You see, now that finally my balls are removed from the grinder I'm starting to write again.. Meaning, it's been a nocturnal and diurnal strain at work and for now the most intensive portion is over.

Between all the hassle I had to deal with it was time to do a hoppity hop to Hong Kong to take the advantage of a certain well known loop hole. It's a rather incredible situation here in the east, if you got the dough all you need is to pop by every six months and your good to go.

Sharing some piksors.

Lunch time here is always super busy, I'm sitting together with some local dudes next to the kitchen for the lack of space.

The Chinese Chinese food is often very oily, here the food feels refreshingly not so.

The beer in the Chinese mainland is usually way below 5%. This seems to be the Hong Kong edition of the famous Tsingtao beer. Feels tasty & intoxicating to drink stronger beer after a long time:)

Guy taking a five at a street construction.

Ah, an organic shop. Long time no see. My mission was to bring good quality milk powder to the children of China. Due to the many food scandals in the mainland and worries over the health of children, you can see heaps of milk carried over the border.

Fork, long time no see :)

I have finally found my brand of hair bands, enough reason to come back to Hong Kong :)

The anticipated one ;)

The art museum, with a highrise sticking out from the background. Most of the exhibitions were closed but thanks to colonialist rule and rich guys who like to collect stuff, there was an amazing collection of old Chinese paintings, really trippy stuff.

Hong Kong is a good mix of cleanliness and uncleanliness which gives character.

The double decker trams are pretty groovy.

Filled with western looking restaurants, also street food keeps it's strong stance and good taste.

Never figured out what's this about anti Falun Gong ads. At last an opinion that Hong Kong shares with China?:)

Making coffee..

in my puny little hotel room. Feels like Japan ;)

Still going up.

Taking ferries here is like taking busses. You can hop from island to island, cheap with your octopus card.

Approaching Lamma Island. Third largest, half an hour from downtown. It's a place where the locals go to have a relax from the buzz.

Not spoiled by tourism, people actually live here. Just the harbor shores are conveniently packed with the most amazing sea food restaurants, drool.

Arrived just in time to run around a bit and see the sun set.

The fish cooked in China often has a lot of bones making it difficult to eat. The sea fish here, like this one contains none at all. Delicious.

Grab a few beers and home made fish balls, ready for a night walk through the island.

Seems very chilled out this place, no cars and no pedestrains either :)

Like some of the toilets in China the dog toilets here don't have doors.

Filled with little beaches, enough to pick your own.

The sea was very calm.

The coal plant in the background ads a pinch of exquisite.

No having fun :(

Well, not that exquisite.

I pretty much had to stroll through half of the island in pitch black. Which was fun.

The paper next to the giant fish says "todays offer" or something. Forgot to ask how much.

Seems everything is always open in this island, even when it's not.

the end.

After some forza bruta some projects have just seen the light of day (which excuses my absense from the mundane world) and seems I'm finally getting the hang of webdesign. There's three pretty nice examples of simple, purposeful, not too bad looking show ticket booking sites you can have a look at:

http://www.liyuantheatreopera.com

This place hosts Peking Opera performances mainly for tourists. Not a place where the locals go to see Opera but it's on the treshold of understanding what it is.

http://redtheatrekungfushow.com

It's one of the biggest hits amongst night shows in Beijing. It's got the kung fu action one might image as well as the kind of gayish ballet sort of thing to it which actually makes this a quality production which they constantly seek to improve. The storyline is really kitchy though but enjoyable to watch.

http://www.chaoyangacrobaticshow.com

The best place in Beijing to see acrobatics do crazy stuff. Didn't see the show yet, but should pretty much in level with the usual world class spectacle thingies. Very popular.

Development will continue.. the purpose of those sites is to overthrow the Beijing show ticket biz. Competition I humbly hope to crush to tiny bits only to assist digestion while devouring them. To accomplish this I have adopted the words of the great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu into my practises:

"A clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease"

more projects to follow...!

This is a record of my failed attempt to cure otitis media (middle ear infection) with tea tree oil (australian essential oil) and finding a good otologists (ear specialist) in Beijing.

Being a common example of those kids with their ears popping now and then, now in my adults the symptoms of ear infection felt rather familiar. I was googling for some natural ear infection remedies and one widely spread alternative was the use of tea tree oil. I had a few drops left which I diluted with purified water and occasionally administered in my ear with a pipette. After a few days the symptoms were nearly gone but I went to the hospital to have it checked. Little did I know this was only the very beginning of my great adventure with the Chinese medical system... about which I now know a great deal more but still no where near enough.

Beijing Friendship Hospital

So I got down to Beijing Friendship Hospital one evening, which was ghostly deserted in contrast to how crazy busy it is during the day. After a few empty corridors there was an empty examination room, after which you need to start yelling "nihao, nihao!" and after a while the doctor appears from somewhere.

