Shane Travels

分红 Salons or pink salons were something that my Chinese tutor made me aware of via a humorous story regarding a female western／外国人 student/学生. (No more characters I promise). This student was walking down the street with her husband, who is also western and much bigger than she is. She was walking on the street side of the side walk and her husband was at her side next to the stores. They passed a salon and a couple of girls came out of the salon to flag her husband down. Once they got out of the salon they saw the “wife” and stopped immediately. The student didn’t know what to make of this so asked my tutor. My tutor explained that this was a “pink salon” and that they had nothing to do with cutting hair. The girls were in fact prostitutes… or as my Chinese tutor prefers “whores”. After being informed of this my tutors female student surveyed her local neighborhood and reported back to my tutor that there were at least four such establishments on her street.

Before being made aware of these establishments, I hadn’t noticed them in my own neighborhood. Those who know me, know that I am a bit of a power walker. I tend to put my head down and go quickly from point A to point B and since Shanghai sidewalk traffic and road traffic is dangerous I tend to keep my eyes focused on the ground and the moving things immediately around me. Of course once I found out about these establishments I decided to take a slower walk around the neighborhood. There are at least 8 of these establishments on my normal walking route. They are easily identified by the pink light that emanates at night from their front doors. A quick glance in the front door would usually reveal a couple of couches filled with girls dressed for success and one or perhaps two salon chairs. So what’s with the salon chairs… when it’s obvious that this is not a place to cut hair??

Well… prostitution is illegal in China. What goes on in the salons is illegal… so they present themselves as salons in order to give the police (who it seems likely… either make use of or profit from in some way from them) an excuse not to shut them down. Or at least this is what my tutor explained to me. For a more complete background check out this wikipedia article on the various forms / tiers of prostitution in China: Prostitution in the PRC

I was already aware of at least one of the other tiers of prostitution. “Dirty KTV”. My tutor pointed out to me that there was at least one “dirty KTV” right at the entrance to my building complex. I asked her how she knew it was a dirty one vs. a regular karaoke establishment. Her tips we’re quite practical: The door is open and you don’t hear any music coming out, and they usually have lots of neon. I suspect that it’s probably easier to find the dirty KTV places than the regular ones. Dirty KTV is often where largish groups of business men go to get drunk and hang out with pretty girls that they pay for.

So what’s with all of the prostitution going on in the neighborhood? And I do mean in the neighborhood. There is a pre-school across from one of establishments on my road. Men come and go from these establishments without a second thought to who observes their entrance or egress. These establishments seem to be everywhere and granted everywhere means everywhere that I can walk from around our apt and the downtown (市中心 - couldn’t resist). Is this a good thing… a bad thing?

My girlfriend (gf), who visits factories as part of her job, on more than one occasion has had girls sent to her hotel for her “Mr.”. The factory bosses assume my gf has a male boss who chose to stay at the hotel rather than come to the meetings at the factory. My gf takes this kind of thing in stride.

I’m not particularly prudish, selectively prudish perhaps, but something about how integrated the sex industry is into the local community and how “normal” it is… seems a bit odd. Unfortunately I don’t have many local Chinese friends to ask about this. My tutor (a woman) who is quite open with me explains that while Chinese girls/women may not like the fact that their husbands / boyfriends may visit these establishments… it’s just the way it is right now.

I’ve heard/read the argument that this is related to the one child policy, demographics and social stability. That there are not enough women for all of the men to marry, but I suspect it may be simpler than that. People (in this case exclusively men) are willing to pay for sex/companionship. If someone is willing to pay… most likely you’ll be able to find someone willing to sell. (So if you’re for free markets ??) Of course I know nothing of what working conditions are like for the women (girls??) working these places. I’m going to try and find the time to do some reading on the subject. The wikipedia article linked to above includes a number of references.

