kaya in Tashkorgan and other adventures

our first day (1 May) was a disaster. our flight to Kashgar was almost landing when it had to turn back bcos of dust storm. can't blame the pilot or airlines since I could see the dust plumes from the plane. it was like a scene from The Mummy!

we kena turn back to Urumqi to fly back the next morning. the usual mayhem followed, including a long wait to retrive our luggage, plus lousy transport by the airline (China Southern). it was almost 2am when we reached the lousy hotel provided by the airline.

when we landed in Kasghar and left on our coach, we saw a highway advertisement board being twisted like aluminium foil just outside the airport. it shows how strong the winds were on Thurs night!

as we started our journey proper, Xinjiang landscape was spectacular! we drove from Kashgar to Lake Karagul, then to Tashkorgan. we went from Uighur farmland to open desert up valley gorges, pass glaciers and onto the Pamir highlands at 3600m.

we stayed at Crown Inn at Tashkorgan, the best hotel in the Tajik town. the hotel is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and it seemed more like the Swiss Alps than the Pamir plateau. surprisingly it was runned by a Singaporean couple. they were very nice and efficient (as usual). the hotel was clean and beautifully furnished. we even got kaya for breakfast! quite surreal actually: kaya at Tashkorgan!

this morning we visited a Tajik family. our tour group was feted with naan, yoghurt and various pastries. Robina bought a hand embriodered Tajik hat from the family. their 19-year old daughter, Kemartigol, was very sweet and liked Robina a lot. she kept talking to Robina and hugging her. She seemed very reluctant to let Robina go when we were supposed to leave. Robina was nearly adopted!

now we'r back in Kashgar and the city is blanketed in a dust cloud. we heard that all flights in and out from Kashgar were cancelled. apparently, the dust were brought up to high altitudes by the strong winds on Thurs and was now falling back to ground level. hopefully our pm flight on Sunday would be alright. anyway we will hit the Sunday bazaar in the morning and load up on local specialties!

P.S. posting from free internte in Kashgar Hotel

Olympic Megastructure

Last week, I was very lucky to get inside the "Bird Nest" National Stadium and the "Water Cube" National Aquatics Center, the two iconic Olympic megastructures for a sneak peak. view from the wide VIP gallery...
this will probably be the closest I could get the the Olympic venues since we would be very busy running around during the BOG itself.
the Bird Nest was very impressive since this was the first time I was actually inside. we could only view the construction project from afar on past visits for the last three years. Looking at the spectator stands I could tell that the unobstructed view would be excellent for soccer matches.
the Bird Nest stadium dwarf our own National Stadium. it is so huge that our vehicles could drive right into the stadium through a internal concourse to the basement carpark in the bowels of the megastructure.
this sign board showed how many levels there are!
we went next door to the Water Cube. again this was the first time I got inside the cube. the gloomy skies and poor lighting, plus my dinky point n shoot did not do justice to this magnificent building.
there is water moat surrounding the cube.
Ian Thorpe this way! hopefully our Singapore swim team can do well!
Inside the bubble! many visitors were gleefully pressing the ETFE polymer bubbles near the entrance. they should install some electric current to zap pesky buggers...
natural lighting coming from above inside the swimming pools. very impressive. the building will be even more beautiful when it is lighted up at night! even now many coach loads of Chinese "tourists" would stop outside the nearby highway to take pictures.

trip to Shanxi Datong

Robina and I went a trip with Chinese Culture Club to visit Datong, Shanxi province. Two main sites we saw were the Hanging Temple and the Yungang Grottoes. Both were impressive cultural and historical sites built by the Northern Wei dynasty (AD460). This dynasty was founded by the nomadic Xianbei barbarians, not the usual Han Chinese.

