Markuswelder wanders around Northern China.

[Markuswelder]

Some more

A little bit of contrast

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

I've never ever used a blog format before, not the first clue how to use it. If it's the same as just posting in a thread, I can't see a problem with that.
Would it direct any more, or less traffic to the forum?

We're all new to it, as it's not something a forum usually has but I think it can be a great asset to the forum. If you click on Blogs in the top menu you can see greatgrandma Rosalie's blog entries. She has been blogging for many years and is now reposting her past blogs here. I plan to start a blog too.

As to how much traffic blogs draw, it's too early to tell. Our members don't seem to find them yet as there are less likes and comments than in threads which is not a surprise as we're simply not used to having a blog on the forum. At the same time they get a lot of views and I see guests find them. So do the bots that index our site.

Blogs have their own block on the homepage and in What's New. The same is true for comments to blog entries. So in a way blogs stand out more than regular threads, just like Resources do. I'm still thinking about how to display them in What's New as I don't like how it looks now.

I'm writing a Blogs User Guide, adding new chapters regularly. You can find it here.

I haven't converted a regular thread to a blog yet. I'm going to test that later today.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

It's cold out here. Freaking cold. Like in the minus 20-25 degrees C range. Visiting the Wife's relo's

That's seriously cold!

I was wondering how you communicate. Most people I believe don't speak English. Do you speak Chinese?

This is a great thread. Very interesting info/stories and great images. By the way, what's with all the 3-wheeled vehicles?
EDIT: Reading on you already answered my question. Aren't 3-wheeled cars rather unstable?

 

[Markuswelder]

That's seriously cold!

I was wondering how you communicate. Most people I believe don't speak English. Do you speak Chinese?

This is a great thread. Very interesting info/stories and great images. By the way, what's with all the 3-wheeled vehicles?
EDIT: Reading on you already answered my question. Aren't 3-wheeled cars rather unstable?

My Wife speaks Chinese and English. Most of the time we wander around together so she's my translator When I go wandering off on my own she writes our local address on a piece of paper in Chinese so I can catch a Taxi home should I get properly lost. You can get free WiFi pretty much anywhere, SIM cards are cheap so it's pretty easy to message or call her if I get into trouble, or call her to translate for me. Translator apps' are pretty good these days too. I rather enjoy dealing with the difficulties of communicating with the locals at times, adds a bit of a challenge to the whole experience. Oh, I don't speak Chinese myself, other than a few words. My hearing is not the greatest, so that makes it really difficult to try and learn

 

[Markuswelder]

EDIT: Reading on you already answered my question. Aren't 3-wheeled cars rather unstable?

Yeah, they are. But they seem to manage just fine. I've got a few shots from one of my previous trips of a few different 3 wheeled vehicles, I'll post some up.
One of the best things I've ever seen, but yet to catch on camera, was the young guys driving the 3 wheeled trucks to and from construction sites. Loaded to the gunnels with bricks, or pavers, or sand, gravel or other construction materials. If they get stopped at a red light at an intersection, and have a suitably impressionable/appreciative audience, the engine revs rise right up, the clutch gets dumped as the lights go green, and they pull fabulous wheelstands across the intersection. It's brilliant. It's one of the things on my bucket list to try and catch on camera. I've talked the Wife into going to the city where I saw it for a few days on this trip, so with a bit, or lot of luck I might see it again.
The trucks are very similar to this one

It's hilarious, you see signs on the freeways saying no tractors, otherwise you'd see this sort of thing on major 6 lane high speed freeways

A couple more shots of the contrasts seen.

People stopping and hopping out of late model Land cruisers, Range Rovers and the like, buying vege's off farmers with a Donkey.

I thoroughly enjoy just standing on the side of the road, shooting whatever interesting things motor on by. Going to do it again this trip for sure.

