The Great Wall was even cooler than expected (and it was expected to be awesome), because in the late afternoon, we had the whole place to ourselves.

With the setting sun and the rolling hills, it was pretty magical.

Despite the vast length of the wall, it’s track record as a defensive monument was spotty.  Apparently some traitorous (or just scared) guard opened the gate for Genghis Khan.

Well worth the trip.

Did You Know?

The Great Wall is not “the only man-made structure visible from space.”  (Consider the fact that any two-lane highway is wider.)  But if you zoom in far enough on Google Earth, you can see it.

-Nick

Related posts:

1. Occupy Wall Street: Income Inequality Share Tweet Income Inequality: Occupy Wall Street thinks the American...
2. Occupy Wall Street: Unemployment Share Tweet Occupy Wall Street, you have our attention.  Now...
3. Occupy Wall Street: Corporate “Greed” Share Tweet Why Occupy Wall Street? Wall Street is symbolic...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Panda Porn

The Giant Panda is endangered, but apparently the pandas themselves are at least partially to blame.  Turns out they don’t much like the company of others, and they’re terrible parents.

According to our guide, certain panda centers have taken to showing the animals videos of their panda peers having sex, so they, you know, know what to do when the time is right.  Apparently it helps.

One thing it doesn’t help with is parenting, though.  If they can get two pandas to stand each other long enough to mate, mom really doesn’t want anything to do with the baby once it’s born.  Seems to go against biological nature, but apparently it’s a serious issue.  Zookeepers have to rush in and take the baby panda into protective custody or risk it dying of neglect.

One Child Policy

To curb population growth, China has enforced a strict One Child Policy since 1978.  The penalty for having a second baby is enough to “make an average family broke,” according to our guide.

Some unintended consequences:

• Since boys were preferred, and no-questions-asked abortions were readily available, millions of pregnancies were terminated as soon as the parents learned they were having a baby girl.
• This created a large gender imbalance.  Lots of competition for a generation of Chinese guys.
• To stop this behavior, it is now illegal to find out the sex of your child before birth.

Some interesting exceptions:

• Twins and triplets are exempt from the penalty (and I assume other multiple-births as well).
• If your baby is born with mental or physical disabilities, you can try again.
• If you live in a rural area and your first-born is a girl.
• If both parents hold a master’s or a PhD.
• If you’re rich and can afford to pay the penalty.  Apparently many celebrities and other wealthy Chinese laugh in the face of the One Child Policy.

Concubines

On our visit to Beijing we heard a lot about the emperor and his concubines.  It was good to be the emperor; he was the only male allowed to live in the 178 acre Forbidden City, and had his choice of 3000 ladyfriends.

The evening’s entertainment would be delivered to him pre-stripped (so as not to conceal any weapons).

And what’s in it for the girls?  Aside from the honor of serving the emperor, there was always the chance of becoming empress if you could produce a son.

Some emperors grew weary of the steady flow of concubines though, and would don disguises and venture beyond the palace walls in search of common prostitutes.

Whatever floats your boat.

*I fact-checked none of this.

-Nick

Related posts:

1. China Bound Share Tweet We’re off to Beijing this week so probably...
2. Beijing Share Tweet Bryn and I returned safe and sound from...
3. Is Valentine’s Day Really Just a Hallmark Holiday? Share Tweet Is Valentine’s Day just a corporate-created “holiday” designed...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Bryn and I returned safe and sound from our China trip.  Came down with a little bug toward the end but seem to be on the mend now.

We got an amazing deal through TravelZoo with a company called China Spree.  Like, airfare, hotel, meals, and the whole week’s worth of tours were less than the published price of just the flight.  It was too good to pass up, but we were slightly worried it was some sort of scam.  Turns out China Spree exceeded all expectations.  The only catch was it’s freezing in Beijing in January.

I was wary of being part of a tour group as we normally like to explore on our own.

I could learn to love it.

You just show up and everything is taken care of!  Kind of takes the adventure out of it, but I suppose that’s ok when time is limited.

Beijing First Impressions

Air China

I was pleasantly surprised by the leg room on Air China.  Especially given the general disregard for personal space everywhere else, this was a nice bonus.

Air You Can’t See Through

According to the US Embassy, the air quality during our first day in Beijing included readings of:

• “Hazardous”
• “Beyond Index” (off the charts?)
• “Very Unhealthy”

Thankfully it cleared up a bit after that, and eventually reached “Unhealthy”, “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups,” “Moderate”, and even “Good”.

It looks like fog, but you only wish it was water vapor you were breathing in.

The cars were coated in a thick layer of atmospheric nast.  One study found the lung cancer rate in Beijing up 60% over the last 10 years, even while the smoking rate remained flat.

