Monday, December 06, 2004
In China Mainland (May-Jun 04)
When I had been to Beijing for a mere 4 days last month, entering and exiting during mid week, I consoled myself saying that I hadn’t missed anything then. I had also heard people talk that China is not a very exotic place to visit, which further buttressed my stand. But least did I know that I was going to be proven absolutely wrong this time around where my stay was close to 3 weeks. Beijing, meaning Capital (Jing) in the North (Bei) in Mandarin, is way above the expectations of we, westerners. I am sure all 7 of our project gang would easily agree with me. In fact we were all in for a pleasant surprise as we savored our stay in this capitol city.
Beijing is a very clean city with not-so-very dense population and has a highly cosmopolitan outlook. We never encountered anyone in traditional Chinese outfit (of course no lean long beards either!!). Dressing is more of Euro-American style, be it small children or adults. Roads are very well maintained, with rose plants along the sideway. In order to control pollution, Beijing has banned the use of two wheelers. Only cycles are allowed. Volkswagen Passat and Audi, two awesome and sleek but big cars, rule the car spectrum. Mercs are also seldom spotted. With no dearth of low skyscrapers, this city is not far behind some of the other cities in apparently more sophisticated countries. One interesting fact about Chinese languages, be it Mandarin in Beijing or Cantonese in Hong Kong, they translate proper nouns as well to the local dialects. This is so because these languages lack alphabets. In fact Larry Ellison himself has authorized the translation of Oracle as Ja-Khu-Va in Mandarin. Now imagine yourself being called out as ******* as per the local translation and phonetics!!!!!
The crux of our stay was undoubtedly during weekends. Weekdays were simply routine-based. Up and going at 8-30, work till 6 and then rush for our favorite Taj Pavilion, a North Indian restaurant next to our hotel. It is run a by paaji whom we befriended and could give us food without taking any order. But for this place, we seldom ventured to other cuisines for dinner coz for every other meal, we would sorely miss Indian food. Afternoons were reserved for Pizza’s/burgers or sometimes rice with vegetable curry (slurp!).
We got to spend two interesting weekends here. What was common between these two weekends was SHOPPING!! We visited the pearl market, where self-cultivated fresh-water pearls are sold. The other malls were that of toys and clothing accessories. The other major shopping spree happened at the electronics mall. We could easily spend hours bargaining with those Chinese sales persons. They neither understand English and nor did we comprehend Mandarin. So the mode of our exchange was the calculator. They would show up their price and we would claim ours. Few common phrases we shared were ‘Finish-Finish’, ‘U tell’, ‘I look look’ It was fun anyways.
The great China Wall and Tiananmen Square were two historical places we visited. A local English-speaking guide called Harry accompanied us to the Great Wall so we could also refresh our knowledge of history. The Great Wall has been renovated thrice by three dynasties, the most important being the Ming. Earlier this was the border between China-Mongolia but currently China extends well beyond the Great Wall. Harry also took to the tomb of the Ming ruler Judi. On our way back from the Great wall, we also visited Jade factory and saw some wonderful jade idols. One of them flaunted a price tag of 5000 USD!
Tiananmen Square is a huge open space with a couple of China Administrative offices. It has a martyr tomb and we also saw some soldier-attired persons marching past, which we presume is a daily guard of honor for all those massacred here in the past. Multi-shaped kites all around make up for a pleasant sight. We were taken around the Square on tri-cycles and we could manage to get some cool snaps.
Ice-skating is a popular sport in China. Fortunately for us, we had a skating rink right in our hotel complex. We also wanted to have a taste of this sport. The skating shoes with a scale-edge sole on the ice call for good balance to ‘stand on your feet’. Sid and Vipul, two of our project mates achieved graceful movements in the rink, but I had to be content with only skating along the railing.
Traveling back via Singapore, Sid and myself were lucky enough to grab an opportunity to go for a city-tour. Although we were not allowed to stroll anywhere, we stretched our muscles at the Sentosa beach. Taking us all around the city, the airport guide Michael shared with us a few facts about this wonderful country. A very well nurtured and maintained country, gifted with a natural deep harbor makes it a strategic port. A fascinating fact is that in this small and densely populated country, 20% area is land kept aside for nature’s bounty.
