Dawn in New York

Between 7pm and 8pm Alex/Jen/Mac time yesterday, we squeezed in 14 hours of air travel (aren't time zones interesting). I slept about 7 hours of that awaking at about 4:30 pm New York time. We landed at 8pm. Through immigration, customs, baggage claim, airport transit, the subway, a bus, stopping at a grocery, and we finally made it to Don's house in Brooklyn at a little after 11pm.

5:30 am is suprisingly lively around here. Cole got of his shift at the restaraunt and home about then. So we chatted for a little bit. (Alex had been awake since 4 so he went off to catch a train to DC.) Firth was up by 6 am. By 7 am, Mac and Hedy were up. By 7:20, Cole was back downstairs with Claire (2 years) to make breakfast. I'm hoping to squeeze in a run before we go out to breakfast.

Hard Numbers

Some people (who shall remain nameless but may be typing this blog entry) like using statistics to illustrate issues: So . . .

Provinces visited: 8 + Hong Kong (Guangdong, Guanxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hebei, Jiangshu + Beijing & Shanghai cities, administered separately)
Airplanes taken: 8 (4 domestic, 4 international)
Intercity buses taken: 11 (including 1 overnight from Shenzhen to Yangshou)
Trains taken: 3 (including 1 overnight from Beijing to Shanghai, pictured right)
Mountains Climbed: 2 (Emei Shan in Sichuan, Hua Shan in Shaanxi)
Veritcal meters ascended: 5260 (not including up & down the great wall)
Horizontal kilometers hiked on mountains/walls/trails: about 85 (Emei Shan, Hua Shan, Wolong Reserve, Great Wall
Horizontal kilometers walked in cities: untracked (We covered about 15km on our last day in Shanghai; most city days were similar.)
Books read: 7.5 (still half-way through both Collapse and Dictionary of Maqiao)
Photos taken: about 1700 (on 5 one gig memory cards)
Bottles of water consumed: between 90-180 (hard to say really)
Cups to tea drunk: ?
Pairs of pants lost: 1 (Mine)