Days 250 to 252 - Friday July 10 to Sun July 12 - Trip to Xi Chong Beach (a la Pierre)

Nearing the end of our stay, we finally decide to catch up with the summer. We had visited Conrad, a friend of mine from New Brunswick who also works here in China, two weeks prior and had thought about going to the beach for a weekend. We don't have a lot of Chinese beach experience, but Conrad and his wife Yen are very keen on organizing a wonderful beach weekend for everyone.

We get a great house a short walk from a beach about two hours outside of Shenzhen for Saturday night and we set out right around noon on Saturday to look for a couple of vans with drivers that could take us out there.

Oh, the adventure of transportation in China... After about a half hour of bargaining with various drivers, we are on our way through the city's dense traffic, which is as smooth as can be expected, and it isn't until we get within about 15 km of our destination that we hit our first snag.

Once you branch off the highways in China, roads can be sort of touch and go, with frequent construction. Our beach just just happens To be at the end of one of these improvement projects and traffic is backed up quite a ways, what with just one lane open. To make matters worse, drivers in this country can be extremely impatient and generally ignore traffic rules. This makes for a lot of cars trying to skip ahead in the queue by driving up the wrong lane and wedging themselves wherever they can, which when combined with a narrow road and oncoming traffic, causes even worse blockage.

At some point while we are parked and waiting, some drivers coming the other way tell us to forget about getting through for the day. This of course prompts our driver, for whom time is money, to suggest that we walk the rest of the way. He says it was only a few kilometers (though we later learn that it's actually more like 10km). "Not our problem", we reply, so we continue waiting and eventually get moving slowly through one or two more queues, some very short rain downpours and a minor bus/car scrape - the latter is only resolved after the bus driver responsible coughs up about $30 to pay for the scratch on the car at the insistence of its driver who is blocking the road with his vehicle - only to arrive at the beach much later than expected and to be told that it's "closed" due to an approaching typhoon.

After unloading our things, we decide to check things out for ourselves, as the immediate weather doesn't seem overly threatening. We watch a few cars and motorcycles pass through and figure there isn't much of a problem. A 10 minute argument with the gate warden later, we arrange to be let onto the beach under the supervision of the owner of the house we rented (we're told were not allowed to go in the water, however).

Actually, from what I understand, cranky gate lady tells us the first time that these people going to the beach are "bosses" (owners, whatever). The next two or three vehicles waved through prompt us to ask if these too (the family in the subcompact, the two guys on an old moto, etc.) are "bosses", to which there is no reply... Guess the government doesn't like it when tourists drown, but all the locals who go in to the beach while we are arguing are apparently expendable. The adherence to obviously ridiculous protocol can be downright infuriating sometimes.

Finally, on we walk to the lovely beach in the late afternoon only to see it being thoroughly enjoyed by a few hundred Chinese folk. No ominous weather in sight...


Dre and Conrad enjoy some volleyball, Yen poses in the sand.



Conrad and Yen, then Dianna and I.




And a laser pointer smiley face.


After supper, we head back to the house, enjoy a few beers and play a game of the legendary "Three Man" (possibly the greatest drinking game ever conceived), as foretold in the prophecy.

The following day we head back to the beach, have brunch at a seaside restaurant and take advantage of the absolutely beautiful weather.



Not everybody wants to swim all day though and we rent a tent shelter for the day.




Some people bring their own portable shelter. In China, umbrellas are not only for rain coverage but also for sun coverage.


I also finally get the trick of body surfing. I must mention that the waves at this beach are absolutely fantastic. 5 footers come by on a regular basis. No photos available, but it's the most fun I've ever had at a beach.

Conrad explains to me that what you have to do to body surf: Position yourself and wait for one of the big waves until it starts to crest about 5 feet away from you. Once it reaches that point, start swimming away from it frantically and as soon as it's right behind you, try to bring up your feet as high as you can. Get as horizontal as possible and try to bring your feet a little higher still, kicking all the time. If you get it right, you end up riding inside the wave up to your waist and paddling with your arms like mad so that the wave doesn't flip you head over heels. Catch a good wave and you can ride it 50 feet or more.

We get in a few good hours of body surfing, get some decent sunburns and head back to town. The traffic is mercifully quicker on the way back and I get a few last photos. There's the warning sign with what looks like an alien falling into a canal (you can see his communication dish in the background) and I managed to catch the beautiful colors of someone's umbrella by the van window.

