Lost in China

by Barry Manilow

From the year I was born…

Last night, I waved goodbye
now it seems years,
I’m back in the city, where nothing is clear,
and thoughts of me, holding you, bringing us near,
and tell me;
When will our eyes meet,
when can I touch you,
when will this strong yearning end,
and when will I hold you again.

Time in New England took me away,
to long rocky beaches, and you, by the bay,
we started a story who’s end must now wait
and tell me;
When will our eyes meet,
when can I touch you,
when will this strong yearning end,
and when can I hold you again….

Read more about this story…

I felt annoyed for the past two days due to several reasons.

First, was due to the ‘careless’ driver that driving us from the hotel to the office, pick us up for lunch then driving us back to the hotel. The drivers are always changing, not always the same person, and this one was the worst. Most of our drivers are lousy ones, we just couldn’t figured out how on earth they can get the license because safety is the last thing that ever come to their mind. Looks like they were actually born to be Formula 1 racer but due to unfortunate fate they just happened to be just ordinary driver.

The problem is they hardly hit on the brake if needed, they just don’t want to and they don’t have enough patient to wait and give a way to other cars. Sometimes, they took the opposite lane just because they didn’t want to wait and it’s quite often/common for us to be in a hell condition when our car had to face to face with other car or truck. 

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Exactly what do you expect when you go to the zoo…??? Is there any special creature there…??? Well if I’m going to Beijing Zoo, it’s only Panda that can attract me. Other than Panda…??? mmhhh…Fitrix said there is a big aquarium there, the biggest one in the world. OK then, we’re going to the zoo.

First visit is Panda, the Chinese national treasure. I thought it’s white and black. Nope, it’s brown and black. Maybe this Panda need shower. This animal is a shy one, we hardly found the opportunity to take a picture of it. If you satisfied with it’s back then it’s done, but we want this Panda facing our camera. We found 3 Pandas indoor and 2 Pandas outdoor, and still we’re not satisfied with the pictures. We could only watch them eat. Eat what…??? I think it’s bamboo. Yup, they eat bamboo.

Sunday morning, June 4, 2006 ready to go to Beijing and meet our friend Pak Catur from Indonesian Embassy.

After finishing our unique breakfast at the hotel, we packed and get going to the ‘Jiao Gan Yuan’ bus station in Yanjiao. This is our first time going to Beijing by ourself. The latest time we went to Beijing together with our friend Ziao, who stay just across to Andam hotel room.

It’s quite easy using public transportation from Yanjiao to Beijing. Stop at the ‘Ba Wang Fen’ bus station (5 RMB) and get a taxi to Beijing Hotel/Wang Fujing Street (about 20 RMB).

That day we need to change our US$ to RMB, Pak Catur showed us the ATM to change our money in Beijing Hotel. Interesting for me, changing the currency using machine. Maximum amount for one trasaction is 400 US$, you can use the machine as you often as you need. This machine always on line with the currency fluctuative at the market, so maybe in different day you will find a different rate for your currency.

Enough changing money, than we straight go to the Great Wall at Badaling. It’s about 1.5 hour from Beijing to the north area, ussualy (according to Pak Catur’s information) it will be a traffic jam on the weekend but so far it’s still OK for us. We passed several tunnels, the longest tunnel is about 300m (please cmiiw about this one). It was remind me about the tunnel when we use the train from Jakarta to Bandung, it’ll need 1 minute to pass that tunnel and you just 30 minute ahead of Bandung downtown. Damn, I miss that city. For me Bandung is still my beloved hometown, the best poko-na mah lah.

We arrived at Badaling on the afternoon, just about 1.5 hour before lunch. Pak Catur helped us to arrange the tickets and I was quite surprise that he’s not came along us. Yup, just the four of us climbing this world treasure. Pak Catur will wait on the park area, he said: "I’m too often to climb Great Wall, it’s too bored for me now. You just go head, it’s OK. The tickets are available for back and fort. And remember do not buy another tickets to enter the Great Wall, the tickets you hold now are for the ‘cable car’ and to enter the Great Wall, back and fort."

So, we use the cable car to climb. One cable car is available for 6 person maximum. One seat (for 3 person) facing at the front and one seat facing at the back. We’re so excited about this, well…not so excited because to be honest I’m concerning about the capability of this transportation instrument. But hey, we’re survived…this cable car is quite strong and save but maybe a little bit dirty and stink. You won’t smell this stink if you’re not in China… : )

Once you arrived at the other side of cable car station, than you can continue entering the Great Wall. There are many souvenirs seller there, we have to be clever to bargain. Or you can buy the souvenirs at the souvenirs shop at the cable car station, quite cheap. I bought an enamelware, not a special one but at least ‘I was there’ hehehe…

Great Wall is always be an amazing construction, imagine that this world treasure was built during teh earlier of Zhou Dynasty at about 700 BC and still stand firm until now. I heard that this construction is the only human creation that can be seen from the space. The construction of the Great Wall, drew heavily on the local resources for construction materials, was carried out in line with the local conditions under the management of contract and responsibility system. A great army of manpower, composed of soldiers, prisoners, and local people, built the wall. The construction result demonstrates the manifestation of the wisdom and tenacity of the Chinese people.

The wall of Badaling has a total length of 3, 741 meters with an average height of 8 meters The highest part is 15 meters. The total area for a tour is 19, 000 square meters. The top of the wall can permit five horses to be ridden abreast. There are arched doors at the inner side of the wall with very little distance between each two doors. Thearched doors lead you to the top of the wall by stone stairs.

Badaling became a very important military strategic place since the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC) and the Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC). Many incomplete parts of the wall were proved to be built in the Warring States Period.

