Shekou Apartment

Many people have asked to see our apartment so here it is. We live on the 19th floor of a building that is 20 stories tall. Our apartment has a total of about 1250 square feet. We have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. We are very lucky to have an apartment that has a view and a deck. We are one of only two families to have such a great view. Our apartment was just remodeled prior to our lease. The floors are fake hardwood panels or ceramic tile. Bathroom, kitchen and utility are all tile walls and floor. The kitchen is small as is the utility room but has fit our needs. Yes that, on the wall, corner appliance, is a minature clothes dryer, it can hold only one pair of jeans at a time. We are not complaining some people have no dryer, but only a washer. We along with every Chinese family hang much outside to dry. Actually we don't the AYI does. We have put up a few pictures and completed a little bit of decorating. Our latest purchase is the deck furniture. Yahoo. Any questions?

Shanghai Weekend, Yuyuan Carden

These picture were taken in the Yuyuan Garden. This is right in the heart of Shanghai. Don't think that there are a few people visiting, The last picture is similar to the one above but includes the crowd. How many people visit daily it many, many thousands, yet you felt a very calming effect while walking around the garden.

This is information about the Garden.

Yuyuan Carden was built during the reign of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1577), 440 hundred years from now. It is a residential garden built by Pan Yunduan, minister of finance in Sichuan Prooince in the Mig Dunasty. Pan built the garden to “please his parents and let them enjoy themselves in their late years”. In ancient Chinese “yu” means “pleasing”, hence the name of the garden. The garden is typical of the gardening art south of the Changjiang River and is famed as “a wonder of beauty in south-east China”. It is still a famous classical garden in south China. At the end of the Ming Dynasty the garden was deserted. It was rebuilt in the 25 th year of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1760). In the 19 th century, during the Opium War, the beautiful garden was badly damaged. During the Small Sword Society Uprising, the Spring Hall in the Yuyuan Garden was made as the northern headquarters of the uprising army. Now, there is a number of historical relics left by the uprising, like weapons, coins and literature. After liberation, the municipal government renovated the garden several times. It was opened to the public in 1961. On entering the gate, you will come face to face with the Three Corn-ear Hall. Standing in the hall and looking up, you will see a borizontal plaque with the characters “Mountians and Forests in the City”, describing the environment of the garden being located in the midst of a bustling town yet full of the natural pleasantness of mountain and forests. Going through the “Hall of Viewing the Mountain” you can see a large rockery on the other side of a pond. It is 12-m high, piled up with 2,000 tons of yellow stones from Wukang, full of twists and turns, , looking magnificent and enchanting. The Inner Garden was built in the 48 th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1708), occupying only an area of 0.13 hectare but complete with all the rockeries, ponds, halls, chambers, pavilions and terraces, crenelated walls and corridors, cleverly arranged and proportionately laid out. In front of the Hall of Jade Magnificence in the Outer Garden are 3 stone peaks; in the middle of these is the Exquisite Jade Stone. It is one of the famous exquisite stones south of the Changjiang River, the other two being the Duanyun Peak in Suzhou and the Wrinkled Peak in Hangzhou. It is 3.2-m tall. In the stone are 72 holes. If you burn an incense at the bottom, smoke will come out from all the holes; if you pour water from the top, there will be water dripping from all the holes. It is said that it was a piece of curio stone of the Imperial Marbel convoy in the Song Dynasty. It somehow got lost on the way and then reclaimed. The stone also has a history of more than 400 year here. In the garden there are such famous tourist attractions, like the Happy Fish Waterside Pavillion, a Thousand Flower Hall, the Hall of Mildnesss, the Hall of Elegance, the Nine-zig Bridge, the lotus pond, and the Mid-lake Pavilion. This classical garden, integrating the gardening art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties with chambers and halls, beautiful rockeries, luxuriant trees and plants, is featured by its gracefulness and peacefulness, delicateness and exquisiteness, small but striking you as large, presenting the artistic styles of gardens south of the Changjiang River. It deserves the fame of a masterpiece of classical gardens. It is listed as a key cultural relic protected by the state and a popular tourist attraction for both domestic and overseas tourists.

