If there is no Wi-Fi available for you to surf Google, you have to use the EDGE/GPRS which provided by China Mobile or China Unicom to do it. If you don't activate any of the below package, it charge you 1RMB/MB when you connect to the internet, so maybe good choice to order one of them if you use such service a lot. The following are the detail of payment of each package.

China Mobile

• 20 RMB for 300M each month. Want this? Send "BLWHT" to 10086, send "QXWHT" if you want to cancel it.
• 100 RMB for 1G each month. Want this? Send "GPRS100" to 10086, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it
• 200 RMB for 2G each month. Want this? Send "GPRS200 to 10086, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cencel it

China Unicom

• 5 RMB for 30M each month. Want this? Send "GPRS05" to 10010, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it.
• 15 RMB for 100M each month. Want this? Send "GPRS15" to 10010, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it.
• 40 RMB for 300M each month. Want this? Send "GPRS40" to 10010, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it.
• 80 RMB for 500M each month. Want this? Send "GPRS80" to 10010, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it.
• 100 RMB for 1000M each month. Want this? Send "GPRS100" to 10010, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it.
• 200 RMB for 2000M each month. Want this? Send "GPRS200" to 10010, send "QXGPRS" if you want to cancel it.
• You can visit here for more detail.

Note for ChinaMobile and ChinaUnicom

• The extra flow will change you 1RMB/M, and if your SIM card is bought in Guangdong province, for example, and it will charge you 1RMB/M if you leave Guangdong province.
• The plan starts immediately when you order it, and if you cancel it, which will be indeed canceled from the next supposed charge date.
• Make sure there is no quotation when you send the message.

Google recently announced that they would be hosting a collection of photos from Life Magazine. Dan at the excellent China Law Blog pointed out that you can search through the pictures to find interesting stuff. A search for “Guangzhou” strangely doesn’t return any entries; but of course, when many of these pictures were published, this city was known as “Canton”. There are only about 200 results for Canton, but some of them are great pictures of the City. This is the search phrase that should give you the right results:

canton source:life

Shamain Island is clearly recognizable, and many of the street scenes must have been taken in the Renmin Nan Lu area. Some of my favorites:

• Streeside Baozi
• Aerial view, you can see the cathedral on Yide Lu in the center of the shot
• Guangzhou’s answer to the Flatiron Building. Its still there on Yanjiang Lu. Flatiron Building
• Do you recognize Haizhu Square?
• This GZ is slowly disappearing, I love the art deco architecture
• This is how our neighboorhood still looks
• I bet we can find this street, somewhere near Yide Lu and Renmin Lu.
• Kids playing in the park on Shamian Island

I've successfully upgraded my 1st gen iPhone to a jailbroken and unlocked version of the 2.0 Software. I did it using the PwnagTool from the iphone-dev team (this URL is blocked in China, BigBoss has a mirror that is not blocked). This tool is not for a beginner, but if you are resourceful and don't mind trying things 7 times, its not terribly dificult.

The must have feature is of course the AppStore, which works very well, albiet slowly here in China. It does require an iTunes username/password, which may be a problem for some. I have not been able to install the Chinese input yet. I have enjoyed a few of the Apps from the AppStore, like the Facebook app, and Midomi. From the jailbroken apps side, OpenSSH and Mobile terminal work well as before.

So for anyone who can't wait to upgrade your phone, it is now possible and works well. However, for most Chinese users, I would recommend waiting until a more universal tool is released, and We iPhone Dev team updates their excellent software for 2.0.

   

Light the Passion, Share the Dream! The Olympic flame finally travelled along Guangzhou today, 07/05/2008. Early this morning ,I just couldn't wait to go to Baiyun Mountain to see the Olympic Torch Relay.
Wow..quite cool,I have never seen such a crowded scene in Guangzhou. Believe it or not, it took me over 10 minutes to walk though a 100 meters pedestrian bridge,the pictures following would tell the truth:

Here we see the foot of Baiyun Mountain, people were eager to see the Olympic Torch though it still had two hours before the Olympic Flame's coming down from the top of Baiyun Mountain-- Moxing Ling.

