Winding down

Today is the last working day for both John and I. We will be packing over the weekend, moving our stuff to my parents' place on Monday. On Tuesday we'll be flying to Kunming, China to get our visas for Burma/Myanmar. We will fly to Mandalay, Burma on Sunday 1/6.

Here we are

Haven't seen us for awhile. Well....here's a recent pic taken on the Bund in Shanghai.

Finally

After 2 years of living in Shanghai we finally happened to walk by St. Ignatius Cathedral, located one block from our apartment, when it was open.

We were out yesterday and noticed a bunch of tour buses parked in front of the cathedral so we headed over, acted like we new what we were doing, and walked right in past the guys with blue badges around their necks.

Also noticed about 10 guys with the clerical collar, so it must have been an official church outing of some kind.

Inside, fairly traditional architecture. See photo below. A few people were praying. We noticed a photo of Pope John-Paul II in one of the chapels.

Inside.


Lit up at night during the Special Olympics last fall.

It's beginning ....

... to look a lot like Christmas in Shanghai.

Loaded

Three-wheeled bicycles are used to haul anything and everything in China. In the past month we've seen a few real loads.

The Styrofoam loads are common. Every expat has a photo. The ice load is unusual. That guy was really struggling.

Going to the dentist

I just got back from the dentist. My third time in the chair since we've been in China.

My insurance from Intel covers dental up to about 100 USD per year. You don't actually pick a dentist, but a dental clinic. When I looked on the list of approved dental clinics, there was one called iMD located about 10 minutes walk from our apartment. The first visit I brought Sun-Ling with me, but since then I've been back twice by myself with no problems.

So on Tuesday of this week I called up iMD and requested for an appointment on Friday at 10AM with Dr Wang, the dentist I had on my second visit who speaks English, does a good job, and has a sense of humor. I reminded them that I have GBG insurance since for some unknown reason they need to have a GBG specialist in the office during my visit to process the paperwork. I found that out last visit. OK. I'm in.

So today, I arrived right at 10AM. They had my file ready, asked to make a copy of my insurance card and ID, and had me fill out the patient section of the insurance claim form. The usual kind of claim form with a teeth diagram, and lots questions about dependents, dates, policy numbers, etc.

Dr Wang goes by the English name of King Wang which is slightly humorous if you speak Chinese since wang means king. So he's King King. I told you he had a good sense of humor. Also, Elvis is called Mao Wang in Chinese which translates to Cat King which makes a lot of sense if you are old enough to remember 1950's hipster lingo.

I walked back to a bay, they don't have rooms, and sat in the chair. A smiling Dr Wang asked "How can I help you today?" "Please clean my teeth" I replied.

In China the dentist does all the work, while the assistant only adjusts suction, spray, etc. This clinic uses ultrasound to clean the teeth.

The cleaning, flossing, and polishing took about 30 minutes. King Wang reminded me to floss every day which I already do. I took my chart up to reception and paid the 19 RMB Co-pay (about 3 USD). Then I asked for a copy of my records, which are in Chinese. And I got them to put a copy of my panorex on my USB disc. See below. I was back home at 11.

Living away from our house

We have lived in four apartments in the past four years; two in Shanghai and two in Jacksonville. Those have been fantastic experiences for us, though it was not completely our choice the first time around. I love the choices and freedom apartment living afforded us. I would even venture to declare that home ownership is overrated, except

1. Having a house gives me a tremendous amount of security. If ever our wild escapades go awry, we can retreat home anytime.
2. Recently we were almost thrown out of our apartment by our landlord for the last two months of our Shanghai stint because they wanted to sell. It's awful when someone else messes up your plan.

Now we are about to embark on a new phase where we will again test our family motto: Home is where we are together.

The big five-oh

The in-laws threw me a surprise birthday dinner for my 50th at the Dolar Shop hotpot restaurant. Here are a few photos. Johnny's getting older. ;-)

Fun at work

I commute to work every day in a shuttle bus provided by Intel. Last week we had an evacuation drill. It was lots of fun. [That's my head sticking out the top of the bus window.]

