Category Archives: Architecture

Day 395 in Beijing: Grandson Walking His Grandmother.

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Grandmother and grandson enjoying their night walk.

Grandmother and grandson enjoying their night walk.

Jill and I were talking a break from helping out our buddies at Jing A Brewing Company and just enjoying the afternoon at Galaxy SOHO.

As we relaxed, and watched people walk by, we saw this cute pair.

The guy looks sort of like a tough guy with his baseball cap, headphones, and dressed all in black but, in reality, he was just a sweetheart taking his grandmother for her evening walk.

I couldn’t resist taking a video of them because they seemed so happy, content and to truly be enjoying each other’s company.

I can’t even imagine what China was like when she was young and the changes it, and she, have gone through.

It would be a history lesson just to talk to her and walk with her.

I’m guessing that is exactly what he is experiencing at this moment.

I love that he is holding her arm to keep her steady as she points things out on their walk together.

If you notice, he is wearing his headphones, so maybe he isn’t listening to her at all.

I choose to think he is listening to her and they are enjoying each other’s company.

 

Day 394 in Beijing: Corgi Cuteness!

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Too much corgi cuteness!

Too much corgi cuteness!

About a month ago, Jill and I were at the Beijing Craft Brew Festival.

We were volunteering for our friends that own Jing A Brewing Company and pouring beer for them.

I love pouring beer for them because they are such great people and it is so much fun to see everyone so happy, drinking great beer, and enjoying their day.

Well, Jill and I took a break and walked around the SOHO Galaxy building where the festival was located.

It was twilight and a perfect day.

As is usual in China, people were doing their evening walks and exercising.

This had to be one of the cutest, and sweetest, corgis we’ve seen around Beijing.

Strangely enough, most the dogs here almost never come up to us to be petted and most seem almost indifferent to anyone but their master.

This corgi was different and just wanted lots of love and hugs.

My ex-father in law, Peter Steager, has a bunch of corgis and I know he loves them just as much as they love him.

They are magical dogs.

By the way, I have about 5 days worth of videos from the next 30 minutes of the day and I thought about putting all of these videos into one post, but decided against it, since they are all special in their own way and so joyful.

I hope you enjoy the next few days of cute dogs, happy people, and happy posts!

 

 

Day 392 in Beijing: Workers And Their Rides.

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Sittin' and waitin'.

Sittin’ and waitin’.

There is a new hotel or apartment complex being built a few blocks from our apartment.

We walk by it when we go for our daily walks by the Liangma canal.

It is going to be huge and will have a great view of the canal.

The most interesting thing to us, though, is not the building that is being built but the people building it.

They work long days and then wait by the side of the road for their buses to pick them up.

We are guessing they are all living together, crammed into small apartments, and saving money to go back to their hometowns after finishing this project.

It seems like many of the Chinese we meet here are working for a few years in Beijing, living simply and saving money, and then going back to where they are from and where their families still reside.

Beijing seems to be a pretty tough place for many people to afford and they like the quiet and calmness of their smaller towns back home.

The workers on the bus go 'round and 'round. 'round and 'round.

The workers on the bus go ’round and ’round. ’round and ’round.

There are usually about 200-300 men sitting here.  There are also 4-5 women sitting most days.

They all seem in very good moods and quiet happy.

They smile a lot and they laugh a lot.

It is nice to walk by, say hi, and continue on our way as they get ready to continue on theirs.

Our two very different paths meeting and then diverging.

Day 391 in Beijing: Bridge to Wu-Mei.

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The bridge fully covered for protection.

The bridge fully covered for protection.

Jill and I moved out of our new apartment but I just came across these pictures.

I know they are from a month ago but they are pretty cool and give a good view of life in Beijing and how things are done here.

This is the bridge from one side of the road to the other and it ends up linking into the Wu-Mei.

The Wu-Mei is a smaller version of Wal-Mart (no coincidence on the names sounding similar) and it is fairly popular with the Chinese nationals.

It was close to us, and the expatriate grocery stores weren’t, so we had to shop here.

Luckily that is no longer true as there were flies in there and lots of meat and fish not being stored in the most hygienic or sanitary fashion.

Just another reason Jill and I are vegetarians here.

I enjoyed watching the men work on the paint and chipping it off.

We went back to that area a few days ago and it is all finished and looks great.

They really did a good job and did it quite quickly.

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Day 383 in Beijing: Wacky Welders.

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Grinding away. Every day of their lives.

Grinding away. Every day of their lives.

Honestly, these guys aren’t welders.

I just like alliteration.

Which is very different from being illiterate.

Yes, my mom’s B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in English Literature and MFA from Harvard just came in handy at my tender age of 45 years old.   I know she’s smiling as she reads this.  🙂

I also did a minor in English Literature when I graduated with my B.A. in psychology and I’m glad I did.

I have to say, I grew up reading Middle English and once read The Decameron by Chaucer in Middle English when i was in 5th grade.

I am fairly sure I was the only kid in Healdsburg, CA, that could read Middle English.

