Travel

Not punctual either

Posted on 2007-08-10 by Holly2007-08-10

10 August 2007 Not punctual either
Friday. Luoyang ->Xi’an, China

There were two restaurants in the hotel in which we stayed last night. The one on the first floor was labeled “Western Restaurant” while the one on the second was labeled “Chinese Restaurant.”

We ate upstairs. This was fine with me. I have no problems with rice soup and tasty veggies for breakfast. There were a number of others in the group who might have preferred a more familiar variety of dishes from which to choose.

With multiple dashes through the pouring rain, we made the train station with barely enough time to spare only to find that the train was late. Apparently a serious train accident elsewhere was affecting the rail service timeliness in the province. Straight faced, someone in the group quipped that this was completely unusual – “after all, the Deutschebahn is never late.” At which point we all howled with laughter. Bahn timeliness is a thing of the past with the new privatization. The delay turned out to be less than an hour, hardly anything of concern.

Orderly mass confusion on boarding the train, there are an incredible number of people boarding. Our luggage was being delivered directly to the baggage car. Others were trying to haul huge suitcases through narrow isles. After an initial seat shuffle, we found we were on the upper tier of Wagon 5 with a great view of the passing scenery.

The train ride was over five hours of some of the greatest variety and remarkable scenery I have seen. New and old industry buildings competing with wild looking mountainsides while terracing was present anywhere it seemed possible to grow anything. Falling down shacks with barely three walls while the air varied from filthy to almost clear.

It seemed we all napped or read. The Chinese families traveling in the same wagon all seemed to take their lunch break by hauling out various bowls of noodles, getting hot water from a fixture at the end of the car.

After transferring to the hotel in Xi’an and having a break, we met for dinner – the specialty of small dumplings. These are not Dim Sum, rather small shaped dough filled creations that each have a name, meaning and history.

Electing to take the evening out and about – we walked through a downtown old city shopping area admiring all the street food and dried fruit, but did not try anything.

In another area of the city we stopped to see a water and light show. The plaza had just been finished for less than than two years.

And finally, near one of the city gates there is open air folk dancing and drumming every evening.

It was after 2230 when we arrived back at the hotel. Tomorrow does not start till 0900 for which I am glad.

Socks

I have finally made progress on the Solstice Slip. It is not hard, I have just been too tired, or too busy watching out the window to knit. Although the pattern is easy, one in four or so rows involves cabling. I have to pay attention. And of course, I needed to change the heel, cabling mandatory!

Arches

This is a country of arches, a lot of potential for future weeks when I have returned home. From the lake at the Summer Palace.

-Holly

Lost without my battery

Posted on 2007-08-09 by Holly2007-08-09

Shaolin, White Horse Monestary, Longmen Grottos

Solstice Slip road better on the train than I did, ready and anxious to disembark for new adventures. Probably got a lot more sleep as well! We arrived in Louyang shortly before seven and had the delightful experience of going from the train station to breakfast to the tour bus.

Did you notice a hotel or shower anywhere in that list? The humidity again is close to or above 100% (water dripping off things and people). Some of us had at least taken fresh clothes out to change. There were others in day old clothes. A/C on the bus helped.

This is Hunan Province, one of the poorer provinces, visibly so than Peking: at least from the cracked walls in the train station and pieces chipping off the platforms. Crumbling buildings along the station street were side by side with newer structures. This is a city of only a million people. We will not even talk about the condition of our tour bus—it has seen better days. It is probably a contemporary of Nina. Ripped seats, absent seat controls and leg space not designed for Long-Noses (Westerners).

On the way to Shaolin Cloister (and one of the five holy mountains – completely obscured by whatever is in the air) we all grogged out, exhausted from the train ride and missed most of the inevitable lecture. What I remember clearly is that the Cloister has watched over the area for hundreds upon hundreds of years, protecting the area from bandits. At some point the various fighting styles evolved. This is now the national center for Kung Foo and is one of the highest, if not the highest ranking school in the world.

We walked through part of the grounds, seeing dozens of student groups practicing before entering a seating arena to watch a demonstration. The sign that said “NO PHOTOS!” just was not understood by those who spoke neither Chinese or English (consider a German tour group in that category since all the Japanese and most of the Chinese were flashing away): my pictures are not great, but I got a couple of decent shots. Having an SLR digital camera is great—especially on manual mode. Audience Participation, the moves are not as easy as they seem.

There were the historical Pagodas-

After more meandering and seeing of buildings, we were returned to our tour bus to drive to The White Horse Temple. It was at this point that my camera quit functioning. Going, almost, but not quite completely nuts – it seems like the humidity is a bad combination with the battery, letting it run down rather quickly. I had taken no where near the number of photos as the day before. But this still left me in a panic if my estimation that it was just a run down battery was not correct.

