It all started on Thursday when I used Tushar's Laundry Service to.. you've guessed it - do laundry. The last minute vacation caught us off guard and fresh clothes were needed before leaving. Tushar, a colleague of mine, generously offered his apartment's semi-automatic washing machine to help us out. After a long soapy evening, everything was finally cleaned and hanged to dry. It was time to go back to the hotel, and pack.

On Friday, I left the hotel with my backpack and my camera. I managed to snap a few shots at work - perhaps they can help you in understanding the commissioning environment I work in? After work, Phyllandra and I headed back to Tushar's place to get our crispy laundry back and, since our flight to Xian was delayed, we took the time to dinne at a Chinese restaurant nearby. Communication between the establishment and us was at its worst as nobody could understand the other party and we ended up ordering a random picture on the menu. What we got in return had to be a total surprise. Chopsticks in hand, I started to look for good pieces of chicken in what we had ordered and the first piece I took looked like the roots of a vegetable. But soon, I realized my mistake: it was the chicken's fingers! The whole chicken had been cooked, and chopped into small pieces.. although quite entertaining, it had to be the most disgusting chicken I've ever eaten. An unforgettable experience.

Once arrived in Xian, I knew something was wrong as I could not stop shivering. A certain cold, that had slowly made its way to my whole body, was getting the best of me while on vacation. Fortunately, fever momentarily stopped on our way to our hotel. Some medicine and a good night's sleep on a comfy Hyatt bed did some good to prepare me for an exciting day around Xian.

On Saturday, we headed out to Xian's major attraction, the 2000 year-old Army of the Terracotta Warriors. Discovered by farmers digging a well in 1974, this nicely preserved site is very interesting and is definitely worth a visit.

The next day, the first of the Chinese New Year, my fever reached its peak and it took all morning for my feet to leave bed. As the clock's arrows were heading for their zenith, I started feeling better and managed to join my colleagues for the day's adventure. We headed out for Mount Hua Shan, a mountain in the vicinity of Xian. After squeezing ourselves again in a small taxi, we finally arrived on site where fog and tall rock mountains waited for visitors physically and mentally prepared, or not. Reason is, Mt. Hua Shan is far from being the normal mountain you can think of. The terrain is very abrupt, and the granite peaks go up to 2160m, making the ascension quite an experience. Lack of time, and perhaps energy too, lead us to use the Austrian built cable-car. Shortly after getting off the cable-car, our lead engineer became the focus point of what seemed to be a media crew waiting for foreigners to arrive on top of Mt. Hua Shan. With Jorge treated as a superstar, we managed to get good dumplings and Phyllandra married, for free. From the higher platform, we continued climbing on what sometimes appeared to be improvised steps. Rail guards were not always helpful, as some of them were only high enough to reach my knees. Lost of balance could had easily left my faith in the hands of gravity.

After a few good days in Xian, it was time to leave. And somehow, we managed to get plane tickets for Beijing, a one and a half hour flight from Xian, for about 30$US per person including taxes. Once in the capital of the world's most populous nation, we strolled around downtown to catch a glimpse of the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Front Gate and other known landmarks. The unexpected cold that covered Beijing that night made the walk less pleasant, and the lack of atmosphere made the city look quite boring.

Tuesday arrived and we headed out for the Great Wall. Going to the Great Wall takes about one hour from Beijing, but that depends to which site/entrance you go to. Several tourist entrances are set up, and one of the most popular option seems to be the Badaling entrance. Unfortunately, the Great Wall at Badaling is very disappointing with its ellipsoidal shape. Moreover, a dead end awaits you after sweating and reaching the top-most portion of the wall. No never ending wall, like I and most people would have imagined. In order to fulfill everyone's expectations of the Great Wall, we headed for another entrance, Bataling, which proved to be much better. We ended the day by quickly walking through the Summer Palace and by assisting to a circus. Based on the brochure, the circus looked quite promising. Instead, it seems that we, and many other Chinese tourists, got riped-off by buying tickets not for a unique Beijing circus experience, but for amateur kids who did their best to entertain us for one hour. I felt bad. I had the impression that I gave money to a fat Chinese man who underpaid kids who performed. Back at the hotel, I looked for place tickets that would take me out of China for the rest of the week.

Having not been able to book plane tickets online Tuesday night, mainly since China is not up to the era of e-tickets and still heavily relies on paper tickets, I took all Wednesday morning to find travel agencies that could book a cheap flight for me. Unfortunately, all travel agencies were closed and those that weren't did not speak English. When I finally found 3 of China's major airline offices, I explained my plans to leave for Bangkok or perhaps Seoul or any other place outside China. With the disappointing experiences in Beijing and Chinese's bad manors, I desperately wanted to leave the country for somewhere else and was almost laying money in front of their eyes, asking them to take me away. The only answer I got was: Yes, you can leave but you won't be able to come back before March. Spring Festival is most probably the worst time to be traveling around China, especially if you're not flexible on dates and that your return date ends up being at the end of the festival. I concluded that I had no choice than to rely on a last minute ticket at the airport, hoping that someone would eventually cancel a round-trip. Once at the airport, I understood that I would go nowhere since the thick outside fog had delayed flights from the morning well into the evening. All ticket agents were busy answering lines and lines of angry passengers. Flights delayed, canceled and delayed even more lead me to eventually come back, disappointed but somewhat excited, to Taiyuan.