Chairman Mao

The communist leader gets much better treatment in Chinese histories.  We’re more familiar with the horrific stories of his mass-murdering millions of his own citizens.

Our tour guide explained that her parents were Mao-supporters, but also acknowledged his track record was probably “50-50″ at best.

In the West, the true hero of modern China is Deng Xiaoping, whose economic reforms lifted hundreds of millions from poverty.

Euro-Centric Education

In visiting China, you realize how little you know about the world’s most populous country.  In school, it’s all Egypt and Mesopotamia, then on to Greece and Rome.  There’s a short mention about Eastern civilizations in India and China, but the most they cover is typically the invention of gunpowder.

And Marco Polo makes a visit.

Facebook is Banned

A national firewall (“The Great Firewall”) prevents access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, and more.  The communist party still fears open access to information (as a threat to their legitimacy?).

Socialism or Communism?

Interestingly, our guide kept referring to China as a socialist country. PotAYto PotAHto right?

-Nick

Related posts:

1. An Experiment: A Week Without Facebook Share Tweet I joined Facebook in 2004 when it was...
2. China Bound Share Tweet We’re off to Beijing this week so probably...
3. My Week Without Facebook Share Tweet Last week, I wrote about quitting Facebook for...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

We’re off to Beijing this week so probably no more blog posts.  Excited… it’s our first “real” trip in a long time.

China is the land of Mochi’s ancestors.  Apparently Shih Tzu means “Lion-Dog”….  Rarrrr!

-Nick

Related posts:

1. Post #600: Trends, Stats, and How Not to Become a Blog Millionaire Share Tweet This is the 600th post at nickloper.com, which...
2. Michele Bachmann Quotes Share Tweet These are real words from a real person...
3. A Visit From Jehovah’s Witnesses Share Tweet Everyone always talks about Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you’re looking for a travel book from a different perspective, check out Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.  For dreamers with itchy feet, it may be the perfect motivation to set out on a big adventure.

Potts describes how his minimalist “vagabonding” lifestyle has led to a truly enriched life as he’s experienced nearly every far-flung corner of the globe, and done it on the cheap.  The book is a little heavy on the traveler philosophy (as opposed to “tourist” philosophy) and light on the practical nuts and bolts, but I think that’s the point.  If you’re the type of person that needs to plan every detail of your trip down to the minute and penny, this type of travel isn’t going to work for you — either that or you won’t get as much out of it.

Which makes me wonder, am I too type-A to embark on this kind of journey?

Potts argues that travel today is being packaged and sold as a consumer good, just like a flat screen TV, and iPod, or a pair of sneakers.  Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but just something to be aware of, and be aware that an alternative exists.  Of course long-term travel is much easier to swing if you’re getting paid to do it, as the author is/was (by various magazines).

Either way, I appreciated how Vagabonding pays due respect to earlier travelers and writers, including Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir.  There’s a certain romance of the open road, about the endless possibilities that lay ahead, chasing the unknown or challenging yourself with a new adventure.  You never know who you might meet or what you might find, even if it’s just a stronger appreciation of “home.”

-Nick

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

On the way to New York last week for Affiliate Summit, I was surprised to see this image on the “flight-tracker” screen.  We were supposed to land soon, and we were way off course!

So then I became curious about how many extra miles were added to the trip.

Unfortunately I forgot everything I once knew about solving triangles.  SOHCAHTOA anyone?

It took some googling but I learned the Law of Sines:

So 2546/sin(120) = 2493/sin(B), meaning angle B, up there by Philly, was 57 degrees.

With the sum of the internal angles of every triangle equal to 180, I figured the angle over by SFO was only 3 degrees (180 = 120 + 57 + A).

sin(3) = .052

Solving for a above, I get a distance of 154 miles, which would mean the pilot’s detour added less than 100 miles to the total flight length.

But either I screwed up the math or eyeballed the “given” distances and angle wrong; the real distance between NY and Suffolk VA (approximate location shown) is 309 miles.  Maybe it’s something to do with not taking into account the curvature of the earth?

And after all that it turns out the “flight tracker” map was broken on the plane.  At the time I took that picture, we were really about 200 miles NNE.

-Nick

Related posts:

1. Prefer Non-Stop? Share Tweet Prefer nonstop? Who doesn’t?  When booking flights, no...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Prefer nonstop?

Who doesn’t?  When booking flights, no one ever thinks to themselves, “man I could really go for a layover or two.”  Everyone “prefers” non-stops, which is why it’s silly to put the checkbox that many flight search services do:

I never checked that box before today.  I was afraid that doing so would hide some amazing deal on a connecting flight.  If you’re curious, it doesn’t; it just makes the non-stops show up first in the results list.

So I guess it’s really about value.  Sure, I prefer a non-stop flight, but if I can save serious money by arriving an hour and half later, I’ll be taking the connecting flight.  Some customers will value that hour and half more than others.  Is it worth an $20 to fly direct?  An extra $100? $500?

