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.

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Tags: China | Chunjie | 春节 | 中国 | 上海

Last post I mentioned that Yvonne and I made an igloo. That statement was true. Our tools were: one bucket and one spade. It took about two hours.

I thought I'd have more to say about it than this, but I don't.

Below are some pictures of the igloo.



Yep, an igloo in Shanghai.

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Tags: Snow | Shanghai | China | 中国 | 上海 | 雪

While I was staying at the university's dormitory, I ate mostly packaged chips or LEM. I think I went to LEM about four times. The second time I went there I thought I'd take a risk and order something other than the Student Meal, so I ordered a hamburger meal (big mac clone), with a student meal as a backup. The beef in the hamburger was hideous, but I ate it anyway because I was so hungry, and I knew I had the delicious taste of old deep-fried chicken to chase it down. The one thing that LEM does better than KFC and McDonalds is drinks - KFC and McDonalds use the standard soft drink syrup, which is mixed with soda in their big drink machines. The mixing of these drinks is almost never done correctly, resulting in drinks that are either far too sweet, or far too bitter. Also, I've found that the drinks from these places, in addition to the standard mixing flaws, have a slight taste of dirt. I think this is due to the Chinese water supply being ... less than pure. LEM circumnavigates this problem by pouring store-bought bottled soft drinks into their machines, ensuring consistency and flavour.

On Sunday of the second week, Yvonne had organised that her friends, her and myself would have lunch together, wander about, then play badminton. We went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. The food was so-so, I'm not a big fan of raw meat/fish, and I wasn't that hungry to begin with. One of the "highlights" of the meal was (raw?) octopi marinated in some red stuff. Another was raw horse meat. I ate both which, as you'll find out later, turned out to be quite a bad idea.

After lunch we wandered about for some time. We walked through various malls, which I don't remember. Malls do not deserve my attention, unless they sell electronics. After the malls we went to play badminton. The gym in which we played was on the fourth floor of a nondescript building somewhere in Shanghai. We had to wait for about half an hour for other people to be told to get off the courts before we could start. One of Yvonne's friends and myself were the best, when it was he and I vs. whoever else, victory (for us) was swift. After a short time it was decided that we weren't allowed to play on the same side, because it was unfair. We had a lot of fun, and played for about two hours.

Some interesting notes about the gym: it was on the fourth floor - all gyms are on the ground floor in New Zealand. People smoked inside the gym! They'd play their game, then retire to the sidelines and light up.

We then returned to our respective homes.

Monday's class was OK, afterwards I returned to my room and played Battle for Wesnoth. It snowed quite heavily, and at about 9 PM I went for a short walk to take some photos. About an hour after I returned I began to feel very sick. My stomach felt like it was filled with acid (funny because it actually is filled with acid, permanently... can't think of a better way to describe it though), and I felt like vomiting. I tried to fix myself with oranges, but they only made me more uncomfortable. Shortly after the oranges, I threw up. I was sick for about three days. I didn't go to class on Tuesday, but I forced myself to go to all the others.

During my Thursday class, my irritation with my electronic dictionary reached critical mass. I decided it was time to find one that was actually helpful, instead of what I had at the time, which was a dictionary designed for Chinese people learning English. I thought it would be good, forcing me to learn more Chinese, but actually (some would say dur dur dur here) it was less than helpful. Those weren't the main reasons, however. When reading Chinese I often come across words I have not seen before, or words whose meanings escape me. In these cases I do not know the Pīnyīn, and therefore can't look up the words in my dictionary, which is limited to pīnyīn only lookups. This is frustrating, and meant that I would just skip over the offending word, instead of learning its meaning and pronunciation. I was feeling a little better (or so I thought), so after class I texted Yvonne to ask if she'd like to go for lunch then accompany me to Tech-Heaven so we could find a dictionary that allowed one to input the character directly (via a touch-screen interface). Some organisation later, we met at the subway, then went for lunch with one of her friends. I was given the honor of choosing what to eat, due to my uncomfortable stomach and slippery bowels. I chose pizza, because the thought of eating anything "soupy" made me think of toilets and waterfalls (brown waterfalls). So, we ate at "Papa John's" pizzaria, which was so-so. Domino's NZ is better, and about the same price if you're a student.

