A few days from now, C’s father has birthday. We want to send him some money, as it is way easier than buying a gift, sending it and wait for it to arrive. I should have known better.
To send money there are 2 obvious options: Either by regular mail (will take about 7-11 days) or by bank using the SWIFT/BIC transaction system. We have sent money before and always used the mail service. The downside of course being the time it takes, and the risk of getting your letter stolen. Letters have no insurance after they leave Denmark. So we decided to try the safer and faster method from now on. Big mistake.
I told C to have her father make an account in the local (and only) bank called China Gong Shang Bank and get some details like: the banks name, account number, bank address, SWIFT/BIC code and so on.
A day later C’s father reported back, that he got everything, except the SWIFT/BIC code. According to the bank, they didn’t have one and also said that it was not necessary (I suspect that they have no clue what it is, and try to save face instead of checking up on it). Well, my bank wrote that it is, and since I use my bank to send the money, they kinda dictate what is necessary, right? Continue Reading »
Yesterday C and I attended a drum clinic with Keith Carlock here in Aalborg. And what is a “drum clinic”, you may ask? A drum clinic is when some world-class musician “tour” alone, show-off his godlike skills and let the audience ask questions afterwards. A bit unofficial and normally only the local musicians are invited. My brother is one of those (music nerds i.e.).
I love music and especially jazz inspired stuff. In my youth I was denied a drum set. My parents felt they had already done their time when my older drum-crazy brother lived home. So I had to do with playing a bit on my brother’s drums way back then, and therefore my flaming musical “talent” never erupted (some would dispute and point out it was never there). Nevertheless, I got a really good idea, how difficult mastering the drums really is. Continue Reading »
I have now disabled Akismet spam protection on this blog and hope the best.
Akismet have done a good job so far, but now it seems that it is surpassed by the spambots. The spam comments still fill my “waiting for approval” queue, and I find it annoying to go through these to sort out the one annual real comment.
So far 3 days with no spamming getting past and no bots registering themselves either. I installed Raz-Captcha to stop the bots from doing that, and kept Re-Captcha, to guard against comment spammers. So far so good, but still crossing my fingers. Maybe Akismet will be enabled again, who knows.
Before disabling Akismet, I got loads of spam even though Re-Captcha should have stopped them. So I kept Akismet enabled and had to look through the comments awaiting approval to make sure real comments weren’t lost. A shitty job. I had a clue that it was Akismet’s “fault”, and I was right. Continue Reading »
Yet another of those popular follow-ups on our trip to China the summer of 2007.
One day we were invited to eat dumplings at C’s sister’s house.
The dumplings were great and after relaxing a bit, C’s sister told C that she had some presents for us. Besides some exquisite handcrafted glass objects to put on the wall back home, C’s sister had a special gift for me. She handed me a small box and inside I found a carved brown stone that was shaped like a sort of animal. It was a necklace and the “chain” was made of green sowing threads beautifully woven together with a few white pearl-shaped stones. I was told that it was a Chinese fable animal that meant wealth and prosperity.
As usually I can’t write the Chinese word, but it is pronounced like: “Pee-Tchu”. The animal has a big mouth and no butt hole (takes some of the romance off it I know, but nevertheless) which is symbolic for someone who gains a lot, but never looses it.
I really liked the necklace even though I’ve never been much of a jewellery-guy. It’s heavier than you’d think, but you get used to it. Only downside is that we had to change to an silver chain, as the other gave me a rash after a few months, but thats what many fabrics do for me too. Continue Reading »
Yet another of those popular follow-ups on our trip to China the summer of 2007.
Have you ever had a discussion about how to do things with your wife/girlfriend? A discussion where you knew that no matter what you said it would be futile?
I am talking about discussions where you know you’re right, because you’ve been in the situation before and know the only outcome. Sure you have, and the situation has been the other way around too (though I hate to admit it).
When I encounter these “doomed-to-go-wrong-situations” I usually just shake my head, smile and let her make her own experience herself. Afterwards I’m as always ready (of course) to let an “I told you so” hang in the air.
I had one of these discussions when we packed our stuff to go to China, and one when we packed to the trip home. C thought the weight limit for luggage in the airport was recommended, while I knew that it could give us trouble. Since I had full control of the situation when we left Denmark, I’ll fast-forward to the trip home. Continue Reading »
Today I added a new category to make my first posts easy to find.
These are all from my first trip to Shenzhen/China where I met C for the first time. The meeting and later Justins blog – Shenzhen Zen – was what spurred my interest in blogging.
The category can be found on the side panel to the right and is called China trip may 2005. It should be read from the bottom to get it chronologically.
This Monday, my last 1 week vacation started. C and I just spent 3 days in Copenhagen.
We did some sightseeing while we tried to overstay our welcome with Kojak’s at his brand new apartment. Somehow we didn’t manage and we had a great trip.
Arrived Sunday evening and relaxed a bit to accumulate strength for the next days marathon sightseeing/shopping spree.
Monday we started by making a stop at the Experimentarium. Then off to the Fields Mall where Kojak and yours truly was dragged around for several hours by C, who disappointingly enough didn’t find anything worth buying in what seemed like millions of shops. Not sure she found the effort worthless though.
Tuesday we had a pleasant drive on Route 66 Strandvejen where all the most expensive and coolest houses are in Copenhagen. Then further north to Helsingor, where we saw Kronborg Castle (yup – the one with hamlet). I was a bit disappointed, but hey – then I can cross that one of my to-see-list. Continue Reading »
As promised (threatened) a follow-up on my first visit at my parents-in-law the summer 2007.
This is the entrance to the courtyard where C’s sister’s apartment was located. Back when we were in Yilan this was where we lived. Every day we had to go through the stupid mini-maze to the left (look at the picture). It’s not that I haven’t seen similar in Denmark, but when I did, it always served a purpose unlike here.
