Xiāngshān Gōngyuán (香山公园 – Fragrant Hills Park. )

It’s been a while since I last posted a travel post here. Actually, since I’ve been in Beijing, I haven’t gone on any trips outside of the city, so it was no surprise that I was quite eager to set out on my little adventure this morning. With Em away, and the whole day to myself, I decided to brave the Beijing transportation system (and my understand of it)  and head out of the city to one of the local parks, Xiāngshān Gōngyuán (香山公园), or in English, Fragrant Hills Park. I mentioned earlier in the week that I had already been to many of the attractions in Beijing during previous trips here, however the park was a little further than I had
been before, so I was excited about seeing a new part of Beijing.

Fragrant Hills Park is a public park at the foot of the Western Mountains in the Haidian District, in the northwestern part of Beijing, China. It covers 1.6 km² (395 acres) and consists of a natural pine-cypress forest, hills with maple trees, smoke trees and persimmon trees, as well as landscaped areas with traditional architecture and cultural relics. The name derives from the park’s highest peak, Xianglu Feng (Incense Burner Peak), a 557 meters (1827 ft) hill with two large stones resembling incense burners at the top.

Source: Wikipedia

I was glad to see that not many people were out and about today in the park. One of my biggest fears about travelling here in Beijing is being stuck with thousands of other people at a place that is meant for peace and quiet, but with only a handful of people scattered around the park, at times it felt like I was the only one there, a rare feat here in Beijing.

The park itself was stunning, and have been told it’s even more stunning in autumn when the leaves start changing colour to reds and browns. I’ll have to keep that as a side note and come back here in October/November to witness it (and no doubt along with half the population of Beijing).

Of course I took my camera with me and took lots of photos. I’ve attached quite a few to the post, so please feel free to have a look, although I’ve decided not to give them all commentary. Transportation information and prices can be found below the photos.

Please click here to see the photos (for China residents, please you hidefap.com to view the flickr images – copy and paste the address into the site). Read more »

1,300 dead in mudslides.

You may, or may not, have read about the massive landslides that have been happening here in China. So far, nearly 1,300 people have already lost their lives in Gansu Province, in North West China, with a further 500 people still missing. It’s hard to really put that figure into any real perspective, but that’s about the same number of people that died during 9/11, so it really is a big deal. When you live in a country with a population of more than 1.3 billion people, 1,300 people may not seem a lot, but can you imagine if there was a natural disaster like this Australia and the same amount of people died?

That’s not to say the Chinese aren’t taking it lightly, on the contrary, as it covers the news here with images of brave rescue workers and soldiers all doing their part in the crisis. Even yesterday, most of the entertainment activities in the country stopped and shut down for the day as a mark of respect and mourning for those who had lost their lives. Many of the entertainment websites, including the one I use to watch 99% of my TV, were down, and instead plastered with black and white images from the areas affected.

Let’s hope that the weather is more favourable in the coming weeks and no more life is lost.

Sleeping a little better.

I was interested in seeing in the news today that South Korea have added their own version of the cruise missile into their military arsenal. The Hyunmu-3C missile has a range of 1,500 kilometres and a payload of 450 kilograms, which I’m sure is enough explosive force to knock a North Korean solider off his bike (and probably a lot more).  It is the longest range missile the South Korea military possess, though far short of the North Korean’s Taepodong-2 missile, which has a range of 6,700 kilometres, and based loosely on a Scud rocket design (so I’m guessing a rocket aimed at South Korea would most likely ended up hitting my apartment block here in Beijing).

Keeping in mind that North Korea, as well as China and Russia, both lie within 1,500 kilometres of South Korea, one has to argue do they need a missile to travel any further? No one really has any qualms with South Korea, except of course the North, but I’m sure a few Hyunmu-3C missiles would be much more effective than the North Korean equivalent.

I do wonder, however, how well protected I am here in Beijing. Being so close to both North and South Korea, as well as the always dodgy Russian’s, it’s not that incomprehensible to think that China may get hit with a stray missile. So how would China react? Well in the worst case scenario, I can see China rolling out some of it’s ‘Dong-Feng 5‘ missiles, all carrying 3,000 kT nuclear warheads with a range of 13,000 kilometres. Probably a little extreme, but a good enough deterrent to ensure one accurately spends the time pointing their own missiles in the right direction.

