Nuclear Plant Tour

by Neil Woodburn on

Well, it’s not for everyone, but if you are a Cold War buff, or fascinated by the nuclear arms race, Richland, Washington has a place for you.

The Hanford Nuclear Site was built in 1944 to help provide plutonium to the Manhattan Project. For the next 45 years, the site’s nine reactors pumped out enough plutonium to turn our planet into a raging sun. In the process, the site, according to Wired Magazine, produced “53 million gallons of radioactive liquid and sludge, 25 million cubic feet of solid radioactive waste, and 270 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater.” Yikes!

Fortunately, the site is no longer active. Cleaning it up, however, is an ongoing process and will take the next couple of hundred years to completely scour clean.

In the meantime, since taxes paid for this whole mess, the site occasionally opens up for public tours. David Wolman, writing for Wired Magazine, recently joined such a tour. His write-up is brief, but enticing. And was apparently, radioactive free!

If you have any interest in spending four hours wandering around this glowing piece of atomic history, Hanford is offering six free tours on June 13 and 14. But be sure to act quickly. Reservations go live May 16th, 2007 at 12:00 noon and will undoubtedly sell out very quickly.

California’s Piers

by Neil Woodburn on

Piers, it seems, have lost their purpose in California.

Well, to be more specific, they no longer provide a dock for steamers to unload goods. This has been the case for a long time. Today, the piers do little else but provide an opportunity for tourists to stretch their legs and wander just a bit further west than where the land itself ends.

So why am I writing about piers? Well, the New York Times has decided to dedicate a whole article to the Piers of California: At Sea Without a Sail.

The article provides some interesting history about the storied piers of the Golden State and why they still exist today. As a resident of Los Angeles, and one who lives just a mile from the Venice Pier and less than ten miles from the Santa Monica Pier, I wanted to add in my two cents.

First of all, the Venice Pier is hardly mentioned. Perhaps, it is because the pier, rebuilt after a winter storm a few years ago, is nothing more than a byway of concrete stretching out to the ocean. No shops, restaurants, or rides. I used to rollerblade to the end of it, but since the city began prohibiting any type of wheels on the pier, I haven’t bothered to step foot (or wheel) on it for a number of years. Pity.

The Santa Monica Pier, on the other hand, is a great big monster of a wooden pier–just the way they should be built. Unfortunately, the food is average, the rides are average, the parking is horrible, and the people are a bit scary at night. In the last five years, I’ve actually been to the Santa Monica Pier fewer times than the Venice Pier. There is one exception, however. The Thursday Twilight Dance Concerts in the summertime are always a great gig. Last year saw the likes of Poncho Sanchez and Dick Dale performed live under the stars. And, it’s free.

So, that’s my two cents on two local piers. The New York Times article covers a handful of others throughout the state, some good, some bad. But don’t get me wrong. No matter what west-facing pier you happen to find yourself, there is really nothing better than sitting right above the break as the sun is going down. That, my friends, is what California is all about.

Old Time Fake Airplane Pictures

by Justin Glow on

I guess back in the olden days, when flying was left to birds and very, very fortunate human beings, the concept was a novelty so great that people lined up to have their picture taken while sitting on a wooden structure made to resemble an airplane in flight. This whole concept of having your picture taken in ludicrous scenes that you know can’t be true is puzzling to me. Anyhow, there’s a whole gallery with photos like the one above. The looks on the people’s faces are classic! Some look quite scared, even though it’s obvious they’re only 2 feet off the ground. Others look drunk.

This is kind of like how these days we line up to put old timey clothes on to have sepia-stained photographs taken of us holding shotguns and bottles of XXX whiskey while at Six Flags, only in reverse.

[via grow-a-brain]

Gadling’s 10,000th Post

by Erik Olsen on

It was back in October of 2004…October 4 to be precise, that I penned the very first post for Gadling.com. A few weeks before, I’d met Jason Calacanis for a bite at Pastis in the West Village, and he told me he was looking for a travel writer to start a blog. I’d been reading a few blogs at that time, but there were not many (and hardly any good ones) dedicated entirely to travel. I knew I had to sign up. And so here we are two and a half years later and, with this very post, we reach an amazing blogmark.

This is gadling’s 10,000th post.

A really amazing achievement, I think. Man, it makes my head spin just to think of all the things we’ve covered, the gazillions of articles we’ve read and written about, trips we’ve done, blogs we’ve reviewed, snarky thoughts we’ve had on everything from airlines to zippers. And all the amazing folks who have joined up to make gadling one of the best travel blogs out there.

I’ll not wax poetic here for long. This is a post to congratulate all the folks who have built gadling over the last couple of years. Not just the stable of strong and passionate writers, but also the dedicated readers and photographers and so on who keep gadling going strong.

