ukraine: glibivka

easter is a national holiday in ukraine...the holiday is sunday, and everyone gets monday off as well...to celebrate easter, ukraine follows the orthodox calendar (for those in the west who are catholic, i don't know how it works, or maybe they celebrate easter according to the catholic calendar, then get another easter a few weeks later?)...most years this means we get a day off a few weeks after 'western' easter...this year, western easter and orthodox easter fell on the same day...i don't know how often that happens, but it probably isn't very often...it was a bit odd for me to see facebook posts of friends about easter and it matched up with 'my' holiday weekend...

i'd made plans a few weeks ago to travel with a couple girlfriends, we bought train tickets...our original plan was to go east, to dnipropetrovsk and zhaporhysia...unfortunately, political events made that travel plan seem like not the best idea...so we cancelled those tickets and figured out another idea...of course, we waited until the last minute to do this, so there weren't many options...
one of the girls found us a room in a cottage in a resort complex along the kyiv reservoir, a bit north of kyiv...there are a bunch of these resort complexes along the reservoir...they all have recreation options, conference facilities, etc...

saturday morning i was running late to meet the girls, i felt horrible about it...they'd booked a taxi for a specific time...the taxi took us to a complex about an hour from the city centre, near a town called glibivka...the town isn't known for anything, it's just a town...there are a bunch of these resort complexes in the area, all along the water...they offer  bike rental, horseback riding, sauna, massage, table tennis, etc...we checked in, and immediately scheduled massages and sauna time...
the weather was crap, so we sat on our porch, drank tea, and had snacks until it was time for our massages...

the massages were short, but felt sooooo good...the experience was not what i expected, but i would still do it again...when i walked into the room the massage therapist told me to get ready, and hop on the table...he worked on my back the whole time, it felt sooooo good...:) the girls each had their turn after i finished...
after massages we picked up the key to the sauna...we had our own private sauna for two hours, how awesome is that?!?! we tried to stay in the sauna for 15 minutes each time, then cool down out in the sitting room for a bit after each 'session'...i didn't bring enough water, i was a bit worried about getting really dehydrated...i love sauanas...after the sauna, i felt like a queen...

we had dinner in the restaurant of the complex...nothing noteworthy, nothing awful...the only bit of note was that the service was rather slow...all of us were tired after dinner, we all crashed early...
the next morning we'd planned to go to an easter service at a nearby church...we thought a service started at 0645 or so, the complex said they would transport us...it turned out we got the time wrong, we missed it by an hour...which means we woke up at 0600 on a holiday weekend for no good reason!!
instead of going back to sleep we made tea and took it to benches near the water to enjoy...the sun was showing itself beautifully behind clouds, everything was lovely...

eventually we decided it was time for breakfast...since it was a holiday weekend, and this was the holiday, this breakfast was included in the price of our room...easter breakfast...it ended up being quite a bit of food...i definitely ate more than i should've...
after breakfast we had another cup of tea out by the water, then figured out where to go to rent bikes...
after adjusting for size and adding air to my tires, we took off down the road...i think it was about 3 kilometers to the town of glibivka...nothing remarkable about this town, but susannah and i love seeing a 'normal' town...maryna must've thought we were crazy each time we got off our bikes to take pictures...

we saw an unfinished church, a giant wood pile, revolution street, chickens, tulips, wells, etc...as we rode over a bridge we saw lots of men fishing...
2 hours later, we rode back to the complex and turned in our bikes...another cup of tea out by the water to relax...then we went for a walk in the woods across the highway from our complex...maryna told us the woods are really really old...you can see plenty of places where trees have been cut down to be used for someone's dacha, but most of what we saw had been there for a loooong time...you can almost feel the history, it's awesome...i wish we'd had more time...

we loved the atmosphere...at times it was totally silent, at times we could hear various birds...awesomeness...
after we came back to the complex we decided to use the sauna again...this day was warmer, so susannah and i had a much more challenging 2 hours...we did 15 minute 'sessions' again, but it was much more difficult to cool down in between...we ended up turning down the temperature of the sauna, and even then it was really hard to stay in the sauna the entire 15 minutes each time...i think we figured out that we did 6 15-minute sessions...my face was sooooo red!

dinner was again at the restaurant, and again nothing remarkable...
the next morning we showed up for breakfast thinking it was included in our price again...unfortunately, it wasn't...oh well...
after breakfast we had another cup of tea and enjoyed some of our last moments of vacation...we had an extra hour, so after packing up our stuff, we went for one last walk in the woods...
after our walk a taxi took us back to kyiv...

