Beijing Day 1 - Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven
Originally uploaded by jimwink

After checking into our hotel and grabbing a quick lunch at a nearby restaraunt, we decided to try and visit something close by. Our hotel was on the south side of Beijing and the nearest tourist attraction was the Temple of Heaven. Just a twenty minute walk.

The temple was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty, to offer sacrifices to the heavens. It was built larger than the Forbidden City because the Emperors of the time believed they were the sons of heaven so the Temple of Heaven must be larger in size.

The Temple of Heaven is enclosed by a long wall. The northern part is in a semi-circle shape representing the heavens, while the southern part was built square to represent the earth. The northern part is also higher in elevation also emphasizing that it was closer to the heavens.

Click on the photo to see more pictures from the Temple of Heaven.

Upcoming Vacation

Jim and I are getting excited. We have a 5-day vacation planned to Beijing and Xian the week of September 29 for the week of China's National holiday!

The first two days of the week are professional development days for me at school, so we're leaving on the morning of October 1 and return to Shanghai the evening of October 5.

Jim's trying to learn everything about the new camera (imagine that) before then so he can take awesome pictures. (No word from the camera market about the older camera yet.)

It will probably take us through the following weekend to get the blog and photos loaded to the website.

Camera News

Jim's camera died. It wouldn't even power on. The battery was fully charged so Jim took the whole thing apart to try and fix it. He checked to make sure that power was making it to the circuit boards with a multimeter and checked the internal fuses to make sure they weren't blown. Everything checked out but it was still dead.

I wish I could have taken a picture of the dissassembled thing. Oh, but the irony involved. How can you take a picture of a camera, when your only camera is in a million parts? There were tiny screws and parts everywhere. I stayed at least 2 feet away from the coffee table for fear of bumping it and sending pieces flying and rolling everywhere accross the wood floors.

So this Saturday, as an early birthday present, we purchased a Sony DSLR-A700 for him. He is dorking out about the camera. From the recommendation of a friend, we were able to buy it at a camera market for close to $150 less than what's available in the states. It does have a serial number and its taking nice photos, so we're pretty sure it's legit.

While at the market, we found a camera repair shop, so Sunday we took the old camera there. Maybe they'll know something Jim didn't. The charge is about $45 dollars, if they can fix it and they would call if it costs more. It will be ready by next weekend, so we'll report back. Once fixed it will either become my camera, or we'll resell it on EBay when we return to the states.

The market also has shops where you can get photos printed and framing shops. We want to get a few printed and framed to hang in our house. We are open to receiving suggestions of photos you like from our Flickr site.

Our Flickr Site

Blog Status Update

I've been meaning to post this for awhile now. I realize the posting frequency has drastically dropped off. I understand that I am not holding myself to the level I should as self-proclaimed blog editor-in-chief. And for this I apologize.

There is however a very good reason for the sudden decline in posts... I got a job! In China! This may be old news to some, but I'm not sure if everyone was aware.

I am teaching as a semester long substitute at Shanghai American School in the outskirts of Puxi. I have two preps: Algebra2/Trig and Core Pre-Cal. The position is called a substitute but it's a full time position as I'm filling for a gentleman who is on medical leave through at least January.

So how does this contribute to fewer posts? Every weekday morning I leave the apartment at 6am to catch a shuttle bus 2km away from our complex. The shuttle leaves at 6:25am and arrives at 7:30 while the school day starts at 8:05am. The folks who know me know that in order for me to leave by 6, I'm waking up by 4:45. The nice thing is since Shanghai is east of Beijing, and all of China is in the same time zone (i.e. Beijing time), the sun rises around 5:30.

I pretty much repeat the same process in the afternoons, although the commute takes longer since we travel on Shanghai's busiest road: the Yanan Elevated Road. Think of it like I-35 around downtown Austin during rush hour. Fun stuff, only I ride on a 32-seat bus with some of my coworkers. The other really cool thing, I don't pay a single RMB to ride the shuttle, as the school covers 100% of the cost. But I usually take a taxi to the stop in the morning. In the evenings I walk or take a taxi, depending on how tired I am, and/or how the weather is.

