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Published: August 31st 2009
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view from apartment
hardly a view but the strange way that they will toss anything on to the poured concrete roofs Some relative slack today so I am going to focus on what I have seen for living in China so far. I gather that most everything is condominium and that renters can rent from the owners and many will purchase condos and rent them as investments. I think this is historical because during many years of communist rules, there were few investment opportunities but as far as I can tell, communism doesn't exist in China any more. The highways are littered with billboards advertising so many different things (of all of the things that they had to copy from America, why did they have to copy this one?). Banks compete with each other and each bank seems to either represent a province or region or an employee group. I think the airlines now compete with each other where they used to be all the same company. There is a large middle class that are buying the new, expensive apartments and lavishly furnishing them with wood floors, marble, stone, door and plumbing hardware seemingly on a par with anything you can find in America. In Chengdu for example, I saw a Kohler store.
I did not feel comfortable shooting pictures in
looking down the street
more like an alley than a street but it is a street in China the family house in Chengdu but it was clearly state of the art in China in the early 1980's with a rich off-white tile throughout the house. They had a floor to ceiling sterilizer cabinet like I pictured earlier in the blog and a built-in 4 burner gas range but like every other Chinese house I have seen, no oven. Everyone has a microwave. They also have air conditioning everywhere in Chengdu, Shaungliu and Beijing but I gather that since Qinhuangdao is a city on the Pacific coast, there is little need and they seem to do without. The 18th floor apartment I saw in Chengdu was only 5 years old and was beautiful and I contemplated asking if I could take pictures but it seemed to me that they really hadn't cleaned well and I didn't want to embarrass them so I just kept the camera in my bag. I should have taken pictures in the bathroom but I didn't bring the camera with me.
So I have taken some pictures in her second uncle's apartment and being divorced and an alcoholic, is not the cleanest or nicest place. Of course Lisa's mother and grandmother immediately set to
construction on the other side
6 AM start every day including Sunday. No air conditioning so window was wide open and noise woke me from much needed sleep cleaning as soon as they showed up. By comparison, her grandmother's apartment is pretty new with very nice wood laminate floors, ultra modern kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. But still no oven and none of the apartments that I have seen in Qinhuangdao (3) have a sterilizer.
I am in shock at how much construction is happening in Qinhuangdao. There are cranes everywhere. I would presume that most of them are for high rise residential units. Like Shaungliu, there are huge sections on the main drag currently under redevelopment and there was about 4 blocks that each building was clearly marked for demolition. There is little interest in suburban sprawl and instead, they are tearing down old, low density buildings for newer high density construction and this keeps everyone in the core of the city (perhaps Qinhuangdao is considered a town and not a city).
Qinhaungdao is not a tourist area. I can tell this easily because like Shaungiu, many people are staring at me trying to figure out where I am from and why I am there. I went out in the early morning and found a marketplace nearby and bought some fruit and cigarettes which wasn't that
here's why I can't sleep
half inch foam pad on hard board is the bed. It sucks the life out of me easy to do since I forgot to bring my Chinese cheat sheet with phrases and numbers. To get there, I had to cross a very busy street which is a very dangerous thing to do on foot in China because no car or bicycle or motorbike will cede you an inch. Thankfully, I did this at 7:00 in the morning before the heavy traffic because mid-day, this street seemed uncrossable on foot.
Today we ventured to Bedaihe which is very interesting from a tourist standpoint because once again, everything you believed about China would be shattered here. Originally developed by the communist party for their annual summer getaway because Beijing was hot and Bedaihe is on the Pacific Ocean and much cooler. Since the most influential party members were in Bedaihe each summer, other people, primarily the Russians would also come to try to gain influence. Surprisingly there is Russian signage as well as English and of course Chinese. I gather there are quite a few Russians and perhaps a fair amount of Australians in Bedaihe, either part time or full time. Clearly foreigners are very common in Bedaihe and no one gives you a second thought or a
view of a bedroom
this is probably the least improved place I have been on the trip but it shows some things about China second look.
Given the large numbers of communist party members in Bedaihe, there is also a large number of police. They are everywhere. On foot in the streets, on motorcycles and in marked police cars. In addition, as we were strolling slowly through the sidewalk shops near the beach area, about 200 Chinese army marched through in step and in cadence. I am constantly worrying about where we parked because we parked in what appeared to be an area for real estate sales in the area.
As we drove through Bedaihe, there were entirely modern, huge single family homes that had to cost a small fortune to purchase and Lisa agreed that we probably did not have a handle on how much they could possibly sell for. I think this is where the majority of these black imported cars that I saw on the highway went because when we were walking down the street, it seemed to be a never ending stream of imported cars, predominantly black.
The beach had a very large number of people considering the high winds and high waves and the danger signs warning people about swimming in the current conditions. I was
surprised at the warmth of the Pacific Ocean here because my knowledge of the Pacific is from California where it has always been much colder. The beach pictures I included were from a mostly unused beach where we stopped earlier.
We returned back to Qinhuangdao where Lisa's mother was making a seafood dinner but she had trouble getting shrimp so we went to the market for the third time this day but I brought my camera this time. Once again, I find it extremely annoying that despite the narrow path between the booths on both sides, many people are on bicycles or motorbikes which means you have to be careful where you walk and extremely careful where you stop if you want to look or buy something. Some of the vendors had fairly elaborate pumping systems to pump water and oxygen into their shallow tanks for the live crabs and shrimp/prawns. Lisa picked up a kilo of the largest prawns we could buy (2.2 pounds) and they cost us 25 yuan (about 4 dollars). The other vendor had smaller shrimp and a kilo was only 10 yuan (less than $ 1.50) but they were smaller. These things are quite
bathroom
every residential bathroom I have seen in China is a multipurpose, floor drain and you shower where you toilet, which sort of makes it easy to clean the toilet. See shower hoses on right side frisky when still alive. The crabs are even more interesting as they continually try to make a run for the hills when a new batch is dumped and some of them manage to get over the top of the containing box.
Dinner is incredibly good and I am sure that her mother has gone over the top for my benefit as we have tiny clams in an extremely hot sauce, black mussels rather plain but there is a Sichuan dipping sauce on the table, no doubt using the red Sichuan peppers we brought to her from Chengdu, some other shells that I didn't recognize as either mussels or clams and of course the large prawns. Unfortunately for me, the prawns are still in the shell, with head on, and after Lisa teaches me how to remove the shell several times, I am very inept and apparently incapable of removing the shells without losing have the shrimp in the process. I think that the reason shrimp are so expensive in America is that I never have to remove the heads/shells.
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Shelley
non-member comment
You're makng me hungry
The food sounds incredible! It is actually a good thing you walk as much as you do or you would be in trouble. I am amazed by how much of the Chinese culture you have been able to experience. Any typical tourist would never have seen the parts of China you have been welcomed into. The bed would be the hardest (literally) when you get home we may not see you for a week while you catch up on your rest. When Lisa comes here you may have to put plywood under her portion of the mattress so she can sleep. We have enjoyed keeping up with your adventure; it has been a lot of fun. Take care and tell Lisa when she comes to visit here we will entertain her American style. Take care, Shelley