Highlights

Now that I have moved on to bigger and better blogs, I am going to leave my Chinablogs with a short list of my favorite posts: 

http://chinablogsmaokelan.blogspot.com/2005/11/chai-le-means-demolish.html

http://chinablogsmaokelan.blogspot.com/2005/06/trip-to-country-side.html

http://chinablogsmaokelan.blogspot.com/2006/01/girl-named-mark_29.html

Please check my new blog (less journal, more links) at http://maokelan18.tumblr.com/

And for those of us with especially short attention spans, follow me on http://twitter.com/maokelan18

再见！

yes, they do eat cat

I saw one, roasted, hanging with the usual legs of pork, ready to be purchased for a cool 400 RMB [like more than $50]. apparently kitty cat is delicious, according to the woman who tried to sell it to me.

My journey started in Chengdu, capital of sichuan (http://youtube.com/watch?v=FzRH3iTQPrk&feature=related), saw the giantess buddha in leshan among the masses of tourists, slept with a mouse in my room who had a thing for the hotel soap. tried to buy tickets to western sichuan but apparently not only journalists are blocked, but everyone with the white white face. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080406/NEWS07/804060661/1009/NEWS07

"It's for your safety". So I stayed around Chengdu, traveling with a college roomate, Margo. We traveled up a Daoist mountain to a village with no roads who grilled me why my president likes war and likes to kill people. I tried to explain the whole oil theory, but they weren't buying. A fellow tourist on the mountain had a t shirt (in English) that read: TIBExT ALWAYS IS, WAS, AND WILL BE PART OF CHINA. they wanted me to translate this for them. i did, and agreed wtih them, because I'm a Commy at heart, but historically, was anything really part of anything?
So, with my plan of ventures to western/ tibetaxn china now nixed "for my safety" i decided to hop a train to kunming, capital of yunnan, and head down to xi shuang ban na, where the happy minorities live (laos/ vietnam border area).

I should be returning to beijing in a few weeks, then home to CT beginning of june. hope everyone is well.

March 2008 (now that’s a creative title)

Cambodia- February 2008. My friend Caroline and I decided to go to Cambodia after really searching, reading, studying, and deciding that yes, Cambodia was the cheapest place to fly to when buying tickets 8 days before you want to depart.

First, let me give all photo credits to Caroline the photographer, and she posted the best of her photos on her photo blog at:

http://www.photoblog.com/carolinece/2008/02/07/

Photos of actual people [such as me and Caroline] will sent separately via kodakgallery, please let me know if you didn’t receive an email to view those and I’ll send it to you.

I want to be upfront and admit that I went to the pool at the Hotel Intercontinental and drank Bloody Mary’s while Caroline went to the Killing Fields. Is that terrible that I was drinking Bloody Mary’s? Probably. But we needed rest and Cambodia was a great mix of tourist sites, out of the way sites, relaxing, and visiting the local genocide sites. I’m not going to recount the entire vacation, but I will relate this one story:

The journey began, funnily enough, at Beijing Capital “we’re ready for the Olympics we promise” Airport, I was trying to sneak through a 120 ml sunscreen, when we all know the requirements are 100 ml, even if the stupid bottle is almost empty. Right when I was about to agree to throw the bottle out, the airport security guard ushers me behind a wall to wear he was disposing of other liquid items and tells me to put the bottle in my pocket where I am out of site of the cameras. You can feel safe about flying into China, I promise.

So you’ll learn more about the trip by checking out the photos.

For me, my update consists of this:

1. Its getting warm in Beijing, but Uncle Hu turns the heat off on March 15.
2. I actually got into business school, so far I’m planning on attending Babson (in Boston) but I also got waitlisted at Boston College, so we will see.
3. Summer plans are up in the air currently… I’m planning on quitting my job end of April, my former college roommate Margo is coming from New Zealand to visit and do some traveling in China. After that, I will eventually leave China (see below for thoughts on that) and probably spend most of my summer at 25 Ford Lane (Connecticut), in addition to visiting my older brother and Carmen in SF and driving my car home from Denver.

So, I’m leaving China. Ever since I returned from Cambodia I’ve had this realization that its time to leave. In short, I’m feeling sad about it. It’s been three years, and at this moment I’m very much liking Beijing. But, there are a few key things that Beijing does not have, namely: The Nelson Clan, clean air, and my sail boat. I’m sure I’ll be back.

Huang Shan bike photos

Photos are up on the bike race- to browse the many many of them here are the websites that have some:

http://lemonhead.yculblog.com/post.1788736.html
http://www.citycamels.net/bbs/index.php?s=213c8bf7935648517ddd8031b91ef89e&showtopic=2314
http://www.52bike.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=32&ID=16559&page=1

http://community.webshots.com/album/558578312axNEwI

This one is me on the downhill section.



I will be posting a smaller collection of photos and send them out via kodakgallery shortly...

It’s 55 degrees in my apartment

Spring is here, spring is here, it is light out when I come home from work, and colder in my apartment than it is outside [Uncle Hu turned off the heat first week in March].

I am glad to see March over, to be honest. Two of my good friends here left this month, and another good friend came to visit, but it really emphasized that this is a transient place. People don’t stay long here, and with good reason. I have recently made a pact with my sister to come pull me outta here at some point, should I get stuck and incapable of moving “home”.

Work is also going relatively well, although sometimes I wonder how mega large companies like Nokia can continue to produce decent phones. I had a conversation with a man the other day that went something like this: “we are all engineers and we don’t think about what will happen in the future. I realized that we are moving to this new building and maybe we should tell someone of our special requirements.” You think? The building is currently on level 3 [out of 6] and now people come to me to say they need their own special room built. So it keeps me on my toes.

