I saw this poster up around the shops near our house in Beijing and felt it really spoke to me. I too "am crazy for drink tonight" and of course, who doesn't want "continuous excitements" and "non-stop gifts"?

During our recent trip to Xian we mostly focused on seeing the Terracotta Warriors. However, we did get to see a little of the city. It has a very different vibe from Beijing. In many ways it's more of what I expected from China. Xian has some obvious historical artifacts still standing, most notably the city wall encircling the inner city. The streets are really full of people (Beijing is sprawling and hardly ever feels as packed as Tokyo or Hong Kong.) Perhaps scarier, the driving is even more chaotic than Beijing. It's definitely a little more raw than the more staid Beijing.

A few brief facts about Xian: It was the capital of China several times including during the Qin Dynasty that unified China (and produced the Terracotta Warriors). It was the end of the Silk Road, and for a few hundred years from about the 7th to 10th centuries, it was the largest city in the world. While Han Chinese represent most of the population, there is a sizable Muslim population and a famous mosque, The Great Mosque of Xian. The night market between the Drum Tower and the Great Mosque was absolutely packed with people enjoying a warm Saturday night.

The Bell Tower in the middle of the city

The Drum Tower near the Bell Tower

The busy night market near the Great Mosque and Drum Tower. (I wish I had better photos, but I had to hold onto the kids to make sure we didn't lose them in the massive crowd.)

We were in Ritan Park this weekend and saw this ripped dude doing a hardcore high bar routine. He had strapped his hands to the bar, probably both to protect himself from the friction and to keep from flying off the bar onto the concrete and hard dirt below. He then started doing full-on giant swings. And, like I observed in Ditan Park, he wasn't wearing any particular workout clothing. He had taken his shirt off, but he was wearing grey wool-looking dress slacks and sneakers. I love seeing all the cool stuff people do in the parks. Apparently Michelle and our friend Stacy didn't mind watching him either; they seemed to linger over our buff friend for a bit...

(Unfortunately, I only had my camera phone with me, so the shots are crappy.)

Behind my office building in Beijing, I saw the sign for this company AdSage. They're a search engine marketing company who apparently doesn't want to offend Google, MSN, or Yahoo so they incorporated bits of all our logos into theirs. Or, like many things in China, they just lifted bits of IP from different places. Anyway, I thought it was funny.

The family and I plus my colleagues Steve and John took the 1.5 hour flight to Xian this weekend to see the sights. On the top of the list, of course, was the famous Terracotta Army, so we headed out on a muggy, hot day to check it out.

After fending off the numerous offers in the parking lot for a tour guide, we walked through a long shopping plaza to get to the entrance. (Tip: it’s probably worth the 5 RMB to take the electric tram to the entrance. Bonus tip: hang on to your tickets – you’ll have show them to various guards several times.)

It might have been worth getting a tour guide for 100 RMB (about USD$15). As they warned me in English and Chinese, the site is not well marked. We figured out where pit #1 was and headed over to the building to see Qin Shi Huang’s army.

The building housing pit #1:

Inside this building was the largest of the excavated pits. It was really breathtaking. It’s huge. If you look in this photo, you can see the tourists gathered around the edges of the pit. The soldiers were arranged in “rooms” divided by rammed earth walls that are apparently as hard as concrete. The rooms were covered with logs, grass mats, and dirt, forming a roof.

 

Note the original entrance used to populate the rooms; the doors were later sealed.

 

 

There’s still a lot of work to be done at the sites. Here is a platoon in various states of re-assembly.

In fact, there are many parts of the site that archaeologists have yet to unearth. They’re going slowly, apparently to limit the environmental damage from pollution, moisture (including that from the breath and sweat of the all the tourists), and mold that are beginning to take a toll on the ones already exposed.

The detail of each of the soldiers was really amazing. While the faces are all unique, the soldiers were apparently mass produced. The faces came from a set of base patterns and then were “personalized” to add expressions and different features. The different body parts were fired separately and then assembled. The pieces were all originally painted, but the color has faded over the years. This was a bit of a surprise to me since I’ve always seen the in the familiar brown color. They all originally had bronze weapons, but these were looted. However, the ones they recovered were still sharp due to the advanced chrome plating process used – thousands of years ahead of similar plating technology in the west.

In addition to the terracotta figures, they had two bronze chariots on display. These were smaller than real life (I think half sized), but still amazingly detailed and beautiful.

There was one weird thing. Ahead of the Olympics last year, they (not sure who “they” really is) built a huge terracotta solider marionette that held hands and danced with a Western-doll marionette. The two were just creepy.

Overall, the artifacts were really amazing as was the scale of the display. I just had no idea it was so huge (also, only about 1000 of the estimated 8000 soldiers has been excavated so far). Perhaps even more tantalizing are the reports of huge, 22 square mile (56 sq. km) necropolis nearby with a map of all of China. The old records say the ceiling is studded with pearls, simulating the night sky, and mercury was pumped to simulate river flows. To unearth the entire site, twelve villages and several factories would have to be moved. Almost none of the site has been uncovered and the entrance to the tomb has not been found yet. However, the soil apparently has high concentrations of mercury. It’s staggering to think of this level of accomplishment in 210 BC.

