Christmas Eve Meal 2007

I helped in the preparation of this year's Christmas Eve meals.

This year's theme is Spanish. We started with Sangria and a modified version of the Ultimate Paella by Tyler Florence. That's just for lunch.

The Sangria was a hit! This version has a good balance of the sweetness from fruits, tardness from wine and a little fizz from Sprite. The recipe is reproduced below.

The Paella turn up quite well. We added scallops to the recipe, but used bratwurst instead of Chorizo sausages for health reason. The rice was a little more soggy than the versions I had in B44. We believe this was due to our using of a wok as the cooking vessel. The layer of rice was too thick and water did not evaporate as quick in the middle. There was a nice crust at the bottom, much like Tyler had described in the recipe:)

The dinner menu consist of Prawn with Pink Sauce, Roasted Beef with Caramelized Shallots, garlic bread, tossed green salad and Coffee Flan.

The roast beef was still a little undercooked in the middle when sliced, even though we followed the recipe to a T. We suspect it is due to our instant read thermometer was not being properly calibrated.

The prawns were from Omaha Steaks and were delicious! It needed very little help from the mayo/ketchup sauce or the store bought cocktail sauce.

The coffee flan was a little light on coffee taste as I had used brewed coffee instead of the concentrated version described in the recipe. Also, I had used too much sugar for the crust. Despite those mistakes, it was well received:)

All in all, a delicious day!

--
Sangria recipe

1 orange sliced
1 lemon sliced
Juice of 1 orange
1 bottle of light body red wine
ice
1 mini can of Sprite

Mixed well, served.

Walt Disney Hall, Heifetz's studio, MOCA

I had wanted to visit the Walt Disney Hall after reading an article about it in Newsweek magazine. It was described in the article as a warm and inviting concert hall, even with the metallic shell. I had also read a lot about Frank Gehry, and had wanted to visit buildings designed by him.

We arrive at about 2pm and took the audio tour. We started the tour on the ground floor. The lobby was quite small, but according to the audio guide, all glass walls open so the sidewalk will feel like part of the lobby. Luckily this is Southern California, where it doesn't rain:) At this level is a beautiful bar made of layered glass. Also on this level is a small cafe with art deco like furniture and lights.

On the second floor has a nice design feature. A space call BP Hall was created for pre-concert talk and other less formal occasion. The space itself has wonderful curve wooden walls that tapered inwards at the top, which made the space while wide open, cosy.

Walt Disney Hall does not have much windows but uses lots of skylight to brighten up the space. According to the audio guide, this was carefully conceived such that at night, interior lighting from the hall can be seen from outside, giving the hall a warm glow.

We were allowed to visit the auditorium since there was no performance scheduled on the day we visited. Like most concert hall, the auditorium had a piped Organ. Unlike most piped organ, this one have non vertical pipes, creating a dynamic center piece for the hall. The auditorium itself is quite small, with more seating in the terrace and sides compare to Davies Symphony hall. Acoustic is rumoured to be excellent, but unfortunately on this trip, I did not have a chance to experience that.

The hall has a beautiful garden where an outdoor amphitheater has been constructed for open performance and outreach efforts. Between the back splash of the amphitheater and the main building is a cleverly design narrow walkway with tall metallic walls on both sides. The walls are curved, reminding me of narrow canyons.

Frank Gehry designed a beautiful flower sculpture as a tribute to Mrs Disney. A beautiful rose is created out of cement, with pieces of broken Delft pottery embedded in them to give it a light blue color when viewed from afar. Spaces between the petals were filled with water to make it a fountain, giving the sculpture movement and reflection.

Overall, Walt Disney Hall is a beautiful structure with many thoughtful touches like BP Hall and Outdoor amphitheater. Unlike other music center, it is not grand. While the look is modern, the clever use of wood and curve shapes made the space intimate and warm.

Diagonally across the street from Walt Disney Hall is the Colburn School. We stopped by to visit Jascha Heifetz's studio, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I had thought Heifetz used to worked in one of the studios in the building, which was then preserved. Instead, a part of Heifetz's home was cut and move into Colburn school. The interior has the familiar Frank Lloyd Wright clean lines and oh-too-low furniture:)

The Museum of Contemporary Art is right next door to the Colburn School. We happened to walk into a Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition: You are the measure. I am not familiar with Gordon's work, but did enjoy the exhibition. My favorite exhibit was 3 walls of a house, cut into similar size. The outside of the walls are plain brick red roof title, and the other side showed the indoor details. An interesting play of lines on the house structure and contrast between the inside and outside of the house. Here are some pictures I found on the web for this work(1,2).

Gordon's doodles were another series which we enjoyed very much. There were doodles of plants with whimsical but aesthetic changes. One doodle can be found here.

The exhibition was reviewed by New York Times.

Other highlight of the visit includes a Jackson Pollock's painting.

We did not walk to the remote site as it was located in an iffy neighborhood and it was starting to get dark.

Dinner was at Checkers. This being a holiday weekend, the restaurant was deserted. When I read the menu, I was a little disappointed. It was not a very imaginative menu. However, the execution was superb. We started with simple salad. For entrees, I had the slow cook short ribs with polenta and my brother ordered the braised lamb shank with lentils. Both meat are very tender and flavorful. The short ribs has a hint of sweetness from the port wine reduction sauce and the mire poix bits on the dish adds a crunchy contrast to the fork tender meat. According to the wait staff, the restaurant recently went through a chef change, and the new executive chef is still working on the new menu. As such, I decided not to review the restaurant on Yelp.

After dinner, we decided to stop for drinks at Bonavista Bar, atop Westin Bonaventure. The novelty of a revolving restaurants/bars seems to have worn off these days. The only one in Bay Area, Equinox atop Hyatt Regency located at San Francisco's Embarcadero closed down in June this year. So, for me, it is actually a pleasant surprise.

View from this 35th floor revolving bar at night are mostly of the surrounding office buildings of major banks, some of which towers over the bar. This means there is limited visibility and one cannot quite see the mountains in background. For me, I enjoy cityscape and did not mind the obstruction. For more on the Bonavista Bar, please read my review on Yelp!

Happy New Year!

Ah...the Happy New Year email,
Sent on the last working day before Christmas without fail.

Before the company's winter shutdown,
After the company's holiday party chowdown.

To old friends who I tried to stay in touch,
And to new friends whose comradeship I enjoy very much!

Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
From the bottom of my heart:)

Finally done!

It is finally done.

During March, S came visit from Chicago, followed by J from San Diego. I was extremely happy to get in contact with old friends and was inspired to write a quote by Confucius: "To have friends come visit from afar, is it not a joyous occasion?" (有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎?).

The writing must have special power, because T came visit from Singapore while I was working on the work...

The writing is done in seal script(篆书). The seal script is an ancient font, almost from the age of Confucius.

This is actually my second attempt. In my first attempt, I wrote the wrong word (悦instead of乐) for joyous:(

For privacy reason, I removed my name from the work...

Enjoy!

Madam Butterfly

My second opera for this season is Madam Butterfly. This time I was sitting in the grand circle, which allowed me to watch the performing. I had heard comments that the music mixed better for seats higher in the theater, but the singing sounds great where I was sitting.

