Tomik’s blog

Around China

On 8th of July in the evening after spending 4 months behind the go board our “holidays” finally began. We ( me and Camille ) have travelled for 12 days and visited Beijing, Shanghai ( also Suzhou and Hangzhou ) and Yellow Mountains and seen some main Chinese sightseeing places. Yesterday in the morning we have returned to Wuhan with a plan to relax a bit, see sights in Wuhan that have escaped us so far ( Hubei museum and further parts of Eastern lake ) and wait for the others who should return on the 24th to decide the future plans - if possibble I still want to visit the vicinity of Guilin city and particular places in Yunnan province before leaving.

Major observations: Crowds of people everywhere - most of them Chinese, but in the famous sites such as The Forbidden city or The Summer Palace also loads of NAs ( not asians ). Generally very hot and humid weather which can turn into strong storms in the evening. Chinese people love to travel in night ( beds in trains, seats in train and even beds in buses ). China is full of contrasts - modern buildings sometimes positioned straight next to the poor houses, fancy cars sharing traffic with poor looking bicycles, businessman everywhere as well as village people sitting on the pavements and selling stuff ( usually fruits ). Public transportation ( subways, buses and especially trains ) is amazingly well-organized in order to serve huge amount of people. Whenever buying any tourist souvenirs ( or sometimes even food in the street ) it is necessary to bargain, bargain, bargain - and afterwards ask for half of the decided sum to get a reasonable deal :) . When there is a lack of taxis/buses at some place, there is always a lot of Chinese people in their own cars ready to take you wherever you want ( while pleasing their wallet ). Chinese people love taking photos with foreigners - we felt like celebrities and it’s not fun. When speaking with Chinese people it is essential to make sure that they understand what you are telling to them ( either in English or in Chinese ) - they have a bad habit of nodding and agreeing even when they have no idea what is going on - and this can cause some serious issues later :D.

 We have met many people, seen beautiful places and experienced tons of things - here comes a small tasting of what we have done ( more or less in sucessive order ):

Beijing - transmitting messages by whispering along the circular “Echo wall” in Temple of Heaven, witnessing fight between The Monkey and 18 “weird” warriors in the Beijing Opera performance, making a pedal-boat trip in the BeiHai park, sitting on the ground in the Forbidden city in front of Palace of Supreme Harmony while imagining Chinese emperors giving orders to his armies, visiting souvenir handcraft factories ( Jade, some special Chinese vases, … ) and pretending to be Americans in order to get a discount on the lunch, walking around circular part of The Great Wall ( the site was reconstructed and adapted to the tourists ), experiencing a foot massage in the Tibet traditional hospital medicine together with Tibetian doctor taking our pulse and guessing what diseases we suffer from,  having a famous Beijing duck in a fancy restaurant together with American neurologist, bargaining in The Silk Market, watching the calligraphy masters during their  work, attending the kungfu show which ended up being rather a ballet and visual effects performance, standing for over 15 minutes in front of the Tower of Buddhist Incense in The Summer Palace and enjoying a great view

Shangai - walking around The Bund for more than 4 hours and waiting for the night to see The Pudong in the dark, weaving my way among people pursuing foreigners to sell them stuff in Nanjing road, regretting the forgotten battery in camera in splendid Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou, desperetaly looking for toilet in rain in Tiger’s Hill park in Suzhou as well, meeting people in great hostel bar and enjoying spaghetti after a looong time, getting stuck in traffic after seeing LingYin Temple in Hangzhou and struggling to see the (damn) West Lake before sitting the train back to Shanghai, being navigated to the hospital ( YiYuan ) instead of the gardens place ( YuYuan ) because of misunderstaning in asking the way, speaking Czech and pretending not to understand English in YuYuan gardens to get rid of agile girls advertising some goods