After lunch we said goodbye to Yvonne's friend, and headed towards Tech-Heaven. We stopped at the first store in from the entrance, and asked them about dictionaries into which one could write Chinese. They showed us some examples, and demonstrated the functionality. I was impressed, but wanted to look around, to make sure I knew what was on offer. I was hoping I'd be able to find a dictionary with some sort of scheduling functionality built-in, as this is all I really use my PDA for, and I'd rather carry around two devices (cellphone, PDA or cellphone, dictionary) than three. As we were turning to leave the stall I spied exactly what I wanted, the Besta TV-3000 aka The Dictionary of the Gods. It allows Chinese handwriting input (among many other input options), has some scheduling functionality - limited to class schedule, but that is all I really need, and various other bells and whistles. It was quite expensive (not telling), but worth it. Now, when I come across new words, I actually want to look them up, and remembering them is easier, as in order to look them up I have to write them at least once. Oh, it also has an option to test one's pronunciation, and will show (and allow opportunity to practice) the stroke order of any character. It also shoots lightning bolts, and cures cancer.

I couldn't find a photo of the dictionary - it was released only a few days before I bought it, and only one device was produced. I doubt the news of its production will hit the internet until I am old and grey, which I won't ever be, because the dictionary contains within it the secret to eternal life, and a cure for AIDS.

I also wanted to have a look for a cheap cellphone (was going to get a nice one, but the dictionary dramatically reduced the available budget), but my stomach alerted me to the fact that unless a toilet was reached soon, I'd be wishing I'd brought a spare pair of pants.

We rushed to the nearest toilet, and Yvonne stood around while I popped in and out. When I thought it was safe, I announced that we should take the subway back to my room. Half-way to the subway station, my stomach gave me another warning. I paid heed, and returned to the toilet. After I came out, we decided to buy some "stopped" pills, because without them I didn't think I'd be able to last the entire subway trip. I had taken some previously, to get through class, and to give my body enough time to absorb the liquids I had been drinking, but I had decided earlier in the day that I'd try to stay off them, as I don't think it is healthy to keep taking things like that. This was a dire situation though, so we bought more. I took the pills and we waited for about half an hour to be sure no more explosions would occur. The subway home was blessedly uneventful.



By the next day the worst of the sickness had passed. Having finished the Chinese course, I returned to Yvonne's parent's house.

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Tags: China | Shanghai | 上海 | 中国 | Gadget | Electronics

Haven't written for awhile, I've been away at a course. The course was at Shanghai University, and was helpful. It was a Chinese course, and ran for two weeks. Most of the material I had covered before, but as we used a different text book, each day was filled with about 15 new words for me to attempt to memorize. Of course there were some grammar points that I had not come across before, and I learned yet another way to say "but" - "不过". Now I know about 4 ways to say "but". This type of thing is one of the hardest aspects (I find) of learning a language. One learns enough to have a short conversation quickly - so long as the conversation partner uses only the variations that one has learned. Even for a hard-working student such as myself swiftly learns that language "in the field" is a different beast to language in the classroom. I know how to say a lot of things, but I can understand far, far less. Like English, Chinese has 2~5 different words that mean essentially the same thing. Technically they're different words, but for a novice the difference between "popular" "famous" "acclaimed" "infamous" "renowned" is not large. This means that I often have to get people (Yvonne's parents, they're the only people I try to have actual conversations with) to repeat themselves using variations of the same words, as I'll often know what they're talking about, I just won't know it because they're using words I am not familiar with.

Two days before classes had begun, Yvonne and I went to the dorm and paid my fees. They had neglected to mention that bond was required, luckily we'd learned from the last week of payment trials and had brought an amount of money far in excess of whatever extras we imagined they'd tack on. Bond was 800元, and we got it back afterwards. When payment was finally over, we went up to my room, where I was doomed to live for the duration of the course.