Before the opera began, we were asked to perform a special task. It seems like SF Opera will be doing a recorded video presentation of Madam Butterfly and they need video shots of audience applauding. So, for 2 15-seconds segments, we were asked to applaud wildly. Some folks even stood up for this segment. Devoted fans!

The Madam Butterfly story is well known, and there was definitely no suspense about what was going to happen next. But the acting and singing was incredible. After Cio-Cio San did her rendition of "Un bel dì vedremo", there was no a dry eye in the theater. I linked to this performance by Renee Fleming for your enjoyment.

The audience so emotionally involved with the performance that after the opera was over, and during the curtain calls, the tenor playing Lt Pinkerton was booed! The soprano playing Cio-Cio San playfully wag her finger at the tenor before her curtain call:)

A review of the performance from SF Chronicle can be found here.

A very depressing opera, though I absolutely enjoy the performance.

Audi Driving Experience @ Infineon Raceway

I am not a fast driver nor a gearhead. So when I was reminded of my Audi Driving Experience was 8:30am at Infineon Raceway, I was tempted to cancel my reservation. My gym partner, John, talked me out of it. "It will be cool!" he said.

Great advice! I dragged myself out of bed at 6am and drove all the way to Infineon Raceway. Audi had a simple breakfast of Kashi bars, juice and yogurt waiting. After a quick registration, we were been led into a small training room. The instructor, who is also a race car driver, gave a quick lecture on over-steering, under-steering and why 4 wheel drive vehicles more stable. While it was a pitch for Audi vehicles, this is the first time I was exposed to the mechanics of steering, braking and accelerating in a car and found it very interesting.

After the lecture, we were led to the parking lot. Orange cones had already been set up and we were taught several drills: braking, turning and accident avoidance. Another instructor, Todd, which has done Pike's Peak in 11mins, showed us what to do.

The first drill was using the ABS system to stop. He had us approached a set of cones at high speed (~60mph), then hit the brake hard to engage ABS. During his demo, the parking lot was wet from the rain and the car skidded a long way. The designated stopping point had to be moved back.

We then formed groups of 3 and each group took turns trying the drills. The other's in my group were pretty skilled, and I was concerned if I was able to execute the drill. I went at high speed towards the cone, but lifted my foot off the gas pedal before the designated stopping point to hit the brakes. My stopping distance was therefore shorter, but still the drill gave me quite a rush!

The second drill was to drive around a tight turning course at high speed, practicing stopping in the straight line entering the turn and accelerating coming out of the turn. We engaged the sports mode on the Quattro and had a lot of fun with this one. Even though the turns were quite sharp, I was able to enter most turn with the engine brake and accelerate smoothly out of the turns. I can now better understand why people enjoy watching auto racing, because driving the turns was really exciting!

The last drill was accident avoidance. Here we drove hard towards a set of cones, much like in the braking drill, but instead of braking, we were to avoid accident by letting go of the gas pedals and swirled around the cones. Staying loose was the key in this drill. Again, I was concern since I am not that great a driver:(

I actually did pretty well on this drill. I came in with the correct speed, lift my foot off the gas pedal at the correct time, but over corrected on my swirls and had the back wheel hit the cones as a result.

After practicing in the parking lot, we were given helmets and got to drive S4/S5 around the actual race track!

I got into a S4 with auto transmission. In the cars were walkie-talkie, so that we could hear our instructions. One of the instructor, Stu, got into a S5 and led. All of us follow him around the track, with instructions coming from the walkie-talkie. Overtaking was not allowed. Cones had been placed on the track to help us navigate which side of the track we should be in to reduce the angles of our turns.

Given the condition of the track, we were able to still do ~30mph around the tracks to keep up with Stu. We did 2 rounds around the track. My car skidded a little on the first time around the track, but did not have trouble on the second time.

Since I was alone in my car, the instructor invited me to sit in his car on the second drive round the track. I was able to observe first hand how he handled the turns. He had a skid too on his run, so I suppose my skid was nothing to be ashamed about:)

We had a quick debrief session after the drive, then I went about to look at the Audis on display. We were asked to fill up a survey about our experience on a iPhone, and feeling sleepy(I woke up at 6am!) I went home.

This is my second test drive event. The first was the Mercedes-Benz C-class test drive event in SF. The food was better at that event, but given we were driving on SF roads, not very exciting.

The Audi Driving Experience is more fun and I hope to participate in future test drive events which have more emphasis on driving.

Evita, Bouchon Bakery and Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen

I won free tickets to Evita courtesy of KDFC. The musical was playing at Lincoln Theater in Yountville. Since the theater is quite a drive from where I stayed, so I figured I will a day out of it, making dinner reservations in advance.

I had not seen Evita the movie, but the storyline was remarkable familiar. Somehow, the story of an ambitious woman behind a dictator is a recurring theme in history:)

I could not find too much information about the company putting on the show, but I really enjoyed the singing. The actor playing Che had a wonderful voice, and had acted the rebellion behavior beautifully. The actress playing Eva was wonderful as well, with a bright voice, though I felt she over-acted in some segments. I particular like the cast for articulating the words clearly while singing, allowing me to follow the story. Props was less elaborate than some other musicals that I have seen, but adequate.

This is a little of bit of a cliche, but here's a video of "Don't cry for me, Argentina".

After the show, it was too early for dinner, so I decided to visit some of the local restaurants. Yountville is home to three Thomas Keller's restaurants: French Laundry, Bouchon and Ad Hoc. I stopped by all three to check them out.

Various reviews said Ad Hoc had a casual atmosphere, but it still looked quite sophisticated to me. I noticed French Laundry have a nice little garden just outside the waiting area by the hostess stand, which would be a lovely place to sip wine while waiting to be seated. I decided I wasn't going to leave Yountville without eating something. Luckily, there Bouchon Bakery. I tried a $3 tart de citron. A little more expensive than the your neighborhood bakery, but very good. I have a simple write up on Yelp for this location.

Dinner was at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen. While there are many excellent restaurant in the Napa area, this seem to be the only option for a casual dinner. I wasn't wowed by the food here, but think it is inexpensive by Napa standards and quite good. I reviewed it on Yelp as well.

Friend from Phoenix; A friend in need is a friend indeed

My buddy from Grad school is getting married! A had worked long and hard for his PhD. After graduation, he worked at Freescale and somehow found time to study for a MBA as well. He is now an NPI manager. After years of school and work, he finally found time to date and settle down. A is one of the nicest guy anyone could know, and I am really happy for him.

His fiancee used to live in the Bay area and still have family here. They organized simple wedding celebration/reception at Shanghai 1930. I have not seen A in about a year now, and was quite excited to meet him. Besides, I heard Shanghai 1930 has good cocktails and good jazz...good enough reason for anyone:)

It was a fairly low key affair. Turns out I was the only friend from the groom side, so my showing meant a lot to A. I had a few cocktails, got stuffed on the free appetizers and generally had a good time. There was a band (Terry Disley) playing jazz which I enjoyed as well. My detailed review of Shanghai 1930 can be found on Yelp!

A is getting married on Dec 23rd in India. I volunteered to inform our mutual friends.

After the party, I went to the Bart station for my ride home. I had came up from Fremont BART and notice there was no train from Embarcadero to Fremont after 8pm. I panicked and call another friend, A, to pick me up from Millbrae and drive me to Fremont.