The Temple is a collection of multiple inner buildings, all of which have the Budda in various guises and repose. The oldest statue was brought from India over 2000 years ago. The teens seemed to enjoy hearing some of the history. George and I found a small gift shop off to the side – no, we did not need incense rather a book on the temple. When you can’t take your own pictures, settling for someone else’s also works.

A bus ride to lunch – yet another round table. Oh! I haven’t mentioned that. I thought it was understood. There are 15 in our tour group – this breaks out to 8 at one table and 7 at the other. Usually it is a brave couple of our age from Landshut that joins the five of us. In the center of each table is a turntable on which all the dishes are placed. It works well, as long as people are polite and see who is in the process of dishing up food prior to spinning the wheel.

The final stop today was the Longmen Grottos. There is a young woman in the group who is taking almost as many photos as I. Her camera was doing fine and I am going to hit her up for pictures. This place matters. Along the Yi River, first in natural caves, then in ones carved out directly from the bluff face are dozens and dozens of statues. The largest caves are over two stories tall, some of the smaller, less than the length of a hand. Apparently during the Tang Dynasty and again during one other early period there were issues with robbers.

That destruction is nothing compared to what happened between 1907-1949 when Westerner’s helped themselves to over 400 of the most important statues. A good many of them can still be seen in the British Museum and more than one wound up in private collections. One plaque commemorates the 400 (yes – four hundred) missing Buddas. I am sure that this is one of the items still under political discussion between China and any country which is now home to those particular statues.

Today there are stainless steel stairs and railings bolted to the rock face so that tourists can come and see this wonder of the world. The river flows slowly by, so thick with silt and pollution that you can not see down more than a few centimeters. Visible high on the facing side are a few grottos, but those are noted empty by sign on this side of the river. In the middle, a rose and yellow painted cement Lotus Blossom seemingly floats serenely.

By this time, all of us were seriously wiped out. Without much sleep the night before, no time to wash or change clothes –we all were voting for the hotel. But first we had dinner. Please assume that the majority, if not all those we saw at dinner were tourists. I really don’t think that the groups mix much. Both from political design and the fact that where they take us would just not be affordable for the vast majority of Chinese.

The restaurant was on the 25th floor of a tower and rotated, slowly perhaps, but definitely. Over the course of our dinner we traveled from North to East. With a steady center core, the seating area circled this, with an outer window area that moved separately from the seating area. Tonite was Buffet. Noah was more than happy – he hit the grill area followed by a goodly number of the steam table dishes.

I had a great time. Not everything had an English name associated with it. What I found was that either those were the more interesting dishes or those with a lot of spice. I skipped the cuttle fish, and anything I could not completely identify. But I did find wonderful things to eat. There were spicy salads, veggies, tofu, onion small pancakes, mushrooms of various kinds and soybeans steamed in the pods. The ubiquitous watermelon along with cantaloupe was a better choice for desert than the local ice cream.

Full and exhausted, we went to the hotel. This is the first place that had no “trundle or other extra beds” so Noah actually got a room to himself. A side effect of the single child family in action –the idea of needing more than two adults in a room just is not even a concept.

The only internet availability was for pay, and neither of us decided it was worth it.

-Holly

Cultural Differences

Posted on 2007-08-08 by Holly2007-08-08

On a train from Beijing to Louyang

Right now it is insane – the fifteen people from our group plus the tour guide are jammed into four compartments, Carriage number 11, on train K611 from Beijing nach – I don’t know or care. I am tired and it is 2230 in the evening.

I am the wet blanket, sitting quietly on a lower bunk, ignoring the party out in the corridor. They have alcohol. I have a killer of a headache. They seem to be having a great time. Me?

Whine mode off.

This morning was fine – we packed ourselves out of the hotel and onto the bus after an excellent breakfast.

I am knitting while we are under way on the bus – between attempting to take pictures out the window. Our tour guide does not know the meaning of quiet, so it was left George to uphold the family honor and play a couple of memory games while under way. The kids were sleeping or reading.

Our first stop on the way was “the Ming Gardens with 435 steps up to the highest pavilion. After yesterday, this was child’s play. We hiked rapidly up, I took a ton of pictures with both the regular lens and my new 55-200 mm lens. There were plants, we have pictures of those was well.

I did not succeed in getting the small birds – they were just too fast. The high point on the mountain over looked the Imperial Palace. And an amazing number of tiled roof tops are involved.

