On the way back from the great wall many of us were tired and wanted to rest quietly. The rest of the passengers were tired and wanted to sing loudly. I didn’t mind the singing so much, until Carl’s turn was over. After he sung, the quality of performances fell consistently. Eventually a large number of the singers were just yelling. At that point we (the non-singers) started yelling too: abuse at the singers. At some point we all stopped and the bus ride continued in relative quiet.

After much driving we reached our destination (wherever that was) and got off the bus. We were immediately herded into away into a building marked “Beijing Steel”. I didn’t know what to expect.

Turns out we were there for dinner. On maybe the 10th floor (wasn’t paying attention) there was a really flash restaurant, complete with stage, elevated tables and chandeliers. The roof and walls were splattered with small windows, giving the effect of a starry sky. To enhance this further, there were clear bulbs of glass suspended in strings from the ceiling. It was very nice looking.

The food was not quite at the same standard as the decor, but as I would be heard saying throughout the trip: “You try cooking the same meal, at the same time for 200 people who are always late, and see how THAT tastes”. When dinner was over, we bleated and kicked our way back to the bus, then were driven to the hotel.

After a short rest, Carl Jason and I ventured out: to McDonald’s. We took a cab, which was cheap. Carl and I had “Number 2 Meal”, because it was the only one we could read – 第二餐. It turned out to be a double cheeseburger. And it was great, even the chips! Jason had a sundae, because it was the only thing he could read. After finishing our meal we returned to the hotel.

Carl and Jason went to bed. I wasn’t willing to miss out on any fun activities, so I hung around the lobby waiting for something to happen. Two Hungarian guys came down and started asking the main organizer what they could go out and do in Beijing. The organizer basically said that the only place worth going to at that time (10:30PM) was “Bar Street”. None of us were interested in drinking, as we had to get up at 6 AM the next day to fly to Changsha, but we couldn’t miss this chance to pay money to get driven somewhere so we could wander aimlessly.

The guide demanded a map from the hotel receptionist, and drew a dot for the hotel and another for Bar Street. We thanked him and went out to find a taxi. The ride to Bar Street cost about 37元, and took about 30 minutes.

Immediately after exiting the taxi I was approached by an older gentleman who began trying to get me to go to some bar. I declined repeatedly. After he got the message he began blatantly offering me a prostitute. This I also declined. I also stopped being so polite and just walked off. Within one minute we were propositioned like this (bar, then prostitute/”lady bar”) over five times. One gets used to it after awhile. The Bar street was really a group of three streets that encircled a lake. The fourth street had no bars, as it was a rather large main road.

We walked around the lake, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, depending on the amount of harassment. Most bars had 2-4 people wandering about outside, who were apparently tasked with getting as many passers-by into the club as possible. They tried everything. Mostly they offered either cheap drinks or naked women. We didn’t go into any.

The best place on bar street was a small stall where a woman was selling paintings. At first I thought the paintings were screen-prints, as there were piles of apparently identical works for sale. Upon closer inspection I discovered that these piles consisted of non-identical but similar paintings, which I found much more interesting. There were many different designs – ranging from awesome to incredible. After looking at all the artwork for some time, we left and continued to wander.

Turning a corner we saw five policemen on motorbikes slowly cruise past. We passed many more bars, and were propositioned many more times.

As we walked the final stretch I almost demanded we go back to the artist’s stall as I really wanted to buy a particular painting. A quick glance inside my wallet changed my mind.

Finally sick of being offered prostitutes, we decided to take a different approach. We told the pimps that we were gay. They immediately stopped trying and walked off, every time. If you’re ever in a similar situation, I recommend this technique.

After that, my two gay Hungarian friends and I returned to the hotel.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Travel - 旅游

Today we were woken up at six. Breakfast wasn’t until six-thirty, so I uploaded photos. For breakfast I had tasteless buns and spinach. Spinach was best.

After boarding the bus I realised I had forgotten my dictionary, so I ran back to get it. The bus was still there when I got back.

Our first stop was the Hanban and Confucius headquarters. When we arrived, we were told that they weren’t ready, so we drove into town to have a look around. When we arrived in town, we were told that they were ready, so we turned around and drove back. While driving we saw people folding up A4 advertising material and shoving it into the gap between the doorhandle and door of modern cars.

The HQ is very flash. In the foyer each country that has a Confucius institute has their flag displayed. We posed for photos with the NZ and ZH flags. We listened to a speech which was basically about how great we all were for learning Chinese so well, and how we should keep trying. After that we were free to wander about. I found a seat and rested. In front of me was a large screen which was showing last year’s competition.

By this time I was hungry again.

We left and headed towards the great wall. We drove through Beijing to get there, and were treated to views of large buildings and busy people. I saw at least five unsafe activities.

The drive to the great wall was quite long, and most of the bus kept themselves occupied by singing. I don’t sing, or like other people singing, so the bus ride was long and painful. Apart from when Carl sang, as I like him. Also his singing is high quality, not like screeching cats.

When we arrived ad the great wall (Badaling 八达岭) we had lunch. It was a buffet again, and markedly similar to breakfast. Needless to say, I ate a lot of tasteless bread. For dessert I tried to eat a lot of melons, but they had a light fishy flavour. I think the chef’s melon knife might double as a fish slicer. After dinner the main event began.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the great wall, then another twenty to get through the ticket gates. Jason, Carl and I walked together. We thought we were walking fast but kept seeing other people from the Chinese Bridge group ahead of us. This made us walk faster, and faster until we almost collapsed.

The entire way Carl kept trying to converse with Chinese people. Out of maybe fifty attempts, he had about six conversations longer than five minutes. One was with an old Chinese couple who had a really thick Cantonese accent. I enjoyed listening to Carl ask them to repeat themselves.

All the children we saw were constantly running, either up or down the wall. It wasn’t that surprising then, when we came across a little Chinese girl vomiting over the side of the wall. We gave her one of our precious water bottles, and tried to talk to her parents. They were really grateful, but our conversational attempts were rebuffed. It was obvious they were more interested in helping their kid and wanted us to shut up and go away.

We made it to the seventh guard house. I have no idea the distance involved. Jason really wanted to go on to the eighth, but Carl and I didn’t want to miss the bus and felt we were running out of time. In hindsight I see that they wouldn’t have left without us, and we could have taken all the time we wanted. Don’t tell Jason.

On the way down we walked beside the wall on a small path. Vegetation was growing all around the path and over the surrounding mountains, quite a contrast to the last time I climbed the wall in winter. It took a little while for me to recognise them, but amongst the vegetation were huge cannabis plants. I was amazed. I took various photos as evidence. There were no buds on any of the plants, I assume because they get picked off as soon as they’re visible. A friend told me later that he saw guards hiding in the bushes at a few spots, presumably waiting for dumb westerners to attempt to fill their bags with weed, so they can haul them off to the work camps. Another friend told me he saw a huge plant on the side of the wall that is inaccessible to foot traffic, heavily laden with buds.

When we finally arrived at the ticket gate, we found that hardly any of our group had gathered. We were tired so we sat down. Five minutes later we were verbally assaulted by a crazy bottle-lady who swore at us (I assume) in her local dialect, until growing tired of being ignored and walking off. We saw her walk around the area yelling at anyone who looked at her. The nice Chinese man next to us told me she was crazy, as if I couldn’t tell. Some kid walked past and giggled, so I did the “she’s crazy” hand movement. He laughed.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Great Wall - 长城

Tags: Books, Review - 点评

If manliness is measured by the amount of foreign festivals one has experienced, then last Thursday I became entitled to a bushy lumberjack beard, as this was the first day of Chinese New Year. I’m not going to wear a lumberjack beard though, to Yvonne I’m hairy enough, simply because of my race. A lumberjack beard would be too much, I’ll save it for the future, in case I ever need to “spice things up”.

Uh, New Years. Yeah it started with dinner, there were dinners in the middle, and it ended with dinner. There were a lot of dinners, and every night was filled with explosions.

The first night, we had dinner at home. Apparently the food was a kind that is only eaten at New Years. As I am foreign, however, for me it was no more or less exotic than the other food I’d eaten. It did taste nice though.

