Christmas Story
Every Year for Christmas, my grandmother asks that instead of buying her a present we write a story of something that happened during the year. This year I have a lot of stories so I compiled and edited several of my emails and added some more commentary. I give you my Christmas story.
Around the world in 88 days,
or Giving new meaning to Peripatetic.
There’s something amazing about travel that makes one so bold as to place feet on two continents and stretch until home is where sleep is found tonight. This year has been the year of travel; I didn’t realize exactly how much travel until Glenn Kauffman mentioned that he limits himself to 70 days of travel a year. That of course sounded like a lot to me so I went and added up how many days I’ve been on the road. What I found startled me, because I when I first calculated, I’d been away from “home” for 68 days, and that wasn’t even October. The finally tally as of Dec 31 is that I’ve spent 88 days on the road.
Our story starts in January, with spending time in Lancaster. I made several trips to Pa and Virginia but things didn’t get really interesting until the first weekend in May which found me at Redfield, a Plantation in Southern Virginia on the National Historical Registry. Redfield was a 2500+ acre land grant from King George something or other in the early 1800’s. It’s still kept up and is 920 Gorgeous acres on this side of the road. Not my typical weekend retreat but it’s still owned by the family of one of the gals in my Shepherding group at Church of the Good Shepherd. Normally, I go to several Churchs, all for different reasons. Sunday Morning I head to Durham Mennonite Church, I’m fairly involved there but it’s to spend time with people my own age I head to small group or “Shepherding Group” with Church of the Good Shepherd on Thursdays. This story could also be told as the churchs I’ve been to in the month of May. The first church of the month is Summit which I headed to as I traveled from Redfield to Charlotte, North Carolina. I was in Charlotte for a week long class on SMP/e, but nobody cares about that and I don’t think anybody actually remembers what the acronym stands for in the first place. The evenings were more interestingly spent downtown wandering the city, visiting Morning Star Ministries, putting good food on my expense account, talking to homeless guys and trying to remember where, exactly, did I park my car. Friday after class ended, I hoofed it over to Tennessee to catch a graduation, and went to the third church of the month, a large Baptist church in Jefferson City. After which we managed to spend Sunday afternoon in the Smokies, have dinner in Asheville and still manage to make it back the next morning to IBM in Research Triangle Park.
The forth Church of the month was Peace Covenant Presbyterian in Key West, Florida.
Investment banking in the late 90’s was quite good to one of the guys in my Shepherding Group and as a result he ended up with a time share and invited us to go with him. It was way cool. My time there consisted of walking through the streets of the Old town, snorkeling, wind surfing, and getting a sun burned face while flying a stunt kite. I picked up a 0 mile marker sign from the beginning of route 1. I got it at a souvenir shop so don’t worry about any confessions. Then it was back to work before I bought a house. Right now it’s about the same price to buy as rent, so I figured this is a good way to save money. I moved in that weekend and Mom and Dad drove down with a U-haul of my stuff and with their and Lowell Sharon, Marlyn and Anita’s help I got all moved in. It’s has two bedrooms, two baths and a “walk in crawl-space” that is really an unfinished basement without interior access. This could be turned into any one of a number of really cool things but I’m originally thought Pottery Studio, and that the idea that seems to keep coming back. I’ve heard it said that developments are named after what was there before. In this case it’s still there–Woodcroft. Croft evidently is German for farm which makes a whole lot of sense but sounds nice and doesn’t take away from the more important part, Wood. The builders admirably didn’t clear cut the forest it’s built in, what they did cut has re grown, and they
added a nice trail system. The overall effect is that you have a really densely populated development that doesn’t feel like you’re in a development or that it’s densely populated. The cherry, and I’m using that as a figure of speech since I don’t particularly like cherries, is that a block and a half a way is the American Tobacco Trail which is a 20 mile long bike path, and probably the only good thing Tobacco money has paid for. Come to think if it I’m not sure Tabacco Money actually paid for it, it may only be named that
because of the Tabacco History in the area.
