Visiting Chinese highlands - Part 3

Chengdu

After the visit to the highlands we enjoyed Chengdu.

Leshan Giant Buddha

The big buddha lies on the junction of  Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers. It is a massive 71m tall Buddha statue carved out of the sandstone mountain in the early 700 AD. This river junction was always plagued with big floods and people were desperate to solve the flooding issue. "Why not build a big Buddha to protect us from the floods?". For a non-believer like me it is an idiotic idea, but why the heck, it may have done wonders for all I know. Maybe the big luck was it being a big tourist attraction.

On the way up to the Buddha I photographed a nice statue of a lion, when I caught up with my wife she told me it means bad luck to photograph that statue. It was written on it in chinese of course and with my chinese reading skills it made no difference. For a non-believer like me it was a tough time playing cards later. I think my unlucky cards for the next week would be far beyond statistically possible. Of course I was the laughing stock of everyone as well, "Do you believe in the lion now?". 

Now let me pick the Buddha's nose :-)

For some people, a white guy like me was just as big of an attraction

There's more and more tourists coming to China, even platinum blonde white guys like me. less and less often it happens but sometimes I get asked to join total strangers for a picture. Chinese generally has very little body hair so they also admire my blonde furry arms.

Family photo :-)

Golden Monkeys

My call name in china has for a long time been, "Jin-Hou-si", meaning golden monkey, which is not a bad call name. The name makes sense, first of all because

Mum and her baby

I have platinum blonde hair and furry arms, secondly because I am born in the year of the monkey. Although I have been called monkey before in not nice terms, in china monkey is a good, considered the smartest of the animals of the Chinese calendar.

and I am daddy monkey..

In a very nice scenic forest along the rivers we found my animal family and for some reason they had interest in me, maybe they thought I was one of them because of my blonde furry arms. These monkeys are playful like monkeys most, but are endangered and protected with maybe around 350 of them at this park.

Tour De Force of Face Changing

perforner at the Sichuan Opera face changing show

In Chengdu I visited the Sichuan Opera. The opera is famous for the face changing technique, something that has been popular since the ancient history. Technique has changed and these guys can now change mask in a fraction of a second, up to 10 masks in 20 seconds. 

Visiting Chinese highlands - Part 2

Chengdu

Early morning after arriving Chengdu we made the flight to the Minshan mountains in Sichuan, Qinghai part of the Tibetian plateau.

We arrived at Sichuan Jiuzhai Huanglong airport, and for the first time there was no pressure on the ears while landing, actually the opposite because the cabin pressure was higher than the outdoors this being at 3448 meters altitude.

The area is plagued by earthquakes due to the platonic plates come together around  here and creates the Himalayas. We drove by the village which was the epicenter of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, which claimed the life of more than 12.000 people. Our guide was a local hero from that incident. Her guide bus had been thrown off the road and she and the group of tourists had been on a two day walk to get to aid stations, thanks to her most of her passengers 32 people survived.

Huanglong

The park is at 3600m altitude and the bus passes some 4000m mountain passes to get there, so it is high up.

The air here has one third of normal partial oxygen pressure. Most passengers had some or severe altitude sickness problems. The effects were fever and headache and some people had to vomit. At several stations on the way they were selling oxygen that you would sit down and inhale for a while to get over the headache. Of course I had to try, although I got my headache later when we returned to the hotel

The water gets it colors from the high mineral content and sulphuric acidity.

The water here has an exterme clarity. Because of the high mineral content very little will grow or live in the water apart from one fish specie that seems to have adapted.

Jiuzhai Valley National Park

The day after we went to Jiuzhai national park which is also high up on the Tibetian plateau. The landscape here reminds me remarkingly of the Norwegian west coast with its fjords, it's almost as if I was there. It is strange to think that this is far beyond the tree limits in Norway. It's a little Norway elevated to 2500m height 

Juizhaigou, a little Norway at 2500 m height

Almsot like home in Norway

A little Geiranger?

This is defintely not the Sunnmørs-bunad, but maybe just as nice.

Where are the skinny kids?