Congrats to everyone on reaching an amazing milestone.

A Canadian in Beijing: Walls and Their Greatness

by Ember Swift on

When I get really tired I hit a wall.

By that, I mean that I suddenly get a wash of my fatigue throughout my whole body and mind and spirit and I lose the capacity to speak clearly, think clearly, function. At those moments, I could lie down pretty much anywhere with my bag as a pillow and sleep immediately. All I need is about twenty minutes and then I wake up refreshed.

This doesn’t bode well for a traveller who does a lot of driving. Thankfully, I’m not the only driver in the band (thanks Lyndell!) and when those moments come over me behind the wheel, I always pull over and switch.

I experienced one of these moments today on the way back from the excursion to the Mutianyu Great Wall.

The school (our tuition?) paid for this trip today. All of the part-time students in the twenty-hours-per-week program were given a formal invitation and I took the opportunity. Am I ever glad I did! The Great Wall was indeed great — vast, in fact — and I hope that I can seek out other locations to see more of its beauty.

I spent the bus ride there sitting beside a man from Turkey who is here to learn Chinese. He is a textile engineer by trade and his company needs Mandarin speaking employees. We got that far in English, but his Chinese was better than his English and I don’t speak Turkish, so we exchanged simple conversation in Mandarin and examined the countryside through the windows while we drove the 73 kilometres northeast of Beijing towards Mutianyu.

When we arrived at Mutianyu and were milling about the bus waiting for instructions, I heard the beautiful sounds of Quebecois French being spoken and I swirled around to locate the speakers. Turns out that two guys from Montreal (Alex and Stephane) are here to take the same course as I am and I fell into a French conversation with joy.

It’s amazing to struggle with a third language for a week and then to watch yourself fly with your second language. I’ve had to keep my French language brain on a leash because it’s been trying to save me all week when I’ve been struggling to find Mandarin words. Seems it was truly itching to be released! They, too, seemed relieved to speak French with someone other than each other.

The instructions we received were simply to be back at the bus for 1:00pm. Everyone dispersed.

Tourist locations in China aren’t as organized and prescribed as tourist locations in North America, I find. They have their share of vendors and souvenirs, but there are only guides if you pay for them and signage is limited. When there were signs, they were in both English and Chinese, but there was little to no history provided on these signs and we were a guide-less group. We had the option of purchasing information books from the vendors, but they were grossly overpriced.

So the gang of us walked the eight-square kilometres of this section of the Great Wall without a guide or a guidebook. Many areas were so steep that resting as we ascended was essential. Since this lies along the a very angled mountainous section of terrain, you can imagine the grade of the walkways and the endless stairs that we climbed – all different heights and dimensions. I thought a few times of the sheer number of feet that have climbed those stairs over the years.

I was reminded by Alex that much of the mortar includes the bones of those who died while building the wall. I looked more closely at the stones then and marvelled at the 1800+ years it took to build such a vast structure, the lives spent and lost in the pursuit of its protection, and the culture of enclosure and/or resistance to outsiders it required to support such an undertaking.

Almost at the bottom, we heard the sound of screaming. A quick glance around and we found the source. There was a metal slide snaking down from the wall’s appex so that people can slide themselves down the mountain on small seats with wheels and brakes. Right next to the cable cars, it suddenly looked like an amusement park.

I had a hard time with this. It’s hard to be amused alongside an historic structure that has witnessed and/or been the source of so much death and destruction over the years. Still, I had to admit that it looked like fun! Oh the contradictions I hold…

At the bottom, we emerged into a sea of vendors whose sales pitches echoed identical across stalls: “Souvenirs! I remember you! Hello! Nice Souvenirs! I give you good price! Come look, look! Hello!” I have resorted to saying in slow and deliberately laboured Chinese that I speak French (wo shuo fawen). That’s true, although it implies that I don’t understand them in English and the ploy usually works. I have silenced many a vendor with this technique. (Thanks to Jacinthe Murphy in Montreal who passed this tip along!)

Finally back at the bus after haggling the price of a banana down to half of what they wanted in an overpriced stall –here’s when speaking some Chinese is very helpful — we all got on the bus and pulled away.

I was excited to be on the same side of the bus this time because I knew I’d see the views on the opposite side of the road as we headed back to Beijing. I was ready to take it all in, but after only ten minutes, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I tried to fight it but I knew I had to sleep. Eight kilometres of walking will do that to a person, not to mention the lingering jet lag. I lay my head against the window and let myself hit the wall.

I woke up to the driver honking his intention to pass another car on the empty stretch of highway. I smiled and checked my watch. I was refreshed and I had visited a section of the Great Wall of China. This is something I’ve been wanting to see for years. Two walls and no complaints.

Today is a great day.