The next day we went to one of Yvonne’s relative’s houses for dinner. As it was New Years, I was allowed to drink beer without being called an alcoholic by Yvonne. Again, the dinner was nice. On the way to the relative’s house we walked through Shanghai’s industrial zone, and I was impressed by the seriously high roads. Really high roads, like 50 m high. Crashing off one of those would be certain death. As we were waking under it, it didn’t happen. I took a bunch of photos of the roads, to prove I’m not making this up.

We had some other dinners as well. At a dinner with Yvonne’s Dad’s side of the family, there was Chinese Whiskey. According to Yvonne’s Dad, I am good at drinking. I tell them this is because drinking heavily is part of western culture, and that by our standards I am a cheap drunk. Thinking back, maybe this was offensive to them, since they said I was good at drinking, and I said that actually I wasn’t. Maybe they think that I think that they are bad at drinking, and because I said that drinking heavily is part of western culture, maybe they think that we think that people who can’t drink very much are somehow lacking? Maybe I’m just mental, and the only one who considers things like this.

What else happened? Fireworks. More fireworks than I’ve ever heard at one time. Sounded like we were in the middle of an artillery barrage. Fireworks we can get in New Zealand and pathetic. Here one can buy (cheaply) any type of firework one wants. The most popular was what I call “Death Box”, or a 40 cm x 50 cm x 40 cm cardboard box with a fuse. One lights the fuse and takes cover. About 20 seconds later, a succession of popping noises can be heard, followed by a reddish streak rising into the sky (hopefully, anyway – I saw some explode on the ground), then exploding. I question the logic of packaging so many individual bombs in such proximity.

* * *

We leave for New Zealand tomorrow.

China has been fun, I look forward to coming back next year.

Tags: China - 中国, Chunjie, Shanghai - 上海, Spring Festival - 春节

Today I was woken up by Yvonne telling me that we were going to the place from which one may buy balls. Not the type you’re probably thinking of, but the type that one may roll around in one’s hand. According to Yvonne only old men use them, but I’ve had a set for ages (Grandparents bought them for me from Singapore). I didn’t know why we had to get up so early to buy balls, but Yvonne allowed no argument. We took a bus, then another bus to our destination.

We got off the bus and walked into a rather bustling market area. The predominant colour was red, from hundreds of new year’s lanterns. It seems that most of the shops sold those lanterns. Walking into one of the stores was like descending into the forest of another world, a world in which instead of trees forests have desks, and roofs without insulation, and instead of vines hanging from the “trees”, there are hundreds of new year’s lanterns. That analogy should go down as one of the worst ever. Maybe I should have just said this: there were a lot of new year’s lanterns, everywhere. I thought that this was the place we were to spend the entire day, so I was slowly wandering about, feigning interest in the store’s wares. I later found that I was wasting my time when Yvonne pointed to a big gate that the majority of the crowds were heading towards, and told me that it was where we were going for the day. I was a little confused, as it looked a bit too “up market” to be selling balls, but I didn’t argue.

The place was called Yu Yuan, and is apparently the only site of cultural significance left in Shanghai. It was pretty much just shops in new looking old-style buildings. I thought this was quite amusing, seeing old style buildings with big KFC signs being prominently displayed on the side of them. One building was a Starbucks. We went in and bought a Caramel Latte, which was delicious. All of the staff at every Starbucks I’ve been to (two) have spoken workable English. One time I tried to order in Chinese, and it too far longer than loudly saying “Latte Medium” would have. Instead I repeated myself three times, then labored through an enquiry about how one says “latte” in Chinese. Turns out it is natie. I recognized the “na” character, æ‹¿, but not the tie, 铁. After I heard the staff member say it however, I recognized it as the second part of “subway”, 地铁. Silly me. This time Yvonne did the talking, which was much more efficient. I also got her to ask whether the iced coffees had more caffeine than hot ones, as I wanted a real kick. The iced ones are stronger, take note.

After buying wonderful coffee we crossed the oddly shaped bridge to the main attraction. Tickets were 30å…ƒ. It was worth it, I guess. Yuyuan was quite big, and very pretty. Its style was different to the buildings we saw in Beijing, but only slightly. The roofs were black, Beijing’s were brown. Also it wasn’t as cold. I took a lot of photos as well, go have a look.

One thing worth mentioning is the number of white people there. It was the only time I’ve seen Chinese people outnumbered. Most of the white people were Russian. I saw two Americans, a couple of Italians, and maybe ten Russians. It was interesting to hear the Chinese guides speaking Russian/Italian. The Russians scowled at me when I slurped my drink loudly, so I made sure to slurp even more loudly. Take that, Boris.

On second thought, maybe the Russian wasn’t scowling at all. Maybe that was his standard expression?

My favourite part of Yuyuan was the pond. If you’ve been reading this blog for a little while, I doubt that will come as a surprise. The pond had a little waterfall, and some fish. In short, it was perfect.

Other cool things in Yuyuan were: Dragon themed walls (naughty, according to Yvonne. At that time only the Emperor was allowed to use Dragons), old trees, small trees, and creepy lions. One tree was over 400 years old. It was black, and did look its age. There were a lot of small trees around, all well pruned. The lions near the exit of Yuyuan were rather strange, quite creepy in fact. Actually, the whole place was quite strange, in a subtle way. All of the doorways in white walls were weird shapes, there were Dragons on the walls, buildings had little characters on top of them, and the place was filled with Russians. My spine tingles at the memory.

After looking at everything we realised we were quite hungry, so we left and crossed the oddly shaped bridge again to get some lunch.

While walking towards Yvonne’s chosen food source, we passed a small stall that sold, among other things, camera tripods. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a particular type of tripod, one with short but flexible legs. They had one such tripod, and after a small amount of haggling we bought it for 25å…ƒ, a price equal to one coffee from Starbucks.

Yvonne wanted special dumplings, which required queuing for about half an hour. When we finally got some we found that they weren’t that special, Yvonne’s mother’s are much better. We ate them anyway. Then we went to a restaurant that sold bigger dumplings with straws. One is supposed to drink the juice from the dumpling. These weren’t very nice either, though they were very cute. Each dumpling cost more than a coffee from Starbucks – 25å…ƒ. We left without finishing. Yvonne then bought some strange pudding that I didn’t taste. It was gooey.

Now was the time to look for suitable balls to purchase. We left the Yuyuan area, and re-entered the bright red shopping area. Hidden behind all of the stores was a very large, three storied warehouse filled with small stalls. The stalls sold various different things, from souvenirs to knitting essentials. We spent quite some time here, asking around for balls. We also bought some little things for people back home. One of the storekeepers told us that balls were available from a store just outside the warehouse, so we headed there when we became tired of the warehouse.

After some searching we managed to find the store the man was talking about. They did indeed sell balls, and I bought a pair of steel ones. They were 5å…ƒ each.

On our way to the bus stop we stopped at a cafe and had some more food. Yvonne ordered the Cuboidal Toast for me, and had some yellow buns and rice soup for herself. Cuboidal Toast was strange only because of its shape. Everything else about it was what one would expect from toast – butter, jam… oh, and a scoop of ice cream. Totally normal. When the waitress brought us our drinks, she got confused when we asked which was the coffee and which was the tea – she told us there isn’t any difference. There was, and I quickly identified them. I finished eating before Yvonne, and amused myself with my new tripod.

Our business in this part of town concluded, we took a bus to a more familiar area, one with Watson’s. Yvonne asked me if I wanted to “have some fun.” I said that I did, and was led into “Tom’s World,” which is an arcade. It was very colourful, and quite large. I played a manly game involving guns ‘n’ killing, while Yvonne played what I would call “kiddie slots.” We spent quite a bit at the arcade, but we also had fun. Whether the fun was proportional to the fee is not important.

When we had finished with the kiddie slots, we went outside and I played with the tripod. I took three photos, then the battery went flat. This was our cue to leave.