Days 229 to 238 - Fri June 19 to Sun June 28 - Pierre's trip to Dalien

If I didn't travel much in the first half of my semester, I seem to have made up for it in the second half. As luck would have it, the university students are given one entire week without class time in order to study for their exams. In this case, lucky for them is lucky for me, as I too have been granted an entire nine-day period with no teaching constraints. I thus decide to take this opportunity to visit my best friend Dan, who is also teaching at a school near the northern China city of Dalian. Indeed it was a lucky week, as I also manage to get return air tickets for a steal.

Dan and I have been best friends since early high school, but our relationship goes back much further. Our families have known each other since I was about five years old. Back then, however, we didn't like each other a whole lot. Chalk it up to our one year age difference if you will. He and my brother André have always been best friends, but we didn't connect until a little bit later.

It had been almost exactly a year since we had seen each other last and this is the second time that I've gone to visit him in a distant place. The last time, we were in Alberta, camping in the Rockies and this time it's northern China in a rather upscale beach resort town called Jinshitan (or something like that).

He's currently teaching in a Canadian school accredited by the British Columbia Board of Education (following a BC curriculum even). Most teachers there are from the West Coast and most students are from very well-off families, as education is not free in China and this is an expensive school.

The beach is only about a 10 minute walk away from his apartment, but who needs to walk when you have a motorbike.



Yes indeed, with dirt cheap fireworks (you could put any small-town Canada Day celebration to shame for less than 50 bucks and if you pitch in with a few friends, you could pretty easily outdo Ottawa) available to anyone and even cheaper beer you've got the makings of some pretty sweet beach parties.

So I got a week to spend with my best buddy and his lovely girlfriend Vicky -who is originally from Greece and is also a teacher at the school- and though they are still officially working, they've got plenty of time off. Though the first day is rather quiet, we hop on the commuter train and head into Dalian on our second and third days.


Dalian is quite a new city, with wide roads and plenty of traffic, which makes the experience of crossing the streets a little bit different than in the rest of China. Traffic flows a lot more quickly and this conflicts a bit with people's traditional habits of just subtly insinuating themselves into the stream of cars and trucks and expecting them to go around. It can make for some pretty hairy situations, which I eventually discover while riding in taxis (whose drivers have the tendency to be rather merciless). And while we're on the subject of taxis, aside from regular cabs, Dalian had some of the most unusual little vehicles I've seen in Asia.

Note that the people in the first picture are mostly crossing at a traffic light, so it's not always chaos.


Our second day is spent shopping, eating and wandering around downtown. I finally find a good pair of shoes that fits me at a large, Western sporting goods store and Dan and Vicky want to visit a Korean commodities market in the city. If you're unfamiliar with Asian commodities markets (or so we call them) picture a building that looks like a large warehouse with about half a dozen floors all crammed full of things ranging from kitchen goods to clothing to Chinese brush paintings and Buddhist sculptures. These are the places to go to get things at a good price. Buying most household goods or souvenirs anyplace else means you're probably paying too much.

On our second day we play the role of good tourists in Dalian. We decide to visit Ocean world, which is sufficiently kitchy, but also interesting. It's got nautically themed corridors and passages with fish tanks displaying all kinds of marine life along the way.

It's got a shark tank, a dolphin and Beluga show -complete with a real live mermaid- and it's even got a UFO (... the question is, why not?)



One of the big draws is a huge fish tank which you observe through a glass tunnel with a conveyor belt that moves you along at a pleasant pace.


It's also got some odd things for goofy people like us (or for kids, if you prefer) like masks on poles and a big shark head that can swallow you.



So after that we decide to take a walk along the water front and partake in other activities, such as zip-lining and enjoying a cold refreshing beer.




The waterfront area of Dalian is lined with amusement parks, real estate developments and apartment towers, the biggest city square I've ever seen and some nice green space. There are Modernists statues all around town and somewhere in the city is a gigantic soccer ball sculpture. It can make for an odd blend indeed. One of the strangest features, however, would be the full-size European style castle on a mountainside right beside several groups of apartment towers. It's being used as a seashell museum, and though we didn't actually go to visit the exhibits, I can't help but wonder about how the museum is laid out (seriously, what would you put in all those narrow turrets?)