Turns out I made a mental mistake. The direct train from Embarcadero to Fremont was not running, but I could still make Fremont by going to East Bay and transferring trains. A told me he found the information on the web after I called, but decided he will come pick me up anyway. I am really grateful about that.

Bodyworlds 2 and the three pound gem

My friend Dave suggested going to the Bodyworlds exhibition at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. I had wanted to see this exhibit as well, so eagerly agreed.

We decided to pay for the audio tour since both of us do not know too much about human anatomy. The exhibits are a little gruesome since they were all made of actual human beings. These allow the exhibit to show details that recreation cannot easily accomplish.

Another aspect of the exhibition which I enjoy is how the make the exhibits relevant. The audio tour and exhibit will refer to diseases common seen in popular media and show the impact of the disease on the particular organ. I overheard a father told his teenage sons, "This is what your grandfather had." In this manner, the exhibit was interesting not just from a curiosity point of view, but also help people understand when a person contact a disease or injury, what was the resulting impact on the human body.

The unique process of creating the exhibit also presents a holistic view of the human body. When reading books and even watching documentaries, the human body always felt disconnected since the diagram was usually show only the bones, or only the organs, leaving one wondering, what is in between. 2 exhibits: the exploding man and the drawer man was especially effective in answering that question and provide a unique perspective to the human body that was unlike anything I have seen before.

There were some controversy about the full body exhibit, such as the baseball player or the ballerina. Personally, I think those full body exhibit have limited educational value, but was done in a tasteful manner that should not offend anyone.

At $22.50 for the admission and $4 for the audio tour, prices for the exhibition was a little steep, but in my opinion well worth it. We spent a total of 3.5 hours at the Tech and was able to cover everything, but felt that we could use a little more time.

Asian Art Museum and Banana Island

I like San Francisco, but don't consider it a great museum town. I sometimes to go for special exhibits, but felt the regular collection is not worth the time and effort.

The lone exception is probably the Asian Art Museum. So, when I found someone organizing a docent led tour at the Asian Art Museum, I signed up for the event.

The featured exhibits at Asian Art Museum are Hiroshi Sugimoto's "History of History" and Stylized Sculpture: Contemporary Japanese Fashion.

I arrived early and had a chance to wander about the museum before the docent led tour. The Japanese sections seem to have added new exhibits since my last visit. Interesting...I need to come back.

Our docent, Kaya, was an interesting lady. She was clearly enthusiastic but somehow unwilling to give direct interpretation of the art work we saw. There was a pendant with a ring of stylized fire sitting on a lotus flower base. In the ring was a photograph of a calm sea. Kaya pointed to the outer ring and said "History", then pointed to the photograph and said "Of History", then said no more. I could only take it to mean it was human history (the pendant) surrounding natural history (the photo of the sea).

There were several other exhibits that had similar theme. Fossils locked in a modern glass safe, jade pendants displayed inside a sterilizer and crystal balls inside a miniature pagoda. But there were also pictures of natural scenery which do not follow this pattern and Kaya also call them "History of history". I am confused.

The second part of the docent tour was for modern Japanese fashion. Kaya made a point about how kimono did not have size and adapted to the user by folding and tucking the fabric, especially resulting in a knot on the back. She told us to look for similar influences in modern Japanese fashion.

There were the usual spiky looking clothes but also several sensible looking clothes which was slightly oversized, but elegantly folded to form clean lines on the back. There was another dress which was more tubular in shape. A roll of excess fabric was form in the front of the dress, giving it a clean look with a little accent.

Then there were a few dress which not overly modern, but probably not pratical either. One example was the hunchback look, where the dress has a bough on the back to give the wearer a hunchback like look. Along the same line is the dress with a big bough on the behind, giving the wearer a snail like look.

After the docent led part of the tour, we ventured into the regular exhibit. Someone had wanted to see the central Asia exhibit, and I tagged along. I am very familiar with central Asian history and really enjoyed those exhibits.

As usual, I made dinner plans with friends living in the city whenever I visit. My friend S and I went to Banana Island in Daly City, a Singapore/Malaysian restaurant. Food was quite good, and I was amused by the chef stretching out the dough for roti prata. As a teenage, I would order the same dish and watch the chef stretch out the dough before frying it. Watching the chef do it in this restaurant brings back a lot of memories. For my detail review on this restaurant, please check Yelp!

The Magic Flute

This is my first time at the Opera in the War Memorial Opera house. After going to various simulcast, I gave in:( I bought tickets!

The opera is the Magic Flute by Mozart by SF Opera. For this production, the set was designed by Gerald Scarfe, whose cartoon I had seen in the New Yorker. The set had a whimsical design so unique to Scarfe's cartoon and I was quite amused by the wacky animals he had created for the opera. There was a crocoguins (penguins with crocodile head), giraffestriches (giraffes with the body of an ostrich) and so on. It was quite delightful.
The famous "Queen of the Night Aria" was performed wonderfully! I had the tune stuck in my head all the way home.



A review of the opera from the SF Chronicle can be found here.

Overall, it was an enjoyable performance/experience. My only regret were buying balcony circle seat, which was too far remove from the stage. It was almost like the nose bleed section in sports arena, and there were times when I did not feel connected to the performers.

Halloween at DC Cemetery

One thing that continues to amaze me even after all these years is how much effort, time and money people here would invest in their hobbies.

Case in point...DC Cemetery. I call it Halloween lawn decoration gone wrong:) For several years now, I always come here for my Halloween Haunted House fix.

In the front yard of a house, a few blocks away from Castro Street, in Mountain View, the owners had setup a haunted house complete with gates, and facade of a haunted castle in their front yard. That alone would have been impressive, but the owners had also installed various mechanical goodies.

There's a skeleton holding on to the railings and would periodically pull itself towards the railing, as if trying to get out. There's also a chained coffin which would make knocking sound and have its lid ajar, as if a ghost is trying to get it open. There's a skeleton playing piano, a ghost floating in a corner, glowing in the dark and a bat flying in another corner of the garden. New this year is the display of a tall ghost which stood up periodically, while smoke filled the air.

The owner collects no fees for the display, but do accept donations. Given how elaborate the puppets and decorations are, I would venture to say it's a net loss.

This year, Halloween falls on a Wednesday, so the crowd is smaller than years past. I hope there is enough donations to keep this tradition going...

Lunch at Google!

I am a little embarrassed to admit, but today, I had lunch at Google for the first time.

As a techie foodie, you would imagine I have many friends that work in Google, and I would be hitting them for lunch every week:) Atlas, that is not true. As of now, I have only know of 1 friend working in Google.

My friend's cube is in the main campus, but for ease of parking reason, we went to a satellite campus for lunch.

The cafeteria is fair high tech looking, with flat screen LCD display showing the special of the day.

I took a slice of the smoke salmon pizza, some grill vegetables, sole and a sushi bowl, consisting of sushi rice, seaweed shreds and topped with raw tuna and salmon. For drinks, I got a bottle of Vignette Wine Country soda-Pinot Noir.

