going home next week to Louisiana for Christmas holiday. I can hardly wait- two weeks of family lovin and warmer weather (hopefully). If everyone could add 80 degree weather for Karen for Christmas to your Christmas lists, it would be greatly appreciated!!

Even though it was chilly last Sunday (mid-50s), a group of us managed to get out and do some riding. I ended up putting about 100 miles on my Harley and it felt so good!! I'm hoping we'll continue to get these little respites in the cold throughout the winter so I can continue to ride every now and then.

OK, probably won't have much to post about before I head home for the holidays. I will definitely post throughout Christmas, so stay tuned!

Questions to get to know you!

I don't have any fun pictures to share right now, but I thought I'd do a post about one of the things going on in my life right now. All this week, I am involved in meetings that include folks from all of our training centers (Lake Placid, NY; Colorado Springs, CO; Chula Vista, CA; and our education center in Marquette, MI). Performance Services folks from all of these centers flew into Colorado Springs for these meetings. In the three years that I've been here, we've never had all our folks together in one place. Some of us are meeting for the first time.

So, as a "get to know you" ice breaker during the first day of meetings, we did a scavenger hunt. We each got a piece of paper with 40 random questions that we had to get a co-worker to sign off on that he or she could answer "yes" to. There are 40 of us in the group, so that meant you had to meet everyone and get to know them well enough to see if they could sign off on one of your questions. Actually, the questions weren't all that random, most of them applied to the sport-specific, international travel stuff common to our lives.

Some of the questions were:

1. Have you ever been world-ranked in any sport? (There are many of our co-workers who are former Olympians or Nationally level athletes).

2. Are you fluent in a foreign language (name the language)?

3. Have you ever broken a bone playing a sport (identify the bone and sport)?

4. Have you ever overslept and missed a flight? (no Dave, I didn't miss movement because I overslept!)

5. Have you ever dropped your cell phone or other electronic gadget into the toilet?

6. Do you have a tatoo?

7. Can you curl your tongue into a tube shape?

8. While in a foreign country, have you ever tried a local food despite misgivings and now love it (name the food and country)?

It was pretty cool that everyone in the room could sign off on at least one question. They gave a gift for whoever had the best story associated with one of the questions. I won a slinky (remember those?!) for the best story associated with three of the questions. Actually, I had lots more stories, but these were the only ones I shared!

Breaking a bone in a non-sport related incident. . . I broke all three bones in my left arm when I was 13 by getting caught in a shrimping net wench! Nobody could top that story!!

Another story was for a breach of etiquette in a foreing culture by inadvertently doing or saying something you should not have. . . actually my whole personality is a breach of etiquette in most cultures, but I won the prize for wearing a tank top into a Muslim country. I totally blame Whit for allowing me to board the ferry to Morocco in a tank top!!!!

The third question was "have you ever snuck something through airport security (if so, what was it)? I brought my whole Navy aircrew survival vest onto a commercial flight in the mid-1990s which included a parachute shroud cutter (a crescent shaped knife), a survivial knife, and pencil flares. Granted, that was pre-9/11, but nobody could top that one!!

If anyone would like to share a "yes" answer to any of these sample questions, I'd love to hear them. . . !

Chula Vista

As I'm sitting in my house trying to avoid the sub-freezing temps outside (we just got above single digits a couple of hours ago), I thought I'd reminisce about my trip to our Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista last week. Chula Vista is a little south of San Diego and only a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

The weather was warmer than Colorado Springs, but still not as warm as I was hoping for. It figures that one of the nights I was there, they set a record low!

While I was there, I got to visit with one of my Navy friends from Spain. Stephanie just got out of the Navy, but her husband is stationed on a ship in San Diego. Their house in Chula Vista is super nice and in a great neighborhood with a really nice park. It was so great to get to see her and Brick and their two kids. It had been a few years since we had seen each other, so I got to meet their youngest one for the first time. Unfortunatly, the visit was so quick, I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the family! Next trip. . .