china 3

o stayed in tai'an that night, and the next morning took a bus to qufu...a name i had never heard until i read it in the guidebook...as the book told me, it was the home of confuscious, and his family...and apparently it still is the home of his descendents...there are three main sights in the town...the temple, his family mansion, and the forest...you can buy one ticket for all three of them, which is handy, though expensive...
qufu itself is actually the smallest place i visited while i was in china...and it has to be one of the smallest "cities" they have..."only" 85,000 people...i liked the atmosphere...a lot...the temple was, well, a temple...nothing terribly exciting...i had my picture taken in front of the study hall place thingy where confuscious supposedly taught...anyone think his spirit is still there and possibly taught me a thing or two? hee hee...the mansions are the family house(s)...not only did confuscious live there, but older and newer generations of his family as well...they were actually quite well off, and pretty much ran the area as their own little business empire...there are a number of buildings, used for different purposes, some of them business, some of them personal...the best part was the garden area out back...i walked up a path to the top of a set of rocks and had fun setting up my camera...it turned out the path i walked up was the only one that wasn't blocked off to go up those rocks, i guess i wasn't supposed to be up there, but i didn't figure that out until i saw the other paths after coming back down!! oh well...
the next day i walked out to the forest, it's a couple kilometers north of the other two sights...the forest is actually the cemetary/graveyard for confuscious and all of his descendents...according to the guidebook, over 2000 people are buried there, and his descendents are still buried there now!! it's quite possibly the quietest place in all of china...i loved it...most people who go take a tour on an electric bus, which createst the only sound...since they're electric, they're quiet...except for the honking they do to let the few people on the paths (me) know they're coming...there are a couple main paths/small roads around the forest, but otherwise everything is small, and dirt...i enjoyed wandering through the overgrowth, checking out the stelae...obviously, i couldn't read anything that had been inscribed, but some looked pretty artistic...some of the people buried there were obviously more important than others...if i knew more chinese history, perhaps i would know who they were...i just enjoyed the quiet, and peacefulness of the area...i ended up with lots of scratches from walking through everything, but it was worth it...
my hostel in qufu was brilliant...the bunks were nice and sturdy, i didn't feel like there was an earthquake each time the person in the bunk under me moved...there was a water filter in the lobby from which we were all encouraged to fill our water bottles, in order to avoid buying new plastic water bottles...and free internet too!! yay!!
from qufu i took a bus back to tai'an, then a night train to beijing...actually, the same train layna had taken a couple days earlier...only i had a seat:)
i arrived in beijing at the lovely hour of 0520...still dark...so i sat in the train station for a while, watching the gbillions of people coming out, after arriving at the same ridiculous hour...apparently there are LOTS of trains going in and out of there! i found my hostel w/out much difficulty, checked in, and promptly fell asleep for a few hours...i can't remember the last time i took a nap in the morning!! i have visited beijing previously, so i didn't feel the need to get out and explore quite so fast...
beijing has definitely changed since i last visited...that was before the olympics...their subways have grown, and continue to grow now...buses are still confusing though...lots and lots of signs are now bilingual, which makes it a bunch easier for visitors to get around and figure out where they are...i walked...and walked...and walked...straight down one street, for over 2 hours!! i stopped in a big market to look around for tea, realized i didn't feel like browsing at all, and walked back out...oops...i walked a bunch more, hopped on the metro and met layna at dairy queen for "dinner"...hey, it had dairy, right? carbs in the brownies too...lol...
the next day i went to the one sight i saw this time in beijing...the lama temple, known in chinese as yonghegong...a tibetan buddhist temple where lamas go to study...i don't remember how one becomes a lama, or all of that is decided...like every other temple in asia, it was actually a complex, with several temple buildings, and halls used for various purposes...overall it was quite different from other buddhist temples i've seen while traveling, so i enjoyed it...while standing around in one courtyard i heard a few folks talking, in an accent any american could identify...that of the south...the slow southern drawl...i asked them where exactly they were from, and ended up chatting for over an hour!! they were two couples, one of whom lived in beijing, the other visiting and being shown around...the couple living in beijing was retired army, including time in germany, so we chatted about that as well...anywho, they were all really sweet and friendly...the kind of americans that actually give us a good name!!
later that afternoon i went to a meeting at the offices of a company called koryo tours...i'll tell you about them in the next blog

