Macao

In order to prolong our temporary visas, until the school can equip us with year long visas, we took a one day/one night to Macao, just across the border. China, but not. Waiting in lines of foreign nationals and foreigners, we made it to the visa office by lunch, and booked rooms in a dodgy and condensed hotel after. Inspired by the portugese, in fact perhaps even half portugese (don't ask me the history lesson), drivers stick to the left hand side of the road, and live in apts clustered so closely together you could tie a laundry line with your neighbour across the road.


Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Ketsana, too far away to do anything fun, merely made our visit incredibly wet and windy. A couple of depressions have popped up in the South China Sea, some that may come close, but I'll be far north and inland in Inner Mongolia. Instead, we took in the Cirque Du Soleil show Zaia at the Venetian Casino. What a grand place. Immense, including a venetian style canal (on the second floor) with many shops including D & G. D & G? Dolce and Gabana. , and Georgio Armani. The show was intense, felt like i was dreaming throughout. There was a fair amount of interaction with the crowd, alongside surreal images and acrobatic feats.

Another casino

Macao has two things: casinos, and watch stores. Hardly a convenience store to be found, and everywhere is greatly expensive, from what i'm used to. Although it was a nice visit, I feel the people here focus too much on tourism and status. Perhaps that is what China needs to fix now, lowering the gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor, because there is very little in between?

Here is some funny Chingrish


Working on some waterpaints.


Tomorrow I leave for Guangzhou Train Station at 9am on a two hour bus ride. Stop for some food, see some prospective sights, and off for a 39 hour train ride north to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.

More culture

Here's a nice view to start out; cumulonimbus clouds look so close and huge to the earth from here.


There's a fish market just outside our apartment, and it reeks 24/7. They use huge chunks of ice to keep the fish cool, yet they keep them out in the blazing sun. No wonder so many foreigners get sick.


Went for an evening walk to the island, muggy and warm, but on the eastern side the wind from the ocean felt really nice. Looking east toward the city skyline, you can see a giant pagoda building that houses an expensive restaurant I haven't been to yet.


Bought my ticket for Hohhot, Inner Mongolia this morning, 500 kuai, and 39 hours train ride. I'm excited about this, despite most people's shocked reactions at the length of the train ride. Recent seismography has indicated numerous 5 point earthquakes in the region i'm travelling through, but nothing to derail a train :)
After Hohhot, off to Beijing, and back to Guangzhou and Zhuhai, is the plan. Many photos, but after i get back.

Haircut in a lightning storm

When thunderstorms attack, Zhuhai seems like a warzone. The whole city lights up with white flashes of daytime. You can tell when a storm is coming because, even tho it's not raining, it seems like fireworks are going off. Then the wind picks up and you hear distant rumbling, and a sheet of rain drops hard from the sky. These shots are looking out onto the harbour.




I was walking to the Jesco, local massive grocery store, in the lightning storm, when i thought I'd get a haircut. Walked in, made the motions of cutting my hair in the local hair cutting establishment. I was taken past different rooms and halls into the back where I laid down on a table. I made the motions for haircut again. I don't know enough mandarin to understand what the girl had said. She started to wash my hair, and i thought, oh, good. haircut. Then she stuck her fingers in my ear and massaged my neck.
This turned out to be the precedings of an actual haircut, but after 40 minutes of massage, going lower and lower on my body, i was beginning to get worried. No Happy Ending, thankfully.

Tomorrow I'm going with my chinese teacher assistant to buy train tickets to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. One day and 15 hours of riding in a hard sleeper by myself, I think i might get bored. I'll learn a lot of mandarin, i'm sure :) My break is coming up, just about two weeks off school, starting sunday. Sand surfing and riding camels await, and the stars, i've heard so much about the stars.



1 October 2009 marks the 60th anniversary for china. lots of fireworks, food, photos, and dragons.

This is as big as my hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_silk_orb-weaver

Went to the island today, beautiful views of the ocean and city, and also a 6 inch wide (with legs) spider that looked so real it looked fake. I didn't have the nerve to put my hand next to it for comparison, for obvious reasons, but trust me, it was as big as my hand.

Weather's beautiful today. Leaving to Beishan Hall 30 minutes away, a traditional Chinese Heritage Building, to learn calligraphy and Tai Chi.

Heather and I waterpainted last night.

The view from the island. My apt is in the middle somewhere.


The view from on top the island, looking west into the ocean

Typhoon Choi-wan

Being described as, "the strongest storm in the world so far in 2009 with a pressure of 915 hPa (mbar)," this is a whole new type of storm chasing. Although predicted to possibly make landfall far north of here in about a week, Choi-wan is intensifying rapidly, from a tropical depression just four days ago, growing into "the first Category 5-equivalent storm of 2009." With winds of 185 km/hr sustained winds so far, it will make the category 1 typhoon Koppu two nights ago seem like a simple little rainstorm. (125 km/h winds that knocked over trees and damaged some buildings slightly)

Today, however, seems quite nice. Think i'll suntan on my walk to the island.

i've found a proxy that works...

For the longest time I couldn't post anything, because the chinese gov seems fit to silence people from speaking things it can't monitor. So, i've used a proxy, an 'alternate website' that makes it seem like i'm somewhere in the states. Briefly, the major ideas...

Teaching- Started this last weekend. I teach Sat and Sun, 8 hours each, and have the rest of the week off, for now. Except for two classes of 12 year olds, I teach mostly 8 year olds, just on the verge of starting to know english. It's really exciting that i can teach them how to pronounce letters, and learn to recognize words. Already I have a break coming up, a week or two, and i might visit Thailand with Heather and Kristen. Takes about half an hour depending on traffic to take the bus to work.

My apartment- 24th floor overlooking the ocean and a harbour. We see storms roll in, and also overlook some of the ever-stretching downtown. At night it seems like millions of fireflies flickering in and out. We've had one storm, just a little one, and all night we could hear the wind whistling past the windows. In a week typhoon Choi-wan may or may not hit us, a category 4 hurricane. It's currently far out from the phillipines right now.
Cockroaches, of which we've had three so far, reach 3 inches in length. They scurry almost faster than i can hit them, and require three flushes down the toilet.

We're having some other foreign teachers over just now, so i'll speak more in a bit.

Outlook

Click on the photo for a panoramic view that includes the ocean



And on the other side...