I am not a Stephen King junkie. I think the only book of his 61 novels I have read was Carrie when I was in high school. That said I have loved some of his movies; The Green Mile, Stand by Me and Shawshank Redemption is possibly my favorite movie of all time.
Oh and I have to give a shout out to Rose Red (TV Miniseries) because my son had a cameo part in that movie! He was so cute.
But I digress. Stephen King books aren’t usually my cup of tea. But 11/22/63 kept showing up on lists of must reads, and then my friend Sue said it was here book club’s favorite of the year. Seemed like it was calling to me. And even though it was published in 2011, I’ve finally come around to reading it.
This book is a behemoth. More than 850 pages. What an undertaking King pulled off with this book. Apparently it too was a mini-series that I never heard of.
So by the title you can assume the book is about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 11/22/63. But the focus of the story is much broader. This is the story of unassuming high school teacher Jake Epping who travels back in time through a “rabbit hole” found by his friend, in an effort to stop the assassination.
King takes his time with this story, filling the plot with exciting detail as we follow Jake’s efforts to change history. Not a simple task as he learns the past does not want to change, and the past throws obtacles at Jake, nearly killing him on several occasions. As Jake says over and over in the book the past is obdurate.
Jake makes multiple trips through the rabbit hole, and of course on each journey he meets, befriends and even falls in love with people from the past. Jake also makes enemies, gets to know Oswald and the other players in the JFK assassination and finds out changing history is not always the best course of action.
Although I felt a few parts of the book dragged, I also feel King’s detailed story is crucial to the complicated plot and thus justifies the length of this meticulously comprehensive book.
Does Jake succeed? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Four stars for 11/22/63 by Stephen King. Read last week’s review of City of Girls.
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Seeing orangutans, gorilla and chimpanzees in the wild has been a long time goal of mine. Last year I checked off my bucket list seeing sloths and toucans in the wild. This year I’m totally focused on primates – including visiting endangered primates in Borneo.
And that is what has brought us to the far northeast region of Borneo and the Sepilok Forest – home to the beautiful but endangered orangutans as well as the bizarre and endangered proboscis monkeys.
On our river tour, Sepilok Borneo
We spent three days in Sepilok. Flying into the Sandakan airport we traveled by Grab (Uber) thirty minutes to our destination of the Sepilok Forest Edge Resort. I can not recommend this place highly enough. We loved our beautiful little chalet with veranda and outdoor shower (an indoor one as well). The breakfast was outstanding as were the two fantastic dinners we enjoyed in the restaurant. Just $80 per night for two with the breakfast included.
Dinner at Sepilok Forest Edge Resort
We arrived around 3:00pm and unpacked and took a short rest – very short because we had pre-arranged an evening boat tour through the mangroves. The tour was promoted as a Firefly Tour but it was way more than that.
Fresh Coconut at sunset
First we drove about 20 minutes to a teeny village in the mangrove marsh where we were served yummy Cassava fritters and tea before boarding a small wooden boat. Our guides took us through the watery world of mangroves and it reminded me of our time in Bangladesh and even looked a bit like the Amazon and even the Everglades. We stopped to admire some long-tailed macaque monkeys grooming each other high in the trees.
Sunset in the mangroves
We stopped on a tiny island where we were served fresh coconut and watched the sunset. Once it was dark we headed back into the mangroves in our boat and the fireflies lit up the night. The trees along the channels looked like lighted Christmas trees and the little bugs made me think of Tinkerbell. Returning to shore we were served a simple and delicious Malaysian meal of curry chicken, sweet and sour tuna, soup, rice and vegetable fritters. All of this cost $55 per person.
But the fireflies are also endangered, like so much else in this beautiful region. Learn more about the fireflies here.
Back to Sepilok Forest Edge Resort and a good night’s sleep.
Next morning we were up early and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in the open air restaurant before making the 15 minute trek to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. Entrance fee was $7.50 each.
Did you know the words orang utan means forest human in Malay? When you watch these animals up close it is remarkable how humanlike their behavior is.
