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Archive for March, 2011

Stone Forest
A forest made of stone. Ever see Return to Oz. I know the Gnome King is lurking around here somewhere.We’re evacuating Yunnan airport as I’m shady about the little travel lady and her whispering cronies behind her. Outside, bright sunshine and a bustle of offloaded human cargo looking for a way out into the city. The queue for taxis is a mile long so we take an offer from a man whom I initially dismissed as a con. We’re ushered on a long hot drive into the city inside a van. A Russian style driver at the wheel and our wheeler and dealer in the passenger seat. Rachel and he are negotiating plans extending now well beyond that of a simple ride to our hotel. By the time we get there we’ve agreed to accept a further trip through his company to the Stone Forest first thing in the morning. Why not? It’s all about going with the flow. Little did I realize just how far the flow goes as by the end of the next day I’m sitting in the dude’s office signing away the entire week’s agenda to the mercy of his organization. 2560.00 yuan later with some signed contract and we’re sent packing for a large tour bus ready to rock on through to Dali that very
Kunming Traffic
Don’t get caught in rush hour. We did. night.

To get the ball rolling on this adventure was somewhat of a debacle. Attempts to book flights to Harbin were met with big negatives from the Great Ghost in the Machine. Eventually I ceded control to my better half and said something to the effect of “Hey, how’s this? You plan the damn thing and I’ll buy the tickets and make the reservations.” The answer that ventured back from the ether was “Yunnan”. Further research revealed it as a province located in the deep south west of China. A supposedly exotic location containing a super-abundance of diverse flora, fauna, scenery and ethnic groups… and warm weather to boot. Great. I’m in. But then the ticket buying shenanigans ensued. But it happened and we got ourselves a flight booked. The faith one must place in the system in this country at times is almost necessarily religious. When you are staring at a ticket which should say Nanjing airport and it looks like some characters that you can’t decipher usefully then you must proceed to throw your hands up. Bingo, it is the ticket. Wonderful, we make it with time enough to coffee down and bathroom up.

You take

Potatso National Park
Wandering like a space man in the snow.a trip to Yunnan thinking that it’s going to be sunny days away from the great freezer that is home. But what happens? Well, you find yourself 4000m above sea level on a snowy mountain top breathing oxygen from a canister and wearing two pairs of socks, taking photos of frozen lakes and listening to an eagle-eyed man confidently guide you in an incomprehensible language as we power along in a bus looking at yaks. Potatso National Park is the name of the place and it is situated in the city with the famous name, Shangri-La. Not to be name dropping or anything but I think it damn cool to have made it to this place… so to speak.

Final night in Yunnan and we’re here at the Wei Long Hotel. A mysterious hotel in the middle of a shady area but standing well up and beyond from it. It’s 4 stars and costs a pretty penny but by now a pretty penny is more than worth it for all the second-rate places we’ve been crashing at over the past week. It’s the details you see… the attention to quality in all things small that really makes a good

Where have all the flowers gone?
A little moment to sigh. It’s been a long hike to get to get this far in Shangri-la. hotel stand apart from an ordinary one. I’m amused by the name of the place as it corresponded with a joke I had made earlier about my Chinese name (which I didn’t really have) but the name Wei Long is now adopted by myself as my given name and my family name is given by my woman as it is her own. So I now have a real Chinese name – Xu Wei Long (pronounced shoe-way-long). By the way you must use tones in the Chinese language there’s 4 plus 1 neutral one. 1st -high and even, 2nd – rising, 3rd – falling and rising, 4th – falling. So my name is Xu2 Wei1 Long2 (2nd, 1st, 2nd). Just to clarify.

From the Wei Long
Pretty lights. Kunming at night.
Another world
It’s nice to be in a comfortable hotel and take pot shots at the scenery with night mode engaged.

Stone Forest
A forest made of stone. Ever see Return to Oz. I know the Gnome King is lurking around here somewhere.We’re evacuating Yunnan airport as I’m shady about the little travel lady and her whispering cronies behind her. Outside, bright sunshine and a bustle of offloaded human cargo looking for a way out into the city. The queue for taxis is a mile long so we take an offer from a man whom I initially dismissed as a con. We’re ushered on a long hot drive into the city inside a van. A Russian style driver at the wheel and our wheeler and dealer in the passenger seat. Rachel and he are negotiating plans extending now well beyond that of a simple ride to our hotel. By the time we get there we’ve agreed to accept a further trip through his company to the Stone Forest first thing in the morning. Why not? It’s all about going with the flow. Little did I realize just how far the flow goes as by the end of the next day I’m sitting in the dude’s office signing away the entire week’s agenda to the mercy of his organization. 2560.00 yuan later with some signed contract and we’re sent packing for a large tour bus ready to rock on through to Dali that very
Kunming Traffic
Don’t get caught in rush hour. We did. night.

