Jun Gong Hotel Quzhou

For ages, people can not understand how this huge stone ends up at the tip of the peak and believe the stone has some kind of magic power - fertility. People will bride the stone by stocking coins in a crack and pat the stone. Poor park ranger has to keep cleaning the coins but not taking the coins. It is a brutal task when it is wet, cold and dark.

... people call them pony tail pine because their leaves/branches only grow one direction. For those pine trees grow at the higher altitude areas, people call them Yellow Mountain Pine.

No matter how the tree grows or leaves are heading, their roots are so strong and firm that make those trees grow more generations to come.

... obviously a deliberate ploy on their part to avoid any chance of humiliation, as not even two tone deaf Germans could butcher a song as badly as Robbie and Nicole. Not that that matters when your a foreigner singing to a Chinese audience. As I've already mentioned, nuances such as being in tune or or actually singing a good song, don't matter here. Celi and Evert realise this and as they lean and gaze into each others eyes while ...

Our first three days were spent in Meichen, approximately 400km SW of Shanghai. This small town is the home of Dr Chen and his parents. Arriving from Dubai in the middle of the night, tired and sleep deprived, we could not have faced a bigger culture shock. The people here live by the sun. When we arose our first morning at 8am we found most local restaurants were no longer serving breakfast ...

... drainpipe jeans, eyeliner and drooping fringes that clog schoolyards and shopping centres in Australia. I suppose that's at least one positive to be drawn from power ballads being the music of choice here. Chinese kids seem to permanently have their shoulders pinned back, chests puffed out and a toothy grin fixed on their face. It's as though some of them live on auto-pilot. They rise at the crack of dawn to start marathon stints in the classroom, then populate the ...

... or in most cases just kid) the Chinese version of fresh air. In the mornings though the place is overrun with the elderly. Quzhou's retirement villages are deserted and every wheel chair, walking frame and pair of denches in town is down by the riverside. The first thing I notice is the music. Old men stting on benches cradle these large chelo like instruments. but unlike a chelo, they're hollow and rather than having that deep haunting sound, these instruments ...

... dikke twee uur. We ontmoeten er de eerste vlamingen sinds twee weken : een vlaams koppel uit Antwerpen die twee weken china doen. Hij was van oorsprong Chinees, maar volledig in Europa opgegroeid en spreekt geen woord Chinees. Grappige situaties geeft dat : alle chinezen begonnen steeds hun uitleg tegen hem te doen, en hij stond met zijn mond vol tanden. Op de terugweg heb ik weer een van de ...

Most of you know that I usually pay more attention to advertising than to the actual show, so it should be no surprise that I have been very interested in the advertising here in Asia. It is so interesting to see how the advertising differs here. It seems that they use the same media we use in America, but a lot more. They project videos onto the walls of the subway stations and skyscrapers, have singers outside of stores ...

Last night I went out to dinner with a a couple other English teachers here in Hangzhou. We went to this fancy Italian restaurant, and it was like stepping into another world. A world I was very familiar with at home, but nothing like I have experienced in Asia. The menu was all in English, the Chinese waitstaff spoke English, and food was absolutely amazing. I honestly felt a little guilty, like I was cheating on my Asian experience ...

... living in his book today. Or at least a small part of it. Those of you who have not read it, go out and get it. It is about an American teaching in the Peace Corp on assignment in China. I will teach at least one more day, and then I had heading further west to Mt. Huangshan. It is the mountain that has inspired many of the Chinese paintings and artwork. To say the least, I am having a better time now that I am out of Shanghai. Just way too many people!