Travel – Page 12 – Den's Blog

Preparing to travel

December 18, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner 2 Comments

Crossing the Pacific ocean in an airplane is a time-consuming journey. I’ve made the trip too many times to count, but every time I prepare to get on an airplane for 12 hours, I have to make a big list of things to bring on the plane to help get me through the trip: food, books, movies, etc. Smart phones are a wonderful invention: they can carry a lot of things to keep you amused while sitting in a tin can flying a mile above the ocean.

On Saturday morning, I will get on an airplane and travel east back to America. It has been seven months since I left for China, and I am really looking forward to the trip. It will be very nice to spend Christmas at home with my family.

I have fully charged my Kindle, packed my iPhone with TV shows and movies, and bought a lot of snacks to eat on the plane. With luck, the trip will be uneventful. I may even be able to sleep on the plane.

I’m looking forward to seeing everybody back home.

Train station slogans

November 25, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

Communist China is a country of slogans. I guess that chanting slogans is a way of educating a country whose population is dominated by illiterate people, so the slogan strategy was a creative idea. There’s a lot to say about Mao Zedong, but the guy understood his base.

Slogans haven’t gone away. The government uses them everywhere to promote civil virtues. The train station in Shenyang displays these slogans:

“Service is the Goal”

“Treat Passengers Like Family ”

“Safety High Quality New Tracks Strong Country” (this one reads like a bad fortune cookie)

Cranes of Qiqihar

November 2, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner 1 Comment

There is a nature preserve in Qiqihar, a breeding ground for the red-crested crane ä¸¹é ‚é¶´.

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The preserve is a huge wetland, “as big as two Hong Kongs” says the tour guide. Clear as mud for the Americans?

Frozen wetland with pedestrian walkway

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The young cranes have to “practice” flying. I heard that they keep the birds caged, and release them all at once for the visitors to see the animals exerciseÂ their “natural” habits. *sigh*

The strange beverages of Qiqihar

November 2, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner 1 Comment

On my recent city visit to Qiqihar, I was exposed to some beverages that can be best described as…interesting.

Vinegar helps digestion and helps your body “process” alcohol.

Sesame oil also helps digestion.

Corn juice. CORN JUICE! I am not making this up.

This is the deadly baijiu, “white alcohol.” Looks like water, tastes like spicy death.

Goooood Morning Qiqihar!

October 28, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

I am in the remote city of Qiqihar (chee chee ha er). Getting here took all day yesterday: I left Shenyang at 10:00am, and arrived at 5:00pm.

I’ll be here for a few days on an outreach visit. Consular officers are each assigned two cities to visit and get to know. The idea is to understand smaller cities in the region, so that when we are interviewing visa applicants, we can be better judges of their applications.

Today I will visit the local government foreign affairs office, then visit some companies in the area, and finally give a presentation in a local high school.

Trip to Guan Men Shan é—œé–€å±±

October 19, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

Shenyang is located on a very flat plain. There isn’t a lot of interesting topography here. That isn’t very different from the landscape in East Lansing, so I should be used to it. However, after living in Taiwan, I got used to seeing mountains, and being near water. Shenyang has neither.

About a two-hour drive from the city, however, the terrain gets moreÂ interesting. Yesterday a group from theÂ consulate community madeÂ a road trip to Guanmenshan é—œé–€å±±, a national park. It’s a beautiful mountain gorge with mountains and water, my two favorite landscape features.

We were hoping to see some color from the maple trees in the park, but we seemed to have missed most of the color. However, we did get to see some.

The mountains were especially striking. There was a lot of haze in the air that day, which added a classical beauty to the mountains. It was like looking at a giant Chinese landscape painting that had come to life.

We took a bus up to the top of the trail, then walked down 8km (5 miles) to the bottom.

Nice trail in the park

Proof that I was there.

One of my coworkers has three young children. As he was taking pictures of them, some other ChineseÂ tourists alsoÂ took pictures of them. Here’s a picture of me taking pictures of them. It was very meta.

Hey look, there are some foreign people!
Let’s take pictures of them, even though we don’t even know them and haven’t asked permission!

Taiwan Beer

October 19, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

Taiwan Beer is one of my favorite beers. For a while, it was the only beer that was available in Taiwan. When I visited Taiwan earlier this month, I saw that Taiwan Beer hasÂ started to diversity by adding flavors to appeal to a wider audience than your typical beer-drinking customer base.

Sweet Plum. This is aÂ typical Taiwanese flavor, there is a tradition of adding dried plums to rice wine.

Mango! I’ve had mango beer before, it’s pretty good.

Grape. This one is a little confusing.

Pineapple?! That’s it, I’m done.

Beijing is a big city

October 14, 2014 by Den Hoopingarner 1 Comment

I flew to Beijing today to attend a conference at the Embassy (boy, are my arms tired!). The flight took about 90 minutes. After I arrived in Beijing, it took me about 70 minutes to get from the airport to my hotel. Traffic was terrible.

This is the view from my hotel window. Note the long line of cars along the road. Traffic is moving, but it’s moving very slowly.

This evening, I had a tutorial session with my Chinese teacher, who is in Washington DC. It seems that Skype is blocked in China, and the VPN doesn’t work very well in my hotel. We managed to connect and have our session, but it was a little painful. My teacher is really good; she gives me constructive feedback on my writing, which is what I really need. I’m benefiting a lot from this class.

I’m also really looking forward to the conference tomorrow. People from all of the five consulates in China, as well as from the embassy, will meet to discuss some visa issues that we all face. It will be good to build some consensus among consulates, as well as get some direction from some more experienced officers.

Have I mentioned lately how much I like my job? I really do. Although I am temporarily separated from my family, which isn’t fun, this job is interesting, stimulating, and rewarding.

Life is good.