Yeah,here,this small bridge was too crowded to find a standing room. But I had got to pass by to reach Road Luhu(one stop of the relay route) to wait for the great moment,then it costed me 10 minutes:

On the bridge, I saw two military helicopters flying in the cloudy but beautiful sky:

Views from the bridge:

Views from the bridge:

Me and my good friend Jevin( on the right):

Lol, the torch near me is so huge and great, isn't it?

Views on the road:

On the Road Luhu, some kids were happy to wait for the honor flame:

lol,the passagers made torchs themselves by newspaper`

The feeling of riding such a motorbike must be exciting,lol, I thought I was the police in the motorbike :

 

Cool,the flame's sharing, come on, sharing our peace dreams

Mike Stefan Wall's smiling at me,I said to him: "hey, you look charming ,man"

Mike Stefan Wall got on the bus,and disappeared

The Relay of Guangzhou Olympic Torch was over, but our dreams would keep carrying on 4ever.

Come on, Beijing, Olympic 2008. We are sure that it would be the most successful Olympic Games in the world. Btw, Kudelabs,you definitely have a promisingly and bright future ,just like Beijing does.

OK, this is big news for a lot of apple fans in China. I have confirmed that EDGE works fine on my 1.1.4 iPhone. It is using a normal China Mobile SIM card, and all I had to do to turn it on was configure the settings correctly (credit for the settings goes to Alison)

It works through the normal China Mobile GPRS mobile internet service. The fee varies from 2RMB per MB, to 15RMB/month for 160MB, to 200RMB/month for unlimited access (ed note: See update about the prices). As far as I can tell, any prepaid card should work, even the most basic.

 

 

 

 

 

To configure the service, navigate to Settings -> General -> Network -> Edge

Use the following settings:

APN: CMNET
Username:
Password:

That's right, just set the service name. The fees are taken directly from your prepaid card.

So for any of you out there who were just getting by on WiFi, feel free to upgrade. And if you are coming to China... don't even think about paying roaming fees. Just get a prepaid China Mobile card when you get here and use it for the duration of your trip. It costs a minimum of 100RMB (14USD) or so and that would be enough to get started, you can add more in 50RMB increments

Enjoy!

Update: I seem to be wrong about the prices, according to a chart on the China Mobile site. It says that 15RMB/month gets you 100MB, 200RMB/month gets you 2000MB, after that it is 1RMB/MB up to 500RMB. So that's 3USD for 100MB, 30USD for 2GB, with a max of 72USD a month.

Update2: The monthly package doesn't kick in till the next month so for a short trip, it doesn't make much sense. For those of you still interested, here are the instructions:

text "BLGPRS" to 10086
they respond with a list of choices
text "GPRS100" where 100 means the 100RMB per month service.
they should respond with a confirmation