The next church was a Mennonite Church in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I flew to Miami where I met up with Michael and together we flew to , to Santa Cruz, Bolivia to visit Derrick. Santa Cruz is an interesting city, and it was good to see what Derrick has been doing.
One of Derrick’s friends in his Barrio which I found out is Spanish for Neighborhood is going to school to be a doctor. I’m not sure how medical schools are in the states, but this one had an exhibit of cadavers open to the public. They made us get all dressed up in the white surgeons scrubs which made for some good pictures. It was definitely more of a good story than a fun time, after all formaldehyde and a bunch of exhibitionist dead people is just the recipe for a kicking party. From there we headed to Cuzco, Peru staying with John and Cindy Krieder a missionary couple. Let me tell you from experience that the mountains in this country are incredible, and that’s not just because I was delirious from the altitude. The one bad thing is that you get seriously jaded toward beautiful landscapes, after a few days I found myself thinking oh there’s another of one of the most amazing views I’ve ever seen in my life. Ho Hum.
Cuzco is about 11,000 feet above sea level and when you start gasping every time you climb a hill or steps or pretty much do anything except walk down hill. Once, in college, I gave blood and then went on a hike… It’s feels kinda of like that. A lot of people get altitude sick the first few days, however these loco gringos hiked a mountain the second day. If you can just think about Tim Taylor grunting as you read that last sentence that’s the appropriate sentiment for that statement. The local remedy, for the altitudes sickness not the crazy white man thing, is Matte de Coca. As in Tea from the plant Cocaine comes from. I don’t know if it really helps but none of us got sick. As the locals and missionaries tell it, Coca isn’t that bad, it’s only when you add the 30 some odd chemicals that turn it into cocaine that it becomes something nasty. We saw a group walking around the center square in Cuzco yelling in Spanish, “Coca or Death,” I’m not sure which side of the argument that lends support too.
We went on several day hikes, I think events ordered themselves well because it seemed like the vacation built on itself. I can’t really say we planned well because we were fairly disorganized and they just kinda happened. So in actuality, God was our vacation planner. The first day was through Sacred Valley where we climbed 3000 feet and collapsed among some really great Incan ruins. I didn’t really catch the name of the next place we went, it was some Ketchua name starting with a P and consisted of a series of Incan temples and Forts and Terraces stretched out across before a taxi ride to some other ruins and a hike down to LaMai in the dark. The next day we took a 2 hour taxi ride to Kolkiky which is like a really old farming community at 14000 feet and hiked down from one top of the world view to another. There is a lot of cactus growing up there, I stepped on a 3 inch cactus spine which went right through my shoe and into my foot, it didn’t go in too deeply and came out with out too much pain. Come to think of it I stepped on Sea Urchine in Key west, actually the life guard thought it was a sea urchin, I think it was a jelly fish either way it hurt and that’s another theme for May. Michael wasn’t so lucky, he fell and his hand landed on a cactus spine that broke off in his hand. Given the fish hook nature of cactus spines, he still hadn’t gotten it out by the time we had left. The last day we took a 3 hour train ride to Manchu Picchu where we wandered around some great ruins and climbed Wayna Picchu which is a climb they wouldn’t let you do in the states for insurance reasons. This wasn’t the worst trail I was on in Peru but it was rather sketchy, there weren’t any really sharp drops but several places where if you fell you’d probably break every bone in your body on the way down. When it comes to sketchy trails the worst was probably in Sacred valley were there was one spot where it was a rock wall on the one side, a 3 foot wide path and then a 200+ foot sheer drop off on the other. Most of the trails were on the sides of these 1500 foot bluffs which aren’t vertical but steep enough that you see 20 or 30 feet of grass and then nothing. It made me rather nervous. Unfortunately, I did have responsibilities in the states and Derrick headed back to Bolivia while I headed off on to an 11 hour layover in Lima, a 6 hour lay over in Miami and a 15 minute car ride home to Woodcroft where the beginning of May seems like a lifetime ago.
