This year we’re going to experience four unusual dates.

1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 and that’s not all…

Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born – now add
the age you will be this year,

The results will be 111 for everyone in whole world. This is the year of
the Money!!!

The proverb goes that if you send this to eight good friends money will
appear in next four days as it is explained in Chinese FENG SHUI.

Those who don’t continue the chain won’t receive…….

It’s a mystery, but it’s worth a try. Good luck.

Time to change your website host to mtrav.me.uk

Community resident Mrs. Li told this reporter, from the meaning expressed through the sculpture, it is like an elderly man who has difficulty moving being helped to the toilet with the support of his wife and daughter. However in real life, this kind of scene is rare. With the man’s genitals carved so prominently, it isn’t very tasteful, and had he been “wearing” clothes or pants, it may be a bit better. With regards to this sculpture, most netizens are critical, but there are also netizens who believe that though the sculpture doesn’t look very tasteful, it is still rather creative; Some netizens feel it is very humorous, believing that art doesn’t need to be concealed, that one cannot only look at the simple surface, that the artistic conception is more important.

Door Signs: 入口 rùkǒu = Entrance, 出口 chūkǒu = Exit, 拉 lā = Pull, 推 tuī = Push

On that note, if you are partial to a celebratory beer after a hard climb, make sure you bring enough with you.  A can of beer in Tai’an city will cost you 2.5元.  The higher up the mountain you go, the more expensive it gets.  At the summit you can expect to pay 15元 per can and the beer is rank to boot.

(Note to self:- write the article and publish the pictures of the Tai’An Beer Festival)

Mount Tai is not an easy ascent albeit there are steps all the way up.  For those that doubt their fitness there is always the cable-car option.  The decent is just as wicked due to the steepness.

What do you see?

If you, like me have ever wondered where all the great Chinese poets get their inspiration, look no further than the top of TaiShan Mountain.  How on earth did marijuana seeds get here?  From the peak you’ll see a small pagoda some 500m to your left.  It’s worth the little walk over there for no other reason than to get away from the thousands of tourists and the noise.

From this little pagoda you get a whole new perspective of the mountain.  You can pick as much Mary Jane as you like and enjoy those beers you brought up with you, all in peace.

t.b.c

The lady at the bus ticket office had no problems selling me a ticket so I didn’t give it a second thought.  When I arrived I noticed that a) I was the only foreigner in sight and b) that I was being stared at even more than usual.

I set-off walking towards the coast and was being shadowed and beckoned to by a couple of taxis.  This is common-place in China and so I simply ignored them.  One driver was particularly insistent and, after I had walked almost a kilometre into the ‘forbidden zone’ he got out of his car and explained to me that I shouldn’t be here.

He made it sound as though I had broken the law so badly that should I be picked up by the police I’d be on the next ‘plane home.  He wasn’t joking!

I managed to get back to the bus stop undetected and was pleased to be on the bus back to Dalian.

Lushun is a military / naval zone and was once the site of an horrendous massacre by the Japanese.

It is a rather beautiful spot and very clean.

There are many rumours surrounding Sichuan food and none more so than its spiciness and heat.  In Chinese, la  辣.

Is it really as hot as people say it is or is it just another Chinese myth?

When we toured Sichuan in the winter of early 2007 I admit to being a little concerned that we may starve to death because there would be nothing to eat.When in Rome.. I’d eaten in Sichuan-style restaurants before in northern China and was impressed by the heat and spice that left your palate numb for hours but then, actually going to the home of hot food I discovered that, just like Indian food in the UK is far hotter than proper Indian food so was the food in the north.  In Sichuan, the spices were better prepared and the dishes cooked to perfection.  Sure, you knew you were eating hot food but you could enjoy the flavours, relish the dishes and never needed to flush gallons of iced water down your throat to extinguish the fire.

If you go to a Sichuan restaurant in Sichuan the waitress, seeing you’re 外国人 will automatically instruct the chef to lessen the heat.  Make sure you tell them when placing your order what degree of heat you can handle.

