A bunch of folks went out to Da Mei Sha (one of Shenzhen’s beaches) on Saturday afternoon, all at different times.  From where I live, it’s about an hour and a half bus ride.  I split the distance though.  In the early afternoon, I met up with my local musician friend who’s helping me with a re-release of a CD.  We spent about three hours tweaking the recording.  We might be able to finish in two more sessions, if all goes well.  After we finished, I hopped back on the bus and made my way to the beach.  I met up with Davide and his wife.  Paul and his girlfriend showed up later.  We hung out on the crowded beach while waiting on our Chinese friend, Mike, and his crew.  At one point, I noticed someone trying to sneak a photo of us.  So, I waved to them.  This prompted all sorts of excitement and lots of people joined in on the picture.  Check out the photos.

Contrast the crowds on this semi-pretty beach with those in Costa Rica.

Later on, we enjoyed an excellent “business meeting” dinner at a Hunan restaurant (my favorite) then spent the rest of the evening on the beach playing the popular Chinese “Killer” game, sort of a bluffing game that’s popular.  Folks in my office used to play over lunch.  Basically, a judge who runs the game you secretly  and randomly assigns roles:  one killer, one policeman, and civilians.  The game is based on rounds and each round begins with everyone closing their eyes.  Then:

1. The killer is allowed to open his eyes and point to someone that he wants to kill.  The judge notes it and then the killer closes his eyes.
2. The policeman is then allowed to open his eyes and can have one guess at who the killer is.  The judge either nods “yes” or “no”.

Everyone then opens their eyes and the judge announces who’s been killed.  That person is then out of the game, and gets to watch how the game plays out.  It’s the policeman’s job to ferret out the killer, and the killer’s job to eventually kill off the cop so he’s safe.  In between each round, the judge goes around the group and gets feedback from everyone about who they think the killer is and why.  If a majority of the people guess who the killer is, then the killer loses the game as well. Makes for a fun time late into the night on the beach.

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Though I prefer my new place to the old one, one big drawback is that it’s not located on a subway line.  At least not yet; maybe in a couple of years, when I’m sure I will have moved on again.  So, most of my transportation lately has been by taking the bus, which has been getting steadily better – more comfortable, AC, less crowded.  And, just the other day, I hopped on a bus that had the passenger information recordings (the next stop, safety crap) in English as well as Chinese.  This was a first.  While the subway has always had Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, busses have always only used Mandarin.  So, I had a curious sense that I would prefer to only have Mandarin spoken on the busses.  I guess that parallels how I prefer to not her “Para continuar en Espanol, marque en ‘dos’” in the United States even though I can speak Spanish.

I had a heck of a time hunting down the location of php.ini on my Mac.  I needed to set the PHP error reporting setting to ‘true’ for my local installation.  Though I much prefer the file system organization of the Mac to Windows, I don’t know it nearly as well.  After some digging, I finally found the file.  On top of locating it, I had to set the permissions so that I could make the necessary change to the file.  Here are the steps:

1)  Find PHP5.  It’s a pain in the axe.  It’s located at /usr/local/php5/lib.
2)  Access the parent folder in the finder by typing “/usr/local/php5″ in the dialog at “Go->Go to folder…” menu item.
3)  Right click on “lib” and choose “Get Info”.
4)  Under “Ownership and Permission”, click on the lock icon.
5)  Change the permission so that you now have permission to write to the file.  You’ll have to put in your admin password a cupla times.
6)  Navigate to the “lib” menu now and find the “php.ini” file.  Double click on it and choose “TextEdit” as the application of choice (make it the default app too).
7)  Make the necessary changes and…done.

Hi, and sorry that I’ve been so negligent on the blog. I’ve been in China for just over a week now.  I spent two days in oppressive heat searching for an apartment, and two more days in oppressive heat moving in.  Finally, especially now that the AC has been put in the main room, the apartment is quite comfortable.  Also, thanks to the various typhoon tailwinds that moved in, it rained for a few days in a row and cooled everything off – a bit. Now, it’s only about as hot as Columbus, Georgia.

And, yes, I’m planning on writing trip reports for the various climbing trips, including Mount Monarch, but, I will release all of those climbing trips on my climbing sites, www.cascadeadventures.info and www.gorerange.info, once they’re upgraded to running WordPress.

As part of the apartment negotiation, the landlord decided to buy an AC for the main room.  How this room was inhabitable before an AC was installed is beyond me, but that’s my sissy western comforts talking.  At first they couldn’t install on Sundays because of the rules of the apartment, they weren’t available on Monday, so Tuesday was the day.

When they showed up, I could barely understand these two characters.  For one, my Chinese is two months stale and I’m still in Spanish mode, and two, they spoke so fast and with such an accent that it probably would have been impossible anyway.  So, I made phone calls as necessary.

But, the real reason I wanted to add this post is to describe the safety measures they adhered to.  Let me back up, in China, most apartments have single AC units per room.  While it’s not nearly as nice as central air-conditioning, it is nicer than the single units in the US.  In China, the AC units have the condenser and the blower separated.  The condenser sits outside on a platform and there’s an insulated tube that runs to the remote-controlled blower inside.  Well, the blower was easy enough, but I couldn’t see how they’d get the condenser into place.  The window, which you can push out and to the right, blocked access to the platform where the condenser had to be placed.

To my shock, one of the workers put on a shaggy chest harness, clipped a rusty caribeaner to the hinge of the window and stepped out ten floors above the street below.  What’s worse, he ended up sitting on the edge of the window while putting the condenser into place which was lowered from the roof by the other worker.  Now that window hinge is metal, about six inches long and maybe a half an inch wide.  In the end, of course, there were no accidents.

In the end, the cost of installation:  $20.

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