China problems

Must be Chinese bugs in the program. I don't know why you can't click on three of the photos below to enlarge them. I tried several times to fix this, so I'll just put those photos into a new post and hopefully...

Walking around Beijing Jan 30, 2007 Part II

Still walking around Beijing...

I started walking around noon and it is now about 4:00 pm. I wandered through a bunch of side streets, generally aiming to end up at the hill north of the Forbidden City. I overshot that quite a bit and popped out by the Drum and Bell Towers. This turned out quite nice as I had just enough time to tour both towers.

First I had to beat off all the rickshaw drivers/tour offeror's with a stick. One of them I had to confront before he would back off. This is the second time in China that someone wouldn't take the first "polite" 10 "no thanks" as a hint. Then they grab your arm, then they block your way. That's when I get pissed off.

The drum tower is quite an incredible structure. The access stairs were either designed by the "Chinese Special Design Institue for Vertical Access Structures" using super special Chinese design number twenty-three, or they were designed in Medieval times for easy defence. Anyway I wouldn't want to slip as I was coming down these stairs.

A view of the bell tower. The bell is huge (7 metres tall), and is 25 cm (yes 10") thick.

In the bell tower as the sun is setting. Pretty cold up there. My camera was balanced on this puny little ledge because I was using the self timer. Unfortunately it didn't fall off and bean that rickshaw driver.

I put a video of the drums being beat on my YouTube site: <http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=GolfSteve55

And a shot of a local mode of transport. In Luoyang I saw one of these loaded down with 12 refrigerators!

Just North of the Drum and Bell Tower is an area with a large pond and a number of restaurants. The pond was party frozen over and was being used for skating. There were some pretty ingenious devices on the pond...the sled (poled along), the bicycle skate, and regular skates.

I pity the guys who have to write local bylaws in China. I know Calgary has this bylaw also, but it's been a while since anyone tried to get around this law in Prince's Island Park.

Walking around Beijing Jan 30 2007

Beijing, January 30, 2007

I was too tired to go on a tour of the Great Wall today, so I instead I did the incredibly relaxing 30 km walk around Beijing today. I just wanted to stroll but ended up seeing a few sights also. I didn't mean to walk so far, but every corner brought a new thing to look at.

I decided to start the day at WangFuJing street, close to the Forbidden City. This street is extremly commercialized and almost resembles any generic North American/European shopping pedestrian mall. Not very interesting and very expensive. Just off WangFuJing street there were some interesting side streets with food shops and various stalls selling the same junk. These guys are going to make a killing during the Olympics.

The food stalls were, for the most part, extremely clean. Here's some shots of the offerings. The first one actually looks pretty appetizing.

The second one is also appetizing except for the grubs and cicadas. Since I've come to China I've learned that I don't eat bugs, whole frogs, or pigs intestines. I thought I could eat almost anything, and I have, but I dont want to, so I won't. (The bugs are the brown things second from left)

There is a large Chinese Catholic church (which is different that "Vatican" Catholic due to control by the Chinese government) on WanFuGing Street. I need to check my history book when I get home, but I think this church might have been the sight of a seige during the Boxer revolution (also known as the 8 party war of aggression according to the Chinese). The courtyard of the church was quite nice and it was sunny although cool. There were quite a few wedding couples having their pictures taken. I wondered if it was normal to get married on a Wednesday, or if they were just getting their photos done before the wedding. A little bit later, the inevitable person came up wanting to talk English, and since he was nice we chatted for quite a while. He confirmed that they were just getting their pre-wedding photos done.

There were a few kids running around. The following guy was a terror and his Mom was doing nothing to keep him under control.

I wanted to show a few pictures of these kid's pants. I saw a lot more of this style of pant in Luoyang. This guy was wearing a diaper, but during the summer in Luoyang I saw lots of kids with their bums hanging out. If they have to go, they just squat down, or their Mom holds them between her legs while they do their business (usually on the street).

Several km later I ran across these guys. One had just launched a kite, so I stopped to watch. That's when I noticed the other kits....If I had to guess, I would say the kites were well over 1000 ft up in the air - just tiny specks. They had these fancy reels to hold the cord.

Still in China Luoyang/Beijing

I'm still in China. Three days of meetings and seven days of travel. Makes no sense, especially when the meetings are a waste of time and I'm away from Ceili for 10 days during one of the most enjoyable times of her life.

I'm in Beijing today. Travelled from Luoyang this morning. Just by chance, the taxi driver that picked me up was the same taxi driver that drove me to the Longmen Grottoes and the White Horse Temple back in September. It cost 200 yen ($30 cdn) to hire him and his car for 8 hours and about 200 km of driving. He did get me last time because he charged me 100 yen to drive me to the airport the next day. Today he only charged me 50, so he got an extra 50 out of me last time.