This week at work is pretty jam-packed, so I'm not sure when I'll post again. I'm heading home to Louisiana on Dec. 21 and I'm beside myself with anticipation. I can hardly wait to get there and be surrounded with family! I'm hoping we won't have snow again on Christmas Day this year! Yes, I know it's crazy, but while I was sitting in my parents' living room on the bayou, my nephew comes running from the window shouting that it was snowing. Sure enough, there was a light dusting right on Christmas Day! As much as I didn't want the snow to follow me from Colorado, I have to admit it was pretty cool to see a whole generation of kids experience snow for the first time! I can only remember snow in South Louisiana three times in my lifetime- 1973, 1989, and 2005. I lived overseas for most of the 1990s, so maybe there was snow during that decade too? Comments from home?

Until the next post, stay warm and safe!

Cool days

The last couple of days have allowed me to take some much needed down time. The weather has been mild in terms of Colorado in late November. Although bundled up quite a bit, I've managed to get on my Harley and tool around town a little. I didn't go far- it's much too cold to go very much over 45 mph!!! The Garden of the Gods has been breathtaking for the last few weeks, so I thought I'd give yall a little peek at what I'm seeing on my rides.

Julia and Gavin were really excited when they could finally see the "Kissing Camels" formation on these rocks. Can you find them?!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is a half day at work, so I thought I'd start off the Thanksgiving holidays with this poem I have hanging by my computer at work. I don't know where I originally got it from, so I can't give the author proper credit (which will probably get me sued!). As we all go through the rat race of life, I thought this might make the holidays with family and friends a little bit sweeter. Now if only I could learn to heed my own advice!

Money will buy. . .

A bed, but not sleep

Books, but not brains

Food, but not appetite

Finery, but not beauty

A house, but not a home

Medicine, but not health

Luxuries, but not culture

Fun, but not happiness

Religion, but not faith

Acquaintances, but not friends

Never get so busy making a living that you forget to HAVE A LIFE!

Update!

Wow, since there's been a flurry of activity now that some more Navy buddies have gotten this blogsite address, I feel the need to do a quick update!!

I'm staying here in the Springs for Thanksgiving, then leave on Tuesday for one of our other Olympic Training Centers in Chula Vista, CA (near San Diego). A good friend of mine from Spain just got out of the Navy and actually lives in Chula Vista now (her husband is stationed in San Diego). Between the training center and visiting with Stephanie and her family, I'll make sure I post next week. So stay tuned. . .

Birthdays and Veterans

November 10 is not only the observed day for Veteran's Day, it is also my Dad's birthday!! It's getting close to the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years holidays and I'm itching to go home, so I thought I'd be a little nostalgic in my blog post today!

That good looking guy in the old Navy photos is my Dad back in the day! When people find out I was in the Navy, they usually ask me why I chose the Navy over other services. I could tell you things like the Navy was the only one who would guarentee me a school in writing or that I love the water, but the overriding factor was. . . because my Daddy was in the Navy!!!

I was a Daddy's girl growing up. As you can see from the picture, my habit of twirling my hair goes way back!! I was a huge tomboy and my poor brother and male cousins had to put up with me tagging along with them all the time! I suppose since I never did anything traditional-like anyway, it made perfect sense for me to go into the Navy!!

As it turns out, my Dad and I did similar jobs in the Navy. He worked on electronics on ships, and I worked on electronics on airplanes. If you look real hard in the crew standing in front of the plane, I'm standing second from the right (the lone chick!). Two of my best friends are also in the picture (Jim is standing next to me, third from the right, and Dave is 6th from the left). That picture was taken on Christmas Eve 1995 right before we flew a mission.

So on this day, I'm wishing my Daddy a Happy Birthday as well as a Happy Veteran's Day. To all those I served with, whether a civilian or still on active duty now, I thank you for your service and wish you a Happy Veteran's Day too. It matters not whether you served in peace or war time, you volunteered to lead a life that wasn't always easy or conducive to a happy home life. Be proud of the time you served and for not taking the easy road!

Chinese food

Even with all the horror stories about the food in China (e.g. scorpions on a stick!), there really are some tasty dishes offered. We were treated to a traditional Chinese meal during our trip to Qingdao. Our host explained that the dishes we were having were a mix of both Cantonese and Sichuan.

