Quiz - We have a winner

The Beijing 2008 Olympics begin on 08/08/2008 at 8:00pm.

So, with 526 days 3 hours, 12 minutes and 17 seconds to go until they begin, I took the photo at 16:47:43 on March 1, 2007

Nobody gave me the exact answer including seconds, but Geir was correct to nearest minute, so name your choice of prize Mr Haugen.

Quiz Time

OK, let's see if anyone is reading and has time to spare...

When exactly did I take this photo. Date & Time ?
Click on photo to enlarge. It's not as difficult as it sounds



Click on Comments section below to add your answer please..

Choice of prizes for the winner:
Beijing 2008 panda / Chinese chopsticks / Pack of Longjing tea.

What else is going on in Beijing ?

So what else has been going on here in China's capital... Well, I've been taking it easy recently, studying some Chinese, reading and generally just recuperating and contemplating, getting ready to switch back into travel mode and head off to some new and exciting places... or maybe get a job... or maybe something else. Meanwhile I popped into the Imperial Palace better known as the "Forbidden City", visited the Dongyue Temple and revisited the Sanlitun area and the Workers (Gongti) Stadium where I stayed in 2002, to see what had changed around the area. This was quite sad in some ways. While the stadium is being redeveloped ready for the Olympics, across the road where used to stand some nice cafes where I ate a few times, there now stands a building site.. Further into the old and full of character Sanlitun South area which used to be a maze of winding streets, full of local traders with little stalls or shops, kids running around, many homes and some foreign oriented cafes and bars, there now stands just piles of rubble for hundreds of metres around, the cafes I used to visit for a beer in the evening, the homes of the previous residents, all long gone.

Last time in Beijing I met a Norwegian called Torborg with whom I saw many of the sites. Something that amused us was when she spotted a toilet in the Forbidden City with a star rating, jut like you would have on a hotel, we had never seen this before and found it funny. I saw it again on my recent visit, the Forbidden City toilet had a 4* rating.

I also went along to another city temple called Dongyue. With spring festival holiday period now over, it was nice and quiet until a large tour bus of Chinese tourists arrived, but I managed to stay ahead of them and enjoy the peaceful surroundings in relative quiet. There were thousands and thousands of red new year cards, whose proper name I do not know, hanging around every railing and some stands around the grounds. This and a few other decorations made this a very colourful temple. I noticed though the toilet there had only a poor 1* rating, they must do something about that !!


Left: Red Chinese New Year decorations hanging at Dongyue temple.
Centre: Forbidden City's **** toilet.
Right: Dongyue Temple still have some work to do on their toilet, just one * rating.

Crossing Tiananmen Square, you can be sure of being approached by various people trying to sell you a kite, a Chairman Mao little red book of quotations (no other colours available ;-)), a Chinese flag, a map of Beijing, their services as a tour guide to the Great Wall/Forbidden City or maybe they just want to speak English, some unfortunately also want to take you to an 'art gallery' or have a chat over a 'cup of tea' with you, which are scams intended to relieve you of the loads of money they believe all foreigners have in abundance. Each day I walk past the square you can see the clock outside the Chinese National Museum showing how long until the start of the Beijing Olympics, now just around 500 days away.


Left: Something that hasn't changed, Mao Zedong still watches over the gateway to the Forbidden City.
Centre: On Tiananmen Square, everyone tries to sell "Mao's little red book" of quotations.
Right: More red New Year card/decorations at Dongyue temple.

Finally on my wanderings I found just off the main shopping street a newish tourist street,selling typical Chinese souvenirs. Often on my travels, I have mocked souvenirs available in various places; bizarre Soviet items such as cosmonaut's helmets in Kiev, Bush/Blair/Hussein matryoshkas (Russian nesting dolls) in Moscow, freaky masks in Transylvania, but here it's different. There are some oddities; I wonder why they sell Russian matryoshkas, CCCP (USSR) slogan t-shirts and Saddam Hussein playing cards (which some guy shoves in my face every time I walk past his stall), but there are many attractive and interesting items. Silks and traditional Chinese clothing which are really nice, if you like tea, there are all sorts of tea pots and tea-cups available, cuddly Beijing 2008 Olympic pandas, beautifully painted snuff bottles, jade carvings, Chinese scroll paintings, calligraphy and other art, decorative chopsticks and jewellery all of which are quite appealing even if sometimes of dubious quality. If I had space in my rucksack I could easily have bought a load of things.


