Beijing to Shanghai via Nanjing

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I just left CA177 from Beijing to Shanghai, and arrived in Nanjing Lukou Airport. I know it is ridiculous, I know, but it happened. It was said that due to weather situation in Pudong that didn’t allow safe landing, our flight was forced to land at Nanjing Airport.

Update: 00:30, April 11, 2009

I am back from Nanjing. The airport arranged bus to transfer us to Shanghai. The bus took exactly 3 hours to get to Shanghai from Nanjing.

From the time I left my hotel (1:30 AM), to the time I arrived home (0:30 AM), 11 hours past. This is the longest trip from Beijing to Shanghai. Maybe I will write more about the long, boring, frustrating, tiring trip when I recover tomorrow. Let me go to bed and have a good rest now.

Fly to Beijing Again via CA933 again

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This is the second time I record my trip from Shanghai to Beijing via CA933. It is not as perfect as the last time, but still OK, and worth some logistic recording.

Wake up at 6:30 AM as always, wash and waste some time by sitting on the water closet and check my RSS feed, I finally called a taxi at 7:00 AM. I forget how many times I regret that I would have called the previous night. Qiangsheng taxi does not accept 30 minutes in advance booking. That is possible in the previous night. I have to make the call and the taxi arrives several minutes late.

Get on board taxi: 7:12 AM

Get to Pudong Airport T2 at 7:50 AM (Tip: The next time, ask the taxi driver to park at the most north gate, where the CA domestic counters K and L are located. I walked long way to get there (and even long way back to the gate 87).

I still insist that 7:30 (or two hours before flight time) is appropriate time to leave home. Although I waited in the airport for one hour, that one hour is pretty productive. I write something for the business which others requested. Also, I had a not very delicious, but OK beef noodle as breakfast. Most importantly, to have some time in the airport without rush is a good period of time for me to relax.

The CA933 is an iconic flight, since it connects Shanghai, Beijing and then Paris. I believe many people start their first French trip via this flight, just as UA858 for US. The last time, I saw a big section around me was filled by French people, and this time, it seems to me that it is simply a domestic flight.

This time, the flight delayed 30 minutes, and BTW, messed up my whole day’s schedule.

Arrived at PEK at 11:45 (the time the flight arrived at the gate), but when I get my flight and sit on the taxi, it was always 12:30. The T3 of Beijing is too big, and everything is inconvenient because of it is too big. I can not imagine to spend 45 minutes just get out of the airport. This included longer than normal time to wait for my check-in luggage.

Then I visited Huamao Center, and then Tsinghua Area, and when I finished my last meetup near Tsinghua, and got back to my comfortable Shangri-la hotel, it was already 10 PM. Tired, and need to sleep now – it is 0:10 AM.

To summarize my impression of post-Olympic Beijing:

  1. Beijing is very commercialized, and modern. Look at Huamao, where Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriot are located. Look at SOHO city, and look at the big office tower and complex with residential areas. It seems Beijing just transformed its favorite of big and grand building into a modern sense.
  2. Beijing seems to develop faster in landscape than Shanghai. There are more completely new and big places coming out of no where, than Shanghai.
  3. The burned CCTV new tower is much more serious than I thought. I knew the big fire that destroyed the new CCTV tower, but I didn’t realize that it really completely destroyed the building – now it still looks like a building surviving from war.

My First Camping with New Tent

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I am a very happy customer of my new Quechua 2 Seconds Air III (Quechua is the brand name, 2 Seconds implies that by throwing the tent into the sky and the tent will be installed in 2 seconds. Air means they have window on the side, and it is called Air Cooling System, and III means three adults can sleep in it). So far, all the promises in the name turned out to be true.

I was so excited that I told Wendy that I want to go out and setup the tent at 7:00 AM. But actually, I held my impulse, and behaved mature enough to go out only after 9:30 AM.

This is my tent, on the top of a slop, facing to a lake. I made a stupid mistake to tune to the size of the photo from my Nokia phone to be MMS, which is the smallest format, so the photos are very small and blurry.

Here is the view outside the camp.

The view out of Tent

Below are the pictures of the side window – the air cooling system, which worked very well. It is cool inside, and people want to get back to tent when the Sun gets hot.

Yifan loves the tent as much as I did, and he enjoys running up and down the slop for many times. Yes. It is him running – he just had haircut in the morning.

