Emily's Escapades » China

Kunming Bird and Flower Market

emily — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:04 +0000

Pleasant Goat is a wildly popular Chinese cartoon.

Bird Cages

emily — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:57 +0000

This guy hand-made some very beautiful bird cages.

Dropping fish from the bridge

emily — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:44 +0000

Supposedly, it is lucky to drop a few goldfish from the top of the bridge into the water below. I don’t think it can be so lucky for the fish as you must drop them from the highest point!

People in Zhujiajiao

emily — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:00:59 +0000

Zhujiajiao Scenery

emily — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:55:55 +0000

Franz and Vivi from Germany couch-surfed with us (well, Jon was in the US) in December. Franz had studied Chinese here for a while, and had been to Zhujiajiao. It’s the closest water town to Shanghai. He wanted Vivi to see it and they invited me along. I hadn’t been to any of the water towns yet.

Getting there and back was a bit of a hassle. On the way, we took a taxi almost the whole way. It took 1 hour and 34 minutes to get there, and cost 178 RMB.

On the way back, we took a taxi to the nearest subway station (She Shan) which took 38 minutes and cost 68 RMB, and then took the subway back into town. I think that the subway also took well over an hour (but only cost 6 RMB.)

Tours online start at about $100 per person, so I guess it was good to do on our own! The only annoyance was that at lunch they tried to keep us from ordering off of the local menu… they wanted us to order all of the expensive stuff (which was the only food translated into English.)

The best job I’ve had

emily — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:19:23 +0000

There is a good reason that I haven’t been posting too much lately – I’ve been giving quite a few Shopping Tours. I think it really is the best job I’ve ever had. (So far anyway!) Everyone has so much fun, and they rave about how good it is and how great Suzy and I are. I certainly never had a job before where people told me daily how much they liked me and what a great job I was doing and how glad they were to have been there with me. Pretty soon I’ll be getting a big head. :-) You can read some reviews of the tour and my and Suzy’s guide skills here.

Arturo and Sophia with me, relaxing with a couple drinks after a tour at Taikang Lu.

Dangling Feet

emily — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:35 +0000

The other day I was talking to my friend Dan, when he told me that someone was dangling outside of his window and it was bit creepy.

Many of the buildings in Shanghai are getting a face-lift before the World Expo next year. This guy is putting a light coat of cement over all of the small (formerly) white tiles that are the buildings facade. Next it will be painted and the cheap, ugly tile is gone.

These guys must be fearless. They dangle from the side of a building (this is 24 stories up), just sitting on a board that is attached by a rope to something up top. No safety harnesses. (He is wearing a helmet, though I’m not sure how effective that would be this high up.)

A bamboo ladder, which they set on a lower roof level to get on the very top of the building. No roof access, apparently?

Fashion around West Lake

emily — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Here we have a classic summer look. It’s hot, so wear shorts and roll up your t-shirt for maximum air flow. You need to look stylish though, so wear your black dress shoes with white socks.

This white poodle had a fluorescent orange tail and ears. Poor little guy doesn’t even know he looks like a traffic cone.

During the summer, many dogs are shaved like lions (to keep cool, I suppose.) They leave the head furry so that it looks like a lion’s mane!

Things locals do around West Lake…

emily — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

… feed the swans (Does her t-shirt mean that her fashion is the latest fashion in history?)

… practice tai qi

… sleep (why would you get up at 6 AM to go sleep by the lake?)

… jog BACKWARDS around the lake (apparently it improves balance)

… stretch

Temple in Hangzhou

emily — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

(photo by Jon)

(photo by Jon)
Lots of people waving burning incense all around. Very safe.

Why do people have to touch everything? We all know that the oils from our skin ruins old things. So, they’ve put up a fence to stop people from touching the very old carvings of Buddha. This doesn’t stop them though… they just use it to stand on to lean over and touch him!

Too many people!!! Everyone seems to need to get a photo in front of everything, so people are just constantly standing everywhere.