http://www.hesspoint.com

Today I took some time to do some modifications on my site. Here the changes in a nutshell:

• Added Movie section. Here I will rate movies I have seen
• Updated the Weather Icon Plugin. Now it comes with a cool new icon and finally the day and night distinction works
• Finally put information on the About Me page, with a nifty contact form.

More soon

What do you normally do on Friday night after work? Well, this Friday we decided to start into the weekend with a little Snowboarding/Skiing action in Shanghai’s Yinqixing Indoor Ski Hall. Ok it does not compare to the Alps, not even to the Sauerland, but for being in Shanghai it is quite nice. Apparently it is one of the larges indoor ski places in the world with the highest point 42m above the ground. Everything is provided and included in the 125 RMB, from Snowboard or Ski, boots, clothing even gloves are given to you. There are 3 levels, the easiest is merely a bunny hill while the top level gets you up to some speed, all of them not really a challenge though if you have some experience. For total beginners, however, this is the perfect place to learn. We boarded till almost midnight and then took the shuttle bus back to Xujiahui.

Today we tried one of Shanghai’s newest attractions: The Shanghai Climb.

Since a few months you can walk up on the world’s largest steel arch bridge, the Lupu Bridge (卢浦大桥）. Similar to the Sydney Harbor Bridge, you can climb up the stairs on the arch till you reach the highest point, 100m above the water. From up there, you can really feel how huge this city really is. And you can see how bad the smog really is.

I just saw that Mozilla released Firefox 2.0. I am downloading it as I type. I hope it finishes loading till I am done writing this post. Lots of people are loading right now, I guess. I looked up the feature list and it looks like they put in some nice little improvements. However, to me it seems like most of the new things I already have in 1.5 by using extensions. Now they built it right in. But anyway better then MS with Internet Explorer 7 which managed to catch up to Firefox could not overtake it. Now Mozilla is another step ahead. Better luck next time, Microsoft!

On the weekend we went on an outing of my wife’s company to a place called Wuyi Shan (武夷山). Wuyi Shan is a mountain area in the north of Fujian Province. It was not well known till it got elected as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 99. The scenery is very beautiful with rivers, lakes, mountains, caves cliffs and valeys. From Shanghai it was just 50 min. by plane.
Really fun, besides climbing the mountains, was the rafting. This is very popular there and a lot of fun if you are not afraid of water.
So it was a nice weekend with my wife’s colleagues and I got to know many new people. However my legs still hurt from the mountain climbing. Yeah, I know I should do more sports, but I am too busy.
I would upload some photos, but Flickr is not working again. I love China but the Internet here plainly sucks. But TIC (That is China). Good night!

I live at the southern end of Old Town Shanghai. Old Town Shanghai is probably the most original place in Shanghai you can go. No house has more then two floors, so it looks like a small island in this huge vibrant city with its huge skyscrapers that rise into the sky. Shanghai is getting ready for the World Expo 2010 and lots and lots will change here in Shanghai in the next few years.

Today the weather was so nice in the morning that I decided not to take the bus to work today but go there by foot. My way to work took me through some narrow alleys heading for Yu Yuan. Here you can see how close modern and ancient China is still together in this city. I saw people brushing their teeth in the street because the only running water is outside. I came along many small stalls selling breakfast things, vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and anything else you can possibly eat. Actually that is a great thing about living close to Old Town, you can buy food around the clock. There is a stall 5 minutes from my place that makes fresh Chao Mian (Chinese Noodles) and Chinese BBQ till 3 a.m.

I think I might walk to work more often in the future, also to pick up some tasty Chinese food on the way.