As such, yesterday when the electricity went out shortly after we woke up, it wasn’t a huge surprise. I took the dog out, figuring it would be back on before I returned and I’d jump into the day’s task list. Getting back into the community a half hour later, I could hear a massive generator running from a maintenance building I had always assumed was empty.

A quick call (after a whole lot of busy signals) to the management office revealed that the power would be off for the next 12 hours, we should fill up what we can with water as the generator maintaining water pressure is only going to be running for a few hours — and didn’t we see the notice?

We had not.

Maggie, conveniently, had an appointment at the local CCDC to get Casey vaccinated against Chicken Pox, and so I was left to my thoughts of a post-apocalyptic world without power.

By about 10:30am I had finished the last audio book I had on my iPod, played nearly every song I could remember on guitar, and blown through the first few chapters of my Chinese study books (which had several years of dust layered on them) … and only 9 hours to go. The temperature was beginning to rise outside. No AC meant no A/C. I started to twitch.

The moment Maggie walked through the door with our now Chicken Pox-proof child, I desperately declared, “We’re going to the beach!”

If we were responsible people we’d keep a bag packed in case of an emergency. Instead, we always have a bag packed ready to go to the local pool. Adding a few beach-themed extras (sand toys, some sarongs to cover the loungers, etc.) we were off. Despite the beach being only a short bus trip away, this was the first time in a few months that we had bothered to go. The irony of the summer heat keeping me indoors and away from the sand and surf at my doorstep is not lost on me.

Sure enough, while walking out of the community to catch the bus, we noticed a big hand-written page indicating that the power would be off all day as the local government was performing some maintenance. This beach day is brought you by the letters C, P and C.

The beach looked much as it did the last time we visited, but the water was much warmer. In my prior post about Haikou’s Holiday Beach, I compared the water temperature to being about the same that of the Great Lakes in the summer — fine once in, but ball-tuckingly chilly at first. Now, after a summer of sun had warmed it up, the water was much more comparable to the tropical waters of SE Asia I would expect here on Hainan.

The warmer temps didn’t do much to improve Casey’s apprehension of the waves however, and he was much more content splashing along the shore and playing in the sand rather than being in the rise and fall of the deeper water.

One of the things I often wonder, when sitting in the beach lounger with not much else to do but wonder, is where the people enjoying Holiday Beach are from. Are they residents like Maggie and myself, or locals, or holidaymakers that couldn’t afford the puffed up prices further down the coast in Sanya?

At a cost of 30 RMB (about $5), the loungers tend to be more vacant than full, and so I’ve only ever had opportunity to speak with one group of beach goers. They were an older couple from Xinjiang visiting their son who was attending the local university. That kid got it right choosing a university that was both very far away from his family and on a tropical island. Unlike Sanya’s virtually all-tourist makeup, I imagine that Haikou’s beaches are a bit more diverse in who ends up on them.

A few beers, some chuar, and a whole lot of sand later; we caught a taxi home a bit pinker than when we arrived. Yesterday made me realize that I need to try harder to routinely disconnect from my computer and the Internet. It’s a shame that I let the close proximity of the beach be an excuse for shelving going to it more often. The pool might be closer and less “public”, but there’s nothing quite like killing a Friday afternoon with a cold beer in hand and sand between the toes.

I’ll be keeping my eye on the community board for notice of my next forced beach day. I’m looking forward to it.

Casey Playing in the Sand

From the article:

The first guy I saw out of the airport was a betel juice-spittin’ Hainan islander in flip flops and tube socks. He had a three-hair mustache and a kink in his neck that made him lean even when he was standing. He tried to charge me RMB 50 for a RMB 10 cab ride, and when I tried to haggle he just spat out some blood red juice, dropped his shades down over his eyes and ignored me.

That’s island.

While I was waiting for the Line 25 bus outside of Tianya Haijiao, I watched three kids naked from the waist down watch me as some chickens pecked in the dirt between us. It was hot as sin and the breeze was taking a rest.

A hip-swaying mama sauntered across the street and handed me a plastic cup of mango pulp and ice. When I dug in my pockets for cash she waved me off, spat some juice and waddled back across the street.

That’s island.

