Wi-fi heaven.
15RMB (just about exactly $2. But I've been using 8RMB to the dollar because it makes the math easier) for all you can drink coffee and tea (the cold papaya milk tea{冰的木瓜奶茶。} is a winner after a cup of jasmine tea to settle my stomach after the coffee and breakfast sausages started playing mahjong in my belly). It's a little rowdy, but not as noisy as the place next door that is 18RMB and uses ethernet.
Speaking of the network, I can 5 wi-fi networks. Only one has security enabled.
Here's a couple links to recent events as well.
The cardboard baozi story continues to confound. Here's a deconstruction of events, details of a Hong Kong follow up story, and a photo essay showing how to make your own cardboard baozi at home!
On the same blog is a lament to the recent Jinan flood, which confirms my suspicions about the shopping district being flooded. Turns out it rained more than a meter in 3 hours! I'm not even sure if that's possible. Maybe some of the details got lost in translation?
The blog itself is something I've read on-and-off for a while now. I think the author used to live in Beijing, but now seems to be south somewhere.
On the way over I saw another reminder of where I am. A man was selling cicadas off the back of his bicycle. He had dozens of little bamboo cages strapped to his luggage rack, and the sound was fairly deafening. I wonder if these are 'sounds of summer' for people who live in apartment buildings, or if there is a tradition of this. Someone did give me a 'cricket cage' years ago, so I'm guessing this is not a modern invention. I wonder what the deal is?
Similarly, I have seen a couple other examples of manual labor around town that blow me away. For a few days now a group of 5 or 6 men have been building a little bamboo fence along the path of No Name Lake on campus. One guy cuts about a dozen 2 foot lengths of bamboo at a time with a hacksaw for criss-crossed posts. Another splits longer pieces in half with a meat cleaver. These cross sections are wired to the posts to keep them together. A third worker makes post holes by hammering a rail spike into the ground at regular intervals. It's a nice looking fence, but I'm not sure how long it will last. I suppose once it falls apart they'll just make another.
The second example was a weeding crew. Many of the trees and walkways on campus are surrounded by square cement pavers that have 2 half-circles on each edge. When put together, the effect is to have regularly spaced circles. One morning on the way to class a work party was meticulously using hand trowels to dig the grass and weeds out of each circle, sorting it the dirt from the vegetable matter, and putting the dirt back into the holes. Lots of squatting, sweeping, and chatter.
All this hand work is starting to seem normal to me. I think weed wackers and gas-powered blowers are going to be a bit of a shock when I return.
Speaking of the network, I can 5 wi-fi networks. Only one has security enabled.
Here's a couple links to recent events as well.
The cardboard baozi story continues to confound. Here's a deconstruction of events, details of a Hong Kong follow up story, and a photo essay showing how to make your own cardboard baozi at home!
On the same blog is a lament to the recent Jinan flood, which confirms my suspicions about the shopping district being flooded. Turns out it rained more than a meter in 3 hours! I'm not even sure if that's possible. Maybe some of the details got lost in translation?
The blog itself is something I've read on-and-off for a while now. I think the author used to live in Beijing, but now seems to be south somewhere.
On the way over I saw another reminder of where I am. A man was selling cicadas off the back of his bicycle. He had dozens of little bamboo cages strapped to his luggage rack, and the sound was fairly deafening. I wonder if these are 'sounds of summer' for people who live in apartment buildings, or if there is a tradition of this. Someone did give me a 'cricket cage' years ago, so I'm guessing this is not a modern invention. I wonder what the deal is?
Similarly, I have seen a couple other examples of manual labor around town that blow me away. For a few days now a group of 5 or 6 men have been building a little bamboo fence along the path of No Name Lake on campus. One guy cuts about a dozen 2 foot lengths of bamboo at a time with a hacksaw for criss-crossed posts. Another splits longer pieces in half with a meat cleaver. These cross sections are wired to the posts to keep them together. A third worker makes post holes by hammering a rail spike into the ground at regular intervals. It's a nice looking fence, but I'm not sure how long it will last. I suppose once it falls apart they'll just make another.
The second example was a weeding crew. Many of the trees and walkways on campus are surrounded by square cement pavers that have 2 half-circles on each edge. When put together, the effect is to have regularly spaced circles. One morning on the way to class a work party was meticulously using hand trowels to dig the grass and weeds out of each circle, sorting it the dirt from the vegetable matter, and putting the dirt back into the holes. Lots of squatting, sweeping, and chatter.
All this hand work is starting to seem normal to me. I think weed wackers and gas-powered blowers are going to be a bit of a shock when I return.
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