On the middle of the table is a large glass lazy susan on which various dishes are served in what we would call family style. You spin the dish you want in front of you (or your host spins it over to you) and you dish out onto your plate the amount you want. If you are squimish about sharing your food, you'd probably cringe that everyone takes what they want with the chopsticks with which they are eating. About halfway through the meal, our hosts asked for spoons to be put on each dish so we wouldn't have to "double dip" with our own chopsticks.

During the cultural immersion class we had the first full day we were in Beijing, we had a chopstick contest. Each table had a plate in the middle with some dried beans on it. There were about 5 or 6 of us at a table and we had to see how many beans we could pick up off the plate in 2 minutes. It was really fun and beans were flying everywhere!

Back to the food. . .
Although the fish may look a little intimidating with the head still on, it was actually quite tasty! The ribs were pretty spicy, but went down quite well with my Tsingtao beer (a beer locally produced in Qingdao). We also were served Peking Duck, which I've explained in a previous post (April, Peking Duck). I don't care for the skin, but the duck meat itself dipped into the sauce is really good.

Also offered at this meal was a soup that I can't remember the name of. It was basically a congee with Peking Duck meat in it. Congee is a type of rice porridge. Rice is cooked down in lots of water until the rice breaks apart and becomes a viscous mixture. The texture is comparable to runny oatmeal or overcooked cream of wheat. There are many variations of congee and is quite popular as a breakfast dish. It is usually eaten with savory items such as wheat gluten, various pastes, and some type of fermented egg.

I don't know if these pumpkin dumplings were served because it was Halloween or for the fall season, but I loved them and ate them everytime they were offered. Dumplings are balls of dough stuffed with different ingredients, in this case it was pumpkin. I've seen dumplings offered for breakfast and at the evening meal and stuffed with an assortment of meats. I think they can be pan fried, but I like them steamed as the ones in the picture are.

All in all, we weren't gonna starve in China. I certainly didn't lose any weight anyway! For team leaders, coaches, and staff, it's OK to be adventurous in these trips with the food, but during the Olympics is another story! Although we found several unfamilar foods to our liking, during competition is not the time for athletes to be experimenting with unfamiliar foods. And that fact is the reason I continue to go to Beijing prior to the 2008 Olympic Games.

I'm not scheduled for anymore travel until the week after Thanksgiving (San Diego, CA). Knowing my life, something will happen between now and then to post about, so please keep checking the blog and I'll try to keep you entertained!!

Random Chinese sights

I still have the food post to do on the traditional Chinese lunch we were treated to, but I felt like doing a random post tonight. I got back last night around 7:00 p.m. I'm always amused by the airline snacks. It depends on where the plane originated from and on this one, we had Ramon noodles!

This picture that looks like a smiley face is the electrical outlet in the hotel. This is actually two seperate plugs, the one on top accomodates two straight prongs and the bottom one is similar to the one we plug U.S. clothes dryers into. Just like in Europe, the power is 220V. The first picture is of a street cleaner's "truck." Yep, that's his street sweeping broom sticking up out the back!

One of the great pasttimes of Westerners in China is haggling. I know it's part of different cultures, but I just don't like it. Westerners always say "they'll be offended if you don't haggle." Are you kidding me?! That's like saying people are offended by tipping. Yes, if you tip outrageously in a very poor country, it's perceived as showing off. But really, do you honestly think your waiter is offended that you left him an extra 20 cents that for him will probably feed his family for the evening? I heard someone say that South Korea was ruined by Westerners. That after Westerners started going there, a purse that used to cost $15 now costs $30. So what?! Some father is now able to send his kid to school because I was "robbed" of $15?!

I feel the same way about haggling. Here's an example. . . a shirt I wanted was 80 yuan. I offered her 50, but she stood firm at 80. OK, I say, I'll give you 80. Did I just get taken advantage of? Let me put it in perspective for you. 80 yuan equals about $10, 50 yuan equals about $6.50. A middle-aged woman with only a few teeth left, all of which are half-rotten, is holding out this shirt towards me with calloused hands that have obviously seen more than her fair share of manual labor. I just bought a silk shirt that I really liked and that will be a conversation piece everytime I wear it for $10. A conservative guess is that I make probably 50 times what she does in a year and I have been lucky enough to be born in a country where I have had the freedom to do things she can't even imagine, much less dream of doing herself. Now tell me, who do you think got the raw end of that transaction?

