Great Wall photos

With enough insomnia and willpower, I will find a way around China's internet blocks. Here are a few photos from the Great Wall, including a shot of the toboggan ride back down.

Nihao, China

Well, I made it to China. It seems my travel karma is evening out a bit, as I had none of my typical bad luck and both of my flights even landed early. My sleep pattern, however, is all kinds of messed up. Arriving in Beijing at nearly midnight did a number on me.

Among the many websites that China chooses to block is this one, so since I have to do this from my phone and my phone won't let me add in pictures, my China entries will be brief. Today I hit the ground running, jet lag be damned. I took a day tour to the Great Wall. I chose to visit the Mutianyu section, which is an older section set in more rugged and scenic mountain terrain. More importantly, it is somewhat less touristy than the section closest to Beijing. Visibility was not quite what I hoped it would be, but the Wall's endless expanse through the Chinese countryside was impressive nonetheless. The section I visited was also quite steep in some places. Three hours of hiking up and down uneven stone steps was quite the workout. My legs already feel like jello, so I can tell I'm on vacation.

Tonight I met my group that I will be with for the next 15 days. There are only four of us - a couple from LA and a woman from Australia besides me. They seem very nice and easy-going, so it should be a great trip. We have the same master itinerary but plenty of free time on our own once we get to places, which I like. Tonight we gathered over a traditional meal of Peking duck and tomorrow we have a full day of sightseeing ahead of us. It will be the first time I really get to see Beijing. My impression so far is that it is just massive. Our local guide arranged a day for us since we're a small group, which is really nice.

Now I'm going to try to get some kind of sleep before I wear myself out again tomorrow. So far, I'm so excited that I decided to do this. It's only been one day and I'm already blown away by some of the things I've seen.

And if I ever figure out how to post pictures from my phone, I'll add another post. :)

The Dream Trip

Well, my friends, the time has finally arrived for me to embark on my dream trip. This is the trip that I first started fantasizing about back when I was plotting my exit from The Firm. Really, it was the idea of this trip that started it all and led me on my whirlwind year of seeing the world. Although I didn't initially plan it this way, I'm happy in the end that I saved the best for last.

I am heading to the Trans-Siberian Railroad. My itinerary takes me first to Beijing for a few days before boarding the train to Mongolia. There I will spend 4-5 days, including 2 nights in a traditional ger on the Mongolian steppe. After leaving Mongolia I will be on the train through Siberia for 4 nights before finally ending up in Moscow, where I will be for nearly a week.

It's hard to say which part of the trip I'm most excited about. I'm probably most interested to see Mongolia since it's so unlike any place I've ever been or may ever be again. But part of me is anxious to be back in Moscow after all this time. It's hard to believe that 13 years have passed since I spent the summer there. I always thought I would have gone back before now.

After much effort I've managed to pack light. I have no idea if I've packed the right things or warm enough clothes, but I'll find out soon enough. Life on the train should be interesting - I'm really hoping that I get to meet some fun and interesting new people. More than any of my trips I've taken in the past year, I really don't know what to expect. And that makes it very exciting.

I'll be off the grid more than usual on this trip. There will be days on end where I have no connection to the outside world and my phone won't work once I leave Beijing. I'm kind of looking forward to disconnecting, though. I can't remember the last time I did since technology is so prevalent these days. Ideally I'll have an internet connection at the major stops along the way and can check in with the world and update this blog.

And now I'm going to settle in for a good sleep and cross my fingers that I have good travel luck this time around.

Happy Anniversaries to me

This past week marked both my 12 year anniversary of moving to New York and my one year anniversary of leaving my job.  Both of those milestones are a little hard for me to believe.

Currently I'm celebrating by hunkering down in my apartment and waiting for Hurricane Irene to blow through.  Right now we're getting a lot of rain, but the real brunt of the storm hasn't reached us yet.  It will be an interesting night as I wait to see if/when I will lose power and hope that there is no damage to my apartment...

Shootin'

In keeping with my goal of trying new things, last week I embarked on a trip to New York City's only shooting range with a friend of mine.


Thanks to Living Social, we got a great deal on a visit to Westside Rifle & Pistol Range.  The two-hour session started with a thorough safety course where we were taught to load and shoot .22 caliber rifles (no one is allowed to shoot a hand gun in New York without a permit).  After that, we also actually got to load the bullets into the magazines before entering the range.

The range itself was a lot like you see in the movies, with the wooden dividers and the paper targets that we could wheel out and back in after shooting rounds.  And, of course, we got to wear the protective (and oh so stylish) goggles and earmuffs.

Shooting was just plain fun.  Contrary to what I was expecting, the rifles didn't have any recoil at all.  The surprising part, however, was how hot it got while we were shooting.  But not hot enough to dissuade us from buying a second round (another 50 bullets) to shoot...

While we did the shooting essentially on a whim, it was so much fun that I would actually consider going back.  Conveniently, with our deal we unexpectedly received 3-month memberships to the shooting range, so we're free to go at any time.