Moving on

John just had a BIG birthday. We decided it's time to start the next phase of our adventure. We are quitting the tech world. The plan is to work in Shanghai until the end of the year. After the new year, we will head south to travel in southern China and northern SE Asia. When it gets too hot to run around, we will retreat to our house in Raleigh. In the fall we will come out to travel again for 6-9 months. We have no idea of how long and how much traveling it will take to get rid of this travel bug ...

We are back

We are back from Japan. A short report will follow this weekend - longer reports to trickle out over the following weeks and month - but for now one photo taken at the Nagasaki Kunchi Festival.

The adults patiently await the Dragon Dancers but the children are just plain frightened.

Checking in from Japan

A short hello from Kanazawa, Japan using our new gear - the Nokia n800 and Asus access point - in our hotel room.

Just got back from the rooftop traditional Japanese bath. Great!

The most fascinating building in Shanghai

John and I have been pounding the streets in Shanghai looking for/at Art Deco buildings. We finally got around to seeing the Shanghai Municipal Slaughterhouse which we have known about for some time. Yet we were astounded by the magnificence of the place. Its sinister, bloody past added to its fascination.

The main building is fronted by an elegant art deco facade that spans 80 meters. All the slaughtering took place in the roundish building inside in the style of a Roman basilica. There are corrals everywhere for driving animals.

Across the street sits the imposing incinerator, a perfectly proportioned symmetrical building topped by two chimneys.

When originally built in 1933 this was the largest modern slaughterhouse in the Far East. In the days of the People's Republic, the building was first left unused (or continued as a slaughterhouse depending on which source you read), then manufactured pharmaceutical products, and then was storage for a hotel. Today it is being turned into an upscale shopping & entertainment area, under the name of "Shanghai Millfun 1933."

The wonderful young lady who showed us around said they have already signed up a couple of restaurants. As a vegetarian I am not sure I would be able to stomach food in a place where so many animals met their end and so much blood flowed. We also learned from her that this year's Design Week (starting 11/15) will be hosted by Millfun 1933.

There are supposed to be two other slaughterhouses like this, one in the UK and another in the US. I would love to find those and learn about their current incarnation.

Here are the photos.

The magnificent front facade.


The sturdy legs of the main entrance.


Interior ramps, corrals, and walkways.


The sinister incinerator.


An artist's rendition of Shanghai Millfun 1933 entertainment complex.


To see all the photos, click here.

New lab (toys) for the road

Being the Luddites we are, we held out on the digital camera until right before we came to China. That turned out be THE greatest toy for John, even more than his guitars. In fact, we are so in love with it, we are reluctant to upgrade and decided to buy a few "accessories" for it, since taking our Thinkpad on the road is out of the question.

Here's what we bought:

Asus WL-HDD 2.5 ( Wireless AP 80Gb HD = NAS)

Transcend TS-RDM2R (Multi-Card Reader)

Nokia N800(MID - Mobile Internet Device or Tablet PC or UMPC)


With this setup, we can

• Backup photos from the camera onto a hard drive by taking the CF card out of the camera, inserting it in the Transcend card reader, and connecting the card reader to the Asus box via mini-USB
  


• Get on the Internet directly with the N800 when there is a wireless connection (hopefully a free Wi-Fi hotspot) or through the Asus AP when only a wired connection is available.
  


• Look at photos on the hard drive with the Nokia using file sharing over the wireless LAN.
  

This setup is like componentizing (is that word) a laptop. We will have a full run with the new setup in Japan, where we may be found on Skype occasionally.

(Technical details:

• We have had "The 800" for 10 days now. Very good engineering. We bought a jacket for it. It runs Linux with the Opera browser.We had a fun time installing xterm/shell and trying to remember vi. ;-)

The 800 with its jacket.

• It look me several days to find a device like the Asus. It is a wireless router as well as backup hard drive. I am so glad that they make such a device!


• We had hoped to plug the camera directly into the Asus, but we had to buy the Transcend. It is a bit of an overkill.


• Everything is working as planned, except I cannot get to CIFS to work 100% on the Nokia. Talk about ironic. The workaround is to use FTP to look at the photos.
  
  
  

I'm published!

The dream of many photographers is to get published in National Geographic. Well, I didn't get published in National Geo, but I did get a photo published in the July issue of Shanghai Talk, a local English language magazine.