The Spring Festival certainly forced me to come back early, but in the end, it gave me time to do my taxes, grocery shopping, laundry, catch-up with my family and some work-related items. But most importantly, given my health condition, it gave me the opportunity to take some well deserved time to simply rest and relax.

The Chinese New Year is just around the corner, just hours away in fact, and amazing things are already happening. Mainly, our client requested that some employees take a few days off next week. Since they pay for every single hour we work here, they want us to attack serious issues. And unfortunately, with the mechanics behind, our electrical and automation tasks are delayed. Therefore, I have been asked not to be on site next week, forcing me to take the whole upcoming week as a long holiday! I definitely cannot complain as I can't imagine better scenario for me to explore China.

Since learning the news yesterday, I've been looking at all the different possibilities that I have to travel around the country. Our team will be going to Xian on Friday night to spend the weekend in this very old financial center of China, which we hope will be spectacular with the New Year festivities. On Monday, I'll probably head out to Shanghai and on Thursday.. I don't know yet. I was trying to head to Lhasa in Tibet, but it seems complicated to get the right papers to enter.

I'll let you know how things turn out. The next nine days look quite promising!

China. The long-awaited adventure has started. After getting three out of four delayed flights, I finally arrived and got a good night's sleep at the Shanxi Grand Hotel in Taiyuan. Most of the hotel's amenities are western style, especially useful when it comes to the bathroom. The bed is quite hard, so hard that it makes it impossible to sleep on the sides and forces me to sleep on my back - which is good, I guess. Part of the staff speaks English, which comes in very handy, plus they have a nice pool and a great western-asian breakfast buffet. Moreover, I get reliable (although government restricted) Internet access plus a TV with English, French and German channels directly from the comfort of my own little room. All in all, the hotel is becoming a little sanctuary, a refuge from the world outside my window.

That's because, outside, dust fills the air like a constant smog: there is so much of it that I can sometimes taste it on my lips. Maybe that's why people clear their throat and spit here and there. As for driving, there is no law other than the first to hit the horn gets right of way. The hierarchy goes from buses and cars, to bicycles and finally pedestrians. Road lines and lights are mainly suggestions as people don't seem to mind if you don't respect the well established western behaviors. When walking in the street, people constantly stare and even stop to look - there are definitely not many foreigners around here. And when it comes to speaking the language, the four mandarin tones are hard to master, making it very difficult to pronounce small words or sentences. It's actually fun to be in a place where you cannot understand the language, the signs and products you buy. Even using the dictionary proves to be an extremely difficult exercise. However, with a little effort and practice, I'm sure things will improve.

Going to work is like being on a little bus tour that lasts about 30 minutes: 15 minutes through the city and 15 minutes through our client's industrial facilities. The plant is huge! The biggest that I've seen by far. I think they are well on their way of becoming the world's largest producer of stainless steel. Unfortunately, the job site definitely lacks in safety practices. I could have been killed fifty different ways in the past few days - by walking in an open hole, getting electrocuted by poor wiring, stepping in water that goes over electrical wires, getting crushed by the load of a crane passing over my head or getting squeezed between heavy metal coils, just to name a few. Needless to say, I watch every single step I make and always stay alert of my surroundings.

The following weeks will be very interesting, especially since the Chinese New Year is just around the corner. In fact, people are already celebrating by putting out red lanterns and by constantly, and I do mean constantly, lighting fireworks throughout the city (which in fact is quite bad for air pollution). From the hotel, the explosions are so loud that one could think the city is under attack. Hopefully, we'll get more time during the Chinese holidays to explore this amazing, and very different country. Stay tune!

I have to admit: I'm not the one who thought about such a title, but I loved it so much that I simply could not resist using it. In fact, the rights go back to Meredith who, with her amazing imagination, thought about such words.

A week ago, our client in Kentucky finally switched to our new automation system and since then, I've been working nights in order to provide 24h coverage with other colleagues. I don't especially like sleeping during the day and work during the night, but in this case I can't complain: in a few days I'll be in China and I do not need to remind you that they're half a day ahead of us.

A few moments ago, I was reading an article about rapid glacier melting and thought, what if global warming is actually accelerated by our water usage? Let me explain. With all our industries, cities and products that use water, there is now a large portion that used to be in rivers, lakes or oceans somewhere that is trapped in pipes, sewers, water tanks and multiple packaged goods. Just think of all the bottles of water, soda or beer sitting in markets all over the world. All that water used to be available to nature, and now it's locked up in some container instead of heading towards the ocean. And less water available on Earth's surface leads to less evaporation, and less evaporation means less cloud, less clouds lead to more sun exposure and therefore, more heat. Could that be true?

From the world's weather to my own little world of travels and photography, I'm happy to report that I've finally made the move to the digital world! The development machine that ate my roll of film greatly contributed. Now that I have the possibility to take thousands of pictures, I cordially invite you to have a look at my Flick repository. It features my best pictures, and other pictures that simply remind me of happy moments.

In the next few days, I need to move back to Atlanta, finish my suitcases and hope on planes (ATL-YYZ-YVR) towards Beijing to finally end the 2-day trip in Taiyuan. An experience I've been looking very forward to. Don't worry, I'll try to describe it here as much as possible. Alors on se reparle bientôt, de l'autre côté du Pacifique!