England, October 2014

In October 2014 I flew to London and travelled in SW England for 3 weeks.  A major aim of the trip was to participate in a one-day Earthwatch Expedition on climate change in Wytham Woods, one of the most extensively studied woodlands in the world, and then to travel to nearby Oxford to explore some of the city.  But before doing that I planned to do a lot of sightseeing using my Britrail Flexipass.  After arriving at Heathrow airport I took the Heathrow Express to London and went to see the poppy display at the Tower of London.  Then I took the train to Redhill where I stayed in a B & B for four nights.  While in Redhill I travelled in the area with my English friend Dorothy.  The first evening we went to quiz night at The Plough, a local pub.  We joined a team sitting at a table and almost won the quiz.  The following day we visited the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisely.  The next day Dorothy drove us South to the lovely village of Amberly and then on to the nearby town of Arundel, and on the following day we visited historic Petworth House, ancestral home of the powerful Percy family.  When I left Redhill I took the train to Great Malvern, left my luggage at my B & B, then raced back to the station to catch trains to the beautiful town of Ludlow and the city of Hereford.  There I visited Hereford cathedral, one of four cathedrals I was able to visit on this trip.  Returning to Great Malvern I spent most of the next day hiking in the Malvern Hills.  Before leaving Great Malvern I took the bus to Worcester and went to evensong at the cathedral.  The next day I took the train to Lichfield, where I visited beautiful Lichfield Cathedral and the nearby home of Erasmus Darwin, which has been converted into a wonderful museum, which celebrates the life and accomplishments of the inventive and highly intelligent paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin. At Lichfield Cathedral, the only English cathedral with three spires, I was able to attend evenson on two consecutive evenings, one with the men's choir and another with the boy's choir. From Lichfield I took the train to Chippenham where I was met by another English friend Clive, who then drove me to his home in the village of Luckington.  Clive took me to the city of Wells, where we visited the historic and magnificent cathedral and nearby Bishop's Palace.  On another day we visited Malmesbury where we visited Malmesbury Abbey and the nearby lovely Abbey Gardens.  On another day we visited Laycock, which along with Ludlow, is considered one of England's loveliest villages.  We explored the town and Laycock Abbey, where scenes from some of  the Harry Potter movies were filmed.  Leaving my friend Clive I took the train to Taunton and from there got the bus to Bishop's Lydeard.  The following day I hiked all day in the Quantocks, from Bishop's Lydeard to the town of Bicknoller.  During my hike, which took 6 hours, I didn't encounter another hiker on the trail.  At Bicknoller I caught a bus to Williton and checked into Arden B & B, a restored cottage that dates back to 1450.  My friendly hosts Jane and Paul very kindly took me in their car to visit some nearby places, including the lovely fossil-rich beach at Kilve where I photographed some large ammonite fossils.  When I finally arrived in Oxford after exploring Wytham Woods, where I measured the diameter of trees as part of the Earthwatch project, I checked into St. Hugh's College, and during the next two days explored the city of Oxford.  I was able to visit four of the 35 colleges at Oxford; in addition to St. Hugh's, I visited Balliol College, one of Oxford's oldest, Wadham College, and Christchurch, Oxford's most well-known college.  Leaving Oxford, I took the train to London where I walked in Regent's Park and trekked around the area near Paddington Station, before getting my flight back home the following day.

The impressive poppy display at the Tower of London

 

Relaxing at Wisely gardens, headquarters of the Royal Horticultural Society

 

One of many pretty houses with thatched roofs in the lovely village of Amberly



A building in Ludlow, considered by many to be one of England's prettiest villages
 

Garden of Erasmus Darwin Museum w/ cathedral in back
 

Front of beautiful Lichfield Cathedral

The magnificent Wells Cathedral

Unique Scissor's Arches in the nave of Wells Cathedral



Vicar's Close.  Built to house the men of the choir in nearby Wells Cathedral, it is the oldest continuously-inhabited street   in England, dating back to 1363.



Part of the formal gardens at the Abbey Gardens in Malmesbury

The chess set in the Abbey Gardens at Malmesbury



A view of the Vale of Taunton and the lovely countryside of Somerset,  seen during my all-day hike in the Quantocks.

Arden Cottage, my 5-star B & B, during my visit to Williton.



The fossil-rich beach at Kilve

Laycock village, where some scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed

Tea cakes at the craft fair in Laycock Village Hall



The cloisters at Laycock Abbey.  The abbey was founded in 1232 and was used as a nunnery until the Reformation during the reign of Henry VIII.  It did not suffer the fate of most of the abbeys that were damaged or destroyed during the time of Henry VIII, and it remains one of the best preserved medieval abbeys in England