When I look at old pictures I cannot help to notice how skinny kids were, myself included. My childhood life was a lot of play and activities.

Overweight Chinese kids

Where I go in China there's very little poverty, I go to cities much bigger than the Norwegian capital.When I travel around in China I can't help to notice that kids are rather heavy set, even more so than in my home country.  These are kids with parents who can afford good food, and good food is important in Chinese culture. However it's probably not the good food that is responsible for the weight gain, but rather the unhealthy fast foods and snacks. Even more so to blame is the lack of exercise. In the old days it was not a problem because the kids took part in the farm work and house work, but nowadays the only form of exercise is walking, and the Chinese like others have cars and buses. The only form of organized exercise you see in China is the old people performing Tai-chi in the parks.

In China the kids are still pushed hard to perform well in school. From the first grade they start competing with classmates being ranked among their classmates, and you have to be among the best to get into the schools that means something. Corporal punishment is still normal with parents granting permission to teachers to physically punish the kids. They would even ask to punish a little extra. However parents are generally not at home because of long work hours and when they are back focus on what is most important, the homework.  On the other hand the "one-child" policy have created an "only-child" society of spoiled kids, and no surprise Chinese kids just like Norwegian kids like computer games and social networking.

Universal problem 

Having seen a lot of the world, I can safely say that obesity is no longer just an american phenomena. Statistically too, the European countries are just as bad as america and the fattest people are found in the rich middle eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The contributing factors are...

• unhealthy food taste good and is cheaper and easier
• hard physical work no longer exists, neither at the farm or at the house 
• computer games are fun
• social networking is addictive
• the bus is more comfortable than walking, the car even more so

The american dream is the suburban life-style with big houses, large yards and a pickup truck. In Europe and Asia people seems to prefer city life. In cities it's harder to get to the outdoor activities, although city people walk more because car is difficult. On the other hand the suburban life centers around the car, but they have more outdoor activity opportunities.

The caveman's curse

Its been called the caveman's curse that the human genetics have no feedback to the brain that you need to diet. For the Darwin's "survival of the fittest" it meant "survival of the fattest". The fatter the better since the caveman could be going months without anything to eat. This is a curse for the modern man who has plenty of available food.

Sacrifice comfort

How to deal with it? Generally speaking one has to sacrifice the comfort choice.

• eat healthy rather than fast and tempting
• choose the healthy foods, good for those who actually loves the vegetables
• no snacks
• get fresh ingredients and take the time to make good food
• eat less
• use any chance to get exercise, may even save time
• take the stairs instead of elevator
• walk instead of taking bus
• use bicycle for short trips
• spend time on exercise
• gym, swim, sports
• get out, travel, walk trips, hiking
• physical work, gardening, building projects

Worlds fastest airport train?

When I return from Shanghai and take the airport train from Oslo airport, Gardermo-banen, and see the claims "Verdens raskeste flytog" it always baffles me? Gardermo-banen aiport train reaches a top speed of 210 km/hour while the Shanghai airport train reached 431 km/hour when I took it, which is more than double.

However, it is true, in fact Gardermo-banen is the "world's fastest average-speed airport train on conventional rails". Somewhat like saying "being best on wooden skis" like Aftenposten puts it.

Here is Aftenposten's story in 2010.
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Skryter-av-a-vare-verdens-raskeste-5314238.html#.UWrzkbVHKSo

Visiting Chinese highlands - Part 1

China, October 2012

This is my tenth visit to China and my first time to the Tibetan plateau. My wife is Chinese and likes to go back to see her friends and family as often as she can. I tag along a few times and when I do we try to visit various places in China. This time Finnair had started a new route to Chongqing so we took advantage of the low introductory prices.

Chongqing

The city is popularly called the "Fog" city since it is foggy most the year, apart from the occasional rain. Trees and plants thrive here because of the mist and warm climate. Humans on the other hand does not appreciate the rain so much, although Chinese don't seem to not mind because they get fair skin when they're not plagued by sun. Fair, light skin is considered status in China, meaning you're a city person, not a farmer.