The rest of the week is mostly free, but Dan and Vicki have some exams to supervise and corrections to complete. We have an exam party on one day and finish all of Dan's papers, assembly line style. A beach party with some of Dan's teacher friends happens at some point in one of those nights, as does one of the teachers' birthday parties, and on my last day there I grab Dan's motorcycle and go for a ride in the hills while he's busy collecting textbooks. However, before that, we return to a part of town that we had seen in some of our outings, but that I hadn't really gotten the time to explore. It's called (phonetically) Kai-Fa-Chu and it's got an unusual area referred to as Five Colors City, which is decidedly different and has a bit of a theme park feel about it. We've got a gingerbread house type building.


Some storybook characters, with which I'm seen in one of the photos.




I have no idea what this one is, but it functions as a bizarre gate to one of the avenues.


And here is what appears to be a totem pole made from various pieces of fruit, each with a different goofy face and expression.


Of course, there's the food. China having an abundance of inexpensive and delicious restaurants, Dan and Vicki introduce me to all their local haunts. They developed the interesting habit of calling the restaurants in town by the names of their favorite dishes that are served in each one, since this is more memorable for them than the actual restaurant names. Local specialties are always fantastic to try, and two restaurants which stuck out as excellent had been called Tudo-Ni and Guo-Bu-Ro for their mashed potatoes/gravy/chives concoction and their eggplant/fried potato/pork dishes, respectively. Tudo-Ni also had some very interesting donkey meat dumplings.

I must say that one of the things that has struck me the most while on vacation is how quickly the days go by. I try not to blink too much. I had a whole week to spend with my best friend and before I knew it, it was gone. On our last evening, Dan and I take a bike ride to a fishing village near town and we stop by the sea to take a few last pictures.

When we did this last summer, we were on a mountaintop in Jasper and the summer before that Dan and I spent a lot of time together, as he was the best man at my wedding. This year, we're by the sea in northern China. These past few visits have been memorable indeed, but it's hard only seeing your best friend once a year.

photo credits: all P

Day 23 - Tue, Nov 25 - Addendum (by Pierre), or It Pays to Pay Attention

I remember learning to drive with my father. There were some hairy moments, like when I tried to take a turn off the highway at the last moment and quite a bit too fast, and there were some cool moments, like when I'd help him jump start off a dead battery. I never did memorize that latter procedure through those lessons, but I always thought it would be good to know. Regardless, I'd never needed it, so I ended up getting through life without the knowledge until sometime not too long ago when I read, inadvertently, the theory behind the process. Again, I thought to myself: "that would be handy to know..."

So, as Dianna has previously mentioned, to get around Phanom Rung we rented a UK-style manual truck without power steering. Everything was fine until one particularly bendy hill where I didn't downshft quickly enough and stalled the engine, which isn't so bad by itself, so long as it starts again, which it didn't. There I am, thinking about how screwed we are to be stalled on a hill with nobody around who speaks English, not to mention around at all. My next though is "I don't even know how to jump start this thing", but I quickly amend to think "No wait, yes I do know how to jump start this thing." I then proceed to do the following (and hope I've remembered correctly) :

1. turn the key to just before ignition
2. hold down the clutch, making sure the transmission is in first gear
3. get the vehicle rolling to a decent speed (just a few kph will do - good thing we were just at the top of a downward slope at the time)
4. release the clutch slowly, while turning the key to ignition

note: you can also get it rolling in neutral and invert steps 2 and 3. Should also work on any vehicle with manual tranny.

To my great relief and excitement, it works and I feel awesome for having dredged the whole thing from memory and give myself a pat on the back for getting it right on the first try. In all fairness, it's not exactly rocket science, but it was pretty satisfying. Maybe it will help someone reading this sometime. Never hurts to be prepared.

"Everything is closed at the moment, but the big Buddha is awesome!" (Bangkok)

That's the general idea, it seems. Everywhere you go, there's a "helpful" stranger or TukTuk driver trying to steer you towards a scam involving the next step in a convoluted ploy involving jewellery sales through a chance encounter with a well-connected stranger at the "Big Buddha." It always starts with someone asking where you're going, then saying "Oh, that's closed right now (for some random reason), but you should go see the "Big Buddha"." I must say that all of the "closed" attractions that we saw were pretty cool. I wonder what they would have been like had they been open?

Though guidebooks and warning signs posted at hotels and attractions offer plenty of information on these types of scams, the scammers still try, so it must be pretty lucrative and they must get a few takers. I'm just surprised they haven't moved on to something new, since what they're doing seems to be common knowledge. Still, I sure hope I get to see the Big Buddha!