Nintendo Wii !!!!!!!

(image courtesy of wikipedia)

I've got to go shower and dash off to work in like 15 mins. But I just have to express my excitment that according to Game Axis, the Nintendo Wii will quite possibly be available in Singapore by the middle of this month. Perhaps even as early as the 15th of Jan. Yay yay yay!!!!

For those who really know me well, you know that all I've done for the last 6 months is talk about the Wii and then for the last two months I've also been whining about the lack of news on the Wii's launch in S'pore. Now it looks like the console may make it here before Chinese New Year after all. My only concern now is that I may not be able to get my hands on one, the extra controllers and the games before CNY. I'm going to have to try and make it to my game shop tonight and ask about the rumours and see if I can pre-order stuff. I really hope to get it before CNY so my cousins can play and so I can organize a video game party.

For those who are interested, here are a couple of links.

Wii website - For all things Wii
Nintendo website - For all things Nintendo
Gamefaqs - For faqs and reviews of the hardware and the games.

Ahhhh... this is great news, at least good enough to take away the bulk of the disappointment of Everton's horrible 4-1 loss to Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup 3rd round match last night. =(

Right have to dash off now. Later... :)

Guizhou - entry 11

All right, it's time for the Shuang Ru Feng or the "Dual Breast Peaks". =D

After we walked across the Beipan River Bridge, we made our way to view the peaks before we head off for lunch.

The Shuang Ru Feng is 12km north of Zhenfeng Town and unfortunately, we were faced with some disappointment when we got to the viewing point. Although the peaks are quite titillatingly named, it wasn't really a stimulating experience as I didn't even see the peaks at all. It was simply too foggy and we ended up only taking snap shots of each other and shots of a foggy landscape where we thought the peaks might be.

Luckily, Mr. Li or Li shifu (shifu = master) as we called him, our bus driver, had taken a picture of the peaks with his cel phone on his previous trip there and he was kind enough to blue-tooth it to all who had their cel phones with them and who wanted the photo.

Once you see the Shuang Ru Feng, you'll understand why it is called that. The structure of the top of both those peaks isn't man made, although no one really knows how they managed to look so symmetrical. Local villagers think the two mountains are sacred and go to the foot of the mountains to ask for blessings.

Li shifu's photo. Still a little foggy but at least you can see something.


My photos of the foggy landscape. Am probably shooting in the wrong direction too. Probably more interesting for the type of farming employed in that area and terrain rather than the peaks themselves.


If you want to see two nicer photos of the peaks checkout these links. Here and here. Actually, I encourage you to at least check out the pix in the first link. It shows just how beautiful the Guizhou landscape can look when the flowers are in full bloom, in spring, I think.

After this, it was off to lunch. After lunch, we took a short walk through the Shancha He Park just down the road from the restaurant. It's not a very big park, nor is it a particularly pretty park. But it does have this huge rock where the word "tiger" in Chinese is carved several times in the rock. It also had tons of spiders and webs on several trees and we had some fun trying to shoot those.






After our leisurely walk through the Shancha He Park, it was off to the Malinghe Xiagu (Malinghe Gorge) which was actually the main attraction for the day and a very nice one too. I'll leave that for the next post. =)

enjoy

Guizhou - entry 10

First let me apologize for labelling the previous Guizhou post wrong. This is "entry 10", the previous one should have been "entry 9". I have since corrected it.


The Huangguoshu Hotel (LC's photo)

While I didn't quite like the food in China most of the times, I liked several of the hotels we stayed in on this trip even though most of them were 3 star hotels. The only 4 star hotel we stayed in was the Wuyue Hotel in Guiyang.

One of the things I found different about the hotels we stayed in was that several of them had rooms that have 3 beds in them already. Before I actually stayed in one in Guizhou, I have only encounted hotels where they have had a maximum of two beds and if you wanted a third, they would wheel in some flimsy bed and that would be that.

Well, the Wuyue Hotel and the Huangguoshu Hotel both had rooms with 3 equally nice single beds. In fact, the only time we had to decide who gets to sleep on the flimsy third bed was, if I'm not wrong, the Hua Cheng Xing Long International which was a sort of resort-like hotel by the Hongfeng Lake.

The next day, after breakfast, we began the second day of our trip to Guizhou. First we were off to check out the Beipan River Bridge and to view the gorge just under the bridge.

According to this web page, the bridge is 388m long and spans the gorge at its "most thrilling spot," where it is 405m deep. Check out this link for a picture of the Beipan River Bridge and it's surroundings on a clear day.

It was extremely foggy when we got to the bridge and visibility was quite low. We only walked across the bridge and we never stopped anywhere to get a full view of the bridge so if you're interested, check out that picture I mentioned above.

The truth is, this wasn't one of the more memorable locations for me. It was okay and the gorge was deep but there are more spectacular suspension bridges. If we had been able to view it from a distance, like the photographer who look that picture in the link I provided above, we might have taken a more favourable view of the bridge. But alas...

That said, if you happen to pass by the bridge while on your way to another destination, it is worth the short walk and a couple of photos.

Check out the photos I took of the bridge and the gorge.

View of the bridge from the side we began our walk across.


