A bicycle called Alice

November 24, 2010

We blew up a rock to attain Yangshou. This is surely not the usual technique of arrival to this picturesque village on the Li River in China’s southern province Guangxhi, but it was necessary.

Two huge, nasty, many-tonned boulders blocked the road and our bus journey. After futile attempts using a hammer, someone produced a jack hammer and within an hour a fuse was laid, we evacuated and BOOM! the rock was blown into pieces.

Fortunately our guanxi (Chinese term similar to karma) was in order, as we didn’t bring down more of the hillside in the attempt. That hadn’t seemed to cross anyone’s mind anyway. It still took several hours to clear the smaller debris however the wait was worth it.

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Categories: Travel around China.

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AN ANCIENT CITY WITH MODERN CONNECTIONS

November 17, 2010

A little background history

The May holiday 2005 was fast approaching and I had planned to holiday with 1 of my young and adventurous Chinese buddies but we still didn’t know where we would go – somewhere not too crowded, I hoped. I asked her where she desired to go and her reply was the ‘ancient town of Langzhong, have you heard of it’. No, I thought. ‘Ok’ I stated I would have a start searching around the ’net and see if I could find something of interest about this ‘unheard’ of place.

Now allow me back up a many years to the time i had been preparing to appear to perform in China. Back home I have a good friend whose parents worked in China for a good deal of years. She herself was born in a Japanese POW camp in Shandong Province in 1943 whilst her family was interred during the war. After liberation the family moved to Sichuan where her father worked in the Mission Hospital in Baoning around the Jialing River. The only way to get there was by boat up the Yangtze river to Chongqing and then the Jialing to Baoning also known today as Langzhong. My good friend was 5 years aged at that time and they remained in Baoning until all foreigners were asked to leave China in 1951.

Continued…

Categories: Travel around China.

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Go Ahead, Look Back

November 16, 2010

So many times in this life, sages, psychologists, counselors, spiritual guides, relationship experts, and well-meaning people will advise that it is not wholesome for broken-hearted people to live in the past. This tips often is given to friends, loved ones, and acquaintances and usually phrased practically identical way: get over it; forget about the past; look to the future, and “don’t look back.”

“Don’t look back,” as well as “don’t look down,” also are expressions of tips given to acrophobics, especially if they are in a increased place having a panic attack because of their fear of falling. As a way of helping individuals who possess a fear of heights overcome their phobia, unfortunately some therapists resort to cruel and unusual punishment. They make the acrophobics face their fears by getting them to knowledge very increased places, which more often than not heightens their fears. As a result, the therapists often have advised them to NOT look back or do not look down.

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Categories: Travel around China.

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Glimpses of Guizhou

November 11, 2010

I emerged in the train station in the grey early morning light. Apart in the usual crowd that usually hangs near to the majority of the larger stations, really little was moving in this dull half-light as I wandered along the wide, Zunyi Lu heading for downtown. Street cleaners were busy clearing aside the mounds of rubbish left in the activities of the night before. I would invest the up coming two several hours watching a resting city slowly come to life. Guiyang, my destination, is a compact city completely surrounded by mountains and boasts lots of large parks. Despite being the money of certainly one of the poorest provinces in China, it is relatively prosperous and modern looking today. The Central federal government provides good incentives for new business and clean industry to move here.

Guiyang generally has a mild climate but its identify is translated – valuable Sun- suggesting that it rarely shines here. However, I experienced three out or four fine times on this visit in early November, which is better than normal odds. Public transport is easy and convenient and a fast circuit of town will help however you oriented. You can do this by taking certainly one of two special sightseeing buses departing from near the train and lengthy distance bus stations that loop the city in opposite directions and give you entry to the majority of the sights, eateries, bars, stores and hotels.

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Categories: Travel around China.

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GONGTAN GOING, GOING, GONE

November 4, 2010

Long ago, throughout China her rivers especially where her life’s blood vessels with boats getting between probably the most sensible methods to holiday and transport goods. The setting up inside the Grand Canal alone and numerous others like it are testimony of this. In the mountainous southwest, overland holiday was slow and tedious, leaving small choice than to navigate the frequently treacherous and swollen rivers. In the times preceding to steam and today’s contemporary diesel engines, boats experienced been sailed, poled, rowed and dragged up or downstream with numerous a the loss of lifestyle and goods. Today obviously it is pretty safe to holiday over a variety of craft away from your larger tourist cruise ships, the fast hydrofoils, scaled-down community long range transports and small timber cross river ferries.

The Chang Jiang and her tributaries have for a tremendous variety of many years carried out a essential part in transport, link and army operations in the southwest of China. But in numerous regions, new roads, railways and dam projects are top to a decline in the dependence on river transport. once the huge three Gorges Dam arrives totally on the net a few many years from now it is anticipated to facilitate ocean-going vessels as much upstream as Chongqing, nonetheless the largest inland port in China.

Continued…

Categories: Travel around China.

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