From there, we went to the Institute Medical Plant Development, which is part of their Chinese Medical Institute. They specialize in traditional medicine and botanical preparations. We saw a small part of the main of their four gardens, then experiences a foot/leg massage. The students who came and treated the group are so young. I really think that none of them were older than our Nina. A traditional doctor also did pulse diagnosis on everyone and they offered a variety of medicines based on the diagnosis. We skipped purchasing anything. Making it 1430 by the time we arrived at lunch, starving all of us.

From there, we traveled to the Summer Palace; first walking around a section of the grounds after taking a dragon boat across the Kumning Lake. The lake was built in order for the Emperor of the time to plan and practice an invasion. Nice military bit, but nothing left for war machinery, only a decorative marble Dragon Boat.

The last stop before dinner was along one of the Ring Roads – either 4 or 5 where you could see the new Olympic Stadium. Designed and executed by a Swiss firm, it is called The Bird’s Nest. The reason for the name is fairly obvious.

Dinner was at a multiple star restaurant. I can’t tell, the food is all the same to me (vegetable, another vegetable, scrambled egg with tomato and rice). This area of China does bland food. There seems to be a fair number of pork dishes on the non-edible list.

Boarding the tour bus, we headed to the train station, hauling our bags through the security point (fastest scanner in the world – I am willing to bet it would have to be pretty big and obvious before they would see it. OTOH, you could just keep your weapons on you, since they don’t check the people, just the luggage. Perhaps to make sure no one is riding for free).

Couple of other specious comments, and information points for you:

1) Toilets. They are otherwise known as the Hall of Harmony. They are rated from 1 to 7 stars. One is an outdoor hole or slit trench. Two would also be outside, but have an enclosure with doors. Three is the same, inside a fixed building. Four has stalls inside the fixed building. It is not till five that you get running water. That means flushing and handwashing. With six and seven – well – hell – six gives you your choice of western or foot pad (but ceramic) toilets and even has toiler paper (till it runs out). At seven – you have western style toilets, running water, soap, a blow dryer plus attendant who has high expectations of Yuan.

2). Censorship is alive and well in China. When we arrived in Beijing there was a printed apology stating that there was not availability of TV between midnight and 0630 (the day we arrived and for the next two nights), due to bad weather. I didn’t think much about it until George was on line reading newspapers (Frankfurt and München), spotting the front page criticism of China and human rights in regards to the Olympics. Now, how gullible are we? That convenient weather problem means that prime time in Europe can’t be seen in China, since that corresponds to the six hour time difference. Guess we won’t be watching CNN, BBC etc. At least the English language is accounted for. Can’t block everything, which is why George was reading the German papers.

-Holly

Beijing – Walls and Monkeys

Posted on 2007-08-07 by Holly2007-08-07

Up front – there is little to no knitting content. I am working my way down the heel of the first Solstice Slip. Picuture not provided.

Instead – this is travel. And picture heavy – you have been warned.

A mixture of rain and blue sky by late afternoon. It is amazing how much cleaner the air manages to be when you get farther out – but it is still not fun. Better on the mountains – and at least you could see mountains!

Our bus left the hotel at 0800 this morning, bound for the Ming Tombs. Breakfast was either Chinese or Western – or more than one of the above, your choice.

On the way – we had our first real tourist sales pitch experience. A bathroom break was scheduled – just happened to be at a pearl store. Watching a short film, then seeing someone demonstrate how you crank open an oyster to remove the pearls did not make everyone in my family happy and may have put at least one daughter permanently off pearls. Stones are one thing, but killing the oyster was not thrilling.

The Ming Tombs – both the buildings and the Sacred Way carved marble creatures were wonderful. Well worth the mild rain. Uploading from here took forever.

From there we got an even bigger taste of the tourist industry – stopping at a Chinese version of enameled ware factory – complete with restaurant – and chance to see the amount of handwork that goes into the process.

Of course, there was a chance to go shopping.

And then there was the Great Wall – the section at Juyongguan travels up 1000 meters. It does this in a series of steps, switch overs and extremely steep climbs. Every time you came around a corner, figuring you were done, there was yet another set of stairs in front of you.

We went all the way up. As it turns out, perhaps we should have gone up the other wall, a bit farther a distance, but a much shallower climb.

Our evening ended with a performance at the Peking Opera – one opera piece with two performers and an extremely acrobatic skit of the Monkey King vs 18(?) warriors.

200 some digital pictures later, I am still sorting things out.

In the morning we are loading up – then heading out by train in the evening. I do not expect to be back on email till Thursday or later.