The city resides on the junction of the Yangtzee river and Jialing. Further down the river they built the Three Gorges dam, worlds biggest dam capable of supplying one third of China's power when it is filled up.

The official population is 40 million people, same as the taxi driver tells us, the worlds biggest city. Not, it is only around 6.5 million following the metro standard, far below Tokyo's 38 million.
This city has a beautiful monorail system connection most of the city's local transportation. Otherwise this city is mostly hillsides along the river, very beautiful and at night it is a spectacular view of lights. The governor here, Bo Xilai was very popular for how the city was prospering, bought a lot of trees which made the city look nice, but because of such spending the city also got a lot of debt. Unfortunately he was mixed up covering up his wife's murder of a British businessman and was ousted of Chinese politics.

Dazu grottoes

A Buddha sanctuary made in sandstone is amazingly well preserved considering this dates back to 650 AD. Because of it's design the rain and water would never fall onto the statues along the wall. The very little maintenance would be to carefully clear off mosses since the sandstone is fairly fragile.
I like the Chinese form of Buddha better than the Indian. In China, Buddha is fat and happy, always smiling and laughing.

Chengdu, Jiuzhai, Huanglong and Yancheng - Part 2

Then the trip went to Chengdu where we flew up to the highlands and visited the Jiuzhai and Huanglong national parks. This is for part two. Thereafter we visited my in-laws and friends in Yancheng and then returned to Chongqing for the flight back to Oslo.  

 

Flying the AR.Drone with a PS3 game controller

I am getting better at flying my drone. This time I made a little hack on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone so that I could fly it with the PS3 Controller's analogue joysticks. The whole project was easier than I expected and my god it works like a charm, it is so much easier to control with the wireess PS3 controller.

How does it work? I start the Freeflight application and I use the PS3 to virtually control that application. My phone connects the PS3 game controller via bluetooth and the drone via WiFi.

How to do it?

1. Root the Android phone. That was the hardest part and my hack required flashing the phone
• I used the "Restore" hack with the Nexus Root Toolkit from WugFresh
• http://www.wugfresh.com/nrt/
2. Get the Six-axis Controller application for the phone from Dancing Pixels Studio
• Pair the controller with the phone's bluetooth
• Take a screenshot of the Freeflight in Piloting mode
• Map the PS3 buttons and create the controller profile
• Left and Right analogue sticks 
• "Start" for "Takeoff" 
• "X" for camera snapshot
• "Triangle" for switch cameras
3. Fly
• Start Six-axis Controller app
• Press power on PS3 controller, wait for sync
• Insert the battery in the drone
• Connect phone WiFi to drone
• Start Freeflight 2.0 app, start piloting, start recording, recording to USB stick may add another flying minute.
• Put phone in shirt pocket
• PS3 controller
• Hit Start to fly
• Fly using sticks (Easy)
• take pictures with X

Norwegians are born with skis on their feet

Yes it could make a complicated birth. Anyway, being a norwegian I thought it was time to try the skiing.

A nice sunday morning in Oslo, around -7 celcius, when I really couldn't find any excuse not to go.

My skis are the cheapest junk you can buy, around 800kr. They are "smørefrie" with cross pattern in the middle. You don't need to vax them, which basically means they never go fast.

I made a one hour trip along Maridalsvannet where my colleague Dag suggested I try. It was beautiful there and a trip I will definitely do again.

Drone Pilot To Receive First Air Force Medal of Honor Since Vietnam

Drone Pilot To Receive First Air Force Medal of Honor Since Vietnam

Read more:

It would take a while reading this article before you realize that this is a satirical paper similar to The Onion. Giving the Medal of Honor to someone playing a video-game in Nevada which is far away from the enemy, that seems like an insult to those who fought in Vietnam. I guess this is the soldier of the future, one with a high intake of coffee and delivery pizza.

Help, I am a drone pilot

This Xmas I was visiting Boston and NY. As Xmas gift I bought myself a new toy, a drone. In USA this toy cost me $299 while in Norway it would set me back 3000 kr, an easy choice to buy it there when the exchange rate is 5.5 kr/$.  