Sichuan is home to one of the most famous Chinese dishes in the world, Gong Bao Ji Ding – 公报鸡丁, commonly ordered in your local Chinese takeaway as Kung Pao Chicken;  diced chicken with vegetables and nuts.  My favourite dish is La Zi Ji Ding – 辣子鸡丁, the spiced-up version.  You can go one better and order 妈辣鸡丁, Mala Ji Ding which I also like but this is hot stuff!

Panzhihua gets its name because of a beautiful plant that grows there which likes to ‘climb trees’.  That’s what the name means; flower climbing by grabbing branches.

It’s not a place where many foreigners tend to go because there is nothing to go for, but it is often used as a place to change from the bus from Kunming to the train, depending on where you’re heading next.  Most backpackers will stay for as few hours as possible.  We had to stay overnight and trying to find a hotel was quite difficult; no chance of bargaining in the half-decent places but we did find a comfortable 旅店 lu dian -a small hotel which foreigners are not often welcomed (or allowed) and that along with the lady we met saved the place (or at least made the night comfortable).

I’ll quickly write about the earthquake:

The scenery surrounding Panzhihua is breathtaking and as you snake through the thin mountain passes you fear death at every corner, especially if you happen to have the same bus driver that we had.  Nevertheless, within a radius of 30km of the city it would appear that the population is relatively sparse. The photo above is taken through the bus window within coo-ee of the earthquake’s epicentre.  As you can see there are no real villages and certainly nothing like in the city centre itself.

The ‘city’ centre is tiny but has it’s fair share of decent restaurants.  The one we chose was hosting a wedding reception and we sat down, adjacent to the wedding party -the men all pissed as farts- and enjoyed a delightful repast.  That we sat right next to them should give you an insight into how small this ‘city’ is.

There is a senior high school in the place that has been advertising for English teachers over the past 12 months and they pay bloody well.  At three-and-a-half times the salary they pay in Kunming you might ask yourself, why?

The ‘why’ is easy:  It is a very, very remote place and a long way to anywhere else. You can look on the map and see that it is only 133km to the capital city of Yunnan but it takes a hell of a long time to traverse that distance (even with our bus driver) and should it snow, which is does often in Winter then you can forget travel altogether.  Unless you have made friends with the locals, can sing KTV in the same room as everyone else and are prepared to be drunk under the table then….

I liked the place!

NB: Even if you can book your own tickets I strongly advise using your hostel to do this for you in case of cancellations etc.

T and I had hooked-up with a couple of other backpackers all heading to Lijiang and decided to make the journey together.  On the morning of our planned departure we awoke to this:

It’s just a dusting of snow!  A little snow in Dali will mean a huge fall 2000 feet higher up the mountains and therefore no way through for buses.  Believe me also when I say that even if there was a way through, if you’ve seen these winding mountain passes and the sheer drop-offs coupled with the way the drivers’ tackle them, your safest bet is to stay put.

That is the decision we came to after a group-talk.  Hey-ho!  So you’re stuck in Dali for another day after having already exhausted all the town has to offer.  Never fear for The Lazy Book is here.

The Lazy Book is a great place to chill for a day.  We went in a little after 9 a.m. to discuss our options.  We read and then watched a film.  11 a.m. arrived -along with many more backpackers and everyone settled down to the first film of the day; the Lazy Book has hundreds of DVDs.  The ‘sun was over the yardarm’ so I chanced a beer.  It was still too early for Mikey and Billy-boy was nursing a severe hangover from his birthday meal the night before.  That’s another story which you find somewhere in this diary.

Lunch, more beer, more films, more people, more sleet, more misery then more beer – Mikey and Billy-boy had seen the light and joined me.  More food, more films, fussbal, reading, films, beer, food, beer, banter, films, beer, burgers, beer and then bed.

By the morning, the coast was clear, our hostel, The No. 4 Guesthouse of Dali (Yuan Garden Hotel), HuGuo Road had re-arranged our bus tickets and we arrived safely in Lijiang later that day.

