Today is the last day of 2009 in China, this year is important to K.G.B., that’s because we found this website in this year. I am glad made two right decision, which are choose a foreign host and writing blog in English. They protect us from the personal sites slaughter of Chinese government. We are lucky.
Happy New Year!
In Dec.2009, i have received 4 individual motorcycle self-driving tour inquires in China. Here i would like to list some information about the self-driving tour in China.
1. The Chinese government paper work. If the foreigners wants to drive their own vehicle to China, they should first find an in-country agency to help them deal with the process of Chinese government. And Vietnam also has this rule. It’s not so free like drive the vehicle in other countries. China has many restrictions in this field.
2. The prepare time period. For me, i need at least 3 month to apply the government permits for our guests. And once i do this, it means the guests has already paid the first payment to us. So the prepare time including the talking through the emails, it need at least 4-6 months in advance.
3. According to the chinese law, it’s necessary to have a guide accompany the whole journey. And if you drive the motorcycle or the whole team are combined by motorcycles, then the in-country agency have to send a guide vehicle to you. Because they can’t take risk to ask the guide sit back to the motorcycles. This part will raise the costs too much because of the guide vehicle.
4.In China, Motorcycle is not allowed to drive on highway, and this will add the difficulty of crossing most big cities.
So if you are plan the motorcycle self-driving tour in China. First, please contact the in-country agency as early as you can. And the most important, please be sure your heart is well prepared for seeing the high price from the in-country agency. If there just has 1 or 2 motorcycles group, I don’t suggest you choose this way to travel in China unless you have another normal vehicle to go with you. Or you just want to waste your money.
These days, i’m busy in dealing with the 2010 tour request to Ejinaqi. Below are some useful information for the reference.
1. Foreigners need to find a local agency to get the entrance permits. Because Ejinaqi area is cover the Jiuquan ( launch center) and it’s the military area of China. So it need the special permits to enter Ejinaqi. And the foreign travellers are not allowed to visit Jiuquan Launch Center.
2.The most beautiful period of Ejinaqi (Khara Koto）if from Sep to Oct. And if you want visit those places, please arrange the travel time before the mid Sep. Becasue there will have Huyanglin festival there in later Sep to early Oct. The hostl room can’t guarantee in thoese period. The room rate will be over 500 RMB/per room, and just has 2 hotels there with 3 stars’ level. Even you are willing to pay 500 RMB/ per, you may also have no room to get.
3. After visit Ejinaqi, you can choose to visit Badain Jaran desert nearly by. The see the Badain Jaran lake and temple as well as the Mt. Everest sand dune. You need to change to use the 4×4 beijing jeep and only the well-trained drivers can manage this kind of vehicle running in the desert.
4. You can choose to take the normal vehicle back to Alex Youqi which is the entrance of the desert. However, that will take a long day driving from Ejinaqi to Alex Youqi which will take about 700 KM driving distance. The other choice is to cross the desert directly from Ejinaqi to Alex Youqi. There will cost 3 days and 2 nights in the desert. And the second choice’s vehicle fee will double than the first choice.
In my schedule, i should write the Sichuan-Tibet tour this year, however, there are too many pictures drive me dizzy. So here I would like to share my Phuket Island tour first.
The departure date is 11th.11 which is the “single person day” in China, and I go with my 3 friends, total 4 people head to Thailand Phuket island.
We chose the 6 day 5 night package tour and all our journey was companied by a local Chinese speaking guide.
The first day is to visit the Phang Nga. Of course, the most famous is the “007″ island, there is a stone like a “cabbage” and there are a special kind of fish “mudskipper” as well as “cartoon crab” with colorful pincers waving to you.
We have lunch at the Sea Muslim Village. and then back to Phuket island. When we went to Siam Safari and the staff there are very kind, they help us to take photos. At this time, i have to say, 20B as the service fee is really not a big deal and the staff will take pictures when you are on the elephant. You can choose to keep the picture or not. Most people feel very unhappy because they feel they were pushing to buy their photos which they didn’t suppose to take.
And later we require the guide Phi Yang took us to buy the fruit, wa~~~really nice fruit and the price is also very nice and we feel shame to bargain. Nuts factory has many kinds of nuts, one of my favorite is wasabi taste.
I have to say that, the ice cream is very cheap in Thailand. it make me feel i wast lots of money to buy the Haggen-Daz and DQ in China. However, i’m really not so that into the ice cream, so just have one taste. Not bad.
I prefer the fish ball with Vermicelli, this is a special local delicacies. Well, i feel hungry now~ please enjoy the pics of Day o1.
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I’m not a Christian and I really don’t celeberate Christmas. However, I guess I said Merry Christmas to everybody by singing Messiah last saturday. Because of the late performance permission，we put off the Messiah concert on 19th, usually the first saturday of Dec, and even change the concert hall to a small one outside Beijing instead of forbidden city concert hall. Even so, we gave the audience a lovely show in my opinion.
Messiah is a Baroque music production, more specifically, Cantata. I always have affection towards baroque music and I definitely enjoyed singing messiah this time. It is such a great work for chrous. When we singing the famous Hallelujah, all the audience stood up following british tradition. It is such a sacred moment. According to other members, it is sort of an european tradition for choirs to sing messiah during christmas time, which is why IFC does it every year. I am looking forward to singing it next year.
PS: After the concert, we had an italian dinner party, people danced and chatted and got drunk. And our director told me I am a great great asset to this choir, which makes me very proud of myself. I have enclosed the video of one of my favorite movements, For unto us a child is born, which is not our performance but I do wanna share the joy.