Contrary to my expectations, the room was quite nice. I'd give it a 2.5 star rating. It consisted of a bedroom/office with a desk, a bed, a TV, a chest of drawers a cupboard and a water heater thing and an ensuite. There was also an air conditioning unit, which was welcome. I immediately set the unit to its highest setting, 32°C, where it stayed until Yvonne found out and told me off. When I had unpacked my laptop, and thrown the rest of my baggage into a corner, I announced that I had settled in, and that we should find a supermarket. The closest was just across the road from the nearest university gate, and from it we bought various snacks and some water. The water in my room tasted like dirt and had a yellow-brown tint. I didn't drink the water in the room.

The area surrounding the supermarket was filled with small restaurants and other student orientated stores, none of which interested me. On our way back to the room we had dinner, at LEM. LEM is short for 乐而美 - lè'èrměi, and is a KFC clone. I ordered a student meal, I forget what Yvonne ordered. The food was OK, good enough for me to return a number of times throughout my stay at the university. After eating I accompanied Yvonne to the bus stop, then played Battle of Wesnoth alone in my room. Battle of Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game. It is free, and runs on Mac, Windows or Linux. Though it is free, the quality is still high, and is a very enjoyable game. After completing some of the campaigns, which teach you the basics of the game, I'd recommend moving on to multiplayer.

I didn't have the internet in my room however, so I just played single player. To use the internet on one's own computer, one is required to install some software, which is Windows XP or Vista only. There were three computers in a room on the first floor for communal use though, which meant I was able to check emails.

The next day I had to get up at 8 AM to pay my fees and collect my text book. This all went relatively smoothly. At one point, after successfully paying my fees, I was told to sit on the ground floor and wait for the rest of the foreign students, which I did. I had been sitting for about 30 minutes when a different person came into the room and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was waiting for the other students, and he gestured that I should follow him. We went to the room I was originally in, and I was told to sit in a different chair. After waiting there for about 20 minutes, we (some other students had arrived by then) were taken to a small room where our Chinese competence was assessed. I was put into the B class, which is better than the A+ class. After this we were given our class schedules, and told that we were finished for the day.

I went back to my room and played Battle of Wesnoth, then watched a movie.

The next day we had our first class. I made sure I arrive just on time, so I wouldn't have to sit with a bunch of people I don't know and exchange small talk. The demographics of the class were: 8 Germans (one male), 4 Japanese (two male) 1 Korean (male) and myself (New Zealand). Note: some of my classmates were not present for the photo.

The teacher spoke mostly Chinese, and we covered a chapter each lesson. There was little homework, so at night I either watched documentaries/movies or played Battle for Wesnoth.

The course was fun, and helpful.

Later I'll write about how I got food poisoning from Japanese food, my new dictionary, and an igloo.

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Tags: China | Shanghai | University | 大学 | 上海 | 中国

Before coming to China I applied for a scholarship to study at a University here. I was successful, and since I came to China have enrolled in a short course at the Shanghai University. Applying was no problem, that was sorted out very quickly. Organising the payment, however, has proved to be more than a little irritating. Yesterday we went to the International Student's Center with all of the required documents, and asked to pay. There appeared to be only two staff members working, one was busy with an American woman, who had forgotten where she was, and was trying to use English. I thought it was a little funny, as she would ask a question in English, and the man would answer in Chinese. Yet she continued to make requests in English. She became more and more upset, and was crying by the time we left. I don't know what she was trying to achieve. Anyway, the man we were speaking to told us that we'd have to go to a different office to pay, as the woman who handles payments was out. He was kind enough to accompany us to this office. When we arrived, we were told that the woman wasn't there either. As we were leaving, we ran into her, and asked if we could please pay my fees. She said that we could, but they only accept cash. This was just great. We were short by only 200元. We asked where the nearest ATM machine was, expecting to hear that there was one on-campus. This was not so. The woman told us that the nearest machine was "just up the road." We thanked her, told her we'd be back soon, and left.

