Category Archives: Pollution

Day 484 In Beijing: Trip to Tianjin, Part 1.

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Another shot of the South Beijing Railway Station.

Another shot of the South Beijing Railway Station.

After spending a week back at work, the Golden Week holidays arrived and we decided to head down to Tianjin to see our dear friend, Nuria.

We bought the train tickets about 4 days ago and love that we can buy tickets, on a High Speed Train, so easily and so cheaply, whenever we want.

The tickets cost us about 60RMB each, or about 10 USD to go 150 kilometers on the fastest possible train in China.

That is really pretty cool.

The only problem with traveling in China during the October Golden Week Holiday is that about 150,000,000 of my closest friends are also traveling at that time.

Just for information’s sake, Golden Week is the world’s largest human migration.

And it happens every single year.

The actual number may be more around 200,000,000 but whose counting 50,000,000 people?

The trip was actually amazingly easy and we have to guess that most of the Chinese nationals actually traveled the night before and were already heading to their destinations.

It was still pretty busy, and there were lots of people, but it wasn’t the insane crowding and pushing we’ve seen on movies and videos.

 

 

The train ride down was great and incredibly smooth.

After we got off the train we found our friend Nuria and hopped on the subway.

We then grabbed a cab to her apartment and had a delicious lunch that she made based on Spanish dishes that mixed in some yummy Chinese foods also.

As we’ve learned, you make do, and make your own recipes, when living in China since so much of what we are used to isn’t available.

It is one of the joys of being an expatriate because you learn to make new things and live outside the box.

We also had a Chinese sparkling wine with lunch and were surprised at how it tasted.  It was a bit too sweet but, overall, was drinkable and an excellent value at 28RMB (about $5 USD).  One can’t argue with that when having a fun meal with a dear friend.

 

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Day 479 In Beijing: The Xian Wall, Part 1.

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The gang with our bikes. From left: Jill, Phil, me, Eleni and Annie.

The gang with our bikes. From left: Jill, Phil, me, Eleni and Annie.

Jill and I have been to the Great Wall of China two different times.

We are actually going again in about one week.

We will be going with a bunch of students from Eseune Business School and our dear friend, Nuria.

I actually met Nuria when I first moved here and went salsa dancing.

She’s from Bilbao, Spain, and a wonderful person.

She works at the school and invited us to come along with the new students and stay at a farm house.

We immediately accepted and thought this would be a wonderful way to spend the Autumn Holiday in China.

However, since we were still in Xian, at the conference, we decided to check out the Xian Wall.

Now, it isn’t as long as the Great Wall, obviously, and is actually inside the city itself.

It runs about 16 kilometers long and is about 50 feet high.  It is also formed in the shape of a rectangle that protected much of the old city.

Most of the houses and businesses inside it are the “old style” but they are being torn down, like so much of China, to build new and “civilized”housing which is not very interesting or exciting.

This is the way of progress, I guess, and it makes us quite sad.

We ended up going with a bunch of friends, from many different countries, and riding bikes on top of the wall.

We had been told that it had rained for 2 weeks straight in Xian, and the skies had been hidden by “fog” that whole time.  A word to the wise, when a Chinese National says “fog” they mean smog but they don’t want to admit it.  Trust me, it is smog.

Tonight was absolutely gorgeous and we were able to take a lot of fantastic pictures with our new friends.

Phil is the tall guy and he is from Austria, Eleni is blond and from New Zealand, Annie is a brunette and from Sweden.

 

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Day 441 In Beijing: The Spice Bazaar.

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Love this shot.

A man and his store.

Jill and I went through the spice bazaar on the way to see the other sites around Istanbul.

It was a quick trip, and this isn’t the huge bazaar that Istanbul is famous for, but it is very cute.

There are lots of spices, and other things, that are hanging on the walls and put out in front of stalls.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in this one because we wanted to get a move on and get situated in regards to our plans for the next week of what we wanted to see, when we wanted to see it, and how long everything would take.

We aren’t big time planners but we like to make sure we can get done what we want to get done and not miss out on things because we don’t set our plans accordingly.

We also knew we’d be back by the spice bazaar, a few different times, because our subway stop drops us so close to it and we could easily go through it.

It was probably about 2 football fields long and wide and full of all kinds of yummy looking spices.

It also had a lot of soaps that were made with spices in them and Jill said they smelled wonderfully.

That is another thing that hit us immediately: the smell of the city is so different from Beijing.

It smells clean and fresh.

People from Istanbul may not agree, but compared to Beijing, it smelled like we were in a place much closer to nature and much more clean.

We also didn’t see nearly as much litter and there was almost no graffiti at all.

We actually didn’t really notice this until we went to Athens where there is graffiti everywhere.

It was a shocking difference considering it was only a one hour flight and the two cities are so much alike in many other ways.

 

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Day 435 In Beijing: The Alpha And The Omega.

