Beijing diary#4 - What a great Stadium!

On the 8th of the 8th 2008 at 8.08 PM the Beijing Olympics started with a fascinating show.
That is exactly one year ago on this date. We were at some friends house to watch this great event. And what happened; we couldn't even see it as it was broadcasted on a TV channel neither they or we could receive. We tried all possible options available on their tellie, but no, nothing from the grand opening in Beijing came through, and at the end we had to watch it on a labtop from the internet from some remote TV station somewhere in Chile or Columbia.
In Beijing this summer we had the opportunity to go there ourselves to see these venues with our own eyes, but without Mr. Phelps and Mr.Bolt and whatever they all were called, who dominated the headlines one year back in time.
The time we got there there were only a lot of tourists running around the Olympic area.
We got in to see th Birds nest Stadium -The National Stadium- and what an experience. It is a great Stadium, and I'm sure every big Football or Rugby club in the whole world will envy and like to call their home ground. No one is at home there at the moment, only the thousands of tourists peeping around inside to try to gasp a bit of the atmosphere from back then, one year ago.
Of cause we couldn't, we could just enjoy the feeling of being there and to walk around on the running track and get our photo taken with dozens of Chinese families.

Beijing diary#3 - What a great wall!

"All in all it's just another brick in the wall". Like Pink Floyd taught us once in the beginning of the 80ties. Walking along on the Great Wall of China this sentence becomes quite a new meaning. Some parts of this world famous wall is well restored, others are seeming to fall apart. No wonder, as they are quite old and also in some remote locations.
Beijing is a good spot to start if you want to have a look at this wall. Just some hours drive outside the city, you'll have access to a view and a walk. There is public busses going out to some of the venues or you can hire a car and driver, who then will take you to the part you want and pick t=you up some where else, after your hike. Just walk around the entrance of the Forbidden city or on Tian'anmen Square, and people will approach you and offer you the trip. And it isn't expensive, for about 400 to 600 Yuan (40 to 60 Euros) you can have a driver and a car for the whole day, and get exately where you like. We joined a tour arranged by the Backpackers Hostel. It was great as it took us to a more remote part 3 hours ride outside, and we had to hike about 8 kilometers on the wall, and best of all, also on a part not to crowded with tour groups in high heels, as it was a quite rough climb on a big unrestored part of the great wall.










The feeling of hiking there was worth the trip itself. As you can see the wall on the hill and down the valleys, you get a humble feeling. This thing is build for hundreds and hundreds years ago, but still -kind of- standing. It is maybe also one of the buildings in the world, what every child know about in an early age as it is surrounded with kind of a myth or legend.
I was just stunned as I approached it and saw how it was up there on the hills and just continued infront and behind on the horizon.
That we had bit of a struggle to shake the souvinier sales men and women, who traced us, of, was at the end worth the trouble, and this hike on The Great Wall will still be one of the upmost good experiences of this first real visit to the great neighboor to the north.

Beijing diary#2 - Tian'anmen Square & Forbidden City!

This place is huge! Tian'anmen square is the center of Beijing -and China. It is the biggest public square in the world -it is told- and for sure it is a big place. On that square you'll find the monument of the peoples heroes and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, and the square is flanked of the great hall of the people to the west and the museum of the Chinese revolution and museum of Chinese history to the east. It was pleasant to walk around on that big square and there was lot's of people approaching us for a little chat, a photo and to try to do some business.
"Hi, where do you come from?"
"From Scotland and Denmark!"
"Oh, you must have a romantic story."
That was nearly always the exact sentences when somebody wanted to offer them selves as guides or organize a tour for us to the Great Wall or just around Beijing. They were not annoying though, and I'm sure they would do a good job and I won't say that you shouldn't do this, if you want, because they are mainly just nice people who knows their city and want to earn some money by guiding visitors around.
Just north on the other side of the big Boulevard -Dongchang'an lie- The entrance to the forbidden city is located and entering the Gate of heavenly peace -with its big portrait of Chairman Mao- you will find your self -among thousands others- on the brink of the forbidden city.
After entering these gates, the feeling of the big crowd just outside and at the ticket stalls just disappeared. There was enough room for everybody and it was even possible to find some corners without that many people, to sit down and relax and to try to get some kind of orientation. The sun was bathing down on everybody from a clear sky, and most of the visitors was using an umbrella against the sun, so it wasn't that much time we were able to stand out side to comprehend the huge squares inside the city it self as it was just to hot. Just to try to give kind of an impression to the size of this "city" then I can say that the second yard or square you come to after entering and going straight towards north and through the Gate of supreme Harmony -which you can see on the photo just behind this fellow-, this second yard is said to be able to hold 100.000 people, and it is just a minor part of the whole complex.