For those of you who followed the posts during the Winter Olympics in Tornio, you'll notice that the toilet in this picture is similar to the one in Italy. Before you get grossed out, it's just cardboard and paper in it. This is a brand new toilet that was just installed into a new building we visited that was still under construction. The toilets in the hotel are regular Western-style, so I was quite amused that folks would still install these squatters after having been exposed to the luxery of the sit-down type!

The last picture is also of the same construction site we visited. Look in the picture behind the woman standing in the foreground. That guy is one of the workers sitting in his "home." He's sitting on a bunk bed and his clothes are hanging in the right side of the picture. There were two sets of bunkbeds in here, so I'm assuming this area is shared by several people. The inside of this building was reminiscent of a house having dry-wall installed. If I would've had to stay in there more than the few minutes we were touring, I would've had a mask on so I wouldn't breath in so much construction dust. And these people were living in there. All construction sights in Beijing have temporary housing (little shanty shacks) on the construction site for the workers to live in. Rickety at best, they really are quite sad. Luckily, construction sites get done pretty quickly with so many people working on them, so hopefully they don't have to live like this for very long.

My intention isn't to make everyone feel bad with this post, I just wanted to remind us all that we were lucky to be born where we were and that we should always be thankful for what we have. No matter how down on your luck you think you are, these people will work their butts off for their whole lives and never be able to rise above the conditions they are currently living in. Just something to think about. . .

The Scavenger Hunt

While me, Terri, Paul and Chris (three other USOC employees) were taking a few hours of down time at the Great Wall, the Team Leaders whom we brought out here to see their Olympic venues were on a scavenger hunt. Our International Games Division is quite inventive and came up with a Beijing-wide scavenger hunt to make these representatives from each sport learn their way around the city. It’s hard to explain to your athletes how to navigate the pitfalls and share helpful hints for getting around it if you haven’t done it yourself. Chances are that cabs will be a very competitive commodity during the Games, so our folks wanted to make sure the Team Leaders used all resources in the city.

They were divided into groups of three and given a relatively small amount of money and a digital camera and sent on their way. They had to come back with a train ticket, a picture of themselves riding in a rickshaw (bicycle taxi), a picture of themselves with a waiter where they had lunch, a picture of one of the various Olympic countdown clocks around the city, a unique gift from the Silk and Pearl Markets, a picture of Chairman Mao’s portrait hanging on the outer wall of the Forbidden City, a picture of the Olympic mascot figures in Tiananmen Square, had to find out how many floors were in the hotel that will serve as headquarters for the IOC during the Games, and they had to trade an Olympic pin for something.

We all met up in a restaurant in a park near the Forbidden City to have dinner and each team gave a report of their adventures. The evening was hilarious and proved that the day was a very worthwhile adventure for the Team Leaders! They relayed tales of adventures like the rickshaw driver stopping at an unfamiliar area of the city halfway to their destination and changing the price of the ride to waiters and random people bending over backwards to help them find their next object on the scavenger hunt list. It turned out to be a great team building exercise and they came up with some great items to present.

So, our day ended up with some interesting food accompanied by a live traditional Chinese music performance during dinner. Today we have meetings in the morning here at the hotel then we visit a venue site in the afternoon. Until tomorrow. . .

The Great Wall of China

After a meeting in the morning, four of us hired a car and driver and made the 1.5 hour journey to the Great Wall. You can’t just rent a car here in China and drive yourself around. Only Chinese citizens are allowed to hold a driver’s license and drive. It’s probably just as well because a few of the Chinese folks who were schooled in the West we have been doing business with say they won’t even drive here!

Just like the drive to Zu Cheng, the journey up to Mutianyu was quite the experience in terms of both the scenery and the ride itself! We went to a well preserved section of the wall north-east of Beijing. This section of the wall was built during the Ming Dynasty in 1404 BC! It’s hard to describe how massive this thing is! It sits high up on a mountain ridge and runs along the ridge for as far as the eye can see. Thankfully, the pollution has been less the last few days and was even less as we moved away from the city.