Things move slow on Hainan island, even when the modern world has encroached as much as it has in Sanya. The Li are making do as best as they can. They are street-level hustlers making as much cash as they can off of the tourists, and they are builders of new homes (using cash from the land they sold to resort developers).

Check out the rest of the article.

Preamble over. Should you ever need pickup from the Haikou or Sanya airports, or transit between the two cities, Mr. Sheng is your man.

Maggie booked the pickup through Sheng’s Taobao site. He was super flexible with our arrival time as well as our need to trek a couple kilometres away and pick up our dog from the cargo delivery place. We used him again to help us move our stuff from our temporary apartment to our new place, and he was just as professional, prompt and friendly.

We were a bit nervous that we wouldn’t be able to find a pickup that could accommodate us, all our luggage and a big crate with a dog in it. Fortunately, Sheng’s got a small fleet at his disposal with a cheaper car pickup, or the slightly more SUV pickup (which we used). He also can handle medium-sized groups with a 9-12 seater van.

If you don’t have a Taobao account, you can call him directly at 4006778988. His English is good enough that with a bit of patience and speaking clearly, you should have no problem communicating. Let him know the laowai with the big dog sent ya

The places I've lived, or will live, in China

After more than four and a half years, we’re leaving Suzhou.

So much has happened to me since moving here from Dalian in 2006: I got married, I started a new career path, I got a dog, I had a son. In my adult life I’ve not lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived in Suzhou.

But the time has come to move on to some place new, and what better place in this country than China’s vacation mecca — Hainan Island.

Many close to us know well that we’ve half-made plans to move down to Hainan several times over the past several years, but always changed our minds before things developed too far. First it was deciding to have a baby and wanting to be close to a decent hospital during the pregnancy that cancelled our plans to move south. Then it was not wanting to leave our wonderful support network right after having a baby that put the migration on hiatus. It is this reason that I’ve been reluctant to blog about the decision, fearful that I would have to retract this type of post for having changed our minds.

But now, our flights are bought, accommodation arranged, and with us 10-month veterans of parenthood, we feel we’re ready to embark on this long-anticipated next chapter of our lives. Nothing about the move is easy though — I suppose it never is. Since coming to Suzhou we’ve moved multiple times, having lived in five apartments straight across the city, and every time it was a pain in the ass. But this is the first time we’ve had to cart a fussy kid, a big furry dog and a long-collected pile of mostly useless (but strangely sentimental) stuff across more than 1600km to the southern most end of China.

Initially our plan was to head down to Hainan and sort out an apartment, come back to Suzhou and get our affairs in order, and then pull the trigger on the move. Time, money and a lack of enthusiasm for having to make multiple trips with a 10 month old inspired us to take a leap and just head down in one go.

When we arrive we’ve arranged to stay for a week in a small one-bedroom apartment rented per night like a hotel (but unlike hotels in China, we’re able to stay with our dog). From there we’ll hopefully find a place we like quickly and be able to move in before our stuff arrives via moving company at the end of the week. It may seem tight, but we have some flexibility in that we can stay longer in the apartment and our stuff can be stored at the moving company’s depot should either be needed.

We’ve yet to decide whether we’ll move to Sanya or Haikou, and will likely be looking at places in both cities, but are heavily leaning towards Haikou. What it lacks in beautiful beaches, it seems to make up for in being a proper city, and not just a scruffy third tier town with rows upon rows of newly built high-rises crowding its beach front. The only question mark is — and it’s a bit of a biggie — we’ve been to Haikou just once and then only for a short overnight stay, so really have no idea about the place.

Maggie @ Sanya Sunset

We’ve been to Sanya twice, once as mentioned to get married in ’07, and once as an anniversary/holiday trip in ’09. I really like the place and don’t think I’d have any problems living there, but with a kid in tow, practical considerations need to be heavily weighed.

Haikou, for what it’s worth sounds pretty great. It has some of the best environmental policies and the highest-rated air quality of any Chinese city. It’s new high-speed train makes Sanya’s beaches only 1.5 hours away, and bustling high-tech and tourism industries are helping the city to develop quickly. It also reportedly has a vibrant night-time culture — and man do I miss sitting on the street eating random bits of barbecued animal.

