myretroperspective

Our time in Chengdu was great. It's a city that is decidedly Chinese and yet with all the development that's happened there in the last 5-10 years, I believe it's finding its own place amongst the international cities of the world. Chengdu folks enjoying a morning cup of tea Some of the hard things about China (for Westerners) are actually more pronounced there when compared with our home in northeast China. There are more people and each of those people seem louder and more boisterous. They're known to have "spicy" tempers. The taxi drivers are CRAZY. They drive much faster than in Shenyang and have less adherence to the rules of the road. I honestly believe that the car horns in Chengdu are audibly louder than in the northeast. The pollution in Chengdu is consistently not good. In Shenyang we will have 2 days with off the chart terrible pollution followed by a couple days of mediocre and then it clears for a day or two. In Chengdu, the pollution level doesn...

Well, I made it back from Chengdu. I'll have another post or two about my two weeks there but I couldn't pass up a chance to mention all the baby pandas being born all over the world! chengdu panda statues! A few weeks ago, I was so excited to hear that our very own Zoo Atlanta was surprised with panda TWINS. They're about a month old and the panda cam is SO fun to watch these days:  http://www.zooatlanta.org/home/panda_cam . Ok, truthfully, pandas DO sleep a lot of the time but now it looks like a panda and it's mini-stuffed animal panda cuddled up together. Then this past weekend, I heard that Mei Xiang at the National Zoo in D.C. had a panda cub again herself.  If you remember last year Mei Xiang had a baby panda but 6 days after birth he died of lung & liver problems. This article made me laugh talking about the possibility of panda mamas faking pregnancies (drama queens) and the fact that they aren't sure who the father of Mei Xiang's cub is:  http://w...

We landed in Chengdu super late last night. We should have guessed the last flight out of Shenyang would be delayed, but we had goodbye parties to attend and homemade Italian food to consume- well worth the "yang lag" we're experiencing now. I'm completely charmed by Chengdu after only half a day of strolling the riverside and picking up some basic groceries at Carrefour. The pictures on the diplogram will prove my fascination. I'm blissfully in the midst of the honeymoon phase regarding my affection to Chengdu, and I hope it lasts the whole two weeks I'm here. Part of me regrets only staying two weeks of R's four, but somebody's got to keep up with the HR portfolio back in Shenyang :) I wanted to take a moment to talk about using credit cards in China, as I do it frequently and it's always the same scene. If you're not living or planning to live in China this might not be super interesting but it's part of life here. When you read up on li...

Hosting V for his first experience of China was a treat. Coming off of 6 years in West Africa and a month or so traveling through Spain, it was hard to guess how he'd interpret the quirks of China. We always have this schizophrenic reaction when friends actually engage with the idea of coming to visit us here in Shenyang. Of course we're excited and want to see them, but then there's an inevitable anxiety that making a trip literally half-way around the world might not meet their expectations. I can honestly say we did right by V. We showed him China in it's rawness and charm. After our adventures over the long 4th of July weekend V went to Beijing for a few days to see the sights on his own while R worked. V made it back Thursday for a few more days in Shenyang. R celebrated his return with a shirtless hot pot date (pictures deemed unfit for my blog ;)). R took half of Friday off and we ventured over to the Liaoning Museum. Aside from some beautiful stone etchings, we ...

Curious about part 1 of our trip? Click here. Day two of our adventure found us heading west from the coast in search of "wild" parts of the great wall. Believe it or not, much of the Great Wall has been restored and most places tourists are taken to see the Great Wall in China are reconstructed/restored parts of the wall.  On our drive down to Beidaihe on the highway we passed several watch towers in the distance that appeared to be the Great Wall. We'd also run across an internet post suggesting hiking starting in funing county to see Ming dynasty Wall (so built between 1368-1644). So we headed for the funing train station thanks to google maps and then kept driving towards the wall we could see in the distance.  beautiful countryside and Great Wall spotted on the peaks of the hills in the distance We stopped for baozi dumplings for breakfast and asked the restaurant owners if there were parts of the Great Wall nearby. They said yes and pointed us further down the road ...

cutest car on the road! the panda :) As I mentioned in my last post, there's nothing more American than a good old fashioned road trip. Thanks to one of R's colleagues, who I'll call A, and his adorable car which we affectionately call the "panda" (notice the resemblance?), on the 4th of July we embarked on an epic road trip. Armed with baked goods and google maps we set off to find adventure, and find it we did. 兴城 xingcheng old city flowers that matched my shirt Admittedly our expectations were low to start, and that made the trip all that much better when we'd stumble upon something wonderful. Adventuring definitely takes persistance and an immense amount of flexibility, but I think that is why it's so rewarding when it works out. Granted, in China you're taking the very real risk that the places you'll go could be overcrowded, cheesy, fake, dirty, etc. but what if they're not? 兴城-xingcheng  Confucian temple Our first stop of the trip was in...