[Of course we now have at least 4 copies floating around the apartment. ;-)]

They needed a wide angle photo of the Shanghai Exhibition Center for their monthly architecture column and spotted my photo on flickr. The rest is history.

Here's a scan of the mag. Excuse my boasting but it was the highlight of the summer for me. ;-)

Trip Report - Nanjing and Yangzhou

Finally a brief report from our trip last Spring to Nanjing and Yangzhou. The cherry blossoms and plum blossoms were in full bloom as were the rapeseed.

Rapeseed you say? Canola oil is made from rapeseed. China is the world's largest producer of rapeseed and the fields outside Shanghai were bright yellow with rapeseed blossoms.



We stayed in an old Art Deco hotel in central Nanjing, checked out some historic architecture, made a side trip to Shecun Town before heading over to Yangzhou on Saturday morning.

While Nanjing, the former capital, is on the busy southern bank of the Yangtze River, Yangzhou is just an hour away on the north bank. The highlights for the tourist are Shou Xi Hu (Slender West Lake Gardens) - and the many canals that thread through the town, including the Grand Canal.

Canal lit up at night.



At Slender West Lake: One willow, one flowering fruit tree, one willow, one flowering fruit tree,and on and on.


And finally the famous Five Pavilion Bridge.


We had a great time. The photos from Nanjing and Shecun town are here.

The photos from Yangzhou are here.

And a short video of the rickety bus ride back from Shecun Town is here.

And last but not least, my experimental Google Map of Shecun Town. Feedback on this is most welcome.


View Larger Map

We go to a wedding OR John gives a speech

Last weekend we attended a wedding in Nantong, China, a medium-size city on the north bank of the Yangtze River, about 3 hours from Shanghai. One of my team members, Wang Ning, was getting married and she invited me to be the ZhengHunRen or "Master Witness". More about that later.

The wedding was Saturday at 6PM and early that afternoon the car that Wang Ning arranged for us arrived at 1:00 PM. The driver was one of those "professional" drivers who makes every maneuver possible to gain advantage including driving on the wrong side of the road. ;-)

We made good time and arrived at the Yangtze River Ferry at 3PM. The major cities of the Yangtze river delta - Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Ningbo, and Wuxi - are south of the river. Nantong is to the north and is not as well known although she claims to be "the first modern city in China". More later.

There is a new bridge across the Yangtze just south-east of Nantong that will open next April, but for now we have to ride the ferry. The driver knew exactly how to work the system to beat the long lines and we wound up waiting for only 10 minutes instead of hours. Literally he just drove directly to the front of the line.

These ferries were similar, maybe identical, to the ones we rode this spring to cross the Yangtze at Zhenjiang. It was raining so I did not get out of the car to take photos.

We got to Nantong about 4:10. Wang Ning and soon-to-be-husband Shen Tao were waiting to greet us at the Youfei Hotel, the only 5-star hotel in Nantong. The bride and groom escorted us to our room. This was our first chance to meet the groom, an entrepreneur from Nantong, and he seemed like a really good guy.

Room 616 in tower B was excellent. We took a nice short nap before dressing and heading downstairs at 6PM for the wedding.

Sandy, who had ridden with us from Shanghai, was the sign-in lady. We signed in and had our photo taken with the bride and groom. We also had a brief chance to meet both sets of parents who were very cordial.

The Chinese pre-wedding rituals are distinctly different from those in the US. In the US, the bride and groom do not see each other the day of the wedding and the "photo taking" and "receiving line" occur between the ceremony and the reception (while I'm usually starving). ;-)

In China, the bride and groom and their families greet the guests as they arrive, photos are taken with each guest, and gifts (red packets) are received. I like it.

The wedding was on the 3rd floor in a very luxurious banquet room with 28 X 10-person tables. We were seated in the 2nd row of tables. The decorations were fabulous - lots of white flowers. See the photos.

The wedding banquet started on time at 6:48 (according to Sandy). The bride and groom walked down the aisle to the stage amid some very loud welcomes by the M.C. yes, the MC. No minister as this is the wedding ceremony not official civil marriage.