End of the day though, it’s a Chinese city, and I am keeping my expectations well in check. In fact, I’m viewing the move much more as a return to “common” China (trying hard to avoid the term “real” China). Life in Suzhou, specifically Suzhou’s SIP, is not indicative of what life is like in most places in China — even at the 2nd tier city level. I’m surrounded by good foreign restaurants, several foreign supermarkets; I can get an assortment of cheeses, deli meats, Canadian Moosehead beer, tex-mex takeout, my choice of delivery pizza, and an ever-expanding litany of other comfort things from home.

I’ve loved that about where I live. Ironically, it’s like a little island of normalcy in an otherwise challenging place, and I’m sure I would have wanted to head back to Canada long ago had I not found it. I am acutely aware that I’m giving most of that up in this move.

But I think I’m ready for it. What I’ve come to realize is that as much as being comfortable and having conveniences a button push away are great, they also create a lethargy in me. For better or worse, challenges push me to think harder and develop more. While I can’t think of a time in my life I wasn’t trying to make life easier (whether by making more money, living more comfortably, adding security, whatever), I also can’t think of anything I value in my life having come out of comfortable circumstance. Questing for them, perhaps, but once obtained, it all just sort of stales.

Palms at sunset in Sanya, Hainan

So I’m looking forward to the challenges of living in a new place, meeting new people, and exploring a large chunk of China that until now has escaped my visit. Living on Hainan, I cannot wait to get outdoors and explore the island, but I also cannot wait to use the place as a gateway to other areas in southern China I’ve long wanted to see. Kunming, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Guilin and Vietnam are all places I hope to venture to from my new home base.

I’m truly looking forward to feeding my soul with new experiences and re-igniting my passion for the outdoors, travel and for China.

It was that need that brought me to China in the first place, and then, like now, the hardest part in the whole process is leaving friends behind. As an expat, it’s hard to make deep and lasting friendships, as more often than not someone ends up leaving before the relationship has really blossomed. I was lucky here in Suzhou to have made some incredible friends that have not just left me with great memories, but have infused the best parts of themselves into my character and made me a much better person for having known them.

The great part about friendships like that is you know it’s never goodbye, only see you later. And while I know that relationships inevitably suffer from an inverse-square law, I also know that the moment that we again find ourselves in the same place it will be as if little or no time has passed.

And so, in a little more than two weeks we’ll say 再见 to our life in Suzhou and begin something new in Hainan.

But in an effort to revisit a time when I took photos of more than just the cutest baby in the entire world, I’ve created a new collection on Flickr of my favourite photos I’ve taken over the past few years. Some of them are rather horribly over-processed due to at the time having equal parts poor hardware, poor software and poor skills.

Here’s the first 28, check out the whole set here.

Casey, Casey, Casey, Casey…

Perhaps best known as “Other Lisa” in the comments at the Peking Duck (or @otherlisa on Twitter), Lisa’s a long-time blogger (her blog, Paper Tiger Tail is one of my favs., she was also a past contributor at the Duck) and has the distinction of having seen a side of China most of us expats have only read about in books.

Lisa was one of the first and few foreigners who entered China directly following the end of the Culture Revolution (read about it here, it continues to be one of my favourite blog posts gracing the ether). She is a fascinating woman, and so when she asked me to design a Web site for her soon-to-be-released book, Rock Paper Tiger, I jumped at the chance.

The site was launched early October, corresponding with her novel becoming available on Amazon for pre-order. As is the case with so many people I work with, I had never met Lisa in person, at least until this past weekend. Currently travelling through China, she swung by Suzhou and hung out with Maggie and I for a couple of days.

Suzhou Canal Night Cruise

It’s always great having people come visit Suzhou as it gives us a chance to dust off our tourist caps and take in a sight we hadn’t yet seen in our three+ years here. With Lisa it was the night cruise of the Suzhou canal. I was a bit apprehensive that the night cruise would even be open in the winter months, but a quick phone call to the boat operators and we were in business.

The cruise lasted 70 minutes and cost 60 RMB (off-season prices I think). We bought tickets and boarded the boat at a wharf on the south western side of the old city — on Pan Xu Rd. (江苏省苏州市盘胥路739号 0512-68118088) not far from the intersection of Xu Jiang Rd. The tour was mediocre. I’m glad I can say I’ve done it, but whether or not it was worth the 60 RMB/person is debatable.