The Great Wall has long been incorporated into Chinese mythology and popular symbolism. The most beautiful of several legends is about the collapse of a section of the Great Wall caused by Meng Jiangnu, who cried bitterly over the death of her husband in the construction of the Great Wall. This legend has been spread widely through textbooks, folk songs and traditional operas. It is well-known in China.

For complete story of Great Wall, kindly click here. 

After Badaling, we still have another targets to climb the Great Wall at Simatai (specially on winter(?)). We heard that this location is a beautiful site, but it’s too far from our place here. Yeah, maybe someday we have an opportunity to go to Simatai (and Cheng De, and Terracotta, and…).

Thanks in a million: Pak Catur from Indonesian Embassy. 

today we just read comment from our friend Reza…

bro, we’re definitely love that fish…in fact we’re crazy about it since the first time we met that fish…maybe we have a different taste about Chinese food…and we understand that you guys were only one week in China…maybe (I said "maybe") you never thought, never try to like the original of Chinese food at that time…please cmiiw about this statement…

that’s nothing wrong about our home made food, back in Indonesia…we just love to eat and try any kind of food here…and yes, this fish is a good one…and every people here always says that this food is a special one…so maybe you guys didn’t like it, but we love it…nothing wrong with that…we just have a different taste…

IMO, I will say "poor you, guys…you can not enjoy the original Chinese food…"

ah anyway, we just have a different taste…that’s all…

GO England…!!! 

It was ten minutes to the end of the game between Australia and Japan when I suddenly woke up from my sleep. I went to bed early since i want to watch Italy match at 3 am. But was woken up too early by a dream, a dream about a friend of mine. He isn’t my old, a long time no see-friend but recently it was getting hard to see him since he has moved to other company. He is a very funny guy, yet unique and naive person. I don’t have the slightest idea why I dreamed of him because it’s been a while I didn’t have any contact with him nor did have a little thought of him before i go to sleep. Hope everything is just okay with him. The game closed with Australia beat Japan 3-1.

Wow……another match is about to kick off. I heard a national anthem is sang and quite familiar in my ear. That’s the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and then the camera moved on spot on the audiences in the tribune raising a banner with "US" written on it. Not long after that I saw Pavel Nedved, a man without belly button from Czech Republic singing his anthem. Then the referee blew his whistle, a match between US vs Czech Rep.is started. I’m still writing this post when the first goal score in the first 5 minutes. Yay……..that was Czech who scored the goal. Despite the fact that US is at 5th place of world football rank, to me they just like a baby, a baby who just started learning how to crawl. I’m sorry to US supporters if my opinion is a little bit harsh and offensive but I gotta be honest with it. There’s no way that US can defeat one of the world well-known strong football country such as England, Italy, Argentina or Czech where football tradition and history rooted among the people. I don’t want to mention Brazil since Brazil is obviously not a match for them. As I said a baby…..course there’s still a future lies ahead. Not in the near future though, maybe in 10 or 20 years. And my opinion is proven shortly……another goal for Czech has just scored.

We just got back from the meeting about XX oilfield with the people from Shenzen. Actually we didn’t participate actively since it was delivered in Chinese and all of us can’t speak Chinese. So, it was really a boring moment for us, listened to what these people talking bla…bla…bla. A little help came from the presentation slide, enabled us, at least to guess what were these people talking about.

We were sleeping last night, while the phone rang waking us up, a call to attend the meeting in the morning, in the nearby hotel. Apparently, they didn’t intend to invite us initially, but changed their mind later. And another strange thing was we were not invited to have lunch together with them, whereas the presentation finished at 12.10 and that’s about the time for lunch and everybody was ready to have lunch in the same hotel but a driver was asked to drive us back to our hotel instead. It’s quite funny for us but so far we’re just fine. We think that maybe they didn’t set up the lunch with additional 4 people or because we have limitation for food (halal food) and they ordered kind of food that we couldn’t eat…….or they wanna have a crazy and wild party after the tough meeting, complete with belly dancer and alcohol drinks…..huahahaha…..(just our imagination) and didn’t want to invite us. Anyway, that’s not a big problem for us. We can go back to the office, put our –s on the seat, turn on pc and write this post for you. 

After several days didn’t post anything, i feel a little bit guilty inside. I think having a blog and keeping it alive is similar like nursing a baby or growing a plant. It requires commitment and high responsibility, doesn’t it? It gives you satisfaction if your baby/plant grows well, the same if you get plenty responses from your readers, vice versa.

Last night we had a light chat with Mr. Xiao. He worked in Indonesia for 4 years at Bohai rig. Despite his room is in the same floor and exactly in the front of mine and fitrix’s room, we hardly know him. He found out that we came from Indonesia later, hence he is being kind to us, sometimes we thought too kind. A couple days a go, he invited us for a dinner in a moslem restaurant and he made every effort to find us a mosque for Friday pray.

Back to our chat with Mr.Xiao….we finally know the reasons on some strange things we encountered here. For ex. everytime we watched local tv channel, we always wonder why there’s chinese subtitle even if the languange is chinese. First we thought, maybe it was to accomodate the deaf to understand but….tet…tottt….we were wrong.The reason is because Chinese word characters is same all over China but pronounciation may differ a lot from one part to another part of China. Or the fact that Chinese always change everything into Chinese words/languange, even if it is a name of a person or a name of a country. For example, names Mary or David, in Chinese becomes Mali and Dawei. United States of America becomes ‘Mang Guo’….far different… but for Indonesia, it’s quite close ‘Uendo-nisia’. When Edwin and Suryadi came here, they tried to change their names into Dewen and Surayati….hehehe, funny isn’t it?