The only real downsides were the mobs of pushy tourists and the heat. It was difficult to really look at the statues and take in everything with so many people around (often thoughtlessly shoving, talking loudly, and bumping into us); in particular, it took some effort to stay connected with the kids. We were also just hot the whole time, even though the buildings were somewhat air conditioned. Michelle also wound up with a bottle of faux Perrier at a coffee shop outside the complex (this kind of real-looking packaging with fake contents is unfortunately too common in China.)

Still, the site was incredible to see, and we’re glad we went. Definitely worth a visit.

As I've noted several times before, I'm no golfer, despite owning golf clubs and having played for years. I do enjoy it, but boy, am I bad. So, it should be no surprise that I didn't play super well yesterday when I teed it up at Newcastle Golf Club with my friends Chris and Kevin. Fortunately, it was yet another perfect Seattle summer day and the company was fun. Actually, despite the fact I was playing with Chris' old clubs for the first time (mine are in China), I hadn't really played in two years, and it's been a long time since I've played the Coal Creek course (excuse, excuse, excuse), I played surprisingly well (for me) -- at least I didn't hit myself or anyone else.

Like many golfers, I decided I would enjoy the game a lot more with a few drinks; the cute and very chatty cart girl was more than happy to mix some killer Bloody Marys up to ease my golf suffering. An Old Fashioned in the club house afterwards topped it off. Then, our families joined us for a birthday brunch for Kevin. Very, very nice...

Me with the stunning views of Lake Washington and downtown Seattle in the distance.

Mommy and Bambi loping across the course. I managed to avoid hitting them.
 

Kevin with his birthday treat.

Our friend Barbi took the whole family and our mutual friend Kellie out crabbing this weekend on her little speed boat. We put the boat in at Camano Island State Park and motored up the west side of the island on a lovely afternoon. We picked (somewhat arbitrarily) a spot to test our luck. We assembled the two traps, baited them with chicken legs, and then tossed them into the water, hoping to lure a few of the yummy Dungeness crabs in.

After an hour or so of waiting (which we filled with a great picnic lunch Michelle prepared, some fishing, and some lazy conversation), we went back to our buoys and pulled up the traps.

We had a pretty lucky day -- crabs in each trap! We pulled out the keepers (at least 6.25 inches across and male) and reset the traps. We did this a few times (with the intervals between checking going down over time...) We wound up taking nine crabs and a bucket of seawater back to the beach with us.

Here's Andrew helping tie down the traps on the foredeck.

We pulled the boat out, cleaned the crabs on the beach, and then cooked them right there at the park in the seawater. Seven minutes later, they came out of the water perfectly done.

We scarfed down crab after crab, pausing only long enough to wash them down with cold beer. It was gluttonous and luxurious is a way that no five-star meal could ever be. I've never tasted a sweeter, more delicious crab (or three) in my entire life. Here's Barbi happily slurping her crab down as she chucks the shells into the tall grass.

The boys ate a little crab too, but they were happiest building driftwood shelters on the beach and enjoying their ice cream bars. Something for everyone I guess.

It was really one of the most memorable meals of my life (and I've had a lot of fantastic meals as you probably know...) I love Washington and our generous friends!

Last Friday, I took Andrew (12) and Michael (9) to see the Mariners play the Indians at Safeco Field. We were there with our friends the Shirouzus, who are huge baseball fans. Even though the M's were blown out 0-9, I really enjoyed the evening. I forgot how much I like going to see baseball games live.

It was a very lovely evening -- not cold at all. You can see the Seattle skyline behind the stadium, bathed in the beautiful sunset colors.

Their son (and Andrew's classmate in Beijing) made a sign that they waved around between innings; alas, they were never picked up by the scoreboard cameras.

Of course, my kids were more excited about the free application Nintendo (part owners of the Mariners) made for the Gameboy DS; you can install it from stations all around the stadium. It's a pretty cool wireless app that allows you to see replays, watch where the pitches go, order food at your seat, see the stats from other games, view player stats, and play sports related games against other people in the stadium.

All in all, it was a great evening.

While we were at our friends' cabin near Bremerton, we watched a trio digging for geoducks. For the uninitiated, a geoduck is a huge clam-like animal with a gargantuan siphon which can grow up to a meter long. Although they are ugly, they are very tasty. (If you like sushi, you may know them by their Japanese name - mirugai.) As a result, people are willing to work pretty hard to get them.

They bury themselves pretty deep in the sand with their siphon sticking out the ground a little to breathe. Once in a while, they squirt water out like this:

Once you spot this, you dig like crazy into the mucky sand. Once you get a few feet deep, you need to keep the sand from collapsing into the hole, so you use a big pipe (really a sheet of plastic or thin metal rolled into a tube. Then, you reach into the tube and keep digging (these guys were using a little bowl for the last bit of digging.)

Finally, you can pull the geoduck out of the dirt and claim your prize. This is apparently a pretty small geoduck.

Last week, the Shirouzus, friends of ours from Beijing who grew up in Seattle, invited us out to their family cabin near Bremerton, Washington (west of Seattle, on the other side of Puget Sound). We enjoyed a perfect Seattle summer day -- warm, sunny, and lazy.

When we arrived it was low tide, so the boys went and harassed some geoducks (more on that later). We quickly settled into a pattern of eat, drink, nap, play, repeat. Very nice. The Shirouzus have a huge extended family in the area, all of whom seemed to come by at various times. It was really great to get to spend the day with such a fun, close, huge family.

Houses along the shore at low tide.

Low tide
 

The same view six hours later at high tide. (Note Mount Rainier in the distance.)