The smoke salmon pizza is quite good. The smoke salmon is topped with capers and a drizzle of sour cream sauce. The pizza itself was thin, but a little tough, but I did pick up the last piece of pizza, so that was to be expected. The grilled vegetables were simply tossed with olive oil and tasted very fresh. The sole is pan seared and quite juicy. It is topped with a relish of olives and tomatoes which give it some flavor. The sushi bowl was excellent. The raw fish tasted very fresh and I enjoy the texture of the meat very much.

I got round 2 at a different cafeteria, serving Cambodian specialties. I had some of the shrimp curry and pumpkin curry. Again the shrimp were fresh, firm and sweet. The pumpkin curry was very sweet as well. I would prefer if the curry was a little more spicy, but the quality of the ingredients were indeed excellent.

We decided it was enough savory food, and started on dessert. I had a pumpkin mousse served in a small, hallowed out pumpkin, topped with whipped cream. The mousse was not too sweet and very creamy. I would happily pay for dessert of this quality in a restaurant.

We finished with a freshly brewed cafe latte, with Google's own espresso machine.

After lunch, my host took us for a walk around the main campus. I notice how much food was available around the campus. There's a small cafeteria in almost every building, each serving different types of food. That's in addition to the break room, whose fridge is filled with all types of drinks. My host suggested trying the Godiva chocolate drink, which is also excellent!

I started working at the end of the "Dot COM" boom, so I always felt like I knew what lavish food arrangement companies could prepare for employees, but this exceeded my expectation.

I wish Google continue to do well and I can come back for more lunches:) If you are reading this...don't forget to click on the Google Ad!

Moonlight Kayak at Jack London Square

I have done several kayak trip in the past, but tonight I did something different. A kayaking trip at night!

I arrived at California Canoe and Kayak in Jack London Square at 5:30pm. Launched at the from a dock at about 6pm. Got a quick lesson on getting into a kayak from a dock from our tour guide Su. He taught new technique that I had not seen.

We left Jack London Square docks and went right, towards the bay. Our first stop is USS Potomac, FDR's presidential yacht. It was not a very big boat, so I was a surprise. According to Su, while the boat has 2 chimney structure, one of them is fake and hide an escalator. (FDR was wheelchair bound...remember?).

Next to USS Potomac, was a ship label "RELIEF". According to Su, this ship was a floating lighthouse.

I was quite excited, as I had not expected seeing any historic relics during this trip. Took out my camera and tried to snap a few shots when I realized...battery have no juice!

We then saw a yacht leaving the harbor in Alameda, right across the water from Jack London Square. This was the evening cruise from Commodore Cruise, which I had taken just 2 weeks ago while attending M & S's wedding...

One thing I did notice is the area around the port of Oakland is very quiet. Besides the few people at Jack London Square and the cruise, there was no one on the street.

We paddle away from the bay towards east. On our right are houseboats in the Estuary. With the fairly quiet water and the warm glow of the lights from inside the houseboats, the whole setting had an romantic feel...

Further up the Estuary, are several dry docks. Su explained these are Kaiser docks. It seems that the Kaier family, before getting into medicine, were ship builders. The docks were used to maintain World War 2 boats.

At this point, we had been paddling for a while. I was actually feeling a little hot with a fleece sweater and wool hat. I started around the sky, but did not see any signs of the moon in the sky! Jokingly, I paddled to Su and said I want my money back. "It is supposed to be a moonlight kayak", I said...

Su plead with me to be patient. We paddled further inland and stopped near the Coast Guard Island while a few of our paddle mates docked. I was casually chatting with a few other paddlers when my kayak turned west...

From behind the Oakland hills, there it was! Round, a little fuzzy and red from the dust of the Southern California fires, was the moon. When I first saw it, the bottom 1/5 was still hidden by the hills, but it rapidly rises above the horizon. Against the backdrop of the Oakland skyline, which is not too busy, it glowed...

I was reminded of the Tang poem "海上生明月"(Moon rises on the sea), but for the life of me cannot remember what comes next...(which by the way is "天涯共此时", at the same time across the land）

At this point, our paddle mates joined us and we cross the Estuary again towards Coast Guard Island. Su had all our kayaks group together as he handed out cookies and sparkling apple cider. We looked at the moon, in the calm and quiet water, while eating cookies and drinking cider. It was a great feeling.

After another 20mins or so, it was time for the trip back. We went in between Coast Guard Island and East Bay, west towards the Bay and Jack London Square. I started noticing there were several restaurants on the Bay, but while driving along 880, we tend to miss these locations.

After another 25mins of kayaking, all of us got back to Jack London Square. We unloaded safely and changed into dry clothes. I had gotten friendly with a couple. Turns out the wife works at Pixar and is friends with a former co-worker of mine. Both of them has a software background, but also worked in animated film production, so had interesting stories to tell.

We were all hungry and decided to have dinner at Kincaids. The restaurant was near the dock and we had a good whiff of the food before heading out.

I would describe the restaurant as a steakhouse, even though it had a good selection of seafood. Despite the time and our attire, we were promptly seated near the window, from which I had a great view of the Estuary. I ordered the sesame crusted salmon with rice and sauteed vegetable. The food was pretty good and we had a good time. Please see my review on Yelp for details on the food.

Left Jack London Square at about 11pm, tired, but very happy!

Free night of theater

I missed the announcement of Free night of theater this year and did not get tickets until a week ago. The choices was limited when I looked and I decided to watch Mademoiselle Modiste, performed by the Lyric Theatre of San Jose.

The performance is at Montgomery Theater in downtown San Jose. I got in after a long day of work and was some what tired. The show was in 2 act and it had a fairly simple storyline, so I was able to follow along.

This performance was put on by an amateur troop and it shows. The actress playing the main character Fifi had a wonderful voice, but the rest of the cast was not able to carry the show during several solo segments. Also, the music itself was good but lack certain qualities to make it memorable.

I did have a good time, and definitely applauded the effort of the cast and theater to put on the show. However, it is unlikely I would buy tickets to the next performance.

Kayaking at Point Lobos

Woke up at 6:30am in order to get to Santa Cruz by 8am. This is the part of sea kayaking that I don't like. Since the ocean tends to be more calm during the morning hours, most trip starts early in the morning. Given it is about an hour drive on the hilly Highway 17 to the coast, I sometimes wish I am staying on the ocean front:)

We met up at the carpool location. From there, it is another hour of van ride to Point Lobos. This time Dave Johnston , our tour guide, drove, so I was able to catch up on more sleep.

We launch at Carmel River State Beach. This beach is beautiful! It is quite wide and deep(by Nor-Cal standards:), with a cliff on one side. The water front dips quickly, so there's not too much wave. The sand, however is not fine, but like small pieces of granite, making moving the kayaks literally painful:(

The weather on Sunday was slightly gloomy, but not windy, so conditions was just right for kayaking!

As with previous trip, Dave have people sit in their kayak on the sand and he pushes the kayaks into the ocean. The first kayak launched successfully, but the second flipped! Not an auspicious start!

It took us about another 15mins to launch all the kayaks, including relaunching the one that flipped. Just as we kayak past the kelp forest, into open sea, one of the kayaker felt seasick. We had to go the next cove and unloaded him. Like I say, not an auspicious start.