Tags: China - 中国, Culture - 文化, Shanghai - 上海, 豫园

The time had come for me to meet Yvonne’s friends. I had declined an invitation to a karaoke evening last month, citing cultural differences. Actually I just don’t like singing unless I’m really drunk, even then, I’d need a good reason. Tonight they were just having dinner, so I went along. We arrived in town early, and spent about an hour searching for DVDs, as the ones we bought with the DVD writer didn’t work for what I wanted them for. We couldn’t find any though, so we went to Watson’s, and Yvonne inspected their merchandise. After approximately one eternity Yvonne announced that it was time to meet one of her friends. He was nice, and tried his best to talk to me. When they had caught up we walked to the restaurant, which was on the twelfth floor of the Samsung Castle. The lift ride to the twelfth floor was awesome. There are a lot of glass elevators in China, same in all but function as the Great Glass Elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The restaurant itself was OK, not the best I’ve been to, but not the worst either. We sat down, and Yvonne’s friends slowly arrived. I was introduced to them all, and remember all of their names perfectly. My favourite was Yvonne’s friend’s husband. He is a police officer, and made the most effort to talk to me. Half of the restaurant was filled with people obviously taking part in a karaoke competition. Most of the singers were bad, all of them were very loud. The meal was OK though.

* * *

The next day we had dinner with Paul at the Golden Jaguar. This time I drunk some beer. After dinner, Yvonne and Susan wanted to go to karaoke, so we walked around until we found a suitable venue. The karaoke bars are interesting, consisting of a reception area connected to a long corridor that has numerous small rooms attached. each room has a TV, a table, a karaoke machine, two couches and some speakers. All of them smell strongly of cigarette smoke. When we were finally assigned a room, we were told that the minimum order was 25å…ƒ per person. We bought about five premixes. While Yvonne and Susan sung, I looked through the available songs. The machine had a lot of songs, mostly pop. I didn’t find anything I’d be wiling to sing sober, so I didn’t. On the elevator ride to the bottom floor, Paul beat boxed for about five seconds, which caused the crowd inside the elevator to go silent.

While we were waiting for a taxi, I was accosted by a woman selling flowers.

* * *

The following day we had to get up at about six-thirty, to go look at Old Shanghai. We took a bus, then various subway lines, to the Bund, where we waited for some of Yvonne’s relatives to pick us up. While we were waiting we watched a group of middle-aged people dancing, which I thought was weird considering the air temperature – minus two degrees. I bought a coffee as well. We were going to have it in the cafe, but they also have a minimum limit. Instead of buying drinks that the others didn’t want, I got the coffee to go. The coffee was OK, it didn’t have any sugar though. I couldn’t be bothered going back into the store to get some, as I didn’t want to waste energy in case the sugar cost 100元…

When the family arrived, we piled into the van and drove for about an hour. While driving to the car park, we were continually “approached” by people, who would make “roll the window down” gestures. If the window was rolled down, they would shove a business card in the driver’s face and start jabbering about how great their restaurant was. We just laughed at them – a man running alongside a van, yelling about his restaurant is funny. After we had parked, a woman convinced us to check her restaurant out. We accompanied her to a waiting van, and were driven into Old Shanghai. Apparently, the woman said she’d have our admission fee waived, but I don’t think that happened.

Old Shanghai is quite nice, filled with old buildings. There are various canals running alongside the streets, and one is able to take boat rides along them. We took one such boat ride. We passed a boat filled with musicians, who were being paddled up and down the canals, playing music all the while. It was very cold, I don’t think the musicians would have been very comfortable.

It seems that all of the houses have been converted into either shops or restaurants. The shops sell a variety of typical Chinese souvineers, none of which we bought. The parents of the cute little boy who was with us bought him a gun-thing that fired a soft missile-shaped projectile, and a Chinese-style hat, which I can be seen wearing in one of the photos.

When we were hungry we walked to the restaurant owned by the woman who drove us to Old Shanghai. The food was pretty good. I haven’t really had bad food this whole time I’ve been in China.

After lunch we walked around Old Shanghai some more, until whoever was in charge decided it was time to go. From Old Shanghai we drove to a large shopping area filled with outlet stores. There were about 50-60 outlet stores, brands like Armani, Barbary, Gucci and the like. One suit was 10,000å…ƒ, or enough for a cheap car. We looked in a few stores, until the boss decided it was time to move on again.

We ate dinner at a restaurant specializing in Beijing Duck. The food was delicious, and when the duck came, it came with a chef who chopped it up in front of us. The toilets were good too.

Among some of the food that isn’t available in New Zealand, during that meal I ate: fish stomach and alien prawn (I call it alien prawn, I don’t know what it’s actually called, it looks like an alien though).

Tags: China - 中国, Culture - 文化, History - 历史, History - 历史, Shanghai - 上海

Again, we rose at six in the morning. This time we were not late for breakfast, instead breakfast was late for us. When we arrived in the dining hall we found that there was no food. This was only mildly disappointing, as the food had been rather bland anyway. I ate about five … things, the closest description of which would be cupcakes. They weren’t really cupcakes though, they had some sort of cream coloured paste on top, and the cake part had a funny texture. Of the four items available however, they were the best. I chased them down with a cup of coffee, and sat waiting for the others to be ready to go.

After waiting for about ten minutes, I saw that the tour guide had come down. She was much more irritated over the lack of food than I, and proceeded to berate the hotel staff quite severely. I was pleased that she was displaying such behaviour, as one would hope that a tour guide, responsible for the safety and well-being of the group, would get annoyed over an unplanned lack of breakfast. She paced back and forth, nearly shouting at the staff. Of the negative adjectives I know, she called them lazy and stupid. I would bet money that she used others, but I don’t know them. The staff must have been lazy and/or stupid, as they didn’t really quicken their activities after their telling-off, which served only to annoy the guide more. Eventually more breakfast was brought out, but I didn’t eat any, as food after coffee isn’t my scene.

When the name-calling was finished with, we boarded the bus. First stop was the site of the Olympic Games. Generally the site was unimpressive, as it is a simple (albeit large) flat area of brown dirt. The two main attractions were the stadium and the swimming pool. The stadium is nice because of its architectural style. The impression they were going for is a large bird’s nest. I don’t know if I can imagine a bird large and strong enough to fly with the girders required to construct this nest, but the stadium looks nice nonetheless. The indoor swimming pool will be absolutely fantastic, as it has been designed to react to projected light, with transparent construction materials. This means that the whole building will light up, and could have videos or colours or … whatever projected onto it.

While we were at the site the guide talked for awhile, and we took photos. Then a large group of school-kids turned up, which we took as a cue to leave. Next stop was the Empress’s house. This was interesting, and very large. Not as large as the Forbidden City, but larger then my house. It was really more of the Empress’s area, as it covered quite a lot of ground. It is on the edge of a lake. Yvonne’s favourite thing was the stone ship, which I thought wasn’t very functional. By now I had become somewhat immune to the allure of Chinese historical architecture, and for this reason I have little to say about this area. It looked like all the other imperial areas. The main thing that set it apart was the stone boat, perhaps it is for this reason that Yvonne likes it so much.

We next went to the ruins, for lack of a better name. I don’t know what it was originally, but I know that white people smashed it up in the 1800’s. They were pretty much what one would expect from something with this name, that is to say it was a large area of broken stone. When we arrived we took a rather long cart ride from the entrance to the main area, where we had lunch. The restaurant is state-owned, which means not very good. The toilets were awful, like they hadn’t been cleaned since they were built. After lunch we walked around the ruins and were talked at by the guide. My favourite part was the maze – it was amazing. I liked it because I knew I would be able to say that.

When we were finished with the ruins we were driven to the railway station, where we waited for the train. When the train arrived, we boarded it.

And thus my Bejing trip was concluded.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Culture - 文化

I stayed up too late last night, and as a result I found it difficult to get up at six this morning. When I finally got up, I found that I was late for breakfast. We grabbed some snacks and hurried to the bus, where we stealthily ate as we were driven to our first destination. Our first stop was Jing Mountain, which is more like a hill than a mountain, but as the Emperor used it for some things, and hill is not an imperial-sounding title, it was called a mountain. In any case, it was still high enough that one had a nice view of the Forbidden City from the top. Before we climbed up though, we were led around the surrounding area. The hill is artificial – the material making up the hill came from the moats surrounding the Forbidden City. Another name is “Coal Hill”

The first thing we looked at was a very old tree that had a younger tree growing inside it. I was remarkable enough to warrant one photo. Next we were led into a small room that had some photos on the wall. It also had an old map of the Forbidden City, which was the only interesting thing in the room. After about two minutes, a woman came into the room and began droning on about Feng Shui. Honestly, she must have talked for over an hour. I’m sure it would have been very interesting, but as I could only understand every fourth word or so, I didn’t find it to be so. I managed to politely stand still for about forty minutes, but couldn’t help fidgeting for the final twenty. When she finally stopped talking we were led into an adjoining room. I was unsurprised to find that it was a shop. She talked about how great their goods were for some time, then allowed us to browse. Yvonne bought a nice jade pendant for herself, and one for her Father. As seems to be the tradition, we were left in the shop for quite some time. Yvonne tells me that the guides get a small cut of whatever the guests buy. Fair enough, the guide was very good at her job.