To get the ball rolling on this adventure was somewhat of a debacle. Attempts to book flights to Harbin were met with big negatives from the Great Ghost in the Machine. Eventually I ceded control to my better half and said something to the effect of “Hey, how’s this? You plan the damn thing and I’ll buy the tickets and make the reservations.” The answer that ventured back from the ether was “Yunnan”. Further research revealed it as a province located in the deep south west of China. A supposedly exotic location containing a super-abundance of diverse flora, fauna, scenery and ethnic groups… and warm weather to boot. Great. I’m in. But then the ticket buying shenanigans ensued. But it happened and we got ourselves a flight booked. The faith one must place in the system in this country at times is almost necessarily religious. When you are staring at a ticket which should say Nanjing airport and it looks like some characters that you can’t decipher usefully then you must proceed to throw your hands up. Bingo, it is the ticket. Wonderful, we make it with time enough to coffee down and bathroom up.

You take

Potatso National Park
Wandering like a space man in the snow.a trip to Yunnan thinking that it’s going to be sunny days away from the great freezer that is home. But what happens? Well, you find yourself 4000m above sea level on a snowy mountain top breathing oxygen from a canister and wearing two pairs of socks, taking photos of frozen lakes and listening to an eagle-eyed man confidently guide you in an incomprehensible language as we power along in a bus looking at yaks. Potatso National Park is the name of the place and it is situated in the city with the famous name, Shangri-La. Not to be name dropping or anything but I think it damn cool to have made it to this place… so to speak.

Final night in Yunnan and we’re here at the Wei Long Hotel. A mysterious hotel in the middle of a shady area but standing well up and beyond from it. It’s 4 stars and costs a pretty penny but by now a pretty penny is more than worth it for all the second-rate places we’ve been crashing at over the past week. It’s the details you see… the attention to quality in all things small that really makes a good

Where have all the flowers gone?
A little moment to sigh. It’s been a long hike to get to get this far in Shangri-la. hotel stand apart from an ordinary one. I’m amused by the name of the place as it corresponded with a joke I had made earlier about my Chinese name (which I didn’t really have) but the name Wei Long is now adopted by myself as my given name and my family name is given by my woman as it is her own. So I now have a real Chinese name – Xu Wei Long (pronounced shoe-way-long). By the way you must use tones in the Chinese language there’s 4 plus 1 neutral one. 1st -high and even, 2nd – rising, 3rd – falling and rising, 4th – falling. So my name is Xu2 Wei1 Long2 (2nd, 1st, 2nd). Just to clarify.

From the Wei Long
Pretty lights. Kunming at night.
Another world
It’s nice to be in a comfortable hotel and take pot shots at the scenery with night mode engaged.

Hi guys!!

Oh my goodness! I’ve just had my first day of scuba diving and it was intense! The morning was theory and we watched videos and did a couple of quizzes then after lunch we were taught how to assemble our equipment and then got in the water!!!!! It took a lot of getting used to and is the weirdest feeling in the world! My instincts were always to breathe through my nose but you have to breathe in and out through your mouth. It was so surreal! We’re in buddy teams and I’m with a guy called Liam who’s from the UK too! He’s really nice and I know he’ll look after me if I have any trouble! Hopefully I’ll be able to do the same for him! I wasn’t so good changing breathing apparatus to use his extra one in an example of if my airway stops working! I took in loads of water and had to go back to the surface!! I was a lot better when we were lower down in the water and we went to about four metres below the surface today. At the end of the course, I’ll be certified to go down to 18 metres but not dive without a buddy – though I wouldn’t anyway!! The people in my group are really nice though I haven’t learnt all their names yet! There’s a mixture of Canadians, Danish, German, us two English and an Aussie. She’s an interesting character! She’s in my sub-group (Team Japan as our teacher is called Massa and he’s from Japan!) and is hilarious and keeps us entertained! Hopefully the rest of the course will be lots of fun and I can’t wait to see a turtle and the sign for turtle is so cute but I’ll have to show you when I see you! I’m still really nervous and not used to being under the water properly yet but I found swimming around was a lot easier for me than staying still doing the training activities which is good for when we go off on the boat! After tomorrow’s last training day in the pool, the next day we go on the boat for three days and do 9 dives altogether. After the first four, we are certified and then the last five (including a night dive) are fun dives! We have to stay with out buddies at all times in the water so you feel a bit of pressure to make sure you are not going to let your buddy down. Fingers crossed I don’t and he doesn’t get sick of me by the second dive! It’s gonna be lots of early starts and early bedtimes for a few days methinks!

