Follow me to a trip to China

[notabitail]

I have decided again to ramble on this thread, as I am in China again. The posting may not be too frequent. We shall see.

First an update on my flock. We have 7 chickens now as Tina left us forever on June 28th, 2023.

Among the 7 chickens, we have a special need hen named Honey as she went blind a month ago. We were doing a lot of hand feeding, but before I left for China, I was able to put together a nice feeding station and trained her to eat on her own there. I wanted to ease the burden on my husband. However, Honey is kinda picky on what she would eat. She wouldn't eat wet feed for example.

Very interestingly, Honey's health has improved ever since she went blind. She was not doing great but now she is happy and content.

Honey taking her special bath
View attachment 3828777

I almost got 5 of them sunbathing together
View attachment 3828778View attachment 3828779

I departed for China on May 8th. I had two connections, one in JFK, one in Doha.

From JFK to Doha, we had a medical emergency and had to land in Istanbul. This is Istanbul View attachment 3828791

Right before that, I caught some sunrise. Strange looking. View attachment 3828796View attachment 3828798

Arriving in Doha, finally.View attachment 3828799

Doha airport has fancy looking playing ground for kidsView attachment 3828801

I had 6 hour layover in Doha so the temporary landing in Istanbul, which took away 3 hours, did not affect me. I landed in Hangzhou China on May 10th 4:30 pm local time.

I hope your trip goes well. I'm looking forward to reading about it.

 

[LaFleche]

Safe travels @lightm !

Looking forward to hear about all of your adventures.

 

[fuzzi]

I'm watching again, too. I enjoyed your posts for the last trip you took.

 

[Henora]

I'm going to have to catch up on your first trip, it looks really interesting and I'm glad I'm here to share your current trip!

 

[Perris]

I'm on board too! I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about and seeing some photos of your last trip; it was full of interesting and beautiful things. I hope your travels this time are smooth and exciting, and I can't wait to hear all about them!

 

[lightm]

on May 15th, I took the train to Beijing to visit a very good friend of mine.

My friend bought a condo last year. It is a tiny one bedroom around 500 to 600 sqft. It cost her more than 5 million yuan, which is about 770k us dollars . My house in north carolina is much less and has more than 3000 sqft...

She lives in this building

Nearby

Roses are really blooming, in the middle of the roads.

May 16th morning, took the subway to a nearby park

Chaoyang park. A regular, but huge park, not for tourists, more for residents.

I was not too impressed. Parks in my hometown are better.

 

[Perris]

on May 15th, I took the train to Beijing to visit a very good friend of mine.

My friend bought a condo last year. It is a tiny one bedroom around 500 to 600 sqft. It cost her more than 5 million yuan, which is about 770k us dollars . My house in north carolina is much less and has more than 3000 sqft...

She lives in this building View attachment 3833662

NearbyView attachment 3833659

Roses are really blooming, in the middle of the roads.
View attachment 3833660

May 16th morning, took the subway to a nearby park
View attachment 3833658

Chaoyang park. A regular, but huge park, not for tourists, more for residents. View attachment 3833663View attachment 3833657

I was not too impressed. Parks in my hometown are better.

the building looks very nice but that's a awful lot of money for a small space in it.

 

[lightm]

May 17th Friday

We went to an outlet mall in Beijing... My purpose of Beijing trip is to spend some time with my friend, and this is where she wanted to go. I could not care less. It is north of Beijing, close to the Great wall.

On the way. This is sort of the business center of Beijing.

PS: All of China, there are now two kinds of license plates. Blue is regular, and green means EV. The government gives many incentives for purchasing EV. For example, in Beijing, your car cannot be on the road one day per week. This will depend on the last digit of your car. For instance, Fridays, your car cannot be on the road if its license number ends in 4 or 9. However, such a restriction does not apply to EVs.
The government won't admit it, but one major reason China promotes EV is for its own industry. Chinese car manufacture, the gas kind, no matter how hard they try, cannot bridge the technology gap and compete with car manufacture in Europe, US, or Japan. But the technology of making EV is a lot simpler.

The outlet is very similar to the ones I see in the US. This one has lots of fancy brands such as Gucci. My friend is into these (not me), she would spend $2000 on a purse and feel very good because it's discounted. I like to spend about $200 on my bags.

May 18th Saturday
We first had nice Cantonese tea

Then we visited a Japanese bookstore. It seems OK.

Finally we stopped at one of my favorite malls in Beijing: Parkview Greens. It is invested and built by a business person who loves artwork. You can see sculptures and artwork throughout. Some are permanent display, and some are on rotation.

Who doesn't want a pet lion?

I love this one with the "rays" shining on the budhha.

 

[Perris]

that artwork is amazing, especially the rays on the buddha and the guys in hoodies! The malls look very swish.

in Beijing, your car cannot be on the road one day per week. This will depend on the last digit of your car.

I recall they did something like that in Athens in the 1980's, because the traffic or pollution was so bad (can't remember which; think it was the traffic), and Beijing has a pollution problem I believe, so maybe the govt is also motivated to switch to EVs there for that reason?

 

[lightm]

I recall they did something like that in Athens in the 1980's, because the traffic or pollution was so bad (can't remember which; think it was the traffic), and Beijing has a pollution problem I believe, so maybe the govt is also motivated to switch to EVs there for that reason?

The pollution is pretty bad in Beijing, but not too much from car waste anymore. I believe sandstorm is a big reason.

The car restriction is also for limiting the traffic. The traffic in Beijing is pretty bad at all times.

On the same topic, it is near impossible to get your car registered in Beijing. Beijing government only wants to issue a very limited new car registrations every so often so you have to enter a lottery to get a car registration privilege. My friend has entered a car registration lottery for 15+ years and she hasn't gotten one.