This one I shot out the window of a Taxi as we were driving along

It's brilliant fun, there's such a rich pallet of subject matter to catch on camera

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

Yeah, they are. But they seem to manage just fine. I've got a few shots from one of my previous trips of a few different 3 wheeled vehicles, I'll post some up.
One of the best things I've ever seen, but yet to catch on camera, was the young guys driving the 3 wheeled trucks to and from construction sites. Loaded to the gunnels with bricks, or pavers, or sand, gravel or other construction materials. If they get stopped at a red light at an intersection, and have a suitably impressionable/appreciative audience, the engine revs rise right up, the clutch gets dumped as the lights go green, and they pull fabulous wheelstands across the intersection. It's brilliant. It's one of the things on my bucket list to try and catch on camera. I've talked the Wife into going to the city where I saw it for a few days on this trip, so with a bit, or lot of luck I might see it again.
The trucks are very similar to this one

People do wheelstands with these trucks?! I would love to see pics of that.

The contrasts in this set really are striking, the modern vs the traditional. Love the couple on the scooter with the woman in miniskirt and high heels!

 

[greatgrandma]

Markus, Levina has gone to sleep. She always lets us know in her sig. Tomorrow morning she will replace the sleeping smiley with an active one: gdrinking coffee most likely.

I don't know the first thing about blogging either, but we have an experienced blogger, Rosalie, aka @greatgrandma . She has been blogging for years and moved or copy/pasted her existing blogs here. She and Levina worked together to get a grip on the blogging software and Levina wrote a User Guide in the process.

Blogs seem to get a fair amount of views. Maybe more than threads but could be too early to tell.

Originally, before the internet, I wrote letters to my mother, and she wrote letters to me and my sister when she was traveling. Then when we started traveling on our boat in the fall of 2000 (going south in the winter) I wrote a ship log, which I turned into emails to send back to my mother. My mother (who was in her 90s at the time) refused to accept photos in emails so I started adding photos to the text and printing the result out at Office Depot. Then in 2002, I started adding travelogues on a site called Virtual Tourist

The difference between threads and a blog is that you can a text and photos about related topics - transportation and food, people and animals, buildings and scenery that are related in the same post. I can add 16 photos in one post so it is not as limiting in depth and scope.

There is kind of a learning curve with entry of a blog but it is fun to do and you don't have to figure out where your picture of a car or a cat can be posted.

 

[Markuswelder]

Okay then. Some history. We're going to stray into the proper, real, cliche Tourist traps for a bit. A little bit. At school, I hated history. Very much so. I could generally be found right down the back of the classroom, quite possibly gently snoring away, or sketching out pencil drawings of trucks or motorcycles. Who cares what went on several hundreds of years ago right? Until you actually go there, and touch, taste, smell and feel real life history. All of a sudden, it's fascinating. Really really fascinating. More than I would have believed, had anyone tried to tell me so. You have to be there I guess. Sh!t gets real.
Anyway, the Terracotta Warriors. I'm not going to get into the history of them, or the human costs & rights violations that probably weren't even a thing back in 200 or so BC. Yeah, that's right. BC. That's over 2200 years ago by my reckoning. All recorded. It's freaking unreal. The amazing thing is that they remained undiscovered until very recently. Like mid 1970's. The tombs are amazing. I'll let the pictures tell the tale, the sheer size of the place is unbelievable. The other astounding thing, is that apparently all the faces are unique. They weren't just all made production style out of the same mold, but all with individual features. And the different military ranks were all portrayed true to life. Uniforms, armor, weaponry, right down to hair styles and length. Unbelievable. And you all thought I hated history right? Lol.

 

[Chuck]

Anyway, the Terracotta Warriors.

These truly are amazing. I read about them before but don’t think I realized how big those tombs are. The whole thing is fascinating. Great pics!

 

[Markuswelder]

A couple more

Apparently, when they first dig them up, they are beautifully coloured, but not long after exposure to air, the colours fade and dull right off. When we were there they said they were close to working out how to preserve the original vibrant colours and stop them fading.

These, are freaking unreal. Bronze castings. About 1/2 or 2/3 size from memory. Google them. Dr Google will straighten me out. Pretty hard to get a half decent shot as a lot of this was behind glass, and the locals have no fear of blasting away with flash, creating all manner of ungodly reflections, glare and haze etc. Not easy to time your shot, and minimse reflections lol.

Some more of the Generals etc

Edit -I almost forgot. Check out the facial features of this statue they dug up. How do you reckon that happened?