I arrive home most days between 6-7, and I'm usually pretty tired. Then we cook dinner, and I like to try to workout at the gym. The experience has made me appreciate everything Jim did from January until May.

The school is pretty cool. It's the oldest international school in Shanghai. It first opened in 1912, but closed in 1949 due to the Cultural Revolution. The doors reopened in the 80's when the rest of China opened to the rest of the world. One of the school's goals is to be the leading international school in Asia by 2012 - some say it already is. It's an American curriculum (as the name says), but it has a very Asian face. The students are not Chinese citizens, but expats' kids. Mini Terminology Lesson - Jim & I are expats. It's from the verb expatriate: to withdraw (oneself) from residence in one's native country. Anyways, close to 60% of the school's student population is Korean.

If anyone wants to know more about the school, the website is: http://www.saschina.org/.

Guilin Vacation: Day 3

Longsheng Rice Fields
Originally uploaded by jimwink

On the final full day of our vacation to Guilin, the weather and my health decided not to cooperate. We had thought that we would walk or ride bikes along the banks of the river by our hotel in the morning, but the early thunderstorms put a damper on those plans. The rain was followed by either food poisoning from a bad milkshake or a reaction to anti-malarial medicine for me. Needless to say, we kept indoors our hotel room reading books or snoozing.

At noon, we had arranged for a rental car to pick us up and drive us to the Longsheng Rice Terraces, a 2.5-hour drive from the hotel. (Ugg…) I was feeling better and the heavy rain had stopped. The drive was uneventful, but the scenery was awesome at the rice terraces.

The rice fields look different during each season of the year; the summertime is when they are green. The sky was a combination of overcast and foggy, but it was neat to see the fog move in and out, as we climbed around the terraces. We also saw some of the ethnic minorities that were featured in the light show from our first night in Guilin.

We did not actually make it to any of the “lookout spots,” as we did not allocate enough time for this event. We also both want to see the rice fields in the spring, when the rice is first being planted and the terraces are full of water. If we go back, we plan to stay at one of the guesthouses in Longsheng. That said, if anyone is up for the adventure, we’re willing to take you along!

Guilin Vacation: Day 2

Li River Boat Ride
Originally uploaded by jimwink

On the second day of our Guilin trip, we first headed out for a motorized raft ride on the Li (pronounced Lee) River. After the 45-minute bus ride to the destination, we found that the scenery before us is featured on the back of the 20RMB bill. The raft ride was advertised as being a bamboo raft, but the Li River has a stronger current than the Yulong, so for sturdiness sake (and probably ease of construction) they use PVC for the raft and furnish it with bamboo chairs.

Lawnmower engines that were converted into boat engines powered the boats; the drivers would steer by placing the engine left or right in the water. This ride was not as peaceful as the ride when we had a gondola-like driver. The scenery was awesome, we saw: magnificent landscapes, people on the shores washing clothes, ducks on the water and banks, and water buffaloes swimming to name a few.

At the southern most point on our raft ride, there was a small market place set up on the shore. The neatest thing here was the fishermen who had cormorant birds on bamboo poles. The men (we saw only fishermen, no fisherwomen) tie the birds to bamboo poles and let the birds do the fishing. Jim was upset because after we took pictures, the man started asking for money. I told Jim we should just pay the 4RMB ($0.58) and be done with it, which we did.

Buddha Cave
Originally uploaded by jimwink

We ate a late breakfast back in the town and then headed back to Yangshuo to go on a cave tour. The cave we toured, features two paths a dry cave and wet cave. The cave is called the Buddha Cave and it gets its namesake from one of the first formations you see, a large Buddha. When we entered the cave we were told to put hard hats on (understandable) and take our hiking shoes off and put house slippers on (what?!?!). So we did as the Chinese do and put on our vinyl slippers. A French couple was also on the tour with us, and they were as stunned about our required cave apparel as we were. After about 5 minutes in the cave, we realized this was a very Chinese experience, as this type of tour would never be approved for tourists in the states. OSHA, the ADA, or some other governmental agency, would have major objections to tourists crawling through tunnels 2.5 feet in diameter, scaling down formations 5 feet tall with only a rope.