Coming out of that cove, we went into blue fish cove. In the kelp forest there, we observed lots of wild life. Dave was able to pick up a jelly fish in the water. It was quite a sight to the translucent animal in the water. We also saw a crab. It was curious enough to climb onto our paddle. Big mistake, as I was thinking about salt and pepper crab...Luckily for the, we decided there was no room in the kayak for it, and it would live another day:)

From Blue Fish cove, we paddle between rocks to go into another cove, whose name I forgot. Paddling between rocks can be dangerous because the waves are strong between the rocks, but all of us made it through safely.

In that cove, we saw a baby seal. The animal was sticking its head out of the water, curiously observing us. It is so cute! We also saw red moss and majestic cypress tree, growing on the cliff face, barely hanging on to anything.

There was no real beach near Carmel River State Beach, so we were not able to rest on this trip. We explored about 2 more coves and started heading back. The trip back is quite uneventful and all kayaks got onto shore without flipping.

We were on the sea for a total of about 3 hours. At one point, I was a little hungry and felt a little seasick. I had packed a sandwich, but since we did not stop, was not able to eat it. I should have brought along a power bar, which can be eaten on the go.

Despite the bad start and a little seasickness, I had a good time. Going on the water is always exciting for me and the view of the rugged shoreline from the sea was quite a treat. I would not recommend this trip for beginner however, since the sea is somewhat rough.

Pictures will be posted after I had my pictures have been developed. I need to buy waterproof casing for my digital camera on future trips.

Opera at the Ballpark

The San Francisco Opera had done a few of these simulcast now. Last year, I went to their simulcast at Stanford for "Rigoletto". This year, they hold a similar event at AT&T park, call "Opera at the Ballpark", showing "Samson and Delilah" on the jumbotron.

This is actually my first trip inside AT&T park. Compare to the other parks which I have been to(I have been to Wrigley Field, Jack Murphy Stadium and Tiger Stadium), this stadium is very new. It shows in the floor and seats. They are clean!

The weather was fairly cold. In fact, on my way to the stadium, part of 280 was actually raining! Luckily, the stadium was designed to shield the audience from the wind, so sitting through the opera was not a near death experience:)

I choose a seat about 20 rows behind home plate. One could have also sit on the field, but, I wanted a little more comfort:) The resolution of the wide screen jumbotron is quite impressive. From where I was sitting, I felt like I was watching my regular television(which is not HD) at home.

The opera itself is enjoyable enough. I sort of know the story of "Samson and Delilah", but am not familiar with the music. Acoustics at the ballpark is also not very good, but that is understandable.

Most people were there to enjoy themselves. I saw people circling the bases even while the performance was going on! The opera staff had handed out signs that say "Go Samson" and "Go Delilah" on either sides to the audience during the simulcast. Then, when there was any hint of physical contact between Samson and Delilah, people was holding up the sign and cheering! It was quite funny!

All in all, a enjoyable experience.

Last day of vacation

I woke up today with a mild hang over. I normally do not drink and certainly overdid it the night before:(

P offered a simple breakfast of granola bars and we sat around chatting again. For some reason, we started talking about calligraphy. It gave him an idea. He suggested I can go visit Guo Zi Jian(国子监）. According to P, this is the highest level of education one can receive from the Qing dynasty imperial court. I think of it as the Qing dynasty grad school:) P figure there might be some stone tablets of calligraphy there which I will enjoy.


Guo Zi Jian is right next to Kong temple(孔庙） which I had visit on my previous trip to Beijing. I must have arrive on a bad day, since everything at Guo Zi Jian is under construction. Much to my disappointment, there wasn't really much to see. The only stone tablet I found was one by Zhao Men Fu(赵孟頫）. I am not even sure if it is an orignal, since the stone tablet is not protect at all, someone had taken the liberty of carving some random lines onto the stone tablet:( After about half an hour at Guo Zi Jian, I am pretty much done! P had suggested having lunch at a vegetarian place across the street from Guo Zi Jian call Xu Siang Zhai(叙香斋). An excellent choice! They were serving a buffet lunch of all vegetrain items, with various faux meat and fish. I regretted not taking any photos, but the food look so real! The buffet had almost 50-60 varieties of food, including sushi, congee, dumplings, soups and deserts. The food is not overly season, which is a rarity in Chinese vegetarian cuisine and I enjoy it very much.

After lunch, it was time to head home to P, and from there, catch a cab to the airport for my flight home.

This silk road trip is definitely a blast. The highlight were the terracotta Warriors and Dun Huang Murals. During the couple of days where we traveled with the tour group, we certainly did not eat as much good, local food as I would prefer, but overall, it has not been to shabby too. Our tour guides and the locals we met were all very friendly and I had a really good time.

Beijing

Arrive in Beijing from Xin Jiang at about 1pm. Went to Pingod apartments where my cousin P stays. After catching up a little, we decided to take a walk in Ritan.

We had a beer to welcome me to Beijing at a Germany restaurant in ritan business park. Then walk around the park a little. Ritan is not like Tiantan, which is very touristy, but it does have some ancient ruins. It feels like a park which the locals used for their recreation activities. P has taken on rock climbing rather seriously, and the park has a climbing wall, so this is his regular hangout.

We stop by Xiu Shui Street (秀水街） after our walk in Ritan. I really did not have much to buy, but figure I could use a new sports watch. There are some sporty looking fake Nike and Reebok watches, but none of them has lap timer feature. The sales person complaint I am being difficult. "These are all fakes!", she exclaims. I had imagined the fake watches would have all the features of their real counterparts, but implementing lap timer feature on a fake must be too costly:)

Dinner was at Lao Beijing Luju Huo Shao (老北京卤煮火烧） in Jinbao street（金宝街）. P informed me the food here is very authentic. There were several taxi-cabs parked outside the restaurants, and the cabbies were all inside having dinner.

We started with 4 cold dishes: Xin Li Mei carrot skins（心里美萝卜皮）, Century eggs with tofu（皮蛋豆腐）, napa cabbage with yellow wasabi（芥辣白菜墩） and ma tofu（麻豆腐）. Then 2 bowls of Luju（卤煮）. Then got adventurous and order huo shao donkey meat（火烧驴肉）, served in shao bing, plus dog aspic（狗肉冻）. Wash everything down with Red Star Er Wo Tou(红星二窝头）.

Xin Li Mei carrot skins is a pickled carrot skin. The carrot skin is a special type of carrot with green skin on the outside, and a pinkish skin on the inside, sliced thinly. The pickling is not too tart and the vegetable is still quite crunchy. Pretty good dish.

Napa cabbage with yellow wasabi is exactly what is being described. The cabbage has been pickled with a yellowish liquid and pack quite a punch. Good on days where allergies is serious:)

Comparatively, century egg with tofu is a very normal dish. Good, but normal. Soft tofu is slice then soy sauce and sesame oil is poured over the tofu. It is then topped with century egg. A good contrast in texture and flavor between the mild taste of tofu and century egg. I might try to recreate that dish at home.

Ma tofu is the fermented soy bean residue left over from making tofu or soy milk, stir fried with diced spicy dried chili pepper. I enjoy the texture of the dish and the spicy aroma of the fired chili pepper. Again, another dish difficult to recreate due to lack of soy bean residue.