Left: Here I am in the first main courtyard of the Forbidden City.
Centre: The Hall of Supreme Harmony, is not as attractive as last time I visited !
Right: Cute pandas in the markets.

I've been tagged

Right, a game of tag is being played electronically and I have been tagged by Tina who I met in Sarajevo last year. <Read Tina's blog here.> Now I'm suppose to tell you 5 things you didn't already know about me:

1. My first job was as a ride operator at Blackpool Pleasure Beach...

2. Over the last year, I told everyone who asked that I was travelling alone. Well, this was in fact a big lie, as all this time I have actually had a travel partner, DJ Barnee. DJ was a gift from my dearest friends Nadja & Rebecca in Amsterdam.. Here he is on the Great Wall at JiaoShan:

3. I used to really, really, really like Kylie ! (This one's an Ozzie special for you Tina ;-))

4. I really, really, really don't like snakes.

5. My favourite dish in the world has to be sausages and mash with onion gravy and maybe some baked beans.

What's going on in Beijing now.

Over the last 2 weeks the NPC (National People's Congress) and the CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) have been taking place in the Great Hall of The People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, not far from where I am staying. Each morning and evening a cavalcade of cars and buses arrives and departs the square carrying the thousands of representatives from around the country who have come to discuss the shaping of China's future.

I was interested to know how China's leaders are trying to build China's future, how they plan to generate a "harmonious society" in a land of various ethnic groups with differing backgrounds, cultures, languages, standards of living, economies, education and much much more besides.
So I watched some on TV and for the first few days, it was quite interesting following proceedings, but after two or three days it became simply a repetitive sequence of reports and interviews, packed full of regurgitated buzzwords, that had recently been introduced by Chinese political leaders, in their communications regarding the future development of China.

It reminded me of a game we used to play in meetings when I was in my first IT job at IBM. We soon discovered that any meetings arranged with managers or business/marketing departments were always packed with a heap of IT and business buzzwords. So someone found a game called "Buzzword Bingo" which was a bingo card filled with management/marketing buzzwords instead of numbers. I think it's well I know these days and a game card looked something like this..




Watching CCTV for a day or two during the NPC/CPPCC sessions reminded me of this game and if you replace the words with those listed below you can make your own Chinese political Buzzword Bingo ! ;-)

"harmonious society",
"new socialist countryside",
"one country two systems" (this is an old favourite),
"private property rights",
"level playing field",
"peaceful reunification",
"macroeconomic controls",
"agricultural modernisation",
"five year plan",
"socialist market economy",
"social harmony",
"economic and social development",
"opposition to secessionist activities",
"equal education oppurtunities",
"independent innovation".

Back in Beijing for Spring Festival

I came back to Beijing again as it was necessary before heading to my next intended destination Datong.. But after a couple of weeks I am still in Beijing. It was Spring festival so I had a look around a little more of the city, visited a temple fayre, which was a busy, bustling, noisy affair, with lots of stalls selling Buddhist souvenirs and loads of other typical Chinese things, as well as loads of types of foods from all over China. The most noticeable items were some round whirly wind wheels (no idea what they should be called) that make lots of noise when the wind blows and it was a very windy day! I also bought a diabolo which I still can't master.


Left: Diabolo master demonstrates.
Centre: A local boy holds one of those colourful, noisy wind wheels.
Right: This lady played me a song on this odd-shaped instrument.

The Baiyun (White Cloud) Temple is the home of the Chinese Taoist Association in Beijing. On this day it was incredibly busy due to it still being holiday time, thousands of people heaving their way through the grounds from hall to hall. I spotted some interesting New Year activities there too; On the way in, everyone had to stroke a carving of a monkey on the archway to the entrance, it brings good luck. Inside there were tables full of old coins; people purchased bags of them and then threw them at a large hanging coin which hung from a archway over a kind of well. Everyone furiously joined in attempting to strike the coin as many times and as hard as possible. Other activitied involved people took their turns to walk three times around a Taoist symbol (the famous balck and white ying and yang symbol) on the floor near the cente of the temple grounds while a long queue formed for people to touch the carvings of a particular vase situated in the grounds


Left: Chucking coins at the lucky coin hanging below.
Right: Locals worship in front of a burning incense burner.