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The sun sets over Santorini. And over our life changing trip to Turkey and Greece.

 

I really don’t want to write this blog post.

It means that Jill and I have left Turkey and Greece and are headed back to Beijing.

In every way we feel as if we shouldn’t leave.

The friendliness of the people.

The amazing tasting, and healthy, food.

The cleanliness.

The lack of pollution and crushing crowds.

The ease of getting from one place to another.

The ability to quickly learn the basics of two different languages and connect with so many people.

The amount of different cultures intertwined and accepting of each other.

At some point, these countries will be our home.

We both feel like we have finally come home even though we were born in the USA.

I will be posting, over the next month or two, our full travelogue in Turkey and Greece.

There will be many pictures, many stories, and many wonderful experiences.

At this point, however, I am deeply saddened to be leaving and don’t want to even start blogging because it means that it has ended.

The closest I can remember to feeling this way was one time when I was returning from a trip to New York City after seeing my mom‘s art show at a gallery.

I was flying back to San Francisco in a plane loaded with passengers.

I can’t remember every feeling so alone.

I started to cry.

Not because I was sad but because of the amazing humanity, kindness and connection that I had felt on this trip.

It was just after 9/11 and people in New York were so kind and loving that it blew me away.

I wrote 5 pages of notes, on the flight, and still have them in my storage boxes back in the USA.

I’ll post them when I get a chance to find them on a visit home someday.

I know people think New Yorkers are rude, but they aren’t.

They just don’t suffer fools lightly.

If you are lost, and want help, they will be there in a second.  Just don’t stand in the middle of the sidewalk and block everyone else.

Honestly, I respect this and that they have places to be, lives to live, and things to do.

People in Turkey and Greece are the same way.

They help you whenever you need it and constantly amazed me at their laughter, happiness, and joy about life and living it.

This is what being in Turkey and Greece also brought out in Jill and me.

We remembered how to be happy, carefree, and safe.

Most of all, we felt like we fit in.

It was a wonderful feeling and I almost don’t want to see any of it end as we get ready to pack up our belongings and get on a plane flight back to Beijing.

By the time you read this blog post, we will have landed, and been in Beijing for a a few hours.

Give us a little time, and we’ll be fine, but right now, it is hard.

Day 431 in Beijing: Goodbye Drinks!

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Goodbye drinks at Schindlers!

Goodbye drinks at Schindlers!

As you , my faithful readers know, we have a ritual of good bye drinks when we go on a trip.

This actually started because our friend, Thorsten, from Schindler’s restaurant, suggested it.

If you haven’t read my earlier posts, Schindler’s is run by Mr. Schindler.

He has lived in Beijing for somewhere close to 30 years.

His life, like so many expats living in Beijing, is not what most restaurant owners lives usually seem.

He was actually the attaché for the East German Embassy during the Cold War.

He has run the restaurants for most of his time here but more importantly, he actually physically handed over the keys to the attaché for the combined German state when the wall fell and they became a single nation.

He is also a wonderfully jovial man and a heck of a person.  His wife made sure that Jill had a birthday cake for her 40th birthday party 5 days after Jill arrived and we celebrated her coming to Beijing.

Thorsten is the manager of Schindler’s and one of my first friends from my travels to Beijing.

Thorsten always makes sure that we come by and have our farewell drinks and we have a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.

It seems many people leave Beijing and it is a nice way to say goodbye and make sure to connect and show you care.

This was for our upcoming trip to Turkey and Greece and we were very excited and could not wait to get out of Beijing and to some place that had beautiful views and beaches, was less crowded and clean.

We’d had enough of pollution, masses of 25 million people, and cement and skyscrapers for as far as the eye could see.  It was definitely time for a change.

We’d been in Beijing for 7 months straight.

Every expatriate we know has said that they need to leave every 3 months or they start to get depressed, anxious and angry.

We had hit that point a few months ago but weren’t in the place to take off.

We won’t make that mistake again as it affected our emotional and physical health way too much and is advice that needs to be respected going forward.

It is the same thing I’d tell my clients so i might as well pay attention to my own prescription!

Day 416 in Beijing: Installing the Air Conditioning Unit, Part 5

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Testing to see if the air conditioning actually works.

Testing to see if the air conditioning actually works.

After all that craziness, we supposedly had a working air conditioning unit.

Just like in the USA, when someone installs something, you always want to make sure it works right before they leave the apartment.

Well, this is doubly true in China because all of the controls are in Chinese script and we sure as heck can’t read those instructions.

So, we let our landlords check it and then explain it to us.

They seemed to have bought the most simple remote control because this one only has about 5 buttons and we’ve seen some that have over 20.

Yes, over 20 different buttons for a simple air conditioner.

Thankfully, when our landlord pushed the power button, the air conditioning turned on and it works perfectly.