Luju is a bowl of pig's intestines, five spice tofu and pieces of flour, cooked in a flavorful broth. I cannot really make out what the exact ingredients of the broth, but do taste some fulu (腐乳) . Very satisfying soup base. I think I end up drinking more soup then eating the intestines.

Donkey meat is a little unusual. It is quite soft, but not melt in your mouth soft. There is still some texture in the meat, but no stringiness. There is no strong donkey flavor(whatever that would be...), but it was clearly not chicken, beef, lamb or pork. I don't know if I consider it good enough to order again.

Comparatively, dog aspic has a dog like smell to it...in a bad way. I did not like this dish at all. It is my first taste of dog meat and besides saying I have eaten dog, I really cannot recommend the dish to anyone. Probably it is the preparation, and an acquired taste, but not a dish I will ordered again.

After dinner we had a drink at Q Bar. The owners: Echo and George, were bar tenders at Long Cafe, where we had drinks 2 years ago on my last visit to Beijing. I like the atmosphere of the bar and am a sucker for roof top garden. I have 3 special grape martini, which is not too sweet and got quite drunk.

A good break from the rather hectic silk route travel schedule. I like going to museums and visit natural scenery on my vacation, but just catching up with family/friends is fun too.

Urumuqi

Our final stop on silk route is Urumuqi. The attraction in Xin Jiang is mostly its natural beauty. The first stop is South Mountain Ranch（南山牧场）, where we visit a working Kazakh yurts. We are served a salty tea drink and some fried snacks. The tea must be an acquired taste, since I did not enjoy it too much. The fried snacks were pleasant enough, but the weather is cold and the food cool down too much, making it taste greasy.

But we were not just here for food. The travel agency has also arrange for us to witness some other activities: horse racing, courtship on horseback and sheep football. Horse racing, as the name suggested is kids racing their horses. The riders are all in their teens, with the youngest as young as 6. Their horsemanship is incredible.

Courtship on horseback is another traditional event. Here a young man would follow the object of his desire on a horse ride to the far end of the field. Along the way, he can say anything he wants. On the return trip, the ladies show their true colors. If they are unhappy with anything he says, he gets a solid whipping by the ladies. On our visit, the young men could all use some help with courtship, since all of them were whipped hard by the ladies:)

The last event is football, except instead of pigskin, a sheep carcass is used. Men on horseback would wrestle each other for the sheep, and if successful wrestle the sheep from an opponent, ride a round about the field and throw the sheep into a basket. His teams will attempt to block for him, while the opponent attempt to take back the sheep, all on horseback. While there is not crash like in football, the action was fierced and the man were all very much into it.

After lunch, we visited Heavenly Mountain and Heavenly Lake(天山天池）. Again my impression of Heavenly Mountain is heavily influenced by martial art stories of Lian Yu Shen（梁羽生）. But this time, we were all greatly impress by the natural beauty of the region. Again, we rode the cable car up the mountain to heavenly lake. One thing I immediately notices is the water of Heaven lake is not as clear as I had expected. I was comparing the water to Tahoe, which is much clearer and blue in color compare to the rather muddy water of Heavenly lake. However, there are layers upon layers of mountain with a snowy peak at most remote shades of mountain, giving the area a certain romantic feel. It is not Tahoe, but certainly has its own charm.

Turpan

Today we wake up to find ourselves in a new province: Xin Jiang(新疆）. Our destination today is the fiery hot city of Turpan（吐鲁番）. But someone must have been praying to the travel gods. We got lucky! The high was only 29 deg C!

We arrive at Turpan at about 7am Beijing time, 5 am local time. Again, the draw of a tour group our size is amazing. There was actually 2 beautiful Uygur ladies were there dancing to the drum beat of a Uygur gentleman, welcoming us at 5 in the morning!

After a quick breakfast, we set off for Bizaklik Thousand Buddha Cave（柏孜克里克千佛洞). Similar to Dun Huang, the caves are painted with Buddhist murals. Unfortunately, these murals are severely damaged and have little aesthetic value. According to our guides, the murals, if undamaged, could rival those of Dun Huang. One can only imagine...

The caves are located on the foot of Flaming Mountain(火焰山). If the name sounds familiar, it should! This is the inspiration for Flaming Mountain in "Journey to the West"（西游记）!

Now, there is of course no flames to be found in the mountain, but there is fairly unique landscape. On our next stop, we drove to a tourist center for the "most ideal photographic location for Flaming Center". Also in the center is the largest thermometer in the world.

The center is clearly milking its connection to "Journey to the West". On the walls of the corridors leading to thermometer are paintings of stories from Journey to the West.

The thermometer itself seem a little small. In fact, the one at Baker, California seems bigger! However, our tour guide keep insisting the one at Flaming Mountain made the Guinness Book of World Record. She's cute, so I decided to let it slide:)

The weather was cold enough that we were wearing jacket, but decided we need to lose it while taking pictures so that our friends will believe we are actually in Turpan:)

From Flaming Mountain, we went to Grape Valley(葡萄沟). This is probably the most blatant tourist trap on the entire trip! There was nothing to see except grapes hanging overhead. Having visited many vineyard in Northern California, I am just not interested.

Next, we visited a Uygur grape farm for watermelons and grapes. Again, the Uygur farmer clearly often have tour group visit. There was a long table where we all sat. On the table were Uygur hats that guys could wear and take pictures. We were served watermelon and grapes while there was a singing and dancing performance. Then we were asked to join in. Finally, the farmer ask if we are interested in tasting raisins...

He started by telling us the cheapest raisins from Xin Jiang are not fit for human consumption. Rotten raisins are soaked in chemicals or smoked by sulphur to preserve them, and then sold at a low price. Well, goods from China has been suffering from bad press lately, so I am incline to believe him:)

He then turn us on to raisins he cultivated. They are indeed quite sweet and tasty. Feeling a little guilty from the free watermelon and grapes, we decide we should buy some rasins...Sigh...I guess we fell for the oldest trick in the tour guide's book:(

After a quick lunch, we went to Jiaohe city ruins（交河故城). I usually enjoy visiting ancient relics, but the ruins here have abandon for so long that natural erosion has cause the entire city ruins to look like some random mud caves. I cannot help but recall a article by Yu Qiu Yu(余秋雨） about how fragile a city is.

The next spot requires is a large network of underground water canel call the Karez system(坷儿井). Since most of Xin Jiang is a desert, the only source of water is melting snow from the Heavenly Mountain(天山). Digging more expose canal to bring water from the mountain to Turpan is not feasible because too much water would have evaporated during transportation. Instead, underground canals were dug. According to the guide, the sum of length of all the underground canal together would exceed that of the Great Wall of China and is one of 3 ancient engineering marvel of China. It is indeed very impressive, but somehow not widely report(at least I was not aware of the Karez system before this trip).

Our final stop is at Emin Minaret(苏公塔）, a real life mosque which welcomes non-Muslim. The architecture clear is different from the Tang inspire building we have been seen through our trip, but did not have the onion shapes which we are familiar with either. The tower itself if made of bricks and has various patterns on it. Quite beautiful to look at. However, in terms of historical importance or artistic value, it cannot compared with some of the buildings we had seen thus far.