Yellow Mountains - swearing a lot at the city and hotel we stayed in and the whole Yellow Mountains trip , seeing splendid beauty of The Yellow Mountains itself while listening to the mp3 to override noise made by crowds of Chinese people with tourist guides, admiring strength of good-carriers walking up the hill with often around 90kg on their back, having a crappy food in Chinese imitation of fast food restaurant and even crappier in quite fancy restaurant ( misunderstanding while ordering the food ) but improving the overall impression by a great massage just before leaving, travelling “the true Chinese way”  in packed night bus back to Wuhan

Coming to Wuhan was a little bit like returning home - seeing familiar places, looking forward to going to my favourite coffee house or sleeping in my damn hard bed

Holiday plans

Yesterday was our last day at school. Today the kids and the teacher are having a break and tomorrow they are going to the annual Chinese professional qualification tournament in HangZhou. As we found out there is going to be over 400 kids from all over China in the tournament of which 20 strongest kids will be awarded 1p in the end. We don’t know many details about this action and also when we asked whether it is possible to come and watch the games we were told that unfortunately it is not possible - it is more like an exam in the school the teacher said. Nevertheless we are going to hold the fingers crossed for all kids from the school participating ( around 10 ). My personal guess is that one of them is going to become a pro this year ( I think that like 2-3 have some chance so one will make it ). The teacher said that it is difficult to estimate what their chances are and stressed that kids in Wuhan weiqi academy doesn’t spend that much time with studying as for instance kids in Beijing, etc. However he also pointed out that he believes that Xi Er Hao ( 8 year old kid one of the strongest in the school ) and Zhang Pei Pei ( 12 year old very clever girl ) are going to have a good chances in like 1-2 year time. The age limit to become a pro is set to 15 years of age in China which is very tough and puts a big pressure on the kids.

We spent 6 days in the row in school from the morning to the late afternoon at school last week as a part of intensive preparation for the tournament for the kids. During this time I played a “jubango” - 10 games in the row ( no handi ) with one of the kids who’s level is supposed to be 3-4 dan ( I don’t know whether he is going to the pro qualification tournament, but he would have no chance there for sure). I call him “yawning kid” in my go games repository, because he often makes faces during the game and most often it looks as if he is just yawning … He knows much more joseki than I and he also managed to win some games by beating me in reading skills, but he also often plays hasty move or overplay. Taking advantage of this I managed to grasp overall victory 6-4 ( turning from the unpleasant 3-4 after 7 games ) :). I consider this as a pleasant finish of my go studies here - I was losing to him a lot like a month ago - and even though back then I felt I can beat him, he was still rather dominating in our games.

Because of the tournament we are also having a break from playing Go now. So today me and Camille are leaving for a +- 2 week sightseeing tour together. Our raw plan is as following. First we go to the Beijing where we spent 4-5 days including visits outside the Beijing such as The DaTong Hanging Temple or The Great Wall, afterwards we move to Shangai for another couple of days our destination should include also some nearby towns such as Suzhou or maybe HangZhou - both regarded as places with tranquil parks, lakes, etc. Next on the list is the Yellow Mountain which is supposed to be one of the most beautifull sites in China - most of the Chinese paintings portrayting the mountain in the mists is believed to be inspired by this area. Later on we are supposedly heading to the south of China and city of GuiLin, river Li and it’s neigborhood. This area is typical for it’s “poetic and picturesque environment in which one cannot but feel relaxed and refreshed” as our  tourist guide says. Anyway this plan is quite rusty and “flexible” so let’s get surprised how it actually turns out. After 2 weeks ( when the pro qualification tournament is over ) Camille intends to return to school while I will keep on travelling ( not sure where right now - good candidate so far is the Yunnan province ) for like 10 more days and then return to Wuhan to catch my plane home on 9th of August.