-Holly

6 August 2007 Beijing – don’t breath

Posted on 2007-08-06 by Holly2007-08-06

6 August 2007 Beijing – don’t breath
Beijing China

An arrival at 0615 local time saw us all on our feet – more or less. We even found the tour people, the hotel was willing to let us check in early. I took no pictures of the approach, not worth doing. Keep going and you will see why

Showers are so nice after an overnight on a plane. A couple of hours later, we were on the road, mini bus and travel group together to see some must see tourist sites in Beijing.

I will slide right by the air quality which is way above smog and rapidly approaching pea soup. It is even worse than Seoul as we could not see the runway until we were practically over it. The ceiling seems to be well under 500 feet and visibility well less than a kilometer.

And this was supposed to be a good day.

There are 15 of us in this tour group – the five of us, one mother-adult daughter combination and four couples. My teens are the only ones under 30. No surprise.

While all of you have read about the impact of the single child family on China – there is some fall out that I would not have expected. Other than twins – children here have cousins or friends, but not siblings. Blond is not a normal colour. So there you have it – three blonds together, obviously siblings – the crew ran out of niceness when the x many stranger came up to them and wanted either a picture of the three of them, or a picture taken with them.

Sense of humour long gone, and tolerance absent, I think that they all understand now why I am really impressed by anyone who makes it in a less than 1% minority status. Also why I don’t like traveling to Jamaica (but here it also have to do with the distribution of wealth by those who live there.

But the Forbidden City, Imperial Palace etc were impressive. I took pictures, lots of pictures. Mostly of architectural details but still. It was extremely difficult to get pictures that were not stuffed full of strangers. Thousands of people and probably hundreds of tour groups were engaged in the same activities.

From the Imperial Palace – to the Nine Dragon Juniper Tree.

And of course – there are the roof creatures, guarding all the buildings.

There was enough food. No matter than my crew (and everyone else was completely wiped) the first night is the traditional Peiking Duck.

Tomorrow we are up early and off to the great wall

Socks

The Drops Cables -aka Chicken Wire are done. Finished them on the plane today, but didn’t graft the toes till we were at the hotel. Something about needles and scissors.

These were knit with Vampire, Sweet Sock yarn from Michelle’s Spectrum yarn of the whatever. Executed over 64 stitches with 2,5 mm needles. Pattern altered a bit, you can see the changes I made to both the heel and toe in these photos.

I have cast on the first Solstice Slip (STR SOM from Blue Moon Fiber Arts) and they are going rapidly. They will travel with me tomorrow, along with Loopy and the camera. Have to take some traveling sheep and sock pictures, after all!

-Holly

5 August 2007 Starting Out

Posted on 2007-08-05 by Holly2007-08-05

5 August 2007 Starting Out
Heidelberg->Frankfurt Flughafen->Air China 966

I don’t know why I thought I had left enough time this morning. After all, I was not the last to bed and had packed just about everything I needed. I had the short list of things which had to be done this morning. I did not put other people’s crises on my list.

You can just guess what happened.

End result is that I forgot a couple of things that I really needed and was the last one out the door rather than the first.

The S-Bahn was bad enough, jam packed with people. The train from Mannheim to the airport was impossible. We never made it past the entry way, much less sat down any where for the trip.

But we were in plenty of time for our plane, dropping off a couple dozen kids books that I had logged through BookCrossing at the USO and making it with all members of the party alive all the way through to check in. Shall I just say that it is a long flight?

Socks

As I think I mentioned, I became frustrated with knitting the pattern in Florenz because it did not show up against the colour changes in the yarn. I went to stripes for the foot, and finished off the first sock on the flight.

-Holly

Home

Posted on 2007-05-26 by Holly2007-05-26

We flew over the Canadian Rockies, landed in Montreal and changed planes for Frankfurt. (We will skip the part about the flight delay from Vancouver & Montreal, the late arrival in Frankfurt and the delayed train from Frankfurt. Why bother?) What a lovely feeling, getting off the train in Heidelberg, getting home, dropping off the suitcase on the way in the door.

Home

We shall also gloss over what the house looked like. I don’t even want to talk about the dining room where there is a table somewhere buried under all the flotsam. Or the living room where the teens have apparently been living in order to watch the only TV in the house. They are on Pfingstferien. They tell me they are entitled to stay up late and sleep in.

Actually not my problem as I have to head to the field in the morning.

Even less my problem as DH and I blasted back out the door to pick out bathroom tile and plumbing fixtures. In less than two hours we found tub, tiles, sink and toilet. I am hoping that our bathroom is ripped out while I am in the field and Noah’s room is already partly deconstructed. Those went to our plumbing upstairs.