For those few frozen moments: http://community.webshots.com/user/bsarvind
All in all, it was a memorable visit to the China capital along side of a quick glance at Singapore, exposing us to an altogether new lifestyle.
¶ Monday, December 06, 2004
Beijing is a very clean city with not-so-very dense population and has a highly cosmopolitan outlook. We never encountered anyone in traditional Chinese outfit (of course no lean long beards either!!). Dressing is more of Euro-American style, be it small children or adults. Roads are very well maintained, with rose plants along the sideway. In order to control pollution, Beijing has banned the use of two wheelers. Only cycles are allowed. Volkswagen Passat and Audi, two awesome and sleek but big cars, rule the car spectrum. Mercs are also seldom spotted. With no dearth of low skyscrapers, this city is not far behind some of the other cities in apparently more sophisticated countries. One interesting fact about Chinese languages, be it Mandarin in Beijing or Cantonese in Hong Kong, they translate proper nouns as well to the local dialects. This is so because these languages lack alphabets. In fact Larry Ellison himself has authorized the translation of Oracle as Ja-Khu-Va in Mandarin. Now imagine yourself being called out as ******* as per the local translation and phonetics!!!!!
The crux of our stay was undoubtedly during weekends. Weekdays were simply routine-based. Up and going at 8-30, work till 6 and then rush for our favorite Taj Pavilion, a North Indian restaurant next to our hotel. It is run a by paaji whom we befriended and could give us food without taking any order. But for this place, we seldom ventured to other cuisines for dinner coz for every other meal, we would sorely miss Indian food. Afternoons were reserved for Pizza’s/burgers or sometimes rice with vegetable curry (slurp!).
We got to spend two interesting weekends here. What was common between these two weekends was SHOPPING!! We visited the pearl market, where self-cultivated fresh-water pearls are sold. The other malls were that of toys and clothing accessories. The other major shopping spree happened at the electronics mall. We could easily spend hours bargaining with those Chinese sales persons. They neither understand English and nor did we comprehend Mandarin. So the mode of our exchange was the calculator. They would show up their price and we would claim ours. Few common phrases we shared were ‘Finish-Finish’, ‘U tell’, ‘I look look’ It was fun anyways.
The great China Wall and Tiananmen Square were two historical places we visited. A local English-speaking guide called Harry accompanied us to the Great Wall so we could also refresh our knowledge of history. The Great Wall has been renovated thrice by three dynasties, the most important being the Ming. Earlier this was the border between China-Mongolia but currently China extends well beyond the Great Wall. Harry also took to the tomb of the Ming ruler Judi. On our way back from the Great wall, we also visited Jade factory and saw some wonderful jade idols. One of them flaunted a price tag of 5000 USD!
Tiananmen Square is a huge open space with a couple of China Administrative offices. It has a martyr tomb and we also saw some soldier-attired persons marching past, which we presume is a daily guard of honor for all those massacred here in the past. Multi-shaped kites all around make up for a pleasant sight. We were taken around the Square on tri-cycles and we could manage to get some cool snaps.
Ice-skating is a popular sport in China. Fortunately for us, we had a skating rink right in our hotel complex. We also wanted to have a taste of this sport. The skating shoes with a scale-edge sole on the ice call for good balance to ‘stand on your feet’. Sid and Vipul, two of our project mates achieved graceful movements in the rink, but I had to be content with only skating along the railing.
Traveling back via Singapore, Sid and myself were lucky enough to grab an opportunity to go for a city-tour. Although we were not allowed to stroll anywhere, we stretched our muscles at the Sentosa beach. Taking us all around the city, the airport guide Michael shared with us a few facts about this wonderful country. A very well nurtured and maintained country, gifted with a natural deep harbor makes it a strategic port. A fascinating fact is that in this small and densely populated country, 20% area is land kept aside for nature’s bounty.
For those few frozen moments: http://community.webshots.com/user/bsarvind
All in all, it was a memorable visit to the China capital along side of a quick glance at Singapore, exposing us to an altogether new lifestyle.
¶ Monday, December 06, 2004
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just lazing around.... clicking 'next blog' to glory, ... you seem to have a talent at describing things you see withour having to lose the essence... you've got good writting skills. :)
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