Chenglish

a little piece of home at the zoo?


panda!


China part 2...

some of the funniest moments were from what my sister-in-law calls 'chenglish' ie. the chinese version fo english.
* the quarantine form for entry that asks you if you have a psychotic illness or an STD!!
* the sign at the bottom of the walk to the great wall that says that unconscious people are not allowed to walk up
* the sign in pizza hut giving seating priority to 'the deformities'

a few other weird thoughts/experiences
* the chinese love their umbrellas - if its sunny (for shade) and if it even looks like its going to rain theyre up. must be a high rate of umbrella related eye trauma in china
* china is not the place for vegetarians. sure they have some random vegies you can order but no vege dishes as such. and even looking at the menu would prove upsetting: many places served shark fin! the chinese eat everything.
* by ouselves for the first time TOH and i were contemplating how to order two 'complete tour' tickets at the zoo. have to hand it to her she stepped up raised 2 fingers and said 'two ... panda' and all was understood.
* there are no lines/queues in china. its just a free for all. people looking like lining up are actually not and the people who push in from the side are just doing what they usually do. as my SIL says 'you dont wait in china - just push in!'
* looking at all the smog and my uncle in law (who works in china) telling us that just north of HK at shenzhen (where all worlds clothes are made) they are burning tyres for fuel. dont think they have world earth day there.
* going to the wall was special. just amazing how (and why!) they managed to build it. we were the first there in the morning so all of the local water sellers got a lift up in the cable car thingy with us. a few of them hung around chatting and after a few minutes we figured out we must have hired ourselves some guides :) one of them my brotherIL fasceciously refferd to as 'tenzing'. one of the funniest parts of the trip was when 'tenzing' offered to take a photo of us and procceded to say ...1...2...3... smell!! it was a bit of a climb up there so we probably did!
gotta luv chenglish :)

nice to catch up with brendan in HK

No Fat Men in China

hello from smoggy beijing.
is a long story but my brother in law is here for a work conference - his wife is chinese so we thought it the ideal opportunity to visit here.
my sister-IL tried to tell us a while back that there were no fat men in china.
we just laughed and i even showed her my 'supersize me' book quote that said china was the fastest growing junk food country in the world.
tho i have to say despite kfc and mcdonalds being here in great numbers the majority of overweight people u see here are american tourists so maybe she is right!

most entertaining thing i have done so far is sit in the front seat of a taxi.
these people are crazy.
much much worse than rome.
i dont know if any rules exist but there seems to be no correlation whatsoever between traffic flow and the color of the lights.
bikes and cars seem to share right of way here so if youre a pedestrian here lookout!
most dangerous thing you can do is walk on the green walk sign.

i think everyone here lives in a tiny unit.
u hear stories of 5 people per bedroom.
how else so u fit 17 million people into here i guess !?!
all u can see from the roads are heaps and heaps of 20 story high unit towers.

went to the markets here yesterday.
had some advice that most of the clothes and sports shoes and electronics are 'real' -made in the same factory, but obviously when they try and sell u a rolex for 10 bucks its not! ;)
bought a ski jacket for 90 australian - my SIL reckons i could have got it for half that and they they would have got it from the factory for half that again.
made me think a bit too much about consumerism and how much stuff there is in this world that we dont need - me especially.
i am hereby donating all my gear to tim.
i am told china is the most capitalistic country in the world.
i am starting to believe it.

most of the salespeople at the markets are young girls )look about 15 but probably older) and they scream out at you and grab your arm as you go by.
they asked one of our friends for some aussie coins so she handed 3 of them 50 cent coins.
each of these is more than 3 chinese yuan/dollars and when comparing against yearly salary(but not cost of living) is about 30 bucks.

one thing china isnt short of is labour.
there are people in the hotel toilet here to turn the tap on for you and hand you the tiny towel.
not exactly staying at the ymca but freaky nevertheless.

doing a fair bit of walking here with no knee probs.
hopefully trial run in a week or so.
wall tomorrow.
hopefully catch up with CR virtual when in HK.

Quitting Running?

so i lost the plot the other day.
really got the shits i did.
got sick of all the massage and pilates and physio and thought of chucking it all away.
now i think back i wonder what took me 2 months of inactivity to come to this level of frustration.
anyhoo after about 2 hours of thinking about taking up competitive chess again or maybe putting on the racing flats and tight jocks and running 10kmers it dawned on me rather rapidly that all i want to do is head out bush and do crazy runs.
because the other crap really isnt enjoyable at all.
so thats it then.
i just have to wait it out.

more cortisone in the itb today.
this time ultrasound guided to make sure it was in the right spot.
was kind of icky watching it but looking on the screen took my mind of it.
nothing for 3 weeks (made this decision myself) other than 'core' then a test run.
pilates is really starting to come together and i am now permitted to 'stand' :)
i have also convinced myself that i have a sort of 6 pack.
feel free to punch away people!