Currently working on a new version of my website. It is at the very beginning stages. Here is the test URL: http://test.cdrum.com I am making use of Movable Type. This means, I will stop using Blogger for the content input. The test machine is located in China. Please let me know if you experience slow speeds. Eventually, I want to eliminate the US$30/month I am spending for US-based hosting. Somehow, I want to migrate all current content from the old site to the new site - seeing that it is all in xml, I might just half-ass it and have a link to “old posts” from the new site… Spending the time to put it all in Movable Type will be not fun, plus, most old posts don’t have titles, and images will most likely break.
On Saturday, we went on a trip to Nandaihe (pictures), a beach on the Eastern coast of China located in Hebei province. Nandaihe, which means South River Area (something like that) is considered the “little sister” of Beidaihe (North …), which over the past few years has been overrun by inland dwellers seeking beaches. The two are only about 10-20 km apart. We left Saturday morning at around 8:30, only about an hour behind schedule (this is pretty normal, we call this “Beijing Time”, as everyone in this city is late for one thing or another.
Melissa sent me her photos for our trip to Pingyao. You can see her photos here.
Following lunch on Saturday, we separated to do our own thing - decided to meet back at the hotel at 6:30 for dinner. Melanie and I decided we wanted to rent 2 bicycles and rid around the city. Melanie asked someone along the road where we could go to rent bicycles, but the person she asked told us two of the employees of the shop next door would rent us their bikes for the day.
Over the weekend, I went with 6 friends to a small town called Pingyao, South-West of Beijing in Shanxi Province. Pingyao is known for its Ming Dynasty buildings and fully-intact 6km-round city wall. The plan was to leave by train Friday night, arriving in Pingyao on Saturday morning and spend 1 night before boarding a train back to Beijing on Sunday night. While the trip (overall) went well, there were a few surprises.
Added new pictures of my weekend trip to Pingyao! I will work on getting a proper Journal entry today. Melanie’s pictures are here. (added 2004-09-01)