Places around BeijingAugust 25, 2006 7:08 am

Simatai: the masterpiece of Great Wall

Simatai Great Wall is -I believe- the most magnificent Chinese heritage that I’ve ever visited. Located just about 3 hours driving from Beijing to the northeast direction, Simatai trully is a must place to be visited. You have to concern your fitness if you want to go there because you’ll find a lot of high hills. And don’t forget to check the weather, make sure that you’ll find a perfect blue sky.

 

photo by edwin 

It’ll take about two to three hours to climb, it depend on how fast you walk and how long you’ll take pictures (’puke mode’: on). On the other hand you can take the cable car and then walk from the cable car station to the tower #8 (still have to climb). I prefer to walk, taking pictures and enjoy the beautiful scene of northeast China. I can’t even describe how beautiful it is through the words, nor the pictures , nor the video cam. It’s an incredible & spectacular scene.

Different with Badaling, this Simatai is less (I mean really less) crowd, perhaps because of the -quite far- distance from Beijing and the steep tracks of it. In Badaling you’ll find a lot of people, so crowd that you can’t even take perfect pictures (’grin mode’: on). Simatai is a perfect place to take pictures with a beautiful scenery and with Great Wall background.

Again, if you want to go to Beijing make sure that you put this Simatai Great Wall on your itinerary.

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About China 7:00 am

China sport: incredibly amazing prestiges

These are Chinese athlete’s world achivements for the past four months: 

1. World Champion of table tennis (men and women team, tournament held in Germany)

2. World Champion of badminton (Thomas & Uber Cup, tournament held in Japan)

3. First time qualified for World Group of Fed Cup


4. Golf medal for men 110m Hurdles (Liu Xiang - new World Record at Athletissima Grand Prix)

5. Women Football Team, Champion of Asia (tournament held in Australia)

6. WTA Tour, Single World Ranking (#20: Li, Na and #27: Zheng, Jie)

7. Fifth place at the Basketball Continental Championship Stankovic Cup (with Yao Ming in a team, tournament held in Jiangsu Province China), indicates that China has a fighting chance of getting two wins against Puerto Rico, Slovenia and Senegal and earning a spot in the round of 16 at the World Championhip in Japan

8. Women Hockey Team qualified for World Cup

9. Gold medal for women 1m springboard (Jingjing, Guo at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
10. Gold medal for men 1m springboard (Chong, He at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
11. Gold medal for women 10m platform (Tong, Jia at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
12. Gold medal for men 10m platform (Luxin, Zhou at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
13. Gold medal for women 3m springboard (Minxia, Wu at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
14. Gold medal for men 3m springboard (Kai, Qin at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
15. Gold medal for women 3m springboard synchro (Jingjing, Guo & Ting, Li at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)
16. Gold medal for men 10m platform synchro (Liang, Huo & Yue, Lin at 15th FINA Diving World Cup in Changshu Province China)

17. Gold medal for women 5,000m running (Xue, Fei at IAAF World Junior Championship in Beijing)
18. Gold medal for men High Jump (Haiqiang, Huang at IAAF World Junior Championship in Beijing)
19. Gold medal for women Pole Vault (Yang, Zhou at IAAF World Junior Championship in Beijing)
20. Gold medal for women 10,000m Race Walk (Hong, Liu at IAAF World Junior Championship in Beijing)
21. Gold medal for men 10,000m Race Walk (Xiangdong, Bo at IAAF World Junior Championship in Beijing)
—>>> TOTAL China had 5 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 7 bronze medals. Runner up of the tournament.

and still counting… 

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About UsAugust 18, 2006 3:19 am

Indonesia’s Independence Day in Beijing

August 17, 2006. 61th Indonesia’s Independence Day.

 

We celebrated our National Day at Indonesian Embassy in Beijing. There were flag ceremonial, BBQ, live music and games (& gifts) for kids. It’s quite lovely day cause we met some new friends and also we had a chance to made conversation with our Ambassador, Vice-Ambassador and other embassy’s persons.