Walking towards the base of the hill we passed a sign informing us that the spot where the Emperor hanged himself was ahead. “How uplifting” I thought. The hill wasn’t too steep, and climbing it was no problem. Half-way up I stopped to take some photos. The rail preventing morons from accidentally killing themselves was quite high, stopping me from getting a good photo. The pagoda in the center of the area had a ring of seats within it. The seats were about foot off the ground, and I could see that standing on one would afford me a better view. I decided to do this, and jumped up onto the seat. This was wrong. Although there are no signs, standing on the seat is against the rules, and all of the people around me instantly beckoned me to get down, with extremely disapproving stares. Needless to say, I jumped down quickly. After this, I thought that the area wasn’t so good for photos anyway, and continued up the hill.

The top was much better, and I took a few photos of the Forbidden City. It really is vast.

When we had had our fill of viewing the Palace through the eternal “fog”, we went to some place nearby and were taken on a short bicycle tour. The bikes could carry three people, the driver and two passengers. Our driver was very nice, so we gave him 10å…ƒ. We first went to the nearby river, which was frozen solid. The guide talked about something for awhile, then we took photos. During the photo time he asked me if I understood him. I said that I did if he spoke slowly, and he was impressed. He told me that the river is called a sea because the Emperor is a dragon, and dragons need to go to the sea from time to time. I nodded and said “Ahh.” Surprising how little talking one has to do to keep someone thinking one is interested. After speaking with me for a little longer he announced that it was time to move on. Next stop was an example of what houses were like 100-200 years ago. Rather than a house it was actually a series of one-roomed buildings surrounding a courtyard. In the first building we were given tea, which was good because it was about -2°C. The guide talked for awhile, then we were allowed to look in the other buildings. If one desired, one is able to stay in either of the bedrooms, for a price of course. They looked comfortable enough, with heaters in each room and a TV in the master bedroom. My favourite part was the handles on the entrance gates. There was no shop, which was odd.

After the bike rides, we boarded the bus and were driven to the home of the greediest leader of China’s history. Yvonne told me that when the leader died, and outsiders were able to go into the leader’s grounds, they found that the walls were filled with gold. Pretty greedy huh? Whether or not that is true, the grounds are impressive enough. No-where near as huge as the palace, but very big. We were led around for about two hours. Half way through we watched a small performance in the dead leader’s small opera house. The performance was fairly low-grade, and consisted of some dancers, a gymnast, a man singing like a woman, then some hilariously transparent “magic” tricks. The most enjoyable was when the “magician” caused a card to rise “mysteriously” from a deck that was shoved into a cup about a meter from her. I photographed some of the show, pay special attention to the photo of a table. Look around the base of the table and you’ll see a string. That string “coincidentally” moved each time the card did… Afterwards we had a good laugh about it. At least, I think the rest of the group was laughing about that. After the show, surprise surprise, we were led to a shop. The shop was right next to the large pond that can be seen in some of the photos, which smelled very bad.

Next we went to the largest and most well known enamel factory in China, if not the world. Believe it or not, the factory produces enameled things. Vases, bowls, balls, key-rings and more. We were guided around the building, and in some areas were able to see people working on new pieces. The work appeared tedious and repetitive, but the workers were all chatting and working happily. To produce one of the beautiful items that they sell, a worker would first cast a bronze “raw” version, which would be sanded and prepared for enameling. The enameling was done by covering the item in thin strips of metal, defining areas that would be different colours, or simply adding texture. The next step is adding colour, which seems to be in the form of some kind of paste. Then (I imagine, we didn’t see anymore of the process) the items were fired. The end result was very nice, and at the end of the tour we were treated to a half an hour “milling about” session in the factory’s shop.

After having lunch we were driven to the Emperor’s Temple, the place he would go to pray for whatever it is Emperors prayed for – probably not another bedroom, that’s for sure. Its English name is “Temple of Heaven”. I don’t know exactly how big it is, because Wikipedia is blocked in China and I can’t be bothered loading my proxy program, but I do know that my feet were sore after walking its length. We started at the base (bottom of picture) and began walking. First there is the ticket office, which is mandatory, followed by the first of many gates. Each gate building actually has three gates, the central gate was for the Emperor of Heaven, the left for the Emperor, and the right for the court officials – so far as I remember. The central gate was closed. Past the first gate there is a large stone platform set in a large square. It is clearly visible in the picture The platform’s layout has some special meaning, but my Chinese isn’t good enough to know it. Beyond this there is another gate, and through this gate one comes to a circular area. This area is well known because one can stand on one side of the gate, face away from the gate and speak, and another person standing on the other side of the gate can hear. Echoes travel well. Also, there are three places near the middle where echos are also especially good. Three claps at the one closest to the entrance, then up one paving stone for two claps, up one more for one final clap. No one told me why three, two, one, but they did say that my claps were the best. I told them it was because I have had a lot of practice, patting dogs especially hard, but they didn’t understand because I spoke English. Private joke.

Also in the echoes area were two buildings. The one on the right was for the Emperor to change clothes, and I forget the purpose of the other two – Google is your friend here. Through another gate, only to see yet another a short distance ahead. Through this gate was the long road towards the final building. It was really a long road, I’d guess at least a kilometer. For awhile I hummed the “Star Wars” theme, but I couldn’t keep it up the whole way. The other people in the tour group enjoyed what little they got though, I’m sure.

The final building was quite impressive, very big. We wandered around it and were able to look inside. I took a photo, but was later told to delete it by Yvonne. One cannot be given everything for free, you see – if you want to see it all you’ve got to come along. After tiring of the large building, I took some photos of crows flying in the distance. I really like crows, as I imagine you know already. Their call is the best of any bird, and they are all black. When it was time to leave, we left.

Irresistible

Food eaten and curiosity satisfied, we went and bought a Peking Duck. We then returned to the bus and were driven back to the hotel. The Peking Duck was very big, and tasty. We couldn’t eat it all and decided to save the rest for the train ride to Shanghai. As there was no refridgerator in the hotel room, I put the duck in a few plastic bags, tied some bags to the bag containing the duck, and tied it so the duck hung outside the window. This ensured that the duck did not go rotten, as the temperature outside was about -2°C. Tomorrow we have a few more things to see, then we will take the overnight train again to Shanghai.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Culture - 文化, History - 历史, Temple

Today we had to get up at six-thirty. Had breakfast at the hotel, which was bland. Got on the bus and slept while we drove to the Ming Dynasty Museum. It was filled with life-sized models of historical figures, involved in various activities. We weren’t allowed to take photos. I think the figures were made of wax. The museum was interesting enough. Most of the sets were of Emperors involved in daily tasks, like torturing evil ministers, or “cavorting with concubines”, but some were more interesting, being displays of battle scenes. My personal favourite was the display of an Emperor’s cousin being roasted alive in a 300 lb pot. The cousin could lift the pot, a display of strength that scared the Emperor enough to have him killed. Great stuff.