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My winter team achieved a great success, just like the leader say ” excellent trekking”. The volunteer project in liming school is also seems ok. Thanks all guides and staff who had put effort in this field.
In fact, 4 Days of trekking is not only in Tiger Leaping Gorge. First they trek from Shuhe Ancient to Wenhai and then to Longpan. and the rest 2 days is in Tiger Leaping Gorge. I have written an article about the closure of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It’s true and the road maintain cost lots of troubles when we run the team.
For me, I do think Tiger Leaping Gorge is not like before, and the Tiger leaping Gorge stone is not so breathtaking when you seeing it. As the government is building the water and electricity station there. It almost destroyed most beautiful scenery on the road.
One day morning, a black dog followed the Team to the Tiger leaping Gorge. my guide first thought it was a dog belongs to the horseman. And later, the local people told a story about this dog.
The dog is belong to a foreigner who is an Australian “Mar jane”(transliteration) She fell in love with a local Tibetan guy Mr.Xia in 1996 and then they get married in Lijiang. They have a hostel name “Shanquan” which is the given name of Mr.Xia. About 4 or 5 years ago, they adopted a little black dog. And they love that dog very much. However, Mar Jane died in sickness in Mt.Meili. in recent year. Since then, people find out that the black dog wait at Tiger Leaping Gorge and followed the visitors to go some part of the Tiger Leaping Gorge, especially would like to go with the foreigners.
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It’s hard to write something,especially using another language. I admit that I’m not interest in writing english articles. everyday, my work is about English and I need to reply all the questions from my clients.
It’s necessary for me to study everyday. some guests want to hunt wild ducks, yes, then i need to study the hunt area and also the kind of duck.Some guests want to go a remote place, and then i need to find out details about that area. It seems helps me a lot, well, on this point, i do real benefit from this work style, that is keep on learning.
Some guests told me that in big cities, people are not interest in foreigners, so they are seldom experience the “surprise ” faces from the local people. China is not like 10 years ago, and i think this kind of fast speed will accelerate the dead of our lovely earth. Since the information spread so fast without barrier, I feel myself more like a dust on earth.
Early days, I saw a movie “ 500 days of summer’” inside, there is a very cute words ” I love us” . The more I think about this words, the more fun i got. People say ” I love u” and when it apply “s” after “U”. It become “us”.
Ps: Travel log in Thailand are too many pictures and too many interesting things. How lazy I am~~i will try to update it soon.
PPs: George, i have received your post card from Jiuzhaigou, very nice of you!!
PPPS: My winter teams have run successfully and now back to Australia , Tiger leaping gorge is a famous place , most foreigners like it, but for me , i don’t think it’s a good place to travel. I will update the interesting story of our team next week.
Board game is not popular in China. Most players are young people who like to receive new idea. It’s just fun of minorities. Now the things seem to change because The Battle among Three Kingdom appeared.
In Chinese history, there was some game like the board game we played today. The Picture of Be A More Powerful Officer (升官图） is one of them. In this game, the only target in this game is get the top of the ancient Chinese government architecture.
The Picture of Be A More Powerful Officer
The Battle among Three Kingdom is more like a modern board game. Actually it definitely inspired by a famous board game Bang!. The cowboy is replaced by historical character in the Three Kingdom period after Han Dynasty of China. The creator added many roleplay elements in the game, every character has their own skills which are fit their background in history.
The Battle among Three Kingdom
It’s popular in Chinese youth, and it make more and more people know the board game and many board game bar opened in major cities of China. Although the group of board game players is still very small in China, I and my friends can enjoy the fun of it.
I have finished my first businese trip in Xi’an, which be famous as the capital of Tang Dynasty in Chinese history.
I have to say the ancient wall is so great. That’s my first time to see the complete ancient city wall in real life, I even forgot shooting a picture for my exciting. However, I am not quite like the Xi’an city. Maybe the dry climate make me feel bad and the less development is not my dreamed type of city. I know many foreigners prefer Xi’an than Chengdu because they are bored of modern city. And for me, I would make the opposite choice, because I’am the slave of modern society,lol.
Clock Tower of Xi'an
I have heared about the forthcoming shut down of all P2P and BT websites here in China. I just don’t realize it comes so quickly unitl I find out that VERY CD, a website that thousands of users share their digital resourse on, was cracked down today. The authority justifies their actions on the grounds of protecting copyrighted products and controling the widespread piratic and illegal digital resource.
From my point of view, this bold and imprudent action might act as just opposite as the authority expects. Admittedly, some of the internet users might turn to copyrighted movies or softwares. But considering the high price of those products, I would not call it majority. As a result, most of the internet users here in China who used to download digital resource with P2P or BT via websites like Verycd will probably turn to piratic contents，which in turn would definitely prosper the piratic industry.
In fact, as far as I know, many web users consider VERY CD as their precious resource website, where you can find from exotic tv series and movies with chinese and english subtitles to professional softwares, etc. Yes, I admit it might need some regulations to protect the copyright of those digital resource. However, I would not call simply shut down the website as a progress action. Instead, related authority and the big players in this industry are well-advised to sit down together and work out a plan to progress and normalize this business, which however is unthinkable here with the authority’s proliferated bureaucracy. Moreover, the real purpose of this action might be controlling the alleged “illegal” content, oversea TV series and movies notably. So there is no room to compromise for the authority.
What leaves me to do right now is just mourning. Now I would not surprise if someone here is bored to death one day.