Friends are More Important than Tent

In the tent, I pulled out my mobile phone and start to send SMS and call my friends. Within one hour, Run, Linda, and their lovely 6 months old Xiaomi came. Then Michael came with his mom and lovely 10 year old dog. Then Wang Chen came with Xia,and their 2 year old Xiaopao. Of cause we also have Yifan joining us after his unpleasant haircut (He don’t like haircuts as most kids, obviously).

We hung out from 9:30 AM to about 5:00 PM, when the Sun is low on the sky. We brought beers and snacks and chat. We joked that it is a beer festival.

I will write about the meaning of travel (Why People Travel). Alan de Botton reminded us that before we go out to somewhere far away, pay attention to your surrounding first. This camp place is very near to where we live, and I believe the happiness, and relax time we got was not less at all from a 1000 mile trip.

Thanks my friends for coming, and I will definitely hold another one very soon.

Love Camping

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Went for camp near where we live, just near the water below.

Three families joined the casual camping – three couple + 2 children (Yifan missed the camping because he felt asleep at home). We are close friends from junior middle school. Isn’t it nice to have close friend for, OMG, 20 years? Wang Chen brought his tent for us.

At night, we immediately went to Decathlon in Pudong to get a Quechua 2 Seconds Air III.

The first thing I will do tomorrow morning is to setup the camp, give Wendy a morning call, and send Wang Chen a SMS.

Favorite Road: Fuxing West Road

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This is part of my Favorite Road Project. I want to write about my favorite roads, and then choose my most favorite road in Shanghai

Another road I do enjoy to wander on is Fuxing West Road 复兴西路。

Facts of the Road

District: It is in the Xuhui District at the heart of the historical French Concession.

Direction: West to East

Range: It starts on the west from Huashan Road, and on the east ends at Huaihai Middle Road.

Length: 1 km (measured using Google map’s measuring tool)

History: It was named Route Gustare de Boissenzon before when French lives along the road. There are nice lane houses along both side of the road.

Scene: Along the road are Phoenix Trees.

I found a nice website with details of many roads in Shanghai: Adaimedia’s Fuxing West Road Page.

Why I Loved It

I have visited one house of a middle class Shanghai people on the road – currently the house was turned into a gallery called Elisabeth De Brabant Chinese Contemporary Fine Art at 299 Fuxing West Road. The internal architect was amazing, and the deep historical root of the house is also wonderful.

On the part of history, there are very conflicting opinions about whether people in Shanghai, or to a bigger extend, people in China should cherish the history of a French concession. Many of my friends hate to talk about it, because the rented land time was the scare on people’s heart. However, people in Shanghai more tend to accept the history and show their love and care about it. The recent Waibaidu Bridge was one of the example that no matter where the buildings or bridge, or architect comes from, as long as it is part of the history, people take care of it.

I am also in love of every small old villa and building of Shanghai. Many people hate them just because who built it. But I think it is dangerous, just as in the Culture Revolution, people destroyed the most precious part of our culture heritage just because they are part of “four old” (belong to the old times).

The Scene

I promise that I will put photos onto this page. There are some nice buildings along the road, which I just need to find time to take photo of.

When I have a meeting on the Huaihai Road, I typically abandon taxi or bus, and walk there, so I can pass this Fuxing West Road.

It is definitely one of my favorite road.

Shouning Road for Crayfish

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I am not so crazy to crayfish as many of my friends. I would rather eat something normal. But Crayfish is quite a phenomenon when there is no crabs to eat.

Recently, the Shouning Road is getting hotter and hotter about THE place to go to eat crayfish. It is the typical Shanghai eatery street – very narrow, very crowded, and not clean at all, but tens of vendors, and shops gather there, along with many people rushing there after work.

I just give my foreign readers a headup – be prepared before you go, and it is the local stuff, nothing to do with decent restaurants, and lobsters (crayfish is translated to Little Lobsters).

Where is the Road

Shouning Road 寿宁路 is a very shot road. It is near People’s Square. Here is the map. Click Zoom in to see details of the area.

Photos

Look, this is what the street looks like via my Nokia N78 camera.

Vendors are washing the oyster.

This is the shop we went to the last time. Just ignore the logo – Hong Kong Sweetie. They sell alll kinds of things besides sweet soap.

Hope they offer more comfortable places to eat, but I know it is not possible at the current cost.

Their scallop is 5 RMB. Cheap, isn’t it?

I will be in Beijing on April 9

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I am going to Beijing from April 8th, to April 10th.