After another ride on the bus, we arrived at the place where Emperors were buried. Like all imperial areas, it was very big. It hadn’t snowed for weeks, but there was still snow in places that were shaded from the sun for most of the day. I kicked the dirty snow around while the guide went and bought tickets. When the guide returned, she talked for about 5 minutes about the temple, I guess – too fast for me to understand. After her speech we entered the temple grounds, and were treated to another speech. This time there wasn’t any snow about for me to kick, so I took some photos. Most of the photos I took were awful though, so I deleted them. Her second speech over, we entered the big building in the center of the courtyard. It was filled with relics that had been dug up from the tombs. I took photos of the more interesting ones. It seems the Emperors were fond of elaborate hats, one for every occasion. Also important were jade belts. Of course the leather had long rotted away, leaving only the jade. There was a sword as well, which was obviously my favourite. In the center of the building there was a bronze statue of an old man, I guess an Emperor. After being led around the items on display, and being told about them in lightening fast Mandarin, it was time to go outside again. I was excited, as outside is where one finds dirty snow – fun to kick.

We walked to the other side of the building, and climbed up some stairs. The view from the top was nice, and I took some photos of it while the guide talked some more.

Before arriving at the Great Wall, we visited a jade store/ place where Jade is carved. We were led through an area with various intricate carvings on display, and the woman assigned to our tour group talked incessantly. I looked at the rocks and marveled at the price tags. When she had finished talking about that room, we were led into a smaller room with no windows. The guide moved to the lectern and proceeded to lecture us on the differences between fake, low quality and high quality jade. The one part of her presentation that I enjoyed was when she used some high quality jade to scratch some glass. When the show was over, we were led past a room where people were working on some carvings. My Dad carves Jade, so it was pretty ’samey’ for me. I did note that they lacked the plethora of machines that Dad has in his warehouse – maybe they were out the back. Finally we were led to the main area, a very large room filled with glass display cases. We walked around for about half an hour before becoming bored, then milled about in a group, making it rather obvious that we weren’t going to buy anything. After milling about for another half an hour, we had lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Back to the bus, to the Great Wall this time. I bought two bottles of Coke after arriving at the car park. The shop owner didn’t understand that I wanted two bottles, so I repeated myself until his friend realised and told him. The Coke was really expensive, being 10å…ƒ per bottle, or $2.50. Funny how “really expensive” is still not as much as the same bottles would cost in New Zealand – $3.90. I savoured the delicious taste as I wandered up to the rest of the group, who were huddled around the guide listening to another blazing introduction to the area.

Just beyond the entrance there were a series of reeking pits in the ground, about 6 meters in diameter and 5 deep. During a team meeting in the past, management obviously thought that the Great Wall itself didn’t pull enough tourists, and the site needed something else. That something else, obviously the result of a drunken brainstorming evening, was a series of stinking pits filled with bears. The pits were like bear heaven, solid concrete floors and walls, rusty metal frames to climb about on. The bears all looked very happy, none of them seemed insane. When tired of swaying back and forth, or just hungry, the bears would climb the frames and perform various unnatural movements, which they presumably learned would encourage people to throw food at them. Saucers of chopped apple were placed all around the pits, and the handlers would throw a piece or two to the bears when tourists approached. One of the men in our group threw a piece, and was told to pay 5å…ƒ by the handler. The man argued that this was too high a price for a tiny piece of apple, and the handler said that the 5å…ƒ would allow him to throw the whole saucerful. The man said he didn’t want to do that, he’d only wanted to throw one piece, as he thought it was free – no price tag! He argued with the handler for a time, and was eventually allowed to pay only 3å…ƒ. The handler said he could throw some more apple pieces to the bears if he wished, but the man had lost interest by this time, and the guide had arrived.

Someone slipped LSD into my drink

After arriving at the top, we were given about an hour to walk along the wall. Yvonne and I headed to the far end, as it is the highest. The Great Wall is very big, as the name implies, and is also very long – as the Chinese name “Long Wall” tells us. Its historical purpose was to keep the barbarian hordes from smashing the Emperor’s pretty things, but now, along with the Stinking Bear pits, it is a leading tourist attraction. It is also one of the few tourist attractions that provides the visiting tourist with quite a workout. I wanted to go quickly, Yvonne wanted to go slowly. This this was remedied by my gripping Yvonne’s hand and dragging her along. I am sure she appreciated the help.

Assaulting a force that was defending from such a position would have been rather daunting, and if using the tools of the time doomed to failure. Nothing a smart bomb couldn’t handle though. Unfortunately I didn’t have an array of high-tech weaponry, so I contented myself with merely looking around.

There is a section of the wall that has obviously fallen apart, and we had to take a path around it to reach the separated section. The area around the breach is very steep. When I asked Yvonne why they haven’t fixed it yet, she said that the ancient people were better at construction, it can’t be fixed now. I think that it hasn’t been fixed because a new section wouldn’t fit the current theme: “old”.

Once we reached the top (by no means the end of the wall – the limit beyond which tourists are not allowed to go) we stood around for awhile and enjoyed the icy wind.

When we began to get cold, we decided to start walking back to the cart station. We had walked up so fast, that we passed the others in our tour group, who were still walking up. The wall is very steep in some places, and stairs (where there are stairs – a lot of it is just really steep ramps) were very uneven. I don’t know how the messengers managed to successfully climb some of the areas during winter, when the wall would be covered in snow and ice! There were a lot of people there that day, and it was necessary for me to push them out of the way when walking through some of the more narrow areas. The tourists were mostly Chinese, with a lot of Koreans and Americans as well. While we were having a short rest, an old Korean lady shoved Yvonne out of the way. Yvonne wouldn’t let me punish her, so she got away with it. My shoving is the nice, friendly kind, and I only do it if I really need to. The Korean woman had heaps of room, maybe walking around people is offensive in Korea. Hope Yvonne isn’t with me if I see her again.

The cart ride down was much more entertaining, as we went quite fast. I noticed a lot of sharp metal sticking out of the ground, which would have ripped a rather large hole in me. Luckily the tied-on car seat belt didn’t break, and I arrived at the bottom safely.

On the way back to the bus, passing the Stinking Bear Pits, I overhead a tourist asking the bear handler how old a particular bear was. The handler obviously didn’t speak English, as his only reply was “五块元”, or “$5″. The tourist just kept asking though, obviously confused about which country he was in. I doubt a Chinese tourist in his country would get special treatment, either. I considered helping him by asking the handler myself, but I didn’t because learning the small amount of Chinese I know took me two years, damned if I’m going to use to help someone else!

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Culture - 文化

Shortly after writing the previous entry we left for the train station. The bus ride to the subway station, and the subsequent subway ride were both uneventful. The train station was not as nice as the one from which we travelled to Hangzhou. It wasn’t bad though, the other one is newer. We were early, and had to wait for about an hour before being allowed to board the train. Neither of us knew anything about the train that we were to take to Beijing. All we knew was that the trip was going to take twelve hours, and that we would have to sleep on the train. I was a little nervous, as I’ve seen some travel documentaries featuring long train rides, which didn’t look like much fun. I was prepared to not eat or drink until we arrived in Beijing, so that I would be less likely to want to use the toilet on the train, in case it was absolutely filthy.

When we were finally allowed to board the train, we saw that it was absolutely immaculate. It had been recently refurbished, and will be used to ferry people between Shanghai and Beijing during the Olympics, as some events will be held in Shanghai. The toilets were better than those on the plane we took to China. The cabin, while small, had everything we needed, a table, a floor, free slippers and beds. Everything was clean and tidy, and the staff were excellent. Each cabin slept four, and we were surprised to find that the couple who shared our cabin were in the same tour group as us. Like all Chinese people I’ve met, they were surprised to find that I could understand Chinese, but didn’t understand me when I tried to talk. This is really common, and quite irritating. I’ll attempt to strike up a conversation by asking a question, like “How did you like the Palace?” The person with whom I am attempting to chat will then say something totally different, like “Please, eat.” Often I repeat myself a few times, but the response is usually the same. To be fair, it doesn’t happen so much with people under 30 (recently forced to use Mandarin every day at school), or Beijing natives. I think Shanghainese are so accustomed to speaking their dialect that they find my stumbling Mandarin (Beijing origin) impossible to understand. Regardless of the reason, it is extremely frustrating.

Digression over – back to the train. I watched Yvonne play Zelda on the NDS for awhile, then we went to sleep. It took ages for me to get to sleep because of the noise, but the experience was enjoyable. I got up during the night to use the facilities, and saw that each carriage had a staff member slumped in a chair in the corridor sleeping. I do not envy them. Woke up again at six, watched the scenery fly past through the window (Yvonne claims the train travelled at 200 km/h+, I’ll check that when I get the internet again), but only saw a little snow. Train stops, we get off and find the tour guide, who is frozen solid outside the station.

