Re-entry...and China photos up!
Trip Start
May 30, 2008
1
16
Trip End
Jun 22, 2008
Hudson's Hope, British Columbia, Canada
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Since our return to the US, the four of us have scattered to the wind: Scott is in New York, Josh took a jaunt to California for Fourth of July, Kate is in Haiti for work, and I am visiting my sister and her husband in Hudson's Hope, British Columbia (16 hrs north of Vancouver).
We've been meeting when we can (mostly over cool drinks on hot DC evenings) and divulging stories in person to anyone who will listen. I've gone on a Central Asian book binge, slogging through the surprisingly fascinating (but dense) historical account of European Silk Road explorers, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, and blazing through a Beijing love story/ food diary called The Last Chinese Chef, written by Nicole Mones (also author of Lost in Translation).
I've also been following recent news from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China with interest. Most of what catches my eye is the mounting coverage of Beijing and its rapid changes, timed to prepare audiences to better understand the fast-approaching opening of the 2008 Olympics (on 08/08/08--a very lucky day according to many Chinese!).
If you're at all interested in Beijing and the lead-up to the Olympics, I'll suggest some stories in a future entry (I've been collecting them on my home computer). I'll also suggest a fascinating documentary set in China (not directly related to the Olympics) that Scott and I saw this past week. It is called Up the Yangtze and it follows a luxury cruise ship on a trip up the recently-dammed Yangtze River, showing the trip from the perspective of foreign tourists and from the perspective of a soon-to-be-displaced local family whose daughter seeks employment on the ship.
We hope to fill in some important stories from our trip on this blog as soon as we get the chance. There are so many that we didn't have time to share in words!
In the meantime, I've uploaded photos from our time in China. They are at: http://flickr.com/photos/urbangarden/. [See sets labeled "Kashgar," "Dunhuang," "Xi'an," and "Beijing."] Hope you enjoy them! I'm working backwards, so look for photos from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan next week.
Zoe