Not sure if I should be proud of that but it is evidence of my childhood being a bit different than most kids I know.

And, for that, I’m grateful.

I also played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, read Tolkien, and lived a bit of a fantasy life in the forest where we were raised about 7 miles out of town.

Healdsburg, at that time, was a tiny town of 5,000 people that tourists didn’t know, or care, about.

It was the perfect town to grow up in and safe beyond belief.

Now I live in a city of 25,000,000 people.

Go figure.

Jill and I were on our usual walk and noticed that the bridge we use to cross our canal was being remodeled.

We stopped, watched in amazement, and then crossed the bridge.

We are constantly blown away by the unsafe working practices and how dangerously so many people live here in Beijing.

I guess when your country changes, in the blink of an eye, some things are not noticed and fixed right away.

I hope, for these guys, there is some type of health insurance or compensation.

I sincerely doubt there is.

Day 382 in Beijing: Church Choir.

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The Church Choir getting ready to sing.

The Church Choir getting ready to sing.

Jill’s friends from back in Nebraska, Kate and Mike, were in Beijing and we decided to meet up with them.

We hadn’t really been in this part of Beijing and got a bit lost trying to find their hotel.

That, in my humble opinion, is one of the joys of being an exptraite.

It is also, depending on where you are, one of the horrors.

Luckily, this was a good experience and nothing bad happened.

We actually ended up seeing something we never would have imagined in the middle of Beijing.

A huge Church with a choir practicing in front of it.

This was a weekend, at night, and so it wasn’t a normal church setting and it seemed all the of the crowd was enjoying it and a bit surprised also.

We ended up watching it for a few minutes and then met up with Jill’s friends after that.

Just another weird moment for us in Beijing.

It is sort of an every day experience at this point and makes it all worthwhile.

 

Day 372 in Beijing: Dancing Lights On The Liangmahu.

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Jill and I were wandering around our new neighborhood and enjoying the sites.

We truly love walking by the canal and just seeing happy people and this animals.

It was a bit late, so there weren’t as many people around, so we just looked at the architecture and enjoyed the quiet.

That is something that we didn’t get a lot of at our old place.

We lived on the ground floor and there was always noise, hustle and bustle, and it wore us down day by day.

Our new apartment is quiet, on the 5th floor, and we live here above the noise and busyness down below.

We are grateful for the change and the peace.

As we walked around the canal, we looked up and notice these green dancing lights on one of the buildings next to ours.

We were transfixed.

And, being that there wasn’t any noise or sound effects, it made it even more magical and surreal.

Day 354 in Beijing: Baidu Boy, Part 2.

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If you are wondering why this, and the past post, are called, “Baidu Boy” is it because a dear friend of mine, Darren Gregory, used to call me, “Google boy” because I would “Google Search” any new information or ideas that came up to see what facts Google had on the topic.

So, I guess, being in Beijing, I should now be called “Baidu Boy.”

The Tech Park was pretty fantastic and we also decided to do a few videos of the it and our travels around there.

These are all from about a 2 hour stretch of time.

A lot of things happen in Beijing and Jill and I are always ready with our cameras.

Never a dull moment.

Hopefully you can see the water dropping down in the fountains in the first video:

This was the volleyball game that was happening when we walked by at lunch:

A bunch of workers getting ready to make a wall out of bricks:

Lastly, a cab driver and another driver yelling at each other in the street.  This happens A LOT in Beijing. Luckily, there was no violence involved and it resolved quickly:

 

 

 

 

Day 353 in Beijing: Baidu Boy, Part 1.

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So cool.

So cool.

Jill and I went back up the health center one more time because we wanted a copy of her report and they couldn’t do it that day.

We really enjoyed the amazing architecture and strange buildings that some of the companies had build in the area so we made sure to bring our camera and walked around before heading towards the health center.

Our favorite is the “Independence Day” type spaceship kind of structure that looms in between two major buildings in the center of the tech park.

It is utterly strange, magical and goofy.

Sort of like so much of what China is doing, and building, each and every day all over this country.

Our other favorites was the Baidu Building.

Baidu is basically the “Google” of China.

It is hugely popular and Google is also quite difficult to use in China, off VPN, because the servers aren’t based here and the government slows down the internet enough that it makes more sense to use Baidu.

That is, if you read Chinese.

Neither Jill nor I do so we are stuck using a very slow Google.

And, a slow Google maps is quite possibly the worst part of it because it is the best way to get around in China and figure out where you want to go, in English, because most the other mapping sites are in Chinese.

Trust me on this, I read and spoke Japanese and it makes Chinese look easy.

There is simply no way I’m going to have the time to spend to learn how to read Chinese let alone speak Mandarin.

I just have too much other things to focus on.

Including this blog, my job and Jill.

 

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Day 343 in Beijing: Random Shots.

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Once in a while, I’ll just take a few neat shots with the camera.

However, there isn’t really a theme or a specific blog that would make sense where to post them.

So, I thought I’d just throw them up here and let you meander through them and see if you like any of them.

Please feel free to comment and share them with others.

That is what this blog is about.

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