Gotta go to pack my backpack :)  …

Summing up

Another free day - another good opportunity to share some experiences from my Chinese trip Today we decided to pay a visit to the Chinese cinema and go to see a brand new animated movie Kung-fu panda. We went to Hankou in the afternoon did a bit of shopping ( I bought some books to study Chinese ), had a cup of coffee in the bar with really cool seats ( they were actually arranged as a see-saw and it was great fun ) and afterwards we went to a local “multi-cinema” for an English speaking ( with Chinese subtitles ) version of the mentioned movie. The cinema looked pretty much as any modern cinema in Europe and thus we enjoyed absolutely awesome movie ( in beautiful English, really funny, nice “fighting scenes”, … ) along with free portion of pop-corn and cola.

Anyway there is the last week of my go studies awaiting … so it’s basically the time to do a little summing up. My trip to China had three major aims related to go :

1) become better in my favourite  game - I hope I did a bit, even though not as much as I imagined I could … I think I have managed to identify what my biggest weakness is ( aside from lacking the fundamentals like reading ahead and knowing joseki and set patterns ) : quite often I play a “hasty move” ( without thinking, just instinct ) or a move which I haven’t properly read out ( for instance in the local fight, the move that seems to me is the proper one and works in some sequences I have read out then at one moment I just play it without reading out the rest- I somehow become “impatient” ) - so my future aim is to work deliberately on fixing this issue - calming down a bit before every important move and make sure I have read out important local moves and I really believe this move is the correct one. So this whole thing could be probably summed us as being more concentrated …

2) learn how a life of studying go feels like - it is tough, tough, tough It might seem that we are on holidays here, but in the beginning I was spending over 7 hours a day on go in first two months, now it is around 5 hours a day ( I devote myself more to studying Chinese than before). Of course, when you actually manage to play a good game ( or just play a cool tesuji ) it feels really good ( especially when the teacher appreciates the move ). Well seriously - I think that the kids who are studying go to actually become pros have a very tough childhood - they are under constant pressure from very early age - for instance some kids at the school get scolded by their parents when having the bad results - moreover it is a matter of fact, that most of the kids will actually never become professional players ( lately age limit for becoming a pro was set up to 15 years in China ! ) . The annual pro qualifying tournament  is going to take place in a week so we are going to hold fingers crossed for all the kids from the school participating ( 20 1p will be given to the best of over 400 kids from all over the China ).

3) find out whether I can study go for a relatively long time without going crazy - well here I am, after relatively long time hopefully not more crazier than before and still in love with the game. I am really looking forward to coming back home and on some sunny day taking a go board and going to Vysehrad ( very nice site at Prague ) to play go with friends outside in the shade of the trees till it gets dark ( and finishing the evening in one of the nearby pubs over a glass or two of a good beer )

All right - end of dreaming. This week is going to be somehow special - we are going to be at school all day long 6 days in the row. I guess it is some kind of “intensive” preparation for the kids going to the pro qualification tournament and a “nice goodbye” for me with the school - as I have already mentioned afterwards I am going to spent my last month here by traveling a bit around China ( we have more or less a prepared route for the first two weeks already - so stay tuned for occasional reports from interesting sights of the “middle kingdom” ).

Football

There is a European football championship going on these days as probably has not escaped your notice. We have made some effort to watch a few games here in China as well. Actually there are live transmissions on one of the local channels so we have quite a good opportunity to watch some games ( except for the commence which are naturally in Chinese and which I can understand only a few phrases like “corner kick” or “a good opportunity” - this one I know from go ) . The time difference is a slight problem since the game which are played at the most convinient time in Europe ( starting around 8:30 ) we can watch starting at 2:30 in the morning here. 