Socks

The Fluted Banisters are done. The colorway is Shades of Teal knit out of Monarch Yarn. I adore this yarn, it is springy and highly twisted. It shows stitch definition extremely well. I have only tried the sport weight on 2,5-2,75mm needles where it is wonderful.

Which only leaves the sockapalooza and a scrap monkey on the needles! The kids did not pick up the mail this week. I could cry, considering this was yarn that I wanted to take along to the field.

-Holly

Oh – the Vancouver Public Library is a beautiful building – here is a bit more of it.

Over land and sea

Posted on 2007-05-25 by Holly2007-05-25

The trip back home takes a long time. Several audio books, a few pictures, lots of sock knitting and hours upon hours. Departing Vancouver at 0850, we are chasing time zones. About five hours again in the air before Toronto, and three hours for time zones. Leaving Canada, add almost nine hours, and six more hours on the clock.

That means that it will be over 24 hours on the clock before we get off the plane in Frankfurt to face the train ride home.

Bed? Not a chance. The bath and tile places are only open until 1300. If I want a say about our new bathroom, Saturday is my only opportunity.

Arches

From my foot tour, an out of the ordinary public building.

Headphones back on – Roberts and Patterson still to go.
-Holly

Vancouver – Thursday on foot

Posted on 2007-05-24 by Holly2007-05-24

After the conference finished around 1300 today, it was time to visit yarn stores. The DH who was returning from that dangerous place, San Francisco, was tied up in Immigration/Customs for almost two hours. No idea why the lines were crawling but something is going to have to improve before the Winter Olympics or there are going to be thousands of really unhappy people.

But I digress. After visiting the first store on Main Street, I headed off on foot up 20th in the direction of Kingsway. And this is what I saw adorning the fence tops along my route. Not on the cross streets, and not a block over. Something must have infected this street with a need for creature guardians.

Please note, I spared you the other four dwarves who were in a lot more shadow. Along with pineapples, more lions and other unidentifiable crowning elements. Snow White knew better than to be out in public.

Knitting

Yarn Shops. Birkeland Bros Wool Ltd. is at 3573 Main Street. Not only do they have a wide variety of Canadian and Scandinavian yarns on hand, they have fibers and spinning wheels. And then there is the 100 year old huge carder still in the shop. You can see it from the front, the back and up close and personal. I would not put my fingers in there.

I also stopped at Burnaby Knitworks. She was having a storewide sale. A wide variety of yarns, mostly good solid choices were on the shelves. If I had anything planned (other than socks), I could have easily stocked up on Peer Gynt or Lannett. But I was good and didn’t buy anything.

Socks

At 0530 this morning I settled on Fluted Banister for my Barrister. The colour way is called Shades of Teal from Fly*Dyer if I am reading the label correctly. The sock is at that wonderful limp dick stage that is only obvious is you are knitting top down socks. Some times you really don’t want to wave it around at this point, It can really startle the uninitiated.

Our flight is fairly early in the morning. Vancouver -> Toronto -> Frankfurt.

-Holly

Vancouver – Wednesday Weirds

Posted on 2007-05-23 by Holly2007-05-23

Travel

The weather was beautiful today. Rather than go to an optional, non CME, lecture I hiked up Howe to Chapters (book store) where I found a copy of Vancouver by Davis. Yes, there were several other coffee table books, but his lecture was so excellent that I wanted the stories that went along with the pictures. It was really hard to go back inside, out of the sunshine after lunch. I also had collected a few pictures that were unique from an outsider perspective.

I didn’t expect brightly coloured taxis. It looks like someone scattered a box of Smarties.

Or a city that very carefully labels the nearest wall in impressive script to make the fire hydrant easier to find.

Not to mention my proof that the Convention Center looks like a cruise ship or that there is what could be a UFO landed on top of the Harbour Centre.

Knitting

In the slightly more sane world of sock knitting – I have Monkeys! Knit in sport weight LimeNViolet, 64 stitches on 2,5 mm needles they just sped along. I have to admit that the colour combination is obnoxious, but so are monkeys. That made it a great match.

Now, what socks are next?

-Holly

Vancouver – Tuesday

Posted on 2007-05-22 by Holly2007-05-22

Travel

Other than someone from Switzerland calling at what I think was 0100 in the morning, I actually got some sleep. This bodes well for my functioning here, but not so for the return to Europe at the end of the week.

I spent the day at the conference, occasionally appreciating the turning globe.

All the lectures were decent, some of the speakers absolutely outstanding. I can’t figure out the Brit Military attitude toward Leish as presented by the speaker today, but then catching a preventable disease does not win you a free ticket home in the US military.

