www.flickr.com

Monday, February 28, 2005

Meetings in Kunming

We are getting busy here and it's fun! It all started a Friday morning, when our toilet got stuck in our flat. Good start. We try to arrange it ourselves without any form of success. We finally ask our English-speaking friend P. we got by going often for dinner in her “Mark’s café”. Explaining what we need (what we thought we need) was not so easy, we finally found some materials but it didn’t have any effect. We finally had to call a guy whose job is to repair toilets. Our friend P. called him and introduced us to a teacher from the university who could speak English and help us with the guy in our apartment. Very nice guy.
Then we went out: we wanted to try the Friday night parties at the “speakeasy bar”. It was first difficult to get part of the crowd of Chinese and western young people. A. was pretty good at talking to people, asking them for advice. I was not in the mood. After a few drinks, D. went dancing and I went along. We had a lot of fun. Of course we found some familiar faces... Oh yeah, that’s because we began to go to the “French café”, a place where many foreigners go.
The next day, we met Dan and Tim. Dan has a blog (called suitcasing.com) and got recently a flickr.com account. I had him as a contact in flickr as he was in Kunming and that’s how it started. It was really cool.
At night, we had our meal at the “Mark café” which is not daily but is becoming a regular event. Our friend P. introduced us to a 25-year-old Chinese girl who is an English teacher and her friend. We had a little talk and agreed that she would show us shop (where A. and D. would find there size). At 10 am, we headed for the shops (in the French café neighbourhood) with her and another friend speaking good English. We had lunch at the “lake view restaurants” (“view on the green lake”). At night, we celebrated the friend birthday at the Mark’s café… another big meal. We’ll certainly exchange language course (looks like we could help in French).
After this hard day, we came back to the apartment to call our teacher for our project: we won the right to have a meeting the next day at 8:30 am. And a surprise visit of my teacher who explained me in more details the project... So today we went to the university for the first time and met the people. We will have a meeting Wednesday with the big boss. It's quite exciting but we have to be patient...
Tonight, as I was alone for dinner, I went to the Mark’s café and I did well ‘cause I got introduced again to a new person... I could go on and on like that. Once it started, you can stop it.
We have a plan to go to “the hump” on Friday to see a punk concert (?) and it look like I could get music band opportunities...

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing-Erik Izraelewicz : quand la Chine s'éveille

DÉBAT L'ancien président de la République et le journaliste économique croisent leurs regards sur le dynamisme retrouvé de l'empire du Milieu V. G. E. – La Chine, avec tout ce qu'elle nous réserve, ne peut être comprise à la seule lumière d'un appareil statistique. Ce pays nous apporte d'abord l'expérience d'une civilisation alternative à la nôtre : voici une histoire et une civilisation totalement distinctes des nôtres. Il est frappant de constater que cette civilisation devenue, à partir du Ve siècle de notre ère, la principale du monde, n'a entretenu qu'une communication très ténue avec l'Occident. La mentalité chinoise demeure profondément imprégnée du sentiment de l'ancienneté de sa tradition et par la certitude d'avoir atteint, dans l'histoire, un degré inégalé de civilisation. A la fin du XVIIIe siècle, les Chinois étaient aussi développés et civilisés que nous. Les données fondamentales du rapport au monde entretenu par la Chine n'ont pas été modifiées : étrangère à toute forme d'impérialisme, la Chine n'aspire aucunement à la conquête territoriale de la planète ; d'ailleurs, à l'instar des Américains, les Chinois ne se sentent pas intéressés par le reste du monde. Ils possèdent en outre une métaphysique radicalement différente de celle qui imprègne les mentalités occidentales. Il est probable que le poids grandissant des ingénieurs, des spécialistes, des commerçants, des financiers... suscite, en Chine même, comme partout ailleurs, une compétition accrue pour le partage du pouvoir interne. Mais il est impossible aujourd'hui pour les Occidentaux d'en évaluer les conséquences pour l'ensemble de la planète. Nous ne devons pas «penser la Chine» avec nos seuls critères occidentaux.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Pictures

My pictures
Antoine's pictures
Delphine's pictures
(temporary links for Antoine and Delphine?)