China diary#1. Beijing - something about Hutong's and traffic.

I've been sorting some photos and been looking through our diary from back some weeks ago, but so much has happened and I'm not really sure where to start the story.
Still I'm a bit blast away by the size of China, and the very different cities and landscapes we've seen and the distances we've traveled, and yet only seen so little of this huge diverted country.
We started out in Beijing, so why not start there by adding something to the small descriptions already posted from some time back, when we were "on the road".
Like all of China in general, Beijing is really changing, developing and growing. Many of the old original Beijing neighborhoods -called Hutong's- is being demolished to give room for the progress -read Investment and money making.
Yet in the old center and around Tian'anmen square and the forbidden city, many of these Hutong's still exist and it is worth while strolling around here to have a look. Either just by walking or by bike, which in fact maybe is the best option, as it is faster and you don't need to continiously reject all the offers of a pedicab or jigsaw ride -which for sure can be fun- but when you get of one after a finished tour, you can be sure that the next "offer" will wait just around the corner.
In these Hutong's you can still see how life could have been years back in time, a thing you for sure cannot feel in other district's in Beijing, where modern skyscrapers and huge fancy shopping malls together with a forest of construction cranes, will be the most common sight.
The pictures I'd had in my mind of thousands of bicycles peddling along the roads. also puffed away like a soap bubble. The streets is still filled, but now by myriads of cars in every possible size and standard, leaving an astonishing noise, as the most common tool to make the way through the frenetic traffic, seems to be the use of the horn; "if you can hear me, get out of my way".
In some ways my romantic imagination of the thousands of Chinese on their bikes through Beijing, still could seem to have something true about it, now they are all just behind the stirring wheel of a car, but still drives and acts like on a bike. The traffic in China is a mystery to all visitors I guess. There seems to be no rules as everybody just seeks their own way ahead, which often also leads to driving in more lanes or even the wrong direction on the roads. But as everybody is aware of how it works, not much goes wrong, or at least; we didn't see any accident in the 3 weeks we traveled around there. Crossing the roads was always something exciting, because you can't expect that anyone will stop, no, they just calculate your speed with their own, and then pass you either in front or behind. A dangerous thing for pedestrians -and everybody else- is if they suddenly stops, because you can be sure the driver in the car would have calculated you to be somewhere else by the time he might hit.

Back home in Tai Wan village, Hong Kong.

That was it for this time, traveling in China I mean. We've returned home with a lot of good experiences and stories in our luggage and now it is just time to sort all the impressions and do some editorial work on the stories and the loads of pictures, and then they will be posted here in the coming weeks before we start working again.
We've had a major good time in China even that we had -or chose- to change our first travel route because of extreme heavy rain in Sichuan & Yunnan province, which caused mudslides and flooding. Instead we headed north east and visited the Russian influenced Harbin, the Chinese/Korean city of Yanji, just on the border to North Korea, Dalian called Hong Kong of the north and then Qingdao, the extreme nice, calm and relaxed friendly former German colony at the Yellow Sea, where they -not surprisingly- makes the best beer in China; Tsingdao Beer.

Northeast China -Harbin.

