Free entrance before 11pm and one free special drink for the ladies. Tunes by DJ Bobby & DJ Chozie. 8pm, Suzie Wong. TEL (8610) 6593 6049

Whatever you order, get a double measure of your order. With live Latin and Bass sparks your spirit. 9pm-2am, Bar Blu. TEL (8610) 6417 4124

Check out the Three Beaches National Park near Xi'an if you want some great hiking/swimming/rafting/fishing opportunities.

www.threebeaches.com

There is a national park near Xi'an called Three Beaches which is easy to get to by train and has no mass tourism. You can do easy or more challenging hikes and go swimming and rafting.

Check out www.threebeaches.com for more information.

Review of Three Beaches National Park by xbrouwer (7), 14. Januar 2006

Three Beaches is a nice and quite nature park where you can unwind after living or travelling through hectic China, breathe fresh air and re-energise your batteries.
It's easy to get to by train.

Review of xiageiwenquan by 仁安卓玛 (10), 14. Januar 2006

没好的风光

One thing I always used to wonder was why I saw Xi'an spelled with the apostrophe when other cities in China were not.

Xi'an, written in Chinese, has 2 characters.  The first (西), meaning West, is pronounced "xi" and the second (安) meaning "peace" is pronounced "an." 

However, by itself, that doesn't necessitate an apostrophe.  After all other cities (北京: Beijing, 上海: Shanghai) have two characters but no apostrophe.

The issue is that in Chinese, there's another group of characters (现, 先, 线, 显, ...) which are pronounced and romanized as "xian" (a single syllable).  The Chinese romanization system already has enough trouble with the same romanized spelling meaning many different characters and tones, that when there's a potential ambiguity like this one, apostrophes are used to make it clear where the splits between characters are.

An Ecoonomist article discusses a map of the world that may have been created from the voyages of Zheng He, years before Columbus arrived in the Americas.

China beat Columbus to it, perhaps: An ancient map that strongly suggests Chinese seamen were first round the world

Columbus found the New World in 1492; Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488; and Magellan set off to circumnavigate the world in 1519. However, there is one difficulty with this confident assertion of European mastery: it may not be true.

In what we hope will be the first of many, the inaugural Shanghaiist Happy Hour will take place Thursday, January 19 from 6 pm to 9 pm at the brand new Cotton's (pictured) on Anting Lu. We just visited the place yesterday, and it looks fantastic. The (heated!) outdoor drinking garden is even bigger than the one at the old venue. And the old home that houses the bar/restaurant -- someone told us that a Shanghai mayor once lived there -- is impressive (lots of fireplaces). Should be a cozy evening, and a good chance to meet new people or hang out with old friends.

Anybody knows when will this flower show be held? By the way, is Easter a high season for Yunnan? Will they increase the rates/prices? Thanks!