We waited for the rest of the group to assemble, then went to the hotel. Hotel is nice, slightly better than the one we stayed in during our Hangzhou visit.

After a very short stop, we went on our first sight-seeing trip. First stop was the People’s Hall, which would be better name: The Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor. Even that doesn’t do it justice. It is GIGANTIC. When a new Premier comes into power, a reception “room,” itself the size of a small theater , is created, decorated according to the new Premier’s native province. That we saw there was a reception room for Guangdong, Hunan, Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan. They were all magnificent. The Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor is also home to the biggest banquet hall I have ever seen (which is not saying much), complete with world-class stage and equipment. The place was truly massive, hard to believe even when standing inside it.

Next, we crossed the road and viewed Chairman Mao’s corpse. The mausoleum itself is an impressive structure, and guarded by a large number of armed soldiers and unarmed policemen. Entry to the mausoleum is free, but the line was long. After waiting for about half an hour we were allowed to silently file past the leader’s coffin, which has a glass cover, which enabled us to see his face. There were two armed soldiers standing beside his coffin, one at each door, and one patrolling the area. In addition there were about three civilians ensuring we didn’t stray to near to the coffin. Why don’t the soldiers do that? This task is below them, the only time they touch civilians is when they hug their families, and even then only in private. They were armed with handguns, sorry to say, no pictures of wonderful assault rifles. Well, no pictures of real assault rifles, I did take some photos of the statues outside the mausoleum, some of the figures were holding AK-47s.

The mausoleum is situated on the edge of Tianamen Square, and we were allowed some time to wander about before lunch. There isn’t much to say about the square, other than it is vast, has history that China doesn’t like, and there is a memorial for all of the Chinese (good) who were killed by the Japanese (bad). Don’t see many Japanese in China.

Lunch was eaten in the palace restaurant, which is alright, nothing special. As the guide said: “Don’t expect the service to be as good as in privately owned restaurants, this is owned by the government.” She is a good guide.

After lunch we walked around the palace, for hours. As I think I ran out of superlatives describing the Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor, all I can say about the size of the Palace and its grounds is: the palace and its grounds are much, much bigger than the Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor, only more old. 580 years old, to be precise. My feet are very sore from walking around the palace. It is so big that the buildings just run together in my mind, and I have terrible difficulty trying to construct any sort of map of it in my mind. Oh, Beijing has crows, which are my favourite bird. They are jet black, perch on rooftops and “crow” in their own unique and sinister manner. They are also very intelligent. It has been shown that they can count, and determine different humans from one another. One study showed that if a crow has a piece of food that it wants to hide, and said crow knows that it is possible that another crow could be watching it, it will wander around, waiting until it thinks the other crow won’t be watching before hiding the food. Then it will wander around some more, to appear as if it still has the food. Also, they can problem solve, using sticks to reach otherwise inaccessable areas to get food. Lastly, it has been shown that crows can reason, with a series of experiments where a crow is placed on a perch that has a piece of string fixed to it, with an item of food tied to the end of the string. The birds will try (unsuccessfully) to fly at the food, then stand on the perch for awhile. They birds will then get the food by pulling up the string. This experiment was repeated by placing the crow in more and more complex environments. Go google it. Uh… The palace was nice, look at the pictures.

The final destination (crap movie) was an acrobatics show, which was extremely good. They jumped and flipped about like… acrobats. Apparently the performers are all gymnasts who failed to win medals. So really instead of being called the “Acrobatics Macrocosm,” it should be “Gymnast’s Graveyard”. Has a nice ring to it. The show ran for about an hour. The pictures describe it better than I can textually, so go and have a look at them.

Tomorrow the Great Wall.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, Culture - 文化

Ok here is the post about the park, I’ve ranted enough about .Mac, I no longer feel like vomiting into an envelope and mailing it to them.

As one does in China, we took the bus to the park. The bus wasn’t hellishly crowded this time, which was a nice change. I amused myself by memorizing the announcement, which is repeated after every stop.

Chinese: “车辆起步请拉好扶手。上车请主动投币。不设另找。请给需要帮助的乘客让个座，谢谢。”

In English it would be: “When the bus starts moving, hold on. When boarding the bus, pay the fare. Don’t forget your things when you get off the bus. If there are old or sick people aboard, give them your seat. Thanks.”

So at the park we finally arrived. Actually, the bus stop was miles away from the park entrance. We had to walk beside the park for some time before finding the entrance. Before we paid, I didn’t understand why the park has such a forboding wall surrounding it. The all comes complete with iron spikes. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t find it difficult to scale, considering my incredible agility.

At the park entrance there were a few knots of street merchants. We bought a kite from the one who yelled at us first, as we respected his enthusiasm. We bought the “vampire” kite, which is not a vampire at all, in fact it is a bat. A bat that looks as if it was assembled by a blind child. Good thing attention to detail doesn’t mean squat when the item under examination is sixty meters above. He even gave us a spool of string for free.

The park ticket cost $2.

The park wasn’t packed, but by New Zealand standards it was quite crowded. There were about three different couples having wedding photos taken that I saw. I’d say the park is a few hectares*, and has a lake in the center. There were a few boats floating around the lake, which looked like fun. We walked around for awhile, until that became boring. When it did, I demanded to be allowed to “ride the boats”. We started to circumnavigate the lake, certain that we’d find the boat rental shack somewhere.

Before that we found a bunch of people fishing. I couldn’t really believe my eyes, people fishing in the centre of Shanghai! There were quite a lot of them too, given the small partition they were fishing in. It didn’t take long for me to realise that the fish they were trying to catch had been introduced to this part of the lake. Turns out that fishing is free, but taking a fish home is 8å…ƒ/gram. Throwing the caught fish back is not allowed, anyone convicted of this crime is required to pay a fine. I took some photos of the anglers.

A short walk later and we had found the boat rental shack. Yvonne read the sign quickly, and I read the prices, because they all use the same numerals as us for numbers, unless one is in a fancy place, in which both Chinese and arabic numerals are used. I don’t know why. The prices were 25å…ƒ or 40å…ƒ. Before actually reading all of the sign, we agreed on the 25å…ƒ boat. Yvonne talked and paid the money, and we stepped onto the dock. The “dock master” took our ticket and led us past the nice looking boats to an area populated by blue pedal driven ones. It was not quite what we’d expected, but we didn’t complain. Pedaling the boat around the lake was quite fun, not totally gay like it sounds. The main reason it wasn’t totally gay was that we were a heterosexual couple. I quickly realised that my pants were too tight, as my testicles began to ache. I solved this by undoing both the button and the fly, and pulling them down a little bit. This made me much more comfortable. Pedaling at a comfortable pace caused the boat to travel slightly faster than the more expensive, electric boats. As the lake was quite large, especially from the perspective of one sitting in a pedal-powered boat, I set my phone alarm so that we’d have plenty of time to get back to the dock before our hour was up. This turned out to be an excellent idea, as Yvonne, the captain, was unable to pilot the boat in a straight line. Instead we’d travel in a series of ‘S’ shapes. I think she did this on purpose because I have been eating too much lately.

Returned boat, recovered bond. Bored of the park now, we headed to KFC. On the way to KFC we passed a kid carrying a rabbit in a tiny cage. I took photos so I could give animal rights activists another whine item. The kid obviously loved his pet, and was very cute. Yvonne asked him what the rabbit’s name was, and the kid said it didn’t have one. Yvonne suggested he call it “rabbit”, and the kid nodded his head. I thought it was a good name. The rabbit-sized cage was another thing one wouldn’t see in New Zealand. Oh the joys of China.

KFC in China, like I’ve said before, is quite a different beast. For NZ$10 we were able to buy the equivalent of two burgers, chips, a potato & gravy, another side, and a pepsi. I think that lot would come to about NZ$20 if purchased from one of the filthy New Zealand stores. Because we’re in China though, the meals are also very different. I had a combo which consisted of: A “twister” as they like to call them (burrito style wrap), that was some strange flavour entitled “Beijing Sauce”, three fish … things, two chicken nibbles and a drink. Yvonne had five chicken wings, some soup and a strange pudding tart thing that I don’t like very much. While we were eating a dog came into the shop, which obviously made the manager’s day. There was a lot of yelling and chasing before it was expelled. It must have fled into KFC in an effort to escape the crazies outside singing their heinous christmas carols. Yes, they have christmas carols in China, and yes, they are just as terrible as the New Zealand ones. I really hate christmas carols.