Mama and baby at feeding time
This is an amazing place working to keep the orangutans from becoming extinct. Over the past two decades the orangutan population in Borneo has dwindled from 200,000 to only 11,000! The main reason this is happening is deforestation. Native forests are being eliminated and in their place mile after mile after mile of palm oil trees are being planted…pushing the orangutans to the brink of existence. Palm oil is used in thousands of products commercially produced. Everything from ice cream to soap. It’s likely you have products in your home right now with palm oil as an ingredient that has come from Borneo.
This is a palm oil nut from a palm oil tree
Young male orangutan getting exercise
At the Sepilok Orangutan Reabilitation Center two things occur;
Wild orangutans learn to come here to help supplement their diet during two “feeding” times a day. The wild animals, especially nursing mothers, that are unable to find adequate nutrition due to the dwindling native forests come to the reserve and receive fresh fruits and vegetables.
Injured or orphaned orangutans are brought from outside the region to receive medical attention or to learn necessary skills to survive in the wild. All with the goal of releasing these animals back into the wild when they are ready.
Mom and Baby looking healthy and well fed
We saw dozens of orangutans while we visited the reserve…some just wandering around or swinging through the trees, others during their feeding. The reserve is not a zoo – there are no fences keeping these wild animals in. They come and go as they need.
This young orangutan was strolling along the path at the same time we were
It was a joyful experience and a dream come true for me!
We knew almost nothing about the funny looking proboscis (meaning nose) monkeys, but found that they too are suffering from deforestation. So on our final day we headed 30 minutes away to the Labak Bay Proboscis Monkey Reserve. Entry fee $15 each.
A dominate male proboscis monkey
The facilities here were not as nice as the orangutan reserve (and twice as expensive) but we still really enjoyed seeing these strange animals with the Jimmy Durante nose. I was astonished at the size of the males and their strength as well as how they can jump like kangaroos. Unlike orangutans who live a pretty solitary life, the proboscis monkeys live a harem kind of hierarchy with one dominant male overseeing multiple females and offspring.
Looking pensive
I learned a lot about all of these animals in our three day visit and we also saw macaque monkeys, one wild boar, and giant monitor lizards to round our our wildlife adventure!
Monitor Lizard about five feet long
An interesting note – monitor lizards are the only native animal thriving in the palm oil plantations. In fact, they are growing incredibly large and due to population explosion of monitor lizards they are more aggressive. A clear sign of an eco-system out of balance.
The animals come in large family groups from the forest to the center to feed.
Although there were many tourists, we met no other Americans. It’s a long ways to come from the USA, but if you can it’s worth a visit. I truly enjoyed visiting endangered primates in Borneo.
Young male – he seems to be contemplating his future
We look forward to more primate encounters in the months ahead, but we will never forget our amazing time visiting endangered primates in Borneo. Fabulous.
I need to preface this review with two things before I can tell you how I feel about this novel;
First – Gilbert. If you have only read her work Eat Pray Love then in my opinion you don’t really know her work. I HATED Eat Pray Love. Yeah, yeah I know….everybody loved it. I did not. HOWEVER her novel The Signature of All Things is one of the best pieces of fiction I have ever read. And so I know that Gilbert is a talented writer.
Second – City of Girls is about Sex. A lot of sex. In fact this book is about a woman who LOVES sex. However there is really only one sexual encounter in the story that is descibed in “detail”. Otherwise, the main character in City of Girls just has sex – and a lot of it. If you can’t get past that you won’t like this book. I could get past it and see through it to a character that was lost and searching for love and fulfillment in a period in America where women rarely got both. Gilbert writes the emotions of this story brilliantly. I listened to this book on Audible and it is one of my favorites this year.
So, Book Review City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Her third novel and her fourth book (EAT is a memoir not a novel). In this story we meet Vivian, a very old lady looking back at her life and telling the story of it. We aren’t sure who she is telling the story to, until very late in the book.
Vivian’s story begins when she is 19 years old in the early 1940’s, has just flunked out of Vassar and her parents have sent her off to her Aunt in New York City, as they have no idea what else to do with her.