Five years ago on my first visit to Beijing, I visited the most important sites, but I decided to head back to the Temple of Heaven (TianTan) which is one of the best sites in Beijing and also later re-visited the Forbidden City, just so I can include a photo or two of these places here. An entry on Beijing would seem odd without mentioning either of these two most famous sites.
Construction of Tiantan, Temple of Heaven was finished in in 1420 and its architecture is based on elaborate symbolism and numerology. It's original design of round buildings in square- shaped areas, were designed in accordance with ancient Chinese beliefs that imagine Heaven as round and the Earth as square. Well worth seeing again despite the hordes of Chinese tourists, due to its original design which offers some variety from other temples.

The Forbidden City however, is currently being renovated (in time for Beijing 2008 Olympics of course) and sadly the two main halls are both covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin and entirely closed to the public, which left me with a pretty unfulfilled feeling when I left the grounds. Signs outside do state that the Hall of Supreme Harmony is currently undergoing renovation, but do not mention that the second main hall is also closed. I'm glad I had been there before or I would have felt disappointed with the visit. But it is still an enormous, amazing site, full of interesting halls and pathways which meander on for ever through the museum's 720,000 square meters, which can keep you occupied for many hours. However, if you must see an Imperial Palace in China and can make it there, at this moment in time, I would recommend the one in Shenyang instead !!


Left: Coins lined up, waiting to be bought and chucked!
Centre: Typical temple doorway at TianTan (Temple of Heaven).
Right: The centrepiece 'Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests" at Tiantan.

So, I am still in Beijing, for two reasons. First, the weather suddenly became very cold in Northern China and my next destination, Datong was a stop-off in order to see some hanging Buddhist caves and a series of temples in the mountains called WuTai Shan. Seeing as some of these are at an elevation of 3000m and there has been lots of snow, it is very likely most, if not all of Wutai Shan, would be unreachable in the snow, so I chose to delay. Secondly, this coincided with my getting some infection in my mouth/cheek which was quite nasty and so after a visit to hospital, I decided it best to stay here until everything was clear. Now, despite being better and improved weather, I will still stay a few days more as in my time of rest I found more things I wanted to do/see while here. Then, I will definitely leave Beijing, to Datong or elsewhere.

Global Warming ? Or Just Global Moaning

Something that has for a long time bugged me is a recent trend for everyone to blame a nice warm sunny week as an effect of global warming. During any hot summer or warmer than average winter, news and newspapers produce sensationalist reports about how we are destroying our planet and how with the increasing temperatures and melting glaciers causing rising water levels, parts of the UK will be under water in 10 years. I don't deny that there is an issue, and a critical one too, but reliable sources report that average temperature changes within the lifetime of these people is still less than 1 degree. So I'm not convinced a warmer than average spell is nothing more than the normal cycle of weather variations that have occurred throughout the existence of our planet.

This subject came to my attention again during the last few weeks as China was experiencing a warmer than average winter and Chinese journalists were following the same path as their European counterparts harping on about global warming being the cause. Well I for one was quite happy because at the time I was in Dongbei, the North East and coldest part of China, which during my visit was no colder than around -15 degrees Celsius; usually they would expect temperatures of 10-15 degrees Celsius lower than this. So, was this an effect of Global Warming?

Well after a relatively warm January, last week, the Dongbei region received some severely bad weather, in Haerbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, temperatures dropped by 25 degrees, In Shenyang, capital of Jilin province, snow fall brought the city, its transport, its schools, its people, everything, to a halt. In Dalian I saw tv footage of cars completely buried in snow, blizzards, strong winds blowing people off their feet and then carrying them along the icy ground (quite amusing to watch actually), unable to stop themselves until they hit something. The regions worst snowfall in over 50 years it was reported. These are places I visited in February, I was lucky to got out of the area just in time. So, what are the views of these reporters now, was this a side-effect of Global Warming ? They've gone quiet.

