From REMCC

04:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

UTC times! Conversion shall be a challenge for you, Gentle Reader.

Back again! Okay, it's been a while. There was complaint, so I'd best do this on a semi-regular basis.

What's happened? Fabulous trip to China (Beijing Cough notwithstanding). That reminds me, I should shoot an e-mail to Faye and find out how her immigration application is going, always good to have new minions on the same continent.

I suppose I should give it a heading

China Solar Eclipse Tour 2009

That's right, the tour wasn't just for enjoyment, education and drinkin' - it was for an Astronomical Event. The longest solar eclipse this century, or somesuch.

We trekked around China for a week in a group of seven - seeing the sights, eating the food (often I was forced to sacrifice myself to save my fellow tourists from the awful, awful food), before meeting up with the main eclipse tour group (and about 20000 other tourists there for the eclipse) in Hang Zhou.

China! I think what struck me most about China was the Chinese. It wasn't like here where you see a few now and again. It wasn't even like Chinatown where there can be groups of up to ten. In China there were dozens of them! Sometimes several dozen at once.

Oh sure, there was the Great Wall, the Terracota Warriors, the massive artificial lakes and construction done in near-prehistory at the bidding of powerful emperors... but

... TO BE CONTINUED!!!

01:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

.. What really struck me was the people. And for that matter their mobile phones - Chengdu seemed to have a whole suburb devoted only to selling mobile phones.

I managed to go stealth and blend in, being immune to tourist nagging (but occasionally seemingly being told in chinese that "that room is for those Old Whiteys, real food is out here" at breakfast. Given that there are something like 30 minority groups it's not surprising that when in China the locals will regard anyone asian lookin' as Chinese, especially in the western hotels.

As to the regular tourist stuff - got up to tower 6 on the section of Beijing Great Wall we went to (Section A, I think). That was a pretty good showing (probably a 700 metre climb, over steep uneven steps) and certainly better than the vast majority of tourists do. Up to tower three it was cram packed full of foreigners, then they started to disappear until by six there was just the occasional fellow climber.

The actual eclipse was cloudy, but at least I hadn't lugged 20Kg of telescope half way around the world for it, so I can't complain too much.

Robmas '09

That's right, there was Robmas - the festival of burnt mallows!

Tara went nuts, everyone brings her presents. Mark got me some dealcoholised wine. Bastard!

House clean. Tara gave me a bottle use ultimatum, so I'm now brewing. More news on that when they explode, killing thousands!