@ ACYPL Day 12 (Guatemala): Human rights ombudsman of Guatemala; defense of women, indigenous, an migrants and volunteerism, office of human rights; universadid Fransisco Marroquin, constitutional court judges. Worth reviewing: http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/report/english/toc.html

@ ACYPL Day 6 (El Salvador): National Civil Police, Ministry of the Economy, El Salvadoran Supreme Court, Comité Ejecutivo Nacionalista (COENA), Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AZ SB 1070 anti-immigration law

@ ACYPL Day 5 (El Salvador): Scheduled to meet with representatives from Salvadoran Foundation for Economic & Social Development, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, National Conciliation Party, Christian Democratic Party, Democratic Change Party, & Grand Alliance for National Unity — the latter 4 being political parties in El Salvador

Obama admin bans abortion in high-risk i

Obama admin bans abortion in high-risk insurance pools –> why states need progressive champs –> why I’m going to Merc in Denver @ 7

^TP experimenting with hootsuite… this

^TP experimenting with hootsuite… this might be way more technologically advanced than i can manage right now

^TP hootsuite test

^TP hootsuite test

I Came, I Saw, I Climbed the Great Wall

Spent about six hours on a bus today. It was a bit Gilligan’s Island-esque: The expected 7-hour organized tour to the Great Wall of China turned into a 9.5-hour adventure — where 6 of those hours were spent on a bus. I arrived just before the 9:00 a.m. scheduled departure time…and sat on the bus. I learned that in Beijing, there’s a propensity not to set estimated departure times and instead just opt to wait until the communal transport vehicle is full. In this case, the Chinese-language tour bus didn’t leave Beijing until about 9:30.

The first surprise I got was realizing there would be constant live narrative…in Mandarin. This guy stood up with a microphone and talked non-stop for the full hour it took to arrive at our first stopping point. I think he was pointing out the sites of Beijing, but since I don’t speak Mandarin, who really knows? I just know at one point I looked up from my Lonely Planet guide book and realized he was pointing to a building we were passing, and everyone else on the bus was looking at it. It wasn’t very interesting – or at least, it wasn’t an ancient-looking structure – so I didn’t feel I was missing anything.

But back to the tour: Our first stop was…wait for it…the Beijing Wax Palace of the Ming Dynasty. Wha..wha…what?! As I got off the bus, the Mandarin-speaking tour guide held up a batch of post-it notes with 11:30 written on it. It was 10:50, so apparently we had a 40-minute detour at the wax museum, which I opted to skip. So I sat in the lobby of the warehouse-like structure, twiddling my thumbs and occasionally perusing the super-kitschy, super-cheap souvenirs.

11:30: OK, everyone back on the bus…or not. Back to that whole waiting-until-the-bus-is-full thing, we hung out in the parking lot until 11:50 before heading to lunch. Except upon exiting the bus this time, the Mandarin-speaking tour guide flashed two times written on the post-it note; he mimed eating and pointed to the first time – 12:30 – before pointing at the bus and pointed to the second time – 1:00. Huh, wonder what we’re supposed to do for the next half hour before food time? I follow the masses into the building – warehouse size but with typical Chinese detailing on the front of the building – where we’re greeted by a woman who’s mic’d up and delivering a flurry of Mandarin. Not very helpful for me, but the others from the bus seem interested and are happy to follow her mic’d up, flag-waving self through the corridors, which fortunately include an English-language summary that details the history of jade manufacturing in China. Huh; we must be at a jade shop…yup, there’s the huge room with counters full of jade jewelry with pushy salespeople. Since I’m not so fond of the options, I just peruse through the hall before heading upstairs for lunch.

All I had to say was thank goodness for tofu. That was the only discernable item – besides the rice and broth with noodles. I know there was a whole fish of some sort that people were tearing at, but I steered clear of. Adding to the dubious nature of the lunch was remembering that as I walked down to this room, I was regaled with posters describing the history of the use of deer in the Yuan territory, including the health and nutritional benefits of deer intestines and deer hearts. So the mystery dishes may have included deer; not really sure.

By the time the bus leaves – pretty close to the appointed time this time – I’m hoping our next stop will be the Great Wall since that was why I bought the ticket in the first place. We drive for another 20 or so minutes that includes a gradual climb into what I consider to be foothills. And voila, there’s the Great Wall! That we just passed. Until we arrived at a section that has a whole bunch of other tour buses and what appears to be a tourist-catered sales area hawking more kitschy stuff and street-food-like grub. As I hop off the bus, I note that I’m supposed to be back by 15:35, and follow the crowds. Looks like I’m finally climbing the Great Wall.

I’m going to fast forward a bit to preface the next part by saying that as I was returning to the bus, I was seriously tempted to buy one of the kitschy “I climbed the Great Wall” sweatshirts being hawked. However, none of them adequately conveyed my experience. I think I’ll have to cafepress my own; it will say, “I fucking climbed the Great Wall. Have you?!?”

From my tagline, you could probably deduce that climbing the Great Wall kicked. my. ass. And I didn’t even go all the way to the last available guard tower – even though it was primarily a descent between the tower where I stopped and that final tower. That’s because I knew the way back would be a bitch of an incline. If you’ve never climbed the Great Wall, let me try to convey what it’s like to ascend: imagine cranking up the stair stepper at the gym to the greatest resistance level and walking it at a 70% angle. I kid you not; there were times that I had to bend over so I wouldn’t fall backwards down the crazy concrete path. Or there were times that I had to make these humongous pseudo-leaps to the next step, since the stairs were the height of my entire calf. Thankfully, there were rails on each side; otherwise, there would have been many, many injuries as people came sliding down the mountain.