KFC being eaten, we walked to the Grandma’s house, where dinner was to be had later that night.

Dinner was fun, I was given beer. According to Yvonne, I am an alcoholic, therefore having dinner with her family is the highlight of my trip, as I at dinner I am given beer. I managed to speak with the relatives somewhat successfully this time, as I am no longer afraid they will challenge me to a duel or whatever. Actually I just wasn’t very confident before, as they all speak very swift Shanghainese, making my attempts at conversation feel like I am butting in, since I can’t understand what their conversation is about. I’m still not very confident, but they don’t seem to get angry when I try to talk to them, so I try more often. I’ve managed to crack a few jokes, but as they have to be explained afterwards in fine detail, none of them have been successful yet. I still think they’re funny though, which is the main thing.

Honestly we really are going to the big fish tank tomorrow, so I’ll have some awesome pictures of fish to upload tomorrow night.

*I don’t have any idea how big a hectare is. What I mean is: “the park was pretty big”.

Tags: China - 中国, Culture - 文化, Shanghai - 上海, Travel - 旅游

I have been writing this on my MACBOOK while in Hangzhou. Yes, I have a MACBOOK. I have a MACBOOK because they are cool, and I am also cool. Also the interface doesn’t suck, though that line that everything “just works” is arse. Sure, everything “just works” for me, but I have to do programming papers. Everything “just works” for me in Windows and Linux as well, because I have the pasty skin and thick glasses of a computer nerd. I assure you, if you are Mr./Mrs average Joe, you’ll find something to get confused about with a MACBOOK. One thing that is far better is that the OS is based on UNIX, so the terminal is available, if you swing that way (I do). Also, there are about 1~2 viruses. Not that you shouldn’t have a virus scanner anyway, else you risk sending viruses to your less fortunate friends, who aren’t cool/rich enough to own a MACBOOK.

One thing PC users can do that MAC users can’t

I’m tired. Ignore that which is above. Below is a half-hearted attempt at a blog entry, and below that you will find two more entries that I wrote while away.

Found a funny brochure in a drawer in the hotel today, all about AIDS. Glad I don’t have AIDS. According to the brochure AIDS is a star-shaped scary face, that can live both inside and outside a pregnant woman’s womb. If this happens the AIDS will generate a blue and a red arrow, I’m not sure that they are supposed to indicate. Also it is either good or bad to observe a clean person using a needle while a dirty person grins at them. The brochure wasn’t that informative, but that is probably because I couldn’t read every third character or so.

Today we are going to see a cave. Caves rank just below fish on the scale of awesome, so I’m pretty excited. I hope my photos are all sharply focused, so I don’t have to bother explaining everything in too much detail.

After finishing lunch, it turns out that we don’t have enough time to go to the cave today. That is OK because there are plenty of caves in New Zealand, and I have seen a lot of them. Instead we are going to see a different tower. Before going to the tower we went to some place with a bunch of small shops. None of the shops sold anything I wanted, but some of the wares were interesting. Yvonne’s parents bought a lot of tea from the tea shop, and spent quite some time looking at all of the dried leaves. While this was happening Yvonne and I watched a street artist draw pictures of a very vain looking couple. The same artist had pictures of some famous people stuck on his wall. The only one I recognized was Jet Li. Jet Li was smiling, probably because he had just had a look at his bank account, which I am sure is filled with money.

Further down the street there was a stall selling toffee sculptures, which were very nice. I took a few pictures of them, and one of Yvonne and the chef. Like all of the China that I have seen, there were a lot of statues of lions around, and I diligently photographed them all. China seems to have a lot of statues in general, a large proportion of which portray normal people doing normal things. There is one of a white tourist using his camcorder, but I haven’t found that one yet. I think there were about two shops selling fake swords.

The second tower was next. This tower is much older, and much taller than the other one. It differed in that it lacked an elevator as well. Yvonne and I agreed to have a race to the top, which wasn’t very fair really. I won, surprise! We were both very tired by the time we reached the top. The stairs were very steep. The view was very nice, it was a shame that the wind didn’t pick up, which would have shifted the “fog” as Yvonne calls it. Still, nice tower.

Went to some flash hotel restaurant for dinner, which was tasty. I have yet to eat a meal that was not tasty.

Train time, which was awesome for the first five minutes, then boring. The train is fast, did I mention that? Fast.

I’m tired so I’ll just ramble on for a little while to pad out this post, then upload.

The subway station was packed, as everyone from the train wanted to go in the same direction. We waited for the next one, which was OK because they come every five minutes. Subways are fun to ride, and maximally convenient. I can’t wait until 2050, by which time Auckland should finally have one. At one stop someone almost got crushed in the door, which was amusing.

The bus ride back was totally packed, and I really do mean packed. Like, people were almost sitting on each other. We never have public transport operating as efficiently as that in New Zealand. We got on at the first stop, so we all had a seat, ha ha ha. The bus driver smoked the whole way, like most public transport drivers. When we arrived home I immediately began ignoring everyone, as I had been without the internet for three whole days (apart from the few minutes here and there that I could steal from that moron who didn’t have a password on his wireless account).

Hangzhou is very nice, and has some interesting places to see, but I like Shanghai more. Going to the big aquarium tomorrow which I guarantee will be awesome. Then, if Yvonne can peel me from the glass walls of the tanks, we’ll go to the technology museum.

Tags: Apple, China - 中国, Culture - 文化, Hangzhou - 杭州, Macbook, Travel - 旅游

Today we went to Hangzhou.

The train was scheduled to depart Shanghai South railway station at 7:50. That railway station is quite far from Yvonne’s parent’s house, so to get there we had to take a bus then the subway. This meant that we had to leave their house at 5:45. I set my alarm for 5:20, because I wasn’t sure at the time, when we were supposed to leave. I think someone tried to tell me, but I didn’t understand. I just didn’t want to make everyone late, so I set my alarm early. The alarm went off OK, but I couldn’t hear anyone moving about, so I set it to snooze and went back to sleep. It went off about five times, and each time the house was silent, so I assumed we weren’t due to leave. Turns out everyone had slept through their alarms, and we were late.

We rushed out of the house and dashed to the bus stop. The bus hadn’t left. On the bus we had breakfast, bread and water. The bread was way too sweet, and I didn’t want to drink much in case the toilets were totally appalling wherever it was be that I needed to go. The bus ride was uneventful, as was the subway. We arrived at the train station about half an hour early, and sat. The toilets there were OK.

The train that took us to Hangzhou was very flash, one of those with the long streamlined nose. It was also quite fast, the highest speed displayed on the small screen at the front of our carriage was 170 km/h. The trip from Shanghai South to Hangzhou took about an hour. The ride was so smooth that if one didn’t look at the speed display, one wouldn’t notice acceleration/deceleration. A few times I guessed we were going about 50~60 km/h, when in fact we were traveling at 100 km/h or more. The operators kindly provided passengers with a magazine and a sickness bag each. The sickness bags were somewhat misleading, being labelled “Airsickness bag”.

The Hangzhou Station wasn’t as flash as the Shanghai version, which I’d say is the case with almost anything in China when compared with the Shanghai version.

As soon as we arrived in Hangzhou, Yvonne’s dad started talking on his cellphone, I thought he was just talking to a friend or whatever, but he was ringing the driver that had been arranged for us. The driver is Yvonne’s dad’s friend’s company’s driver, and had been loaned to us for the day. He was extremely professional, and really helpful. Before starting as a driver for that company he was a taxi driver, so his honking and swerving skills were second-to none.