The walk to the ATM machine took at least forty minutes. Not only did it take a long time, it was also quite hazardous. The area is under heavy development, which means areas of leveled rubble, no footpaths (one must walk in the bike lane), and heavy machinery. All of this requires one to have three sets of eyes, as buses don't slow down, no matter how many people are walking on the side of the road. When we finally arrived at what we thought was the ATM machine the woman was talking about, we found that it was out of service. So we kept walking. We eventually found a working machine, and started the long trek back. I got in trouble for taking photos, as we were apparently in a hurry.

When we arrived at the university, I discovered the reason for our haste - the woman seemingly works thirty-minute shifts, she had gone home. The man we dealt with earlier, while typing an email in Japanese, told us to come back the next day. GREAT!

* * *

Annoyed, we went from the university to town, where we spent some time looking in shops. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant, where I had a glass of Korean Ginseng Whiskey. That whiskey was so strong, it was difficult to drink. Each sip burned my mouth like acid, but I drunk it all. After dinner we went to Pudong, and looked in more shops. Yvonne bought a nice set of formal clothes, so she will be able to win at job interviews. Finding the right set took quite some time. Before going home we had a snack at McDonalds. I had a "fresh vegetable beef burger," which is known as a Quarter Pounder in western countries. The only difference is the addition of cucumber.

On the way home I took some photos of welders welding.

On sunday I start my course, hopefully it is more organised than our first impression leads us to believe.

Edit: course was great.

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Tags: China | Shanghai | University | 大学 | 上海 | 中国

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, 拿, 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 30元. 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 25元, a price equal to one coffee from Starbucks.

Yvonne wanted special dumplings, which required queueing 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 - 25元. 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 5元 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.

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Tags: China | Shanghai | Culture | 上海 | 中国 | 豫园 | 旅行

I haven't really done much of any real interest since the last entry, so instead of wowing you with lies about things that didn't happen, I'll just type until I get bored about whatever I want. Sure, lies about awesome exploits would be more interesting, but I don't want to ruin my "online reputation". Just kidding. The real reason I'm not going to write a whole lot of lies is because I know too many people would believe it, and waste my time not understanding when I told them "it was a joke, I was bored."

So... what have I been doing lately? I went to Cybercity again, because I'm addicted to the place. Also we had to get a memory card for Yvonne's new camera. Don't think that all we bought was what we intended to buy, oh no. Our intention was to buy a memory card, but we left with a memory card, a screen protector, a camera bag and two keyboard covers. This time our favourite salesman was there, so we didn't shop around at all. The memory card is a Kingston 4 GB - 380元 - NZ$62.70. I thought this was an OK deal, but I haven't done any research. I forget how much the rest cost, not too much though. 4 GB is a ridiculous size. At the highest quality setting we can take 996 photos, or 32 minutes of video. This is a huge improvement, from 51 photos at full quality on the old camera. I will now be documenting each step I take outside. When we were choosing the memory card, the salesman asked to see the camera. He saw that we lacked a screen cover, and while asking us if we wanted one, he fixed one to the screen. We saw that it wasn't coming off in a hurry, and mentioned that his sales technique was effective. His English is very good, much better than average. It is good enough for him to get the idea of what Yvonne and I are talking about, when we use English to discuss whether or not whatever item we're looking at is worth buying at the given price. He'll use this information to calculate a lower price, or interject with information about the product in question, showing that he knows what we're talking about. About the camera case - we had one when we came in! Now we have two.

By the time we left, night had fallen. Yvonne wanted to go pay her respects to Kanebo, so I trailed along behind. I sat on an uncomfortable stool while Yvonne talked about different methods of worship. Eventually she decided on a suitable monetary sacrifice, and received her blessing, a bag filled with special paint. I often see her kneeling alone in front of a mirror using these paints to "pray."

After the make up store we decided to go home. On the way we passed a building, that during the day looks rather unremarkable, aside from the fact that it has a big sphere sticking out the front. At night, however... It is transformed into an amazing orb of light. I took a video of it, you can see it here.