She seemed friendly enough, briefly listened to my problem and tried to look into my ear with a head lamp and said: "I can't see anything". Soon she proceeded to stick a stick in my ear which was very painful. Hearing my cry she moved on to the next order of business, to write a prescription of antibiotics with her computer.

Beijing Friendship Hospital treatment for ear infection

This was the yield. Eye drops (they had ran out of ear drops), disinfection liquid and antibiotics for three days. However I felt that I was hardly examined and that the antibiotics were just thrown at me. The doctor had noticed that foreigners are reluctant to taking antibiotics and naturally I was not very keen on taking them either.

Failed home remedy for ear infection and money Buddha

Thus I bought another bottle of tea tree oil and continued my treatment with an added mix of extra virgin olive oil with it. Never put olive oil into your ear.. it just makes a mess out of your ear canal as it's not that easy to get out. I am still however convinced that water diluted tea tree oil is good for disinfecting the year. Slowly the pain in my ear started to come back until it was evident that I had to go to see a doctor again.

This time, I wanted to find a good doctor, a real ear specialist. I found out that in China there is a website called 好大夫在线 meaning (好/hǎo) Good (大夫/dàfu) Doctor (在线/zàixiàn) Online. It's the largest medical site in China that helps you find doctors and information about medical conditions. They even have a free Android app. On the downside they only index big hospitals, excluding smaller medical centers even if they would be good.

Just like in any country a specialized doctor is not a guarantee, one needs a reference. However if you do lack a reference the site also functions as a kind of social platform for the doctors. You can comment, give hearts as points, leave your thanks, reviews and so on which should be read with caution but can be a valuable source of reference nevertheless. According to someone working at haodf.com, the good well known otologists operating in Beijing are at the Beijing Tongren Hospital that is specialized in otolaryngology. Tongren has many VIP2 level otologists so I though to just pop by and see what happens.

Beijing Tongren Hospital

Before I had heard that Chinese hospitals are overcrowded and that the Chinese go to the hospital extremely early. Only now I truly understand this. I arrived at the hospital at around 1PM and there were no available ear doctors left. So they suggested that you go and talk to the doctors themselves to ask if they could give you extra time.

As far as I know, phone bookings are made a few days in advance. So if you need a doctor in short notice you have to go to the hospital and queue for an appointment. Everyone wants to see a good high level doctor and the competition can be fierce. It's not a bad idea to wake up at five in the morning to go to the hospital.

The concept of a doctors surgery is rather loose.. at the Friendship Hospital you have people queuing inside some of the offices, breathing down the doctors neck while waiting for their turn. At Tongren there was a nurse managing the operating just behind the door, with a line of patients standing on the other side.

So the quest was to go and pass through all those people, get the nurse to slightly open the door and shout inside to the extremely busy doctor to beg for an extra position in the patient queue. His answer was that he had hardly slept last night and that he needs to sleep too. Where were the doctors from the big list of ear specialist displayed on the hospital home page..

My condition was really very painful so next stop was the emergency ward. A nurse directed to an office to consult the doctor reciving the emergency patients, who at first refused to give medical attention. But after enough complaining and begging, with a frustrated look and no eye contact, she handed over a number written on a slip of paper which was a sign that she had accepted to treat me.

Now obviously the hospital was packed with queuing patients, however if you have any connection to a doctor: relative, friend, friend of a friend you can skip everyone and just walk into the doctors surgery. While I was waiting for my turn, this happened once where the discussion was open for the queying patients to hear over how they were being skipped in line. I had to wait for just an hour, but obviously I did not get the ear specialist I was hoping for.

This time she cleaned and examined my ear thoroughly with the proper tools. I was diagnosed with 分泌性中耳炎 (secretory otitis media). Even though her personality was rather cold, she was very efficient.

Beijing Tongren Hospital treatment for ear infection

I started to eat the antibiotics from the previous hospital and received actual ear drops, one for general use and the other to prevent pain. I suffered for the three days the antibiotics lasted and as a result my condition had improved but still some pain and loss of hearing were present. So I decided to go back to the Tonren hospital, this time early (arrived at 10:00AM) to get an appointment with an ear specialist. Nope, I was again, too late.

Next stop Beijing Xiehe Hospital which has quite a good reputation. A huge entrance hall lined up with service windows, short queues. With efficient, good service it's like another world! After being guided a bit here and there.. Nope, here too I was too late to get an appointment.

Beijing Xiehe Hospital

But then I discovered the International Medical Services department. Despite it's name, I hardly saw any foreigners as Chinese are also allowed to use their services. Just the hospital bill here makes the difference. When the ear doctor would have normally cost me 15CNY (less than 2euros) here the bill was 200CNY (25euros) plus the medicine is more expensive.

