Author Archives: d4vid

Tarmac

Posted on October 7, 2016 by d4vid

There was no direct flight from Jiayuguan to Shanghai that arrived at a reasonable hour, so I decide to stay over in Xi’an.  (Yes.  My fifth visit to Xi’an, my third in a week.) I had booked a place called the … Continue reading →

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Escape II

Posted on October 7, 2016 by d4vid

Look at what was playing at the Jiayuguan airport.  Like I said, there is no escaping DreamWorks.

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Hoot

Posted on October 7, 2016 by d4vid

The misused idioms, the typos, the allusion to 1970s American ad campaigns!  One of my favorite mangled translations ever.

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Cantilevered

Posted on October 7, 2016 by d4vid

East of the Jiayuguan fort, there is a section of the Great Wall which is so steep that it is called the “Overhanging Great Wall” (or, as certain poorly-translated signs nearby say, the “Cantilevered Great Wall.”)  The Chinese name is 悬臂长城 (Xuánbì … Continue reading →

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Minority

Posted on October 7, 2016 by d4vid

Total number of white people I saw this trip… Xining and all of Qinghai Province:  3 (all at the Sofitel breakfast buffet) Jiayuguan:  3 (a family checked in to the hotel just as I was leaving for the airport)

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Sunrise

Posted on October 6, 2016 by d4vid

 I call this shot “Sunrise Behind Smokestacks and Cooling Towers”

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Logan

Posted on October 6, 2016 by d4vid

Something about this poster for the third and final Wolverine movie with Hugh Jackman almost moves me to tears.

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Pizza

Posted on October 6, 2016 by d4vid

All I wanted was some Western food. According to Google, Jiayuguan has two pizza places.  I walked to the first one, but couldn’t find it.  I walked to the second one, but couldn’t find it either.  I decided if there … Continue reading →

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Gunpowder II

Posted on October 6, 2016 by d4vid

Ah.  So these are what have been waking me up each morning.  Happy Golden Week, everyone.

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Symmetry

Posted on October 5, 2016 by d4vid

The two ends of the Great Wall of China.  Looking down at the desert in Jiayuguan in the west, looking down at the sea in Shanhai in the east.  Thousands of kilometers of wall in between.

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Silk

Posted on October 5, 2016 by d4vid

The scope of the Silk Road is truly mind-boggling.  I spent a long time staring at this map and then had fun sussing out the place names from their Sinicized forms:  巴格达 (Bāgédá), 大马士革 (Dàmǎshìgé), etc.

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Edge

Posted on October 5, 2016 by d4vid

I had come to faraway Gansu province to complete a journey I had started months ago when I visited the Old Dragon’s Head in Shandong where the Great Wall of China dead-ends into the sea.  Now I’m here at the Western edge … Continue reading →

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Population

Posted on October 4, 2016 by d4vid

Like I did with elevation, I thought it would be interesting to compare the populations of some of the places I’ve visited in my travels.  Apparently, Jiayuguan is a little bigger than Glendale. Location 地方 Population Tokyo 东京 37,800,000 Shanghai … Continue reading →

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Elevation

Posted on October 4, 2016 by d4vid

After Qinghai (and looking forward to the possibility of Tibet) I thought it would be a good time to compare the elevations of some the places I’ve been and a couple of the places I plan to go to soon. … Continue reading →

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Escape

Posted on October 4, 2016 by d4vid

Inexplicably, the hotel provided me with a plate of cherry tomatoes &  fruit and a juice box. I cannot escape DreamWorks.  There is no escape.

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