Then I learned that going up these inclines was almost easier because my body mass and momentum weren’t propelling me forward, as was the case on the descent. I’m very proud to say I fell only once going downhill. And I didn’t feel too bad on the way up when I took breathing breaks at every opportunity. When I happened across other people audibly gasping for breath, I knew I wasn’t just an out-of-shape foreigner. Apparently, if that type of experience isn’t sufficiently exhilarating, there’s a Great Wall marathon. What? Who would do something like that?

So…yeah…I came. I saw. I fucking climbed the Great Wall.

And before I wrap this post, I’ve got to rant a bit: There’s a Disney-like conveyor car that slowly snakes its way up the mountain to the watch tower I didn’t make it to. All I’ve gotta say is, anyone who opts to take this means of transportation has never climbed the Great Wall, is a cheater, and DOES NOT qualify to order one of my cafepress shirts.

Applying for a Chinese Visa

After booking my flight to Beijing, I filled out my visa application. The plan was to drop it off at the Chinese consulate in Busan, then head up to Seoul for a week, then back to Busan to pick up my visa and take off for China the following day. However, when I took my application to the Chinese consulate, I was told my US permanent address was insufficient; I need to provide my address in Korea, too.

Ummm…that’s a bit problematic. My sister doesn’t even know her address – she uses the address of the school where she teaches (which happens to be right next door). I figure I should probably figure out her address, though, since the visa application is an official document.

So I head back to my sister’s place; when I reach the appropriate subway station, I find the area map, then jot down the name of the street — in Hangul (Korean characters) — she lives on, figuring I just need the street number and I’ll be set. When I reach her building, I realize there’s no building number – unlike the building that houses the Wooribank on the adjoining block (#44).

OK. Option 2: Go to my sister’s school and ask someone there what the address is. Fortunately, one of the assistants spoke English well enough to figure out what I was saying, and she gave me an envelope with the school letterhead. She also checked my sister’s address, so she wrote down the address for me. It looked like this:

707. ________________. 1641-2. _______________, where the first blank is the name of the building and the second blank is the district/borough in Busan. The information for the second blank is the same as that for the school that’s listed on the envelope, so that was easy to copy. However, my sister’s apartment is in a different building, so I asked the assistant if she knew the name of the building. She told me to find the name on the front of the building. This is what the front of the building looks like:

Um, yeah. Option 3: Go through the mail of other people who live in the building to find the building name. This was very much a process of elimination, as I mentally crossed out the Hongul characters for the country, city and district/borough. That left me with the Hongul characters that, when read aloud, sound kind of like “dee-bah-(r/l)ee-bee-tah.” So I jot that down, then go back out to look at the front of the building and realize it’s the bottom line of the banner on the building. So obvious.

Sometimes, I wish I could do this

Props to the foreign correspondent who threw a shoe at President Bush when he was in Iraq:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

It’s one thing to burn effigies of the American president in the streets amidst mass protests; it’s quite another to act alone in lodging your frustration and anger. In the former, you’re virtually anonymous and cannot be held accountable, whereas in the latter you know you’re going to be identified and judged for your behavior.

On the train back to Seoul

I’m off to Seoul for a week, and I have to admit, I’m a bit anxious. I’ve been living at my sister’s place in Busan the last two weeks, so I can hardly say I’ve been backpacking in the post-collegiate-European-jaunt sense of the word. But today I headed out with my monster backpack stuffed with clothes and toiletries yes, but also a towel and sheet — two essential items for the erstwhile traveler who plans to go low-budget on house to be able to splurge on local customs. I haven’t done this for over a decade, so I remind myself that was just fine as a single gal backpacking through Paris, Rome and Florence, so I’ll be just fine now, when I’m 10 years wiser.

I *think* I’ve reserved tickets for a pansori, a traditional Korean stage performance that apparently is the anchor of the “Korean Wave” — which is what the South Koreans use to describe international interest in their traditional performance art. I say I think I’ve reserved a ticket because the Chongdong Theater is closed on Monday, so I only sent a “reservation request” through the English-language version of the Web site. No actual payment for a ticket, and no reservation confirmation number. I plan to call the theater when I arrive in Seoul, but a mangled-English phone conversation isn’t likely to provide that much insight. They go something like this:

“An nyung ha say o”
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
“On no. Please wait minute.”
“Yes”
click…silence for 60 seconds
“An nyung ha say o”
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
“Little eengli-she”
“I would like to reserve one ticket please”
“Wa persa?”
“Yes. One person.”
“Wa persa. Day?”
“Thursday.”
“Tuesday?”
“No. Eleven December.”
“Oh. Eeleben Deesehm.”
“Yes.”
“You name?”
We spend about 2 minutes going back and forth while I spell my name in English, they repeat the spelling they heard, I invariably correct them, then they repeat the new spelling, until I decide it’s close enough and they probably won’t have any other foreigners showing up claiming to be me. They also ask for my email address to send a confirmation email; luck me, my email address is my full first and full last name, so I get to spell everything all over again, then read it back to me, I correct, and so on.

Now repeat this process another four times to make lodging accommodations and reservations for a few other cultural activities. You can see how this took upwards of an hour to complete. Following these stellar exchanges, I promptly located the email address for each business and sent a confirmation message to hope someone could match it with the conversation that just occurred. So far, that worked for the two places I reserved for my accommodations.