Passing the time...

Temporary graffiti. Yesterday I was walking through People's Park in Chengdu and came across a Chinese man writing beautiful old traditional Chinese characters on the ground. Just for fun. He was simply using a specially constructed pipe with a sponge tip on the end. After every couple of characters he would tip some more water from his water bottle down the end of the stick to moisten the sponge. The characters were written so perfectly and it looked beautiful - for no more than a minute and then the water dried up and his art form was gone. A Chinese friend told me he was writing about a Phoenix (bird) coming soon.

China skies

Taken from my hotel room in Chengdu. This is kind of how every day in China looks. Clear blue skies are rare and grey, smoggy, low visibity days are the norm. Sometimes I can't tell where the sun is.

Yummy

Beggars

Beggars - with fancy clothes and bikes. Apparently the chalk writing says something like: "please can we have 90 rmb so we can eat and find a place to stay tonight."

A touch of home

In the back corners of Chengdu, western China, guess what I found?? 2PH honey murcott mandarins! Amazing to think of these little shiny waxed gold nuggets of juicy goodness travelling all the way from winding Selma Road, over the Nogoa River, past the silos at Yamala, (stop for a bit at Comet), all the way to Rocky, probably down to Brisbane, then who knows where - and end up thousands of kms later on the f&v stands at Carrefour market downtown Chengdu. What a blast. Oh, and they were priced at around $8/kilo.

Max

Max and two of his kindy friends. Obviously Max was made to pose for the photo when he was in the middle of doing something very important.

Don't be a duck

While I don't want to always be posting pictures of "funny" Chinese signs, this one did make me chuckle.

It is posted on a pillar at the Chengdu airport and is perhaps part of the nation-wide civility campaign - and seems to imply that if you spit then are you likened unto a duck! I didn't know ducks were spitting animals but perhaps they are.

Of course it could mean something completely different and if I happen to ask a Chinese speaker I will correct the entry!

Wordy sign - Chengdu

"Underpass" would probably have sufficed, but hey that's ok, it gave me a smile this morning.

Spicy Sichuan!

This week finds me in Chengdu, in Sichuan province. The food is known to be spicy - in the supermarket you can buy dried red chillies by the kilo. In the other side of the bin near the lady are numbing peppercorns - another speciality in Sichuan cooking.

National day

China celebrated its national day holidays this week. In a fairly normal display of nationalism, the streets of Shanghai are dressed with hundreds of Chinese flags.

Qingdao - 3

Max checks out a Chinese kids toy, street-side crystal for sale, and more of Qingdao beach. The beach has impressed us - it's not too dissimilar to what we find back home. There are families, joggers, dog walkers and tourists taking photos.

Qingdao - 2

An old German church, strange taxis with three wheels and our beachfront hotel.

Qingdao 1

Qingdao - surprising. We like it! It's clean, quiet, cool and calm. The streetscape is hilly and picturesque, the sea is green and sparkling. Yesterday we visited the Qingdao Guest House, a former German Governor's residence. There was some German settlement here early in the 20th century. We had a great morning with some friends and the kids enjoyed the beach in the afternoon.

Where are we again?

Didn't quite realise how close we are to North Korea here. Qingdao is in the bottom left hand corner of the map below, and the Koreas are just across the ditch.

Starfish

Found a starfish but a leg broke off to Max's dismay.

Qingdao beach

Well so far no algae blooms have blown in. The Qingdao beach is quite good really - despite the hazy sky it's not so different to other beaches in Asia. We have a room on the 22nd floor so our view is quite good.

Brave?

Today marks the beginning of Golden Week - China's National Day holidays.  Media are reporting that 610 million people are expected to travel in China during the period.  Read the article here.

We are embarking on a quick trip north to Qingdao in Shandong province.  Qingdao is on the coast and something of a seaside destination for the Chinese.  It's also known as 'broccoli beach' because of the algae blooms.  I found these three pictures below by typing 'qingdao beach' in google.  When we get there tomorrow I hope we find something more like the third picture rather than the first or second ones.

High density living

Wonder how many people live in buildings like these? Taken from the window of our car while we were stopped at a red light.

Bright spark

Pedestrians beware - renovations in progress!

Pyjamas

This photo isn't very clear - but I tried to snap this Chinese guy wearing his pyjamas... at 3pm! It is no shame, so the story goes, to be seen in one's bed clothes, in fact it's a sign of wealth and prosperity as it shows to others that one can afford more than one set of clothes.. for one.

Soccer fan

Max likes the "idea" that he plays soccer - more than the actual game itself. He loves getting the kit on, but when he starts on the field he gets distracted, missed the instruction and then can't do the drills. It's only been two weeks so let's see how he goes. Around the house you can often see him dressed up with his shin guards on and a soccer ball not far away. A few nights ago he even secretly put his shin guards on after we put him to bed - we didn't find out until we went in to check on him later.

Subway crush

The picture doesn't really tell the story - but we can confirm that the Nanjing subway is very, very busy. The kids couldn't see anything but legs and bags for a 30 minute trip.

Nanjing

Today we are in Nanjing for the weekend - a former capital - and site of the 1937 massacre. A really interesting museum here - although how do you explain war to a 4 year old? While we didn't take any photos inside, the last section is a three storey wall of folders soberly representing the list of names of the 300,000 victims.

Old and new

One of the things that I think China does quite well is blend the old with the new. Here a centuries old temple sits quite happily next to a modern commercial high rise. Notice the golden reflection too.

World's largest building - Chengdu

I was amazed to learn today that China has opened the world's largest building.  Not by height, but by floor space - more than one million square metres.  The building is in Chengdu - way out west.  Check out the clip below.