And thus Vivian’s life adventures begin as she is swept up into the theatrical world surrounding the Lily Playhouse run by her Aunt. In the company of risque theater people, actors, actresses, dancers, rich New York patrons she finds herself basically unchaperoned, and living a life she never could have dreamed of.
Quickly she looses her virginity, falls hard for an actor, betrays a close friend and scandal ensues. She is a survivor however and finds her way back, although never all the way back to some of the people she loved the most but who cannot forgive her.
In the end, Vivian has a full life, sexual partners too many to count, and is a successful business woman in a very unique way for a women of the time period. And in the end, her life has meaning in an unexpected way as she finds true love, but to a man she can never have sex with or even touch. A lesson here? Definitely.
I enjoyed the characters, the story and Gilbert’s writing. The plot so completely different than The Signature of All Things, yet similar only in the strong female character busting out of the constraints of the era they were born into.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Five stars for City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Read last week’s review of The Invisible Woman.
We were supposed to go to Hong Kong, but canceled at the last minute due to the violence going on there. What to do? Where to go? How about Taipei Taiwan last minute? Great decision. What a great place.
Lungshan Temple
I knew nothing about Taipei. I didn’t mean for it to be my second choice. And after spending six days there, I can most assuredly say you should put it in your travel destinations.
Here are my favorite things we did in beautiful Taipei Taiwan last minute;
Like It Formosa
As we do on our first day in most cities we did a “free” walking tour with Like It Formosa. Our tour guide Eleanor was amazing. Her wealth of knowledge about Taipei old and new, ancient history and current events made the three plus hour tour remarkable. I highly recommend Like It Formosa. On the tour we made several stops but my favorites were;
Original painted movie poster, Sanxia Old Street
Lungshan Temple – this is a favorite of locals – one of the few that survived WWII. This 300 year-old temple is in one of Taipei’s oldest neighborhoods and it is visited by people of multiple faiths including Taoists, Buddhists and Confucians. As a visitor it’s a wonderful place to see local people who bring offerings of flowers, food and other items as they worship here to several gods including a match-making god and a fertility god.
Sanxia Old Street – partially restored (with additionally restoration underway) this ancient street was built during Taiwan’s period of Japanese rule and displays the baroque-style architecture of the period.
Chiang Kai Shek Memorial
Chiang Kai Shek Memorial – a bit shocking in its immensity, it was here we learned on our tour details about this man…someone I would have thought the Taiwanese revered. But Chiang Kai Shek held the country under martial law for decades, and in his life acted more like an Emperor than a President and so the Taiwanese have mixed feelings about the leader of the Republic of China.
Tower 101 and Neighborhood
On our second day we wandered the city on our own and enjoyed riding up to the top of the Taipei 101 Tower. We had bought ticket online ahead of time but did not need to as it was not busy at all. The view in this 1200 foot high building is remarkable, and the elevator ride is impressive – one of the fastest elevators in the world.
The 1200 foot Taipei 101 Tower
The tower building is also home to a vast shopping mall as well as a wonderful food court in the basement. We enjoyed dinner here walking around and choosing a variety of dishes including the popular oyster omelet, glazed chicken, tempura vegetables and a chocolate pound cake.
From the 101 Tower Observatory
We hiked up the arduous 500 steps to Elephant Mountain, a popular and sometimes busy viewpoint of the city. It was a real workout, but we were glad we did it.
The view from Elephant Mountain
Local Markets
We visited the lively, local Beitou daily market where locals buy and sell everything from bok choi to pigs trotters and papaya to frogs legs. It was busy and loud and colorful and I loved it.
Pig trotters at Beitou Market
We also visited two of Taipei’s famous night markets…there are dozens of night markets. These serve as gathering places for locals to walk, meet, eat, drink and shop. We loved the Shiling Night Market and spent several hours there grazing our way through dumplings and octopus and more. We also went to the Linjiang Night Market, but it was rainy and wet that night and there were not many people out enjoying it.
Shiling Night Market
Cooking Class
As I do as often as I possibly can while traveling I spent a day in a cooking class with a local chef. It was outstanding and I learned some fun recipes and enjoyed a great meal at the end with Chef Calvin of GoTuCook. I’ll be writing a full blog about this soon.