Hope this finds you happy and healthy…

shane

A quick update… here is the content of the email my girlfriend (gf) sent out informing her people of Zoe’s return:

At some point during or shortly after our Christmas gathering Zoe The Cat went missing. Disturbed by the merriment and turkeys twice her size, she presumably - and unnoticed - darted out the front door, found herself locked outside, and disappeared.

We searched for her on every floor, left the apartment doors open, paced the complex shouting her name, poking in the bushes, and generally becoming the face for the warning, “See, children? Do not grow up and become a ‘lao wai.’”

Last night, 2am, and a cold, wet five days after her disappearance, I sat crying on the couch. Comforting me, Shane suggested that we open the door one last time. Approaching the entryway, we heard a slight “meow,” opened the gate, and discovered a very dirty, very hungry Zoe.

Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope this little tale (or tail) renews hope. Or simply confirms that despite the economic turmoil, cat meat has not yet become a staple.

hope this finds you happy and healthy

shane

I suspect that rambling posts are less engaging to the reader than focused topic oriented ones… oh well.

I’ll start by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! If you don’t celebrate Christmas or the New Year and live in the places where it is, I sympathize with your plight and rescind my previous greetings to you and offer a standard hello instead.

This is my first year being apart from my family and apart from friends during Christmas and it’s been strange and uncomfortable at the personal, private group and public group level. (I was debating what word would work best when describing my social interactions with others [friends, society at large] and opted for group… which do you prefer?)

At a personal level I miss my immediate and extended family and the times spent together over the holidays. Being half way around the world at this time, makes me long for the most awkward moments of holidays gone by. Like being forced to sit on Santa’s knee during [insert family name here] family Christmas… I missed being able to watch my parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles being called up in the yearly ritual. A wonderful opportunity to have a laugh at each others expense and be reminded that no one is too good for Santa’s knee. You have to sit there to get your gift

I shared my Christmas day with my girlfriend (gf) and her/our extended family of ex-patriots. This group mostly consists of Americans, but we had representation from China, Bulgaria, Russia (?), Netherlands and Canada (me), as well and in no particular order. My gf, at the last minute, managed to have 2 turkeys with stuffing and cranberry sauce, catered and delivered right to our door. In addition my gf and our friend Tabitha (sp?) cooked up additional tasty food options including mulled wine, vegetarian paella and mashed sweet potatoes. The mulled wine was a big hit and is probably the only way to make cheap great wall wine (local Chinese red wine) enjoyable. The dinner party was a nice opportunity for friends to get together for a home cooked/catered meal rather than gathering for teppanyaki. I could do an entire posting on Teppanyaki… but let me sum up instead… 160 RMB all you can eat, all you can drink (beer and sake). Dinner out for teppanyaki… can be messy.

Christmas in China is an exclusively commercial holiday. For those in North America who complain that Christmas has become too commercial… you should visit Shanghai during the Christmas season. It seems that all hair salon employees (i could do an entire post on these as well) must wear santa hats. All apartment buildings and especially the shopping malls around where we live must be decked out in incredible amounts of lights and other Christmas decorations. Christmas music is piped over the speakers of all stores. The superficial aspects of Christmas are in place and are perhaps even more over the top than in “the west”. With that said there are no long standing family traditions that would lend feeling to the time of year and to the well wishes. It’s probably not overly controversial for me to say that the religious aspect of Christmas hasn’t been all that important to me in my life for some time, but the tradition, the gatherings of friends and family, being surrounded by many people who share the same traditions and holiday sentiment is something that is unsurprisingly absent here in China and I missed it.

Other topics:

I wanted to say a couple of quick things on product placement in shows. I’ve been watching a lot of TV series on DVD courtesy of my local street dvd store. These DVD stores provide copies of movies and television series at an extremely reasonable price. A movie goes for less than 2 dollars CAD. An entire season of television rages from 7-10 dollars CAD. The great thing about watching TV on DVD… is the lack of commercials.