We could not be more thankful and happy to be living where we are and to have the amazing landlords we have at this time.

Also, thanks to the wonderful installation guys and the quick work they did.

Overall, it probably took about 45 minutes to remove and install the air conditioning units.

By the way, it has been hovering around 95-100 degrees a day in the past week in Beijing.

Luckily, Jill and I have been sitting by the beaches in Turkey and will soon be headed to Greece instead of having to deal with the heat and pollution of Beijing.

 

Day 408 in Beijing: Beans. Beans. The Magical Fruit.

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Beans drying with the store owners sitting in the shade.

Beans drying with the store owners sitting in the shade.

Jill and I were walking home and she noticed this rather innovative way to dry beans outside our apartment.

It has been incredibly hot the last week, averaging around 90-100 degrees, and quite sunny.

We have been enjoying it and have been going out and having fun in the beautiful summer weather.

The pollution, after a week of being horrible, has cleared off and allowed for gorgeous weather.

These beans belong to a couple that owns a small restaurant right beside out apartment.

We haven’t eaten there yet but we may just have to try it when we return from our vacation to Turkey and Greece.

By the way, when you read this, we will be about 4 days into our vacation in Turkey and probably having dinner somewhere near the Bosphorus.

The weather there is supposed to be perfect and we are looking forward on posting about our vacation once we get back to China.

Day 406 in Beijing: Bird’s Nest Redux.

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The full moon hovering over the Bird's Nest.

The full moon hovering over the Bird’s Nest.

Jill and I wanted to capture a bit more of the feeling around the Bird’s Nest so we took a little video.

As you can see, and hear, it is never empty or quiet.

This was at about 9 pm, on a weekday, and there were still loads of people around the area.

There is also the Water Cube, where the Olympic events that involved swimming, diving, water polo, and other sports was located and it has now turned into a touristy swimming area with a water slides and other fun things to do.

It is very bright and quiet well lit.

The building behind it is the Dragon IBM building and it has 5 other buildings that “connect” to it so it looks like a huge dragon that goes on for about half a mile.

We are hoping to go back on a more beautiful night, with less pollution, to get some more shots and videos.

 

Day 405 in Beijing: Bird’s Nest At Night.

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This is where the Olympic Torch was located outside the Bird's Nest.

This is where the Olympic Torch was located outside the Bird’s Nest.

Continuing Jill’s and my photo shoot at the Bird’s Nest from a few months ago, I thought I’d post these pictures of the actual structure.

It is quite imposing and very impressive.

The sad part is it isn’t really used for anything at this point.

There was a concert here, in the past year, but that is it.

The concert, by the way, was Justin Timberlake.

I almost bought tickets to see him, since I actually like his music, and think he is really quite funny, and it would have been an amazing blog post if I had gone.

It was basically a great night for photographs, because the moon was full, but by the time we arrived, the pollution was pretty horrendous.

If you look close enough, you can see little dust specks in the photos, and it was hard to breathe.

It is definitely a major problem in Beijing, and much of China, at this point and hopefully it will be taken seriously.

Jill and I only plan to be here for my three year contract so we aren’t that worried about it but if I had kids, or planned to be here for the long haul, it would make my choice a very difficult one.

By the way, since we took these pictures, Jill’s camera has not been working correctly and we are pretty sure it is because of the dust and grime that got into it.

Sadly, we know a lot of professional photographers here in Beijing and they don’t trust anyone to fix their cameras so we are stuck only using my iPhone 4 while we are traveling to Turkey and Greece.

Hopefully the pictures will turn out nice enough and we won’t lose much in memories.

Then again, we plan to live in Turkey or Greece, sometime in the future, and we can take more pictures when we live there!

 

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Day 403 in Beijing: Bird’s Nest At Night.

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Then aquamarine.

The aquamarine tower.

Jill and I decided to venture out to see the Bird’s Nest at night about 2 months ago.

It seemed like a nice day but then the pollution rolled in and it was pretty horrific.

I can’t remember what the air quality level was but I’d guess it was around 250.

In comparison, people in San Francisco would riot if the air quality ever hit above 10.

People in Beijing just deal with it, wear masks, and do what they do.

It isn’t like they are moving out anytime soon so when you make do.

There is a tower that has a few restaurants in it and you are only allowed to go up in the tower if you have reservations.

Well, we didn’t have reservations so we just took some photographs and walked around.

I’m glad to say that we got some beautiful shots.

I’m sad to say that the pollution, and particles in the air, have caused Jill’s very nice camera to go nuts and there isn’t anyone we really trust to fix it here.

Therefore, we probably won’t be taking with us on our trip to Turkey and Greece a few days from now and will try to shoot the vacation only with my iPhone 4.

Not the best choice but better than having a camera that doesn’t work.

The next few days will just be posts about the gorgeous pictures we took and walking around the Olympic Stadium area.

 

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