Cooking with GoTuCooks
Taipei Eats
As usual food is a big part of our travels and one of the best things we did during our visit to Taipei was a Night Food Tour with Taipei Eats. Our guide Diego was awesome! And we tasted at least ten different foods and I was about to explode by the end of the night. I highly recommend this tour and ask for Diego. Some of my favorite things were Taiwan Green Guava with salt, Taiwan “burger” which was pork, peanut powder and cilantro in a hot fresh Bao Bun, scallion pancake, soup dumplings, Moon Cake (filled with egg yolk and sweet red beans. We also tried stinky tofu (no thanks) and betel nut (like tobacco – eww) and the specialty of Taiwan pineapple cake. What a wonderful night it was.
Scallion Pancake
Out of the City
We spent one day checking out some sights outside of the city. Originally we wanted to do some hiking, but the weather turned wet so we ended up booking a shuttle service with Klook that would take us to several beautiful and interesting places outside of the city throughout the day. I’m really glad we did because we enjoyed most of it. We especially liked;
Yeolin Geo Park – a UNESCO National Geological site with incredibly strange yet beautiful geological formations on the sea in the north of Taiwan. It was fascinating and if you had the time you could spend many hours in the park.
Yeolin Geo Park Formations
Jioufen – a historic mountain side village literally hangs from the side of the mountain. Jioufen is now pretty much gone over to tourism, but we still enjoyed the beautiful views from the town and walking around the historic old village. We had a remarkable bowl of beef noodle soup to that was worth the price of admission.
Jioufen Mountain Village
We also stopped at Shifen…but were a bit disappointed in this place. First of all it was pouring down ran, but mostly it was crowded with tourists who come to release paper lanterns into the sky for luck. But it was pretty kitschy and not at all authentic and so we didn’t love it. Maybe on a sunny day…
Shifen Village, note lantern being released in the back
Taipei Taiwan Last Minute
We have no regrets about our visit to Taipei. We stayed at the Dandy Hotel near Daan Park, which we loved. The room was small but comfortable, the breakfast was incredible and the staff was excellent. Right next door was the Metro. We used Taipei’s remarkably efficient and inexpensive metro throughout our visit and loved it.
And finally the Taiwanese people are wonderful. They are proud to be Taiwanese NOT Chinese, although there is a small faction that wants the island nation to return to China and the People’s Republic of China. But everyone we met wants to remain independent with their current government (Republic of China) which has been governing for 70 years despite the fact they still are not recognized by the United Nations.
Taipei Taiwan last minute. So glad it happened.
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We all know of the life and work of Charles Dickens, in fact two of my all time favorite novels Great Expectations and David Copperfield are the works of Dickens, born in 1812 in England.
Through out his very public life Dickens carefully crafted his persona as a gentile man of the Victorian era with a wife, family and a marvelous talent to create fictional characters and stories that would endure.
“Dickens is remembered as one of the most important and influential writers of the 19th century. Among his accomplishments, he has been lauded for providing a stark portrait of the Victorian-era underclass, helping to bring about social change.” – Biography.com
Front and center during his entire life as a man of virtue – Dickens was leading a double life for more than a decade, as he had a love affair with Ellen “Nelly” Ternen for the last thirteen years of his life.
With tenacious persistence Dickens and those closest to him managed to efface Nelly Ternen from public record and most all association with Dickens.
But talented biographer Claire Tomalin sleuths the facts like a well-heeled detective and brings convincing evidence to light about Nelly Ternen’s life, Dickens’ deception and how their affair managed to escape the public’s notice for decades.
A remarkable tale of both Victorian life for men and women as well as a brilliant story of research and persistence.
It’s been five years since we visited China the first time. I was curious to see how it may have changed in that time. It’s hard to compare given we didn’t visit the same cities. And yet the changes are clear…in a good way. Surprising China Shanghai to Chongqing.
Five years ago we visited Beijing and Xian. It was winter and very cold. This time we visited Shanghai and took a Yangtze River cruise from Yichang to Chongqing. It is autumn now, and the end of the rainy season. It was very humid, warm and wet.