Life settled down for a while during the summer, I didn’t take any crazy trips, only a few trips to Pa and a trip back to Redfield for a semi-formal dinner.
If the first spring could be told as the churches I’ve been to, so could the fall. There is also the added theme of my crazy rides back to the airport. In September I headed to China for a 17 day. The trip went something like this, 20 hours on planes, Hong Kong, Macau, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, Hong Kong, 20 hours on planes. Recover from Jet Lag.
The one story that best summarizes this trip is my last evening in Macau–fun with friends, good food, a lot of activities and a measure of stress. It started with meeting up with Kasu and Kristopher for dinner. They know the best restaurants but it always takes a little while to figure out where we’re going to go and then actually get there. Eating in Macau is always a bit of a gamble (no pun intended) but the odds are definitely stacked in your favor, in this case the wontons, noodles and dish of clams were excellent. There are fireworks at lots of different times during the year in Macau, they actually used to make them here before safety and cost got to be an issue, but this evening was the second weekend of a fireworks competition, so we got to look across the fountains at Nam Van and watch the fireworks exploding beneath the Macau Tower. From there it was a standing room only bus to E.S.Kimos where we were late for a snack with Top Hou and Crio. Crio is making Kristopher speak to her only in English, so in that light they made me order in Cantonese. I since I was running late, I went back to the center to get my stuff, say farewell to Winnie, Sarah and Coey, and head to the ferry terminal. I’ll talk a bit more about this particular trip later. The way I found the most effective to break up the journey was by mentioning the days I traveled some where.
Sept 3 – Day 52 – Hong Kong
The journey to Hong Kong involved catching a 9:00 AM flight from RDU to O’Hare in Chicago. This was a non event compared to the main course of 15 hours in a 747 en route to Hong Kong. 15 hours, I mean what can you say to that…? Yes please? When you add in the time shift you technically are traveling for almost 2 days even though the actual journey is only 20 some hours. I actually slept for a bit during “the Alamo” and I think that was a big help because Jet Lag was bad, but not nearly as bad as the last time I was in this part of the world. For instance I was up till 10 or 11 just about every night I was there. It was a huge blessing to be able to function from day 1. One of larger issues for me, regarding jet lag, is your stomach doesn’t like to listen to your head when it comes time for dinner so I wasn’t hungry for a few days.
Sept 5 – Day 54 – Macau
Having spent the night in Hong Kong I took advantage of jet lag to travel over to Macau at 6am. Promptly after leaving the ferry terminal I went to my favorite bakery to get a Bo Louh Bau and still arrived early enough to catch the Missionary Church Service.
Sept 7 – Day 56 – Hong Kong
I need to get my visa processed so I could go to Shanghai and I headed to Hong Kong. Seeing as I hadn’t really spent much time at all here when I flew in this was my chance to get re-acquainted with the city. I love public transportation, and Hong Kong has some of the best, the MTR is an underground train that takes you to most of the major places in Hong Kong and Kaloon. The KCR trains service the New territories and the buses go every where else. Then there’s the more interesting ways of getting around, like the trolleys the run up and down Hong Kong or the Peak Tram that is pulled by cable up the steep slope to the peak. I met Andrew Sprunger and we ended up trekking around Hong Kong for a while. He was born in Hong Kong so he knows how to get around. I’d never been to the Mid Levels before so we wandered through there. Only in Hong Kong would Buildings be built up a hill and that the sidewalks would have escalators.
Sept 11 – Day 60 – Shanghai
At the end of last summer, I told Chris Showalter I would visit in October, a year later found me visiting in September, so I was just a little late on that one. She and her husband Nate, run the Community Center in Shanghai. We visited the only English speaking protestant church in Shanghai one of the most random groups of people I’ve ever been in the midst of. This foreign passport holder service was a group of Mexican, African, European, American and Asian Christians. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it… I’m in China, I’m at a church but it doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever been part of or heard of. Nate actually spoke the morning we were there and he was a good host. He took me around to meet with several different people and one evening, I got to visit the Hyatt which with the lobby starting at the 53rd floor going up to the 88th floor is the highest hotel in the world. The amazing thing is there is an atrium that goes up through the center of the hotel, so from the 88th floor you can stare straight down to the lobby. It’s quite a trip. The next morning, going to the other end of the spectrum, Nate and I went biking about a mile from his house and saw an agricultural community in the shadow of sky scrapers and extravagant expatriate quarters. That was a setting I was much more comfortable in. Shanghai also has the fastest ride to airport, a maglev that goes 420km/hour, so 8 minutes and I was checking in for my ride back to Shenzhen.