I received care almost immediately, the doctor could speak a little English and almost seemed like a normal reception in the west. She gave me all kinds of advice, asked questions, had the proper tools and so on. According to her the antibiotics I had eaten were not very good, which would explain why I had still not recovered and said she will prescribe good antibiotics for me.

Beijing Xiehe Hospital treatment for ear infection

This time I had another interesting set of drugs in my hands which does not leave me convinced about the quality of service either.

New antibiotics, this time for 4 days. She seemed to be very concerned about my breathing. So she prescribed Ephedrine nose drops, which is used by athletes for example. It raises the heart beat, increases breathing and gives strength.

Then I got Myrtol Standardized capsules. It's not a medicine, but a mix of essential oils and non-medicinal herbal extracts which is commonly used for clearing the lungs. No official medical study has proven it's efficiency however. I tried googling in English but hardly nothing came up. In Chinese there was some information that it could be directly administered to the affected ear. Also there seems to be some connection between colds and flues being the cause of ear infections which is why the treatment of lungs and other air passageways could be useful? All this has left me pretty baffled.

On top of everything she advised me not to use the droplets from the red bottle because it is more likely to cause pain than actually remove it as advised by the previous doctor at the Tongren Hospital.

Either way, eating another set of antibiotics should take care of it and I am close to being recovered. Hard to conclude anything but next time I might lean on the international services but still be very careful with the selection of a doctor.

Here is another picture of the view from my appartment window in Fengtai, Beijing when the polution reading is 264 out of 500 (Very unhealthy). In comparison I have also included the earlier picture from last month when the reading was 6 out of 500 (Time to do some deep breathing). 

264 out of 500

6 out of 500

We could say that there is a fair amount of difference... I didn't do any photoshopping, these are just straight from my phone. Luckily the foggy days are getting lesser than how it was in the middle of summer. But the weather changes every day and can change as radically as this on the same day. Looking out the window every morning is pretty adventurous!:)

Hello boys and girls.

After what x. months staying here in Beijing. Today is the best and the least poluted weather I have ever seen. So it's time to share a picture looking out of my apartment window.. I cant find a picture of a poluted day for comparison, but I can post one soon since those days are on the majority.. 

I receive an Air Quality rating from the US embassy in Beijing to my mailbox every morning. This mornings reading is also the best I've seen.

The air outside is rated 6 out of 500

================
Expat in China?
Help us develop another free service for you:
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Air quality guidelines
0 to 50 = Good
51 to 100 = Moderate
101 to 150 = Unhealthy for some
151 to 200 = Unhealthy for all
201 to 300 = Very unhealthy
301 to 500 = Hazardous
More info on air quality here.

From personal experience, a rating under 100 means a blue sky.
From 100 to 200, the air is mildly foggy and has a distinct smell.
200 and up, a heavy fog descends on the city.

This information is provided by the US Embassy in Beijing.

私はずっと家で、疲れたよ。。＝）一杯色んなしたいことがあって例えばブログやることけどまだ三つのウェッブプロジェクトが終わってるところです。。北京の実況は少し心配なので万里の長城に行く機会あってそこは少し空気とか考えないことして楽しかったですーーーー！じゃまた。

It has been reported that he was seen inside the subway somewhere around the suburbs of Beijing, judging from his muttering all is well.

I was on a train from Shanghai to Beijing, planning to spend a week here and take a flight to South Korea. Instead, I went to Hong Kong to get a 6 month visa and I rented out a flat here in Beijing. Oh, well :)

万里の長城でダンスをしてるところです

Some pics from a trip to the Mutianyu (慕田峪) section of the Great Wall of China

{gallery}trip-great-wall-summer-2012::::2{/gallery}

The last bits of my one month stay in Shanghai before I went to Beijing.

I could not resist going to see the fourth tallest building in the world even though I heard that the view is better (and cheaper) from a little bit lower altitudes') That would be the Shanghai World Financial Center which looks like a bottle opener. 494.3 meters and 101 floors.

照片享受

{gallery}shanghai-last-bits-2012::::2{/gallery}

After Hong Kong I arrived to Xiamen. Where my life revolved mostly around work and a street where in one end was my Hotel in the other a Restaurant and in between a cafe. When I had enough of that I would wonder somewhere further and get loaded. That lasted for more than a month after which together with a 5 member crew, with mixed nationalities, backgrounds and personalities ventured out into the mountains of Wuyishan located between Xiamen and Shanghai. It was an intense 4 day trip after which I escaped to Shanghai.

I made a collection of some pictures about it with short explanations.. Enjoy =)

{gallery}xiamen-wuyishan-edited-2012::::2{/gallery}