Something A-float, a return.

Today, I returned to Mentougou. This time in a van with the other foreign teachers. We did a school promotion in the area then spent some time walking on the lake. This time, left the group and explored a little part that I overlooked last week...It was a beautiful and colorful day, but I am giving full-on color a bit of a rest. In these photos I fiddled with the focal black & white.





The bridge atop the man-made barrier between the reservoir and a system of levees they seem to be carving out.



Construction workers tent at the front the levee digging site.





One of the things I love best is trying to talk to people. This man was photo cooperative after I attempted to ask him how thick the ice was. He said it was "walking okay thick".



But what's a float? Tonight, using an inexpensive voice recorder that I excitedly purchased today, I have made a special treat for special people. A musical treat of street proportions for Qun Jie, Spring Festival.

Da De

It took three days, but I completely overhauled my computer after many viruses ate a little of it. Redone and with sumptuous results. Runs like its a computer from the Future. So I'm slapping up the Big Pictures with ease. Wait for them to load. I think they are nice. I've reposted all the dud posts. Everything is happy.

Happy,
Hannah

Market for all things Delightful

Next Month begins the New Year of the Pig. Red lucky things, many pigs, abound. Spring Festival and Chinese New Year are on par with, if not exceeding, the excitingness of Western Christmas.






































Aquarium graveyard.





(note: Obviously these are way bigger than usual, which is good. I am having to forego the usual blogger photo process, which is slow anyway. I am using limited amount of space on googlepages. So for the mean time I can post until I run dry. Thank you everyone for your comments about my technical issues. I really appreciate knowing what you see and that you are checking up on this blog now and again because I care to make it nice!)

why.

I just spent the last several hours waiting patiently for all these to upload and re-posting. All the while seeming them up on the webpage. Thinking that things were fixed now. But mere minutes later all these new photos are invisible!!! GOD! This is a cruel joke. I am sooo fed up with this! I don't really know who is reading this, but could someone comment or not whether you can see anything in you country. Please. Else I'm just gonna give up despite all the pleasure it gives me to keep this blog.


why why why.

A Ride with Frozen Feet.

As it usually happens I don't work on the abysmal days. But that didn't stop me from taking long bike ride today. I made a self-promise to ride nearly everyday for the next month to train for March and April when I go south to Yunnan. On these grey bitter days the sun is like a bare incandescent bulb at noon and by 5pm turns into a pronounced orange egg yolk on the horizon. I started down a blocked road near the freeway and came across a huge mined-out pit. Running along side was an empty, but manicured street which led to an active gravel mine. Met a nice pair of kite flying friends, one who's a watchman in a prickley forest atop the pit, where the new trees stand like hairs on a cold arm. Stood with some locals and watched the miners working sluggishly, seeming to just pick boulders with cranes only to drop them again. Maybe this is how gravel is made? I turned and biked 20 miles in the opposite direction to a place no one I know has seemed to have been before. A dammed river-lake between the mountains called, Mentougou. It's kind of my favorite place to go, so I rode and rode with frozen feet, very worrisomely frozen. Going down a long hill I passed 5 teenage boys who had the worst facial deformities I have ever seen or could imagine. One shouldn't describe them even its worse than staring. They were laughing with each other. They all had on nice track suits. I think they lived in an asylum atop the hill. Later, on the same rode I saw a dirty cat still alive impaled on the rusty theft bars of a store front. I rode and rode with numb frozen feet to the lake and was somehow compensated with the sight of the fishermen I knew would be there. Despite the grimness of the day it was odd and beautiful.

Having the worst time internet-wise

Cry face. I enjoy this blog thing but its just not working here in this country, no more. As one can see the last few posts are kind of ghost posts (consider it coined). I got a pseudo-hacked-crash-happy computer plus Taiwan internet-deep-sea pipes aren't fixed yet (earthquake caused major damage, did anyone hear about this in the West? Its an on going major problem. Probably haven't heard). "Myspace" is the only thing that seems to be friendly but kinda barely. Hoping for SYSTEMS-GO soon. i have many new photos from photo-walks. And it amuses me to stori-a-graph them on this here blog. I go unamused in night house. Seek amusement elsewhere suppose. Over.

The Gamblers in the Stairwell to the Gym

Stick Food

One of the handy things about learning a langauge by immersion is that you pick up only the words that you want/need to know. For instance, this delight is squid on a stick (you yu chaun'r). After asking what it was over and over again while ordering one eventually, the name stuck. There are many varieties of former sea creatures/meat creatures on sticks. But squid is the sloppiest due to the chewy texture of its tentacles and the added irritation of all the chinese BBQ sauce slathered on it (if its a quality vendor that is). Furthermore, with the tendency for the sauce to pool inside the small suckerfeet the process of retracting the meat from the sharp sticks can get potentially ruinous, as far as faces are concerned. Most food stalls selling you yu chaun'r are easily identified by the crowds of bent over individuals trying to enjoy the food despite the actual experience of eating it.

Construction with Wooden Scaffolds