Low cost

Mon journal de ChineUne bonne nouvelle pour les voyageurs en Chine : les compagnies aériennes "low cost" sont sur le point de faire leur apparition dans le pays. Pour ceux qui voyagent à petits budgets, ça changera des trois ou quatre jours de train, encore que ceux-ci peuvent avoir leur charme...
"Okay Airways", la première compagnie aérienne privée chinoise "low cost", devrait faire son premier vol début mars, à partir de sa base à l'aéroport de Tianjin. On ignore encore quelles destinations elle va desservir, et surtout jusqu'où ira le "low cost". Mais c'est un début et on peut espérer des tarifs moins prohibitifs que les actuels tarifs des vols intérieurs chinois. Deux autres compagnies seraient également sur le point d'être lancées selon le même principe.
En fait, la Chine a observé le démarrage plutôt réussi des premières compagnies low-cost d'Asie, en particulier Air Asia, basée à Kuala Lumpur, et qui a déposé des demandes d'autorisation de servir la Chine. Air Asia (qui vient de passer commande de 40 Airbus!) offre déjà un Bangkok-Macao pour ... 20$ l'aller simple! Et se propose de faire un Bangkok-Kunming pour le même prix. Avant d'ouvrir ses portes aux autres compagnies, comme d'habitude, la Chine se met en position d'offir une concurrence interne. Si ça fait vraiment baisser les prix, on ne pourra que s'en féliciter.

bamboo temple


bamboo temple
Originally uploaded by songo155.

we went to the bamboo temple today and had a great time there. it was a really zen atmosphere, beautifull weather, little wind, not many people.... and a great car driver, very nice.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Tourists trapped by snow rescued in Yunnan

KUNMING, Feb. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- All 41 tourists, who were stranded after a blizzard on a highway in the Tibet Autonomous Prefecture of Deqen, southwest China's Yunnan Province, were rescued Saturday.

According to the sources, the tourists of six different tour groups, from Guangdong, Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai Municipality, were touring Lijiang, a city in Yunnan Province, during the Spring Festival holiday season.

Our Building


Our Building
Originally uploaded by songo155.

That's right there! fifth floor! it seems there is a guard at the entrance of the block.... but still, bikes get stolen. i'll know it now.

Little girl looking at the lake


Little girl looking at the lake
Originally uploaded by songo155.

Instead of going to shilin on friday (we missed the train), we went to Kunming lake park.

Shilin

Today is sunday... let's have a break.
We went to shilin yesterday: the "stone forest" situated 100 km from kunming.
We took the train in the morning. did i mention we missed the train the day before? we arrived at 10:50 for a train at 10:40 : that doesn't work, even in china... we made 2 fatal mistakes: we leave from our appartment 10 minutes late, and we missed a bus stop.
anyway, this time we arrived at 10:00. everybody is already here and queuing for the train! the doors open shortly after we arrived: everyone rushes to the tracks to get on board. it's weird cause they do have numeroted seats. we don't cause the day before we change our tickets (we didn't pay again, that was cool!)
we do find seats but of course we get kicked out... we finaly stand next to the guard office (one in every "car") and the kaishui(hot water) tap. we then went to the restaurant car where we ordered an early lunch. (less than 2 hours, 19 kuai)
Shilin was nice place to walk around. we met an english teacher in china travelling around with a chinese guy, and we visited shilin together (after a late lunch). it was a really nice tour. we came back by bus at 17:00 (there are no train back! about 2 hours by the normal way, 20 kuai).
My bike, that was parked in front of our building has disapeared, already. :-(