Lamma island -- after doing some reading online, this seemed to be the place to be in Hong Kong for crazy people like me who'd rather be closer to the beach and hiking trails than to the karaoke bar. You know you are desperate to get away when the island that sounds like the most attractive destination features a huge power plant that looks like it came straight from a Japanese urban monster movie. But everything else sounded appealing, and, frankly, hard to believe. A place within 20 minutes of central Hong Kong that has no cars, just walking trails? Beaches where you can actually swim without transforming into the protagonist in above-mentioned type of movie? I had to check it out. The walk from my hotel to the ferry dock was the usual Hong Kong experience of 3-dimensional urban planning, involving elevators passing through buildings, walkways across roads, and crossing a huge mall. Switters would have felt safe here -- my feet never touched the ground. The boat connections are great, running every half hour or so. There are ferry piers in two villages on the island; I went to Sok Kwu Wan (40 min) and planned on coming back from Yung Shue Wan (20 min, more frequent service, until midnight!). You pay with the very practical octopus proximity card (which also works for the subway) -- only 2 US$. The first thing I noticed as the ferry arrived in Sok Kwu Wan were the floating aquaculture setups built using 55 gallon drums; very similar to one of my crazy projects in Panama, but at a much larger scale. I'll have to come back with someone who speaks cantonese to find a way to check them out that does not involve swimming. The bay did *not* look clean. The village is small and looks somewhat dilapidated... much more like a fishing village than I was expecting. I was delighted. So now what? There is a trail that goes to Yung Shue Wan, but that's the one everyone writes about, and as usual, I wanted to get off the beaten path.
I decided to follow the "family trail" in the other direction, going around the island clockwise, leading straight away from the main populated part of the village. They might as well have called it "rollerblading trail" -- although only about 5 feet wide, it is paved for all of its 15km or so. And they actually have vehicles to drive on it. This one looked like it was custom built with a 4kw generator.
The first few minutes of the trail featured an octopus-accepting vending machine, registered trees number T 20 through T 36, and registered slope 15NW. Apparently, even unregistered trees are more important than registered slopes, so they get to keep a little bit of soil around them. Nice.
And then I spotted an opportunity to step off the concrete... some barely visible stairs cut into the rock, leading straight up the hill. I have been in this situation so many times... the trail twigs (I wouldn't say branch here...) - you don't know where, or even if, it will go. There no sign, probably because no sane person would even try to go. I almost always take the twigs (not just when hiking, but that's another story), and it's almost always worth it.
In this case, the trail actually improved, and so did the views. It led to the top of the highest hill in the area, probably about 300m high (20 min)

At the top, there was a group of workers sharpening their tools for chopping down the vegetation. We had a  nice chat... they came from Kowloon to work here, and weren't sure why they were asked to chop everything down. They seemed to wonder, though, as they had clearly discussed this and came to the conclusion that it was to avoid fire hazards. Interesting...

After enjoying the view, I went back down on the other side of the hill, using the walkway that normal people use, passing more registered trees and slopes.

Between trees growing out of rounded faux rock concrete, high voltage equipment and walkway lights, and literally hundreds of skyscrapers in the background, I felt like I was in some kind of science fiction story, and about to find out that the registered trees were all fake.
       

This was clearly not the case -- by now I was having an incredibly enjoyable time in real nature, with stunning views and beautiful details to enjoy.

A few minutes later I passed through a little village with some nice old, and newer, buildings. It seemed a very unlikely location for a rural village, but there it was. People grew bananas and taro (the swamp variety, dasheen in Panama)

 One of my objectives for the day was to go for a swim -- and the protected cove I saw from the hill seemed to be the perfect spot. 

The way there featured many more atractions of twig nature, so it took me quite a while to get there. On the way, I found many lookout points, shrines, and... ruins of abandoned buildings. How very strange... 45 minutes from here you can rent apartments for USD $30,000 per month, and people put up with small sinks to save space. And nobody wants to live here?  I don't get it. I'd love to find out what is going on with this...

    

Eventually, i did manage to reach the beach. There were a couple of buildings there, almost completely abandoned. I counted 3 residents who were about 250 years old total. I wished I could talk to them... and I hope someone does, and writes down their stories of what they have experienced while living in such a place. I went for a refreshing swim... very nice, except for a few dead sardines floating in the water. The place was deserted enough to swim in my underwear without offending anyone, and there was even a public toilet with running water and a bucket to rinse off the salt and any traces of godzillitis-inducing substances. (Yes, I am spoiled.. the beach was truly beautiful, and the water was nice. I'm just trying to be funny. Ignore it).
And then.. kayaks. old ones, but they were certainly kayaks. Even a home-made outrigger canoe-type contraption (involving PVC pipe as outrigger and traces of disintegrated duct tape). An incredibly tasteful water collection barrel (no sarcasm here). Peeling paint on "For Rent" signs. How very intriguing...
How can it be that on my first day exploring Hong Kong I manage to find the kind of place that I would have expected anywhere else, but not here. (Ok, maybe not in NY city either)? I love travelling, I really do. And somehow I knew that the only other person in sight, who is swimming, would have a story to tell. Sure enough -- a very friendly lady from Scotland told me about a guy who ran a hostel there, who built furniture form driftwood, which he transported using his surfboard. The hostel is still there, and the 80 something year old local lady taking care of it (unless she is on her way carrying her starfruit harvest to town to sell it) is happy to rent out bunks or one of two small apartments, which supposedly even have an internet connection. Once again, I wished I knew some cantonese.
Did I mention I love travelling? I decided not to attempt to hitch a ride with a Chinese family who had come for the day in a rented junk, and instead, head to the village to find a place to stay. I had seen enough to know I'd need to spend more time here. So much more to explore... bunkers supposedly used to store kamikaze boats in WWII, and many miles of coastline, and, most of all, plenty of potential for more pleasant surprises.
Many moreincreasingly justifiably registered trees later, I started getting back into civilization...