We're now in the northeastern of the big peoples republic, in Harbin the Capital of the Helianjong province.
After some misunderstandings at the airport where we were sent from one terminal to another and back again, we finally got on the plane we were supposed to be on, just with some delay.
We arrived in Harbin one and a half hour later, but we were there.
A taxi driver would take us the 46 kilometers to the city, a journey that normally would -according to the lonely planet- cost about 100 yuan.
We followed this guy to his taxi and Catriona said to me that we should take care of scam taxi's, that would charge us double or more for the trip. He took us to a taxi and we got in and asked him to put on the meter, which he did, and of we went.
After some time I had a look at the meter and it was already about 70 something and we couldn't even see the city yet, so now we were both sure; this guy would try to rip us of.
As I mentioned to Catriona that I thought the bill at the end would be 300 yuan, the driver pulled out his phone, tipped in the number 300 and handed it to me, we knew that we've just done the wrong thing. I was mad and didn't want to be ripped of, so I wrote 200 on the phone and handed it back.
"No -no" he shook his head, tipped in another number; 280.
I started my bargain strategy I've often used in Hong Kong and went down; 180 -his turn.
Again he shook his head tipped in 260.
No way, we knew we were going to pay more, but not that much, so I pulled out my camera and said to him that I was going to take his photo, and that was a good move, because he straight on agreed on 200, and offered us a cigarette, which we refused and he lit himself one and the rest of the trip he was quiet and brought us to the hotel. Here he wanted to park away from the entrance on the car park without light. We refused that and got him to reverse back to the entrance. Catriona had pen and paper ready to write his number plate, but he was very fast to get out, open the trunk and hide the number. We got our stuff and he was still fumbling around in the trunk with the boot wide open to cover the plate. We stood there for a while looking at this theater, finally he got in the car and left still with the boot wide open.
Well, one experience richer and we've learned a lesson, but thank god it wasn't that much we got to pay at the end, but anyway the double amount.
No, they are not all like this. In fact it is a pleasant and very friendly place to travel, and many many people are really helpful and, even they do not speak any English, they do their best to help and get us on the right path, when we seems to be lost.
Harbin is a city of Russian influence as it is so close to the border with Russia. In the city this can be seen on the architecture and in restaurants and shops, and the most Caucasian people coming here is from Russia, so when we start speaking in English, we seems to be an oddity, and often we get stuck because of our lack of mandarin. In the hotel there is a guy who speaks very good English, and he has been incredible helpful trying to get us train tickets and what ever we've needed. Thank you Mr. Ding Yu. And if you want to Know the Hotel name, then it is the Friendship Palace Hotel in Harbin.
Now we are heading for the border town of Yanji, just on the border to North Korea by train. We will stay for two nights, before another train will take us to Dalian, and perhaps back in a region where more people can understand us. It is hard when nobody understands you, but it is our fault, we come here and we should have done something to improve our language skills in mandarin.
That is all for now and we'll catch up later for more stories from China.

The first days in Beijing!

We.ve been here in Beijing since the 9th of July and we're now heading north towaeds Harbin. Our first plans of heading southwest to Xi'and Chengdu, we candelled because of the weather conditions in the west and south west of China, where heavy rain falls have lead to some flooding and landslides, and because we've had enough of rain in Hong Kong recently, we do not need more, so instead we go north east and will travel along the border to North Korea fron Yanji to Dalian.
The days here in Beijing has been nice and we've seen what we intended to. Beijing is just so huge and it is impossible to do everything, but here is a short description of our themes so far.

The Forbidden City!

It was once the forbidden city for the citizens, and that was back in time where the Emperor enjoyed to be in power. Today it is for sure not forbidden anymore, more likely it is the "obkigatory" place to visit for all tourists comming to Beijing.
We went on a Friday to avoid the wweekend crowds. But there is also something like a Friday crowd, or if this was just normal, I'm really glad we didn't go on a Saturday. The Masses streaming through the entrances gates was really impressive, thousands of people tiptoeing in rows to the ticket stalls, and then into the "Forbidden" city. Thank god the place is huge, and most of the chinese tourists just walked through the center line of this impressive complex, so there was enough of space for us to dwell and find some peace and relaxing spots to try to comprehend this enormous place.
It is worth a visit after all, just be aware that the place is big beyound belief, and that you just can't see all of it.

The Olympic Center!

We found our way there on our own using the Beijing Metro. To qwalk towards the Birds nest Stadium was an incredible feeling. If you remember some of my posts from the time of the Olympic, you maybe remember that we douldn't see it on our tellie in Hong Kong at that time. But now we've been there and been in it, and that was not bad -just to use a bit of my farmland expressions, which infact means that I was over the moon. It is now open to visitors, and for the price of about 5 Euros you can enter this place and spend a whole afternoon in there if you want. All the lower spectator seats and the running track are open for people to stroll around and do their little picknic or ball game or whart ever, just it is peacefull and doesn't disturb or ruin anything. The whole area called the Olimpic Green is like everything else in Beijing; HUGE, so plan time for this trip and be sure to wear shoes that is confortable and bring water.

The Great Wall!

