Knobcottage in China

A typical Junction Traffic in China has always amazed me.  Why more people don't get injured or more cars get damaged, I just do not know.  It is hard to take photos of what it is like here so I thought Id just take a typical junstion at a faily busy time and make a video!  It was too big for upload so here is an external link.  It shou,d open in anew window. Click this see the video Outside my house on teh opposite side of the road is a place that 'fabricates' things  recently they have been completing this massive set of steps made from steel.  Spot welding plates nto a frame. Tonight it looks like they are finished.  They are probaly about twenty feet high and meigh a few tons.  I am curious asa to how they will move them now they have been completed.  Ill keep you updated!  I mean its goiung to tak on HUGE low loader to move them and one big crane.

China has two main telecom providers,  China Telecom and Unicom. To have any chance of doing anything in China, you need a SIM card (phone card).  Why? well without a telephone number you can't, to name but a few: get post delivered* order online pay for many things book taxis book tickets ...and to get a sim card, must be simple, "Yes?"..."No".  As a Chinese national you go to the phone shop, there are usually five shops per hundred meters.  Bring your ID, get your photo taken and matched to a national database, set up a payment plan. That is what the guideleines say should be the case for foreigners too!  It is not.  I turned up with: My passport My Work permit My medical card My Visa My Residence Permit My Chinese bank card was that enough? No.  All of these cards and permits have been nationally validated, all of them have my picture on them, but as a foreigner, that is not enough.  It appears that I need the ID card...

So off to Guiyang railway station...Sounds easy enough.  Waited by the side of the road, got a taxi and headed out!  Simples!  But the driving...Oh my goodness!  Everyone constantly hitting their horns is only part of it!  Motorcycles doing U turns in a four way carriageway and driving the wrong way up the road at oncoming trafibc, incessant beeping.  Families and their dog helmet-less on motorcycles...Wow!  But everyone takes it in their stride.  No shouting.  Just the incessant Beep! Beep! Beep! Got to the station.  HUGE building...Like an airport...And yes, you need a passport to buy a ticket.  So queue, passport, buy ticket, show ticket, bags into x-ray machine, and finally into the station itself.  Massive...almost the same size as Dorchester town centre!  Hundreds maybe thousands of people in the hall and loads of numbered gates, some with queues.  Just like an airport! Your train is called and you go and que...

Well , that was an eye opener! Massive all marble inside hospital, very impressive, but inside a different story. More paperwork lots and lots, but no fingerprints..Yay! So whilst waiting for Wendy to do the paperwork stage, they pointed to a bench to sit on.  It kind of half collapses as I sat on it.  A good ploy, fortunately it failed to tip me out and I didn't require their services...paid for of course! BloodsWell I've had lots of bloods taken before...this was a different device.  A 1cm long needle on a rubber tube, from a sealed packet. Spread some yellow stuff on my arm tied it up with a pink rubber strap and took two tubes of it.  Put a plaster on and told me to push on it and and go.  I went. Urine Don't need to explain that Ultrasound Tee shirt up, lie down, smear me with lube ultrasound me til it hurt, smear more lube on my left side.  Repeat ultrasound.  Stuck some toilet paper on me, pushed it hard.  All over.  Toilet pa...

Well, my luggage did arrive, but the po or yellow sod was streaked half black with dirty, oily stuff.  Some will clean off, some won't. Met by Wendy at the airport..Taxi to hotel.  Time Fashion hotel, of which, of course, it was neither!  However, it looks like it would do the job.  Shower works.  Fire facemasks in the room, probably to offset the effects of an electrical fault. An interesting selection of things in my room...Most of the food is past it's sell by date.  And a packet of condoms....I think. Went out for dinner with Wendy, the local contact and was treated to a fantastic hotpot. You cook the stuff yourself in the different boiling cooking sauces in the centre of the table. Apparently, the white stuff is dragon fruit! Got a lot of stares by being the only white person around, and as the locals are smallish I reckon I stood out even the more...Especially in the sunflower shirt! My shirt A...

Now I am finally on a bus to the transfer flight..or just possibly the cannibal butcher shop....It's that weird!   Well it wasn't the human butcher...Just another wait.  And another wait this time at the gate for the last leg of the journey! Meanwhile having a chat with some of the locals..In Chinese ish!   And my contact in Guiyang has been in touch and will meet me on arrival.  Sounds good!

Beijing is hot and foggy.  It's like standing in a closed room with several cars running their engines.  You can almost taste the air.  I imagine if I licked a clean white cloth it would leave a black mark from my tongue.  Anyhow, onwards through the maze of securities. Fingerprints x 2, photo x 1, bag scan x 2, and one full metal detector and full pat down search by a young female security officer...I'm not complaining! And now I'm waiting with six others in an underground bunker with strange musicplaying....Surreal.