nz vol. 2

i flew back to new zealand after my trip with hana in australia...only a quick 3 hour flight from sydney to auckland..dan and i had been talking a lot by email and we both thought we'd had a connection during the holidays at the bach...we'd even had a few phone calls, not something i normally do..we wanted to find out if that connection was more than a holiday connection, or just three fun days..
i remember being super nervous as i walked out of the airport; i was terrified i wouldn't even recognize dan..but almost immediately i spotted him, and things were okay..we were both nervous because neither of us knew what was going to happen..after all, we'd only had three days to get to know each other over the holiday, which isn't much time at all, especially when there are tons of other people around all the time..
anywho, we went to dinner that night, it was fabulous..he took me to a place with a german name, and i had the most amazing asian beef salad..and more important than the food, we knew we had something..
the next day was sunday, easter sunday..normally i wouldn't have mentioned a religious holiday, but in both new zealand and australia, easter is a HUGE holiday..it's a religious holiday, but down in this part of the world, it's secular too..anytime you walk into a dairy you see huge displays of easter lollies..government offices are closed on good friday and the following monday...nearly everyone takes a four day weekend..during the day dan's dad texted that he was coming over to dan's flat with easter pressies..(presents)..we both knew it was mainly because he wanted to see who i was..dan had been talking about me, and his family wanted to know who was coming to visit him after just three days together..his dad is a musician at heart, and works at a hospital for patients with mental disabilities..after his dad left, i suggested going to the golf course..i already knew dan was really into golf, and i remember thinking that i should just get it over with..i wanted to walk the course once, so i could say that i had done it, and from then on he was welcome to go anytime he liked..little did i know what the future held..that day, i had a good time, even though i realized i knew absolutely nothing about the sport..the first time he teed off that day, i had no idea where the ball went!! after golf we went to a nearby beach, called bethells..its a west coast beach, which means it's pretty wild..not a place you go for calm swimming..we laid out our towels, and were hanging out with someone came over and said hi to dan..turned out it was his sister!! we hadn't known she would be there, at least i didn't know..dan drives his company truck, so when he's somewhere, anyone who knows that truck knows he's there..when his sister saw his truck parked there she knew he was probably there with me, so of course she wanted to meet me as well..she seemed nice enough..as we were leaving the beach that day dan talked to one of jess' friends about cricket..the conversation only went on for about 5 minutes, but they might as well have been speaking swahili for all i understood..i recognized words like the, and and, but that was about it..there was nothing familiar in that conversation, despite the fact that every cricket fan i know says it's quite similar to baseball..(it's NOT!!)..at that point i realized i needed to learn about the sport..at least the basics..
the following week i met dan's mum at work..he works with his family everyday, they all are part owners of the company..she was nice too..they're NOTHING like my family..NOTHING..
at the end of that first full week, dan and i took off on a holiday..we took his dad's car, and drove up north, to northland, the "winterless" area of new zealand..when dan was just out of high school (the last two years of which they call college here, which is strange to me) he moved up north and worked for a little over a year in a resort in paihia..we stayed in a bach owned by the parents of one of dan's friends, in taupo bay..(not to be confused with taupo, near lake taupo)..during those first few days we used that as a base to "explore" the northern area of the north island of new zealand..we went swimming with the dolphins on dan's birthday..we slid down the sand dunes near cape reinga..we went out to the tip of cape reinga..that's where the tasman sea and the pacific ocean meet, and on clear days its said that you can see the line in the water where the two bodies of water meet..we definitely didn't see that, as it was foggy and somewhat rainy..one day we went walking on a boardwalk trail through a kauri forest..kauri trees are BIG..not that i've seen them, but i think they're along the lines of the redwood trees in california..maoris here consider it bad luck to have kauri furniture inside your home, but white folks and foreigners don't usually pay much attention to that..kauri stuff is expensive, but it sells..dan took me to a couple beaches on the east coast up there, they were completely empty, and awesome..one had squeaky sand, it was great fun to walk around in that..the other was out in the middle of nowhere..no people, no buildings, nothing..AWESOME..(a beach in new zealand is crowded if there are 5 other people on it)..we drove by carrington golf club one day, and as it looked pretty flash, dan wanted to see what it was all about..the next day we went back and played it..that was the first time i had walked 18 holes, and i remember thinking that it would be difficult to support him playing 18 holes all the time..it took just under 5 hrs to walk that course..it was looooong..the lady at the reception desk said that most people hired carts there, but we ignored her advice..that's the one time we should've hired a cart!! (later, after playing 18 holes on other courses, i learned that dan usually takes about 3 hours on his own to play 18, just under 4 hours if he's playing in a group)..it was a nice course, and relatively new..
for the last two days of our holiday, we stayed at a nice hotel in waitangi..waitangi is where the treaty of waitangi was signed, back in 1840..that's the treaty that established new zealand as it is now, the modern state..there are plenty of arguments over that treaty, whether it was valid, and most people will agree that the british tricked the maoris..issues from that are still being debated today..we went to the historical area, there is a big flagpole put up on the exact spot where the treaty was signed, and there are a few other buildings you can walk around..there is a copy of the treaty there, the original is kept in the national archives down in wellington..we also walked the golf course at waitangi, it was the first golf course dan ever played, it's where he got hooked on the game..it was a nice course, though it had just been cored (sp?) so that took some of the enjoyment out of it..
at the end of our holiday we drove back to auckland, then had dinner that night with his family to celebrate his birthday..he and i had been on our holiday during his birthday, so they waited until we came back to do the family thing..
the next few weeks were pretty plain..he'd go to work, i'd kill time during the day, and when he was done we'd go play golf, or have some other activity during the evening..i got to know his flattie, lota, a little..sometimes i went to his work for lunch, since it was just down the road..
at one point i realized i needed to be doing a little more during my time..so i decided to go visit three other cities in new zealand..wellington, christchurch, and queenstown..
visited paihia, keri keri, cape reinga, the puketi forest, taupo bay, auckland, queenstown, christchurch, wellington, and probably more...
got to hang out with amy and ivan, got to know dan and his family...
heartbroken to leave
left 21 may...