I recently introduced my gf to 30 Rock. We both love it and managed to watch all of Season 1 & 2 in a few days. 30 Rock takes an interesting approach to product placement. They are intentionally obvious about it. Whether it be Snapple or Verizon wireless (have i just advertised for them) they integrate product placement into the plot and make fun of it. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) looks into the camera in one the episodes and says something along the lines of “do we get our money now?”.

Since i’m watching the show on street dvd and I may know of a number of people who come by their digital entertainment via alternate means… i suspect that product placement may end up being the primary way that entertainment is paid for in the future. You can’t cut out product placement… it’s integrated into to the plot and survives downloading, PVRs, etc…. Is this the truly negative aspect of digital piracy?? I can’t image that all content will be able to make product placement as enjoyable as 30 Rock does.

My next post will bring you up to date on my reading, Chinese studies and perhaps comment on how what we might (in the west) consider the seedier sides of life are integrated into life here in Shanghai.

hope this finds you all happy and healthy

shane

p.s. Our cat Zoe escaped the apartment last night. I personally hope that she walks through the apartment door (which we’ve left open for her); however if she is not able to get back to us and we’re not able to find her I hope that she is met with kindness wherever she goes.

Zoe is my other girlfriend here in the apartment. The noisy, stinky poop, one. Her favorites things to do are meow, eat, poop (stinky poop) and find warm places to sleep; usually my lap or in between me and my girlfriend. Zoe has been living with my girlfriend since another expat pulled up stakes and had to find someone kind enough to take her in. I suspect that, from time to time, my girlfriend has regretted this decision.

Zoe is like most cats in that she likes to eat, sleep and claw furniture. She is unlike other cats in the degree to which she expresses herself vocally and makes herself a nuisance. In the morning once she has dragged herself out of bed (she doesn’t wake us up to feed her… this is a good thing) meows incessantly and seemingly with no express purpose. In fact she does this anytime she gets up from sleep. If we are in the kitchen, she must be in the kitchen, and she will actually come running if she hears the fridge open. This is strange, since we don’t feed her people food and her food is not kept in the fridge. She likes to jump up on to the counter and from there to the top of the fridge, where she surveys the scene from above, behind the microwave. As a rule we don’t let her on the counters; however this move is pretty quick and difficult to intercept.

When not meowing or sleep on/next to us she can be found hiding out amongst my girlfriends clothes in the armoir in the bedroom. This is her favorite hiding spot. The doors of the armoir are usually closed and she likes being shut in there with a just a crack, so that she can sleep undisturbed. Her other favorite thing to do is to use her litter box. For a small cat she produces a lot of poop. A lot of very stinky poop. We keep the litter box in the bathroom under the sink and while this location makes clean up easy, it’s not so hot when you need to make use of it just after she’s made a deposit. Also annoying is how vigorous Zoe is in covering up her latest production. She uses far too much force resulting in litter being scattered all about the bathroom floor. The upshot is that we can hear when she’s just done her business so that we know to avoid the area.

Ok… enough about the cat….

I’m continuing to make progress on my mandarin studies. I have around 225 flashcards of which I have around 150-170 memorized. My pronunciation is still pretty rough around the edges, but it is improving. My biggest issue is when I have to think about the tone that I’m supposed to be producing. I’m fine with 1 (high, flat tone) and 3rd (rising/falling), but i often get 2nd (rising) and 4th (falling) mixed up when I have to think about it. That is when I know in my head that I need to use 2nd tone, I often produce a 4th and vice-versa.

Rather than being dependent on my girlfriend to write me the flashcards, by hand I found flashcard software for the Mac (iFlash), that allows me to use the built in language support on the mac to type the characters. This process is kind of neat. You enable fast switching between languages using (alt,command, space [switch to next]) / (command space [return to last]) and then type the pinyin word onto the card. Hitting the space bar drops down a list box allowing you to select the correct character. There can be many characters associated with the sound that the pinyin represents and the characters are quite small on the computer screen… so it takes me a few seconds to identify the correct character.