Wandering downtown at the end of the day I enjoyed the contrast between a few old buildings, and reflections in some of the new. Unfortunately the majority of the architecture is on the high-rise cement with windows version. Functional, but really really boring.

Ah yes, I bought professional books today. It is always hard for me to tell whether or not I want a book by reading about it in a catalog or on a webpage. Now, if it is fiction and under 7$, I might take a chance. Medical texts, on the other hand, like all professional books can easily run $40-275 a book. I am unlikely to guess at those prices. Since the three major book publishers had reps, I was able to sort through and decide how to best upgrade my references. This is important, money spent on medical texts is money not spent on yarn or knitting books. Let us get our priorities straight.

Knitting

It is now Monkey, from Knitty. The Opal matches the Horcrux I finished yesterday. The second pair was started on the way in this morning out of colorway LimenViolet in sport weight from Lisa Souza

Monkey socks

From there I think it is the Fluted Barrister out of Shades of Teal from Monarch.

I guess I am keeping this up while I am on the road because that I how I started in the first place: with an email distro list out to family and friends since March of 1998. I still have that running as well, but automated out of Yahoo Groups to make it easy on myself. But most of crew is not at all interested in knitting. And posting pictures is a lot of work out my email account.

Besides, it is a great excuse to make sure that I have email!

-Holly

Vancouver – Monday

Posted on 2007-05-21 by Holly2007-05-21

The convention center in Vancouver is right on the Harbour. In fact, the Coral Princess is tied up at dock right next door. With all the private balconies on the upper deck, it makes me want to just get on board, sit with my feet up right out from my room and knit my way up the inland water ways to the coast.

The architecture of the Convention Center itself is built like a ship. There may be sails, but the rest is pure cruise ship. It is wonderful. The views from the upper deck, a plaque with the history of the Two Sisters, and the inside Totem. Too bad I had to spend most of the day inside, not being able to see the sunshine that finally arrived.

With all but one speaker today being absolutely excellent, I really enjoyed the meeting.

Knitting

The Horcrux pattern is an auto pilot knit once past the upper portion. I have the pair now finished and Monkey started. In the same yarn because the DH really liked the yarn and I should knit something for him. But it is really busy. And the truth is I forgot the ball of yarn that I wanted. Tomorrow, LimenViolet for Monkeys.

Totems

Posted on 2007-05-20 by Holly2007-05-20

Travel

Being awake really early is not at all surprising, so we will just skip that.

Besides getting registered for the conference and visiting a few souvenir shops, what was important was seeing a bit of Vancouver. This is the Pacific North West. It rains. Not to be amazed that it was raining here. And occasionally coming down hard enough to get us wet, even with the new umbrella we purchased having not remembered to bring one along. I did bring a rain jacket. But putting it on makes me feel like a wimp. So instead it stays in my bag while I get damp.

But anyway….

We drove around Stanley Park which is at the very end of the peninsula that has the “old city.” (This is Old in a Northern American Continent kind of old. – not European old.) Just for your general interest, Vancouver believes in charging for parking, a lot. At least I think $2/hour for street parking or pull over parking in a park is a excessive. But it does make money for the city and prevent commuters from using it as a parking lot.

Then there is the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology with an incredible collection of First Nation Artefacts. The most prominent of which are house totems as well as other Salish and Haida works, both old and contemporary.

Since the purpose of being in town was to attend CISTM10, it seemed to make sense to attend the opening of the conference (along with the included reception). Because of unexpected road construction not there this morning, we missed the Bagpipers. But heard some short, very entertaining greetings and saw the Chinese Dragon Dancers.

The only issue for me was the number of people crowding around the snack tables. It was much nicer watching from the balcony above than being in the press.

Knitting

In the middle (between registration and museum), we had headed to Grey’s Point. I checked out Urban Yarns. Other than carrying a complete like of Fleece Artist, they had some other lines, all higher end and good quality. The store is quite small, but good use is made of the space. Their sock yarns were limited to Fleece Artist, Lorna’s Laces, Koigu, and three different colorways of Regia. Not lines, mind you, but three individual color patterns. But the women working there were lovely. I did pick up some Seawool, but the guy colours were pretty limited.

According to the clock on this system, it is 0752 on the 21st. Since it is not that where I am, it explains why I feel so tired.

-Holly

Long Flight

Posted on 2007-05-19 by Holly2007-05-19

Travel

The train was at 0605. And there is no way you should believe that I got to bed prior to 0230. That makes for a short night.