3 hours busride outside, we entered the Wall at Jinshanling and had to hike about 8 kilometers to Simatai where we got picked up again by the bus bringimng us back. About 4 hours we had time to walk tis distance, but we sure needed that, as the wall is -or can be- kind of a challenge with it's quite steep slopes and higs steps. Around 30 watchtowers we would pass on the way before crossing a large suspension bridge over a lake. In ancient times the wall was built to keep the evil and hostile Mongolians out. Now they are ON thewall, trying to sell book's, t-shirts, postcards and drinks to all the visitors, and if you are friendly to them they'll follow you until their section of the wall ends, and others take over. So if they haven't been succesfull with their stories of the hard life they have before the "boarder" they get quite desperate at the end to get you to buy a book or a t-shirt. I get really angry whem forced to buy something, so even if 10 or 20 yuan isn't much, and could save their day, then after we've crossed the imaginare "boarder" the next horde would just start th swirl around you, offering the same things.
All in all, it was a fantastic hike and we were sweating and really hungry after the 4 hours, and do not be scared about my story about the "salesmen", the expierince of being on the great wall, the scenery and the hike was really worth the trouble.

I hope to be able to upload some of the photos later.
That's it for now, see you later.

Picture of the day!

Another e-mail post, now with a picture.

The China countdown!

Outside the temperature is around 33 degrees and a look at the Hong Kong observatory web site shows the next three days will be hot, hot and hotter. Inside the air con makes it's wonder and we are running around between piles of clothes, trying to figure out what to take and what not. The forecast for Beijing the next days is like here, just a bit hotter and not as humid, about 37 degrees on Friday a website tells me. Where we go after Beijing isn't really decided yet, as what we've thought of could turn out not to be such clever, because in the Yunnan province, they've had very heavy rain and parts is now flooded.
But as we've nothing booked and sorted yet apart from Beijing, we're free and can just do what we feel like on the spot, and that is a great feeling to be able to flow away and just try what ever possibility arises.
One thing is for sure; I have to find a little local hairdresser somewhere and get a haircut. Not that I really need it now, but in two to three weeks I might, and then it is just to find a funny little local one and get it done. I always do that while traveling; getting a haircut or even get shaved. It is a nice thing to do and depending of where you are, you can also have some fun and attract some attention, being a white ghost sitting in the local barber shop.Years ago I was traveling 6 weeks through Egypt, and there it was a big show when I entered a
barber in the bazaar of Cairo. I think the guy was about 80 or so, and he did a good job, it just took very long time with him tripping around me, cutting a bit here and there. If he was 80, the shop could have been as old and the last time the room was cleaned, could have been back in time around him celebrating his 50the birthday. He did though use a new comb, which I appreciated.
Time to dig out some socks.

Test

Hi to all including myself. This is just a little test to see if it works to post something from an e-mail.

Let us see.

One year ago!

Plockton in the north west of Scotland. An astonishing little beautiful city or village close to places like; Drumbui, Port an-eorna, Erbusaig and Kyle of Lochalsh.
We were sharing a nice little house with Hazel and Bryan, Amy -in the telephonebox- and little Ivanhoe (Irving)-in the pushchair- on his first holiday ever.
Plockton is somewhat of interesting as this little village up there where everybody might think it is cold and extreme rough -well it is to some part- but here you can in fact find palm trees groving at the front of the natural harbour this place offers. Why palm trees? Well it should have something to do with the Golf Stream leading warm water in to the fiords of this north western location. On the day this photo was taken -the 7wenth of July 2008, we were on our way on a boats trip to spot some Dolphins which lives there in the waters out side Plockton, what some how also must have something to do with the warm waters of the Golf Stream.

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Close to departure!

Sort of. Our visas is there and we've booked flights and our first Beijing home for 5 nights, so finally we can see an end of our kind of teenager summer life -means sleeping long hours, eat on various times and lazy around and for sure get the most out of the cost for our -not so great- TV programs. And it is the 7wenth of the 7wenth month in 2009.
About visas for China; I wrote that I might not get a multiple entry one, and that's right, I didn't. Well Catriona did, so now she can travel in and out of China for a year, and I have to apply each time if I wanna come. For sure I'll not write that I'm a film maker next time I have to apply, even that I find it completely ridiculous, but what can I do about it? Nothing, so I just want too enjoy the next 4 weeks exploring what we can of the Peoples Republic, and I'm very excited.
We havn't much planned by now, just where to start and then a kind of a route down through central China, hoping we'll be back in Hong Kong in time before school starts again in August.
I've been reading a lot of travel journals and tips and advices about traveling in China, but no one can really say if I'll be able to post to this blog while being there. I'll try to and also try to get around the"great firewall" -if there is any- by trying to post by e-mail, but let's us see how everything works out, I recon it will all be fine and if somebody feels like it, I guess you will be able to read about our trip along the way.

Something for golfers!

