Holy Mao! There are no beaches in Beijing
What they do have here is a lump of wax that looks a lot like the guy who used to run the place surrounded by legions of amateur art curators determined to separate me from my kuai.
Part One of my efforts to find a warm beach to sit on until school starts again without breaking the bank.
I arrived in Beijing just after 6 a.m. on a rather circuitous route to a beach in Thailand. From here, I’m flying to Kunming (in less than three hours, as my friend Sam is warning me now). Don’t know how long I’ll be there. Then it’s onward and overland to Laos, down along the Mekong to Thailand, and as much time as possible doing as little as possible. This is, after all, the last vacation I get for a few months, and I just picked up what could be a time consuming project back in Dalian.
More updates to come.
February 12th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I was planning on reading your blog, but i can’t possible stand reading white on black. WHAT THE FUCK!?
P L E A S E change it or offer alternate CSS templates.
February 12th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
i have find your blog by chance and it´s really interesting
congratulations from spain.
http://nachoarena.blogspot.com/
.
February 13th, 2007 at 12:09 am
@Anon 1:
A redesign might be in the works, though nothing is going to happen before I get back to Dalian in early March. Suggestions are more than welcome. No need to blow a fuse in the meantime.
@Nacho Arena:
Thanks for dropping by. I liked your blog’s layout and pictures, but my Spanish is rusty these days so I didn’t get much farther. Stop by any time.
February 14th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Well, there are the seas…houhai, beihai, qian hai, and, if you’re feeling lucky and limber, the zhonghai and nanhai. And there’s plenty of dirt for beach if you sweep it all into a pile…
How long are you in Beijing?
February 15th, 2007 at 3:54 am
@Jeremiah:
I’m already out, actually. I’m in Zhongdian tonight, after spending two days in Kunming. There’s a long post coming when I have more than 30 minutes of internet access and a place to defrost my feet. We’re buried in snow up here and I’m looking (still) for a way to head south toward Thailand.
I might come back through Beijing, briefly, the first week of March on my way back toward Dalian.
February 18th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Black on white is fine. Just because one petulant, anonymous soul has their panties in a knot about black and white - that doesn’t mean the rest of us are so petty as to not give it a college try.
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of months now. Please don’t change things because one visitor tells you to.
February 18th, 2007 at 6:27 am
@Anon 2:
Thanks for the support. To be honest, I flirt with the idea of remaking the entire site every few months. If I start getting enough traffic, I may eventually buy some server space and switch to Wordpress, which looks more appealing than Blogger. The current scheme also seems to look better on my MacBook than on the crappy Windows machines I’m using in this net bar in Lijiang.
So…tell me what you like and what you don’t, if you’re so inclined. Or just sit back and enjoy it as is.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:03 am
“As is” is fine, since it’s content over presentation, but I will be hoenst, wordpress is sooooooo much better for the end user. I once had a blog and had issues downloading the archives with wordpress, but otehr than that I enoyed the experience with it over blogger. If i ever get back to bloggin, it will eb wordpress once again.
Hey - wordpress have free hosting, too. Look into it. I’d only recommend - if you go with wordpress - doing the w. p. and blogger simultaneously for a few months (cut and paste!) before abandoning blogger (if you do want out of the google empire).
Still, Black background and white type is fine. It’s better on the eyes than white background and black type. In fact, since so many people are abandoning black background bogs, yours is a welcome difference (softer on the eyes for long reads).
The main thing is to worry about balance in your life before going to the peanut gallery for blog design advice! Really. I’m still astounded by the rude demands of the first anon. poster. It reads like a bad imitation of a California valley girl, like ohmygod!
Seriously, just keep the posts comin’. That’s all that matters, really. Content drives the quality, not the shiny packaging in an empty box blog syndrome of far too many China blogs.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Thanks for all the input. Wordpress is tempting me day by day, and it gets worse everytime I find a new blog that uses it. Maybe it’s the open source factor. The only thing that keeps me from making the switch, really, is the idea of having to redirect traffic to a new site for the second time in a year (this site used to be lions-mouth.blogspot.com). Since I use this blog partly as a learning tool, I’m always looking at new widgets I can throw in, and I’m about to add a new blogroll just for online journalism blogs that have been giving me loads of new ideas lately.