What else do you “prefer” when flying, that there aren’t checkboxes for?

• Prefer no red-eye flights.
• Prefer no really early morning departures.
• Prefer no middle seats.
• Prefer to fly only the airline where I earn loyalty miles.
• Prefer no checked-bag fees.
• Prefer no TSA groping.
• Prefer to fly first class.
• Prefer only flights with movies.
• Prefer no crying babies.

Except for the TSA groping, (paying extra won’t exempt you from that experience) nearly every preference has a price.

-Nick

Related posts:

1. Flying Dogs Share Tweet If you want to fly with your dog,...
2. Why Would a One-Way Ticket Cost More Than a Round-Trip? Share Tweet As you’ve seen over the past few posts,...
3. 10 Best SkyMall Products Share Tweet After I finish (or give up on) the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Summer in Seattle is tough to beat, and we had a great trip last weekend.  Thanks to everyone for their hospitality and sharing the time with us.

-Nick

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As you’ve seen over the past few posts, airlines are a business I struggle to understand.  There seems to be so much opportunity to make flying a more pleasant experience, make customers happier, and make more money, yet they take the more difficult path at every turn.

Here’s another example of silliness I encountered last week.  A round-trip ticket priced at nearly half the price of a one way.  I couldn’t believe it.  Give double the service, and collect half as much.  There’s a genius business model if I’ve ever seen one.  I had to take screen shots because I knew it had to be a mistake and wouldn’t last long.

The roundtrip SFO –> EWR was $283, a VERY good deal for a cross-country trip.

Now, any rational person would expect the one-way leg SFO –> EWR to be equal to the “Departure Fare” shown: $120.  But as we’ve seen, airlines rarely behave rationally.  The one-way outbound flight booked on it’s own costs $480!

Hmm, the exact same flight, when booked on its own, costs 4x as much.  Why in the world would that be the case?  Why in the world would a one-way ticket twice as much as a round-trip?

It’s crazy town.  And granted this isn’t a common situation, but I can’t think of a single other business that operates this way. Can you imagine:

• A baseball stadium that sells 2 tickets for $50, but a single ticket costs $100?
• A grocery store that sells 2 apples for a $1, but a single apple costs $2?
• A clothing store that sells 2 shirts for $20, but a single shirt costs $40?

I don’t have the answer.  If someone really only wanted the one-way flight, what’s to stop them from buying the round-trip ticket and just not showing up for the flight?  Only in that case the airline loses because they have a seat they could have sold to somebody else.  It makes no sense.

-Nick

Related posts:

1. Flying Dogs Share Tweet If you want to fly with your dog,...
2. How Much Does a Text Message Really Cost? Share Tweet I had a hypothesis that text messaging is...
3. Should Airlines Show Their Seat Maps? Share Tweet Seat Maps Should Airlines show their seat map...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you want to fly with your dog, it’s not cheap.  On Southwest, it costs $75 each way.  On Alaska Airlines, it costs $100 each way.  This is another example of airline silliness.

Consider:

• When ticket prices for people occupying a real seat are cheaper than the dog fare, you must still pay the full dog fare.  I asked if I could just buy another ticket instead, and completely oblivious to the silliness, the airline rep said, “yes of course, but you’d still have to pay the dog fee, and they would still have to stay under the seat in front of you.”
• Babies under 2 fly free, as long as they don’t occupy another seat.
• Other carry-ons that fit under your seat fly free.
• A pet carrier essentially takes the place of another carry-on, meaning increased revenue opportunity for the airline in checked bag fees.

I’m not suggesting the airline shouldn’t charge anything to let dogs on board, because in doing so they are accepting a certain level of liability, whether it be passenger allergies, annoying barking, or even a vicious shih-tzu attack.  And to a certain extent, customers are willing to pay something for the privilege of transporting their pooch.  But I’m suggesting the airline could actually make more money (if that’s their goal) by reducing their pet fee to, say $25.

Currently the airlines are pricing themselves out of the business.  By agreeing to lower price, they’ll attract more dog customers.  And when you’re selling something that costs you nothing, it’s always best to sell as much of it as you can.  The margins on under-seat storage are incredible!  The pricing should focus on achieving maximum volume, not gouging the few flyers who have no alternative.  Plus you get to make more on checked bag fees as the dog replaces another carry-on.

-Nick

Related posts:

1. My Airfare Pricing Proposal Share Tweet Airfare pricing is a silly dance. It’s possible...
2. Should Airlines Show Their Seat Maps? Share Tweet Seat Maps Should Airlines show their seat map...
3. How to Scam the Garbage Man Share Tweet Local garbage pick-up was recently taken over from...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.