Finishing on a positive, rather than cynical note, the response of the Chinese to the heavy snowfall was, for example in Shenyang, to employ ten thousand people for the day, give them a shovel and clear the roads. In a day everything was reported as back to normal again. I had previously seen this in action in Haerbin; when I arrived, the streets were busy with people clearing up the previous day/night's snow into neat large piles out of the way of traffic and pedestrians so life could go on as normal quite quickly. Amazing what you can do with a large and willing population.

Chengde

Next stop, Chengde. Nearly skipped it as I had been feeling a bit "templed out", which I think is the appropriate phrase among Asian travellers' parlance. I found that every temple I went to see recently, whether it was Buddhist or Taoist, was just like every other one in China, no real variety in design, layout, artwork etc. except for Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) which is a little different (round instead of rectangular) and which I revisited as I remember it being fairly interesting last time. But when I went to the train station to ask about train tickets, I found there was one (just 2 in fact) available for next morning and tickets to Datong were not so easily available. So, despite a very early start, I decided to take it, as train tickets were still like rocking horse shit to get hold of at the time with Spring Festival traffic still in full flow.

Well, it turned out to be a good decision.. At last there was some variety in the temples, a breath of fresh air amongst the smog.

Chengde is home to the 'Eight Outer Temples' lying around Chengde. Originally, twelve were built but now only eight remain. Of the eight, one is closed to the public, but I managed to see seven, plus the imperial summer village, a summer retreat for emperors during the Qing dynasty which together filled most of a busy two days.

Left to Right: Pule Si, Anyuan Si, Puning Si.

Pule Si (Temple of Universal Happiness) is shaped rather like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, with a round two-tiered roof, and is located on a hillside, in a remote spot that feels like the the middle of nowhere. Above which is the entrance to the area's park grounds, which seemed very difficult to get into, officially anyway. Numerous women outside kept trying to sell me second-hand tickets, and kept running after me, grabbing at me and shouting angrily when I refused to buy based on the fact the ticket was used, had no stub and were no cheaper than the official price anyway, I saw no point. But, when I reached the gate, the ticket man, took my money and had no ticket to give me anyway, he also pointed out the gates were closed and gave some signals which I did not understand. I eventually gave up, though it would have been quite easy to just walk through the trees into the park area, but by then I was fed up with the hassle.

Anyuan temple was closed, but I found a metal gate pulled to and latched by a metal bracket which I managed to unlatch and sneaked into the grounds at least to see the main building, but could not get inside.

Puning Si (Temple of Universal Peace), a Tibetan temple, which was a little varied from the Yonghe temple in Beijing, very colourful, prayer wheels, prayer flags, plus a temple whose outer and inner railings were completely covered in padlocks, the purchase and addition of one, is supposed to bring good luck. In the main hall is the huge 23m golden statue of Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, with 42 arms and supposedly the largest wooden statue in the world.

Left: Outdoor Buddhas at Puyou Si.

Centre: Main building of Xumifushou temple.

Right: Putuozongshengmiao,the mini Potala Palace.

Puyou Si next door was strange, as you enter the grounds there are rows of buddhas all around, sitting outside and there were no halls. Whether it is always like this or is being reconstructed I don't know.

Xumifushou is a Mongolian style temple modelled on the Tashilunpo Monastery in Shigatse, Tibet, with large grounds, a colourful red building and some impressive dragons on top of the main hall. Here, once inside the main building area, my every act was closely scrutinised by a member of the staff. Photos of statues indoors were as usual banned, but I was surprised that when I tried to take a photo of a sign, just to note some details, my escort growled at me and almost took my camera away, amusing.

Putuozongshengmiao (Temple of Potaraka Doctrine) occupies 220,000 square metres and is by far the largest of all the temples and is based on the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Inside the main building you can get a bit lost wandering around the halls, pagodas and terraces, but there is quite a lot of interesting stuff on display as well as murals and of course the Tibetan and Chinese style decorations and some great views of the surrounding countryside from the roof terrace.

Shuxiang temple was also seemingly closed, but somebody spotted me and let me in a side wooden door, next to some buildings where he and some others clearly lived. After haggling over the price, I made it in for an acceptable charge and was shown around. This was home to a trio of Buddhas sitting on ancient beasts.

Left: Prayer wheels on the first level terrace of Putuozongshengmiao's main building.

Centre: A traditional Chinese New Year dance festival in street nearby to Puning Lu.

Right: Prayer flags at Putuozongshengmiao.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus i chi.