Sloooooow

Believe it or not, C N N IC, the Motherland's Internet governing body has confirmed my suspicion for the last year: our WWW access in this town is just cr@p! Snail p@ace. We got about 73.2K per second. Talk about speed... And to top it off, this is the slowest in the whole country of 1.7billion. Imagine that! Want to be the financial hub, right.... get the speed right first. But of course, most MNCs have their own lines or contract someone else to get speed.

The top 3 fastest speed provinces in the motherland are all in the north. Ha!

articles

Here are the latest articles translated in English from Chinese news websites around.  Real pictures.  Give you a sense of what "real" is here.

http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/chinese-police-with-sticks-guns-vs-rampaging-wild-boar.html

http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/man-cant-buy-spring-festival-train-ticket-protests-naked.html

snow...

Snowy Shanghai.  The snow hangs around and not melting.  Yikes.  I thought I have escape the white stuff.  Brrrrr......  When it was falling, warm.  But then..... Brrr.....  I took this picture as we walked out of the airport.  Snow started to fall, just like the first snow in Regina.  

When we got home, the apartment felt like a giant fridge.  We started turning on our normal "appliances".  15 minutes later, fuse blew.  20 minutes and 5RMB later, power was back on.  Then 10 minutes later, fuse blew again.  I called again to the property management company.  They were surprised.  The guy came back and change the fuse again.  Again 5RMB.  This time, we watched.  He said we consumed too much.  I counted all items that were powered on.  Told him.  So I started unplugging things and he watched the meter.  Wow.. It was the new water heater our landlord replaced.  He couldn't believe, so was it.  

We ate out tonight.  Couldn't afford to get the water heater and the rom heater on at the same time.  We had both on all the time before this last trip.  Not surprise that the fuse blew.  Too cold.  The sudden surge of power through the little fuse just couldn't take it.  Snapped, then snapped.  Good that the only thing not affected by the inflation is the property management house call!  Still 5RMB!  No, surcharge, OT charge....  

The link shows today's snowy picture around Shanghai.  Ignore the Chinese.  The pictures said a 1,000 words.

O yeah, temperature: -2C right now.  With the snow tonight on the ground, -6C just like in Vancouver.  But in YVR, we have indoor heating and good insulation.  Not much in old buildings here.

Look

Always nice to have two pairs of shoes so one can switch them around to make things last longer and to air them out a bit. Well, I tried a pair of Tod's later Winter boots on. Very comfy. But then..... I was told the suede was not water-proved. Will leave marks and can't remove them. With such a high cut, I need to get new socks that will protect my calves.... So if I were to spend $ on that pair of boots, I need to be in a dry weather and new socks specifically for the boots. What do I need that pair of boots for then? They are not cheap! My theory of buying something really nice and will last does not hold water in this case. The boots then was more for high fashion then function. Ummm......

loud

Am sitting in the Marriott Skycity lounge overlooking the airport. Working. But these "loud" AM***cans are just talking about their work. Boeing. All OW (Overweight!) Talking loud w/ a southern accent. Come on people. Shhhh.....

I am leaving the lounge.

Clamp down

Check this out.  Talk about "mo no     pol   y" huh?  I suspected it will happen soon because in December, I couldn't get a stable connection using $ k  y pe from the motherland.  After 5 minutes of stable and clear comm, my China Telecom's router recycled my assigned IP address on the Internet router.  Like clock-works.  Lesser trained customers would complained that it was $  ky   PE but I did monitor my assigned IP........  So I knew something was up.  

From the Shanghai business review......

China clamps down on web telephony
Chinese regulators are clamping down on Internet-phone services that aren't provided by the country's state-owned telecommunications companies, according to Chinese media, a move that could make services like Skype SA unavailable in the country. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said voice-over-Internet protocol, also known as VoIP, services are illegal on the Chinese mainland unless they are provided by China Telecom Corp. and China Unicom Ltd., according to a report in Shanghai Daily. The newspaper said the ministry hadn't determined a timetable for implementing the ruling, which was released in December 2010.