June 26- 06

I found this on the net. A picture of me landing at that wedding I wrote about a few days ago.

June 21- 06

Sneak peek!. That's what I caught some people doing by the Shekou bay earlier today, taking a sneak peek at Hong Kong only a few kilometers away of the island.

June 19 - 06

Interesting classifieds. 'That's Beijing' is a very popular english magazine in Beijing. It targets not only most of the expat community but is also attracting lots of attention from the newest, youngest, open-minded Chinese in Beijing. Anyhow, they have a website where people can post any type of ad free of charge. Through these ads one can find anywhere from a motorcycle, english classes, cats, to deodorants, books and Viagra. Every now and then I bump into funny ads which I will now start to share with you. Here are the first three:

- Too big.

- Money issues.

- Fresh and clean.

June 19 - 06

A wedding on tandem and beaches in Shenzhen. This past saturday I went paragliding for the first time here in Shenzhen. I met up with the guys at the local club only to realize that the main instructor was getting married with one of his students on that day. This is the story of my attendance to a wedding celebration in China. The first was during our motorcycle trip last fall, when Christian fell off a roof and chopped his ear off, and this past weekend was the second.

Still there was something peculiar about this wedding, it wasn't your ordinary celebration. The couple decided no other than to get married in the air. I'm terribly sorry there are no pictures of this day. Unfortunately, I had left my camera in a car which was driven down to the landing zone immediately, so I lost all chances of capturing the moment. Still, it was quite amusing to watch this type of wedding ceremony. With the warm ocean breeze blowing at soaring forces, a couple of harnesses, a rescue parachute and a tandem paraglider, A Qiang and his lovely student and now wife, were united on the summit of Shi Shan near Shenzhen in the Guangdong province.

After the ceremony and a 2 hour flight, we were all invited to lunch at a hotel nearby. I think you'll have to ask me in person about what happened there. Quite a story to tell which I won't dare to write on this site. Here's a link to some newspaper articles published the next day, I'm actually in some of them! :) Link.

The day after, Sunday, or yesterday for that matter, I went with Alex and his girlfriend to a beach near Shenzhen: Xiao Mei Sha. It was my first time at a real beach in China. Was I surprised that there was like a small city laying on the sand and swimming in the water in a surface area smaller than an olympic pool? No. Fortunately we found out about a much smaller beach which required a 20rmb entrance fee therefore filtering a lot of people out and made it much more manageable. We actually found a nice spot to sit down, watch Alex fly his R/C helicopter and go for a short swim before it was time go head back to the city, about 1.5 hours away by bus.

	Shenzhen is a major port in China, as you may notice

June 09 - 06

China is munchin' up. Today I went to a Shanghai McDonalds in search for seclusion through the use of a tasty, plastic looking yet juicy Big Mac. Oh! oh! surprise when I found out my dreams had finally come true: something greater than a Big Mac had materialized into this world. I would like to introduce you to the MEGA Mac (just add two slices of meat and there you go, step from a 'big' to 'mega' mac). 'Hmm...yumm' - I thought to myself as my turn in line came up and the cashier said - HALLOOOO!!! 'How big is that new burger?' - I asked her. She showed it to me and with little if no hesitation at all I ordered my first Mega Mac ever.

The thought about writing this article came to my mind about five minutes later at the moment I sat down and saw that everyone in the McDonalds was eating the clearly unambiguous, fresh-out-of-a-mcdonalds-thinktank, new-concept, MEGA Mac. 'Why are they falling into the same trap us westerners did?' I asked to myself. We all know McDonalds food is most malignant, and the only real reason I eat KFC and MCD's more frequenty than I really should, is because NO genuine foreigner can last more than two weeks in China without eating some kind of western food. Well guess what, MCD's and KFC is cheap western food and there's no way i'm paying 20 US dollars for a medical-sample-size Pizza Hut pizza. Anyhow, there I am staring at all these locals eating burgers, nasty greasy fake burgers, like it's their job. I usually get the medium fries and change the coke for a small orange juice. That way I convince myself that I'm eating a healthy McDonalds. Chinese, they go all out with the big size coke and fries (still, never as big as the would be in the US).

In Beijing there are more than 100 McDonalds and just about the same quantities of KFC's. If you spot a KFC in Beijing, you can be absolutely positve there is a KFC less than 100 meters away, and vice-versa obviously. I have even seen two KFC's less than 50 meters away from each other. Chinese people tend to veer towards a KFC rather than a McDonalds. Revenue shows that they do much better too. No matter where you put a KFC in China, you can pretty much be sure it will be full. An interesting trivia: McDonalds spent millions and millions directing an cavernous market research in order to position their stores the most efficient way possible. After a few years of investigation, they set up the restaurants while KFC simply sat back and put one right in front of the McDonalds. KFC 1, McDonalds 0.

So what's happening with this cholesterlol supercharged alimentation? The Chinese are eating it, and yes, youngsters are starting to sculpt Fernando Botero-like bodies. Teenagers and younger kids seem to be the client numero uno for these fast-food chains. They usually show up after school in groups of 4-6 and stuff up with the good ol' #1 Combo.