On a related note, the Chinese just don't seem to know when to stop. I bought three custom tailored dress shirts for 300 yen today ($45). I told her I wanted the shirts delivered to my hotel before agreeing to the price. I didn't even negotiate the price, which means I paid way too much (usually you can get 50% 0ff). She knew she got a great price out of me but, when I was leaving, she just had to try and get another 30 yen out of me for delivery. I laughed at her and told her what I thought.

Then tonight I went for dinner in the Kempinski hotel where I am supposedly a "guest". This place charges 10 times more than it should for a meal (a small dinner of sushi cost 300 yen - the same as three custom tailored shirts that I paid 100% too much for). Anyway, after getting ripped off by the hotel's advertised meal price, they had the nerve to demand a 15% "service fee" be added onto the bill when I tried to pay. Not advertised anywhere on the menu. They already got 1000% too much and they want another 15%. Then they wonder why we get mad.

The above examples are just minor examples of what happens during our meetings.

Anyway, enough venting. Today I went for a swim in the hotel pool. It was actually pretty nice, and it felt great to do something almost "healthy" instead of just sitting and eating. "Healthy" is in quotes because I'm not sure you want to breathe more of this air than you absolutely have to. I felt great afterwards and decided to walk to the tailor shop instead of taking a taxi (by walking there is less chance of getting ripped off by a taxi driver, but probably more chance of dying in a horrible traffic accident - see pedestrian eviserator below). After 15 minutes of brisk walking my nose was clogged with exhaust soot and dust and I felt just as crappy as I did when I left Luoyang.

Yesterday we had a day off and travelled to the Shaolin Temple, the home of Kung Fu (Gung Fu?) It was a pretty good trip. I enjoyed my trip to the White Horse Temple in September better because the White Horse temple has a relaxed "monkish" feel to it. The monks there seem contemplative and the site is mostly peacful (except for the car horns in the distance). The monks at the Shaolin temple are obviously incredible martial arts experts, but the place did not feel peaceful.

Anyway, here are a few pictures:

Driving to the temple was interesting because this part of China is very old. The landscape has been molded, sculpted, and modified by humans for thousands of years, leaving topography that is strange to my eye. Not only is everything terraced, but occasionally you get pieces of land that seem to have been left more virgin. These pieces are sometimes 5-10 metres higher in elevation than the surrounding area making it seem like the whole landscape has been scraped away over the millenia. The area around the Shaolin temple reminded me of Invermere in British Columbia.

When we first got to the temple, the wind was incredibly cold. The wind soon died down and the weather was cool but nice.

Here's a shot of me in front of the Pagoda Forest (the Monks are buried beneath the Pagodas). The number of levels on the Pagoda indicates the Monk's status.













Ewald, Ian, and Wu in the Pagoda Forest.
















I can't help but take pictures of kids. It's good luck to rub the turtle's head













I have no idea why there is a camel here. It was actually clean and well groomed.

Most of the temples here were destroyed in 1928 (war with Japan?) and have been recently rebuilt. The White Horse temple had much older buildings.







Some of us got sucked into beating on the drum. This was just before the Shaolin Monk martial arts performance. The performance was pretty good, but not as good as I expected.









We took the back route home, which passes over a mountain pass, then drops down through a coal mining/brick manufacturing area before joining up with the highway near the White Horse Temple. Here's a shot of some road construction on the mountain.

The coal mining area is quite astounding - lots of people with their own little coal mines / coal piles in there backyards. Lots of people also manufactured bricks/lime/refractory in their backyard burning some combination of wood and coal. The landscape was quite denuded near the road, and this is probably quite a terrible place to live, but not far off the road the landscape was green and quite nice.



These pictures were taken in Luoyang. You don't see many of these cars in Beijing. They are a Chinese car and come equipped with a pedestrian eviserator hood ornament.

Luoyang days 2/3

Well after a while with poor Internet connection, things seem better today. The Calgary Sun and this blog are still pretty slow (due to government monitoring?), but other sites are faster. I posted a couple of videos also, but nothing too exciting.


Welcome dinner hosted by FMG at the Peonie Hotel.













Second day of meetings in the new meeting room. Quite nice. Lots of people in the meeting. Looking towards the back rows. Amazingly LPEC has a new "specifiction" for no smoking in the conference rooms! However, the "specifications are not always followed", which I hope is not foreshadowing our project.








Finishing up the meeting minutes on day two.














An English/Chinese menu at our local restaurant. We've eaten here several times during the last two trips. This is the first time they've had an English menu, and I think there's lots of items on the Chinese menu that don't show up here. Someday I'll have to have a meal of twice cooked fat pork along with fried yak with mint.

