What Is The Most Interesting Thing........?

We went through West Virginia once on a vacation, and while there we went down into a coal mine. We rode down on a tram, and when we got to the lowest point, they turned off the lights for a few minutes. I have never experienced such darkness, it almost made you feel as though you were smothering. I can't imagine how miners in years gone by found the determination to work under such conditions.

 

It is difficult to name just one thing,
mountains in the western states are beautiful,

the cities in the eastern states, and everything inbetween.

I love the ocean and sailing!

Now the glaciers in Alaska are really something and they also have beautiful flowers in the summer. The whales are a sight to behold!

 

Gotta be the Lincoln Memorial, and also the Vietnam Memorial.

A few years back, a local university acquired a piece of the Berlin Wall. I stumbled upon it while jogging one morning. That's pretty cool, too!!

 

I have just returned from New Zealand which is let me say this right out loud, a very beautiful place to go. Whilst there I saw what is the Maori name for the God of Trees. It was the most awesome tree I have ever had the priveledge to see, a Kauri over 2000 years old. I felt very humble to be a witness to the majesty of such. I have never seen an American Redwood which is suppose to be biggish...

 

Well I only go out of state once a year, just inot Norht Carolina to see a doctor, and I have been to Tennessee. If any of you have ever traveled through the very litte town of Gaffney SC, then you all probably have seen our big peach. The seventh wonder of the south. {Don't ask what the other six are, cause I don't know!}
I also saw in a parking lot right after 9/11 a truck with a hanging nuse and a sign that said "Osama's Swing Set!" I thought that was pretty neat.
~Abby

 

Oh, yes. I have seen it countless times travelling on interstate 85. I have even stopped at this diner near the outlet mall just off 85 for lunch. I forgot the name of it, but I think I had a grilled chicken breast, hash browns, and iced tea

 

I have taken friends to see this big peach that looks like butt cheeks.

 

When people see that peach, they sometimes think they're in Georgia

 

Neuschwanstein (the Cinderella Castle) in Germany

The Holocaust Museum in Washington

The Punchbowl Veteran's Cemetery in Honolulu

Watching touch and goes on the USS George Washington (from another ship).

Watching aircraft taking off from Bahrain during the initial bombing in Gulf War I (had just arrived there as a Reservist).

Getting several hundred feet from a Soviet frigate in the Eastern Med while on a small boat (was in the 1980's and they always had one shadowing our ships in the area).

 

I can think of the preserved Cane Toads in Queensland, Australia. They got them doing all sorts of poses like golfing and such.


I can gross everyone one out by talking about public toilets in China!

They are separate cubicles (but no door covering) and you do "it" into a common drain. When it (the drain) is full, the attendant will flush through with a pail of water.

This is in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, not the outskirts! I think they're trying to change in Beijing to get ready for the Olympics.

I didn't have the guts to go into one when i was in China last year. But my friends did.

I did go to a fresh produce market in a more rural part of China. you choose the chicken or duck that you want and it's slaughtered right before your eyes. Couldn't bear to look.

Various sellers will just place their wares and produce on a canvas sheet on the road (people, carts going by right next to the food stuff).

Oh yes, and my friend, living in China, recently came across freshly slaughtered dog.


Anyone interested to go to China?

 

I think HK is much different from much of China. But having said that, the bigger cities in China are really progressive. Skyscrapers and everything.

What can change in HongKong? No space to do anything...

Shopping in China is amazing. You can get a pure wool (Woolmark) sweater for roughly US$15.
How much do you pay in the States?

But don't think of travelling there now. There's an atypical pneumonia bug going around, 10 dead already in HK alone.

 

I saw a girl blow herself up in Key West. That was pretty cool.

 

You're a sick puppy, Smoke Eater.

 

No, it was a stunt. She crams herself into this little box and shoves an explosive device under it.

BOOM! It's great.

 

I've seen everything.

Once, in the Indian Ocean, we were doing some ops on our ship, and a Russian oil tanker showed up. (this was 1981) We chased it for a few miles, and they started throwing dead cattle off the ship. Some of these animals had been dead for weeks. I mean the sea was full of animal carcasses for as far as you could see. Surreal.