End of 2006, New Years and Bday in Oz and Chinese New Year in Middle China

Well its been a long time coming, but I have finally learnt to use some technology to get the hundreds of photos that I have been taking whilst on this Chinese adventure onto the web! So for those of you that were hanging out for my thousand words of prose, you now will have to put up with photos to get a sense of what this bloke has been up to recently. For those that are interested in past photos, do check out the India entry for those pics and my earlier Dalian entries for all the picture and colour of Dalian 2006.

http://picasaweb.google.com/terence.koo/Dalian2006

http://picasaweb.google.com/terence.koo/IndiaSept2006AlinaSWedding

As the title would suggest, the last 2 months has been eventful as usual but I will attempt to capture it as succinctly as possible and leave the pictures do the rest of the talking. Broken into 2 parts Oz and Middle China

Back in Oz and HOW GOOD was it! Highlights included

• Missing the last week of exams to get a flight to land on the morning of New Years Eve. Quick catch up with the folks and family and off back to the heavenly Beattie St of Balmain to celebrate New Years with old friends in familiar surroundings. Amy Low had put on a great show and there was food, alcohol (Thanks to Fosters), fireworks and even random action on various balconies ah it was good to be home. Unfortunately Senia was still away in Greece so I had to play the viewing gallery that night

• An all dayer spent at the Exchange Hotel starting at 1pm and ending at 12am where many a beer was drunk and many a catch up had. Thanks to those who turned up
• The day at the cricket to see Warnie, McGrath and Langer's last test match, all the better cause it was in the Fosters Corporate Box! - Thanks Doves
• Giving formal notice and handing back my laptop to PwC - Despite all that can be said, I really had a blast at PwC. It was my first real job and I made some great friends, did a lot of travelling and learnt an awful lot. Will be forever grateful for the experience and especially to those that mentored me on the way. You all know who you are so thanks again!
• The several nights of beer, pizza, poker and cards, always appreciated as special friend and family time, even better when you win money haha
• Catching up with old Pommy friends Ash Kumar and Paul Hawkins on a trip to the Blue Mountains, both of whom very gracefully looked for all the silver lining they could find in their 5-0 whitewash in the test series.
• The great Koo family dinners which included a number of great Balmain and Leichhardt Italian restaurants and the celebration of the 29th bday at home which was indeed special after 6 months in China
• Spending for the first time in my life quality time with my grandmother where thanks to my newly acquired language skills I was able to converse for hours and not minutes. Learning about the real feelings, emotions and opinions of a relative you have known your whole life but was never able to properly communicate with is one of those life changing experiences and made the last 6 months of language training worth the effort in one encounter
• And finally of course the reuniting with the lovely Greek Goddess who is silly enough to put up with me for nearly 4 years now. For those of you who know me well, you all know by well who special she is to be able to last this long =) Nuff said..

Off to the middle of the Middle Kingdom

The end of January saw me back on a plane to good ole Dalian where Sydney shennanigans turned once again into gruelling 8 hour days of work combined with the study of the great Chinese language. Thankfully 2 weeks of that and I was off again this time to spend 2 weeks travelling with Chinese friends to the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou to visit the cities of Kunming and Guiyang respectively. Fortunate enough to be invited to spend Chinese New Year with Chinese I saw this as too good an opportunity to give up so booked the flights. Lets just say it was an interestingly memorable 2 weeks! Highlights included

• Flower gardens and villages of the minority groups of China. I have never seen people so excited about seagulls (mind you these provinces are inland) or dressing up in funny costumes to take shots. Nevertheless educational about some parts of Chinese culture that you just dont find out about in Malaysia or Australia.
• Having to learn to wash again from buckets and pans (Halooo Jalan Imbi). You should have seen my face the first day when my friend brought me out a pan of hot water to wash my feet in! I guess of all places on my body, my feet are probably what needs it the most =)
• Learning to make Chinese dumplings from scratch which I have decided is a terribly laborious process for not a lot of result especially when you are like me and make dumplings that look more like .. well lets not say any more here.
• Catching my first ever Chinese train and realising that you do indeed need security guards with megaphones to keep people in line. On the 10 hour train ride from Kunming to Guiyang I also decided that their beds are definitely not made for Koo males as seeing that once I was squeezed into my bunk, I was unable to move for the rest of the night
• Arriving in Guiyang to find that the jokes that my friend came from the country were not entirely untrue =) When upon arrival I was greeted by a fruit market and 2 chickens in the front doorway I thought oh yeah its camping time.
• Further discovering that my training as a Malaysian boy in the squat toilet was not put to waste as I didnt see another sit down toilet for the next 8 days till I hit the airport. When you combine this with Guiyang food which probably rivals Sichuan for chilli content, it made for some very interesting times above that hole in the ground!
• Seeing my first ever automatic Mahjong table, yes this thing shuffles and builds your blocks automatically. All you got to do is push and play!
• You know how in Australia you never saw you can play a sport unless you are extraordinarily good? Well you dont say you can play Mahjong or any sort of cards for that matter in China unless you are world champion. I found out the hard way several dollars later. Put it this way, my hosts may have been in a village that had 2 rooms but even then they managed to fit in 2 automatic mahjong tables =)
• Hitting various temples, minority group villages and eating Msian style ie 6-7 meals a day whilst taking a bucket load of pictures. Will let these do the talking for now..

http://picasaweb.google.com/terence.koo/CNY2007

One the work front, the Dalian Peace Plaza is coming along slowly but surely and we now have done the 3rd Floor of the centre and they seem interested in keeping us on longer which is good news for my pocket ;-) Other than that, the aim is till to continue with the Chinese until July this year and then lets see how things go from there. Have a quick trip back to Oz in April so might see some of you then. Until next post!

Happy Year of the Pig and all the best for the New Year

我衷心地祝福你们身体健康，万事如意，并且我希望你们猪年幸福快乐!