* * *

When I am not out doing things, I'm sitting on the couch (my office) making websites.

The websites I have made are:

Pages of Interest (this site)

Waikato Golden Key

New Zealand Scene

My favourite is New Zealand Scene, because it has a black background. I haven't had time to finish it, as I have recently been hired to create a website for a fighting style called Taejitsu. I'll provide an address for it when it is done.

* * *

Also, I'm announcing the beginning of the "Toilets Series" photo page, where I will post photos of toilets. The quality range varies greatly in China, some are absolute luxury, some are simple holes in the ground. Some of the holes in the ground are still pretty luxurious, you'll see what I mean in the future.

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Tags: China | Shanghai | 中国 | 上海 | 徐家汇 | Cybercity

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 25元 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 10,000元, 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).

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Tags: China | Shanghai | Culture | History | 历史 | 上海 | 文化 | 中国

Before I came to China I made a list of things that I wanted to buy while here. The list included an external DVD drive, and buying that was the plan for the day. We went to Cyber City, home of about a hundred or so small technology stalls. I've found that the general rule with this place is that the further one goes into the store, the cheaper the prices will become. I guess this is because the salespeople know that customers are likely to walk to the furthest stall from the entrance only once, so if a customer comes to a stall near that furthest point, it is imperative to get their money at that time, as they won't be coming back. True to this rule, as we went deeper into the building, the price for the same DVD writer dropped. The DVD writer that was within our price range was a Panasonic DVD±RW designed for laptops, packaged as an IBM. It is small and powered by USB. The first salesman gave us a price of 580元 + 10 Sony DVDs, the next was 520元, without the DVDs. One floor down the price was now 460元, two stalls later it was 430. On the lowest floor we stopped at a larger computer stall, one from which one may purchase custom-built computers. We asked a salesman how much he would sell the DVD writer if he had one, and he told us that the cost price was 360元, which meant the cheapest he thought we could get it for was about 390. We continued along this floor for awhile, and were offered the drive for 360. Though this was at cost, we didn't like the saleswoman at all, so we didn't buy from her. Instead we went up to the top, the only floor we hadn't yet trawled. We came to a particularly small stall and started talking to the young saleswoman there. We asked her about the drive, and she told us that she didn't know much about it, and got her workmate, who came over quickly. He told us that he'd sell it for 420, and there the haggling began. Eventually Yvonne got it down to 400, which was still a little high. He offered to give us a discount on some DVDs if we bought it at this price, and got a pile of 50 from under the counter. He also spent a long time explaining to us that other people in here would likely be selling fake DVD discs, and we should know how to tell the difference. To make his explanation easier, he went to another stall (too far for us to see which), and got some fake DVD discs. He showed us the fakes and compared them with the genuine one that he was offering. We were pleased to be shown this, but the drive itself was too expensive. We told him this and started to walk away, which made the salesman's face fall like he had just found out his mother had died. I was searching for an excuse to go back and buy it from him when he called us back and said he'd sell us the drive and the discs for 520. This was acceptable, and after some more haggling, because Yvonne likes to, we bought it for 510元. The writer claims that it is IBM, but I did some research later, and it is actually a Panasonic wearing an IBM cover. Exactly what we wanted.

As we were walking down the stairs, I remembered that I had seen stalls selling hard clip-on covers for Macbooks. While in Beijing my laptop travelled everywhere with me, as I would fill the camera's memory card with photos too fast, and would need to transfer them to the laptop before being able to take more. The frequent removal from the laptop bag, and subsequent replacement caused the computer to get a few small scratches, which disgusted me. We looked in about 5 different stalls, all of which sold different variations of the same product. All that searching turned out to be pretty pointless however, as Yvonne wouldn't let me buy the cheaper one. This meant that I had four colours to choose from, reduced from about eight. In the end I chose blue. It was about 280元, but I think it was worth it, as the laptop can't be scratched, and has an additional layer of protection if it is dropped. Also it looks better, not that I can see the cover most of the time, as the laptop is open with the screen facing me. If I get a job I'm going to buy a keyoard cover as well, as pimping my laptop makes me more of a man (hey, I don't have a fast car - gotta pimp something, right?).