It is over 8 hours to Montreal from Frankfurt, a scramble through customs, luggage re-check and a run to the gate to make the 5+ hour flight to Vancouver. Air Canada is nice, polite and acting American as far as service on the in-country flights. I am still not used to paying for food on flights. My bags of trail mix went a long way to keeping the DH and I fed for that leg.

With a window seat on the first leg, I kept my self entertained with socks, the camera, and the MP3 player.

For that second leg, middle seat, the MP3 player was running down (did I mention that there was actually a USB port in the panel in front of me which worked for chargeing?) and getting a crick in my neck from difting off in weird position.

Socks

Half way down the first sock – the Lava Spiral out of Lisa Souza’s Earth Birth were finished by the time we got off the plane in Montreal except for the minor issue of closing the toes and dealing with the strings.

This gave me time, before I wiped out completely to start Horcrux (6 Sock KAL) out of Opal Herbst Melodie.

Audio Books

MP3 players are great, that is once you finally get to the menu that lets you cancel “shuffle.” I mean really, how do you list to a book with a device that insists that all your tracks be scrambled. I intensely dislike not knowing what comes next anyway, so it is not an option for which I see any use. Given the time frame, I was able to listen through two of the three books in Nora Robert’s Key Trilogy and start on the third. Dead Run and D is for Dead Beat did not get ripped completely. Argh!

Meeting registration is in the morning and the opening ceremonies and reception are tomorrow night. Time zones are striking.

-Holly

Home Again – repost of Sunday, 22 April 07

Posted on 2007-04-24 by Holly2007-04-24

[and a shortened version]
It was not a hard choice at all. Please remember that we left the hotel for Ben Gurion Airport at 0230 in the morning to make sure we had enough time for check in as our Swiss Air flight was supposed to leave at 0500. Never mind the plane was late in taking off with the excuse being traffic control in Zürich.

We were part of the minority that did not need to meet a connecting flight, only about 30 from the flight hanging around the baggage carousel. Which takes us to the S2 in order to meet the long distance trains.

After arriving at Zürich HauptBahnhof, we could hurry to catch a train toward home that would go over Mannheim. I already had a ticket, but it was not valid for the 1008 route unless I paid extra. But there was an 1114 train. And this lovely Bistro named Imagine. It was where George had waited for me on Tuesday evening. High molded ceilings, simple black tables and chairs. And Sunday? A buffet to die for!

Fresh fruits, sushi, cold grilled vegetables, lox and salmon. Deserts, cheeses, and omlettes to order. (Ignoring the cooked or grilled pieces of dead animals). Fresh squeezed juices, milchcaffe and free internet. What more could I want?

Perhaps the rather large Blue Fairy hanging in the main entry area of the station?

We will ignore the not fun portion of the trip between Zurich and Singen where they pulled an old workhorse of a train out of the yard. Nor the connector which was allegedly also an ICE, of the variety that has been retired for years. No leather seats or outlets on this run.
Did not stop me from knitting.

Audio Books

Or listening to Dangerous Women, edited by Otto Pendler. I can not say that I enjoyed all of the stories, But I made it through 99/140 tracks by the end of the journey.

It will be nice to sleep in my own bed.
-Holly

Fresh dates

Posted on 2007-04-21 by Holly2007-04-21

With a kilo of fresh dates costing only 10 NIS, I have to be very careful not to get my sticky fingers on either my knitting or my husband’s laptop.

Dates

And if you have a nice Shabbas off, just to walk around and relax, you can take pictures of the beach –

Or of strange looking building fronts-

Or alternate between an easy and a technically more challenging sock.

Or stop and look at the flowers –

It almost makes up for the fact that we have a plane before 0600 in the morning.

-Holly

In Jerusalem

Posted on 2007-04-20 by Holly2007-04-20

Traveling

Knitting

With the advent of the Internet, the knitting community has become world wide. Well, it was always world wide, we just had no ability to connect with each other. Through the knit list in the 1990s, I met knitters in Israel, one of whom invited me and my family to join them for Pesach when we were traveling in 2000. I found other Minnesotans; both had made Aliyah years ago.

Today I got a chance to get together with a knitter living in Jerusalem. I got to see a couple of yarn stores, both with extremely nice staff. Bags and bags of various yarns piled to the ceiling. Much heavier on the acrylics than I would see in Germany and not so much wool.

We had tea at Chez Gita. Sitting together at a tiny table we happily chatted while knitting and probably obstructing the hall. As the cafe cleared out, we were offered a table next to the front window with plenty of light. We decided that I would plan better (grin) on my next trip so that perhaps a bigger group could get together. The short few hours flew by with our wip, and we managed to connect with my friend who was giving me a ride back to Tel Aviv.

