So I went to a steak house tonight. Knife Fork and Season. It wasnt quite a steak house, but a place that served thin pan fried beef and strange lookalike western food. It was quite good, but not like the steak I know. I tried to explain was an inch thick pan sized montana grass fed steak was like, but i dont know if it got across. As i was explaining how big a real steak was, i got the impression that I was telling a fish story...I dont know if the chinese i was with believed me. Either that or a big steak is just a bit too excessive to accept. Nonetheless still delicious.
steak
wine cooler
menu
The building the steakhouse was located in was quite impressive. Despite being a half hour from our apt on the way out of town. The area was still colonized by enormous shopping centers and apartment complex. Sprawl at its best. The only difference is this peripheral suburb has no public transit, no bikes, and few peds. just private cars. american style.
The shopping center itself was six stories, but the space was not entirely filled. At least two football fields worth of space was just an enclosed space with 6 stories of empty space. only along the back wall were there actual stories and shops. I asked why there was so much empty space and the reply was..."for flying remote control helicopters" (you can imagine how frustrating responses like this are...) Either way it was a monstrosity.
Also interesting were the enormous apartment buildings near this enormous shopping building. They were said to house 20,000 families. about 60k. This is just one such development here. The scale and shear number of people is stifling. Also interesting is the number of apts that were sold but unoccupied. Real estate investment is huge here. The apts there a year ago when they were completed sold for 250US/m2 and they all sold immediately. Now, one year later, they sell for $725. Tidy profit in one year.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Updates
I haven't been updating much lately. Life is nonetheless good.
If anything I have been taking more pictures that before and breaking in the new camera. Flickr is getting all the new ones.
The barely sprouting worked! Found the wholesale grain market and bought a bunch of barely along with some other grains and beans. Sprouted 1kg more worth of barely, but unfortunately left for the weekend and came back to the barely well over-sprouted. Dried it, roasted it, cracked it, and made a test batch of barely wine with it. The wine is currently fermenting and smells great!
For the weekend I went to Dali with a big group of people for an expenses paid weekend and rock concert. The concert was lame, but we climbed a nearby peak on one of the days. A bit cold, and steep, but lots of fun.
The following week we the closest tallest mountain around kunming early one morning to get a vantage point. I was a bit disappointed. There was too much smog to see much at all, even at 9am. Kunming gets good air quality ratings compared to other chinese cities, but as i mentioned before the Chinese air quality scale is much more lenient that the US scale, so even our regular green scores turn out to be worse than LA. Fun kunming pano.
I gave a presentation on the US economic crisis and the US government's response to the crisis this week. The audience was a masters level class on investment economics. The prof had me give it in english, but I think only a few students understood most of it and no one got it all. In the followup class today we had an extensive question and answer session mostly in chinese to clarify. Next week members of the class will report on region effects of the crisis in china.
Last weekend I went to a nearby city with the rest of the international students from the forestry university. 1 canadian(born in hong kong of chinese decent), 1 dutch, 2 thais, 25 vietnamese, and me. The city turned out to be yet another tourist city all fake and built in the last several years just for tourists. We got to 'learn and experience' yi minority culture and food. I got married to an yi lady as part of the dinner show only because i am white. It was fun though. We also got to attend a cherry festival a bit outside the city. The cherry festival saved the weekend. Not quite like flathead rainier's or bings, but delicious all the same. By my best assessment of cherry eating speed, cherry pit refuse, and minor bloating, I consumed 3kg that day and another 1kg on the following. We participated in a cherry eating contest. At which two of the vietnamese students got 1st and 2nd place and received 5kg of cherries as a prize. Being white, I received an honorable mention and 1kg.
If anything I have been taking more pictures that before and breaking in the new camera. Flickr is getting all the new ones.
The barely sprouting worked! Found the wholesale grain market and bought a bunch of barely along with some other grains and beans. Sprouted 1kg more worth of barely, but unfortunately left for the weekend and came back to the barely well over-sprouted. Dried it, roasted it, cracked it, and made a test batch of barely wine with it. The wine is currently fermenting and smells great!
For the weekend I went to Dali with a big group of people for an expenses paid weekend and rock concert. The concert was lame, but we climbed a nearby peak on one of the days. A bit cold, and steep, but lots of fun.
The following week we the closest tallest mountain around kunming early one morning to get a vantage point. I was a bit disappointed. There was too much smog to see much at all, even at 9am. Kunming gets good air quality ratings compared to other chinese cities, but as i mentioned before the Chinese air quality scale is much more lenient that the US scale, so even our regular green scores turn out to be worse than LA. Fun kunming pano.
I gave a presentation on the US economic crisis and the US government's response to the crisis this week. The audience was a masters level class on investment economics. The prof had me give it in english, but I think only a few students understood most of it and no one got it all. In the followup class today we had an extensive question and answer session mostly in chinese to clarify. Next week members of the class will report on region effects of the crisis in china.
Last weekend I went to a nearby city with the rest of the international students from the forestry university. 1 canadian(born in hong kong of chinese decent), 1 dutch, 2 thais, 25 vietnamese, and me. The city turned out to be yet another tourist city all fake and built in the last several years just for tourists. We got to 'learn and experience' yi minority culture and food. I got married to an yi lady as part of the dinner show only because i am white. It was fun though. We also got to attend a cherry festival a bit outside the city. The cherry festival saved the weekend. Not quite like flathead rainier's or bings, but delicious all the same. By my best assessment of cherry eating speed, cherry pit refuse, and minor bloating, I consumed 3kg that day and another 1kg on the following. We participated in a cherry eating contest. At which two of the vietnamese students got 1st and 2nd place and received 5kg of cherries as a prize. Being white, I received an honorable mention and 1kg.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Kunming
Things have been getting started a bit slower here in Kunming than I had originally hoped for, but it is understandable. I have to reestablish trust and relationships and that takes time. I might have crossed the threshold this week and next weeks should pick up.