Currently, my noon to late night of April 9th is booked, and have other meet-up pending for confirmation.

If you want to meetup, please drop a line to me via email (jianshuo at hotmail dot com), leave a comment below, or twitter to me at jianshuo.

I will also hold a Wangjianshuo’s Blog Meetup in Shangri-la hotel lobby, and you are welcome to join from 4:00 – 5:00 PM of April 9th. I will be there. If you want to join, you are very welcome. No registration or confirmation needed. However, my guess is, I will be the only person sitting there with my laptop or my new Moleskine on my lap, and writing something myself. Every time, I just expect that no one will actually show up for my blog meetup, because of some obvious reasons (before was commonly because very short notice period, and this time, because the time and venue are not the most popular choice). But every time, some people come (sometimes just two or three). Check out my previous meetups.

At night, I am very looking forward to the YLF dinner in Beijing. Many people will join. I missed the dinner in Shanghai, and will definitely catch this one in Beijing.

A Peek Inside Someone’s Travel Notebook

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A Peek Inside My Travel Notebook, originally uploaded by yusheng.

This is a very interesting notebook with nice travel tips. I am going to create a one page for every travel I am going to make. Moleskine helps people to get back to paper age. Internet and computer are still far less convenient than paper and pen, and becomes very successful as a company itself. The success is admirable.

OK. I will start my travel page from page 200 of my Moleskine.

Here are more other people’s itinerary or planning using a Moleskine:

Image by retro traveler

Image by songlines

Image by JustaPlaneRideAway

P.S. Online is just a Simple Form of Offline

When I dig into details of the Moleskine community, I found out it is as interesting, if not more, as the blogger community. They are even more creative. Especially people who travel. They use Moleskine as a blog (they keep journals), and even as a twitter.

They share great tips – much better than many blog tip. Here is an example, and here.

I Bought a Moleskine

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I hopelessly fall in love with Moleskine notebook in two days, and before I believe it, I becomes a Moleskine fan.

Although Moleskine has many details of good design and good craftsmanship, it is the usage of Moleskine, and the Moleskine community that attracts me most.

Look at these nice scratches on a Moleskine by those Moleskine owners! It is maybe like Flickr – not only the system, but also who uses it that makes flickr attractive.

Image by renmeleon

Image by hanssolo.

Image by imwithsully

Here is mine:

Image by Jian Shuo Wang

10 Years from 32151, Automation, SJTU

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My old classmate Gong Liang sent us an email to remind us to return to Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) on April 11, 2009 – it is the official “Get Back to School” day of SJTU. More than that, it is 10 years since we graduate from university. It brought my memory back to the class 32151 of Automation Department of SJTU.

10 years. I changed a lot in the last 10 years, and the time as a student in Shanghai Jiao Tong University seems to be very far from me. At that time, there was no blog, no digital camera, and there was plenty of time. I am not a good student when I was in university – I may talk about it when I am in the mood of getting back to old days…

My office now is still on the campus of the university, but only today, I suddenly realized that I have ever studied here 10 years ago – think about how long the 10 years are.

Yes. I am getting back to Min Hang campus on April 11. If there is any other alumni who go back to Minhang Campus, please let me know, and let’s schedule some time to know each other and talk.

Here is a list of names of classmates. I read the names of each person, and, ops, for some, I had a hard time to remember… We didn’t contact each other after graduation (to be more exactly, I intentionally isolate myself from others). Hope April 11, 2009 is an opportunity to reconnect to my old friends.