The biggest problem I had with it was the seating was clearly designed for slim Chinese frames — had I not had proper leverage, I’m sure the chair would still be stuck to my ass. The deck was enclosed and heated, a bonus for the chilly November weather, but the glass windows made photos without reflections nearly impossible. What the enclosure gave in protection from the elements it took in visibility, and would have much preferred an optional open-air deck that afforded better views. There was a small spot on the bow, but after some Chinese dude trying to impress his girlfriend stood in front of the captain, we were banned from it.

The route was alright, but not as comprehensive as I would have expected. I sort of thought 70 minutes would have taken us around the entire outer canal of the old city (it surrounds the city like a moat and has been in place for about 2500 years). Instead we journeyed up the southern leg of the canal, and then turned around and backtracked. The tour operators tried to distract us from this redundancy with a musician plucking a sān xián and belting out some rather discordant (to my laowai ears at least) Kunqu, the local opera style.

The second leg of the route was slightly improved, as we headed up the western side of the city towards Shantang Jie, the spot you see in virtually any collection of Suzhou photos (here’s mine). It was cool to see at night — with virtually every building in the area lit up like a Chinese-inspired Christmas decor.

Here are some photos:

As I said, I’m not sure the 60RMB was justified, but I’m happy to have crossed it off the list of things I’ve been meaning to do. Having the opportunity to finally meet Lisa in person and get her thoughts on the changes in China, US political situation and life in general was priceless.

Be sure to pre-order your copy of Rock Paper Tiger, and let me know what you think of her site.

Last week Maggie and I grabbed a flight out of PVG and made our annual pre-holiday trip to visit the inlaws and friends in Dalian. That we both work outside the confines of anyone’s schedule but our own, we are fortunate that we can travel when the rest of the country is distractedly focused on tying up loose ends before one of China’s major holidays. It makes for cheaper and less crowded travel.

Returning to Dalian, where I spent the first year and a half of my China life, is always a mixed bag. I love Suzhou, and I love living in Suzhou more than I loved living in Dalian. But at the same time, Dalian has the huge draw of both friends who have remained (or returned) there and a rather large nostalgia factor.

That it was the first place me and China started our near half-decade affair has left me with a strong impression of Dalian. Around every corner and down every road there seems to be an “oh, I remember that place!” moment, followed promptly by a “hey, but that’s new!” While living there I was always on the fringes of the city proper — living first in Jinzhou district (the “district” bit being a bit of an insult to the city, as it’s older than Dalian), where I met Maggie and where her family continues to live; and second in Jinsanjiao, on the northern edge of Dalian city.

Never having lived downtown may be one of the major reasons I was eager to leave Dalian, and upon looking back, may have lead me to judge the place a bit unfairly. While it is relatively Western friendly, my feeling about the place is that it doesn’t remotely compare to the Westernized parts of Suzhou. Dalian, despite all its development, is still in Dongbei, China’s northeastern rust-belt.

And while Dalian — more than most Dongbei cities, has spent lots of time and energy trying to reinvent itself, learning largely through trial and error what works and what doesn’t, Suzhou’s a decade or two ahead. As a comfortable place to live, Suzhou still takes the cake. However, let me compare a few differences between the two places I’ve called “home” in China:

Weather

Despite being a Canadian, I’ve no loyalty to four distinct seasons. While Dalian’s weather is much closer to that of which I’m used to, I wasn’t sad to leave Dalian’s icy winters behind when I moved south. What I hadn’t counted on was Suzhou’s absolute bunk climate. Even in winter Dalian is likely to have beautifully clear-skied and sunny days. Suzhou hasn’t had sun since the Song Dynasty.

While enduring Dalian’s northern winters may be a challenge, its summer is livable and its spring and fall are a good length. Not so in Suzhou. Suzhou’s summer is akin to living in a bathhouse for 4-5 months, and its winter is wet and about as close to freezing as you can get without committing to it. Winters are made all the worse by the peculiar evolutionary trait of those born south of the Chang Jiang being without the good sense to insulate their buildings. Fall and spring are things only existent in fables — as proof, it will be October tomorrow and I’m still in shorts and tees.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 0

Food

This is another area where both places are nothing to write novels about — blog posts maybe. I find Dongbei food rather simple and bland, while Suzhou’s local fare is sweet and a bit odd (bull frog is a common menu item). My palate is much more inline with Hunan or Sichuan food, and I can’t get enough of the cumin-y goodness of Xinjiang food.