Yesterday I had a lazy day by the pool at the hostel which was nice after all the stuff I’ve done so far! I then went to the regional gallery and had a look round there. One floor was closed so there wasn’t much to see but there was a whole exhibition on glass art which I now want to have a go at! Some was blown, some was sheets with designs fused together, some was sketching and etching on the glass, some were sculptures! The art was amazing and I am gonna try and see if I can have a go when I get back! Those who know me with art will know that’s just another thing I’ll add to the list of art I love to do that because of my job I never have time to do!!! I will def try it out though!

My hostel room is now empty apart from me! The French girl left today and is off to Bangkok then Bali! She’s going to have an amazing time! And I’ll be leaving here to go on the boat for three days but will prob come back here again until maybe Thursday. I could stay in Cairns forever – there are so many things you can do but I’ll have to move on soon enough! My bank account should be sorted out by Monday so I will get my card and then leave here on the Thursday if I think I’ve done as much as I want to! I was looking at the number of weeks I have left and there’s quite a few! I’m hoping to get down to Melbourne and visit Ayers Rock from there and go to Tasmania too! Fingers crossed I have time! Though I’ve been here a week now and have packed in a lot so far!

Will let you know how my second day of “school” goes! And I’ve got homework too!!!!

xxx

Lake Taupo 3/21/11

As the boat backed up towards Huka Waterfall, we could feel the water rocking the boat and splashing our faces.  The falls were about 35 feet tall with a flow rate of about 2 olympic swimming pools every minute.  We took the boat back to the mainland, where we were greeted by the opening of the Taupo dam.  After a short hike to a lookout point, we witnessed the pools and river fill up and explode with the force of thousands of gallons of water.  Soon after opening it resembled the water falls we had just visited.  Continuing on our trip, we drove north to Orakei Korako or the “hidden valley.”  The valley was a geothermal hotspot, consisting of several geysers, volcanic flow vents and bubbling mud baths.  

Woke up like clockwork at 1am again, this time I didn’t have too much trouble getting back to sleep. My sinus infection seems to be easing, and so I’m starting to feel a bit better. Had breakfast and was picked up at 8:30am. (I really like these gentleman’s hours) It was a bit cooler this morning, it was a clear night and it got down to about minus 8, It had warned up to about -6 when we had been picked up. When you’re not used to this kind of cold, the first few breaths of cold air really hurts your lungs. It was very crisp. We went to the office had more briefings. I had a fitting for the boat show uniform, which consists of a Navy blue blazer, light blue dress shirt and dark blue jeans. (Boat show starts next Friday 18th and runs for 10 days. We thought 5 days was bad enough) An interesting thing about the uniform is that in Norway, staff uniforms are considered a staff benefit and the company must declare it and the individual staffed have to pay a type of fringe benefit tax on such items.

After lunch we headed out to meet one of our dealers in Drammen, which is about 30 minutes south of Oslo. By this point the weather had closed in and it was snowing very heavily. It was a very picturesque trip out to Drammen. The snow was still falling. It is hard to believe that people still buy boats in this sort of weather, but these guys are used to it and so they do.

On arriving at the dealership, the first thing that really impressed me was the racks of boat trailer boats outside, they were stacked 3 high, a bit like the dry stack setup at Pine Harbour in Auckland (for those of you who know it) and all plastic shrink-wrapped. These are all customers’ boats that have been winterised and they are stored here over winter.

Walking into the building, it just opened up into a large retail showroom. The boats are all displayed on trolleys with an extensive walkway around the shop. You can easily walk around the whole boat showroom up on the walkway, looking into all the boats and can easily get in and out as needed. It had a very good, large chandlery area, very well presented; it is something you would expect to see at any major retailer. The whole place was very impressive. I would have to go as far to say, it would have to be the best Marine retail store I have ever seen and terms of presentation and display of products. However, to put things into perspective, they retail 1000 outboards a year and about 700 boats ranging from 2 – 7 metres, all this with 15 permanent staff.

We were there for about an hour then we had to make our way back to town as Ferruccio had a plane to catch. We dropped him off at the airport train and went back to the office for a couple of hours. I got back to the hotel at about 7pm. I was pretty buggered, still jet lagged and didn’t feel like eating in the hotel alone. So I went down the road for a $20 Burger King chicken burger combo. (I do have to stop comparing pricing, it is what it is, but I just can’t help it.) I got back to the hotel got myself sorted, watched an old episode of Big Bang theory, in English with Norwegian subtitles. A lot of the TV is in English with subtitles. All the ads are in Norwegian – so I can’t figure out if they are selling tampons or insurance. I guess I will get used to it. After that I just hit the sack.