He took us first to the hotel, where we checked-in. Turns out foreigners are supposed to take their passports everywhere with them in China, as we are not to be trusted and must be watched every second lest we ruin the “harmonious society” that consists of rich people, not-so-rich people, and beggars. The receptionists asked me for my passport, which was safely in a drawer in Shanghai. They weren’t very impressed that I didn’t have it with me. I had to fill in some form, and remember my passport number, which I must have recalled correctly, as no jack-booted police have yet smashed down the door and dragged me into a dungeon/torture chamber, like some people are worried will happen. Yvonne’s dad has friends in the company that owns the hotel apparently, so any problems would’ve been cleared up quickly anyway.

The rooms are nice, I would have taken more photos, but I left the camera’s USB cable in Shanghai, meaning I am unable to transfer photos from the camera to the computer to make more room for tomorrow’s photos. Because of this I have have been deleting crap ones as I see better opportunities. Photos of hotel rooms have a high crap quotient, and were among the first to go. The photo: “Woman bag” is one of only two photos of the room I saved. The Chinese text reads: “Woman bag” as well, we don’t know what it is for. They must have something to do with the toilet, as they were placed enticingly on the cistern.

After sitting in the room for about ten minutes, it was time to go. We went to the buddhist tower, I forget what the name, though I remember it has something to do with a snake woman.* It is very high, and looks nice. The golden steeple atop it is gold leaf. It is a reconstruction of a very ancient buddhist tower that was destroyed in the 1920’s. The original foundations are still visible beneath the new tower, and people through money at it, seemingly forgetting they have already paid an admission fee. From the tower one can see all of Hangzhou. Hangzhou looks like Hamilton, in that it is mostly trees. Inside the tower there are about two floors that have buddhist artwork displays. They were very nice, but I didn’t bother to photograph them all. The roof is gold leaf as well. The tower and surrounding area were very nice, like a large park. It was good that we went on a weekday, as there were few people about. Yvonne swears that the haze you see in the photos is fog, not smog.

Because our breakfast was so meager, we were all starving by the time we had looked at the tower and tower grounds. This forced us to go and get lunch. We went to some restaurant that had outside seating. Like all restaurants I’ve been to so far, the service was excellent. The meal was tasty as well. Yvonne tells me that she likes Hangzhou food because it is sweet, and our meal was. We ordered some watermelon juice, which tasted good. The driver, who ate with us (he was a nice guy) accused the restaurant of watering down the watermelon juice, an allegation that they denied. They brought us some more, and showed us that it has to be agitated, else the pulp and juice will separate, causing it to appear far lighter in the bottom half compared to the top. Whatever, it tasted good.

During lunch Yvonne’s dad asked me if I’d rather live in Shanghai or Hangzhou. I misunderstood him, thinking he had asked me which I liked more. I told him both, which got a confused look. Yvonne told me what he actually asked, and I said Shanghai, because most New Zealand cities are like Hangzhou, only without the buddhist temples. New Zealand doesn’t have a city with twenty million people living in it though, making Shanghai a novelty for me.

After lunch we went to the Hangzhou Buddhist temple, which consists of a lot of temples built on the side of a mountain. To visit them all one has to slowly walk up the mountain. The Hangzhou mountain isn’t very high, so visiting all the temples isn’t very arduous. Each temple is like another room for the Buddha, so Yvonne tells me. One is not allowed to take photos inside the temples, but one of the temple’s doors was wide open, so I took some photos of the inside, from the outside. The interior of the temples is generally the same, a big open space filled with a massive statue of some figure, or a lot of less massive statues of Buddhist figures. Opposite the temples there are a lot of sculptures carved into rocks, most of which are over six hundred years old. They were smashed during the cultural revolution, but have since been repaired. The rocks on the path have been worn smooth with the feet of tourists, who must have been visiting for almost as long as the sculptures have been there. It was all very pretty, look at the photos.

We went from the temple to the lake, which is big. I don’t think it is as big as lake Taupo, as one can see the opposite side. Hundreds of years ago some Emperor decided he’d like to have a series of summer houses on the small islands in the lake, and so the three islands were terraformed and civilized. One of the islands is now reserved for birds, the other two for tourists. We rented a boat, which took us to one of the islands. The boat was powered by a person with an oar, and traveled about as slow as one would expect. We went to the biggest island, where the Emperor would go once every two years or so. It was very nice. The island is quite big, about an acre or so I estimate. Its center is a large lagoon, which is connected to the lake. The lagoon has walkways crossing it, and some large stones placed in it. There are some buildings around as well, which have been converted into either shops or the toilet.

Apparently whoever is in charge of whatever the Chinese equivalent to our city council has bought a huge water filtering machine, which has been placed on the river that feeds the lake. This means that the lake is getting cleaner and cleaner.

Boat ride back, drove back to the hotel. I slept for two hours, then we had dinner. Dinner was nice, I had abalone for the first time, which actually tasted nice, contrary to what one would expect from its external appearance. After dinner we went for a walk, and I took some photos. I finally found out how to change the language on Yvonne’s camera, and found the exposure settings. I got some nice photos of Hangzhou night. Now I know how to change the exposure, I’ll be able to get some better shots of Shanghai as well.

End of day one.

*If you’re interested, I’m sure a Google search for “Hangzhou snake tower”; or “Hangzhou Buddhist tower” would yield helpful results. I can’t check it now, as the internet connection I was stealing seems to have stopped working. Some moron has a wireless router somewhere near this hotel room, and hasn’t enabled any security features. It was working for me before, but I think I am just on the edge of its range, as it times out each time I try to connect now. We asked the hotel staff if they provide wireless internet to guests, and they told us they don’t, so it is definitely some close-by idiot’s.

Tags: China - 中国, Hangzhou - 杭州, Travel - 旅游

First I said Ni hao, then her dad said Ni hao.  This continued for some time.  Yvonne’s Mum asked me what time we had arrived in Shanghai: san dian ban dao le ma?  But I thought she said Sheng dan ban dao le ma?  The latter doesn’t make sense, and I had to get Yvonne to translate it.  Turns out they have an accent that is hard for me to understand.  Life would be boring if everything was too easy.

As soon as one steps off the plane one can smell the pollution.  It isn’t as bad as I had expected, but it was still there.  Outside Pudong airport there is a big road, built especially for transport to and from the airport.  It is far bigger than anything we have in NZ, and it isn’t even a main road.  It is raised off the ground, and is about 2 stories high.

To catch a taxi from the airport one has to line up, which was much more orderly than I expected.  We got a van because of our copious amounts of luggage.

The ride from the airport to Yvonne’s parent’s house took about an hour, and was fun.  Her dad pointed out that there was a gold sun, 金太阳 – which is lucky.

One thing that struck me was that the documentaries are true, people really do transport ridiculous loads on bicycles.  I saw one car packed full of tired looking construction workers, and another full of ‘cool’ looking young men in suits.

The funniest was a man transporting a bathtub on a scooter.  Yeah, a bathtub, lengthwise on a scooter.  HA!

Even just driving from the airport to Yvonne’s parent’s house it was pretty obvious that Shanghai is still developing rapidly.  There is construction going on everywhere.  There are a lot of totally crap looking places too.  Crap like nothing we have in NZ.  South Auckland is a paradise compared to them.

Another interesting thing was the way roads are laid out.  There is the road, which usually consists of two lanes per way, then on each side there is a bike road, then a footpath.  This makes the roads quite a challenge to cross.

After arriving at the house and moving the luggage inside, we sat for awhile.  Then we ate dinner, which was tasty.

I laid the presents out on the coffee table, and said that they could open them after dinner.

Yvonne was pretty excited, bouncing up and down on the sofa.  All of the presents went down well, I had to explain that NZ is full of crap birds that can’t fly, and we love them.  I think they were a little confused about that, but they liked the singing Kiwi anyway.  Yvonne’s Dad particularly liked the slippers, saying that they were the nicest he’s ever had.  Looks like he had fun modeling them for the camera, shame the cameraman couldn’t get a focused shot.

Yvonne’s Mum loved the hand cream,  demonstrating it’s intended use.  She said she’d wear the necklace all the time, and Yvonne explained the meaning.

Yvonne’s dad can be seen in picture 08, posing with his new favourite bookmark.  They both loved the blanket, and can be seen stretching it out so that they could appreciate it’s full size.

The card went down well too, I heard it being opened through the night.

I went to bed early because I was tired.

Tags: China - 中国