China - in Photos

Xi'an City Wall

The brilliant card put out by our Shanghai Hotel.

Shanghai. Like every city we saw it was a very clean city considering it is 22.5 million people. They always had people sweeping the streets as well as street sweeping machines in action. Here they are making the brooms before they head off for the day's cleaning duties.



The view as we went under the river by Pod Car at The Bund in Shanghai.



A few views from the bridge in Shanghai. Smog is everywhere.

The Maglev tracks.

Waiting at the station as the Maglev arrives

The speed of the Maglev rail (with no vibration). It got underway at 11.00AM and after 2.57 minutes it was up to 430 Kmph.







A few smoggy buildings in Shanghai.


A Super Capcitor Bus where at the stop its power charger on the roof raises and the bus recharges itself.

At night on our boat trip in Shanghai.



The TV tower at night - Shanghai.


The Urban Planning Centre in Shanghai where they are planning the city 30 or more years out into the future. The city display at the Centre is incredible and was well worth the visit..

Using a display at the Centre.

A couple of displays of the city at the Centre.











More views of Shanghai - with some old buildings that they have retained.

This was taken at a Temple Garden. The chap in the NZ jersey is actually from New Caledonia.

The Tea Ceremony. They put great store in this while we thought it rubbish. This started off as a small black hard nut then blossomed into a flower which flavoured the tea.

Alongside some artwork.

This was an advertising promotion for a phone company.

Chinglish was everywhere. The point is that the students we spoke to knew 40% of the English was wrong, from the highest level of Government and top class shops produced items, down to the small shops but nothing seemed to be able to be done to fix it.



We got a couple of free caps from a promotion the China Fire Service was running and people were asked to sign their names on a big board which we did as well. Can you spot Wayne NZ and Christine NZ? After putting on the caps several policemen approached us and we posed for photos as they were so fascinated. Everywhere you go in China they want to take a foreigners photo. Quite odd.


The Bell Tower at night.


Fixing the striker at the Bell Tower.



The Buried Army.
Trying her skills.


The Panda at the Beijing zoo. When we visited he was alert and eating as well, as moving about which is unusual as they spend most of their time sleeping. However all was not lost, as he soon went off in snooze mode.

The square at the Olympic area in Beijing

The 'Birdsnest' Olympic stadium in the capital.

The Cyclo ride in the Hutong area Beijing.



The Great Wall.

We visited a Mall in Beijing near our hotel which had a gigantic ice rink inside.

With our guide Larry at the Temple in Beijing.


The glorious leader.

Back again

Just back from fantastic China. Will Blog about the trip later as too much on my plate at the moment so will just update a few matters. Suffice to say it was simply fantastic and the infrastructure is a marvel.While most in the West seems to be falling apart they are putting there money there.

This picture is from the Japanese earthquake and it shows they are getting on with it.

Rugby: The Hurricanes are just crap - even worse than usual. We decided not to have Jamie Joseph as coach as he wasn't good enough - and the Highlanders with him as coach are going great guns being the surprise package of the competition while we languish last in the N Z conference.

Playing numbers of registered players is a surprise -

1 England 2.5 million - they say more people pllay in England than the rest of the world combined excluding SA.
2 South Africa 630,000 - much more than I thought. The blacks playing must have expanded dramatically.
3 France 237,000 (less than I thought)
4 N Z 137,000
5 Japan 122,000
6 Sri Lanka 103,000 Whatttttt.......... and what have the IRB been doing for SL rugby??
7 Argentina 103,000
8 Australia 86,000 - they have fallen away
9 USA 81,000 (up 350% over past couple of years)


Kipp has started playing Ripper Rugby. Has his jersey, socks, boots etc and here he is in all his glory. Plus with Monty.


Wrongful Conviction: We, the taxpayer, have just paid an autistic guy $350,000 for a couple of years in prison for rape he didn't convict. They told him it was his DNA - it wasn't - and they didn't check out his alibi. As per usual no hard questions are asked. What about the complainant who 'fingered' him. What happens to her. It would seem nothing. The Detective has been 'spoken to and relieved of detective work'.

Gagarin: The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's first flight was this month. The Yanks won the race but maybe not long term as they are now doing nothing and have to use Russian rockets. Certailnly an indication that there country is going down as they are now not so much as putting little into science but letting science be influenced by the religious zealots.

Who will be the first person on Mars. My bet is that he or she will speak Chinese.

Quiz: Back into it and a couple of 3rds. Did learn something - the turkey can reproduce without mating.

Internet: The politicians have passed an anti file sharing law to protect the Copyright (read entertainment industry) from losing business (read - from being forced into moving into the late 20th century). The point is that it has always been illegal to steal a copyrighted item so why the change. Well apart from the vastly increased penalties (better to kick somebody's head in than download a song) the thing that galls me and the entertainment industry want is that you are guilty and have to prove your innocence. Maybe we should change that premis and reverse the hundreds of years of ' innocent until proven guilty, to everything. Probably they will in the next 50 years.