It was my birthday on the 8^th and I did successfully turn 27 despite various and sundry lovely women returning to North America during that time period. I received lovely gifts including a flask, a stuffed schnauzer [a toy, not a dead animal], and my favorite gift, my carbon bike pedals.

Speaking of bikes, my race was Saturday, and I did not win, but I was the first loser. I don’t feel all that terrible about it because for 75% of the race I thought I was in first place. We’re still not clear where this so-called first place finisher came from, but it doesn’t really matter, as Floyd “I didn’t take performance enhancing drugs” Landis says:

"Everybody wants to say, 'I couldn't win because of this or that.' To my way of thinking, it doesn't matter if your *&*%$ head fell off or your legs exploded. If you didn't make it, you didn't make it. One excuse is as good as another."

In any case, I did win some $$ [with income tax taken out] and more bike parts. I have mostly my bike to thank, it really did make a difference. I look forward to beating the pants of the winner of this race this summer in Beijing. Unfortunately she was a very nice girl. I was the only honky on the podium for the women, so I guess it is good to see the Chinese women getting into the sport. More photos coming soon- this one is me on the 2 block, who knows what I am doing, but yes we did get big ridiculous checks that I later used to package my bicycle. If you are wondering where this mysterious 1st place winner is, she was off showering.

I know text messages are slowly catching on in the US, here in China we live through them. We even get spam text messages: usually in Chinese, and usually for airplane tickets or massage. I recently received one in “English” from my gym declaring:

"honorific member's friends, in chance encounter the store celeb rates one anniversary moment, the club of TheSpa will organize the member to leave for the Yesanpo of laishui he bei provi"

Ah yes. I’ve always wanted to go there.

Happy Year of the Pig

From the NYTimes: "So the nation has been saddled with tax cuts that have turned a budget surplus into a big deficit, education reform that has been badly managed and underfinanced, far-right judges with scant qualifications, the dismantling of regulations in order to benefit corporations at the expense of workers, and a triumph of ideology over science in policy making on the environment and medical research. All along, Americans' civil liberties and the constitutional balance have been trampled by a president determined to assert ever more power."

And to make matters worse, Anna Nicole Smith is died. She will be mourned. [side note: she's the biggest (tallest, heaviest, biggest measurements) Playmate of the Year (1993)].

The good side is, thanks for global warming, mountain bike season has been jump started, which is especially good since I finally decided I deserved to purchase my dream bike- that's the stock photo, actual photos to come. She's a real beauty.

In other more personal news, I was selected to win a highly selective and coveted prize at my company's New Year party on Friday: "Going above and beyond for MB Project Management." Contrary to traditional ceremony practice in this country, where there are neighborhoods solely dedicated to the displaying and manufacturing of awards, and awards ceremonies all involve elaborate trophy’s and padded red certificates laced in gold, my award was an orange post-it note with the words ‘above and beyond’ scribbled on it. I think this means I am no longer a slacker. This is quite an accomplishment.

The Chinese New Year has begun, which mostly fireworks going off at all times and with no regard to pedestrians on the sidewalk. The ‘floating population’ have returned home, which means construction projects have come to halt, and the group of people who do the jobs that no one else wants are gone as well. Sooner or later the government is going to have a reorganize their holiday schedule as it is soon becoming impossible for a nation of 9 trillion people to all travel back to bumpkin land on the same day. I’ll be here, enjoying the Colorado- like weather [sans snow] and eating and riding my bike and sleeping…

Apologies for the lack of blogging. I’ve been workin’.

Be a Foreigner's Landlord!

That is the current ad running on 97 lighted signs placed 6 feet apart on my road advertising for the now giant apartment buildings going up next to my house, the Cosmopolite. [I've decided its pronounced cos- MOP-o-lite] [koz-mop-uh-lahyt]
1. a person who is cosmopolitan in his or her ideas, life, etc.; citizen of the world.

One of the last vestiges of Communism: heat control. 5 days left until Uncle Hu turns on the heat. November 15 will be a celebratory day, because currently, my apartment is freezing. Like I sleep with a hat on. I may have said this all last year.

The Chinese seem to not yet be adjusted to escalators. Seems they've had them for a while, but still they are very attentive to getting on and off the escalator. This can slow things up. In the subways, there are signs that say "civilized passengers: please stand to the right, walk on the left."

But let’s talk about the Democrats. Congratulations, America, for pulling your h*** out of you’re a**. [my dad is going to yell at me for that one but I'll say it anyway] Except for you folks in Colorado, who,thank the Lord, have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Great job, guys. I didn’t want to get married anyway. I also really enjoyed this photo of the Santorum family, above. I think I speak for everyone when I say, Rick, we’re really going to miss you. Thankfully priests who have sex with male prostitutes while stopping by to purchase their monthly methamphetamine dose will not be allowed to marry goats thanks to people like ol’ Rick. http://www.aboms.com/

In more personal news, China is good, my job is actually very good and getting interesting. I am trying to move Nokia to a new building, and trying to figure out what they want/ how they want it, etc and communicate that to the people who are building the building [who according to my boss are totally incompetent which is a tiny bit worrisome]. Also worrisome is that currently the building is a hole in the ground and Nokia is set to move in December 2007. Hooray for speedy construction in China.

Aside from that, I have been enjoying the fall weather biking, watching the leaves change, getting all my last minute biking in before I try to do it and loose toes to frostbite.

Do people in America sign emails abbreviating ‘Best regards’? How could they be your best regards if you can’t even take the time to write them out?

brs,
Claire