a day on wheels

What a long day.

Woke up at 4 am; 4:40-4:55, cab drvie from my hotel to Portman hotel;

5:30-6:00, bus from Portman to Hongqiao airport;

8:00-9:00, shuttle bus from the airport to Jing an temple;

9:00-9:30, metro line 2, interchanged to line 3, arriving at the southern rainway station;

11:45-13:00, train ride back to Hangzhou;

13:30-15:30, public bus to bookstore then home.


Received a sms, reading: according to authority with telecommunication in the Netherlands, on all calculators in cellphones, 2000 divide by 8.032, the monitor will show your name automatically. It's so strange and mysterious that nobody has solved the myth yet.

So you try,

dividing 2000 by 8.032, (even knowing it might be a funny game thing, but can't help being amused) because,

the answer is 250, a nickname for 'being silly' in China.

X-blue sky

in Beijing on Oct.8 and Oct. 10, 2008.

fell ill

The cold I'd had, have traveled with me all the way from Lhasa, Chengdu, Xi'an, Guilin to Shanghai, already for almost ten days. Even so, there's no signs of leaving yet.

I guessed I must get it from the chilly morning in Lhasa, when crazy me walked around the hotel in the cold morning wind about 5 degrees. Same day in the afternoon, I got the fever but didn't take any medicine. But I couldn't sleep at all in that night, and woke up always only to find I sweated and wetted the whole bed.

'It couldn't be the altitude sickness but it might occur to me,' worried and growing nervous, I stayed up all the night in order to leave Lhasa the first thing in the morning.But coming to low altitudes didn't help, but only comforted by the fact the common cold couldn't have killed me here.

love them

Love them the best! It's a group of very fun, nice, friendly, loving, understanding, caring and melding people.

Moved to tears by their remarks and the surprise gift, at the farewell dinner in Shanghai, after 15 days' tour.

Again, tears came to my eyes , when on the way to airport during my goodbye speech.

First time, or maybe the last time.

LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL!

ps. my great pleasure and honor to be the photographer for them.

lhasa river in the morning

something new

new tree:
In Chengdu and Xi'an, a street tree type, which was answered by local guides, no-name tree and scholar tree, is actually:

孪树 in Chinese, or in English, golden rain tree ( or gold rain tree), in Sapindaceae family, tree leaves very similar to Chinese soapfruit tree while flowers to Bougainvillea.

new disease:

lime disease:

Lyme disease, is an emerging infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria. Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. Borrelia is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected hard ticks. Early manifestations of infection may include fever, headache, fatigue, depression, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. Left untreated, late manifestations involving the joints, heart, and nervous system can occur. In a majority of cases, symptoms can be eliminated with antibiotics, especially if diagnosis and treatment occur early in the course of illness. Late, delayed, or inadequate treatment can lead to late manifestations of Lyme disease which can be disabling and difficult to treat.

new regulation:

U.S. Customs regulations and its big no-no's—what you can and cannot bring home with you from your travels

Technically, there are no limits on how much loot you can bring back into the United States from a trip abroad, but the customs authority does put limits on how much you can bring back for free . This restriction is mainly for taxation purposes: to separate tourists with souvenirs from importers with profit motives.

What and how much you can bring into the United States is controlled by the U.S. Customs office (www.cbp.gov), which basically views you as a small-time importer/exporter. Importers have to pay a governmental duty (tax) on any foreign-made item they bring into the country.

However, the customs office realizes that the majority of travelers are merely bringing home items as souvenirs or gifts or for their personal use, and magnanimously allow you to bring in up to $800 worth of souvenirs and a few drops of that Italian wine for free.

Well, I Do Declare! Getting Through Customs
In a development so shocking I checked it twice to be sure there wasn't an error, the federal government has actually made it easier to bring your stuff home.

As of summer 2003, they doubled the cash value on goods US citizens allowed to take home without paying tax from $400 to $800 per person—so long as you've been out of the country for at least 48 hours and haven't used the exemption in the past 30 days (rules designed to foil any small import/export sideline an airline crew member might try to get going).

The bad news is that they haven't changed the draconian limits on, shall we say, comestibles of vice. I've got no problem with the rules limiting you to 200 cigarettes and 100 cigars, but I find it patently ridiculous that you are only allowed to bring home a single liter of alcoholic beverage .

Do they honestly think that, should you bring home one bottle of Chianti from Tuscany as a present for your folks, and a bottle of Burgundy from France for yourself, plus a pint of that great Czech beer you know you'll never find at home, you're attempting to hide an import business? Really, it's quite silly. And I believe that most customs officials quietly agree. I've brazenly written down all two (or three, or four) bottles of wine that I'm taking home right there on the form, and have yet to have a customs officer take issue with it.

Of course, you're allowed to take them home. They just reserve the right to tax you on it (see below).

Getting Around the $800 Limit
Antiques over 100 years old and works of art are exempt from the $800 limit . So is anything you mail home from abroad. This is the Great Loophole. You can mail yourself up to $200 worth of good per day , so long as the package is marked "For Personal Use."

You can also mail up to $100 worth of stuff per day to friends and family (or technically, I guess, even strangers) so long as the packages are marked "Unsolicited Gift." Actually including a gift for your buddies (rather than just sending them your own booty to hold onto for you) would be a nice touch.

Either way, you must list the contents of any package on the outside wrapping, and you cannot mail alcohol, perfume (because it has alcohol in it), or tobacco products worth more than $5.
Going over the $800 Limit
Sure, it can happen. And when it does, the government wants to take a bite out of the value of whatever you're bringing home. That bite starts at 3% of the total value of your goods for the first $1,000 above and beyond the $800 limit. After that, you're looking at an item-by-item duty.
You Can't Take It With You
What do Dutch elm disease, hoof-in-mouth, and the Mediterranean fruit fly epidemic all have in common? They are all plagues that were brought into the United States by unscreened travelers. That's why there are some things you absolutely cannot bring into the U.S. The U.S. Customs service (www.cbp.gov) lists all the details; here's the brief version:

This list of no-nos includes plants, fruits, vegetables, meat, and, indeed, most food items. Yes, this means the salami that the shopkeeper in Europe swears up and down is fine for you to bring home will not be let in if they discover it. There are, however, some exceptions to the general food/plant rules.

You may bring home: baked goods, cheese (so long as it's not the soft, spreadable kind; if it's runnier than a Brie, no dice), tinned patés, candy, roasted coffee beans and dried teas, seeds for vegetables or flowers but not trees (though you're supposed to declare and register them), mushrooms, and packaged fish (so smoked salmon from Norway is A-OK).

thinking...

At ikea store, noticed that all the stuffed animal toys seem to have same eyes,obviously from same material , in same colors and even bearing same expression, no matter that they belong to elephants, frogs or bears.

I guess there must be somewhere a factory where workers are responsible for the eye assembly. Day after day, they put eyes all identical to faces of different animals. And I wonder, if they might enjoy their job?

But, who am I to judge them then? Ain't I myself one of them, traveling the same routes, telling similar if not all the same, stories to my groups , in same tones and expressions?

Suddenly feel a similar sadness, as I have experienced before but almost forgotten for long.