Combined with an army over 2.5 million people, and a defensive budget of $700 million US dollars this year alone, I’m actually starting to feel rather safe here in the good old People’s Republic!

Jay Chou Concert in Sanlituan, Beijing.

As I mentioned the other day, Em and I went to a concert the other night. We went to see Em’s favourite singer and performer, Jay Chou (周杰伦, Zhōu Jiélún) at the Workers Stadium in Sanitun last Saturday, with at least another 50,000 people. For anyone unfamiliar with Jay Chou, he’s one, if not the leading, music artist in Asia having won the World Music Awards (whatever they are) four times. Unlike most Western performers, he also writes and composes all of his own music, and came to fame by winning a talent contest in the late 90’s on his musical talent alone.

I have to confess I don’t know a great deal about his music, but Em has idolised him since she was a teenager, so any blanks she quickly fills in for me. I actually took Em as a surprise for her birthday in early may. Back then, I was still fairly new to Beijing, so I couldn’t really go out and buy anything with much meaning. One of the Chinese teachers at work helped me to organise and buy the tickets, and I think Em was a little surprised, and touched, that I was able to organise something like for her, albeit a couple of months late.

The concert itself was awesome. Despite not knowing any of the words, I did recognise a few of the songs from when Em sometimes plays his music in the background at home. The beauty with most good music (and good being a relative term) is that you don’t have to know the words, with 50,000-odd people cheering on, you really get wrapped up in the atmosphere. I also had a big flashy stick to wave around, so I didn’t really need much more to keep me entertained for the better part of 3 hours.

In addition, Em’s best friend (and her boyfriend) also purchased tickets (after they found out Em was going) and joined us (on the other side of the stadium). We caught up after the concert, had dinner together, and then they stayed with us at our place for the night, seeing as they both come from the other side of town and was too late to drive home.

I did take a few pictures on my video camera, as well as some video, what you can see below. I edited it together to make it a little easier to watch.

As I don’t have access to youtube, google video, or yahoo video here in China, I’ve had to open a youku account (it’s the Chinese version of youtube). While it runs amazingly fast here in China, I’m told it’s slow everywhere else, or just doesn’t work. I apologise for this, but alas I can’t really do much else.

Anyway, below are a few photos and the fore mentioned video. I hope you enjoy. I know I sure did! Happy Birthday sweetie.

If anyone has trouble viewing the video, please let me know in the comment section. Thanks.

Photo’s can be found by clicking here… Read more »

North Korea v Portugal, live in Pyongyang!

I have to confess that I was one of the few people hoping the Democratic People Republic of Korean (aka North Korea) would do ok in the World Cup, for no other reason than everyone else thought they would do poorly. After a 2-1 loss to Brazil, the North’s won enough praise from most in the football world for their commendable effort. So much so, that the North Korean Government decided to show the next game against Portugal, live, an unprecedented move.

For the most part, and World Cup soccer matched involving North Korea usually take at least 2 or 3 days for the government to release the result (and perhaps doctor them to a more favorable outcome depending on the result of the team). However there was no hiding North Korea’s 7-0 loss to Portugal last night, a hiding in anyone’s language.

I was watching CCTV this morning (China’s official TV station) I was surprised to see they had a report from North Korea of some supporters watching the game live on their TV. While they were visibly upset with the result, they were quick to cover their side abysmal performance. Their excuses ranged from the team having to travel the furthest of any team, hence were tired, the weather was poor and that the North Korean team don’t usually play in such poor conditions back home, and that their lack of games against European countries was a result of the negative influence caused by the US, thus making them unprepared to play a team such as Portugal.

Rrrrright.

Still, I’m glad to know that the very few, lucky North Korean’s who were able to watch the game, were able to view a very small window to the outside world. While I don’t think it’s a sign of North Korean opening up, it does show that the government isn’t completely deaf to their people wanting something as simple as a live game of soccer involving the national team.