Where Dalian edges out Suzhou is that it has a wide selection of chuar locales. There wasn’t a place I lived or visited in Dalian that wasn’t a 5-10 minute walk from a street full of low-sitting tables and stools eager for you to grill stuff. While Suzhou has a few chuar spots, they are just that – few. And while my body is surely happy I’m not sucking back enough carcinogens to give my grandkids cancer and washing ‘em down with bottle after bottle of cheap brew, there’s a reason a chuar restaurant is usually my most anticipated event in Dalian.

Dalian also scores points over most Dongbei locations as being close to the sea, and for this seafood lover, that’s a huge plus.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 0

Western Standards of Living

Now before the FOTBers or hard-core expats get their backs up, let me qualify this by saying — to each their own. For me, I’ve lived in China long enough that a bit of comfort is something I’m willing to look for. When I first arrived, and occasionally still in fits of boredom, I loved the chaotic cacophony that I had assumed was China. I felt it defined China in some way, and that I was missing out on it by living a cushy expat existence. But then I asked myself, would anyone live in those conditions if they weren’t forced to by finance or because they’re a cultural tourist? Probably not. At least not me.

And while Dalian has some charming and exclusive expat-geared communities and facilities, Suzhou gets all the points in this category. In fact, from what I’ve seen of Shanghai, Suzhou would give it a run for its money. The entire eastern end of Suzhou is row after row of wide, organized streets, designated and protected bike paths, international restaurants, and decently maintained apartment complexes.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 3 (because few things top ‘livability’ for points)

Culture and History

The park at 2,500-year-old Pan Gate

Being that it was the native home to nomads, it is perhaps unsurprising that there aren’t many long-standing cultural spots in Dongbei, and what few the area has, virtually none of them are in Dalian.

Suzhou, by contrast, has been sitting here for 2,500 years just collecting culture like it might one day come back in style. Despite winning 3 points for its modernity, Suzhou has done a decent enough job maintaining its numerous historical sites — the revenue for which no doubt helped pay for the newly developed districts.

Both places provide good insight into what is China’s chimera-like culture, but for strictly bookish culture and history points, Suzhou wins hands down. There aren’t many cities in China that get their own Chinese sayings, nor do many still have monuments to pre-Qin kings.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 2

Natural Scenery

Bingyu Valley, just outside of Dalian

Both Suzhou and Dalian have decent scenery. Suzhou’s Venice-like network of canals are fed by a number of lakes in the surrounding area, including China’s third largest, Tai Hu. Additionally, there are a good number of large hills (called “mountains”, but really?) for a day out hiking.

Dalian is also great for hiking, with Da Hei Shan and Bingyu Valley being particularly great spots to visit. However, where Dalian jumps ahead of Suzhou is its proximity to the sea. While perhaps not for everyone, it’s hard to deny the aesthetics of a nice sea-side sunset/sunrise. Coupling its drastic seaview vistas with its rugged hilly terrain, Dalian beats out Suzhou in this category.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 1

Location

This was one of the primary reasons I was eager to move down from Dalian to Suzhou three years ago. While Dalian is well-connected via trains, planes, busses and ferries; Suzhou wins out simply for being directly adjacent to one of China’s (indeed, the world’s) largest cities. Suzhou’s proximity to Shanghai (just half-hour on the new fast trains) give it a huge leg-up over Dalian, which despite its connectivity is still in the relatively isolated northeast.

And while unlike Dalian, Suzhou doesn’t have its own airport, we’re happy enough borrowing the two in Shanghai, or a third in nearby Wuxi. Shuttles run from Suzhou to both of Shanghai’s airports, and because Shanghai PVG is a truly international airport, global direct flights are easy to come by.

The one downside to Suzhou’s otherwise unencumbered system is that it is virtually the last stop before Shanghai for all trains coming from the north. This can make it a bit of a challenge to get train tickets to Shanghai last minute.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 1

Nightlife

I’m married, what the hell do I know about nightlife anymore?

