Date: March 06, 2010
Location: From JinShanLing in Hebei, to Simatai in Beijing.
Weather: -3 degrees Celsius, blue clear sky

On one of the best day for a long time in Beijing, I visited a beautiful part of the Great Wall. Stunning views and challenging climbs made it a good and fun day trip. Could feel it in my knees and legs the day after. Toughest was the second part of Simatai that climed straight up on the mountain. A just crazy achievement to build a wall up there.

this a defence structure of the wall. it enables the defenders to fight at each step while withdrawing if the wall is overrun. the enemy can only climb using the narrow steps while the defender can fight from behind the walls with small openings to fire projectiles.

the famous simatai. not as beutiful to walk as jinshanling but just amazing in the achievement to build it. on the stones used to build the steps can names of the soldiers who built it be read as seen below.

On a short visit to Beijing I decided to refresh my memories of the city and do some quick sightseeing to what I thought was the easiest accessible. Well, with a just started National Party Congress and CPCC meeting it was not that accessible. Still beautiful and magnificent though like a lot of things in Beijing.

One of the things I really like with Beijing is that it has kept is culture and chinese style. Photo below is from the hotel where I stayed. Located in the Hutong it is very traditional and was a nice feeling staying there and walking around in the lanes.

About 1.5 month ago I went to xiamen to celebrate my birthday over the weekend, or maybe try to get away from celebrating it. Another good reason for the weekend in Xiamen was to visit a friend living there. The best memory I still have is the Italian dinner and amazing  panacotta birthday cake Patrik arranged the first evening.

A recent article in the Swedish newpaper E24, Kina utmanar bilvärlden,  is bringing up how China is aiming to become the largest car exporter in the world, with electric- and hybrid cars as the spear head. China is expected to pass Japan this year as the largest car manufacturer, counted in the number of cars and not income. And have already passed USA as the largest market, measured in the number of cars sold.

So, the Chinese authorities are once again encouraging car manufacturs to merge in other to create more competitive companies to compete with the likes of Toyota and Volkswagen. The four largest ones in China encourage to buy other smaller ones are: (1) Shanghai Automotive Industry Group (SAIC),  (2) Changan Automobile, (3) China FAW Group and (4) Dongfeng Motor.

Claiming that China will never reach the technology level required to become advanced car manufacturers might be dangerous to say as they might jump over the current technology and go for the next one instead, electric- and hybrid cars.

Shanghai 20090510-163830, originally uploaded by AndSig.

Pictures from a factory just off Nanjing West rd with entrance on Weihai rd.

You can see the beautiful red brick lane houses surrounded by tall buildings. In the far end can JW Marriot be seen. Parallell to the picture runs Nanjing West rd.

2009May02_0614, originally uploaded by AndSig.

After my trip to Yangshuo I decided to pick up on the climbing again. So this saturday before lunch we went down to the indoor stadium for some climbing.

The worst thing not having climbed for a while is that you don’t have any hand strength or get tired extremely fast. Another not that funny thing is when you don’t trust the person belaying you. Imagine being 15-20 meters up, having a tricky section in front of you, you feel how your hand strength is running out and you will most likely fall down while trying to get past it. You look down and see that the guy holding the other end of the rope is looking somewhere else and has not even tightened up the rope. You try to make him aware that you might soon fall but he is not even hearing you since he is looking away and completely bored by the situation. It is tough to motivate yourself to push the limits when you have that in the back of your head.

Since it was first time Silvia was climbing she could not belay me so had to use one the guys working there. I felt even worse when I let him belay Silvia and could see close up how bored he was and barely looked up at all.

Climbing is a lot of fun but since you are putting your life in the other guy’s hands you also need a lot of trust.

Shanghai JinQiao 20090412-103001, originally uploaded by AndSig.

soon two weeks have past but I am still living on the performance of a 8km race…probably time to get back to the gym soon and start preparing for the beach season coming up, or at least the pool season.

2009Apr11_0471, originally uploaded by AndSig.

As if not one launch party enough, last saturday there was two for one! As mentioned before had NaoLab (www.naolab.com) their product launch, and at the same time did OniZou (www.onizou.com) launch their trip around the world.

OniZou is a very cool idea and it will be fun to follow their travel and events.

2009Apr11_0467, originally uploaded by AndSig.

The past weekend, I spent a sunny saturday afternoon at a beautiful garden in Shanghai’s french concession. The occassion was the launch of a NaoLab’s NaoLoop. An innovative product designed and developed by a german friend in Shanghai.

I have now replaced my wallet with one of these stylish accessories where you easily can fit cards and money + other things in the more advanced models.

The final stop, originally uploaded by AndSig.

A week of travel is now coming to an end. From starting with a shared bathroom in a village i have now ended up at a retreat on the country side next to river. The cost of living is tenfold but seems worth it with the view and calmness here. Picture shows were i had my breakfast.