This is the website that contains the above information. Shanghai Tourism

1.3 Billion

Yes, there are people everywhere. 7 million more every year. 34 new ones every minute of every day of every year. Shenhzen the city where I live, I live in a suburb (Shekou), has 14 million, with over 600 thousand moving in every year. When I leave my apartment and exit the elevator I will always see between 30 and 100 people on the street. Many many people and I am never ever by myself no matter where I go. I have not gone far enough yet to ever be away from city and crowds. This weekend I did a lot of travel on the light rail system and the subway. The subway in Hong Kong carries over 2 million people daily. That is a lot of riders on ever train!

This is just a few shots of Hong Kong and people from this weekend.

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat from Tim and Bev. Pic taken Oct. 28th in front of Time Square, Hong Kong.

Chinese Medicine Massage

Bev and I have been getting a massage since the second day we came to China. Our boss actually set up massages for all the new employees. So now we have tried a number of different locations around our area. You can always tell if you've found a massage place because there will be girls out front in fluffy pink or blue prom dresses to invite you in. Each business has a slightly different slant on massage. I think all the teachers at our school get massages. People seem to have their favorite place. Kind of like your favorite coffee spot.

I have to tell you that Bev has tried a much wider number of places and types of massage, such as full body Thai massage. Ok, so we have our favorite place, and our favorite masseuse. We could not pronounce their Chinese names and so we gave them American names based on what we heard them say their names were. So Bev goes to Jim and Tim goes to Suzy, they are now use to their new names. We think this is better than what the business gives them for names which is "Boy 110", "Girl 100". We laugh a lot and have a good time together.

I could give you a complete description of the whole basic Chinese Medicine Foot massage, but it is better that you experience it yourself. This is the standard massage that I get, and usually Bev is with me. This massage starts at your neck and gets to your feet about 45 minutes later, and then works on your feet for 45 min. When your done you are totally relaxed and ready to go straight to sleep.

Some of our friends have introduced us to the Hair Wash. Great experience. My head never felt better. You have to have some time for this as it takes about an hour. Total cost, under $5.00 the same cost as the basic Chinese Medicine foot massage. I had my ears candled when I had the hair wash. See the pics above of Bev getting a hair wash! and Tim getting his ears candled.

Bottom line this is one of the big benefits of living in China. Bev has increased her massages to two or three a week. I am keeping mine at the once a week for right now.

Construction Work

Since we have been in Shekou, just over two months, I have seen lots of building and changes. It is pretty incredible, I have actually seen buildings constructed in under two weeks, only to be torn down for some reason less than two weeks later. "Why?" You just have to say "It's China" . It is what everyone says here when we see things that seem to make almost no sense at all. Building is happening everywhere and with what seems to be few codes to follow and lots of workers large buildings appear very quickly.

Saftey considerations for workers are pretty non-existent. Also as a pedestrian you must alway be aware of where you walk, it may be right through a construction site. Something that in the US would be walled off keeping pedestrians at least 40 or 50 feet away. Not in China. Sometimes they will use a line of plastic caution tape but not always!

Here are some examples, I know my son-n-law Sean will be amazed to see some of these. I have rarely seen saftey ropes, safety glasses, gloves, hearing protection etc. You routinely see welding everywhere. It seems that welding goes on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, gogles are very rare.

Light pants, short sleeve t-shirts, and plastic flip-flops, with a straw hat our the clothes of choice for the construction trade. There seems to be few rules with as many workers as there are available, someone is always waiting to get your job. Shenzhen has people coming to the city at a rate of over 600,000 per year!

Tools! The main tool of choice is a heavy metal bar or rod. It can be used to do almost anything. Power tools if used are usually surrounded by 4-6 men. I saw a sledge hammer being used from afar. What was amazing was that evey time it when above the worker' head that was swinging it, it seemed to bow backwards. I couldn't figure out why I was seeing this optical illusion, until I got closer and saw that the handle had been replaced with a piece of bamboo! Somebody may be headed for a splitting headache.

