Chris’ Blog

We haven’t had many visitors in Shanghai, but each one has been a treat. Our last visitor was Dan Norton. Dan is visiting us from Japan. We showed him and some colleagues he was travelling with around the city and finished our visit with a trip to Häagen-Dazs…oh that sweet, sweet ice cream.

Dan returned a week later on his way back to Japan after visiting Beijing. We went to a Japanese Barbeque restaurant and had a great time catching up before he returned to Japan. Hopefully we’ll be able to see him when we are there…

After a hard day, nothing beats a Pocari Sweat!

After living in Shanghai for three years, we have decided to return to Canada. We won’t be returning directly though. We will go to Japan to attend a Bible school for seven weeks. After that we fly to St. John’s where we will meet Admiral Floridale before driving to Edmonton, where we expect to arrive around the middle of July. That is a long time in transit, so if you are a thief and are thinking you would like to break into our home and steal all our stuff, please don’t. We live at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa.

Well, it’s a little late, but I was finally able to prepare a video of Christine and myself setting off firecrackers to celebrate the Spring Festival this year. The video is about 45 MB and was encoded using the xvid codec. Your player may not support the xvid codec (Windows Media Player 9 and older require downloaded codec). If needed, you can download it from xvidmovies.com. If you are my Aunt Lorna and you don’t know what I am talking about, try to play the movie. If it doesn’t work, install the codec from the above link. It’s easy. You can do it, Aunt Lorna.

Enjoy.

Click here to see Chris and Christine celebrate the Spring Festival

We just returned from the first Rolling Stones concert in mainland China. It may not have been as earth shattering of an event as when all those people in the UK camped out for days to be the first to own an Oasis album, but as it was also my first time to see the Rolling Stones, it had considerably more meaning to me.

The show opened with what I must assume was a local band, a power trio with a decent lead singer, but lousy songs. After that we settled in for what turned out to be an hour long wait. Finally, just after 9:00 the Stones came on stage and held my attention for the entire concert, which is a considerable feat since I usually zone out for a space in the middle of most concerts. Excellent sound and stage presence. I was genuinely disappointed when the house lights were turned on and there was no hope of a second encore.

There were a few especially memorable, and even heart warming spots in the concert. Cui Jian, the “father of Chinese rock”, joined the Stones for “Wild Horses” and at the end of the song, when Ronnie Wood presented his hand, presumabley for a hand shake, Cui Jian was so moved by the expression he warmly received the outstretched hadnd and kissed it. Ronnie returned the gesture by blowing a kiss to Cui as he departed the stage. Brought a tear to my eye, it did.

Another surprise towards the end of the show happened when what looked like a sandbag fell from the lights above the stage and landed a couple metres in front of Keith Richards. Keith was naturally startled by the near death experience, but composed himself quickly with none of the band missing a beat. After a stage hand had removed the offending bag from the stage, Keith followed that age old addage that lightening never strikes twice in the same place and positioned himself in the space formerly occupied by the sandbag.

They played all their good songs with the exception of those that had been forbidden by the Chinese government. I guess the Rolling Stones aren’t interested in being rebels anymore.

Yesterday, we headed out to run some errands and spotted a few photo opportunities…

Lock up your daughters. The Egg Monster’s back in town!

After a narrow escape from the Egg Monster, we rested and refueled at our local neighbourhood 7-10 store.

*Click on thumbnails to see full view.

Well, it’s my birthday. I received several birthday wishes from family by e-mail throughout the day and Christine treated me to dinner and Häagen-Dazs along with two of our close friends. Francky and Ulika gave me a Chinese dragon head shirt which I proudly wore for the duration of the evening. Dinner was noodles (we didn’t want to ruin our appetites) then it was off to the Häagen-Dazs store for ice cream chocolate fondue. Ice cream balls dipped in melted chocolate….oh baby!

It’s a funny thing about China…you can take pictures in museums, art galleries, at rock concerts, but as soon as you pull out a camera at the Häagen-Dazs store…trouble. Please be advised that any pictures resembling actual persons or places are strictly coincidental. Here’s a picture of what Francky and Ulika might look like enjoying a certain ice cream at a certain ice cream establishment.

Although the ice cream dipped in chocolate was good, I didn’t feel complete, so Christine got me a bowl of vanilla ice cream just to be sure. I even got a free (free for me because Christine paid for all the ice cream) gift: a Häagen-Dazs tea cup and saucer. Christine topped of the evening by buying me some balloons!

Another weekend has come and gone, but not without a trip to the miscellaneons store. It was good timing too, as it was beginning to rain. Nothing beats the rain like kicking back with a couple of miscellaneons. Personally I think the miscellaneons would sell better with ice cream as opposed to cigarettes, but that’s probably just because I don’t understand the Chinese point of view. I remember my first miscellaneon, the shiny gold wrapper, the rough gritty texture of the coating…ah the memories.

How many miscellaneons does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Three. Two to hold the cigars and one to turn the room!

I don’t know what it is, but every time I talk to a taxi driver, he thinks I am from France. Perhaps it is my obvious sophistication, my sense of fashion, or maybe it’s because I eat a lot of cheese…I may never know.

Yesterday, Christine took me to buy my Christmas present, a new digital camera to replace the one that was stolen in Beijing. It’s great! I got a Canon Ixus 50 (SD400 in Canada) to replace the Pentax Optio S. So far, it seems to be an improvement over the Pentax, except the red-eye is quite bad and it doesn’t fit inside the Altoids tin. I’ll need to find a slightly larger candy for a case. Here’s a picture of me taken with the new camera.