While conquering these feats, the tour had a photographer who would snap photographs. So for instance while trying to navigate down a stair-like rock formation, the flash would go off and blind us at the most inopportune time. When we reached the end of the dry cave, we found out that the tour was not circular in nature, but an out-and-back course. Thus, we now had the opportunity to do the opposite of every action we just did.

Eventually the slippers made sense, when we started the path into the wet cave and we were walking through waters anywhere from ankle-deep to upper calf-level. The water was clear and cold. Not sure if we would drink it though.

Jim slipped at one point, while telling Rachel to be careful of her footing. He scraped his elbow and knee, but the camera was OK!! At the end of the wet cave, there is a mud pit; the locals call it a mud bath and claim it’s good for your skin. They jump in with their bathing suits; we decided not to.

Of coarse at the end of the cave tour they tried to sell us pictures. Jim did a little bargaining and was able to buy the whole set for 30RMB ($4.36). Instead of burning a CD though, they put it on one of our memory cards. Click on the pictures to see the whole set. Enjoy!

Guilin Vacation: Day 1

Yangshuo Vacation
Originally uploaded by jimwink

The aforementioned mistery vacation was to Guilin, China. We left Thursday evening and returned Monday afternoon, which left us three days for intense Jim & Rachel play time.

Guilin is in the province of Guangxi, and the area where we stayed is called Yangshuo. Our hotel was the Li River Retreat, and was about 2km out of the town of Yangshuo.

So the first day after breakfast, we met up with our tour guide, YuLing, and headed out. We rented bikes, rode through Yangshou and made our way to the Yulong River. The bike ride was nice, even though the sun was already scorching. We stopped along the ride for photo oppurtunities.

At the Yulong shore, we took a bamboo raft ride downstream. The raft driver (who navigates the raft like a gondola driver does a gondola) put our bikes on the back of the raft, and we sat in rinky-dink bamboo lawn chairs in the middle of the raft. There were some small 'waterfalls,' and on two of these the embankments we were passing over was too long for our driver to just push us over. So Jim & I had to step off the raft and help edge the raft over the edge and hop back on before it went over. The guide would hop on at the last minute. Anyways, on our first hop off the raft, I almost had a nice swim in the Yulong because I started to slip on the algae present.

At the end of the raft ride we met back with YuLing and rode our bikes to Moon Hill, a scenic outlook spot. You can see Moon Hill from various parts of Yangshuo, but we heard it was great to see from the top. So we walked up the 800 steps to see it. The funny thing about this is when you pay to go to the top of Moon Hill, you get a 'dedicated' tour guide to go with you. From our observations, the prerequisites for becoming one of these tour guides listed below:

1) female.
2) at least 65 years old.
3) able to scale 800 steps faster than most Westerners/toursists.
4) able to carry a 1 cubic foot styrofoam cooler full of assorted beverages while completing #3.
5) constantly fan your tourist while completing #3.
6) some conversational English (desired in order to sell goods from #4 and offer rest brakes to the whimpy tourists).

The guides were very polite and helpful, teaching us various Chinese words for things we didn't know: bird, butterfly, tree, etc. An interesting note about the beverages they carried: the price varied with where you wanted to buy it. Two bottles of water at the top of Moon Hill was 20RMB, whereas two bottles back at the bottom at the end of our trip was only 10RMB. I guess that's a pretty basic lesson in the Law of Supply and Demand.

After Moon Hill, YuLing took us to a local restaurant where we sampled the local fare: beer fish. We enjoyed the meal, especially after the busy activities of the day. After our late lunch, we headed back to the hotel to get some R&R before our plans that evening.

Impression Liu Sanjie
Originally uploaded by jimwink

In the evening we headed to the Liu Sanjie lightshow, which is performed at least once every night, employs 500+ people and showcases how the local minorities live off the land. The entire show takes place on bamboo rafts or floating docks. The man who choreographed/directed this show was also responsible for the opening ceremony at the Olympics. Needless to say the show was fascinating; we tried to take pictures to capture the moments but this is one of those experiences that photos cannot fully encapsulate. That said, if anyone wants to go see it, I think we would both be game on going back.