Yesterday we have decided that a semifinal game Italy-Spain on Sunday night ( or rather Monday morning here ) is a brilliant opportunity to watch a good football. Moreover since Monday is our free day we woudln’t have issues with waking up in the morning. Anyway we went to the caffee Brussels at around 11 p.m. ( having like 1 hour of preliminary sleep after the dinner ). Together with other Wuhan expats ( foreigners living in Wuhan for some reason ) we have waited for a game while having a couple of drinks ( here I would like to point to the observation that yesterday I had a slightly unusual combination of what you can get for a drink in a pub - I started with a big glass of squeezed oranges mixed with strawberry juice, continued with glass of palm beer, on top of this I added a glass of milk right before having a shot of Jaggermeister and several following shots of tequilla - there was a crazy guy in the bar called O.B. who was unable to fight an immense need to buy everyone a drink, several times - and all of this was accompanied by several glasses of water with ice and lemon. )  Since not much was happening before the game started ( except for very excited bartender proclaiming very loudly Italia’s football superiority to Spain ) I laid a hand on Chinese tourist guide and was looking for a good places to visit during my free month ( which is starting already in like 2 weeks ) ( God I like brackets ). Anyway we managed to get throught to the game which in the end was quite boring . Not many chances and very carefull football concentrated mostly on defence. Anyway after struggling through extra time and penalty shootout the good news was that the Spain managed to go through - it’s not like I kind of cheer for Spain, but seeing the Italian style of football ( defence, defence, defence, accidental score in last minute ) I think I would cheer for any kind of opponent. We got out of the bar right after the game at around 5:30 experiencing the rising of a new day in Wuhan ( has not happened to me before since my usual waking time is not before 9 ). It was actually quite nice ( I mean the way to home ) - fresh air, ocasionally people practicing taiqi in the streets, few cars, etc. Today I woke up at 12, did a few tsume go, studied chinese a bit, went for a cup of coffee and then to French guys appartment for a great pancakes. Well that’s how we spent our free days here …

As long as the finals is not Turkey - Russia I think we might go and repeat our small Sunday-football expedition :D.

Hubei museum trip

Yesterday was one of our days off. Lately the teacher takes his time to rest, so we are free to do whatever we want. Usually this just consists of sleeping a lot, hanging around the appartment, going shopping, going to relax to the park, etc. Yesterday we have made a trip to the Hubei museum which is near the East lake. There were four of us : me, Camille, Eric and Barbara ( Eric’s Chinese teacher ). The Hubei ( provincial ) museum resides in a fancy “pagoda like” complex of buildings and the webpage was quite promisive considering the museum’s collections. Well … it was closed . As we found out Monday is generally the day off for museums, galleries, etc. in China.

Such a trivial issue couldn’t have spoiled a nice day, therefore we decided to walk a bit around the East lake area and see what we can do. After a nice walk around the lake we headed towards the “birds zoo” ( what’s the proper word ? ). Basically it is an areal under a huge net having a lot of different kinds of birds most of them being able to move freely around. While walking around what seems like a small park you can meet bunch of ducks, gooses ( or at least their Chinese variations ), pelicans, peacocks, pigeons, parrots ( these were the only ones to be “chained” ), etc. ( there were much more but I am lacking the vocabulary to name the species even in Czech … ). Especially peacocks were really beautiful some of them proudly showing ( and vibrating to intimidate the others ) their marvellous feathers arches ( on the spot with vocab again … ). We liked it a lot and have spent there like an hour ( the park wasn’t very big ). Eric made some very nice photos you can check out.

Afterwards we took a cab to Hankou ( one of the three districts of Wuhan known for a modern shopping zones and lively nightlife ) and visited a local Haagen-dasz. I have as well never been to any before. This one in Hankou is quite nice, they had a fancy menu, good service and absolutely brilliant ice-cream. Later in the evening we stopped in the caffee Brussels where we met with Simon and had a nice evening - couple of beers, very good Flemming beer beef stew for a dinner, listening to a good music, etc.

Anyway the weather forecast for all this week is rain, rain, rain. It has been true all day long today, so we are still not “fully enjoying” hot Wuhan summer :).