The man above that was painting had on street shoes and no rope or safety gear of any kind. He was doing touch-up four stories above an all concrete sidewalk! If he refused to do this job someone else would have his job.

One think that is very amazing is that the materials used are absolutely wonderful. Lots of marble and granite everywhere. Otherwise the construction material of choice is a low grade cement block, that will later be covered with stucco, or tile. I have observed eight foot walls that are 100 yards long built in one or two days. Sometimes parts of them fall down a few weeks later! I saw a sidewalk torn up and built to completion only to be torn-up again the next week rebuilt and yes it happened a third time, in a three week time frame. We could only guess that the buses wanted a little more road on that section of the street and needed the sidewalk trimmed down. Where are the engineers?

New Eyeglasses

Not that I needed new glasses but I thought it would be great to get a pair of glasses that I could wear when working on the computer. My progressives force me to tip my head back to use the lower section of the lens. I had read about this place in Kowloon, part of Hong Kong, that was set-up as a high production optical supply company. Were you could get a pair of glasses while you wait. I told another co-worker about it and she got a couple of pair of glasses and was very pleased.

Eric, another teacher at the school, and I decided to make a overland trip to see if we could get to Hong Kong any easier and less expensively than our current method of using the ferry. We found out we can in about the same amount of time and with a bit more flexibility and a cost savings of about 75%. The trade off is all the transitions you have to make. We took a taxi, bus, light rail, above ground subway, below ground subway, and a change of lines with the subway. You have to watch your stops very closely. And of course the reverse of this on the return trip.

Ok, so we found the glasses place located in an industrial area of the city. After entering the building which had an all marble entry, guard and very fancy directory, we went to the 12th floor of the building via a freight elevator that had a attendant to press the button for your floor. Nice work if you can get it. When we entered the space we saw that it had tables in the center area with chairs and lots of glass frames all around the outside edge. We were earlier than the advertised opening time and that was good since it was already open and only a few people had arrived. That changed very quickly. Erick immediately had an eye exam, I had to wait because I had worn my contacts and had to take them out and wait for my eyes to re-adjust before the exam. The entire process was set-up for production. There were four rooms for eye exams. After you had your exam and picked out your desired frame, they sat down with you to review the various lens options. Coatings, UV, etc. You make your choices they give you a price and then you enjoy looking at the sunglasses, wild designs, and enjoy a cold boxed tea. In less than 15 min. your glasses are brought back and the optometrist checks the fit and makes adjustments. They take your money and send you off with new glasses a plastic case, polishing cloth and glasses screwdriver.

Total time about 45 minutes, unless you take extra long making your frame choice. To give you an idea of the cost, Eric had UV coatings and extras, I didn't but I chose a more expensive frame and had a more difficult to grind lens. His cost in US dollars was $29.00 mine was $36.00, the eye exam was free if you buy glasses.

So far my glasses are great. I call them my apartment glasses as they work great for reading, computer work, or just watching TV in our apartment. The picture of me with the blue-dot frames are the ones I ended up with.

Check the link for more info.

Chinese Tea

While we were in Hong Kong ,we decided we would learn a little about tea ,the art of tea brewing and drinking. We were treated to a great find (accidentally) when we visited a department store with over 5 floors that was quite large by Chinese standards, (we were looking for silk material). It was off the beaten path, in a hard to find building and we are quite sure we were the only Americans in the store that day.

The fifth floor was totally devoted to tea, tea products, exhibits, and tea demonstrations. Many different individual shops were set up, and each area had tea and tea pots with other tea related items. You could sit down with the tea hostess of that area and sample as many teas as you liked. We tried a couple different kinds and bought a few that we especially liked. We also bought a unique tea brewing pot that produces perfectly brewed tea. The hostess showed how to use all the tools and the other dishes used in the brewing process. We had the opportunity to buy any kind, style, size of tea from any area in China. It was like a mini tea exposition.

We were introduced to the Southern Chinese method of brewing and drinking tea. I have added a link if you would like to know more this process or about Chinese tea.

http://chineseteas101.com/gaiwan.htm
and
http://chinese-tea.net

PS Thanks Rob for your help as to where to start on this topic.