没事 (Mei Shi) No Problem

Us Featured on CCTV

I guess I do not need to say anymore than that; it is us for like a full 30 minutes on CCTV. Enjoy if you have time.

In the following two sections, we are not present, so if you were in it just for us...you can stop now. HAHA

Bet'n On the Ponies

While in Hong Kong, I thought it would be fun to go and see the horse races. Unfortunately, we were unable to go to Happy Valley, the oldest racecourse in Hong Kong. We went to Sha Tin, which is a modern facility and a beautiful racetrack. On the day, we lost a couple hundred buck, HK, but it was a good time. Here is a video, which just happens to be our most successful race.

The Trip to Stanley

One of the places in Hong Kong which I had never been before is a place called Stanley. It is almost directly opposite o the city on the island and it takes a while to arrive. The Lonely Planet suggests taking the double decker trolley from central to it's termination point and then hopping on another bus from there to go the rest of the way to Stanley. My Lonely Planet is ancient, 3 years old, when dealing with the swift changes which sweep through China. When we finally arrived at Stanley, we found out that there were buses which go straight from Central to Stanley instead of our round-about route.

The trip to Stanley was the most interesting part of the trip as it was my first time to travel on a double-decker bus and it was my first time to travel all the way through Hong Kong city. The electric double-decker trolley is amazing and so well measured that it passes by oncoming trolleys with mere inches of separation. Here you can see the video of the bus ride.

Here are some more pictures of the scenery along the way.

The funniest thing that I have ever seen was on the bus right next to us. Luckily, we were stopped and I could get a picture. What a fabulous team we have found.

We finally arrived at the end of the road for our little trolley. We searched high and low for the proper place to get the next bus and people pointed us in every different direction. We ended up walking to the dock and deciding to try another route. Here are some pictures from the dock. I think those are the coolest fishing boats. I read somewhere that many people make their homes on those. Not sure of the truth of that. I bet this place would be the cheapest seafood in town.

By this time, my bladder was about to burst. I said, we are going to have to wait for our trip because I need to pee like NOW! So, we decided to go towards the big buildings, which might have been a hotel or a nice apartment complex...either way, it might have had public facilities.

When we got underneath, we found that this was where the bus we needed started. How is that for dumb luck? I guess it pays to follow your Johnson! There were no facilities however and I had to hold my water for another 30 minutes or more of winding mountain road before I could get relief. When we got to Stanley, I did my business and we had a nice afternoon of walking around the "boardwalk" and chewing on some nice western food. None of it was cheap, but it was all pretty good. The government had restricted swimming because of big Jelly Fish, but I think they did not want to staff the beach in the cooler weather. You can see pictures of Stanley by following this link.

First Christmas Together: Hong Kong

We got to Hong Kong in the early afternoon after a pleasant train trip. The weather was, of course, far different than it had been in Beijing. We had to put our jackets into our bags as we exited the train. We went into the train station and bought new SIM cards as we realized that our old ones were no longer in service. (The Hong Kong SIM card worked through Macau, Guang Zhou and all the way to Shanghai, it also called overseas.) We decided to walk from the  train station at Hong Hom to TST to find a room at Mirador Mansions. I knew the general way and we actually made it very easily. My first trip to Hong Kong I also walked, but I followed the bay at that time and it was a long and hot July walk in Hong Kong that time. This time was pleasantly warm and we ended up right at our destination.

On Christmas Eve, we went to watch the lights at the Harbor. We heard they were going to be fireworks, so we were slightly disappointed. The place was jam packed, even more so than usual. We watched the 20 minute show and then tried to leave the area and head back to Nathan Road, which had been blocked off for foot traffic. As we tried to leave, we realized that the police had changed the exit and so we had to follow a massive crowd the long way around. It was rather orderly and polite for a mob trying to find a way out, but that is Hong Kong. Here you can see the light show from the Harbor and a little clip of us trying to walk through the crowd.