Still waiting for the visas to come and bored; well kind of so I've started to randomly scroll through my digital photo collection, to sort out maybe or maybe not. It is amazing in this digital age and with digital cameras, how many photos a person can have and keep.
Starting to look through some of these folders from -some of them years ago- is also a kind of a time machine, and the digital photo even give a date and time when it was created, like that it is easy to track back in time to see what, when and where.
On the 5th of July 2008 we arrived in Aberdeen after some days in Ipswich by Connie, Alec and Reece. On the day one year ago Bryan Innes again won the Murcars Links Golf Club's Championship in Aberdeen and now for the 5th time back to back.
As Catriona spoke to sister Hazel yesterday, she told that they just had come back from the Golf club, and that he (Bryan) again had won this years Championship and now for the 6th time, which is a new record. So congratulation with that Bryan, from us here in Hong Kong.
I am now a bit of a golfer my self. If you go back some months, you could find a post of how I got to own a set of golf clips myself, and went to the driving range and got coach by Ralf Bretzke, and back then got my first lesson in how to hit that ball, so I guess I could say that I kind of understand the value of Bryan's achievement.
Until we got our visas, I keep diving into my photo collection, and randomly tell some of the stories hidden there.
This was the first one of that kind!

Rain!

It is the wet season, for sure. When it is raining it is raining like really raining. You can leave your house in sunshine and then a few minutes later the sky just gets covered by heavy dark clouds and then it starts poring down, and in minutes the streets is covered by water and the drains is struggling to contain it all. People are used to it though and they just take out their umbrella and continue their business and the small newspaper salesman just cover up his stand with a plastic curtain and wait. Sometimes it doesn't stop for some hours, but normally it a matter of 15 to 20 minutes or so and then it over, for a while. This year it hasn't been as bad as last year, where it was nearly raining constantly from may and till we went back to Europe on holiday at the end of June. This year it has been more on and of, and we've had some nice -but hot and humid- days in between the rain falls.
Here an umbrella is efficient though, as the rain just comes down vertically, and not like in northern Europe, where the wind would blow it horizontally in to your face anyway, but you must remember just to wear shorts and flip flops on your feet, as they get wet and soaked anyway, but as it is warm it doesn't bother.

T. REX; Children of the revolution.

I've had cover versions of this song before here, but here I found another and quite interesting one;
Soulwax;

I'll post more and more COTR covers, as I find them.

Kraftwerk; The Model

The German kitsch pop future grove electronic band from the 70ties made quite a revolution for the electronically music, and especially a lot of bands from the early 80ties would maybe not have had the same sound without them.
Here one of my favorites, in their English version. Take a look at the late 70ties video effects used in this one;

Good songs always gets covered, and also The Model, or "Das Model" as it is in German. Here is the new "typical" German band "Rammstein" from the 90ties and their tribute to Kraftwerk, the typical German band of the 70ties;

One week as absolute lazy bones!

No, we're not in China yet, just to make that absolutely straight! Our passports are still by the authorities so they might award us with visas so we can finally can go. On Monday we might be able to pick them up with the visas. I guess I did a mistake though by not writing that I was a teacher -which I'm in fact not really- so I wrote that I was a film maker -which is more like it-, but the lady behind the glass didn't really like that, and the fact that I applied for a 12 months multiple entry Visa to China, she didn't like and said that the officers probably wouldn't give me that. But I've just have to wait and see, At Catrionas application -also 12 months multiple entry visa- they had nothing to say, as she is a teacher, so she might get that, and then I have to apply again every time we feel like going to China over the next 12 months.
So now we've been around here for a week and done absolutely ZERO, just been lazy, slept long hours, read books and watch films. Fine enough, but now I'm beginning to get bored and inpatient and I just want to get out to somewhere, but without passports we just have to wait.
It is not that there is nothing to do in Hong Kong, there is but it is so hot at the moment, so during the day one can't really spend so much time outside, so we wait until the evening and then there is all the restaurants and stuff in the city, but how much can you exceed that?
But we found a little Italian place during the week, which I really would like to recommend. It's called "Cafe Roma" and is like a little typical Italian trattoria and serve what they call; "Il paese" (the country) food. The menu isn't that big but the dishes is all simple, fresh and tasty. The local is small and simple as well, and one of the good things I've learned about restaurants, you can see the kitchen and follow the progress of your order. So if anyone is planning a trip top Hong Kong, and can't live without pizza and pasta, this could be an opportunity.
"Cafe Roma"
Shop 1, Ground Floor, Jervois House, 1 Jervois Street in Central.