Next, I was introduced as the ZhengHunRen and I walked up to the stage with spotlights blazing, and gave my speech - in Chinese. Basically the ZhengHunRen, or Master Witness, is a respected family member, friend, work colleague, or former teacher who gives a short 3-part speech: a welcome, a few kind words about the bride and groom, and a concluding "may you be united forever, in sickness and health, etc, etc".

I was happy to get my speech over with early as I had been practicing it in Chinese for a week and was of course nervous. Much thanks to Sun-Ling and my colleagues at work for their help and encouragement.

The wedding then proceeded with all the usual bits. The tower of champagne glasses, candle lighting, toasting, exchanging of rings, eating, etc. There was a new twist that I had not seen before at a Chinese wedding - a band performed about 5 songs while we were eating.

The food was excellent and the red wine was tasty. We toasted the bride and groom, the bride's parents, the groom's parents, and finally the bride and groom again before the wedding wound down around 9PM.

We went back up to our room were I ditched my coat and tie and we headed out for stroll. The rain had stopped and we were treated to the first comfortable evening of the summer. Nantong has many canals and bridges. We made a short circuit, and on the way saw a magnificent art deco building from the early 1950's. A real gem. Awesome.

Crashed around 10:30.

Slept in a bit on Sunday. Had a very good breakfast at the hotel and then Wang Ning's parents picked us up for a short tour around Nantong. First stop: a daylight photo op at the art deco building. Second: the home of Zhang Jian (1853 - 1926), nicknamed the “King of Nantong” who started the Nantong Institute of Technology, the first textile college in China, and founded the first private museum in China. Thus the city tag line of "the first modern city in China".

Then to the nearby Wang family home. A neat old style compound. We drank tea and chatted with grandmother Wang who is the only family member living there now.

Then a brief visit to the nearby Tianning Buddhist temple - very cool. Took lots of photos.

Then over to the apartment of the newlyweds - big and new - before heading off to lunch. Finished lunch around 2PM, went back to hotel, packed, and checked out. The driver had us back at our apartment at 5:30.

It was not raining so I took a ton of photos on the ferry.

Some photos are below. To see all the photos click here.

The bride and groom greet guests and take photos.


The banquet room. Check out the photos on the back wall of the bride and groom.


John gives a speech


The view from the Hotel of downtown Nantong.


The People's Palace.


Tianning Temple


The view from the ferry

"Broken China: A dysfunctional nation"

Recently I came across a very insightful article on the Internet: Broken China: A dysfunctional nation.

Now that we have been here for almost two years, we have a better picture of China. We would like to see her having a brighter future. However, there are many things that bother us and puzzle us. This article does a better job of explaining this than we could ever do ourselves.

Update

Hey all,

It's been awhile since our last post. Everything is fine. Just not much going on. It's been very hot in Shanghai for the last 6 weeks and we have been mostly staying inside, or working, or planning our upcoming Japan trip.

Shanghai was not effected buy this summer's floods and rats. And the typhoon Sepat that hit Taiwan and Fujian brought a few showers and a few gorgeous, windy days of blue skies and white clouds; but little relief from the heat.

We did mange to get out a few times during this "blue sky period" to continue our quest to visit and photograph all the historic Art Deco buildings in Shanghai. Click here to see the latest shots.

This weekend we will attend a wedding in Nantong, a city about 3 hours away from Shanghai. John will make a speech in Chinese. Look for a full report next week. ;-)


-john and sunling

Going to Japan again

We decided to go to Japan for the Chinese National Day (10/1) holiday week, 9/22 to 10/7

Japan makes an interesting destination from China. There are sharp differences.
* cost of living
* level of civility
* big empire (China) conquered by small-island country (Japan) in WWII

At the same of time, there are so many connections.
* ancient Chinese culture in Japan
* modern Japan culture in China
* dense population centers

I am busy trip planning. This time I decided to give Triptie a try. Click here to see our itinerary in progress.

Gridlock (updated)

UPDATE: August 09, 2007

In a recent email to a friend in Shanghai, I coined a the new phrase "driver induced gridlock" to describe the type of gridlock caused solely by impatient, ignorant drivers as opposed to gridlock caused by too much traffic, accidents, bad weather, etc.

