Labor Park at New Years

It was a cold, clear Saturday in early January so I decided to check out Labor park in downtown Dalian...on previous trips I've stayed in the hotel across from the park, and couldn't see through the haze to the other side. Bonus this time was they were setting up for the upcoming New Year's party, so the rare blue sky wasn't the only eyecandy.

I've heard legend of some significance of the local soccer team in Dalian...some previous conquest or championship. Whatever it was, it was reason enough to build a giant soccer-ball shaped building in the park
Here's a 360 view around the park

As I'm standing at the soccer ball I can hear music and some thumping beats...and through the trees I can see - skiing. In the middle of the city. I was dying to give it a shot, but after trying briefly to fake my way through some equipment rental with hand signals and no clue how to say "size 12 boot" in Mandarin I gave up. Odds are good there wasn't anything approaching big American foot sizes anyway. Gotta love the improvised fake snow though.

For those without the cash for the ski rental, there's always the tiny wooden sled-for-two with matching tiny poles to slowly scrape your way across a frozen pond. After watching this for several minutes I was unable to understand where the fun came in...these guys were barely moving. Maybe there's a zen-like peace to the whole thing a westerner just can't grasp.

Jin Mao Tower

If you've got a few hours to kill in Shanghai, for a couple of bucks you can ride the express elevator to the 88th floor of the Jin Mao tower (on the right), which was the tallest building in Asia once upon a time. On our way there we tried to get into the other building on the left, which is the Shanghai World Financial center...and discovered that we were the only ones not in tuxedos in the lobby. We made it all the way to the elevator before security decide three Americans in dripping raincoats didn't quite fit the profile of the black tie invite list for the Grand Opening for the second tallest building in the world....and escorted us out. You can't tell by this shot but its way taller than the one on the right.
So we settled for tall, but not epic tall, and went to the top of the Jin Mao. And the view would have been amazing if I had gone one day earlier when the traditional Shanghai smog had lifted. But here's what it looked like from the top with the pollution intact. Check out the steady stream of barges on the river.


And here's a shot looking down the central shaft of the building

A couple of classic signs on this trip too. Check out this one below from a busy six-lane surface street. Only in China can you turn left across three lanes of traffic.

There's a lot of gloom and doom articles that have been written in recent years about the zillions of engineers and scientists graduating from Chinese universities, and the coming competition for the American economy. Now, apparently, they've found a way to accelerate business degrees as well...although for some reason they chose to feature a western looking kid for their kindergarden master's degree

Taking the Bullet to Kyoto

Kyoto - its not just a place where presidents from Texas deny global warming. Its a place where there are tons of ancient Buddhist shrines. Took the bullet train from Nagoya to go do a walking tour - very fast and cool.



Here's a couple of shots from the shrines.





If you've ever wondered where calamari comes from - I learned that its made in a machine like this...simply feed the squid in at the top, and down the chute comes delicous tubes and tentacles, ready to eat
Maybe the worlds cutest little cement truck. Everybody in our group thought it was real funny to get a picture of the big guy next to the little truck. I guess it needs to be this small since the streets are pretty narrow, but it seems like you'd be pouring your sidewalk all weekend long

Here's the Japanese cemetary I mentioned in an earlier post. It was a pretty cool view - and reaffirms that high density living in Japan doesn't just apply to those with a pulse

Shinto Shrine in Ise

Since we were in Ise, Japan visiting an equipment vendor for work, it wasn't hard to find time to visit Jingu, which is located in Ise, and is one of the holiest sites in the Shinto religion. Apparently the place dates back to 4 BC, and part of the belief requires that portions of the shrine are torn down and reconstructed every 20 years. There's a pretty good writeup on the place on wikipedia. My main impression was that the place was beautiful and reminded me at times of old growth forests I've hiked here in Oregon. Like everything in Japan, the place was spotless, neatly organized, and full of polite people

Downtown Nagoya

The Nagoya Marriott is located in the upper floors of a high rise in the middle of town. The lower levels are a swanky mall, and converging in the basement are dozens of of train tracks connecting from all over Japan. At street level there was a huge open plaza, offering some of the most interesting people-watching ever. At any given moment you could look through the crowds of bustling commuters and see about a hundred people all in the same pose, expectantly holding their cell phone out at arms length, waiting for their hook-up to text them.

I ended up with a killer view out my hotel window. Here it is both at day and night.

Factory Construction Progress

The construction crews are cranking along, and at least the structural pieces of the campus seem to be coming up remarkably fast. As always, we got to do a site walk and check the progress, and compare the real life building to the drawings we've been planning to. I thought this perspective below, looking down between the factory and the support building with the city in the background was kind of cool

Shanghai Cricket Market

On previous trips we've walked around the bird market...really more of an narrow city alley functioning as a pet store. Not much tourist traffic here, mostly all locals, and we've gotten some "what are you doing here" looks from the animal dealers as we've walked around. This time there was a change of merchandise - not a lot of birds, because we hit right in the middle of cricket season. Even on the sidewalks surrounding the market, dozens of guys were laying out tarps and setting out the rows of little tuna-cans of crickets for sale, as well as the associated accessories that no cricket should be without, including tiny little porcelain food and water dishes for them

These cricket's destiny is to be more than just a pet though...these are fighting crickets, and crowds would gather around shopkeepers who would use a piece of straw to tickle the back feelers on these tiny brawlers to get them agitated.

I never really saw a cricket fight, and I can't imagine that they can do much damage to each other. What could they do except maybe hop all over each other? Probably a lot of trash talk and posturing, and not a lot of legitimate action...like pro wrestling for insects