Splendid China

This past weekend I finally went to Shenzhen's "Splendid China". So what is it? It is basically a theme park where they have many famous Chinese location and building replica's built to a smaller scale. Effectively, this place is just like window of the world, being that it is a place where you can conveniently view small models of many of the countries most famous locations. Obviously, just as with Window of the World, these replica's don't live up to the originals, and that combined with Shenzhen's hot weather will lead most tourists to only attend this park one time, mainly just to take pictures.

In addition to taking pictures, the park also has many performances. For the most part, these performances also are smaller scale, and don't live up to what you will see if you travel to many of these famous locations, but there are 3 shows that are larger scale, including one which is much higher class, almost like a ballet of China's ethnic minorities and their cultures.

All in all, I found going to Splendid China, along with my co-worker Mao Linrui, to be a worthwhile experience. However, that said, I don't think that I will attend splendid China again, rather, I will save up my money to travel more places within China, as this is not too expensive.

National Day Trip to Hunan

  It has been some time since I have done an update, I have been away on a long holiday (the Chinese National Day holiday at our company lasted for 9 days) during which time I went to Hunan and comtemplated what the next fast and the furious movie should be called, as I damage my cars front lip again, but this time in an episode that I could only call "Hunan Rally", which is my proposed name for the next F&TF movie. Before this, I have been experiencing some turbo problems on the car, with boost building slower than normal and EGTs being on the high side. I suspect a boost leak somewhere in the system, I will have it looked at and have several gaskets changed when I install my new equal length headers at the end of the month.

The actual first place that I went in Hunan, pay close attention to the name of the supermarket:

For all of those NOT interesting in cars, this paragraph is probably a lot more interesting and relevant to you. During my trip to Hunan, I visited 3 locations, of an original planned 5 locations. The first of these was Changsha. The city, honestly, was quite a disappointment. It just didn't give me any positive feeling, until going to eat, that is. The food in Changsha was delicious, and good hotels were cheap, even during the holiday period. All in all, I think that it was a good selection for a rest stop for one night. The second location that I visited was Zhang Jiajie, this place was more beautiful than I had expected. Discovered not long after I was born, by a reknowned Chinese painter, this location has a truely breathtaking landscape or craggy rock formations and mountains as well as moderately dense forrest. Atop the rocks, in side a national park, people have houses which they operate as sort of cheap low end hotels. During my first day at the park, I thought that it was rather so-so, as the scenery was nice, but there were so many people. At the end of the first day, I travelled to the top of one of these rock formations, from the top, I saw a much nicer view, then went to someone's house to sleep. On the second day at the park, I travelled on some smaller, more difficult paths, these had almost no people and much better views! Following these paths, I found vendors selling food very cheap, including a rice alcholol poridge which was really great and only 2 rmb or about 30 cents canadian. I also found an amazing 360 degree viewing platform from which you could see almost the entire park from high above. This was definitely the highlight of my trip, and picture really couldn't express the feeling of being up there. Unfortunatly, for those of you reading my blog, I used my cell phone for most pictures, as my camera was left at home.

A picture of me standing at the middle of the forrest park:

Mao Linrui making a funny face, taking from on top of one of the rock structures from the previous picture!

Preparing for the steep ascent to the 360 degree viewing platform!

A picture taken from up on the 360 degree viewing platform (which happens to be called "one step to heaven", more like "one step and you will fall to your death" in my opinion):

Another picture from the platform:

Last picture from the forrest park, a primitive ferris wheel (similar to the ones that some of my Chinese friends claim to have been on when they were young):

In addition to the forrest park, I also went some other places in Zhangjiajie, like the Cultural village which had a 9 story building made just of mud, clay and wood, no metal, and not even any wooden nails! The village also had some trully involving and exciting shows. In addition to this, I tried some hot plate BBQ which was great, and went to some mountaintops with a nice view... however the highlight was when I went half way down, and then back up by bus! The twisting mountain roads were amazing, and I longed to drive my car on those roads, however they are mostly closed and inaccessible. There is one part that can be accessed, but while on vacation with friends, I didn't waste time trying to find them. That all worked out for the best though, as the trip from Zhangjiajie to the 3rd location, Phenoix Town or Feng Huang in Chinese, involved navigating some awesome mountain roads. The roads included many guardrailless parts with huge drop offs. Despite the best attempts of road designers to cause accidents (should I mention an incredibly tight hairpin with no signage in a 60 kph zone? That was awesome fun in the middle of the night, although I wouldn't call it safe). Interestingly, while in Pheonix town it rained, causing avalanches and the trip back was even more exciting due to rocks and boulders covering large sections of road. Both trip were made in the middle of the night.

A picture of the Tu Culture Village from outside:

Me with one of the Tu Dancers:

Raylene (Mao Linrui) in the 9th storey of the 9 storey building made without the use of any metal parts: 

Some picture from the mountain trip, the first is Fan Peng and Zhang Qian on the way up, while we were still near ground level:

A picture of one of the fabulous winding roads that I travelled:

Another great section of winding road:

A reminder for all of you, take good care of your bongs and such while travelling:

Raylene standing by the base of a VERY long and steep staircase:

Me standing more than halfway up the long staircase:

A picture taken at the top:

While I was in Pheonix town, I really only regretted one thing, and that was not scheduling more time to visit there. The Venice like layout of the old town, with gondollas on the river was trully beautiful. Despite the weather being poor on the two days that I was there, some pictures turned out okay.

