China Walk Man

by Neil Woodburn on


I’m always fascinated by walk/don’t walk signals when I travel. Sometimes they are just simple stick figures cut out of a piece of black board that is lit from behind. Other times the figures are elegantly shaped and intricately lighted. You can tell a lot about a country by the workmanship of their crosswalk figures.

Certainly the most famous is the East German Ampelmännchen, a portly figure with a top hat. Even to this day visitors can tell which part of the former divided city they are in by simply looking at the crosswalk figure (although many have been replaced with rather boring EU characters).

I certainly wish I had started taking photographs of my favorite crosswalk figures when I first began traveling; I’d have a great collection by now.

Recently, I spotted the above animated walk man while crossing the street in China. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an active walk signal. And, with such a wonderful gait! I wasn’t about to let this one go by undocumented and so I stood in the middle of the street and shot a short video of this fine example of China moving up in the world.

The Punchbowl: Another cemetery of note

by Jamie Rhein on

Martha’s post on cemeteries got me thinking–particularly since a few days before I wrote a post that included one of the cemeteries that made her list. While Arlington National Cemetery is a splashy, must-see cemetery on the east coast, across the Pacific Ocean in Honolulu is another national cemetery that offers a glimpse at major happenings in the world ‘s history.

The National Memorial Cemetery for the Pacific, more commonly known as The Punchbowl, is a cemetery developed for those who died in the Pacific campaigns during WW II. Later, people who died in Korea and Vietnam were buried here. These days those who served in the military who want to be buried in a military cemetery are buried at Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery in Kaneohe, Hawaii, also on Oahu because the Punchbowl is full to capacity. Along with the history lesson found by reading the various signage in the cemetery, another interesting feature its it’s punchbowl shape. The cemetery resides in the dormant volcano, Pouwaina which was aptly named. Pouwaina means consecrated hill or hill of sacrifice.

As a person who wasn’t the best at paying attention in social studies in high school, I found my trip here fascinating. I had a tour guide though who had a personal connection. My great uncle who retired from the army as a Lt. Colonel and stayed in Hawaii after wards since this was his last posting (and frankly, if you were retiring and happened to live on O’ahu, would you leave?) served in WW II, Korea and the Vietnam War. Even without my uncle, you’ll get a sense of the far reaches of the people who are buried here. Thousands of them were never identified.

Here’s a website I found Acres of Honor, that has in depth descriptions of the cemetery, plus photos and movies. There is a link to visiting information as well.

24: The best way to tackle long flights

by Neil Woodburn on

I recently flew to China on one of those grueling trans-Pacific flights from Los Angeles.

If you ask me, 12 hours in a plane is one of the worst experiences on this planet.

But this time I was prepared.

Before leaving I went and rented the entire Season 3 of the hit action show, 24. I then spent nearly a week converting the DVDs to iPod format with a trusty program I purchased called Cucusoft iPod Video Converter Suite. The reason it took so long is because Cucusoft converts in real time. That meant running 24 hours of DVDs in, well, 24 hours.

When this was completed, I loaded all 24 episodes onto my video iPod. There was only one problem; a regular iPod battery would never last the whole 12-hour flight running videos. Thankfully I have an extended battery that came with my MyVu goggles that simply snaps into place around my video iPod.

From LA to Beijing I then watched 12 episodes back-to-back. This is such an exciting, engaging series in which most every episode ends in some type of cliffhanger, just begging you to keep watching. And I did. The flight passed extraordinarily quickly and by the time we landed I was all amped up on Jack’s adventures.

Of course, when you watch this show in real time it seems incredibly ridiculous that so much could happen in just 12 hours. But that certainly didn’t stop me from watching the last 12 hours on my way home two weeks later.

Animated Mt. Rushmore: a singing quartet

by Jamie Rhein on

When I was browsing the The Black Hills Travel blog to write a post about it, I came across this video of an animated Mt. Rushmore. If this won’t perk up your day, I don’t know what will. At first I thought they were going to start bursting out with “Good Morning Star Shine” from the musical “Hair” which would have been just too perfec considering the other post I just wrote, but that’s not the song. You’ll recognize it. By the way, I’ve said this before, but Mt. Rushmore, as hokey as it might seem, is worth going to. Thanks HerBunk for sharing this on YouTube. Click here for details about the video.