From the Bund looking across at the new skyline
Shanghai
Surprising Shanghai. A gorgeous city. Sparkling clean, efficient and beautiful architecture. More open and spread out than Beijing, Shanghai is for the most part a new city – built as China’s financial center over the past thirty years. If you were here thirty years ago none of this would have been here.
The preserved and restored old town called Yu Garden
Luckily though, the Chinese government saw fit to save bits and pieces of the ancient old town, Yu Garden, and it is preserved in a beautiful and authentic way. It is a very popular part of the city. Nearby is the People’s Park, another beautiful spot in Shanghai where the local people enjoy this large green natural place in the middle of the big city. On weekends People’s Park is where parents set up Marriage Market to find spouses for their unmarried adult children. Parents playing matchmaker is a very Chinese thing, still accepted today.
Daytrip from Shanghai to Suzhou’s Lingering Garden
The Bund is the most popular spot in Shanghai, for shopping, dining, strolling and enjoying the amazing view of the Huang Pu River and the remarkably beautiful architectural masterpieces beyond. To really enjoy this area we highly recommend seeing it at night. Starting at 7:00 pm each evening the buildings are all lit up in a spectacular light show not to be missed. The best way to see it in its entirety is to take one of the evening boat tours. It was a highlight of our visit.
Shanghai sparkles at night
Another fascinating Shanghai neighborhood is Tianzifang. This former residential neighborhood has been preserved in it’s original form and now houses a remarkable variety of art shops from silk to silver.
Day Trips from Shanghai
We enjoyed two separate day trips from Shanghai. You could do these both on one day if you are short on time. Whatever you do, don’t choose one or the other. Both are remarkable and not to be missed.
Beautiful ancient Pingjiang Road day trip from Shanghai
First we visited Suzhou, home of one of the most famous gardens in China, the Lingering Garden. This absolutely beautiful garden was once a family home for a rich merchant. Suzhou is also home to Pingjiang Road, an ancient street and site of the original town which was once a commodities hub where people traded and lived.
The Water Town of Zujiaojia known as Asian Venice, day trip from Shanghai
Our second day trip was to the remarkable water town of Zujiaojia, one of my favorite places. The ancient town, now a tourist hub, is well preserved and often called the Asian Venice for it’s dozens of bridges, waterfront merchants and houses and boats that transport people and products. It is a must see for it’s antiquity and tranquility. We particularly enjoyed a lovely tea break at a famous Chinese tea house right on the water.
Yangtze River Cruise
Surprising Yangtze. Seeing China’s Yangtze, the third longest river in the world, after the Nile and the Amazon, has been on my bucket list for a long time. Traditional Chinese art often depicts the Yangtze and it’s beautiful gorges shrouded in fog. This is what we set out to see.
The Yangtze River before the dam was built
Our journey began from the Honggiao train station where we boarded the bullet train to Yichang. During more than seven hours on the train we passed through dozens of big cities. China is remarkable in that even its smallest cities are home to 100,000 people.
The Yangtze River today, more than 500 feet higher
From the Yichang train station we drove by car another hour to our boat, the MV Sophia of Victoria Cruises, on the Yangtze. This small river cruise ship can have a maximum of 200 guests, but on our cruise there was about 100 people. Our room was small but comfortable, the food was excellent and the staff was superior.
MV Sophia on the Yangtze River
The first day we enjoyed two different excursions with the ship in port in Yichang, just above the famous Three Gorges Dam. Here the Yangtze no longer feels like the Yangtze of old. Above the dam the river is now a reservoir and quite placid.
We toured the dam, an engineering marvel in itself, although the more remarkable thing to me is how many hundreds of thousands of people were moved from their ancestral villages. The government built entire new cities above the high water line, demolishing ancient towns and moving everyone to new homes, new jobs and new communities. The undertaking is mind-boggling.
The Three Rivers Tribe site
In a small effort to preserve the old way of life for tourist purposes, one village below the dam was preserved and named the Three Gorges Tribe site. Although local people no longer live here, locals are employed to represent the ancient way of life. It was very well presented and the natural gorge site itself was stunningly beautiful.