Sept 14 – Day 63 –Hong Kong
Why is nothing ever simple? I just wanted a simple taxi ride from the airport to the border back into Hong Kong, but no, I have to haggle with taxi driver who just won’t give me the normal meter rate and then get sold to another taxi driver. It’s a little stressful really, but walking across the border is kind of a fun way to get back and if it saves you 800 HK, then it’s worth it. Plus as soon as you’re across you can jump on the KCR and use the wonderful Octopus card to get anywhere. I am totally fascinated by the Octopus card. It’s a magnetic smart card so just wave your bag over the sensor and you pay for your Bus, MTR, KCR, you can even buy food with it. Glenn’s always busy but he took time out of his schedule and I got to spend a good amount of time with eating, meeting with some of the Hong Kong pastors and talking about what’s going on, and what may be.
Sept 17 – Day 66 – Macau
Glenn left for one of his trips so I went back to Macau. This time I did the food thing. The first thing I did was go to Fernando’s for Lunch. Fernando’s is one of my favorite restaurants, yes, in the whole world. It’s right on the beach and you can hear the surf even if you can’t see it. They have amazing chicken and the bread… oh the bread. The evening was a special as I got to spend time with Sarah and Kasu teaching them some guitar and hearing what they’ve learned in the last year. Then the next morning I got to go shopping for a tea set with Tim Bulher. Together we found the best tea shop ever. It’s this hole in the wall on the west side of Macau. It’s been there for over 100 years. The current proprietor is at least the grandson of the original owner. Seeing as this was the food highlight trip, I went to Macau tower’s 360 buffet with Kristopher and Crio for a great lunch.
Sept 19 – Day 68 – Hong Kong and Home
You would think that with as much as I’ve been traveling getting to the airport wouldn’t be a big deal. But in this case it was one of the most stressful trips I’ve had in a while… The rundown goes something like this… Having spent the previous day in Macau I wanted to catch the 11:00pm Ferry to Hong Kong so I could catch the last MTR in Hong Kong back to Lok Fu and still get a reasonable amount of sleep. Having left E.S.Kimos and said my last good byes. For reference the story I’m about to tell is the one I mentioned earlier that I’d get to later. The Ferry terminal is about 20 minutes away by bus plus wait, so Kasu offered to take me there by scooter since I was running late. So I hopped on the back of Kasu’s scooter and high tailed it through the streets of Macau. Scooters in general are not big, and Kasu’s is one of the smaller models. So if you can visualize me hanging onto a Chinese guy who’s smaller I am and on scooter smaller than he is, and wearing a rucksack bigger than I am also hanging onto the tea set I’d gotten that morning, well you get the picture. We got there in what I thought was plenty of time and I headed to the ticket counter to get to get a ticket for the 11:00 ferry as it turned out the earliest they had was 11:30 and that was for Super or 1st class. I broke down and bought it but that meant that I’d missed the last MTR from Hong Kong. Reaching Hong Kong I tried to find a bus to Lok Fu but they weren’t running at that point so I flagged down a taxi. Having reached the Apartment I realized I left my keys inside on my previous trip. So unfortunately I had to wake up Andy. Waking up early or later that morning depending on your perspective, I packed and headed to the bus stop and proceeded to catch the wrong bus. Half an hour later realizing that I was on wrong bus I also realized that I was an hour and 40 minutes by bus from the Air Port. So I poured some more American money into the local economy with another expensive taxi ride. The important thing was that I caught the plane, or at least to Chicago. Unfortunately the flight from Hong Kong was delayed a bit and compounded with the fact that I had to go through customs and only had an hour layover… well I missed my plane.