Last night we had jellied Donkey.

All that five people could eat and drink cost 350 yen, or abut $50 cdn.

Beijing/Luoyang Day 1

Well, we finally made it to China (safely) again. Always a miracle. When we were in the Beijing airport I was hoping that the air quality was better than on previous trips becauase I couldn't smell as much coal burning as previously, but it turned out I was mistaken.

We had a good dinner at the Paulaner restaurant in the Kempinski hotel. Traffic was fairly calm and we didn't almost die in any taxi rides. I wanted to go for a walk but the air was too thick. It, however, had to be less polluted than the air in the restuarant which was absolutely blue with cigarette smoke. Those clothes got put into a rubber bag and will go to the laundry as soon as I get to Luoyang.

Here's a shot of the sun valiently trying to rise through the smog in Beijing. This was taken from my hotel room in the Kempinski Hotel around 7:00 am.
















At 13:00 we flew to Luoyang, China. Here I was worried about the air quality. As our airplane descended you couldn't see the ground until we we almost touched down.


You can almost taste the air just looking at the photo.






Deplaning in Luoyang.

We had a bit of fun at the luggage carosel in Luoyang. The carosel is very small and Gord's baggage is very large. Gord's bag came hurtling down the inclined conveyor and got stuck at the transition to the carosel. Gord promptly left the area until three or four small guys managed to unwedge his bag as more and more bags piled up behind it.

Writing this post has taken forever. The Internet in my room is exceedingly slow and crashes every few minutes. I haven't been able to check my e-mail here in Luoyang yet. Ian says his Internet is working fine, so maybe mine will be better later today.

Well, I'm off to the first meeting after three days of travel. Last night at dinner Luoyang said they thought the meeting "might only take one day". When Gord heard that his eyeballs almost popped out.

Later,

Steven

Christmas in Manitoba Part IV

Back at Mary's in Brandon and Ceili needed a bath again.

One last visit with Grandpa before we headed home.

On the plane and Ceili is asleep.

Back home and Dad is making Ceili look funny by putting his toque on her.

This is an attempt to recreate a photo of me taken when I was about one year old (Ceili is 6 months here). The stuffed mouse was my favourite toy when I was a baby. I'm going to try taking the photo again later when Ceili's hair isn't greased down (we had put a bit of oil on her scalp to help with some cradle cap).

The photo is pretty good and Ceili pretty obviously resembles me in this photo.

Now that Ceili is six months old, we're starting her on some solid foods. The first thing she did was try to eat the can.

Ceili's funny. She wants to eat so badly, but she grimaces after every spoonful like the stuff tastes awful. But she's anxious to get the next spoonful, hoping it might taste better.

And finally a shot of Shelly and her friend Linda and their babies.

Christmas in Manitoba 2006 Part III

One more visit with Grandpa before we were off to Dauphin. We had a great time visiting with Dwight. Ceili enjoyed visiting with Grandpa, listening to his stories, and hearing him sing.







This was the first time that Baba had seen Ceili. Baba was really good with Ceili, and Ceili was very interested in listening to Baba. I think she could tell that the language or accent was different and she really perked up when Baba was talking.

In Dauphin we stayed with Uncle Mervin and Aunt Anne. They always treat us really well and we had a nice visit with them.











Here's a nice shot of Baba, Ceili, and Dad on the farm before Dad headed back home and before we headed back to Brandon, on our way to Winnipeg.









Back in Brandon we stayed at Mary's overnight. We visited with her next door neighbour, Daisy, who is 102!












And finally and artsy shot that Shelly took of Daisy's hand and Ceili's hand.

Christmas in Manitoba 2006 Part II

I had a great time visiting with Grandma and all the other relatives. Ceili took the travelling and all the people pretty well. She stayed healthy and didn't get too cranky, so I think we were pretty lucky.



Saying goodbye to Great-Grandma for a day (we went to Brandon to visit Shelly's relatives and Mary, then came back to Glenboro for a day before heading off to Dauphin).











Now we're in Brandon visiting Grandpa and Aunt Donna. Donna made us a great light dinner that really hit the spot. Which reminds me that I have to remember to call meals dinner and supper in Manitoba instead of lunch and dinner to avoid confusion (sorry Grandma).









Aunt Donna and Ceili.


















This year we stayed at Mary's place in Brandon (last year we were at Norman and Linda's...too many people to visit and not enough time). I think Mary enjoyed playing with Ceili and got to give her two baths!














Doug and Nancy got ripped off by Ceili. Ceili had been good the entire trip, but at Doug and Nancy's she decided to be a grouch and didn't do much except cry. We managed to trick Ceili into letting Uncle Doug hold her for a few minutes before she realized what was going on...