Maybe its not clear enough from the picture, but to the left on the gate there is a tight entrance where you have to pull your guts in to get through. Try doing that with 2 suitcases. Moronic. By the way its C and her sister walking on the other side ready to go through the maze of tight abs.
The big gates are never open, so all “traffic” goes through that hole if you don’t want to walk 700 feet around the block to use a more normal entrance.
As promised (threatened) a follow-up on my first visit at my parents-in-law the summer 2007.
In the summer you would constantly hear an infernal screaming of the word: “Pingau” (not sure how it’s spelled correctly).
At first I didn’t notice it much other than one of the many new sounds that filled the air in China. At a time I asked C what the woman shouted and was told it meant “ice-cream”. Turns out it was the mobile ice-cream seller. We have those in Denmark too, but they drive in vans and use a bell to signal that they are close.
The version Yilan city used was nothing close. A woman wearing a sun screen hat thingy drove a 3 wheeled bicycle, while she use a pre-recorded message put on a megaphone. Every 5 seconds or so, megaphone would release a deafening scream: “Pingau!”. The volume on the megaphone so pitchy and loud, that a few months doing this would no doubt affect your ability to hear people talking. Continue Reading »
After a few days C’s father felt so sorry for my fat feet that he bought a pair of plastic slippers for me. In 30+ degrees warm dusty weather where even the Chinese sweat, you know you have to say yes to a deal that helps cooling you down.
And really – it’s not categorized as sandals, are they?
Liked the slippers a lot and used them almost every day, even though the gave me a bad rash on the upper side of my feet. Not sure whether it was the plastic or just the dirt that accumulated there during the daily walks in dusty streets.
As promised (threatened) a follow-up on my first visit at my parents-in-law the summer 2007.
Everywhere we went in the city of Yilan, we were greeted by massive writing of numbers. Almost like graffiti it was written on everything you could imagine. Billboards, walls, houses, stairs well everywhere.
I found it pretty odd, so I asked C what it was. “Phone numbers” she said. “Its phone numbers for people who sell fake exam papers, personal documents and such”. I was astonished. How many would need such papers? Well, knowing China, it would be in high demand, but still it nowhere near the amount I saw was needed.
It was illegal of course, but it didn’t stop the writers. Considering the amount of phone numbers everywhere, I would say that it was a fulltime job for a good handful of people, but still I never saw anyone doing the actual writing the month we spent there. Guess they did their dirty deed at night time. Continue Reading »
As promised (threatened) a follow-up on my first visit at my parents-in-law the summer 2007.
First time I saw Yilan City, where C’s family lives, was a bit of a surprise. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t what I found.
We had been in a bus for 4 hours straight from Harbin. The terrain hadn’t changed much, except for the few bumps that C called mountains. All way there the bus used the highway (fortunately), but the landscape looked the same. To the left and right there were field with straight lines of crops. Mostly corn and rice, but also some greens that I’ve never seen before. Looked like they belonged to the lettuce family, but not sure.
Once and a while a tiny village popped up. Very old small huts that looked like the farmers built them with their own hands. Then a few times you would see a bigger city in the distance. When we finally neared Yilan the highway started coming across some hills. Suddenly a valley looking spot opened up and to the left Yilan City was seen. There was a river running under a bridge that needed crossing to get there. The City itself looked strange to me. From the highway I could spot plenty of hut-like houses and further downtown there were bigger blocks that looked like something the Russians would have made. Continue Reading »
Sometimes it’s strange what can follow having a blog.
Not only have I been asked to write a column (which I agreed to), but a few days ago, someone contacted me to ask permission to use one of my pictures. And, mind me, not one of the sceneries or similar (that I find best), but this one of my dusty CPU heatsink that I forgot all about. Seems that a newfound IT company wants to use it as an example (of bad heatsinks I guess).
Cool with me and I of course agreed as I would with most pictures. As long as they were without me, the missus, friends, family etc. on it. When I’m asked first, it’s not a biggie. I’m a nice guy…. really!
At least they asked nicely unlike another blogger I ran into who just “stole” this picture and didn’t have the decency to say sorry or even reply when I confronted him/her with a comment on his/her blog. Now I lost the link to the blog, so don’t even know if I ever got a reaction.
It’s not that nothing is happening here. It’s just not interesting to write about. Well, ok, we spent 7000DKR (about 1350US$) on a new bed. Is that newsworthy? And – yes – plenty of other things are going on. Most are just not worth mentioning, while others are not any of the reader’s business. Besides that, my writing enthusiasm is below zero and even though I know that there’s always something you could write about, I really don’t have the motivation. Yawn.
So instead of upping my writing efforts, I’ll do the next best thing (and predictable I might add) and launch a shitload of pictures taken the last months or so.
Enjoy
A quick shot of a passing car with the camera on “Night settings”
Sure I’m a sceptic. Who wouldn’t be in a world of better-knowing fools who stare themselves blind on their hobby/job/interests. Not only do they focus on their field of interest, but they also tell you that you should do the same. For “your own sake” of course.
All I’m saying is that if we try to do everything “the doctor ordered” we wouldn’t have time to lead a normal life. Think about it. Haven’t you often heard stuff like this from experts within their field?:
You need to brush your teeth 3 times daily and remember to flush too
Eat 4 pieces of fruit daily
Exercise 1 hour every day
Check and double-check all your work
Don’t eat after 6.00pm and remember to go to bed early
Don’t drink more than 4 beers at a time
Remember to chew every bite 33 times
And bla bla bla Feel free to put other suggestions in the comment section.
I’m not saying that those are bad advice, but personally I need to re-model them to fit my life if I want to do stuff I like too. Continue Reading »
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