AR Drone 2.0

AR Drone 2.0 from Parrot is a small quad-copter you can fly with your ipad, iphone, android device. For extra fun this thing has two on-board cameras to film your voyages and stream them right back to your ipad while flying them.

First test flight

I downloaded the FreeFlight app on my ipad. I open the box and charged the battery. Easy to open and install the battery, then put on the indoor hull, because I will try flying this thing in my cousins garage. The indoor hull has an outer ring to stop it from hitting things with the propellers, but for outside this would be too big and catch the wind too easily.
With my ipad's wireless networks I find the ARDrone as an access point. I start the FreeFlight app, press Piloting and then "Take-off" and like magic it flies in a foot's height, awaiting my next commands. I turn it around and watch myself being filmed, in 720p HD, wow a really nice clear picture actually. Not just me I mean, but the quality of the recordings. I could imagine someone would use this to spy on neighbors, not me of course. Then I fly a little back and forth. It has a built-in proximity sensor to accurately control the altitude so this is easy to fly just pressing the controls up and down. Then I double-click the controller to make a flip which it does but hits the ground at the end of the flip. It detects the crash and does an emergency shutdown. I walk over and put it in the middle of the garage floor and then press "take-off" and it resumes flying. After approximately 7 minutes of flying the batteries are down to 10% and I take it inside to charge the batteries.

Flying outdoors

There's the picture of me enjoying outdoor flight, but enough for now, more about the drone later...

The beginning..

Hi and welcome to my blog...

Time to start scrabble down about my life before it passes by in distant memories. My daddy and my sister's boyfriend are doing so well with their blogs. 

The right to bear arms ... and a head ...

In my recent trip to america the gun control debate was heated. In response to the bad school-shooting incident, Obama promised to tighten gun control while NRA instead was suggesting to arm teachers.

Second Amendment

As passed by the Congress:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Some grammatical cotrections by Thomas.

All those guns...

My thoughts are most definitely colored with a European citizen's view on it. I don't even see police carry guns. I wonder why anyone would want to have so much guns floating around. Do you really feel safer when all neighbors are armed with pistols and shotguns? Can he shoot you if you enter his yard to pick up the soccer ball that flew over the fence? Would he shoot you if you insult him during the neighborhood barbecue? I always felt uneasy when people have the a gun in their belt and even troubled when people start fiddling with their guns. it's like the conversations suddenly die off in fear of accidentally including saying something offensive. It may not be dangerous at all, but to a person who almost never see a gun it makes it uneasy.

Right to bear what, where and when ...

I think it is fairly far-fetched to say that carrying a gun is a constitutional right. First of all it does not specify what kind of arms we are talking about. Secondly it does not say where you should be allowed to carry it. Finally it is not in the constitution at all, it's an amendment and those have been reversed before, remember the prohibition in the 1920's about intoxicating liquids.

What is arms? Maybe it is a little over the top when the airport security classifies my nail-clipper as arms, but maybe not over the top for box-cutters as they used in 9/11.What if you should take up arms against the state which would be the other meaning of the amendment's text. I think to topple the state you better equip a hydrogen bomb to have any chance. 

The time the "Bill of Rights" was written was very different from now. The "militia", the police, FBI and CIA did not have the same influence and oversight as now. The wild west was hardly discovered and only simple firearms like muskets and flintlock pistols were available to protect yourself from bandits. I don't think the founding fathers were thinking of Rambo armed with machine guns and bazookas. Was it even about guns? The Chinese were through history not even allowed to have a sword. The best they could do was a pitchfork or other disguised as farming tools. Was it the subduing of the people against the state they were thinking about or was it the protection against criminals?

My cousins ...

My cousins live in the upstate NY area in what you could consider country-side. My life in the US was mostly based in rural areas like Nashua and the suburban outskirts of Boston. People are living the american dream with houses, big gardens and a pickup truck parked in the drive-way. To me it seems like the republicans are favored in the country side where hunting and military service is big. The democrats on the other hand is more for city people who live in their apartments downtown and cannot understand why anyone needs a gun. To my friends in the country-side the gun seems a natural company whether you want to get rid of a snapping turtle or scare off some annoying birds.