Friday, February 18, 2005

1 week

It's been one week since we arrived in Kunming. I now have a better global view of the city. And I now have bike: last night, I went to the central station from our appartment: I crossed the city. It was sunset then so on my way back I had a chance to see Kunming by night. It was, as expected, luminous!
On Thursday, we had a nice tour from the golden temple to the “expo 99” park (from the horticultural international meeting in Kunming, 1999). It wasn’t planned to visit the expo ‘cause Y. told us it was expensive for what it was, but it was nice anyway. We actually took the cable car to try to leave from the very noisy, dirty, crowdy hill where you can visit (but not really enjoy) all the tourist attractions put under the name “golden temple”... this site is just above the expo park. But actually, if you take the cable car, you’ve got to pay for tickets to the expo that you need to cross to get out.
Today, we went to the park next to the lake of Kunming. There were fewer people than at the temple so it was really more pleasant! We don’t really know how much people we can expect in such places because of the holiday. The train station of Kunming is amazing: so many people waiting. The station looks really new but already too small! But then again it’s maybe because of the holiday.
I got ticket Wednesday for Shilin (stone forest) on Friday but I forgot to take return tickets. Actually it seems that return tickets doesn’t exist. No train from Shilin to Kunming? I was “told” so at the central station... Mei you! I went then (on my old bike) to the camellia hotel. I did right cause they have there a ticket office where they speak English (did I read that in my guide?). Looks like we have to take a bus on the way back. We’ll see tomorrow (Saturday)... Oh yeah: we missed our train this morning (bad time planning...) but we could get the ticket to be valid on the next day: lucky us!

About my bike: I found it myself! Ok, it’s 100 kuai (10 euros), we surely can find cheaper. One day, I went in the street, looking for bikes, and I asked one old woman working in the street (actually she was holding a very small shop to repair bikes with her husband). She understood me (which is already a good thing) and I understood her when she told me to come the next day to pick up the bike (and pay)! After a few days in china, I thought it was cool.
It’s dangerous to ride a bike in the street of Kunming but I think it’s fun (you do have to pay attention to everything)

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Inde-Chine

notre journaliste de libe est revenu en pleine forme d'inde...

Quand a moi, j'ai 2 copines (club des 5 de Malaisie) qui sont en inde en ce moment...
la comparaison inde-chine est interessante:

"Trois semaines à voyager en Inde du sud, Bombay, Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengalore... Impossible de ne pas penser, à chaque instant, à la comparaison avec la Chine. La lecture de la presse indienne y aide : l'Inde a une réelle "obsession chinoise". Tout, dans les journaux indiens, est rapporté à la comparaison avec l'autre géant d'Asie : la course aux ressources énergétiques, la rivalité pour attirer les investissements étrangers, pour faire venir l'argent de la diaspora ou les touristes... Même la mégalopole de Bombay, dans sa course à la modernité, lorgne vers Shanghaï comme modèle plutôt que vers l'ouest.
A chaque fois la presse tire la même conclusion : la Chine a pris plus d'une longueur d'avance sur l'Inde, même si celle-ci met aujourd'hui les bouchées doubles pour rattraper son retard. Même Bollywood, l'industrie du cinéma qui produit beaucoup plus de films par an qu'Hollywood ou les studios chinois, serait en train de produire un film épique à gros budget destiné à obtenir la même reconnaissance ou la même notoriété dans le monde que Tigre et Dragon l'a été pour le cinéma chinois (au sens large car on retrouve dans ce film tout le monde chinois et pas seulement le continent ou Taiwan)."

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Internet

well, as planned, i can't access my website from here. tooooo bad... but i can post this.
There are internet cafe every corner as i said... but this one for example doesn't have usb connection, so no photo today...
We are now trying a lot of restaurant, looking for bikes.... and still discovering the city!

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Kunming central


Kunming central
Originally uploaded by songo155.

View of kunming from the appartment


View of kunming from the appartment
Originally uploaded by songo155.

Arrival in Kunming

Here it is, Kunming. We (I’m with A. and D.) slowly discover the city, exciting moments as we are going to stay almost 5 months here!
Kunming is huge and impressive. As D. said, very surprised, it looks like Las Vegas…
We arrived Friday night and my tutor FZ. was there as planned, despite our plane being a little late (30 min?).
FZ came with a car and a driver from university. He took us at the apartment: as it was the third day after Chinese New Year, there are still a lot of fireworks everywhere. The area where we live and the building is not looking good and to arrive in the dark with all these explosions (some very loud) was funny (for me anyway). But the apartment looks really good. We finally understood today (Saturday) that the apartment was the one used last year by our predecessors: we found the box my friend F. (which were supposed to be mailed by the already “mythic” PG.
FZ is very nice. He answered all our dumbest questions smiling and finally took us to have dinner (he came back when he found a pizza place still open (it was after 10pm). He said he would be away from the city for 4 days, taking some holidays.
Today we went down town to Carrefour, walking (we saw it on the road last night and decide to find it): we could have a tour in the city as well. We did eat at MacDonald but I had a “triangle wrap” or was it “wrapped triangle”, something definitely Chinese ;-)
We bought plenty of things to clean up the apartment: it was like the big spring clean up, we took a taxi back.