Using the flashcards in conjunction with the software is helping my recall quite a bit and I’m actually doing pretty well at recognizing the characters in the real world, where they are often represented using different fonts/writing styles. Of course recognizing individual characters doesn’t help much in the real world, where words are often made up of two or more characters.

牛肉 (Cow Meat - Important to identify food related characters when eating out)

It looks like I’ll be signing up with a tutor at some point this week. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

In the next post I’ll bring you up to speed on the local DVD stores and my thoughts on product placement in tv and advertising in general here in China.

hope this finds you happy and healthy

shane

Hello to all. I’ve been in Shanghai now for a little over a week, so I thought I’d best get around to writing a blog post for any/all interested parties out there. There are lots of things I could blog about, but I thought I’d start by giving you a window into our life here in Shanghai. My girlfriend (who shall remain nameless) arranged a two bedroom apartment for us in the Jing’an district of Shanghai, just north of Jing’an Temple and the metro station of the same name.

For those who are curious check out the following google map (Zoom in around flag A… and you’ll be in the right area… approx):

View Larger Map

The apartment was furnished with and in what landlords felt was a typical western style. Which meant loads of western “kitsch“. My girlfriend spent quite a bit of time gathering up the mountains of such stuff and piling it into the front hall closet. It’s an impressive collection, of which the only thing likely to get a second showing is the fake Christmas tree. Unfortunately there is so much of the stuff that we’ve lost the use of the closet.

Our kitchen is quite small, but is functional. The fridge/freezer works, but is a bit rough round the edges; our two gas burners are great. I finally understand and appreciate the expression “now we’re cooking with gas”. Having never used a gas stove regularly… I now have difficulty imagining returning to electric burners.

We have a washing machine, but no dryer, which means like all of the other residents of our apartment our laundry gets hung out to dry on a metal clothing rack just below the window in our living room. As long as you don’t mind your neighbors being able to look over your unmentionables and losing the odd piece of clothing to the wind, this approach seems to make sense. We’re on the 15th floor, so if you’re afraid of heights leaning out the window to hang laundry isn’t going to be for you.

There are a number of local grocery stores and restaurants, so it seems I won’t starve. Actually the food here is great and since my girlfriend taught me how to make Edamame it has replaced my normal snack food… popcorn. Plus microwave popcorn here is most likely to be of the sweet variety… yuck.

My mandarin studies are coming along better than I anticipated. I’ve memorized around 50 characters so far and have been exposed to, via the learning software I’m using, to around 100-150. My pronunciation needs quite a bit of work, but I’m beginning to be able to pick out common words and expressions used around me while out and about in the world. This is gratifying. I’m looking forward to being able to ask a native mandarin speaker something and get back a look of complete mystification. I understand that the key thing is to be confident, speak loudly and if in doubt of the tones… just speed it up… those who know me… know that speeding up the delivery of the way I talk has never been a problem for me.

For those curious what I’ve reading / read since arriving:

Made to Stick - Chip and Dan Heath: Found this book fascinating. They explore what makes an idea stick. Helpful to me in terms of understanding marketing as well as how to make communication in general more engaging. I’m afraid I didn’t apply any of it’s teachings to the above blog post

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently… and Why - Richard E. Nisbett.: I’m about half-way through this book and think it’s worth a read if you’re working with Global teams.

I’ll finish off this post with a couple pictures of me and my camera shy girlfriend in the new apartment. Hope this finds you happy and healthy.

shane

”

I haven’t updated this blog for quite some time… apologies for that. Let me sum up my Summer back in Canada and my time spent with new friends in Massachusetts. Perhaps summing up is too ambitious…

Perhaps it’s better to cut to the chase. I met someone while traveling in China the first time around. We met up again when she returned to the US for a couple of months in the summer. I spent time in Massachusetts and she spent time here in Canada. We spent a lot of time together during her visit home. She has now returned to China and since we enjoy spending time with one another and would prefer to continue doing so… I’m returning to China for 3-4 months.