When we finally got back to Nathan Road, we did what everyone else was doing. We aimlessly walked around, shopping and eating and drinking and seeing what we could see. I think we were the only ones drinking. HAHA. Here you can see some of the interesting sights we witnessed that evening.

For dinner, we decided to save money and time, so we ate the Hong Kong street food. They call it Ma La Tang in Beijing. I am not sure what they call it in Hong Kong, but it was tasty and not as spicy as the northern version. Here is a clip of our Christmas dinner.

At the end of the night, after almost everyone had gone. There was a still a group of local immigrants dancing and having a good time. Here you can see that.

I will post a bit more about Hong Kong before moving on the Macau. Happy New Year everyone.

The Train To Hong Kong

Not much to say about this trip. We took the T100 train from Beijing West Station (Xi Zhan) to Kowloon (Hong Hom) and it took a little over 24 hours. You could take the same train to Guang Zhou and sit in the cars toward the back, then when you arrive in Guang Zhou you get your cars detached and the rest of the train keeps going. The cost to Hong Kong is a bit under 400 rmb, sometimes discounted, and the train runs on alternating days, odd or even, and those days change monthly. You can find more information about the Beijing to Kowloon train here. The costs are different on that page, we got a discount.

Here are some pictures taken out the window of the trip.

Its been a warm winter up north and you can see that there is still green color just outside of Beijing. Convenient to be warm for those still unfinished construction projects. HAHA

Outside of Beijing, nearly every city is a power factory burning coal. This is the scene all the way down south. I did not get a photo snapped of the big smoke stacks on the way down, though we passed them numerous times.

That is good advice there in the bathroom. It is unwise to jump from the bathroom window.

This train is a little more civil than some other trains. It supplies you with toilet paper.

The next picture is of the neck of a teenage girl. She has a tatoo of the name of her boyfriend on her neck, done rather  poorly as well. The guy was on the train too,  only slept and played video games.  Hope that girl  knows what she is doing. Imagine the difficulty of trying to get  new boyfriend when you old boyfriends name is permanently engraved on your head. HAHA

Finally, I end with a video of German students of Chinese language doing exercises on the train. You cannot see they were German, but trust me...they were. HAHA

CPW

Chinese Pro Wrestling
During the October Holiday, Jiao Jiao and I decided to stay in Beijing. We did find plenty to do during that time and one of those great things was going to a place called, Shi Hao Yuan. At this traditional little Beijing market which is just down the road from Guo Mao, you can find a great deal of interesting cultural items. We went in search of the famed cricket fighting, which we found by following little chirps. But, before we hit that attraction, we caught about an hour of the Chinese equivalent to Pro Wrestling.

Here is the video I made to the theme music of the Ultimate Warrior.

This movie and the others taken on that day have been sitting in my computer waiting to be edited for nearly two months. My year has been busier than any other year has been thus far and so my posts are becoming less frequent and things that I think are interesting and just going past my eye. That is unfortunate. As the weather gets colder, I am losing the motivation to stay outside.

Stay tuned for the rest of Shi Hao Yuan's videos.
Michael Vick should have learned from the Chinese on animal fighting.

Su Fei's New Video

Asian Squat Video

I found this video about the Asian style squat on Youtube. It is a classic video, and actually true in many ways. After being in Asia for so long, I still cannot keep my heels on the ground unless I get a hugely wide stance or...fall over backwards. It is a real trick to use those toilets!!!

I Rode Line Five Too!

Just a few days back, Danwei Videos put out a video about the new subway line in Beijing, Line 5. I thought, "Maybe it will be interesting to see what Danwei thought about Line 5."

Unfortunately, when watching the video I realized that this person was simply toeing someones party line. I have embed the video here for you to watch.

Now, what the gal did not tell you is that the line is packed full of people that you would not really want to bring downtown. We took the train from nearby the northern origin and I must say, it was packed with people that you would not want to stand too close to on the train. The area that it comes from and where it goes to is barely Beijing. It will not be long before the trains are soiled and dirty. Here are a couple pictures of the people standing in line.