Over a month ago now my camera was stolen out of my pocket on a bus. With the camera gone I sort of lost my motivation to keep up on the blog. Well I have a new camera now. I also am trying out a new photo website. We will see how it goes.
I have started an herb garden, banana wine, spiced mead, and am currently trying to sprout wheat and barely. If the sprouting works, I will find a grinding apparatus, construct a solar oven and make some sprout bread. Tomorrow morning we are going in search of a wholesale grain and oil market.
Photos
Over a month ago now my camera was stolen out of my pocket on a bus. With the camera gone I sort of lost my motivation to keep up on the blog. Well I have a new camera now. I also am trying out a new photo website. We will see how it goes.
I have started an herb garden, banana wine, spiced mead, and am currently trying to sprout wheat and barely. If the sprouting works, I will find a grinding apparatus, construct a solar oven and make some sprout bread. Tomorrow morning we are going in search of a wholesale grain and oil market.
Photos
Friday, April 3, 2009
Forest Visit
About two weeks ago I was able to go on another reforestation forest visit. After several hours of meeting with professors at my new university and some interesting conversations, one of the professors invited me to lunch with his assistant, but not him. After a delicious and gut filling lunch of roast duck, several other meats, and sour yunnan red rose wine, the assistant informed me that we would be leaving for a field visit in 30min and I could return to the office with him if i wanted a short nap. This was all news to me and the nap was quite appealing as I already felt the food coma and red wine setting in.
I actually tried to talk him out of the field visit. I was not a good enough reason to have an impromptu field visit. After a little bit of attempted convincing I got the idea that the field visit might be a good excuse for the professor and assistant to take the afternoon off for a countryside drive. I didnt go for a nap, instead went back with one of the professors masters students to his dorm and chatted with him and his three roommates for a bit before leaving for the neighboring county.
Once we arrived in the county seat, we stopped at the forestry bureau office and picked up two guys to be our local tour guides. After another 30min of driving we stopped at the township forestry office for a short chat. I wasnt exactly prepared for this impromptu feild visit, but I did my best to ask lots of questions and take copious notes about the sloping land conversion program status in the area. I was unable to understand the chinese of the township forestry official or that of one of the county officials, but the professor was able to provide a translation to more standard chinese when needed. I say more standard because his chinese is very reflective of his home province of guizhou, but much more standard than the others.
After our short question and answer session we got back in the car and continued up the valley to see some actual reforestation/sloping land conversion sites and to ask more questions. The entire area was using bamboo for its reforestation purposes. The natural forest is not a bamboo forest, but instead a mixed decidious forest. The bamboo, however, is much more beneficial for the farmers. They get to be subsidized for 8 years while also get to start bamboo harvesting in year 3-5. Income from the sale of bamboo is rougly 3x what the farmers could make growing potatos or grain on the same land. When the program first began in 2000 farmers were very resistant to participation, but after a few years and apparent concrete earnings of the more bold farmers, everyone jumped on. Now even on flat land some farmers have planted bamboo without subsidy incentive. That being said there still are some sloping lands highly prone to erosion that remain unconverted either do to farmer resistance of relatively high subsidy adminstration costs for very small plots.
Sloping Land Conversion-SongMing, Yunnan
I actually tried to talk him out of the field visit. I was not a good enough reason to have an impromptu field visit. After a little bit of attempted convincing I got the idea that the field visit might be a good excuse for the professor and assistant to take the afternoon off for a countryside drive. I didnt go for a nap, instead went back with one of the professors masters students to his dorm and chatted with him and his three roommates for a bit before leaving for the neighboring county.
Once we arrived in the county seat, we stopped at the forestry bureau office and picked up two guys to be our local tour guides. After another 30min of driving we stopped at the township forestry office for a short chat. I wasnt exactly prepared for this impromptu feild visit, but I did my best to ask lots of questions and take copious notes about the sloping land conversion program status in the area. I was unable to understand the chinese of the township forestry official or that of one of the county officials, but the professor was able to provide a translation to more standard chinese when needed. I say more standard because his chinese is very reflective of his home province of guizhou, but much more standard than the others.
After our short question and answer session we got back in the car and continued up the valley to see some actual reforestation/sloping land conversion sites and to ask more questions. The entire area was using bamboo for its reforestation purposes. The natural forest is not a bamboo forest, but instead a mixed decidious forest. The bamboo, however, is much more beneficial for the farmers. They get to be subsidized for 8 years while also get to start bamboo harvesting in year 3-5. Income from the sale of bamboo is rougly 3x what the farmers could make growing potatos or grain on the same land. When the program first began in 2000 farmers were very resistant to participation, but after a few years and apparent concrete earnings of the more bold farmers, everyone jumped on. Now even on flat land some farmers have planted bamboo without subsidy incentive. That being said there still are some sloping lands highly prone to erosion that remain unconverted either do to farmer resistance of relatively high subsidy adminstration costs for very small plots.
Sloping Land Conversion-SongMing, Yunnan
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