I spent time turing the yarn Noah dyed into socks for him as well as a couple more rows on Glamour. It is easy to guess which is which. The last pix is a better shot of my slip stitch socks which went walking in Jerusalem today.

Arches

Just sitting there, from the old and new. This picture was shot in Jerusalem. Last week’s came from Beck Caserne in Sonthofen Germany.

A short stroll

Posted on 2007-04-19 by Holly2007-04-19

Knitting

Just to put the knitting stuff first. I finished the mate to the last orphan that had been languishing in my basket for at least a couple of years. Knit out of JaWoll cotton, it is an even four colour stripe. Going from dark orange to a lighter orange, then blue and finally grey I have no clue why I bought the yarn in the first place. I used a k4 sl1 pattern with the alternate rows being plain knit. The end result looks like chains up the sides. This is not a great picture, and will provide a detail picture tomorrow when I have some light for photos.

Next up is Scarlet Letter (merino and tencel) from Michelle at Sweet Socks. I started the Glamour Socks from the German Kreativ Socken KAL. Stringing beads is a real pain, trust me but much easier because of the tencil than a pure wool would be.

Travel

Looking out this morning from the balcony, the sun was shining and white buildings seem to stretch out into the distance. None of them are all that high, maybe 4 stories max for most of them. But it is a plain, cement, blocking kind of architecture. Tel Aviv is a young city for the mid East, starting in the early decades of the last century.

Walking along the beach, there were sunbathers and surfers. The tall buildings are hotels.

The old port of Jaffa was not a bad hike from the hotel. Layer upon layer of old city for thousands of years. Climbing around, there are so few tourists, all the small shops are completely empty. Even the more famous art galleries have few vistors.

And then I decided to walk through the city on the way back via the souks. Fresh dates, small tart olives and a 2 1/2 hour hike by the time I was done.

No fool, I spent the remainer of the afternoon sitting in the lobby looking out over the ocean. JD Robb on the cassette recorder and knitting needles in my hands.

-Holly

En Route

Posted on 2007-04-18 by Holly2007-04-18

Travel

It was a lovely train ride yesterday. Heidelberg to Stuttgart, Stuttgart to Zurich. The train was not full, the seats were comfortable, and I was able to listen to books while knitting socks. I have the first three J. D. Robb “xxxx in Death”, 18 hours worth, just started.
Other than my cell phone traveling to Mannheim, there were no incidents or accidents on the journey. George met me at the Zurich train station, and we traveled another half hour out to Wollerau to stay overnight at the apartment.

From the balcony this morning out toward Zurich Lake. The mist was still coming up, making it almost foggy in the pale early morning light.

It was another train this morning to the Flughafen, then a flight to Tel Aviv that would have been completely miserable had the Montréal connector arrived on time. Unless it rains again in the morning, I will be on the beach early. My clothes from tonight should be dried out.

Sock Knitting

What an opportunity, hours to travel, watch scenery, and knit. I am finally producing mates to orphans that have been on their own for an extensive time. Perhaps years in some cases. I don’t even remember which German sock brand produced the pink multi-coloured yarn. Knit on 2,5mm needles, there are 60 stitches around. Each side has a twisted stitch panel, with the third in the center of the back. The pattern continues onto the foot and finishes on the toe.

This yarn I know came from Regia in one of their Antique colorways. Just a vanilla sock with strap heel on the standard 2,5 mm needles done over 60 stitches. It would also be a great yarn for small cables or 5/1 ribbing just to break up the pattern.

I have am on the last orphan pair, then I get to knit something new. Tomorrow I have some professional work to do, but after that I am free to wander around Tel Aviv with knitting and camera.

-Holly

Heading out

Posted on 2007-04-17 by Holly2007-04-17

Luck was with me this morning. After sitting all morning listening to a number of necessary but blatantly uninteresting subjects, I was released from the requirement to attend the afternoon session. Instead of finishing at 1700, low flying vehicle down the autobahn, rushing around and trying to make my 1915 train, I had time.

Put it to use figuring out what to take with for knitting:
making the journey
and redid the suitcase contents. I know I have a couple more tops than really needed; and I might just go and take them out. There is plenty of room left over. I have knitting projects (three orphan socks, or is that four?) plus some new skeins to try out. I have my new Sox Stix from Lantern Moon.. And on the 3 1/2 hour train ride to Zürich I should be able to finish up at least one sock pair.

Then there are all the electronics. Laptop, mp3 player, cassette player, camera. Oh, and batteries.

The dog is not pleased, but I am out the door and she will have to settle for the eldest coming by regularly for food and company.

-Holly