----------------------------------------

Original Post: July 31, 2007

Traffic congestion in Shanghai is usually not too bad. Many people use public transportation (ferry, bus, subway, and light rail), bike, take taxis, or walk. But during rush hour the subway is packed, buses are crowded, traffic moves slowly and empty taxis are few.

One of the busiest intersections in Shanghai - Nandan Lu and Caixi Bei Lu - is just below our apartment window. It has loads of pedestrian, bus, motorbike, bicycle, and bus traffic due to it's proximity to a major metro station, a major business and shopping district, a sports stadium complex, and a major north-south expressway.

It is amazing to peer from our window and watch the action - the flow of humans and machines. However, last Saturday night, the flow became a trickle. Gridlock. Even though there was no accident, no construction, and the traffic lights were working, the flow came to a momentary stop.

Here's a photo.


After about 10 minutes the grid became unlocked.

Huang Yu

The 3-wheeled bicycle plus driver is the real workhorse of China. They carry anything, anyone,anywhere, anytime. Their common name in Shanghai is huang yu ("yellow fish" or "croaker") as in the past these wagons were mainly used to transport fish. Northerners have a different name.

Last night we saw a huang yu moving an incredibly large load - probably Styrofoam - and Sun-Ling spotted it just in time for me to shoot this video (I apologize in advance for the overly long credits. Sometimes I just can't help myself with Windows Movie Maker).



Here are a few other shots of 3-wheelers in action.

My summer projects: #1

Summer is hot in Shanghai. I tend to stay indoors. Last Saturday the two of us nested in our apartment all day. Didn't even unlock the door to take out the trash.

This is a great time to catch up on reading. One of my bookgroup books for the upcoming year is "Leaving Mother Lake." I had known about the book soon after our arrival in Shanghai. The book is a memoir of a celebrity from a matriarchal minority group. I did not feel compelled to read the book, because 1) I abhor self promoters. 2) I am skeptical of the claim of matriarchal society.

Nevertheless I would read any book for a bookgroup. Once I got started with the story, I got totally immersed. I read other books on the subject. I am up to 5 books. I found the celebrity every bit annoying as I suspected. She also turned out to be a sociopath -- the details in her memoir by a Chinese writer is drastically different from "Leaving Mother Lake." But the story has all the issues I am interested in: indigenous cultures, women's issues, religion, influence of modern culture, effects of tourism, etc.

While in the process, I finally managed to read my 1st Chinese book cover to cover since coming to Shanghai. I was only looking at travel guide books before. I also learned how to buy used Chinese books online. And, I learned that my initial intuition was correct -- there is no true matriarchal society. They are matrilineal at best.

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A word about Chinese Minorities or Minority Groups: 97% of Chinese are Han, like myself. There are officially 50+ minority group with distinct languages & cultures, but I recently learned at the founding of the Republic in the 50s, 600+ groups applied for such a status.

Shenyang Trip (Updated with link to full trip report)

A few weeks ago we made a weekend trip to the city of Shenyang in the northeast of China. UPDATE: READ the full trip report over on meckleyearth. The purpose was three-fold: visit the parent's of a friend, escape the heat of Shanghai, and check out the sights in Shenyang - the original capital of the Qing Dynasty. Also this would be our first north of the Great Wall.

We enjoyed the trip quite a bit even though it was hotter than Shanghai. 8-) Highlights were:

Dinner with the Wangs
The Imperial Tombs (east and north)
General Zhang's Home
The Qing Imperial Place
Government Square at night
The Tawan Pagoda
Chairman Mao's Statue in Zhongshan Square
Eating at a Jiaozi Restaurant
Ladies riding bikes with hat, scarf, and gloves



Imperial Tomb



To see all the photos click here (they all have descriptions).

To see video of kids roller blading around General Zhang's statue, click here.

To see video of the Shenyang people exercising/dancing at night in Government Square, click here.

World Population Day

For most westerners, one of the first things that comes to mind about China is the "one child policy". However, China has slowly been loosening the "one child policy". Read this article from the July 11th (World Population Day) edition of China Daily. It is generally accurate based on my conversations with friends, co-workers, and family.