Oh and one more thing - recently there has been a large number of spam comments on the blog - I have removed them in a “mass way” but unfortunately I could have deleted some non-spam comments as well. Well they are gone, so there is nothing to be done about it but I am sorry for all comments I accidentaly deleted ( so far I know about one ).

it’s not just fun

So far it might have appeared like we are living here in a small paradise - great food, a lot of go, no work or serious troubles, time to time a small trip, a lot of new experiences and of course beautiful chinese girls Well sometimes it’s not just as bright as it seems …

Now I have been here for almost 3 months so I got more of an insight on how such a life style looks life. For myself I can say that I really like it so far - even though there were a few moments when I was rather unhappy from several reasons - missing a home a lot, playing go really badly, not having many local friends - almost nobody speaks english here and we don’t speak chinese that well - but it is getting better lately as I started to come to one of local coffee shops and trying to speak to the owner/guests sometimes … ( Yes I realize that my sense for sentence construction is very crooked ( or you might even say “sick”)  but If you are reading this you have probably made it through more of my posts and got somehow accustomed already - I am not going to change it ) - end of sentence - well not yet : I just wanted to add that when I feel a bit down I just take my mp3 and go for a small walk to the park or along the streets - it really helps end of sentence NOW .  

So the thing is that like everyone of us was through some kind of depression while we have been here. There were times when Camille was feeling very badly and would more or less stay in her room for a few days. Eric had some argument with Camille and haven’t been speaking to her for some time. Charles had moments when he was a bit depressed by his go ( he is very strong by the way ) and resigned some games very quickly. Simon sometimes suffers from our ignorance to his neccessity of social life and wanders to his famous bar alone returning late at night.:D  And unfortunately Lucas decided to shorten his stay here ( probably because of home sickness and also a bit of general disappointment ) and is flying home this sunday. Well I hope that the others won’t get mad on me by revealing some of their personal information, but my point is that we are not having some kind of illusion-like lifes here ( as some people might think ) and even though we really like it, this lifestyle can be pretty hard sometimes - confrontation and disappointment from one’s repeating mistakes in go, homesicknesses, non-native environment, …

So this would be for a more “realistic” view on my stay here, the following posts will be boringly optimistic If you suddenly feel pity for us and want to send us ( me ) some “cheering” e-mails - please don’t do it ;) 1) It’s really not that bad 2) I am laging a lot in my email conversations as it stands …   There is a dragon boat festival quickly approaching and we hope to be part of it ! So during the weekend or monday we will hopefully be eating this “zhang zi” thingy ( something of rice wrapped in some sea weet ) and watching musculus men rowing the boats supported by the beautifull cheerleaders

By the way I have updated a little bit my blogroll ( still sucks though ). So you can find there links to three photo galerries and also a link to camille’s blog ( which will be usefull to you if you can read in french ). Oh and I almost forgot - lately I have been doing quite well against one of the teachers ( 5 dan ) so the next time we are going to lower the handicap from 2 to 1 stone

zhong guo jia you 中国加油

Last two days in Wuhan were in the influence of the phrase in the title. Oh what does it mean ? Basically it’s say “go for it China” or “do your best China” ( “ganbatte” n Japanese ). Funny think is that “jia you” actually means “add oil”. Well anyway - why am I making such a fuss about it …

Today there was an Olympic torch relay going on in the streets of Wuhan. This is a BIG day for almost all the Chinese people in the city. I have noticed that the Chinese people are quite nationalistic - but today I have seen how MUCH So the torch relay thingy means that there are few people running around in the streets carrying a single torch with Oympic fire and smiling and waving, while being supervised by a lot of policemen and military, etc. As I said local Chinese people made a big show out of that.

Yesterday and the day before streets were filled with people selling T-shirts with olympic motives ( or statements like ” I “heart” China “… ) , small flags, big flags, red head bangs, stickers witch chinese flag, etc. Already Yesterday in the evening it looked in the streets as if China won half the gold medals. Cars were carrying the flags. People were wearing the mentioned T-shirts, having the head bangs, etc. - some people were singing and there was generally more people than usual in the streets.