Here, you can see the modern-rich next to very old buildings and unclean places. The Chinese are really nice if you ask them anything. It’s just very difficult to deal with them. We can’t wait to improve our Chinese!
For example, impossible to get why the woman (one staff in Carrefour) didn’t want us to buy the red sceau and the blue washing-stick. She did say “bu shi” =“it’s not it” but wasn’t proposing something else….

We have the phone at home. You can find internet café at every corner….
Better go to bed if I wanna catch up with the jetlag: it’s 3am.

Sunday, February 6, 2005

Luna, - SEMTAZONE

Encore une chanson d’amour... Elles sont tellement plus belles quand il y a 2 voix... Je pense que c’est ça qui fait qu’elles me plaisent particulièrement.
Super bon groupe de Macon :
www.stz.biz
Ouvert au souscription pour un 2ieme album à venir sous peu...

SEMTAZONE
Luna,

"Gardons nous bien de l'usure
Celle qui fait que le temps rend moins sûr
Ces beaux, ces doux sentiments
Qui font de nous des amants"


"Gardons nous bien de tout gâcher
De nous passer un dimanche les menottes aux poignets
Je n’ai pas besoin de contrat
Je sais pertinemment que tu ne m’appartiens pas

Laissant libre court à nos bras
De choisir d’autres coeurs en émoi
Et si ce jour doit venir
Promettons seulement de ne pas trop en souffrir

Mais profitons de cet instant
Où nous désirs sont encore brûlants
Allons nous promener sur les dunes
Voir si on peut faire rougir la lune"

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

The Vow - The Skatalites

The Skatalites
allmusic: "Song Reviewby Jo-Ann Greene
Two of the The Skatalites's singers pledge their troths to each other, while the band offer their congratulations on this celebratory single from 1965. The backing has an almost oom-pah Oktoberfest feel, as the entire group join in to emphasize the coursing rhythm, while overhead Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore blows bubbles of trumpet notes into the air. His muted tones add to the joyful mood, while Roland Alphonso's warm solo reminds one of the seriousness of the ceremony.Both Jackie Opel and Doreen Schaeffer give excellent performances within, he ever more passionately asking her to declare her eternal love, she warm and loving in response, and together when they launch into their duet finale, the romance kindles into fiery romance. "


ohhh my darling
d'you promise to be mine alone?
yes my dear
i'll be your very own
will you stay to the end of my life
to you i'll be more than one
do you promise never ever to hurt me?
yes my dear
just you wait and see
will you alwaaaayyys be sincere?
together, our love we will share
and we'll never ever make each other unhappy!!!

Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Backpackers in yunnan

Nathan Hall's Journal: "The travellers here are really predictable because most follow each other's news about an area, and everyone uses the Lonely Planet China Guidebook. You'll see the same travellers over and over again. I think that's one of the coolest things about Southern Asia - the family of backpackers."

Blog De dAVOs

pages perso de Justin Vaisse: "De toutes façons, je trouve cette attraction vers les stars grotesque, c'est du name-dropping de bas étage, une mentalité de midinette ridicule (j'en parlais tout à l'heure à Richard Gere à la table de qui j'étais pendant une heure et demie, à une place de distance, on a échangé des blagues et il m'a dit "you're my man")."

"C'est là que Shimon Peres s'est levé et a commencé à parler d'un ton grave. "Regardez nos retraits d'Egypte et de Jordanie". "We gave back every drop of water. Every piece of land. Settlements didn't kill Oslo. Terror killed Oslo. I was beaten twice at the elections..." "