Two observations on Chinese movies

John and I have done a pretty good job keeping up with top Chinese movies that make it to the West. We have seen a few more since we moved to Shanghai. There are two things we found to be really different about Chinese movies

Observation #1. Romantic love is never requited. Lovers never end up to be happy couples. One or both usually die, or marry someone they don't love, or you name it. Best known examples of this are Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This may not apply to the very silly movies which we stay clear off. The one exception we found so far is Comrades: Almost a Love Story. The search continues...

Observation #2. Movies that start out funny may not be comedies. In fact, they can have very devastating endings. An example is Happy Times. I don't even feel like listing more of them here. I distinctly dislike, rather, cannot stand these movies. I feel so cheated.

Once again, it all has to do with expectations. Since Observation #2 is a rather recent revelation, I have not learned to adjust my expectations. On the other hand, Observation #1 has held true for so long that now I just assume someone dies in the end, so I am not disappointed.

Chinese Hotels

On our recent trip to Zhenjiang, China we stayed at a cheap, new, modern hotel in the center of town. It's part of a chain: Hanting Inns & Hotel. [I can't find a website to insert the link.]

Used to be I could lump Chinese hotels into two groups. The first: excellent 4 and 5 star hotels with clean rooms, English speaking staff, over priced but decent restaurants, and run by international companies with experience doing business in Asia. This would be the Marriots, Hiltons, Crown Plazas, Regals, etc. Price: 400 RMB and up.

The second: worn out 3-star hotels with moldy and stained carpet, ancient elevators, drained swimming pools, inattentive staff, over salted food, and intermittent hot water. Price 150 to 400 RMB. (20 to 50 USD). And I should not forget my favorite feature: The between-the-bed master console with 17 knobs and switches to remotely control the TV, mirror lamp, reading lamps, fridge, AC, etc. I should really take a photo of one of these.

Recently there are some new budget hotel chains; Jin Jiang, Home Inns, Hotel 168, and Hanting Inns, which are attempting to bring together low cost, modern style, good service, convenient location, and cleanliness. Time will tell if they manage to pull it off.

Last year we stayed the SSAW hotel in Hangzhou which had a truly "European Modern" look, including see-through bath. So after staying the Hanting in Zhenjiang with a similar look for 155 RMB per night, we are hoping for a trend.

Our room in the Hanting Inn in Zhenjiang, China. Near the intersection of Jiefang Lu and Zhongshan Lu.


Our room in the SSAW Hotel in downtown Hangzhou.

Movie Theater Scene in Shanghai: Then and Now

I grew up during the cultural deprivation of the Cultural Revolution. Although there were 5 movie theaters within a 200 meter walk of my home, only a handful of movies would be shown over the span of a year: Chinese Government propaganda films and a few North Korean imports which were much more popular.

By the time I was old enough to go to the movies by myself, the scene was much improved; more movies, different themes, and more imports beginning with Eastern European Communist Block countries. I loved going to the movies. It seemed like I was going to the movies several times a week. In addition, a big variety of movies was also shown on television.

Nowadays all the movie theaters in Shanghai are set up pretty much the same way as the US (stadium seating for example) except the popcorn is sweet not salty and the seats are sold by seat number not general admission. In addition to Chinese movies, top US action movies are very popular. For the last few weeks "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" showed all day long at 3 out of the 4 screens at a nearby theater. Prices of tickets also match US level too: 90 RMB (~$12) for premium showings.

Recently an art house movie theater has set up shop, but we are yet to visit.

Road Rage

One day last week on the way home from work, the shuttle bus came to a stop on Humin Elevated Expressway and I woke me from my nap just in time to see a guy running down the middle of the highway. He stopped about 50 meters in front of the bus and started arguing with the driver of a minivan. I quickly pulled out my mobile phone and snapped this photo as we drove by. They are not dancing. ;-)

In Flight

A few weeks ago we flew to Shenyang on Spring Airlines, a low-fare carrier based in Shanghai. They really are a budget airline. You get a free bottle of water, but must pay for all other snacks, food, and beverages. All seats are economy class and the leg room is pretty tight. There are no magazines in the "seat pocket in front of you" and there is no in flight entertainment... Well that's not exactly true. Watch this video I shot.

Photos from ZhenJiang Trip (updated)

All of the photos (with descriptions) from our recent trip to ZhenJiang can be found here.

And a few videos here, here, here, and here.