Several houses by the side


Views of the gorge



Walking on the bridge


Nearing the other end


The other side


That's it for the Beipan River Bridge. In the next post, I'll talk about the titillatingly named the "Dual Breast Peaks" (Shuang Ru Feng). =)

cheers

Guizhou - entry 9

Hi guys. Hope you had a good break from work. =) I spent my New Year's working on my photos and if you're feeling sorry for me, don't. I enjoy working on my hobbies (photography being one of them) a lot and the only New Year's that's ever really mattered to me is Chinese New Year anyway. =)

Right, so we're back at Guizhou & I'll finish up the part about HGS waterfall first. After a slippery and damp walk through the 12m high Shuilian Dong (Water Curtain Cave), we arrived at the foot of the falls took a couple of shots before crossing the suspension bridge where we met up with the Guiyang guides Xiao Ou and Xiao Yu. We were given a choice of paying for the escalator ride (cuz it's private runned) or climbing back up the steps that took us down to the falls. We elected to do the latter and although the climb back up was exhausting and really gave me an insight into how terribly out of shape I was, I do not regret our decision because on our way back up, we were treated to a beautiful view of the falls from the opposite bank and that was worth all the pain.

The Huanguoshu Waterfall is only the most famous and biggest of a cluster of waterfalls of which there are several other falls in this cluster of 18 falls which look quite worthy of a visit if one has the time and if one isn't on a packaged tour like mine. Being unable to really explore an area is one of the major drawbacks of travelling on a package tour and as I read up more and more about other people's experiences, the more I want to just take the backpacking route.

Map of the Huangguoshu and Tianxingqiao Scenic Areas

(courtesy of china-guide)

Some of the more notable falls in the Huangguoshu Scenic Area include the 410m high Dishuitan Waterfall, the 105m wide Duopotang Waterfall and the Luositan Waterfall just to name a few. Sadly, my trip didn't take me to these falls but if you're interested in what some of them look like click here.

I did, however, see another waterfall in the second half of the day after our visit to the Huangguoshu Waterfall. The price of the ticket to enter the Huangguoshu Waterfall Park also includes the entry fee to enter the Tianxingqiao Scenic Area (Bridge of Stars Scenic Area). The Tianxingqiao Scenic Area is 6 km downstream from the Huangguoshu Waterfall. This scenic area isn't as well known as the Huangguoshu Area but is no less fascinating. The area comprises of natural rock formations, caves and a very cool waterfall. The Sancha River runs through the Tianxingqiao Scenic Area and feeds the Yinlianzhui Waterfall (Silver Chain Waterfall). This fall really lives up to it's name as the water flows over several shoals into a little pool giving the fall a chain-like look.

Beware though, the Tianxingqiao Scenic Area is big and if you really want to take photos and explore, you'll need more than the 2 hours that we got. I was unfortunately stuck between person 30 and person 32 and had to keep moving which meant that I have zero photos of the lake area with it's stones half in and half out of water and it's many stepping-stones. I do have a few pictures of the lake after the stepping stones portion but it's not terribly impressive looking.



LC also took one snap shot of the lake but she was stuck between person 31 and person 33 so that's all we have, another shot of a not terribly impressive looking lake.



The park arranged for us to be accompanied by a guide who turned out to be rather young. He was 14, I think. We asked him and I remember him saying he was 14. He sounded really mature for his age though and he seemed really experienced as he rattled off the information without seeming to stumble once. Or at least he didn't stumble when I could actually hear him as he was soon off and at the head of the group while I lagged near the end and as a result heard very little, which was a pity as I would like to know what he had to say.

Admittedly, I was kinda disappointed at first. I suppose if I were a geologist or someone who knew anything about geology, I might have gone ooooo and ahhhhh at the first section of the park but unfortunately, I'm not that knowledgeable and I did not know how to appreciate that opening section of the park.

However, we soon came to the part with all the rock formations and by the time we crossed the naturally formed stone bridge, the park had already grown on me. =)

Stone structures and stone bridge (my photos)


LC's photos


After a brisk walk though the stone formation section, the calm waters quicken and begin to flow faster and faster till they all converge into one tiny pool to form the Yinlianzhui Waterfall.

The Sancha River (my photos)


LC's photo


Yinlianzhui Waterfall (my photos)


LC's photo


After the water, we still had more walking to do. It was more of the stone formations for a bit before we arrived at a cable-car station which would take us back to the beginning of our journey. I was really glad about that too as I was really exhausted from all the walking and it was beginning to get dark. I think a lot of us zipped though this portion except for the really avid photographers in the group. I wasn't one of them, I was too tired and cold and I was painfully reminded of just how unfit I was. Definitely will have to get fitter if I'm do another one of these trips again. =)



Anyway, after we all made it back to our buses, it was off for dinner and a good night's rest at the Huangguoshu Pingguan. And after 10 entries on Guizhou, I finally made it to the end of my first day of the trip. =)
cheers
p.s.
15th Oct 2011
- the transfer to the new blogger look seemed to have messed up some of my old posts... I didn't make major edits, just added two photos that went missing and fixed some of the formatting problems.

Manchester City vs Everton 2-1

Man City's Richard Dunne and Everton's Andy Johnson.
(courtesy evertonfc.com)

Once again, no live telecast of the Everton match on cable but this time I was glad as Everton lost 2-1 to Man City and now I know I don't have to watch the delayed telecast of the match. =(

Everton really need Tim Cahill to return. According to the match report at the ToffeeWeb, Everton started brightly then faltered but the tide really turned when they conceded the first goal in the 48th min and then the second after they conceded the penalty later in the second half. Leon Osman pulled one back 6 minutes from regulation time but it was too little too late.

Apparently, Toffeeman James Beattie who made a rare start exhibited a distinct lack of confidence and would pass instead of strike on goal when he should have.

Ah well... I guess it was too much to hope that Everton would keep on winning. =(

On the plus side, I saw a fantastic Liverpool - Bolton (3-nil) encounter. Splendid goals from Peter Couch, Steven Gerrad and Dirk Kuyt. And then I saw the 6-nil slaughter of West Ham by Reading. So I guess it was a goal filled night... just wished Everton had won though. Sigh. =(

cheers