32151班

段晓文　　　陈黛　　　　曲波　　　　吴立纲　　　周捷

张铭　　　　王锋　　　　魏海滨　　　梅佳予　　　王晔

朱元晨　　　殷重先　　　宗锐　　　　周珉　　　　王怡靖

周俊威　　　刘冬清　　　王建硕　　　马劲　　　　柴海林

张宜　　　　何宇升　　　钱江　　　　黄学　　　　朱顺波

张震　　　　宫　亮　　　陈汇钢

32152班

言玮　　　　万洁卉　　　刘枫　　　　王治　　　　杨永

赵翊捷　　　潘炜　　　　金东　　　　吴文翔　　　刘毅

方圆海　　　徐军　　　　顾军　　　　池纪锋　　　费嘉亮

向阳　　　　王凌云　　　王茂华　　　张江红　　　王昊鹏

赵家佳　　　潘正　　　　陈波　　　　徐光业　　　陈旻

张华　　　　尹启龙　　　冯传正　　　

32153班

桑伟数　　　何育敏　　　王爱华　　　朱磊　　　　冯玮

张敏毅　　　周纪　　　　赵海峰　　　陈德嵘　　　俞清

叶凌　　　　李炜　　　　赵晋　　　　池永华　　　蔡峰峰

李晓冬　　　陈昶　　　　甘泉　　　　卢会来　　　祁江

于祖强　　　冼旭和　　　盛浩军　　　杨添龙　　　郑鸿

严胜　　　　

Back to Office with Full Energy

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I have to admit the best way to get back energy after working for a long time is to give ourselves a pause, and get away from work.

Now, I am sitting in the quiet office, one hour before everyone comes. I will list this as one key happiness items – it allows you to concentrate, and wandering in the office to see where you can improve this important place.

I am back, and I am fully refreshed. Thanks for the long Yangshuo, Guilin trip. It seems I should arrange more? Work + Pause is actually more productive than continuous work.

Photos of Shanghai in Spring 2009

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Photos of Shanghai

I took some photos along the way back from Starbucks home, to give my frequent idea about what Shanghai looks like TODAY.

Loving couple before the nice flowers on the tree.

© Jian Shuo Wang

The nice flower – spring comes to Shanghai! Woolaaa!

The Jinmao Tower, and World Financial Center.

And in Lujiazui, this kind of truck is more commonly seen than any other places in Shanghai. Today, Lujiazui is a even bigger construction site, and a bigger mass. :-)

After I am back from Guilin and saw all the mountains there, I just formed the habbit to imagine all these buildings as a hill in Guilin – if the transformation from building to hill really happens, Shanghai will be an even better place than Guilin.

Cannot Measure it, Cannot Improve it

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Found a famous quotation, that within Microsoft, people use very often. But this time, saw it on Google’s website:

If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. by Lord Kelvin

This is for many times proved to be true, and I believe it is also the foundation principle of the modern science. Fengshui? Or Chinese Medicine? That does not include measurement yet. Don’t have measurement does not necessarily means that they are not effective, but it is maybe one of the key distinguishing characteristic of modern science and others. The other is religion – you just cannot use science to explain religion, just like you cannot use English to exactly explain Chinese.

So, recently, I wrote the following question on the notebook I brought with me: How can we measure happiness?

The conclusion was, no, we cannot measure happiness, especially after I re-read Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness. (BTW, fanatic book on what happiness is. It seems to be particularly written to ENFP people like myself).

Since we cannot directly measure happiness, this afternoon I told Wendy that I am going to do something else. I will write down scenarios that I typically feel happy, and then count the number of times that I run into that scenario. By counting that number, I can have a proxy to measure whether I am happier this week than the last week, or not. (Jinshengtan has a famous 33 happy moments. Everyone should have a simliar list)

Even better, if we can develop a common check list about what happiness means for us as a family, we can collectively measure how happy we as a family are.

Sunday Morning Session

My morning started again from a meeting in the cafeteria of Pudong Shangri-la Hotel, followed by a meetup in Starbucks opposite to the Bund with friend from Baidu, Inezha, and Shopex. Then we had a lunch at nearby Italian restaurant with Hengge from blogbus. How long has been the last Sunday morning meetup like this? I think it is at the end of 2004. It seems really good ideas and high quality meetups only happens during bad ecomony times. It always seems to be that ideas comes from, then company and then capital, and then competition, and then, many die, and the process start all over again. I think it is a great idea to have regular (by regular, I mean not more frequent than monthly or even quarterly) Sunday morning meetups.

Green Lotus Hotel of Yangshuo

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The best way to explorer Yangshuo should be any of the nice hotel (including youth hostels), and hang out in the bars on the West Street.

The lobby (Yes, the little model in the middle is Yifan)

The view from the top of the hotel.

The hotel windows.

The entrance of the hotel from the river side.

The other side of the Lijiang River.

The view out side the window. Pretty nice, isn’t it?

My Review:

This is obviously a very family friendly hotel, with very nice hardware. It was built according to 5-star standard, but not a 5-star yet. This is the typical trick of many hotels. They claim to be 5-star or 4-star STANDARD, but not certified yet. Many of them, are just in the middle of opening and get certified. I heard the hotel must be running for a period of time before it is accepted for review. I guess Green Lotus Hotel is one of them, but some others just claim they build the hotel according to that standard, which does not mean that they are certified yet…

The service of the hotel is very nice. In most places, like the managers of the hotels always greet people, and the house keeping standard are very close to 5-star standard. You just feel that it is pretty like Shangri-la Hotel. However, there are many details that shows a much lower standard.