I plan on using my time in China to study mandarin and to more deeply explore Shanghai… which I didn’t end up seeing much of the first time around (after meeting the person above in Shanghai I wasn’t as concerned about making sure I saw all of the sights). I’ll probably do a little bit of programming here and there to keep my hands busy and to give me a break from studying mandarin.

I’m headed back at the beginning of November. I’ll be updating the blog again once I’m settled in.

Hope this finds you all healthy and happy.

shane

Well… That’s all for now folks. I’m headed back to Toronto tomorrow afternoon (Hong Kong Time) and will arrive around 10:00pm tomorrow EST (Thursday). I’ve enjoyed my time in Hong Kong; however the never ending rain has been a bit of a downer. I still managed to wander the streets, finds lots of good eats and of course read my current book: Special Topics in Calamity physics.

For those curious I do find a noticeable difference between Hong Kong and the mainland. Surprisngly in your face capitalism is not the difference. The Chinese should provide Canada and North Americans in general with a refresher course on Capitalism. The difference I perceive and granted, having been here only a few days I could be way off base, but people smile more in Hong Kong. Things seems slightly lighter.

Things I will miss about asia:

1) Dresses and heels. Women look good in dresses and heels. In asia, many women still wear such things.
2) Relatively cheap beer (outside of Hong Kong)
3) Cities with good metros / subways / elevated trains… the TTC suddenly looks depressing. Shanghai was particularly impressive. One pay card for Buses, Metro and Taxis… love it.
4) Cheap domestic flights. I think the only way we could get this… is to shrink Canada or increase the population significantly. Anyone else have suggestions?
5) Tasty cheap food… Uyghur and Thai were / are my favourites.

Things I’m looking forward to:

1) Eating raw food. I risked this several times without issue… but in general avoided.
2) Fruit shakes for breakfast
3) Mustard & Vinegar
4) Swimming in the lake
5) Seeing family and friends

What’s next? Well… I haven’t quite figured that out yet. In the short term, packing up my house and heading to the cottage. Considering a couple of options after that:

1) More Travel
2) Backpacking a section of the appalachian trail. (Need to figure out if I’m physically up to this first)
3) Returning to work early? Still a few things to think about before doing that

Once I’ve figured it out… I’ll update you here.

hope this finds you well

shane

p.s. Thanks again to Alex. Especially for dropping off my tailored shirts in Hong Kong. I love the shirts!

Well… I wish I could tell you about all of the great things i saw in Shanghai… but my time there didn’t quite work out that way. Instead I met a lot of great people, mostly ex-pats and had a great time enjoying life with them. My most gracious host Alex, my former roommate from second year of University, introduced me to tons of great people and I suspect most of the good bars in town. Bars worth mentioning: The Beaver, Cottons, The Spot, etc… (note: I didn’t meet a bar on this leg of the trip [for that matter any leg of the trip] that I didn’t like). Thanks to the following people[in addition to Alex] for making me feel so welcome: Shirley, Tim, Mer, Ilana and Mel [apologies for any mis-spelt names]

I have to say that between Sunday the 29th and Sat July the 5th, I did not get sufficient sleep and was in degrees of inebriation the entire time. I strongly advise that if you can, avoid any offers of Baijiu. This stuff is awful tasting… and I’d have to be much drunker than I was to actually want to drink it.

I took the enjoyment of drink and general debauchery to new heights in Shanghai. I liked the city. I liked the metro, especially the pay card system. I didn’t like the heat… it was a humid cooker of a place and on a couple of days I felt as if I was literally melting. I liked the food.

In general I have really enjoyed China. Of the countries that I’ve visited.. this is probably the one that I could actually see myself living. I would need the illegal DVDs of course to survive, since television and official news is a wasteland… devoid of that thing… that thing that I think i need.