Along the way, we stopped by a typical Shanxi village on the yellow earth loess plateau. This terrain looked desolate and bleak in our eyes especially since we are used to tropical Southeast Asian rainforests. I had learn about loess plateau in my secondary school geography classes. the loess was formed after the glaciers retreated after the last Ice Age. rocks were pulverised underneath the glaciers to form a powdery yellow dust that blew down from Siberia and collected in mile thick layers all over North China. Now we can see this terrain all along Shanxi and Shaanxi province, as seen in Zhang Yimou's movie "Red Sorghum"
We visited the house of this jolly old uncle. he's 76 years old. His house is dug into the cave side. It's cool and roomy inside with several rooms. but it must be freezing in winter even though it had a heat platform bed, "kang".
outside the cave house was a tell-tale sign of civilisation: a satellite dish. the uncle told us, his daughter works in the city and bought him a TV (plus the satellite dish I think!)
next we were at the Hanging Temple, near Hengshang. it was 1500 years old, propped up on the cliff face by seemingly flimsy wooden poles. an amazing feat of engineering by the Xianbei.
from a distance the temple complex looked unreal, like matchstick models. when you climb up and into the narrow alcoves and stairways, we could really appreciate the hardships that the monks and taoist priests had to endure. even in the early spring weather, the lashing winds was still very cold and definitely not a place to spend a winter especially if you have a fear of heights!
we stopped to visit a Ming dynasty fort called Victory Fort or "Desheng Bao". the fort was used to house the garrison that guarded this section of the Great Wall. The ancient wall was on the ridgeline overlooking the fort. there is now a village inside. most of the people we saw were the old and the young; the adults must be working in urban areas.
We visited the village school with 60 students and 3 teachers. conditions was very basic. some students from other villages stay in the school itself. the grade one kids were cheerful and curious. as usual there must be one mischevious boy around.
the highlight of our trip was at Yungang Grottoes, which befit its listing as an UNESCO World Heritage site. many of the statues, carvings and painted reliefs were breath-takingly beautiful. this huge outdoor statue of Buddha reminded me of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan.
Some of the painted carvings still look brilliant despite being more than 1000 years old and the grimy smog from the nearby coal mines. Check out my photos at flickr.

Apart from leaving behind these two magnificent monuments, and some tombs in Northeast China, the Xianbei people no longer exists. Right from Emperor Xiaowen of North Wei, who started the Yungang grottoes, he insisted on a sinification policy. All Xianbei must change their surnames to Han Chinese surnames. They must speak and dress like Han Chinese. A handful of barbarians from the North could not hope to govern the Han massses. Before long the Xianbei was absorbed into the sea of Han Chinese. Maybe their genes and some physical features still live amongst Shanxi people.

bumping into a star

We were heading to Ritz Carlton to meet friends for lunch, when I thot I spotted a familiar face in the lobby. It was the famous Taiwanese singer, song-writer and producer, Lee Zhong-sheng (李宗盛). He is best known for his compositions for and duets with his wife, singer Sandy Lum (now divorced). 李宗盛 was very pleasant and nice when we asked to take pics with him. He even recommended the Italian restaurant upstairs.
Beijing is too big for celebrity spotting, compared to celebrity-dense Hong Kong and Taipei. We had better luck in Taipei and had spotted the aboriginal rock duet 动力火车 and entertainment show compere Xu Nailin (许乃麟). During our last trip to Hong Kong we spotted our very own Li Nanxing, at the next table at Yong Kei, the famous roast goose joint.

Robina's early birthday

Robina's girlfriends celebrated her birthday earlier since some of them are returning home for Chinese New Year. They had lunch at Assagi, an Italian restaurant. She was very happy with her loot!

cold weather sports

A few of us had been playing basketball in the winter cold for the past couple of weeks. this saturday the weather in Beijing was exceptional fine despite the winter cold. There was a clear blue sky and the sun was out even though it was 3C. Only when the wind picked up that we felt really cold. It was hard to imagine that the rest of China in the South and Central was suffering from the freak snow storm.
It was very different playing basketball in winter. the good thing was that you don't sweat unlike Singapore. the downside was stiff fingers and trying hard to warm up stiff muscles.
As typical Singaporeans, we had to refuel after the game with prata, curry and satay at a Singapore/Malaysian restaurant out in the suburbs.
Just outside the restaurant was a frozen fish pond. A Chinese was patiently ice-fishing there.

Robina and her steak escapade

I exaggerate of course, but it probably seems to Robina that she devoured 7 pieces of steak today. She had lunch with her frens at a French Bistro, one of those that serve quite value-for-money set lunches for RMB65. She ordered a fillet steak (medium rare) while Joyce ordered medium. It came but it was relatively well-done (while Joyce's steak was quite bloody). Joyce sent hers back but she just took Robina's not-so-bloddy steak. What pissed her off was that the waiter had earlier assured her that her steak was medium-rare. Robina asked for her steak to be replaced since it was too well-done. But another waitress asked if she could bring the steak back to fix it in the kitchen. In the end, the restaurant replaced the steak. But it was well-done, the staff had to quickly run out and told Robina that this steak was not hers but ordered by her frens. this was after Robina had cut up the steak. It was still well-done...

Later on, when they decided to order the drinks in their set, they were told that the warm water that they had earlier was actually mineral water, part of the set's drinks! It was only after kicking up a fuss that they were allowed to order the usual drinks.

This evening we were at an official dinner, and guess what, we were served steak for one of the courses. and of course, a piece of sea cucumber flew off Robina's plate and landed on her blouse.