Actually, I think both cities are pretty much on par with each other in this regard. Both have a couple of clubs, a number of pubs, and a few good miscellaneous expat hangouts (cafes and whatnot). The only edge I might give Dalian here is that it is generally cheaper to go out in Dalian than in Suzhou — which seems to have taken its pricing cues from its big sister to the east.

Dalian: 1 – Suzhou: 1

Final Score & Conclusions

Dalian: 7
Suzhou: 8

Not a striking difference, and admittedly my scoring is biased as all hell. At the end of the day, I would happily recommend (and have numerous times) either place as a good spot to live. That they have their differences is a great argument against the opinion (that I’ve more than once repeated) that all Chinese cities are indistinguishable at their core.

A few photos from my trip to Dalian

Locals half-heartedly bemoan the changes prosperity has brought. The city, they say, is irrevocably different. But Suzhou has hung onto its character, and is an excellent place to witness the contrast and clash of new and old in today’s China. On Pingjiang Lu, an old, cobbled street beside a canal, it is possible to sit, a little guiltily, beside the water, sipping Italian coffee and surfing the internet, while residents of the ramshackle homes nearby, carrying-poles slung between their shoulder blades, collect the day’s water in buckets.

If you live in, or plan to visit, Suzhou I highly recommend giving the guide a look at. You can read it online here, or download it as a PDF for offline viewing.

Of course it’s the perfect time to take a holiday and trek around the country — so that’s exactly what I’m going to be doing next week and the week after.

Heat or not, I couldn’t be more excited. The timing of the vacation is because my best friend Cory is (coufinallygh) coming to visit me in China. We’ve been friends for going on 20 years, which for me is no small feat. See, I’ve called 25 different places “home” over the course of my 32 years (birthday this Thursday), and as such have shuffled through friends nearly as much as I’ve shuffled through addresses. But whereas many friends come and go, Cory is as close as to being kin to me as you can get without sharing blood. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve seen him, and even then it was only short visits. It’s going to be great to be able to spend two weeks catching up.

As it’s his first time here, there’s no shortage of things that he would like to see — 3rd or 4th largest country in the world be damned. So in the two short weeks of his visit we are going to attempt the following jam-packed itinerary:

Our Chitinerary

Despite living here, I’m pretty excited about the travels as well. I’ve become entirely too sedentary in recent years, a sharp contrast to the itchy-footed globetrotter (I suck at basketball) that washed up here nearly half a decade ago. This will be my first trip to Xi’an and first *real* trip to Nanjing (I bussed up there for a cheap airfare once, but only saw the bus station, airport and a traffic-filled blur inbetween). It will also be the first time I’ve been back to Beijing since travelling there in 2005, only three months after arriving in China.

Cory and I will be leaving Maggie at home, and so will largely be depending on my craptastic language abilities to navigate us through — a fact that excites me nearly as much as it scares the hell out of me. I mean, I’ve travelled in 10+ countries, many of which couldn’t speak much English, and have done fine. I guess I’m just apprehensive about being the sole language-point for us. It will, however, give me the opportunity I need to dust off my Chinese skills, which have been steadly going stale since we moved from downtown Suzhou out to the SIP area — a district where you’re nearly as likely to pass a foreigner on the street as you are a local.

Recapturing the Shutter Bug

The trip will also provide me with an opportunity to revisit a former passion – photography. I got into photography in high school, and was knee-deep in SLR gear by my late teens. I then studied photography, if rather basically, in college as part of my journalism program, and adored it. After college I went to work for some magazines and got to play concert photographer for a few shows, which was awesome (I think I still have lumps on my skull from water bottles being thrown at Cake during a outdoor summer festival).

But when I decided to pack in the journalism career and live out of a backpack for five months, I made the difficult decision to trade in my SLR and lenses for a much more compact digital point-and-shoot. It served me well (see photos from UK/Ireland, Mainland Europe and Thailand), but I’ve always missed having a real camera.

After deciding to stay in China I flipped a coin on whether to buy a DSLR or a new laptop with some of the money I had saved to move to Australia. I ended up meeting in the middle and getting a new laptop and a prosumer p&s. Over the years I’ve had a few opporunities and wasted much of my friend Derrick‘s time asking endless questions of what his recommendations for DSLRs is.

