Last Days

Christopher and Emily and I went out for Korean food. That stuff is really good!
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All of those lights in the sky are lanterns. There were thousands of them.
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Street vendor near the train overpass during Lantern festival.
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This was People Square in Linping during the Lantern Festival.
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So my final days in Linping are fast approaching. I've been wrapping up loose ends, cleaning and deciding where to go and what to do. I've said most of my goodbyes, gotten rid of a bunch of stuff and transferred my cash to my Canadian account. In a week, I'll be hanging out with Clay and Amy in Hangzhou. No responsibilities. Just friends and good times ahead.

The country list looks like this...

China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, India, Jordan, Israel, England and Canada.

Linping - A city divided

This is what I see many mornings, afternoons and nights. My neighbors like the fireworks... Just so you get a scale of how close this is to me, I shot this with a 16mm lens on a 30D. They are literally one building away.
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There are things here that continue to amaze me. Linping is a small city. When I say small, I mean area, there is no shortage of people. The thing that really makes me think is when I talk to people that have never been downtown. This is a factory town. As such, many employees live in the provided dorm apartments. Markets and small stores are everywhere so they have no NEED to leave their little comfort zone of the factory.

When I go downtown, 90% of the time I do not buy anything or have any reason to go there. I just go to explore. I have the need to see places that I have never been to. I have been like this as long as I can remember. Back on Adelaide Street, I would venture to the Exhibition and wander in the horse stables. Later when we moved to Clark Cr, I ventured past 8th street and found Doug's Spoke N Sport. I came to China because I have never lived out of Canada, why take baby steps when my legs are long?

I guess the point of this post is just to let people know that the world is a big place, explore it. Even if it is your own city. Go to that market in the ethnic part of town. Check out the industrial area. Just got out of your apartment complex.

Lan, If you happen to read this, fire me off an e-mail.

Dragon Boat 2008

This past Sunday was the Dragon Boat Festival in China. Unlike Saskatoon, this festival means a day off and mass festivities. I went to Xixi Wetland to check out the action. The amount of people that were there was simple nuts. Unlike in Saskatoon, where there is ample wide open shore to watch from, Xixi has trees, small paths and other obstacles to viewing and taking pictures. Also, check out the media circus. I have never been in a scrum quite like that before. My one saving grace was that I was taller than most other people there.

The coolest thing, was after taking pictures for a few hours, I went to a small village where I was invited to paddle one of the boats! I jumped at the invitation. Part of the boating is docking at various houses to take offerings of rice and money. They then light off fireworks and you continue on.

The fireworks, however, are not the simple roman candles that you buy at truck stops in Canada. These are the 1/4 sticks of dynamite that crazy Americans use to blow up barns. At one point, one came quite close to the boat and we all ducked as it zipped past out heads, mere inches from one guy, just before it exploded.

Despite the intensely polluted water, I got completely soaked and had a killer time. I can't wait for next year...

!!!!!!

I just had a eureka moment. Yesterday I was in Hangzhou, I was walking to the bus station, I walked past a group of a few hundred office workers all outside a tall office building looking up. I assumed a fire alarm hence the evacuation.

NOW I realize that it was the earthquake.

I now know where I was when the ground was shaking. I was walking down Jiefang road with my new National Geographic.

My appology

This is a common site these days. People taking pictures. Myself included.
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A friend, Liz, poses for a picture as I showed her around the park.
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For everyone that has contacted me recently and not gotten a reply, I am sorry. I am working on replying to everyone that contacts me, but you see, it is spring. The general attitude in the area has become laissez faire. Not in the governmental sense, it is still as communist Red as ever, but in the sense that everyone seems to be not caring as much. About life in general. More people are getting out and about enjoying the heat.

For instance, I spent three hours at People Square today. I spent some time reading The Fall of Baghdad. I also spent some time sleeping under a tree. I think it is the heat. With the temperature hitting 30 degrees, people are feeling lethargic, myself included.


A short distance away from me sat a couple, lovers I would guess. The girl said something and the boy replied. Not liking what she heard, the girl screamed, threw the boys shirt in a pond and then stormed off. The boys reaction? None. He didn't move. He just continued to lay on the grass for the next hour.

The whole city seems to be like to boy. It is a laid back feel. I will ride it until the end.

My City - Yuhang/Linping

This guy sits in a park that is in between two busy shopping streets.

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This is a street market that opens up every night, but during the day it is just a regular crazy Chinese street. If you are a local, it is a great place to buy bootleg clothes and DVD's.
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The city is full of crazy canals. They are everywhere. I am sure that they are full of pollution though. I never see anyone in boats like Venice.
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The city is also full of monuments and other large granite artwork. Makes for pretty cool scenery at night.
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I know it sounds crazy seeing as how I just got here and all, but I am already planning my return to Saskatoon in a year. You see, I found this thing called the Trans-Siberian rail line. Basically, it travels from Beijing to Moscow in 14 days. I think that would be a hell of a trip. Take that and then catch a bus or 6 to somewhere near England, fly into England, hang with Jim and tony for a few days and then fly back to Canada. If anyone wants to come, just let me know in the next 11 months.

NDS - The neverending search

So I have been on a quest to find a Nintendo DS in Yuhang. In Shanghai they are sold on EVERY street corner. Heck, there was a stall next to my hotel that had hundreds of them, and any game you could think of. Here in Yuhang, for the life of me, I have yet to see any sort of video game. I even went to the soulless wal-have-everything-mart. No dice. Amazon will not ship video games out of Canada. Plus I don't want to wait 4 to 8 weeks for one. I need my Pokemon fix dammit.

What I leave behind

Ten more days of having a comfortable life. Looking over my desk shows these creature comforts. Tim Hortons Double Double. Energy drinks. Two cell phones. My desktop computer with two monitors. Most importantly, pictures of friends. Friends that I will not see again for a while.

Sure I will meet new people in Hangzhou, heck I am getting picked up from the airport by a brit and sharing an flat with other English speaking people. Meeting people is not what I have problems with.

My problem is leaving the people that I have met. If I have known you for 28 years or 28 days, saying goodbye is not an easy task for me. Add to that the fact that my ten months in Saskatoon were filled with some of the best times makes it that much harder.

Here is to new friendships (Michelle, JD, The Amies etc) and old (Clay and the crew, Danielle and Brian, everyone from school) and whatever the next year brings.

Getting Close - The Shanghai Kid

Fred Gray lost her mom to cancer while she was in high school. She agreed to be part of Photosensitive's Cancer Project, which aims to raise awareness.
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My imminent departure is fast approaching. I have just booked my ticket to Shanghai for Feb 28. I am now working on the Visa paperwork. There is so much paperwork! At least I know when I get there that I am not just dumped into a crazy world. I have a week booked at a hotel in Shanghai before taking the train to Hangzhou. Now I am just hoping the weather decides to warm up a little.

I also now have a lawyer. A friend from high school is a lawyer at a VERY prestigious firm in Saskatoon. I called him up to see what I needed to get done in terms of handing signatory power to my mother. Hard to pay bills and all that crap when you are on the other side of the world. Well long story short, my mother now has power of attorney. I also now have a will. So time to butter me up to get all my good loot.

A big problem I am having right now is deciding what to bring. I am only taking my 70 litre backpack and a camera bag. This confuses many people, however my justification for one bag is that I want to travel light. The point of backpacking across the world is to see what you can live without. Even last year at school, I packed light. I had very little of my Saskatoon "wealth" with me as any of my classmates can attend to. My room was fairly bare. This is just going to be an extension of that.