For dinner, we were treated to BBQ whole lamb(烤全羊), a Xin Jiang specialty. I know I have complained we were not able to get authentic local cuisine, but here I have to take back what I said. Given the size of our group, we were able to order 3 whole lamb. This would be difficult is I had traveled alone or even in small group. The lamb itself does not have a strong lamb smell, due to its feed. According to the tour guide, the grass in Xin Jiang has more alkaline in it, so it changes the taste of the lamb. I personally do not have a problem with the lamb smell anyway, and really enjoy the dish. The meat has a little cumin like seasoning on it, but most of the flavor comes from the lamb itself.

After dinner, we had a performance of Uygur dance/music group. This is suppose to be a professional group, but they have only 4 female dancers, 4 male dances and a band of 4 musicians. Consequently, the performers are forced to do back to back dance. I felt really bad for the dancers.

Crescent Lake, Dun Huang

This morning, we visited an attraction within Dun Huang city call "Echoing Sand Mountains, Crescent Lake". It is a somewhat interesting geological formation. According to our tour guide, the crescent shaped lake is formed due to the unique mountain formation in the area. The sand storm created a circuit pattern, just sparing the stream to form a sparking lake. The lake gets its water from melting snow atop Qi Lian mountain. Unfortunately, in recent years, due to global warming, there is less melting snow and parts of the lake appear dried.

The excursion became an excuse to play in the sand! We were encourage to slide down a rather steep sand dune. Supposedly, the echoing sand will make a loud noise. After consulting with our tour guide, he frankly tell us it is unlikely we will hear the sand. Bummer...

We also got the chance to ride a camel. The animal is fairly tame, so they walk slowly on the sand. It is still a fairly bumpy ride. I gain much more respect for ancient travellers who had relied on these animals to ferry them across the vast desert that is the silk route.

When we are in Gobi desert, the desert scenery is quite similar to the desert of Arizona. It is here at Crescent lake that we see scenery similar to those of the Sahara. While this is not a historic site, I did think it is a worthwhile stop.

In the afternoon, we went to what I consider the other most important attraction of the trip: the murals of Dun Huang at Mao Gao Caves. Our first cave is home of the North Buddha, where a large piece of rock is carved into a big Buddha from the early Tang dynasty. The entire statue is more than a few person high and is aw inspiring. The walls of the cave is covered with paintings of various scene of Buddha spreading his gospel and the surrounding disciples. All were vividly painted and the colors have survived through the ages extremely well

The second cave is home to the South Buddha. Here the craftsman has already master perspective and design carve the Buddha so that it appears even bigger than the North Buddha, which being actually shorter. The third cave is home to the sleeping Buddha. Here the Buddha is in his sleep soon before his death. His disciples are shown standing behind him, some frowning, some happy. Some of the disciples are depicted as statues and others as paintings. On the opposite wall is painting of 5000 little Buddhas. Each has its own facial expression and distinct features.

We also went to several caves from early dynasty where it was obvious the art is clearly Indian art and showing early signs of influence from Chinese art. Another highlight is the cave where the Buddhist elders had hidden their sutra from invaders. The sutra was later discovered and subsequently sold to museums from around the world.

One painting that I had especially wanted to see was the "Reverse playing of the Lute"(反弹琵琶）. Our guide told us that particular cave is too small to accommodate tourist. Sigh...

All in all though, it was a treat to see these priceless treasure. I don't usually buy souvenirs, but since we are not allow to take photos inside the caves, I broke down and bought a set of post cards of Fei Tian(飞天).

Travel to Dun Huang

After a relatively light day in Jia Yu Pass, we travel to Dun Huang(敦煌). The trip takes about 4 hours by train from Jia Yu Pass and another 2 hours along a really bumpy road by bus. Along the way, we saw a sand structure said to be remains of the Great Wall from Han dynasty.

The surrounding is the vast Gobi Desert again. It is on this trip where one starts to realize how big China is in terms of land mass...

At dinner, we were served camel's foot. The meat really has no distinct taste of camel, and I recall only it has lots of connective tissue, giving the meat a gel like chewy texture. I really can't say it is delicious, and since I do not know if camel is endangered, I cannot recommend the dish again.

We went to the local night market after dinner. It was targeted mainly towards tourists. There were skewers of lamb BBQ on the street that smells wonderful. However, wary of the hygiene standards of street vendors, we decided to pass...

Jia Yu Pass

Woke up on the train to some beautiful scenery: the snow tipped peaks of Qi Lian mountain (祁连山）sparked in the morning sun.

Today we arrive at Jia Yu Pass（嘉峪关）. Our tour group must be a big local draw, since there was an actual dance troupe welcoming us! Our tour guides said they are mainly retirees who are performing as part of their workout...but still.

The morning schedule is quite simple. We drove around Jia Yu Pass city, which is a newly created city for the nearby steel plant. Very clean and quite modern. There is a site for Ironman training/competition. Being a former distance runner, I took some picture in front of the running man statue:)

Our final stop before lunch was at the moon light glass factory. The famous Tang poet, Li Bai(李白）, once wrote: "Lovely grape wine served in Moonlight Glass, As I started drinking, the lute started playing on horse back, Do not laugh if I am drunk on the battle field, How many warriors made it back from the war?"（葡萄美酒月光杯，欲饮琵琶马上催, 醉卧沙场君莫笑，古时征战几人回） Moonlight glass was therefore forever associated with grape wine in Chinese culture.

We had all imagine moonlight glass are crystal glasses. Turns out they are made of a type of dark green color jade with speckles of impurities embedded in the stone. The jade has lots of iron in them, so the glasses can be attracted with magnet. The reason its call moonlight glass is when filled with red wine, the jade glass can be made thin enough that moonlight can shine through the glass, giving the red wine an amber color. Sigh...the real thing is never as romantic as imagination...

The main draw is the old Jia Yu Pass castle. Jia Yu Pass is west most point of the Great Wall during Ming dynasty, so it was an important outpost, and despite the harsh natural condition, the structure has survived well. The tour guide did a good job of explaining the details of the soldier's life in castle during Ming dynasty and the associated entertainment facilities, temple, offices for immigration and of course defence mechanism. A very interesting and informative tour.

The highlight was when we finally walk out the outer most castle wall. Looking west was the vast Gobi desert. Even today, one cannot see road or other man made structure all the way to the horizon. All the talk of the loneliness and uncertainty facing ancient silk route merchants as they left the confines of Jia Yu Pass suddenly seem so relevant...

Next to Jia Yu Pass is the Great Wall museum. Another relatively new museum, it does not have much in terms of collection, but did a very good job of describing the structure of Jia Yu Pass, its defences, its construction and such. A very good conclusion to our Great Wall visit.

Lanzhou

We arrive at Lanzhou after spending a night on the train from Xi'an.

Our first tourist stop is White Pagoda Temple. Frankly, not very impressive. The temple was build in Qing dynasty, so compare to buildings in Xi'an, it is REALLY modern. Also, it is not richly decorated or particularly refine. The saving grace is the view. From atop the temple located on the local hill, one can the Yellow river and both sides of Lanzhou city around it.

Ah yes, the Yellow river. Traditionally considered the birth place of Chinese culture, I finally got to see it for myself! Lanzhou city really does not have much to offer in terms of natural beauty or historical sites, but it does have the Yellow river. The city tries to milk it for all the tourist dollar it is worth.