Here is a picture of my friends Zhang Qian and Fan Peng in some traditional Hunan Miao ethnic minority group outfits:

Me and Fan Peng dressed in traditional clothing, the marks on his face are for a guy who is getting married, they are not to be wash for 3 days. Why does he have these marks on his face? He volunteered to be involved in one of the performances earlier during the day :P 

Rather self explanatory really:

  Fan Peng and Zhang Qian in long corridor of the "Lover's Bridge":

An old and still very much in use section of old Pheonix town:

Mao Linrui and Zhang Qian pretenting to be Hunan girls (they are not really fooling anyone familiar with China though): 

Me in the most famous and oldest section of Pheonix town, built around the river:

Pheonix town at night:

In the final leg of the return to Shenzhen, I met with one crazy bus driver, I passed him a total of 9 times and he passed me a total of 9 times. Each time I passed him was by making it through fairly tight traffic and then out accelerating him to the speed limit. Each time he passed me was a combination of near suicidal manuevers in traffic (think huge bus weaving through traffic inches away from other vehicles) and though him devastating the speed limit. It was a lot of fun, I always find it enjoyable to pass people while driving safely and within the speed limit, especially when they go to such measures to pass me. I think, as did the others in the car, the driver must be some young guy who was just excited to see a sports car and wanted to play.

The Red Chinese flags on display in Shenzhen for the National Day holiday:

Anyway, I had a great holiday, and I hope that you enjoyed my pictures!

Shenzhen Drift

Well, I know that many people have heard about this by now, but I will mention it here anyway. I put a crack in my cars front lip a couple of days ago, while drifting my WRX, unfortunately, due to the AWD I have been completely unsuccessful in stringing together more than 2 turns in a row, it is hard to even find somewhere to do it in Shenzhen. For those not in the know, SZ doesn't have any large open parking lots like in North America, every parking spot has a metal bar installed in the back to prevent you from backing in too far. Oh well, I think I will just return to doing powerslides and the such... much harder to screw up, and hard to hit anything if you do.

Lately, my close friend Mandy went back to UK. While she was in China, she visited Beijing (which I have pictures of on my blog), Shenyang (her hometown), and Shenzhen. While she was in Shenzhen she found that I was often drinking and decided that she would like to accompany me drinking. I won't say much other then I don't know how this girl, who is probably about 80 lbs. or so, was able to drink so much.

Base Bar in Shenzhen -> Technically it was Canada day by the time we left

The following are pictures from the weekend before last, when I went to Shekou for dinner (we eventually settled on Korean BBQ, quite so-so) and to Base with several coworkers (base was a lot of fun).

The following is the only picture I have of me in the Korean BBQ place, it was a buffet, all you can eat korean BBQ for the equivalent of about 10 Canadian dollars.

The most famous part of the area we visited in Shekou is a boat that has been converted into a restaurant. While it is surrounded by water, it is actually not floating in it. The girl in the picture is one of my co-workers in the Shenzhen office, named Xie Xin.

Although not on the same night, I have gone with a couple of coworkers to Terrace the night before, and with Guangli the night before that (which was Wednesday). The performance on Wednesday was nowhere near as good as the one on Thursday, despite it being the exact same band. Not visible in this picture is the fact the the terrace, the large ship, and the Korean BBQ restaurant are all located next to each other.

A group pic in front of the ship, from left to right: Wujian (Jack), Me, Xiexin (Mickey), and Mandy (Zhuo Erying).

After visiting Shekou for dinner and a stroll we moved the action to Base. Here is where the fun really started when we played the Jack Daniels Jenga with our house rules.

Although not seen in any of the pictures, I had some girls trying to pick me up several times, the notable one was one who send me a note and wanted to buy me a drink. People who I have told this story to like to ask what happened next. The answer: nothing.

As the night went on, we were more and more surprised by the weird and instable structures that were encountered, here I am looking at the tower as it litterally wobbles.

Xiexin is always we careful in her selection and here moves. She played the game very well.

Here Wujian can be seen almost nocking the stack over, while he pulled off some of the most impressive moves, his risks also lead to him losing quite often.

Trip to Beijing

This past weekend I went to Beijing to visit friends, it appears that this might be my last trip to Beijing for a long time. I went out for many social events on the weekend and took tons of pics, however, here I will only post a few.

During this trip to Beijing, I had the opportunity to see my friend Mandy that I had not seen in a year, as she was in England. She has been doing foundations courses for a year in the U.K. and should be going back their to commence her university studies in the fall.

I also saw my friend and co-worker Pan yang, although I feel that it was for a very brief time. Since my trip to Beijing was so short, I had very little time to see each friend. It was rather sad for me, as I may be in Beijing very little in the future, so I felt like the weekend was almost like a goodbye to many of my friends who I may not see for several months

Although he avoided having almost any picture of him taken while he I was visiting, and none that show his face, Hujian (the other Darren), came out with us on this weekend as well. In fact, he came with me and some others to A Korean BBQ restaurant, as well as bar blue, Alpha, and Fish nation. Very briefly, Fish nation is one of the only authentic fish and chips places that you can find in Beijing. Interestingly enough, Mandy, who was just back from England, had previously said that food in the UK is garbage and that they only have one food, which is... Fish and Chips ;)

During the weekend, I met with other friends and co-workers as well, such as Shenjie, who will be leaving Worksoft soon, and my friend Sabrina, who despite seeming to be frequently frustrated when talking to me, is actually a source of excellent advice. I also met with many other friends, but this is already turning into a list, so I will leave it at that.

Here are some pictures of the weekend;

Me having a beer at the Russian restaurant near the Russian embassy:

Mandy, me and P.Y. at Baijia Dazhaimen, which I had been promising to bring P.Y. to for nearly one year. I have been there several times in the past and posted many pictures of this restaurant which has beautiful garden scenery, excellent food, Beijing Opera performances and more.

The following picture of my beautiful friend Sabrina, was taken at the patio above bar blu.

This final picture is a picture of me a several friends (Sabrina, Mandy, Me and Mao Linrui) at a Korean BBQ place in Wudaokou