More funny Engrish for you fans out there who have been requesting more.   This is from my season 2 DVD of “Prison Break”.   I think this translation was done by a Perl script that some Chinese nerd wrote in an afternoon.   Don’t worry; if you haven’t seen season 2 yet, this synopsis is clever enough not to give anything away:

Seven run away birth day level of felons to become the object whichthe national police forces captures and to launch newly turn perishesthe life journey, in becomes a fugitive in the process they to faceall sorts of situations, thereupon the story then develops.   Moreoverbecause Lincoln is framed with a government plot related, thereforefrom a second season start, Michael Schofield Brother emphaticallycarries on the investigation, hoped can open behind the plot the darktruth.   But succeeds runs away separately runs away to the jail 5prisons friend middle US, in which can have reis arrested, also canhave dies to run away on the way.

[sic...]

Yesterday, I left work “early”, at 4pm, because I came into work at 6:30AM. Also, my folks were in town and I wanted to spend some decent time with them. Thirty minutes after I left, the announcement went out that we’d take a group photo the following day. So, with less than 24 hours notice, nearly the entire office was out in the middle of the grassy area of a highway exit ramp, posing for a group photo, while the photographer stood on the edge of the bridge above. In the US, getting a group of employees together for a photo like this would be next to impossible. It’s refreshing how open Chinese people are to these sorts of things and how much fun they have with it.

Here’s a shot of one of the poses. We’re spelling out words to stitch together with Photoshop:

Whenever I talk up the fantastic scenery around Guilin, I always express my disbelief that the Hollywood has never used this scenery for some of its fun fantastical films. At least I hadn’t seen any evidence. The karst towers around Guilin would have been a great setting for a movie like King Kong, for example. Well suh, after seeing a couple of scenes recently of the Chinese version of one of the great films of all time :-p, I suddenly realized, “It has been done!” Check it out:

Though I was away from the tour group for a week or so, I decided that I wanted to be at the farewell dinner, just across the border in Hong Kong at the Shangri-La hotel, a place I’ve stayed many times. I had to come to Hong Kong anyway to pick up my folks and bring them to Shenzhen, but it was an easy choice, despite the high price tag, to enjoy the farewell dinner with my fellow excellent travelers. What a great send off it was to an amazing trip. I participated in about 10 days of the trip, which felt like a couple of months because of the quantity of sites we saw and events that we experienced.   The others enjoyed an additional week. I enjoyed hearing about the remainder of the trip from my companions, which consisted of more days in Shanghai, Guilin, and ending on a high in Hong Kong, despite the rain.

Here are some pictures:

After going to Shanghai and seeing the buildings that Tom Cruise jumped between inspired me to go make a purchase of Mission Impossible III and watch that scene again.   A couple of weeks ago, I read something in the newspaper about China trying to crack down on the rampant pirating of DVDs.   Well, I went to the usual spot in Dong Men, but it was gone; only CDs were there.   (I did find a sweet recording of a bunch of obscure Paganini pieces by Salvatore Accardo on the Gramaphone label).   One of the store attendants came up to me and asked if I was looking for DVDs.   I said, “dui” (“right”), so he put my Paganini CD in a bag and beckoned me to follow him.   We went a few stores down where he opened a large storage door which lead to a large closet (at least that’s how it felt) which was packed with DVDs.   I wonder if the business is simply hiding out while the police or whomever is enforcing this is at large.   I found MI3 and then headed out.

I’m back in Shenzhen. It’s good to be back, and a little weird. Seems like you can see the best of China here and some of the not-so-best.

My iPod was stolen somewhere around the Di Wang building. I have no idea how they did it. It was in the little pouch in my backpack, zipped up. The next time I looked at my backpack, the backpack was wide open and the iPod was gone. How?? Hats off to their skill, but I would have loved to have caught them in the act. Guess I’ll by the 30 dollar rip off iPod or just use my cell phone which has a pretty bad user experience for playing MP3s.

Here’s a shot of some of the madness around Hua Qiang Bei (taken with a cell phone). The cars are blocked because the people started crossing the streets in mass. Actually, I took this shot after a majority of the folks had already crossed.

This is last day on the trip. I’m heading back to Shenzhen in the afternoon. The last meal covered by the trip was breakfast and I was sure to eat a big one. Stickin’ it to the man, you know. Our first stop was the famous Yu Gardens, which are massive convoluted rock garden with an extensive goldfish pond. Most of the plants are different varieties of trees. Apparently, the guy that built it did so because he was so ashamed for taking bribes. There are a few reminders of this throughout the garden, basically reminders to live a good and honest life. Good good.

Some cool dragons here too:

We spent some more time shopping in the area near here. There’s fun bargaining to do and a nice variety of things to look at. It’s much more pleasant than the madness of Luohu in Shenzhen. I’ll be heading back there soon (wanna get some tailored stuff).

When the rest of the group went to an expensive lunch, I headed back looking for the pedestrian mall. I never found it, but I did stop by and get a little snack for lunch (McDonalds :-o). I then made my way back to the hotel to do some last minute emailing and packing.

I took the “Magnelev” train to the airport. It’s one of the futuristic trains that somehow runs on magnets (“Magnelev” is a mix of “Magnet” and “Elevated”) and rips the air at 270 miles per hour on the quick journey to the airport (7 minutes). The train is only at its top speed for 30 seconds or so because the trip is so short. But, it’s quite a thrill. What was really exciting was when another train passed us going in the opposite direction at the same speed. These are long trains and it flashed by in less than a quarter of a second, no lie!

Check out the movie of the Magnelev.