One of the small details was, the server in the cafeteria does not ask you the must-ask question “tea or coffee” at breakfast time, which means that they frequently miss to greet a guest, and don’t seat them. Also, they do things like ask guest to move to a table have they sit down, instead of move the forks, and knives to the guest. Well. I know I am over-picky here, but I am not talking about my preference, I just talk about the service of most 5-star hotels.

I believe the Green Lotus Hotel should be the best quality hotel of Yangshuo, and is suitable for families, especially with a kid.

Having said that, I have to say I regret that I missed the most exciting experience and maybe the best part of Yangshuo: backpacker type of travel. That is the cost of having a family and having Yifan traveling with us. I accept it. People always swing from nice hotel with good condition and service, and the local budget hotel which is not only cheap but also interesting. At different stage, people have different perference. Hope one day, when just Wendy and I travel, we switch back to the life style we like better: travel as a local, and stay away from 5-star hotels.

P.S. OK. Hope this article wraps up my Guilin trip, and I am getting back to normal life in Shanghai.

P.S. 2 The most interesting thing possible would be leave Shanghai for a week, and when you get back, you find many different new progress, like the poles Yanggao South Road viaduct at Gaoke West Road have been completed, and some new roads appeared near my home. Shanghai is really changing by weeks, while many other city change by year.

Photos of Yangshuo, Guilin – Part II

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Here are more photos of the trip with very brief note. I am here in Shanghai. Immediately after I get off airplane, I headed to Shangri-la for a meeting, and there are two meetings near the Pudong Shangri-la and Starbucks tomorrow. I already noticed the big difference – I feel excited about the upcoming meetings – that is the benefit of a vacation.

Follor near Lijiang River – from the Bilian Jiangjing Hotel.

© Jian Shuo Wang

Boat on Lijiang River.

© Jian Shuo Wang

Below: Scene of the West Street. Wendy said she loves this picture.

© Jian Shuo Wang

Below: the lobby of Yangshuo Youth Hostel. We reserved this hotel but later cancelled it. It turned out to be a nice and quiet hotel.

© Jian Shuo Wang

The Yangshuo Shiwaitaoyuan 世外桃源 (they translate their name to “Shangri-la”, which I don’t think is a proper name).

© Jian Shuo Wang

The mountains and architect of the village.

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

They have live performance – there are people act as native people.

© Jian Shuo Wang

This lady is NOT an actor – I love the natural feel of the village

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

The water circle:

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

This is the Yinzi Yan 银子岩. The Karst cave.

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

Why People Travel

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Event at the lake of Yangshuo near West Street and facing the nice Bilian (Green Lotus) Hill, I brought out my Nokia E71 smartphone, and Googled the question: "Why people travel?"

Yes. That was exactly the question in my mind, and the question I tried very hard to answer. I read books about it, fall into deep thought in airports, and hotels, and even went to many places myself. The question was still in my mind that I still didn’t find a satisfactory answer. When I am reading a blog entry started with this

I’m writing from my hotel balcony in Giza City, Egypt – just outside Cairo, and the site of the historic Pyramids. The sun is coming up right now, and the view is great..

I feel that I am very attracted by the scene, and would love to check out airline websites. But, I still don’t have the exact answer to the question: "Why People Travel?"

Before I continue to write my answers, I am turning my question to my readers. Why you travel? By travel, I am excluding business travel or other travels that you are required to. I mean the travel that you WANT to go yourself. Again, my question is, Why YOU travel?

Wrapping Up my Guilin Trip

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I am packing up for my departure to Shanghai tomorrow. Good bye Guilin and Yangshuo.

  • It is good and important to take break at least every year to find time to spend with family.
  • People need to have a unique place to go to make a mark in memory about the year.
  • This is not a relaxed trip with Yifan, and my parents-in-law. As Wendy put it, we are learning to take care of people, and start to share the responsibility of a family. A big family trip proposes a much bigger challenge on where we stay, and where we eat.
  • We started with a cheap hotel (180 RMB per night) in Guilin, but immediately cancelled our booking in Youth Hostel in Yangshuo, and moved in to the local 5-star hotel. I just realize that we are no long the same person when we were a backpacker – a big family is not the right group of people to do that kind of trip.
  • Guilin is nice, and you have to spend time to find places that local people go – the Ronghu Lake, instead of the Elephant Hill..
  • The trip is like a trip in a city. I still preper destination like Sanya, where you stay at the beach, and far away from the city.
  • I am back with engergy to start my Q2

Shanghai, we are back!