Christchurch College, Oxford

Regent's Park in London

China, June 2014: 7 cities, 10 days

  Sharon and I took a small group tour to China in June.  Leaving Detroit on June 12 we arrived in the capital of Beijing after a long 12.5 hour flight.  Beijing was the first of 7 cities we visited.  Arriving one day early to recover from jet lag and before joining the tour, we visited the Buddhist Lama Temple in Beijing, which was filled with crowds of people burning incense.  From there we went to the nearby Confucius Temple which was less crowded, more tranquil, and had much better air quality.  On the first day of the tour we visited Tiananmen Square, a vast area which includes the tomb of Chairman Mao.  Large lines of people were waiting to view his preserved corpse which rises from a chilled chamber in his underground mausoleum each day for viewing.  Leaving the square we walked to the nearby Forbidden City, the home of many of the emperors of China's later dynasties. The following day we drove to a section of the Great Wall at Bandalung outside of Beijing.  The wall at this location has been restored and was being visited by large numbers of people from all over China and elsewhere. The Great Wall of China was built in stages to serve as an effective barrier against the horses of the Mongol invaders.  Many of the sections were connected during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) following the invasion of North China by Genghis Khan and others. After braving the crowds walking on the wall for several hours we returned to Beijing, stopping to visit the Summer Palace, the imperial retreat of the members of China's last dynasty, the Qing.  During its long history China has had 679 emperors until the last emperor in 1912.
   From Beijing, we flew west to the city of Xi'an, the ancient capital of China.  In Xian, in about 600 AD China became unified, and by the 9th Century Xi'an, located on the Silk Road, was the largest and wealthiest city in the world.  The 679 emperors who have reigned in the history of China belonged to 25 different dynasties, and Xi'an was home to 13 of those dynasties when Xi'an was the early capital and before the capital moved to Beijing.  It was outside of Xi'an that I saw the most impressive sight on my visit to China -- the vast complex of the Terra Cotta warriors.
  After visiting Xi'an we flew to the city of Hangzhou.  There we visited a green tea farm and went for a ride in a dragon boat on West Lake.  We then drove from Hangzhou to the 2,000-year old water village of Wuhzen, and from there to the city of Suzhou, where we visited some parks, markets, and the remains of the ancient city walls.  Our tour ended in the very modern city of Shanghai.
   China is a vast country and our visit was brief, and we never got to see the rural areas, but here are my initial impressions.  China is a country on the move, rapidly building infrastructure in its goal to become the largest economy in the world.  Everywhere we went there was construction -- roads, high-rise apartment complexes, tall skyscrapers, etc.  The people are very friendly and the food in China is very different from that served in Chinese restaurants here in the U.S.  As the most populous country in the world, there were the expected masses of people everywhere.  Thankfully, for those of us concerned about pollution and air quality, not everyone in China has a car (yet!) and many people are going about their business on non-polluting bicycles.  We were very fortunate weather-wise.  Beijing is known for periods of terrible air quality, but we happened to be there when winds had dispersed much of the stagnant pollutants.  Still, it was obvious that sub-standard air quality is a major problem in China; rarely did I see blue skies and it was almost always overcast.

Here is the main gate of the Lama Temple in Beijing and some of the statuary inside.

 

 

The more tranquil and less crowded Confucius Temple in Beijing

 

A section of park in the vast Tiananmen Square

 

A small part of the Forbidden City, home to many of China's emperors.  The Forbidden City is the largest palatial complex in the entire world and was the seat of power during the time of the last two Chinese dynasties -- the Ming and the Qing

 
 
 
 

A small section of the Great Wall of China, at Bandalung near Beijing

 

 

 

The famous Marble Boat at the Summer Palace outside Beijing.  The Chinese emperor who was the longest-lived (89 yo) built the Summer Palace as a gift for his mother.  The marble boat resembles marble but it's really just wood, carefully painted to resemble marble.

 

 

Pit #1 of the vast complex of the Terra Cotta army.  It was the emperor Qin Shi Huang (221-210 BC), a man obsessed with immortality, who created this vast army of life-sized terra cotta warriors, to serve as a mausoleum for his afterlife.  All would have remained buried underground were it not for a farmer who discovered a piece of one warrior sticking above the earth on his farm field in 1974.  The mausoleum site is vast and much has yet to be excavated.  Only one terra cotta figure was unearthed intact; all of the rest were in pieces and had to be painstakingly reassembled.  In addition to the warriors and their weapons, archeologists have also excavated full-sized terra cotta horses and two bronze chariots that consisted of about 84% copper.

No two life-sized terra cotta warriors are the same.  They are in different kinds of clothing and armor, have unique facial features, different beards and hair styles, etc.  This leads one to surmise that each terra cotta figure may have been patterned after a real live individual soldier that was alive at that time.

 

 

A green tea farm in Hangzhou

                            The 2000-year old, and well preserved, water village of Wuhzen.

 

 

Durian fruit for sale at a market in the city of Suzhou

 

 

The lovely Garden of the Master of the Nets garden, one of the many lovely gardens we saw in China.  This garden was quite small but very attractive, and exhibited the 4 elements required of a proper Chinese garden: plants, ponds, rocks, and buildings.

 

 

 

One of  many lovely pavilions and pagodas we saw in China.  This is the "Hall of Auspicious Merits" pavilion at the PanMen Scenic Area in Shanghai

 

 

Silkworm caterpillars feeding on mulberry leaves at a silk factory in Shanghai

 

 

The famous Flower Wall on the waterfront Bund Promenade in Shanghai

Shelling Hazelnuts

  When the temperature is - 14 below zero and the windchill makes it feel like - 30 and you fear to go outside because you might lose an appendage to frostbite, it's probably best to stay indoors, and for much of today I've done just that and spent several hours shelling some of the hazelnuts from this years harvest.  At my cabin and acreage in NE Iowa I've planted over 30 hazelnuts trees.

   Hazelnuts are lovely trees to grow.  They don't get too tall and they have a nice shape with foliage that provides both shelter and food for wildlife.  This past summer I found some gray treefrogs resting on hazelnut leaves and I watched a pair of catbirds raise some young in a nest they built in one of the trees.  I harvest some of the nuts but leave many for the critters, like the chipmunks that probably eat more than their fair share; I enjoy watching the pesky little rodents climbing up into the trees to harvest the nuts.  One of the best things about hazelnuts is watching the nut clusters develop and then harvesting the nuts in the fall.

  In the past many more wild hazelnuts grew in Iowa's woodlands than today.  Now that I have established a small hazelnut plantation near my cabin, my next goal is to begin planting young hazelnut trees in the woods on my property.
  I think the world would be a better place if everyone took the time to plant hazelnuts trees.