Musings on China

So I just came back from what amounted to three weeks in Sichuan province. I went up to visit a mill in Chongqing to solve a problem with a display, which I traced to someone screwing up a software build (a build that I had done that worked when I left it and before they decided to mess around with it I might add) which I did in a matter of a day.

After that it was the typical, "oh while you're here, there's this problem which is semi-related to your expertise, so why not take a look at it because we've told the mill that you're an expert on it" that work is so good at pulling. It's not just in China either, as they used to do this all the time in Vancouver too.

So it was a week and a bit of struggling with MD controls before I was ready to go home. Of course, when I was ready to go home I was asked to go to another mill in Chongqing and solve some problems there. Which I did. And then the girl took the chance to arrange a trip to visit Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong while I was near there. Which was amazing. And will be written about later. Honest.

Sichuan was neat. After I convinced the guys that I really did not want to keep eating at the bad hotel buffet (think bad American Chinese food) we started going out for noodles and local food more often. Which was very good, but probably very bad for me. Spicy hot beef soup noodles, spicy hot snails, spicy hot crayfish, spicy hot tofu. There was a definite pattern. By the time I went to Jiuzhaigou with the girl, I was eating food and not batting an eye that she couldn't touch. I think I killed off my last remaining taste buds.

And the food was cheap. Living in Hong Kong, I am used to paying cheaper, but still reasonable western prices for things. In China things are ridiculously cheap. 6RMB/litre for gas (less than $1 CDN). A bottle of beer - 5rmb. Dinner in a noodle shop downtown - 10rmb or less. I passed on the opportunity to buy the complete Devestator and Superion (old transformers toys for those who don't remember) for 50rmb each. That's $6. Less than each of the constructions or aerialbots would have cost individually! I'm still not sure if I should have bought them.

Maalo.

It's my word for the day.

We went for a drive up to the Shing Mun reservoir and saw monkeys. Lots of them. It was pretty cool. This is one of the older solitary males we saw on the drive out.

Yet another tough day at the office...

Another tough day at the office

Life is rough.

Gung Hei Fat Choi

Happy New Year from Hong Kong!

May the year of the Rat bring health, happiness and success to all!

Meds work!!

Yay. I am healthy, hale and whole again.

What has happened lately? Um, in order.

New bed. Horrible cold temperatures. Sick. Chinese meds. New goose down comforter. Hockey up and going again after the new year, just in time to be shut down again for the Chinese New Year.

Planned trip back to Vancouver in June. Not entirely sure when, seeing as how I want to move things around for maximum visit potential. Will keep important parties posted.

On a side note, thinking of switching from this back to my old pretty much dormant livejournal account. The reason being that I can't access blogspot from China. Maybe I should check if livejournal works from there.

update!

This is the girlfriend posting another update, because the boy has a cold.

This is his medicine. It tastes pretty bad. He has to drink boiled pussywillows. But it should cure his stuffiness and sore throat in no time!


This is what happens when boyfriends refuse to co-operate.


This is the dog next door, her name is Daisy. Yes, that's right. She's a german shephard named "Daisy". She often smells very flowery, especially after digging up my aunt's orchids.

smores!

I empathize with crash test dummies.

So somehow I got roped into helping out with the examinations of the upper level tai chi students today. It's not like it required any effort on my part though; I just had to stand there and let them hit me with their chi.

And yeah... they were only holding me by the arms, but right after I definitely felt like I had had someone sitting on my chest for a while. Kinda neat actually.

Oh. And go Canada. Staying up until 5:30am to watch the game was so totally worth it.

another post by the girlfriend

We got a bed today! No more sleeping on the floor! Hooray!