* * *

The next day was Christmas. As I was interested in what reception Christmas had received in China, I asked Yvonne if we could go to town on Christmas day. We went to a restaurant with her parents, then walked about for awhile. Christmas in China is similar to our western tradition in that it provides a reason for shops to dress themselves in red and white, and announce that they are having a sale. There are Christmas decorations everywhere, and one mall had a white guy with a snowy beard blowing bubbles. He was wearing a gold outfit though. I think the man was part of a performance group, because other acts included a living statue and a man dressed in a monster costume. It drew a crowd, but wasn't very "Christmassy." Many store have hideous Christmas music. Christmas day was just like any other day, not like New Zealand. On Christmas day in New Zealand, if one goes into town one doesn't see anyone, apart from maybe the odd police car. In Shanghai all the stores were open and filled with people.

Before lunch we walked around some incredibly opulent malls. In one mall we were separated from Yvonne's mother, and Yvonne had to go look for her. I waited outside for about twenty minutes with Yvonne's dad. Across the road from us there was another consturction project underway, and Yvonne's dad mentioned that he'd rather they built a park than another high-rise. He also said that to begin construction, the company must prove to the Shanghai authorities that they have at least 1,000,000,000元 available, to make sure the company is capable of finishing the building. I didn't actually understand that, I had to wait until Yvonne came back to translate. I can only count to 9,999 in Chinese. He also said that when subway line that will go through Baoshan (the suburb in which they live) is complete, it will take fifteen minutes to travel from Baoshan to this area, instead of the thirty minute bus ride followed by a ten minute subway trip that is required now.

Lunch was great, we ate at "The Golden Jaguar," which is a large buffet style restaurant. There were six areas, each had a different style of food. In one area there were two chefs at two large hot plates. Across from them there was a range of raw meat and vegetables, and one could choose what one wanted and have the chef cook it right there. Another area was devoted to Japanese food, and sushi, sashimi and other weird things were available. Yet another was devoted to roasted meat, with pork, duck and chicken. The desserts available were also excellent. The thing that really set it apart from other buffet restaurants that I've been to was that all drinks were included in the price as well, beer, cocktails, wine, juice and soft drinks - as much as one wanted. I drunk five cocktails. They were quite small and weak though, so I wasn't even a little drunk. The beer on tap was Budweiser, but I didn't have any because I am given beer every time we have dinner with one of Yvonne's uncles, and I don't want Yvonne's parents to think I want beer with every meal. The restaurant was awesome, and I plan to return soon.

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Tags: Malls | Shanghai | China | 商场 | 上海 | 中国

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.

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Tags: China | Culture | Beijing | 北京 | 文化 | 中国 | 旅行

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 10元. 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, keyrings 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.

We then drove to Wangfujian, which is Beijing's famous shopping street. It is closed to vehicular traffic, but wasn't very busy. After being in Shanghai for over a month, Wangfujian wasn't anything to write home about (although I am). Perpendicular to Wangfujian is a street that is famous or its street vendors, who sell food. the food is mostly "things on sticks", or kebab style, and is much cleaner than what can be found elsewhere in China. I think this is because it is famous. Generally one is cautioned against eating street food, as the sanitation standards are ... lacking (I often see proprietors of such stalls washing their utensils in the street). I ate two candied fruit sticks (strawberry, kiwifruit and strawberry), a squid tentacle stick and two lamb sticks. Yvonne ate two lamb sticks, a squid tentacle stick and some lolly sticks. Some stalls sold the most hilarious things, the most extreme being centipedes, or maybe scorpions... You decide. While goggling the scorpions, a western family came up and suggested I try some, to which I replied "After you."

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.

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Tags: China | Beijing | Culture | Temple | 历史 | 中国 | 文化 | 北京 | 寺庙 | 旅行

Today we had to get up at six-thirty. Had breakfast at the hotel, which was blan