Tag Archives: china

Next up – we fly southeast from Guiyang to Shenzhen. Sure, the center of the city is radically urbanized, but we saw none of that; for we spent all our time in the city in… its parks! Yes, you read that right. See, we were in Shenzhen to pay a visit to our friends at Huawei, which is headquartered in the city, and it just so happens that the road between the airport and said HQ is lined with nothing but parks!…

Everywhere you look – greenery and lakes. It resembled more Singapore than the stereotyped image of a large Chinese metropolis…

Read on…

From Beijing we flew into Guiyang (here), the capital of the Guizhou province (here). Though they call Guizhou a “third level” city, it still plays a key role for China’s economy – since here are located large logistical centers, plenty of other businesses and industries, plus… the largest data centers in the country. Which is why we paid a visit. Our annual Chinese partner conference also takes place here. But about that later. Today – tourism!…

Since Guizhou is mostly mountainous, the topography-geology of the province is off-the-scale beautiful, with the tourism built up around it correspondingly enormous in scale. It also holds records for the number of bridges and tunnels in the country.

For our portion of tourism while in the province, we were told we should get ourselves to Tianhetan for its waterfalls and caves (here), since it’s the one of the province’s most unusual places. Which turned out to be entirely true – with a twist…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Been a while – yes; but I’ve been busy. More on that…

So, you know how business trips for me are pretty much always intense, hi-tempo, tight-schedule, action-packed affairs? Well, guess what? This summer that “template” transferred over to my summer holidays. And I couldn’t be happier for it!…

In almost three weeks – first with colleagues and then with family – I visited a full 10 locations, staying in hotels, villas – even tents! Put another way, for 18 days we stayed in one place on average 1.8 days. More specifically: Beijing; Shenzhen; Guiyang; Nairobi, plus another six overnight stays across Kenya (the final one being next to Diani Beach, where we decompressed for a few days after all the tourism-till-you-drop:).

I said above I couldn’t have been happier; however, not everything went smoothly. Luggage went missing, and there were flight delays of several hours. Fortunately, the first such delay we found out about in advance of setting off for the airport, so we killed time whiled away the time leisurely at Lake Houhai (situated near the center of Beijing, some two kilometers north of the Forbidden City)…

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Hi all!

Today, a brief interlude to my ongoing lux-adventure-tourism series – from Beijing! I was there the other week, and came over all nostalgic since I hadn’t been there since… September 2019 – nearly four years ago!…

The first thing I noticed was that the Chinese capital had freshened up: the air quality seemed much better – so much so that you can walk the streets without a respirator. And the photos taken from my hotel room (almost) showed the distant horizon! ->

In the past, the smog would get so bad that buildings just a few kilometers away couldn’t be made out. Here’s proof!

Read on: A visibly clearer, cleaner Beijing – no more stingy eyes or respirating!

Normally, my work schedule is made up of all sorts of meetings, press interviews, taking part in exhibitions, speaking at conferences all over the globe. Normally. Not this year, darn it!

Now, some of the events I get to are one-offs. Some are regular, recurring ones (mostly annual) but to which I get only once in a while. While there are some recurring events that I deem simply must-attend. And one of my main must-attends every fall or early winter is the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China, which I’ve participated in every year (up to 2019, that is) since 2015 – just a year after it’s ‘inauguration’ a year earlier. This year, alas – no traditional trip to eastern China; however, much like here at K, not being able to be present in-person does not mean a big and important event can’t still go on. Which is great news, as this means I can still get what I want to say across to: the main players of the Chinese internet – state regulators, heads of provinces and regional development institutes, and also bosses of the Chinese big tech companies; and all from a huge screen – perhaps the biggest I’ve ever seen!

Sure, it would have been nice to be there in person – to stroll around the quaint cobbled narrow streets of the old ancient town (as old as the Tang dynasty, apparently) and take a boat ride along its canals, which indeed some folks did manage to do, somehow. But I was playing it safe. Still, the plentiful ‘in-person’ activity at the venue is at least cause for optimism during these remote-everything times.

But now for the main thing: about Wuzhen superstition…

Read on…

As part of my plans I have a brief one-and-a-half-day stopover in Hong Kong. If memory serves me correctly, the Chinese name of the city 香港 means “fragrant port”. It’s always useful to check these things though… Well, I was almost right – it’s closer to “incense harbor”. The meaning of these hieroglyphs were once explained to me a long time ago by a Chinese man who wasn’t that fluent in English :)

“Incense harbor”. What a beautiful name! For some reason, I got to singing the golden oldie by Vertinsky: “Your fingers smell of incense, and sorrow sleeps in your eyelashes…”.

A beautiful city! … I’m not here to discuss prices and the quality of housing or any other problems or troubles. As a tourist with less than two days to spare, the city is fantastic! Both at night and during the day.

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Hi folks!

Oh no! Our Tibetan adventure had drawn to a close. Our planned route – traveled; natural and man-made OMG Tibetan places of interest – visited; cherry-in-icing on cakes – eaten; kora – completed; much of southern Tibet – photographed. Time to pack up the suitcase and get to the airport. To get there – we took this here road to nowhere:

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Hi folks!

I’ve already told you, in quite some detail, about how scenic Tibetan roads are. But there’s a road in particular – China National Highway 565 (the Zanda Connecting Road) – that deserves a post all of its own: this post!

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There are many sacred, holy places in Tibet. No – very many. So it won’t come as a big surprise that after completing our kora-round-Kailash, not far from it is the next holy place – Lake Manasarovar, aka Mapam Yumtso, aka Manas Sarovar, a place of deference and worship for several religions, and around which are regularly performed (can you guess? Oh go on!…) koras! Oh – and the water in the lake: not to be touched!…

And next to this holy lake – another! Lake Rakshastal, aka Ravan Tal, aka Langa Tso.

And next to it – another holy place: another monastery – up on the hill:

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Hi folks!

After a sound, albeit short night’s sleep after two intense days on the road getting here, it was finally the morning of the day of the first leg of our kora around Mount Kailash. ~20 kilometers of trekking was on the menu for us this day, with a rise of ~350 meters in altitude (from ~4700 to 5000+). We were walking from dawn till dusk, which translates into around nine hours! Yes – more tourism until you drop: just as we like it ).

Our objective for the first day: to get a sighting of the northern slopes of Kailash from the direction of Dirapuk Monastery.

Read on…