We took a chairlift a short distance up the mountain to the Wall and climbed around a bit. It’s much more a series of varying inclines of stairs than it is a level foot path (think the “incline” in Colorado Springs). You can see how far back the Wall goes behind Paul in the picture. Instead of the chairlift, we took a toboggan ride down. It was really quite fun! It was a little sled you sit on and ride back down to the base of the mountain along a metal track a lot lock a bobsled run. There was a handle with a brake so you could control your speed on the way down. I was really moving for a good bit of it until I caught up with some guy ahead of me and had to slow down. One of the guys running the thing was yelling at me in Chinese at one point as I came flying around a corner. After talking with my friends at the bottom, I realized the guy wasn’t yelling for me to slow down, he was yelling for the guy ahead of me to “go faster”!!!

Once at the bottom, we walked around the various vendor stalls set up along the path to the chairlift. Unlike my experience in the silk market last time I was here, no one grabbed me and tried to pull me towards their goods. There was just a lot of “hey Lady” and “you want to buy?” as they held out some item. Of course I was drawn to the food stand that had a wide variety of nuts and dried fruits. I sampled so many pieces, I was full by the time I actually bought some molasses and sesame seed covered walnuts!

I can only attach five pictures to a post, so I’ll tell you about the evening in another post!

Qingdao and Zu Cheng

My colleague Terri and I made the flight to and from Qingdao (pronounced "ching dow") without incident. After the one hour flight, the company with whom we were meeting had a driver at the airport to pick us up. It was about a 1.5 hour drive from Quindao to Zu Cheng (pronounced like it looks!) to the food processing plant.

I don't think Chinese drivers are much worse than Greek or Italian drivers, but they certainly are right up there! There's a lot of passing into oncoming traffic, sometimes even two lanes over into oncoming traffic! Lots of horn-honking too. Not irate, yelling and gesturing horn-honking like in Italy though. This was more like just letting the driver your passing know that you're passing as well as the three vehicles coming straight at you in the oncoming lane! Since they are always in the oncoming traffic lane, the horn is constantly honking.

The drive between Qingdao and Zu Cheng was quite rural with lots of farmland. There were dried up corn stalks piled up everywhere. When asked, our host explained that the stalks will be tilled back into the fields as fertilizer for next years' crop. Most of the ones stacked up right on the side of the highway would be hauled off by folks as fuel for the winter. We saw every kind of "vehicle" you can imagine on the roads and stopping to pick up the stalks. The 3-wheeled truck is quite popular out here. Kind of like the little ones on Crete, Greece, but these are much bigger.

There was a ton of construction on the roads going on, but all by hand. No kidding, they are building and repairing roads without large equipment like back in the States. There were large gaggles of people wearing road construction vests and regular old clothes with shovels and rakes paving roads with a wheelbarrow. The guy sleeping in the three-wheel truck was a road worker. It looks like napping by road workers is universal!! Dumptruck size loads of dirt and rocks were sitting in the middle of two lane highways without any markers or detours. Common sense dictated that drivers would go around a large obstacle in the middle of the road! It's amazing how few incidents we witnessed on roads that have no stop signs and right of ways seem to be understood but not posted.

One of the more amusing sights on the roads was street sweepers. Not street sweepers like back home, but again, a large gaggle of people with road constructions vests actually sweeping the road with homemade brooms. We traveled for miles down roads out in the middle of nowhere with a whole bunch of these street sweepers out doing their thing. Notice the street sweepers mode of transportation on the right side of the picture (a large trike bicycle). Those things and old motorcycle/bikes with engines were everywhere!

I don't want to go into much detail about our meetings today since this is a competitive environment (plus yall know I don't like to talk about work on this blog!). Suffice it to say that our Chinese counterparts were educated in the States and seemed quite comfortable doing business with two very direct, American women! Not only did we not create any international incidents, our meetings were very successful and we made new friends to boot! We were treated to a huge, fancy, traditional lunch about which I will do a whole other post on later!

After just having had a one hour full body message for only 260 RMB (32 US dollars), I am totally relaxed and ready for bed. Tomorrow is another day of meetings and activities (here in Beijing), so I need to get a good nights sleep! Until tomorrow. . .