Finally, after humming and hawing about this for a few years (ask Maggie, next to a sailboat, it’s the “awe I want one” thing she’s listened to me whinge about the most) and with this 2-weeks of travel looming, I bit the bullet last week and grabbed myself Canon’s new entry-level DSLR, the 500D. A few of my friends have the 450D, and I was decently impressed with it. The 500D is a mild improvement over the 450D, but among its new features is the ability to shoot HD video.

I wrestled over whether to buy just the body and grab the lenses seperately, but the minimal cost difference (and lack of time) prompted me to just grab the kit with a Canon EF 18-55mm IS lens attached (effectively about a 30mm-70mm lens). It’s alright, but a bit slow — basically just a 100% mediocre lens. However, it and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 I’ll grab this week will do the job until I can afford to laydown some serious bucks on a good telephoto and a nice wide-angle. Suggestions enthusiastically welcomed.

I bought the camera at one of Canon’s authorized dealers in Suzhou. It involved some pretty heady negotiations on the part of my wife, as we wanted to get the price down to approximately the costs found on Taobao. We considered buying it from Taobao, but were a bit nervous getting such a large purchase from someone we couldn’t physically visit if something went wrong.

We couldn’t get the price as low as it is on Taobao, but did mange to wrangle a pretty decent deal in my opinon. I got the Canon 500D (18-55IS) kit, 4GB SD card, 58mm UV filter, a crappy little bag and LCD scratch protector for 5750 RMB. I’ve all but tossed the waffer-thin lunchbox style bag they gave me, and instead ordered a rather awesome Crumpler bag.

Both my friends Ric and Elvina swear by them, and they look great — not much like a camera bag, which is exactly what I wanted. I checked out Crumpler’s US site and the bags were a bit pricey, and so I decided to see if Taobao had knock-offs cheaper. Sure enough, it does. I ordered the 7 Million Dollar Home, as it is big enough to fit extra goodies in it and wont force me to buy a new bag when I finally get some new lenses later this year. It took 2 days to get here, and while I don’t have a *real* Crumpler to A-B it with, it looks just as advertised, and appears good and sturdy. In fact, comparing it to the pictures on Crumpler’s site, the only difference is the colour of the interior lining. Everything else seems pretty much exact — and at about 1/3 the price of the US Web site, I ain’t complaining.

Well – best I publish this and get back to the rather insane list of things I need to get done before I shut down shop for 2 weeks. I love holidays, and love that my situation allows me the flexibility of choosing my holidays whenever I want – but the unfortunate side-effect is there’s no one here to fill in for me while I’m gone.

Oh, as I do whenever summer hits, I’ve been listening to a lot more Sublime. Have had Doin’ Time stuck in my head for the last few days, but keep singing it with a slight China-tinge…. it’s stupid, but I just can’t help it. Such a great song though.

Doin’ Time – Sublime

Summertime and the living’s easy
And Bradley’s on the microphone w/ ras m.g.
All the people in the dance will agree
That we are well qualified to represent the PRC
Me and Louie run to the Party
Dance to the rhythm it gets harder
Me and China we got this relationship
I love her so bad but she treats me like shit
On lock down like a penitentiary
She spreads her lovin’ all over
And when she gets home there’s none left for me

[chorus]

Oh take this veil from off my eyes
My burning sun will someday rise
So what am I gonna be doin’ for a while
Said I’m gonna play with myself
Show them how we come off the shelf

[chorus]

Evil I’ve come to tell you that she’s evil most definitely
Evil ornery scandalous and evil most definitely
The tension is getting hotter I’d like to hold her head underwater

—

Incidentally, if you find a puddle of fleshy goo that smells faintly of maple syrup and bacon somewhere between Xi’an and Suzhou, please scoop it up and return it to my dear mother – you can keep the camera. Damn it’s hot.

The site’s editors wanted me to put together a summary article on “my Suzhou”, and as of last week it was published on the site. For anyone that’s ever asked my opinion about what to see while visiting Suzhou the content will feel familiar, as it generally just rehashes what I’ve suggested to people many many times over the years I’ve lived here.

If you get a chance, check it out: Suzhou Insider: The Humble Expat’s Garden City

It also features a number of photos I’ve taken around Suzhou — the requirement of which finally forced me to get off my ass and start uploading the countless number of China-centric photos I’ve taken over the years to my Flickr account. I’m a long way from being done, but it’s getting there.