I arrived in Hong Kong yesterday. I spent the first day recovering from sleep deprivation. Today i ventured out to explore my part of the city and to get my metro (octopus) card. The metro here as in Shanghai is great. Saw “Wanted” today. Wasn’t overly impressed, but not horrible… which is practically a compliment these days.

For those curious about my reading:
Gulliver’s Travels
Second Foundation

I hope this finds you well with a smile on your face

shane

I departed Beijing and Arrived in Xi’an on Monday. Xi’an has a number of claims to fame, which I’ll let you read about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian

My primary interest was the Terracotta warriors and other archeological / historical treats in and around the city. After arriving and getting settled in at the hostel (too nice to be a hostel), I decided to spend a day wandering around the city, literally. I walked the entire perimiter of the wall, in a park, between the wall and the moat just outside the wall. It turned out to be an incredibly rewarding 4 hours. For those curious about such things the perimiter is around 14Km; however you probably log a few more miles (i guess I should say kms) than that, as you need to avoid traffic around each of the gates through the wall.

In the park they are busy installing exercise equipment… which was being used by citizens of all shapes, sizes and ages. I was impressed. Could something like this work at home? Would teenagers (of course I recognize that adults and pre-teens are also capable of causing destruction) vandalize the equipment? (For the record I see no evidence of vandalism… but have no idea why that is) In addition to the exercise equipment there were lots of outdoor ping-pong tables (metal nets/fences). I was invited to play ping-pong three separate times. It was fun for me and I think it was amusing for the locals. My first game attracted quite a bit of attention. A young lad provided some color commentary: “Laowai (foreigner) not good”. I actually did improve with each of the games that I played; however I have a new appreciation for those who can really make that little ball do their bidding. I ran after lots of balls that blew past me… to keep them from ending up in the moat. It was humbling, but lots of good fun.

The park also seemed to be the favourite place for teenagers and other youngish amorous couples. They tended to be tucked into various corners of the park. Their activities were strictly on the up and up… I’d have to say that you can see more action any day on Yonge street.

I went to see the terracotta warriors today. It was cool, but lately I’ve been finding the living parts of my surroundings much more interesting than the relics. In other words I had more fun playing ping-pong. With that said it was pretty neat and obviously something that is a point of pride for the Chinese. I took the local bus (to save kuai/yuan), and it was pretty straightforward. Lots of buses to and from the warriors. The warriors themselves are in three pits, which have permanent structures built over them to protect them from the elements, including the sun. I guess the first pit is a little too exposed to sunlight so they actually ended up putting the dirt back into several sections to protect the artifacts from discoloration and oxidation. It’s pretty amazing to see all those soldiers staring at you, each with it’s own unique features.

I’ve been getting most of my meals in the muslim quarter… where I can indulge my love of meat and barbecue in particular. Lots of kebabs to be had and cheap beer. For the record, I’ve been ordering a plate of veggies with each meal. The muslim quarter is a cool place to walk around in. A lot less kitsch that others places I’ve been. Plus lots of great (and yes occasionally not so great) smells to take in. My first meal was a bit of a challenge (as no english menu and no pictures… yikes); however a young lady came to my rescue and provided some on the spot translation for me… my flapping my arms like a chicken wasn’t working

I met a couple of young gentlemen from Finland this evening and passed on the book I just finished reading. All the World in Trouble by P.J. O’Rourke. I really enjoyed this book. Thanks Doug and Sarah! For the book and for putting up with me in Beijing. During my conversation with the Finnish lads I committed Canada to come to their aid in case of attack from the bear like country who will remain nameless to avoid google search matches and needs no further introduction. These gentlemen were fresh from their mandatory military service… mandatory military service in Finland… who knew??

I hope you are having a great day

shane

Slept in today for the first day in weeks… felt good. I look out the window and I see a thick haze… which I’m told is pollution… but I left my air quality analysis tools at home… so I have no idea… Regardless I’ve decided to spend a day catching up on the blog, posting some photos and visiting the bookworm (expat library/watering hole) here in Beijing.