Didn’t wanna leave when time showed 2.00pm, but still we had to go back to Yanjiao.

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People in China, My storyAugust 12, 2006 4:20 pm

We’re moving soon

Yesterday I played with ‘Google Earth’ and found out that Yanjiao is not a city, it’s a district just like Chaoyang District in Beijing. Yanjiao is a district in Sanhe City, Hebei Province. No wonder that this area is a bit more like ‘kecamatan’ in Indonesia but in a modern shape.
 
Four months in Yanjiao is enough.
 
People in the office are prefer to stay in Yanjiao rather than move to Beijing to the new office. Why…? Because they love Yanjiao as a quite place, not a busy place like Beijing. Yanjiao as a small place, not a big and crowd place like Beijing. Well ready or not, you like it or not this office will move to Beijing in a couple of weeks. We’ll move to our new modern office building. My friend told me that "your new office building is cool", but our secretary said: "I don’t like it". Hahaha…she likes everything in a Chinese-consevative shape: simetric, rigid and grey (!!!).
 
So, to celebrate our new office and to say good bye to (our beloved) Yanjiao Office, last week our bosses (it’s a lot of bosses) held a special dinner (or an alcohol party, yeah right) in a famous restaurant in Yanjiao. Lot of people came including drilling people and people who ussualy take bussines trips, travelling around China (?). First was the speech from the host, then we had a dinner. Finish…? Nope, now everyone try to impress their bosses, to cheer their bosses with wine or beer or alcohol. Well, I should said almost everyone (remember, we are observers…).
 
One that has a boss should cheers him or her. So, you can imagine this boss should be cheered by all of his or her subordinate (’grin mode’: on). And guess what…? We found out that one of these bosses was drunk and he talked and talked and talked. I, personally, had a conversation with him. We talked with "a normal distance" and after several minutes, suddenly he was just 2 inches from me and he couldn’t stop talking…!!!
 
Well, according to them, this is a good opportunity to get close with bosses.
Their bosses, not ours.
 
Their culture, not ours.
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About China 3:33 pm

Residence Permit in China

Finally, we have the power called "Residence Permit" in China. After being accused as aliens for about three months, we are now can use the power of this permit. The person from embassy told us that with this permit we are allowed to buy a car or even a house in China. Hurraayyy…!!! But, what for…??? hehehe…
 
Actually for this company, this is their first time taking care this kind of permit, secara the four of us is the first expats who work in the main office.
 
First we need passport, photographs (with a blue background, not red) and fill the formulir. Then, the company has to enclose some document (I don’t know what kind of documents needed). Everything set up…? Then let’s go to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (not Police Station…!!!). In this bureau, we (not us, but the company) have to fill another formulir and put it back to the officer.
 
I won’t tell you what’s happen to us a week ago, but lookslike this company doesn’t have any document to prove that they’re already got a stamp from the government (guess what kind of stamp…?). So, they have to write a letter to this bureau to explain why they don’t have this stamp. Funny isn’t it…?
 
(They said it’s a) Big company, but still need much to improve to get more open to the world. Yeah, right…
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Welcome NoteAugust 8, 2006 8:48 am

Things that you like and dislike in China

After 3 months living in China, i guess this is about the right time to write about things that happens here which some of them you love about it or you simply hate it. Accidentaly, i bumped in to the same idea with one of threads in a forum. This forum claimes to be the largest Indonesian cyber community all around the world. One of their regions is China…not limited in mainland only but spread all over Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan. Back to the topic….so they were talking about things that they like as well as they hate which occur in China. Their opinions mostly the same and to take into account that these people are living in different part of China, Beijing, Shanghai,Hangzhou, Foushan, Xiamen and many more. So, if their opinion is happened to be similar to some extent means that the phenomena they encountered here is happening all over China. -to be continued-  

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