Riding the Ferry from Zhenjiang to Guazhou (and back)

A few weeks ago, Sun-Ling and I made a weekend trip to Zhenjiang, China.

Zhenjiang, an ancient town, is located about 100 miles west of Shanghai at the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal. It is mentioned by Marco Polo as the place he landed after crossing the Yangtze on the way to Hangzhou. I did not verify this from the original source but it’s mentioned in all the Zhenjiang travel websites so it must be true. ;-)

One cannot exactly retrace the Yangtze crossing of Polo from Guazhou on the north bank to Zhenjinag on the south but you take the modern ferry from the outskirts of Guazhou (a very small town even by Chinese standards) to the outskirts of Zhenjiang. The cost is 3 RMB each way and you get to walk on the ferry along side the cars, taxis, buses, tractors, and bicycles. Bus #110 takes you from the Zhenjiang train station right to the ferry landing in about 30 minutes. The ride itself is fantastic, about 15 minutes long, you can basically go anywhere on the ferry, and there is lots river traffic to watch.

There appeared to be 4 ferries operating the day we were there with almost no waiting time between departures. Strange to me as there is a massive, newly completed bridge just a few hundred meters downstream. The talkative ticket taker told us that the ferry is kept open/running for military reasons and that it’s cheaper than the toll on the bridge.

Once on the Guazhou side, it’s a 10 to 20 minutes walk along the Yangtze River levee to Guazhou town and the Ancient Ferry Scenic Park or you can hire a minivan or taxi. The fare is anywhere between 2 to 10 RMB per person depending on your negotiating skills. We walked. See photos. We had to ask directions several times. See video.

The Ancient Ferry landing at Guazhou is now a park, admission 8 RMB (about 1 USD), where one can see the old landing (a bunch of rocks and concrete) and the newer, operational, canal locks. The park is not well maintained.

We did not have time to find the old ferry landing on the Zhenjiang side but the guide books say it exists.

Here are some photos and some video of the ferry excursion.

Boarding the ferry at Guazhou. We are boarding the one at left. The one at right has almost arrived. Check out the tractor.


Riding the ferry. You can see the new bridge in the background.


Walking to Guazhou along the levee that protects the town from the Yangtze (river to the right).


Video of Sun-Ling asking directions in Guazhou Town.

The site of the ancient ferry landing at Guazhou.


Locks on the Grand Canal - part of the Ancient Ferry Scenic Area.


The one on the left is loading, the one I'm on has just pulled out.


Video of the ferries in action.

Bad climate

We went to Shenyang last weekend. My first trip outside the Great Wall. I felt rather cheated by the weather. We flew 1200 km northeast, mostly north, from Shanghai to Shenyang. The daytime high in Shenyang, a city that got 1 meter of snow early this March, was 10 degrees higher than Shanghai. It was hot. I thought Shanghai had bad climate - one wishes for summer in the winter and winter in the summer....

Now I am convinced that the whole of China is plagued by bad climate. It never fails to amaze me that this great a population density could be produced in such a bad climate. I guess mass migration is conditioned by both culture and economy.

Shanghai's Bad Climate - The Proof

Last year I published an hypothesis on this blog

Shanghai has the coldest winters of any city in the world at similar latitude and elevation.

On purpose, I published the statement with no supporting data and was a bit surprised to receive no comments, questions, challenges, nor congratulations to what I thought was a brilliant, new, and provocative insight. Sigh....

So, now with much humility, I am belatedly publishing the proof. I used data from BBC Weather comparing Shanghai's January weather to that of San Diego, New Orleans, Marrakech, and Alexandria. As a bonus, July is also included.

Here is the same data. [I've been playing with google docs again. ;-)]

GFW strikes again

Since June 7th, I see this when I log into my flickr account.



No pics! That's right. I can upload photos, edit titles and descriptions, but I can't see the photos themselves. Looks the Great Firewall of China - GFW - has struck again.

The current official Flickr position is

11 June 23:30 (PDT)
We know images from Flickr are still blocked and definitely care very much about our friends who cannot access pictures. We have been contacting people to hopefully get a positive resolution with restoration of photos, but this of course has not happened yet. The Flickr team is very sorry for this continued issue and will update you when we have more to share.
Posted 66 minutes ago.