I arrived in Beijing late Sunday evening. I’m staying with friends in their huge… feels bigger than the house I sold… apartment near the Austrailian and Canadian Embassies. It’s about a 5-10 minute walk to “Line 2″ of the Beijing metro, so it’s quite convenient. In addition it’s expat central… so there are comfort foods and expat hangouts where people speak english (although often as second language)… yes I should have listened to Ma and Pa regarding sticking out French in high school. In particular there is a very nice french bakery, where one can purchase a fairly high quality croissant (sp?). It’s a good thing i’m walking lots everyday… otherwise between the croissants and my beer consumption habits I would be returning to my previous physical dimensions.

The subway has recently been upgraded to use passes (cards) with automated terminals for purchasing rather than paper tickets and human ticket salespeople. There are some new trains as well, but some of the older trains (with many fans lining the roof the train) are still in service. This is apparently one of the improvements that have been brought for the olympics. It’s handy for me, as the automated terminals are available in English as well as Mandarin. In the new trains your current stop and next stop are indicated on an electronic map… makes getting around quite simple. The only sort of tricky bit is picking the correct exit when you leave the underground. There are signs (which are also in English) explaining each exit and what can be reached via that exit, but I didn’t spot these signs the first couple times and emerged to a large intersection… with street names that are sometimes only differentiated by different endings. Also construction is ubiquitous in Beijing… so trying to use a construction site as a landmark… doesn’t work.

Over the last three days I’ve taken in a couple of different sights. I visited Tienamen Square and the Forbidden City the first day. The forbidden city is huge… I took the automated guide and got to hear (learn is too strong) about several palace intrigues. Thankfully benches are provided at each of the halls… after the first hour of walking around, you can’t wait to sit and listen to the intrigues amongst the concubines. I haven’t had a chance to visit Mao’s Mausoleum yet… as It was closed on Monday. Not sure if i’ll check it out or not…

Yesterday I took one of the tour buses to see the Great Wall. I took the tour bus, as It’s one of the cheaper ways of getting to the wall… I wouldn’t do it again. I spent most of the day in the bus and got shuttled to two other places that were not of interest to me. I spent about 2 hours at the wall, which probably wouldn’t be enough for me on a good weather day; however the weather wasn’t that great, so two hours was actually the perfect amount. I hiked all over the wall, but you’ll see from my pictures that the views, unfortunately, we’re obscured by mist (i think mist rather than mystery haze). Some of the steps on the wall are pretty tricky and some sections remind me of a half pipe… no steps in some of these sections… so your toes end up at the front of your shoes. Thankfully hand railings have been put in some of the steeper sections. I was a bit of celebrity at the wall… as apparently some of the Chinese tourists visiting the wall think it’s fun to get a picture of themselves with a foreigner. I’m told that Beijing citizens are used to seeing foreigners, but that people from the more rural areas, don’t see a lot of us… so we’re a bit a novelty.

Last night I played a few games of go, with an expat go club here in Beijing. Found them on the web. Was fun to play go again. Lots of interesting folks at the Go Club. It was weird to be in a room with so many people flexing their brains… flexing muscles… flexing brains… seems like the same kind of behaviour . I had a great time and would highly recommend any go players visiting Beijing to check it out.

That’s all for now. I’m going to post my photos in a few minutes. So if you visit my picassa site you can check them out. The link is in the previous post… I’m getting quite lazy.

I hope you are having a great day…

shane

p.s. Thanks again to Dan (my cousin) for supplying me with the GSM Blackberry. I picked up a SIM card for here in China… very convenient. One thing was intersting… the Chinese are quite concerned with numerology and the significance of phone numbers… so price for the SIM card was based on the number associated with it. Since it doesn’t matter to me… i bought the cheapest number available