The Writer Who Tried to Vanish
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

How Can I Get My … (What people searching google are looking for)
http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=704

The Significant Objects Project
http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=708

How to Avoid Camera Loss
http://www.dailygifblog.com/2009/12/how-to-avoid-camera-loss.html

Haitians to blame: Robertson
http://www.theage.com.au/world/haitians-to-blame-robertson-20100114-ma3i.html

Ekaterina Sedia: On exoticism of language
http://fishmonkey.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-exoticism-of-language.html

Inside Australia’s Cyber Security Operations Centre
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Inside-the-Defence-Signals-Directorate/0,130061744,339300441,00.htm

Chinese Farmer Builds Robot Army
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2008/12/08/chinese-farmer-builds-robot-army-cybernauts-move/

Drake Equation explains lack of aliens, girlfriends
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/13/drake-equation-expla.html

Internet Review of Science Fiction Suspending Publication in 2010.
I enjoyed reading the site and had two articles published there.
http://irosf.com/news-item.qsml?id=220

Paul McAuley on depicting science in fiction
http://unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com/2009/12/sciencefiction.html

Weird Books
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/weird/index.shtml

Japan planned ‘karate ladies’ escort for Thatcher
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8433689.stm

Chinese Man Throws Bicycle at Thieves on Scooter

The BBC’s most read story of 2009.
60-foot penis painted on roof
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7961000/7961224.stm

Allah helps Nigerian man to have 86 wives
“A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them,”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7547148.stm

Why people don’t want to believe in things they don’t think they can change.
The Psychology of Climate Change Denial
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/

Temple of Heaven

Forbidden City

The weather was bad when we went to the Great Wall, so we couldn’t see that much of it.

I also went to a tourist kung fu acrobatics show.  That was fun to watch.

Chinese Trivia of the Day: The Great Wall is simply called the long wall in Chinese.

Have fun,

Aidan.

After Huang Shan, I visited Chengdu in Sichuan Province. On July 22 there was an eclipse in some parts of the world.
I saw a partial eclipse in Turkey and basically there was nothing to see, so I wasn’t holding out too much hope, especially since the skies are so grey in many parts of China.
Chengdu had a total eclipse though. The total eclipse was scheduled for 9:10. At 8:30 there was no difference. Then at about 9:10, the sun appeared from behind the clouds and you could see part of it disappearing. Then it went really dark suddenly, like it was the middle of the night. And in a few minutes it was light again.

Chengdu also has a panda sanctuary. The panda sanctuary was ok, but a bit disappointing compared to some of the photos I’ve seen. The pandas have nice outdoor play areas, but when I was there, all of the pandas were in their small, dark indoor enclosures. It was fun to watch them playing around, but it was too dark to take any good photos. I got to see a 3-day old baby panda, which was cool. It looked like a little mouse (but we weren’t allowed to take photos).

Then I went to Xi’an, one of the old capitals of China. The first Chinese emperor was buried here along with thousands of statues – the terracotta warriors. The terracotta warriors are displayed in three big pits. The main pit has thousands of stone warriors. Each of them have different faces.
The warriors were discovered in March 1974, an auspicious time for revealing world treasures.

Have fun,

Aidan

Chinese Language Factoid of the Day
Panda is not a Chinese word. In Mandarin they’re called da xiong mao (big bear cat).

Disaster Aftermath Action Tips:
If you are dramatically rescued from the scene of a disaster, make sure you mention the name of a popular company in your first words.

There was a big earthquake in Sichuan province last year. One boy was pulled from the rubble after being trapped for 80 hours. His first words were that he wanted a cold Coke. He became a local celebrity known as Coke Boy and Coke have agreed to pay for his university education.

Huang Shan

Stone Monkey Gazing Over a Sea of Clouds (It Wasn't Cloudy When I Was There)

Lots of people on the trail

Enjoying a rest

Huang Shan

Huang Shan

Huang Shan

The Easy Way to Climb the Mountain

How To Make Yourself Very Tired (And Smelly)

Saturday
05:30: Get up and have a shower.  Pack and check out of hostel.
06:15: Take minibus to bus transfer station.
07:30: Take bus to mountain cable car.
08:00: Battle hordes to buy cable car ticket (no one wants to wait in line) only to find out that I’m required to buy mountain park entrance park as well.
Mercilessly trample Chinese tourists underfoot to regain my place in the queue.
08:30: Take cable car up mountain.
09:00: Walk up and down mountain trails for 7 hours.
16:00: Line up for cable car down the mountain.
17:00: Get on cable car.
17:30: Get bus back to transfer station.
18:00: Find out that the minibuses back to city seemed to have stopped running.  Share taxi with other tourists.
19:30: Back in city.  Time to eat.
21:30: Take taxi to railway station.
22:30: Get on cheap-ass night train ($5 for 7 hour trip).  There are no separate seats, just bench seats.  People are getting on and off all night, which makes it hard to get much sleep.

Sunday
06:00: Arrive in Hefei.
06:30: Put luggage in left luggage area and curse woman at the train station who sold me tickets with such bad connecting times.
08:00: Have breakfast and then wander around train station.
Fulfil prophecy of the coming of the white man.  At least I assume that is what I must have done given the amount of people that stared at me.
Since Hefei is not renowned as a tourist city and I didn’t I see any other foreigners in the city, I’m guessing that a white man walking down the streets wearing a t-shirt with Japanese writing on it, is not a common occurence.
All within thirty minutes of wandering around the train station:
Grandmothers pointed me out to their grandchildren, mothers introduced their children to me, several people asked me if I was Japanese, people took photos of me, beggars showed me their wounds, people wanted to practice their English with me, ladies of ill repute invited me to sample their wares, and a gang of pickpockets followed me. (Fortunately I spotted them straight away and they went in search of easier prey.  Then they fled when the police arrived).
Spend rest of the day hanging around the waiting lounge and various restaurants.
22:30: Get on night train.  This is a more expensive train and has separate cabins with beds.

Monday
Still on the train.  Share cabin with Chinese doctor that speaks barely any English.  He is reading a book in Chinese about Rommel (the German World War II general) and is very excited because despite my attempts to convince him otherwise he thinks that I am German.

Tuesday
08:00: Arrive in Chengdu.
08:30: Take taxi to hostel.  Time for a shower!