  

On another, much more developed beach, I saw an interesting type of rescue kayak, but none of the three lifeguards protecting zero swimmers from the dangerous ocean knew how to roll and what a sprayskirt is for. Interesting.

 

 Approaching the village, the practicalities of an island without cars became more and more entertaining... In an odd way I was reminded of Isla Bastimentos in Bocas. Concrete walkways, bicycles, houses on stilts, people bailing boats in ingenious ways, etc.

When I reached town, I had half an hour to secure a place to stay, with internet. A local real estate agent named Stephen was incredibly helpful, and I rented a small apartment for a few days that he manages for one of his clients.

What a day... a good reminder that it's ALWAYS worth to get out and explore!

On my first hike around Lamma Island, I noticed a trail that appeared to go to the top of a peak that promised a great view... That day I did not have time to go, but now, a couple of weeks later, we decided to go. But let me back up... the day before, we had a few extra hours in Hong Kong, so Andy and I bought new cameras. What else would two geeks do in Hong Kong? And of course, they needed to be tried out the same day; none of us had been to the Peak, one of the main attractions in Hong Kong -- we missed the sunset, but Andy still managed to take some great pictures. I really don't like cities all that much, but Hong Kong is fascinating, just because of the sheer scale, and the contrasts... We saw the nightly light show; somewhat disappointing, but still impressive.
Ok, back to the hike on Lamma Island. We had managed to pick one of the hottest days of the year for it, and there is absolutely no shade on the trail... the hike ended up being a lot more challenging than expected. But also more rewarding... We got a good workout, and the views were fantastic. We walked from Yun Shue Wan to Sok Kwu Wan, then on towards Tung O, but instead of going down to the beach, we went right, past the red pavillion on the little pass that crosses the island's main ridge. At this point we were joined by another group of hikers, who first passed us, but soon slowed down. One of them, a guy from Finland, actually decided to lie down on the trail. At first I didn't realize that he was in bad shape... but when he asked me to get some water out of his backpack, it became obvious that he was in trouble. Clearly he was not used to the combination of heat and elevation gain... he finished his water, seemed to be doing better, and then slowly headed down to the pavilion, while we continued to the top.
The hike took a whole lot longer than I expected, and I had a flight to Manila the same day in the evening. I was enjoying being outside and getting workout, so I lost track of the time; when we checked the ferry schedule later it became clear that I'd have to hurry back to make it in time. So I decided to run ahead... I had about 1 hour to catch the ferry, and was a 2 hour walk away from the ferry dock, and certainly needed to take a shower before getting on a plane. Fortunately, I knew the 2 hour estimate was the official trail hiking time for your average hiker in this area... and such times tend to be inflated proportionally to population density in the area.
So I started running. The first section was supposed to take 45 min, and it took me 14 minutes. That was quite encouraging... the trail from Sok Kwu Wan, however, was to steep for me to make it in less than one third of the official time, it took me about 30 min. And then -- well, the ferry schedule information was somewhat inaccurate, and I was so exhausted that I just wanted to lie down... (after drinking about half a gallon of water) I ended up changing the flight anyway. Oh well... it was worth it, for a wonderful day and a healthy workout.