We have decided that we want to see the Olympic torch a long time ago and after seeing this I was even more curious. I bought a T-shirts for myself, Lucas and Simon ( mine has one of the Olympics mascots on, Simons has the logo of olympics and Lucases says “zhong guo jia you” ) actually to find these T-shirts in proper sizes ( which is XXL ) was not easy since Chinese people are generally smaller.

Anyway in the morning we got up early ( at around 8 ) to see the show. And indeed it was as we expected. Crowds of people with Chinese flags, in the white-red T-shirts, etc. in the streets. We couldn’t see the main street ( we were like in the 8th row ) where the torch was supposed to be carried, however we managed to spot it while it was going uphill on the bridge for a little while. After the torch runner came a few buses with police and staff and … that was it. All this MADNESS for 2 minutes.

Simon made some very nice photos which I am going to post later ( actually I am in an internet caffe right now since the computer at home is more or less broken ) and provide a link.

I wonder how it’s gonna look like here when China actually wins half the golden medals … :D.

hot hot hot

That would be a short description of the weather here recently. Even though today it was raining for most of the day, generally the temperature has been steadily increasing in past few weeks. Still while temperature is still managable - now it is a little over 30 degrees during hot days, the humidity is a really annoying thing. It makes everyone sweating a lot all the day long ( even now at 11pm ). Therefore our airconditionings and electric fan are on for most of the day. Well still the worst is to come - as Simon says “now it’s ok, but in 4-5 weeks time … “. Basically he used to say it also in the beginning of April but he is right In 4-5 weeks time it is going to be July and temperatures are supposed to be even over 40 degrees. And of course the more hot it is the more mosquitos and small annoying insect there is around.

As a preparation for Wuhan summer we went to let our hair cut the other day with Camille. There is suprisingly high number of barber’s on the street. Usually it’s the whole salon with quite a lot of staff and different sort of services. We set on our without any special knowledge what is about to happen and with a learned phrases “please cut my hair” and “shorter, shorter”. After arriving to the salon the care was taken of us immediately. First we got a tea and ice tea for refreshment. Then we got our hair massaged and treated with some kind of shampoo. Afterwards we were taken to a different room where our hair were washed while we were lying. During all this time we were in care of the salon attendants who were wearing special uniforms. They tried to communicate with us a lot ( in Mandarin naturally ). But the conversation was a bit crooked - reasons being that they spoke really fast and also we didn’t have much of an eye contact with them ( they stood behind us ). Anyway it was pleasant and they really tried. After this prelude we were given care of “master with scissors” this guy had no kind of uniform - just jeans and shirt, looking really leisurely, but in cutting the hair he was rather proficient. I was finished in less than 10 minutes and after another light massage and hair washing ready to go. While Camille’s hairdresser has almost not even begun. He was still working on one part of her hair cutting it millimeter by millimeter all over again. After another half an hour when the situation hasn’t changed and after we tried to explain to him that he could be a bit faster, the guy that was cutting my hair took the charge and we were ready to set off in another 10 minutes. Oh and all this experience was for less than 2 euro for each of us :D.

By the way another good way to fight the hot weather is ice cream. We are having some almost everyday. They ( the small shops that can be found all along the big streets ) have different kinds here and some of them resemble what can be bought in Europe ( especially the magnum looks quite authentic ). So far I most liked “the Milk ice cream” but since I was a little bit uncomfortable the next morning I think I am going to have a pause before having the next one …

Recently I found it really slow and troublesome to upload the photos on the this webpage - moreover my camera is broken so the photos are usually from Eric or Simon. So I have decided to use a small shortcut. Eric is actually making a lot of photos and you can have a look at them at his internet photo album ( so instead of taking a few photos from him, transferring them to our computer, uploading them to this server, … I am just giving you a link I know I am lazy … ).