The other surprising thing about the shooting was how good it was for clearing the mind.  We of course joked ahead of time about who we might picture in our minds, but in reality I thought of nothing at all other than aiming and pulling the trigger.  It was honestly a pretty great escape from reality for a couple hours.

I have to say that I was impressed with my aim, as was my instructor.

So, go ahead, make my day... :)

So, I turned a year older and had my first art show...

Summer is in full swing here in The City.  For a while we were treated to beautiful weather and tolerable temperatures, but this week the heat started to creep in.  I'm sure it's only a matter of time until the sweltering humidity sets in for good.

A week and half ago I partook in my annual tradition of trying not to make a big deal of my birthday.  This year I opted to visit family down in Charleston, South Carolina.  Charleston really is a beautiful place, and if I had any desire whatsoever to live in the South, it would be at the top of my list.

I spent the afternoon of my birthday getting a tour of Charleston's harbor and waterways on my uncle's boat.  We stopped for a relaxing float on rafts, where I felt a million miles away from hectic city life.  We also got an up close view of Charleston harbor, where I was able to get some great shots of the historic houses along the Battery.

I've had my eye on one of these for over a year now.  It's going for a mere $10 million, so if someone wants to send a belated birthday gift or winning lottery ticket my way, I'll rethink that move to the South in a heart beat.

After showering off the salt water and sunscreen, we headed to downtown Charleston for my birthday dinner at Anson Restaurant.  The seafood here was utterly fantastic (I had an amazing barbecue glazed salmon).  If you ever find yourself in Charleston and want a nice meal, I highly recommend that you give it a try.

Not making a big deal out of a birthday is difficult when you have a younger cousin who is really into celebrating birthdays.  But when that means you get a cake like this, maybe making a big deal isn't such a bad thing:

On the 4th we enjoyed a fantastic fireworks display from the deck of a catamaran after a sunset tour of the harbor.  We had a perfect view of the Cooper River Bridge and the battleship where they launched the fireworks show.

A few days after I returned home from my southern adventure, I took part in my first art show.  

Now, I've had a couple pseudo-shows in the past -- two displays after classes I took and one "art show" hosted by my old law firm -- but this was the first time that any of my work has really ever been on display for the public to see.

The art show was at Breukelen Coffee House in Crown Heights on Saturday night.  The theme was Lost & Found, which was entirely open to artist interpretation.  I chose to show a few photos that I took in a cemetery on my recent visit to Warsaw.  The exhibit will be up until the end of August and all the work is for sale (although for now I'll settle for a showing; a sale would be icing on the cake).

All in all, the show went very well and I'm excited to have an exhibition under my belt, even if it was a small one.  I'm also incredibly grateful to my friends who came out to see the show and enjoy the free Budweiser cans (I still think it was an odd choice, but I wasn't in charge).  It meant so much to me to have support at what was hopefully my first of many showings.  You guys are the best.

And now to continue on with the summer of fun... :)

Reinvention

It's hard to believe that a month has passed since I got back from Europe.  The month of June has flown by.  I recently passed the one year anniversary of telling my job that I was leaving.  June 23 is an otherwise insignificant date to me, but this year it spurred a lot of deep thinking on my part.  The fortunate conclusion of all that thinking is that I can say without hesitation that I was a much happier person on June 23, 2011 than I was on June 23, 2010.

I've spent most of the first 10 months post-job focusing on fixing myself mentally and emotionally - regaining my sanity, relearning how to relax, remembering how to be happy.  All in all, I'd say it's been a great success.  But now it is time to push myself to move forward even more.

With the support and company of a few other wonderful unemployed/underemployed/self-employed friends, I have started the ambitious project of reinventing myself.  The obvious first step was leaving my job.  Now the goal is figuring out how to sustain this new, happier me.

A major focus of project reinvention as been fixing myself physically, now that I've gotten to a good place mentally and emotionally.  I've started going to the gym nearly every day in an attempt to reverse the effects of eight years of eating takeout at my desk.  I've also started doing boot camp classes, because apparently I am a crazy person.  I have yet to see any dramatic results, but I can say that I feel better and honestly have more energy.  The trick will be keeping it up.  But as they always say, having friends with similar goals makes it so much easier to stick to it.

Another significant part of project reinvention has been rediscovering why I love New York.  This is the first summer ever that I've had free time to do things, and I intend to take full advantage of it.  I've already seen and explored lots of new things, but that is a story for another time.  All I will say is that, so far, this is the most fun summer I've had since my first summer here 11 years ago.  I'm having so much fun, in fact, that I've decided to push back my next big trip from late summer to some time in the fall.

I'm also going to try to be better about updating this blog with the successes and failures of project reinvention, both for myself and for any of you out there who are still reading this.

For those who are, I hope that you have been enjoying your summer thus far and that it continues to be great!