Mountains of Guilin

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Just had a strange thought: after several hundred years, when all the tall buildings in Shanghai got abandoned, and trees, and grasses grow out of the buildings, that will be another Guilin.

You get the idea of the mountains of Guilin? Just like the high-raising buildings in Shanghai. It just stand there, coming out of no where.

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

When I am in Guilin, I also understand that the “stone drawing” of Suzhou Museum by I.M. Peimust be the mountains of Guilin.

Look at this drawing and this photo. Are they similar with each other?

Yifan on the Road

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Yifan on the Guilin to Yangshuo boat – his first boat ride.

Yifan likes his red car – he has been with the car for many weeks – days and nights. At night, he sleeps with the car – any attempt to remove the car from his hands will cause him to cry for a long time to protest against.

Yifan and the bird (technically, it is called Phalacrocorax carbo 鸬鹚). I paid 2 RMB to get the permission to take the photo for Yifan.

Yifan’s other good friend – the little red travel case. He loves to push the case around – on ground with nice surface, like airports, or tough places, like this one at the pier.

Not surprisingly, Yifan is the first person fallin asleep when we arrived at hotel after a long trip.

Yifan finally got the chance to play with water as long as he wishes – he was not allowed to do it in Shanghai when the weather is still too cold.

As you can see, whenever there is Yifan, there is the red car.

He finally got some interest in the menu – when he feels hungry, or shifted his interest to cup when he feels thirsty.

Before a bar with strong rock-n-roll music, he dances with me:

Every time Yifan travels with us, he grows up a lot, and learn some new tricks… How wonderful the trip is with Yifan, although we almost haven’t explore Yangshuo yet.

Impression of Impression Sanjie Liu

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We went to see the long expected Impression Sanjie Liu 印象刘三姐.

The show was designed to be the highlight of the trip, because of several reasons:

  • It is a show on the Lijiang River, and before the nice mountain.
  • The type of show is very unique in China.
  • It is directed by Zhang Yimou, the director of Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.
  • Also, the ticket is very pricey: 188 RMB per person.

Hmm… What is my impression? It is very hard to say.

It is Good in Terms of Economy Return

I did a rough calculation. The ticket price is 188 RMB (or 130 RMB if you get it from tour guide). And there are much more expensive tickets like 380, 680 RMB. There are one to two sessions per day. Every time, the theatre of 2000 people is full.

Let’s say, the performance gets 100 RMB per person net on average, and there are 1.5 performance per day, that is 300,000RMB per night, which is 109 million RMB per year. That is a huge number for a theatre in a county!

The Theatre

The theatre is big – 2000+ people. To my greatest surprise, it is fully packed today. We got a very bad seat at the corner of the second row. I was told that when the show starts, I can change my seat if there are open seat. But, there is no any available seats… It is quite amazing.

Yangshuo shocked me a lot that the 2000 people all fly from different places and get to a theatre in the middle of almost nowhere…

The Show is…. Generally Good

Let me post some photos.

Disclaimer: It is allowed to take photo during the show (it is not a theatre anyway. We were at the river side, and among the mountains) as long as no flash is used.

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph: Jian Shuo Wang

As you can see, the scenes are very nice – my photography is the problem and I didn’t spend any time in taking the photos, because the scene was very nice.

BUT, Something is Wrong

After the show, Wendy and I briefly exchanged the question: “How do you like it?” followed by long silence. We just feel there is something wrong. Chaos? Distracted? Or something else? Wendy described it as “Modern Vision Art Show” – just vision art, and nothing beyond that.

On the shuttle back, we talked with a girl from Australia, and I suddenly got the feeling. It was exactly the feeling after we saw Zhang Yimou’s movie Curse of the Golden Flower.

Yes. That explains why we feel the first half much better than the second part. In the second part, there is no single person, just a group of people doing exactly the same thing with no personal expression, no individual – just an army of fish men and fish women. Everyone of them are so small and meaningless, but altogether, they formed something big. I don’t like it.

Anyway, I would rate it as excellent show and would recommend others to go and see it.