Time to have a refreshing shower and read a bit of Kafka’s Castle before sleep :D.

animals

After many posts of our live in Wuhan, of stuyding go or trips around I have decided to dedicate this small post to the animals we meet here. I got this idea the other evening when I was going for the shower and I have met a small lizard in the bathroom. Upon seeing the light it immediately disappeared through one of the holes in the wall. I have seen a very similar lizard ( if not the same one ) next day outside the window - it was climbing the outside wall of the house upside down …
More “casual” animals like cats and dogs are rather rare to see. Solitary dogs can sometimes be seen sleeping “like dead” ( because of the heat ) on the pavements. We can only guess that little presence of these animals is not in anyway connected to the contents of large pots in which some chinese people tend to prepare food in the street for the dinner Lacking numbers of “pet-like” animals is more than compensated by the presence of mosquitos and many other kinds of bugs, flies, etc. ( there are fly-killers in almost every restaurant ). In recent weeks we protect from the insect with repelents before going to bed, however almost every morning I can spot some brand new stunk :(. There is also quite large number of birds who make our live more pleasant by singing all day long. In the temples we have visited we have seen these beautiful small stone ponds with golden fish and very tired-looking turtles. Well that would be it - now I hope you have a better idea how not only people are living in Wuhan. Oh I almost forgot - day before yesterday when I went to the kitchen I saw a big black beetle in the water sink - hope it was not part of our latter dinner ( but if it was, it tasted delicious ).
Considering other games than go we sometimes play in our free time I have to mention the Chinese chess ( xiang4 qi2 ). This game is very popular here and almost on every corner you can see people playing the game in front of their shops. I have played my first game in Yan laoshi’s place with his son ( who taught me the rules ) last sunday. Since then we play a bit every day in the evening with Lucas. I find the game quite interesting - I think that development of pieces during the game and the clash of forces is more rapid than in western chess. The position is often open and there is a lot of space for tactical maneuvers. I am definitely taking set of the game back home By the way the name of the game
xiang4 qi2 can also be translated as the “elephant chess”.

lazy time

As many of you probably already know, there was a serious earthquake in the central China in the beginning of this week. Many thousands people died, while many thousands are still missing or cut away from supplies in destroyed villages. Fortunately for us the epicenter of the earthquake was quite far away from Wuhan. However we still experienced a “slight shaking” of our apartment - people who live in the high buildings ( like for instance the french people here who live in 23rd floor ) confirmed that it was pretty scary and many buildings have been evacuated.

Anyway we are now experiencing the begining of summer here. The days are hot and lazy. Soon for the enormous number of air conditionings that are present everywhere in the city the main working time will come. Time to time we spent the late afternoons by playing badminton or just hanging around the work out playground or playing go outside. As I said there are numerous parks in Wuhan, two of them are pretty close to our apartment. On our free days we have visited these. You can see a lot of people playing chinese chess or mahjong over there ( not weichi though ), usually elderly people practising taichi, men playing some local music instrument which might resemble extremely simple violin, kids doing their homeworks, etc. Oh and there are a loads of fishermen in the park with a pond. It’s funny though. These fishermen are usually dressed up as ordinary people ( or even sometimes like businessmen) and their only equipment would be the fishing rod. This is quite contrary to fishing back at home when people dressed in usually army clothes are carrying big and heavy bags of equipment. Anyway we have actually never seen a fish being caught. Once it looked like it is going to happen. Many people gathered around a “lucky guy” who as it turned out managed to catch a small branch ( the pond is full of them )

Since half of my study stay is already over I have started thinking how to spend a last month of my trip to China which is reserved for traveling. I would definitely like to see the Three Gorges Dam and maybe take a small cruise along Yangtze river. Also Simon indicated that nearby Yellow mountains are an area of exceptional nature beauty, therefore this destination is next on the list. There are naturally many more others possibilities where to go ( e.g. XiAn and Terracota army which is not far either, etc. ) - unfortunately I have forgotten my China tourist guide at home :(.