Pagoda high above the river in the Wu Gorge Yangtze
Seeing the famous Three Gorges as well as a special small boat cruise up the Shennong Creek were the highlights of our time on the Yangtze. I wish I could have seen these places before the dam flooded and raised the water level by 175 meters. An astonishing amount. But seeing it still today was amazing and beautiful. There are few places in China where you can just enjoy unpopulated scenery. Along the Yangtze I was astounded by the gigantic cities that appeared over and over as we cruised upstream. Cities of millions of people. It was the most unexpected of all the things we saw. And yet, there were also stretches of the river where no humans lived. Particularly the stretches of the Wu Gorge and the Qutang Gorge. Absolutely beautiful.
Entertainment on the MV Sophia
The MV Sofia was a wonderful ship and on two nights we enjoyed fantastic Chinese dance presentations from the remarkably talented crew. Colorful costumes, beautiful music and exquisitely presented dances were an unexpected bonus to our time aboard. On our final night, we also enjoyed a extraordinary final dinner. The food throughout our cruise was nothing short of amazing, but the final dinner was spectacular. A Chinese feast fit for an Emperor.
Feast on the final night on the MV Sophia
Our Yangtze River Cruise ended in Chongqing, China’s largest city. Another city that has seen unprecedented growth over the past thirty years. Often called the Foggy City, Chongqing lived up to its name during our short time there. We were escorted to the brand new Chongqing International Airport for our flight to Taiwan.
Crew presents dessert at the final banquet
Surprising China Shanghai to Chongqing
Our two weeks in China gave us an opportunity to see first-hand the changes in this country; efforts being made for the environment including many electric scooters and cars and major recycling and litter control. Additionally China seems to be in a state of constant development and construction as this country of 1.4 billion people works to manage itself.
My final take-away is that the Chinese people are happy. They are provided housing and jobs and can be entrepreneurial and educated. They care little about politics but are patriotic. They love nature and family and socializing with friends. They are proud, modest, kind and many speak excellent English.
Final night entertainment on board
China is a huge country, about the same size as the USA but with 1.4 billion people compared to the USA’s 330 million. It’s hard to wrap your head around it until you see the cities…thousands and thousands of 30 story apartment buildings everywhere you look. Surprising China Shanghai to Chongqing.
Sunset on the Yangtze River
There is more here I want to see. So we will surely return. Surprising China has more surprises to share.
Thanks for following our adventures in Asia. Lots more to come! Please pin or share our blog. Thank you! Xiexie. 谢谢
If you are one of our many faithful Reading Wednesday followers you will know that I adore Ken Follett. I’ve read several of his books. They are both marvelous as book in hand and on audible. My favorite Follett is Pillars of the Earth and I have recently also read Fall of Giants. And today I will share my book review of A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett.
Like other Follett novels, A Place Called Freedom creates a chronicle of generations. Mixing historical facts, people and events with fictional characters and places – Follett brilliantly weaves his saga.
In A Place Called Freedom we meet Mack McAsh, a Scottish coal miners son, destine to a life in “the pit” during a period that begins in 1767. During this time miners are forced to a life of serfdom, once they begin working in the mines they must never leave. McAsh sees more for his life and eventually escapes and becomes a leader in the working-class discontent of the time.
Lizzie Hallim, a young woman of wealth and privilege who is expected to marry into the wealthy Jamieson family, owners the mines, lives a very different kind of life from Mack. But soon enough Lizzie realizes the hardship the minors endure and the reality she has been so blind to.
Lizzie eventually falls for the wrong Jamieson brother, exacerbating a hateful relationship between brothers and father and step mother.
A well written and believable cast of characters develops through the book during a tumultuous period of serfdom and slavery, wealth and prosperity, female repression and class injustice, creating a ripe opportunity for the characters to flee to the new American colonies and A Place Called Freedom.
Another wonderful novel by Ken Follett.
Four stars for A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett. Read last week’s review of The Huntress by Kate Quinn.
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