7-nil or not, there is always a sense of pride watching your team on the world stage, it’s just a pity they could have seen the game against Brazil, live, as that would have given a better indication of how well the team has done over the past 4 years.

PS – It was a great game to watch, but who didn‘t feel bad for the North Korean’s at about the 75 minute mark?

Fake goods in Beijing.

One of the things China is infamous for is the peddling of fake and phony goods, such as you high quality merchandise from Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada. It’s so bad that when you see someone wearing a Louis Vuitton bag, or a pair of Gucci sunglasses one immediately  dismisses it as a fake without even giving it a thought (let alone a second one). Having personally shopped in such stores with my lovely fiancée (be it as it may on strictly window terms) it’s not hard to understand why people would buy fakes. Who in their right mind would pay $4,000 US for a ‘mirror’ bag when you can get it for $80 from Miss Wu down the street and have it look almost identical (identical to me, but not to the trained eye of Em who can spot a fake a mile away)?

I have to admit it makes me not want to wear my very expensive Prada sunglasses that I bought in Australia a few months back (yes you moron, men do wear Prada) simply because everyone will just assume that it is fake and think I’m a phony trying to wear it. Damn it, I even have a special Prada card to say it’s real, but do you think I can show that to every damn person who sees me wearing them?

The black-market in fake item have even gone so far that it’s affected our lovely daughter, Mille (yes, the blasted rabbit). No, we didn’t buy her a Tiffany’s necklace (although someone suggested we should, thanks sweetheart), but something of nearly (NEARLY) equal importance, her food. We have always made it a habit of buying Millie the best rabbit food we could find (or the cheapest one online, you know, whatever is easier) and in China it’s no different. While we’re away in Australia, Em’s best friends bought Millie some of the expensive food as well, from a company called ALEX, American I think. The food is slightly brown/orange in colour, and Millie seems to have no problem eating it.

Of course she prefers eating unhealthy treats over normal, healthy food, which is a nasty, nasty habit. But hey, who’s calling the kettle black?

Anyway, she was running low and we managed to find a pet store (by accident) that was selling some of the same, premium, food. While I was of playing with the store Chinchilla (I kid you not!) the storekeeper was chatting away with Em telling her that a lot of fake food was on the market. She showed Em a packet of the fake and real food, and compared the quality of the ink used on the plastic bag. While it wasn’t immediately obvious, you could definitely tell, on a closer inspection, that one was certainly inferior to the other.

And of course when we got home, we noticed that we had some of the fake food that Em’s friend had bought. Of course she wouldn’t have had any idea about that, nor do did we until we’re told, and on opening the real pack of food, the difference in food quality was obvious. The new food had plumb, green, fresh pellets, much more appetizing than the brown/orange ones Millie had been eating previously.  She thoroughly enjoys the new ‘real’ food over her previous imitation food, and who can blame her? I mean have you seen the stitch work on those fake Louis Vuitton bags?!

Suffice to say we need to be extra careful when buying our rabbit food. Now that we have found a store with an owner who actually seems to like animals (you’d be surprised the amount of pet stores and veterinarian clinics in Beijing where the people working there seem to actually dislike animals) we can go back and buy our food from there, even if it is a bit of a hike.

Lucky rabbit.

Kim Jong-Il takes a trip to China’s North.

It looks like North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-Il, has taken a little trip to North-East China, no doubt scoping out some prime real-estate for more Sino-North Korean economic development. Of course, when one says ‘economic development’ and ‘North Korea’ in the same sentence, it’s more along the lines of some token charity business that will help a select few North Koreans from not starving this year.

Either way, it was Kim Jong-Il’s first overseas visit in a few years, marking a strong indication that the leader has recovered well from his strokes from a couple of years back.

The Republic of Korea (ROK) based Yonhap News reported that Kim entered China by a 17-carriage train on Monday and spent the night in Dalian, a northeast port city known as a model of market reforms.