This was the last we ever saw of Billy-Boy!

Be brave, don your backpack and walk under the southern gateway and down the street.  500 metres or so down the road things will start to look much busier and it is here that you need to be on the lookout for HuGuo Lu 护国路. Take a left up this cobbled street and keep walking until it appears you can go no further.  On your left will be the No.4 Guesthouse.

The rooms are excellent and the place is cosy and very traditional.  There is free internet access, hot water and the whole place is set in very pleasant surroundings.

The food at Amy’s is excellent.  Her husband – called Hong Kong is a chef and their daughter is delightful.

Majority of Chinese characters belong to picto-phonetic group and formed by two parts: the meaning element and the sound element. Ancient Chinese book 《说文解字》(Explanation of Chinese Characters) includes 9395 characters, 82% of them are picto-phonetic characters.
60-67% of Chinese characters have left-right structure, character components are written in direction from left to right.

The most common character in articles in Chinese Characters Dictionary is “的”(reserved word), it appears ones for every 25 characters.
The most popular character component is “口”(mouth), about 20 from 100 characters have “mouth” component is their structure.
Few Chinese characters have different readings, character “那”has 8 different readings and as a result different meanings.

A small group of Chinese characters are formed by doubling, trebling or even quadrupling the same character component. Some of these characters are not used in modern Chinese language, some of them are often chosen for people’s names, but each of these characters can be served as a good sample of associative logic of the Chinese.

众 zhòng – three “men” – crowd

品 pǐn – three “mouths” – product, thing; grade
舙 huà (old variant of character 话) – three “tongues” – speech, talk
聶 niè (traditional form of character 聂) – three “ears” – whisper, Chinese surname Nie.
瞐 mò – three “eyes” – look nice
掱 pá – three “hands” – pickpocket
惢 ruǐ (old variant of character 蕊) – three “hearts” – pistil
毳 cuì – three “hairs”- fine hair on animals
譶 tà – three “speech, speak” – speak quickly
猋 biāo – three “dogs” – 1. dogs moving 2. whirlwind
骉 biāo – three “horses” – the manner of horses galloping
犇 bēn – three “cows” – to run quickly
羴 shān (old character, the same as 膻) – three “sheep” – the smell of mutton
麤 cū (the same as粗) – three “deer” – rough; coarse
鱻 xiān (old character, the same as 鲜) – three “fish” – fresh

蟲 chóng (traditional form of character 虫) – three “insects” – insect
姦 jiān (traditional form of simplified character 奸) – three “women”- evil; wicked commit adultery
孨 zhuǎn – three “sons”- orphan
磊 lěi – three “stones”- pile of stones; stout
焱 yàn – three “fire” – flame of fire
燚 yì – four “fire” – used in personal name
淼 miǎo – three “water”- expanse of water stretches as far as the eye can see
垚 yáo — three “soil” – mound; often used in personal name
鑫 xīn – three “gold” – used in personal name
赑 bì – three “sea shells” – strong
森 sēn – three “trees”- forest
晶 jīng – three “suns”- crystal, brilliant.
靐 bìng – three “thunder” – imitation of thunder sound
朤 lǎng (old character, the same as朗) – three “moons”- bright; loud and clear
畾 léi – three “fields” – fields divided by dikes
灥 xún (old character, the same as 泉) – three “fountains, springs” – spring, font
轟 hōng (the same as 轰) – three “vehicles” – rumble
刕 lí – three “knives” – family name Li
歮 sè (old character, the same as 涩) – three “detain” – harsh
劦 xié (old character, the same as 协) – three “power” – cooperate
尛 mó (old character, the same as麽) – three “small”- tiny
馫 xīn (old character, the same as馨) – three “fragrant” – strong and pervasive fragrance
皛 xiǎo – three “white” – bright
嚞 zhé (old character, the same 哲) – three “luck” – wise, sagacious
矗 chù – three “straight” – rising sharply
飝 fēi – three traditional forms of simplified character 飞 “fly” – fly