Stone Forest of Shilin

270 million years in the making, the Shilin Stone Forest is a collection of odd rock formations jutting up from the ground. Located in Yunnan province, Shilin was an easy bus ride away from Kunming. I remained steady as a rock when I entered the forest made of stone. All around me were the strange shapes. It was a dark and rainy day, so the formations seemed even more foreboding. Legend has it that the gods shattered the mountains into smaller fragments so that lovers could have some privacy among the rocks. The scientific explanation is that the area was an ocean before, and when the water subsided these rocks were left behind.

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“The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.”

- Bertrand Russell -

ARNABonics

As the global downturn continues many people can no longer afford their expensive hobbies. Instead they have sought out more cost effective means of entertainment. ARNABonics is one such beneficiary of this worldwide trend, as it is a fun, free, and educational alternative to pricey pursuits. ARNABonics is a nonstandard form of English where words in standard usage are concatenated to the tail end of the phrase ARNAB. Anyone can participate in adding new words to the vocabulary. Having rapidly gained in popularity in the past few years, ARNABonics is forecast to rank alongside solitaire, crossword puzzles, and sudoku as one of the primary pastimes of housewives by 2020.

The grammatical rules are easy to learn. The words must seamlessly combine with ARNAB following a concrete syntax. They usually start with B (ARNAB + Bombshell = ARNABombshell or ARNAB + Babe = ARNABabe), but words starting with AB, NAB, and RNAB are also acceptable, though considerably more difficult to construct. As it is a growing field, new words are being continuously created and semantically defined. There is also room for innovation. The ARNACutie provides an interesting case study. Even though Cutie starts with the letter C, and distorts the natural harmony of the five letters A-R-N-A-B, it rhymes with the already established ARNABeauty and is thus a valuable addition to the vernacular.

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"Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them!"
- Nathaniel Hawthorne -

ARNABungee: A Moment's Hesitation

I had gone to Longqing Xia, the site of my first attempted bungee jump, with an Argentinian and an American. The Yankee was promptly declared overweight by the Chinese attendant and was not allowed to jump. The Argentine and I emptied our pockets and and handed the American all our loose items for safekeeping. I had to leave my glasses behind, leaving my world an indistinct blur of colours and shapes.

I followed the Argentinian up the stairs to the 68 meter high bungee jumping platform, grasping the railing as I could not see anything clearly. He would jump first. Ankle braces were tightened around his feet and he was led to the edge of the platform. At this point he was having second thoughts and grasped a hold of the guard rails with his hands. After waiting several moments for him to voluntarily take the plunge, the attendant calmly pushed the Argentine off the platform. A long schoolgirl shriek echoed through the gorge as he disappeared into oblivion. I was up next.

 

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“Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.” 

- Ernest Hemingway -

798 Art District

Avant garde and trendy are usually words that come to mind when people are visualizing me, but in Beijing they are often associated with the 798 Art District. East German architects created the factory space in the Bauhaus style of design. At the cutting edge of China's cultural scene, the pedestrian friendly zone is a haven for creative types.  Beijing's artistic community found a home in the formerly deserted warehouse area. Art galleries, boutiques, and cafes are peppered among the austere old buildings. Modern art, such as strange sculptures of mutants, line the alleyways.

There is also a Nike Basketball facility, where a crowd had gathered to watch the action on court. A large picture of Lebron James adorns the exterior as China's basketball sensation Yao Ming is sponsored by rival Reebok. Nike, Reebok, and Adidas with its "Impossible is Nothing" slogan are busy combating China's homegrown athletic apparel company Li-Ning and their incomparable catchphrase "Everything is Possible". Fortunately, the contemporary artwork on display in 798 shows much more creativity.

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"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in." - Amy Lowell

The Dragon's Head

Our train arrived in the port city of Qinhuangdao, from whence we caught a bus to the Russian-flavoured resort town of Beidaihe. The beach was mediocre, the water dirty, the beer weak, the food terrible, and the women clothed, but apart from that it was a wonderful place. Since it was the 4th of July, we took a taxi to the local McDonalds ("Mai dang lao") and had dinner, before catching another taxi to Shanhaiguan.

After being able to successfully bargain down the admission price at the entrance, we found out we were in some kind of wax re-creation of the Great Wall instead of the actual site itself. There was also a fake Buddhist temple within the complex. A "to park" sign gave us hope that the real Great Wall lay ahead of us, but the path took us back to the parking lot. We walked further down the road and finally found the real entry point into the "Dragon's Head" section of the world's largest military structure. I stood at the edge of the Great Wall, gazing out at the ocean.

 

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"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering." 

- Saint Augustine -