Hubei University

My "home" for at least two weeks of my trip will be an apartment on the campus of Hubei University. The following images are what the university displays to students interested in applying to the University. So I'm guessing my accommodations will be similar. Looks very nice.
We will have INTERNET access while there, so I should have no problem keeping the blog going. Now, if I can just get over the FOOD thing.....haha.

Not sure I'll have much use for the Television....since I don't speak enough Chinese for it to make any difference. ha ha.

Panda Cubs

How can you NOT look at these guys and smile? Amazing

Marco Polo

As a person from the West, that is about to go and spend a month in the Far East...I can't help but feel a connection to one of best known of the earlier visitors from the West, Marco Polo. I have to admit I have always had a strong interest in Marco Polo and his journey. I guess my love of travel has pulled me to his adventure, and his story . I also find it very interesting that so many people still question that he actually made the trip all the way to China...but as much as I have read and studied about Marco Polo, it is very obvious he made the journey and fell in love with Cathay (the Medieval name for China) and the people there, not the least of which was their impressive leader...Kublai Khan. Marco most certainly was amazed and impressed with this most powerful ruler of 1271.

Having said all that, it is amazing how little information there is in "ONE PLACE" that deals with this story. (other than from Polo's own book of course...which is good reading as well) That is until recently. MARCO POLO: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen is my newest read in my preparation for visiting China. It does an excellent job of not only using Marco's writings, but also researching other sources from the time, and visiting the places that Marco visited. I am about 1/2 through this and it is EXCELLENT!



Another source, is from National Geographic. Mike Edwards and his photographer companion, Michael Yamashita traveled in the footsteps of Marco Polo and recorded what the current world is like along Marco's trail. They traveled 6,000 miles through 8 countries.

The slideshow is very nice.


The return home site can be found here.

There is also an online exhibit put together by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, that is interactive and has some good information.

In the Footseps of Marco Polo

Soaring World Food Prices

The growing crisis of higher food prices (particularly of grains) throughout various parts of the world, is something that should be watched. The growing demand for cheaper fuels..(ethenol for example) had caused the price of grains such as corn to triple in the past couple of years or so. It takes the same amount of corn to feed one person for a year, that is required to fill one 25 gallon tank of an SUV. Where are the priorities...particularly in this nation. China certainly has reasons for concern as more and more of their 1.3 billion people begin driving cars, while others...many others are on the verge of starvation.

CLICK HERE

Before The Deluge

The next book I am reading in my preparation for visiting China, is The Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze's Three Gorges by Deirdre Chetham. It deals with the impact of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. (The three gorges are Qutang Gorge, Wu Gorge, and the Xiling Gorge)

Numerous towns and villages along the Yantzge will be flooded, displacing estimates of 1.5 to 3 million people when the Three Gorges Dam is completed (in 2011). Whole cities and villages have been rebuilt hundreds of feet above their original locations, sometimes on opposite sides of the river. This probably brings into play more millions (and billions) of dollars that will be required for this mass exodus of the millions of displaced people. This massive undertaking has already been compared to such Chinese creations as the Grand Canal, and the Great Wall. It is easy to understand the comparison as one looks out over the massive complex that makes the dam. When completed it will be the largest hydro-electric power station in the world, creating a total electric generating capacity of 22,500 megawatts. The dam itself was created using a model of the TVA system here in the United States. It was created as a means of flood control and drought relief as well as a means of producing hydro-electric power for the millions.

What will be the world's largest hydroelectric dam is under construction in the remote Three Gorges area of China's Upper Yangtze River. Of the nearly 1500 towns that will be submerged when the project is complete, the author focuses on a handful that she knows well from her experiences as a river guide and lecturer. She describes their residents involved in their daily affairs-working, worshiping, getting by-even as the flood waters ineluctably rise around them. In some cases, communities that have existed for thousands of years, whose entire histories and cultures are centered on the river, that have survived flood, famine, and war, will be forced to uproot themselves forever. Against this backdrop, the author also recounts the broader controversies and political deal-making that went into the decision to build the dam. This book had to be written now because in just a few years these people and their world will be gone. -From Library Journal

There is also an excellent NPR series on the Three Gorges Dam and the impact on the people and landscape in this area of China.