He was found to have traveled to a development project area, some 30 kilometers from Dalian, and inspected a port under construction there

Source: China.org.cn

The trip is closely being watched by sources in both Japan and South Korea, the second of which has pointed the finger directly at North Korea (unofficially) for the sinking of one of it’s navy craft. China, on the other hand, have wisely decided to remain neutral in the debate until further evidence can be made indicating that indeed a North Korean submarine did in fact sink the South Korea ship. China’s main priority is getting North Korea back to the six-party talks, so this little economic sweeter may just be the key for that.

Kim Yong-hyun, a DPRK expert at Dongguk University, was quoted by Chosun IIbo as saying, "The DPRK’s main interest is in economic assistance from China, and China’s top priority is to set a date for DPRK to return to the Six-Party Talks and reaffirm Pyongyang’s willingness to scrap its nuclear weapons."

I’m always amazed that no matter how bad the North Korean’s are, they always manage to persuade some concessions out of either China and the United States when they have decided to walk away from talks. Of course the concessions both super-powers to concede are relatively small-potatoes, but the principal of giving in remains a problem. Still, if they can get away with it, even if only a few times, then why wouldn’t they. Let’s face it, they have nothing to lose (the people, that is).

The more time I spend reading Chinese news the more I begin to realize that the whole North-South Korea-United States tensions are somewhat an annoyance and problematic to the Chinese people. I would go far to say that China sees these problems are a hindrance to doing some serious business in North Korea, where the labor is cheap, resources are to be had, and would have huge bargaining power over an otherwise bankrupt country. China loses a lot of these powers having to play a role as mediator to all parties concerned.

As for the developing news with the sinking of the South Korean Cheonan naval ship, it’ll be interesting to see how China approach North Korea should the verdict be that they indeed did fire a torpedo at the vessel.

In all seriousness, I wouldn’t be so worried about China, the South response will be a lot more interesting and no doubt China will again have to play mediator to stop any sort of retaliation.

*Photo above: Kim Jong-Il inspects a cake factory. ‘Where’s the Uranium?’ Feel free to add your own caption.

Quick update from China.

Who would believe that it’s been a week since Em and I first arrived here in Beijing?

Who would be believe it’s been over 2 months since I was in South Korea planning my trip over to Beijing with Em and Millie?

Hasn’t time flown fast?

I’m happy to report that everyone here is doing fine. I officially started teaching on Thursday, although for the past three days (yes, I teach weekends) I’ve been mainly observing some classes and familiarizing myself with the workings of the school. The school itself is impressive. Upon arriving in Beijing, we’re picked up, given a very nice welcome pack with some food, maps, guide book to Beijing, phone cards (including a SIM card for a cell phone), and a subway card. The hotel was at a nice Chinese style place, which is a nice way to introduce yourself to China, especially if you’re unfamiliar with Asian hotels.

The next couple of days we had off, and then I spent Monday thru to Wednesday organizing my apartment, getting my medical records from Australia processed, and a meet and greet with the people at my school.

I’m happy to say we found a place to live within our first day. I’m even happier to say it’s much bigger than my apartment in Korea, a good three-to-four times bigger! It’s a three floor loft suite (doesn’t that just sound so cool?) on the tenth floor with all the furnishings we could possibly want.

I’ll write more about the apartment another day.

As for the job, well it’s pretty hardcore teaching here. As I mentioned before, I work weekends, but get Tuesdays and Wednesdays off (it doesn’t even feel like Saturday today). Dare I say, it’s a 9 to 5 job (well the hours I’m at office the office are), but my teaching time is well down from what I used to do in Korea. The classes are more inline with ESL methodology, and require a lot more preparation time, thus the extra time in the office. Not to mention I’ll also be teaching students as young as three years old!

Living in Beijing has been a little taxing. Traffic, shopping, even food, will take plenty of time to get used to. The people themselves are also very different from what I’m used to. Work has been stressful and after a good 8 weeks vacation, I’m showing all the signs of laziness from not having to lift a finger during that time. Without a doubt, in a months time I’ll be up to speed and into some sort of routine.

As for Staypuff.net, there are some changes coming (like the splash up the top which I can no longer see due to Flickr being restricted here!).  More on that later, too.

And please remember, you can’t contact me much on facebook these days (ok Rob, you’re right) so send me an email instead.