In the grander scheme of things this isn’t that big of a deal. I did get home to Durham and managed to settle down a bit although the very next weekend I went to Pa again. Jonathan Robie from church says I’m giving new meaning to the word Peripatetic, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it’s defined as One who walks from place to place; an itinerant. So yes, I think that’s accurate. Since I’m now the Youth Leader at Durham Mennonite I’m trying incorporate them into my travel since then I don’t feel quite as bad about not being around for the weekend. So the weekend of October 2nd we all headed up to Harrisonburg Virginia for the Virginia Mennonite Conference Relief sale. This cultural experience was a good one. Food, Soccer, Games, Fellowship–All the ingredients of a fun time.
The last major trip of the year was one I didn’t have that much choice in since I was told “I know you have the money so you better show up at my wedding.” What made it interesting was that the wedding was in England, so he really had to twist my arm. So I flew over to London to be involved with the general hubbub surrounding the third wedding in 2 months of Sarah and Jeff Martinez. Jeff was one of my roommates in college, and as you can guess from the 3 weddings statement, doesn’t do things quite the same way that everybody else does. In defense of his 3 weddings, well the first one was by the state of New York, the second at a church in New York and the third in England. He has an extremely charismatic personality, but saying he’s little short on organizational skills is like calling the Atlantic a big pond. For example he lives in Cheltenham, which was where I along with most of the other Americans who were over there thought the wedding was going to be. However on Friday we have a conversation that goes something like this.
“Nate, you drive stick right? I need you to go with me to pick the rental car.”
“Rental car, why do we need a rental car?” says I.
“To get to the wedding rehearsal in Taunton.”
“Oh”
Jeff doesn’t drive stick that much so he wanted me to be on the insurance as well, and it’s a good thing I was, because less than a minute out of the parking lot Jeff freaked himself out properly, and thus I became the designated driver for the weekend. Driving in England was actually a quite enjoyable experience albeit a little stressful. It’s certainly a good way to see the countryside. And there’s a lot of it.
Things did come together for the wedding though and it was an absolutely enchanting wedding set in an English village. The landscape and buildings are stereotypically British and absolutely beautiful. The Church was the real deal with stone work and stained glass, and the house the reception was in was mentioned by Chaucer, so that places it to at least the 14th century if I recall correctly. One of the things I really like about England is that it seems that within 10-15 minutes of any given village there appears to be terrain that looks beautiful to hike.
The trip from Cheltenham to London turned out to be another nightmarish trip back to the airport. It’s reminded me of one of those fortuneately/unfortuneately stories I used to read in the library as a kid but never checked out. Unfortunately, my alarm clock didn’t go off and I woke up at 7:02 and meaning I had missed my 7:00 bus to Gatwick. Fortunately, there was a train at 7:33 so after some rushing around I drove the rental car to the train station and caught the train with a minute to spare. Unfortunately, that meant I’m out 47 pounds, plus the 15 from my unused bus ticket. Fortunately, I thought I would make it to the airport on time. Unfortunately, I missed my transfer in Reading because so many people got on that I couldn’t get off in the 30 seconds the train was at the landing. Fortunately, I met a nice man who showed me how to catch the London underground to the Gatwick express. I will say that the train stations in London are quite impressive, something straight out of a movie. Unfortunately, that’s about all I saw of London. Fortunately, I didn’t have any other major problems getting to Gatwick at 11:00 with time enough to catch my 12:40 flight. The journey through the Philadelphia airport was a little dodgy, spending almost an hour waiting to go through security and boarding my flight with the last group.
So as I conclude my story I am quite weary of driving, and that was probably a good thing because I’ve had driven 20,000 miles flown 45,000 miles and spent almost three months on the road, visiting 4 Continents, 7 Countries, and 8 states. I took an environmental impact survey online somewhere and all in all I did considerably better than average except one section. You guessed it, Travel.