Check out that hair man. HAHA

The new train line does add technology that none of the other train lines have had up to this point, the gated doors, electronic displays and lighted maps.

It is not the most advanced display I have seen, but it is sufficient. Again, if the contractor was to use the very best, where would he be able to cut corners? HAHA

One of the best things that I found on the train that day were the public service announcements. Sort of strange really.

This is one that has always been annoying to me. It is like the line does not exist. If you want to ride up, give people room to pass you. This will never happen and the Olympic guests will be annoyed. Even on the flat ones in the airport, they just stand on them on both sides like it is a ride. It is actually faster to walk on the normal floor than the belt drive in the airport.

So, back to the Beijing transportation issues; on the day they opened this subway line, they also decreased the fare from 3 rmb to 2 rmb and you can see the people saying, "Yeah, it makes a difference!!!" And most Chinese would agree because since they decreased the fare, use has gone up by 40% which means that now it is even more crowded than it was before, and it was crowded before. The person making the movie purposely left that bit of information out. I heard that the subway in Bangkok is nice, but to expensive for the locals...which might be what is nice about it. The subways in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore were very modern, spacious, clean and uncrowded which might lead me to believe that they overprice the common person - or the common person can afford to take the subway...any help with that assumption? However, in Beijing, the subway has now made itself cheap enough for the common person, and Beijing has a lot of common people, so it will be inconvenient for everyone to use. This sort of information has been on the news, but Danwei is giving it a sweet smell.

Finally, the bus system that is shown in the video was something that was talked about two or three years ago, when they first made buses line up to pick up passengers instead of constantly cutting each other off.. We often take the bus around and we have never come across a station like this. There are a lot of new buses on the street, and that is nice. There were some nasty pieces of work when I first arrived. More than once I pushed a bus out of an intersection when it died. But, the long distance express bus...it is as rare as a driver that does not honk.

 

The woman was right though, you can take the bus and subway with  your IC card, but that is all it is good for.  I heard in Korea you could use your transport card to buy things at shops and I am pretty sure the Octopus card does that in  Hong Kong. So, it is not as modern and advanced as you would be made to believe.

But, one the other side, the station at Yong He Gong (Llama Temple) is gorgeous. They really did a great job on that station, because it will be one of the more popular tourist destinations during the Olympics. It is worth a look.

Ma La Tong

Recently, Jiao Jiao and I decided to go out for a cheap meal. Nothing can be cheaper in China than Chinese fast food. Authentic Chinese fast food does not come from a carbon cut-out KFC look-alike or a hamburger joint. Instead, it is an industrialized street version of Hot Pot called Ma La Tong. I think you can translate it to "Crazy Hot Soup."  It is done on the street by locals with the cheapest of ingredients and oils. You choose all of the vegetables, sausages, fish cakes, fruit or seemingly inedible things that you want and give them to the man next to the boiling water. He boils your stuff, puts in into a bowl and covers it with peanut oil. Then you eat.

Since YouTube is blocked in China, I have embeded this video on my own. Hope it looks ok. Right click on it to view controls.

It is spicy on the way in and on the way out. Here are some pictures of me after eating it.

Since youtube started working again yesterday, I was able to see some of my subscription's recent work. I came across this piece about food safety in Beijing and thought it would fit well with this piece.

Let me just say that we buy our vegetable from wherever, cause they just need to be washed and actually, the farmers markets often have a better selection of vegetables. When it comes to meat on the other hand, everyone in their right mind will be buying that from the supermarket because they have refrigeration and they also have some sort of organization which could be held responsible for the products they sell. If you buy things from the farmers market, there is no receipt, no government controlling them. Even the small super market like the one in video has unsafe meat. The local Chinese are also into cleanliness and are purchasing more and more meat from supermarkets and less from the peasant markets.

On another note, the girls who are talking about the fruit were most certainly Korean. You can tell by the shape of their face, make-up and the way that they pronounce their words. They have a really, really hard time with the "s" sound.