The next attraction we visited is the "Mother of Yellow River" statue. A fine statue in its own right, but a tourists attraction? You gonna be kidding me! After the statue, we stop by a recreation of water wheel used by locals years ago to drive stone mills. The wheels are huge! More than the height of 2 person, but looked new and artificial:( We were also shown sheep skin rafts where people used to cross the Yellow river with. Since the Lanzhou stretch of the Yellow River is relatively up stream, the river is flowing very fast! I can imagine crossing the river being an interesting ride:)

The famous Lanzhou Ramen was served at lunch. We now have the disadvantage of being with a tour group. The choice of restaurant was probably made more for its capacity than for its food. The beef ramen has a slight numbing spicy kick to it, but did not have the depth of flavor that we had expected. Compare to pho, the flavor was almost too light. The noodles was handmade, but not too well. Some noodle strands are twice as thick as others! Sigh...

The afternoon's activity was a river cruise....like I say, milk it to death...Seriously, it wasn't bad, since it is early autumn and the winds were cool. There was enough sun to keep everyone nicely toasted though:) We saw people actually crossing the river on sheep skin raft, and the above mentioned White Pagoda temple, so it was quite nice. Just that I had hoped to see more historic sites on this trip.

Big Goose Tower, Shaan Xi Museum, Xi'an Museum

On our final day in Xi'an, we visit mostly museums within the city limit.

First stop is Big Goose Tower, where Tang monk went to India to get copies of the original sutra（取经） and conduct translation work. Many readers will find this story some what familiar. It is the story of "Journey to the West"(西游记）! The Tang monk is, of course, Tang San Zang（唐三藏）. No, he is not a fictional character!

Big Goose Tower is also know historically where after winning scholastic exams(考状元）, part of the celebration of the winners was to go atop Big Goose Tower and walk along Qu Jiang（游曲江）. Qu Jiang is now mostly covered up, but Big Goose Tower is still standing and one can even walk up its stairs to the top.

For me, there is an additional draw. Famous Tang calligrapher Chu Sui Liang（褚遂良）, wrote one of his most famous work, the "Goose Tower Sutra Preface"（雁塔圣教序）, which is being display at the foot of the Big Goose Tower.

From Big Goose Tower, we went to ShaanXi History Museum. We find the museum display technique a little old fashion, but it does have a lot of interesting artifacts. From Shang dynasty all the way to Tang dynasty, the collection is vast. I enjoy seeing things like tiger symbol(虎符). In ancient time, this is used as an authentication tool to verify the orders for the military, which may be stationed far away from the court, are indeed from the Emporer himself. I have only read about these artifacts in books and seeing it for the first time is quite exciting!

Unfortunately, the museum did not do a good job selling itself. While the collection is vast, they did not highlight their most valuable collection and we find the overall experience only average.

After touring ShaanXi History Museum, we went looking for a restaurant for lunch, but found most places occupied by wedding parties. Turns out Sunday was a great day for wedding base on Chinese horoscope! Also, the tradition was to have wedding celebration start before noon, so wedding lunches are especially popular.

We tried and few places and finally managed to snatch a table at Da Qing Hua（大清花）.

Da Qing Hua serves Manchurian cuisine, which is not the local cuisine for Xi'an area. However, I enjoy the food enough to talk about it. My favorite dish is sauced bone(酱大骨). Pieces of boned in pork legs are being served. The meat has been cooked in a brasing liquid, which make the thin layer of meat covering the bone "fall off the bone" tender . Disposable gloves were given to each diner to pick up the bones and eat using one's hands. The kicker is a straw used to suck the bone marrow and broth from the within bone. Delicious! Now I know why bone marrow is such a hit among chef's circle.

After lunch, we drop by Xi'an museum. Open just this year, the museum is brand new. We like the atmosphere of the museum. The floor of the main podium is a map display of Xi'an city size in different dynasty. In the ground floor is a large scale model of Chang An city in its Tang dynasty form. Both are quite impressive! The collection is smaller than those of ShaanXi History Museum, but the display made the best use of their collection to give the maximum impact. For example, there was a row of 10 Tang dynasty statues. While individually they may not be the most refine Tang statue, putting them side by side gives visitors a bigger emotional impact than having a beautiful Tang statue standing among random objects.

From Xi'an museum, we went by to Shu Yuan Men(书院门）, since I wanted to buy some calligraphy supplies. I got myself 2 calligraphy brush and also bought a "Fairness cup"(公道杯). This is a rather interesting cup. If wine is fill half way in the cup, it would not leak. However, if the cup is filled to the brim, all the liquid in the cup would leak out of a hole at the bottom of the cup! As engineers, we are debating the mechanism of how the cup works and got intrigue enough to get a souvenir:(

Dinner was at Dong Lai Shun(东来顺），a Beijing chain specializing in Beijing style steamboat. We had it on our previous trip to Beijing, so it was nothing special, but this is the point where we join our tour group for the rest of our Silk Route trip.

Huashan

We set off early in the morning to go to Huashan(华山）.

Huashan holds much draw for me because of Jinyong's (金庸）martial art stories. The top martial artist of their time challenge each other for supremacy atop Huashan(华山论剑：射雕英雄传，神雕侠侣）, the Huashan school of sword artist practice their arts （华山派：笑傲江湖）。 The list goes on and on...

At the foothill of Huashan, we took the cable car up the mountain. Had a quick cup noodle and walk up North Peak, which is the nearest peak off the cable car station. The trails are well paved, so it was quite easy to talk along, but the parts of the path is quite steep and requires some climbing.

Atop the north peak, a stone with carving of "Fighting for supremacy upon Huashan"(华山论剑）has been setup! We took pictures over there, knowing full well that the story is a work of fiction and the stone nothing more than a tourists trap. Still, we couldn't resist the temptation:)

From the north peak, we went back to the cable car station and walk towards the central peak. The path here is even steeper and holding on the the chain railings was probably the only way to walk comfortably. We saw several old man carrying goods walking along these paths and are greatly impress. One even stop by, stood on 1 leg and play the flute. All on a fair steep stretch of the mountain path. I am impress to say the least.

There is an old Chinese saying: "Once you have seen the 5 mountains, you don't need to look at other hills" (五岳归来不看山）. Huashan is one of the 5 mountains, but frankly, I was not that impress with the view. Maybe its the atmosphere, since there are thousands of others along with us, fighting to go up the path. Maybe its very commercialize, since there are tens of stores along the path, selling water, souvenirs and photo op. One never has the serene feeling of being in nature.

After descending from Huashan, we went back to Muslim street and tried another of Xi'an specialty: "Soup buns(灌汤包)”. The restaurant is call Jia San(贾三), which has been serving this specialty for over hundreds of years. The soup buns are somewhat similar to Xiao Long Bao, where the buns filled with beef or mutton filling, with a soupy both in addition to the meat. The meat is spiced with some cumin and other curry like flavoring and is delicious. We washed everything down with a pigs stomach soup, which is fairly light, thicken slightly with cornstarch and has a little Chinese herbs to rid the soup of bloodiness tastes. Dessert was a slightly sweet eight treasure congee. Very well balance dish. Definitely the best meal in Xi'an.

Call it a night early since we did walk about 4-5 hours on Huashan.