rock n roll

some unusual stuff is happening in the andaman sea. since the tsunami-spawning quake last month there have been non-stop aftershocks which increased in frequency this over this past weekend, a total of over 300.

it reminds me of the rumbling often associated with active volcanoes. the nearest active volcano is on barren island which, though it isn't close to where the quakes are occuring now, did erupt shortly after last month's major event.

below you can see the latest usgs map of earthquakes for the andaman area. as you can see, there's a very noticeable cluster of earthquakes all taking place within a small area, about 57 in the past week.

this article from last friday describes the frequency of the quakes as being quite abnormal:

unusual events "unheard of in the history of seismology" have been recorded in the andaman and nicobar islands, with more than 120 such events being recorded in the last one month, according to seismologists.

the seismology department of the bhabha atomic research centre and the earth sciences department of the indian institute of technology here have recorded over 120 such unusual events in the islands following the december 26 earthquake measuring 8.9 on the richter scale that triggered tsunamis which wreaked havoc in several parts of the country.

of these events recorded at barc's gouribidnur station in karnataka, at least over 33 events were above 5 on the richter scale, they said, adding "this is unusual and alarming as large amount of energy is being released so frequently."

eleven events with surface wave of magnitude 5, indicating large amount of energy close to nicobar islands was also recorded, the seismologists said.

"since yesterday, 16 events which range from 5.2 to 5.8 on the richter scale have been recorded," they said.

"whether these events are foreshocks or aftershocks - it is not clear, and has to be taken up seriously and the data analysed as fast as possible," the scientists said.

"both `strike slip and `dip slip are taking place simultaneously and these factors have to be taken very seriously both by scientists and authorities," they added.

needless to say, i wouldn't feel entirely comfortable on a west-coast beach during this period.

out and about

when i was shopping for apartments my agent gave me a map and marked all of the places we were seeing. as i was brand new to shanghai i had a general idea of where in the city we were, but relied heavily on my agent's advice as to how long it'd take me to get to work each day.

i took digital photos and scribbled notes so i could remember as much as possible and eventually rounded down my choices to three apartments. one was already rented (two days after i had seen it), another was too expensive, so i settled for my third choice. was only after i had moved in that i realized the location was actually much better than the other two apartments.

the building is older, but the apartment itself has been nicely renovated and has some great views of remin (people's) square and the shanghai museum. the best part is that it's possible to walk to work, taking about 20-25 minutes. has been a while since i did so much walking so every day last week when i walked to the office i'd arrive with major leg cramps.


above is a pic i took of the shanghai museum early in the morning. it has been very cold recently so the morning walk can be a little... brisk!

from my living room, where i'm sitting typing this right now, i can look down on the stunning shanghai grand theater.

in january and february the theater is showing phantom of the opera, a single performance during the week and two on the weekend. i'll try to see it before it leaves town as i've still not managed to see this famous show.

at night shanghai really shows its stuff, with buildings all over town lit with static and dynamic displays. the remin square and park area is also lit up, though i don't think many people walk around inside after dark.

during the weekend remin square gets quite packed, especially the area behind the shanghai museum.

popular places to loiter include the fountain, with lots of picture taking and (in the warmer months) kite flying, and an area in the foreground of this photo where one can buy food to feed to the birds.

of course this being shanghai ordinary trafalgar square pigeons won't, so as you can see the square is filled with white doves.

there's some truly amazing architecture here. this building is just to the east of remin square- i wonder if the wave 'crests' are actually functional office space or just a decorative fascade.

not sure what the deal is with this building. it's just to the north of remin park and seems to still be under construction as at night there aren't any lights. i assume that's a revolving restaurant being built on top- it reminds me very much of george jetson's workplace, spacely sprockets.

the smaller brown building on the left is one of the less attractive buildings in shanghai. it's almost certainly a historical landmark of some sort but it looks rather ominous, like the ghostbusters building in new york.

high-altitude hijinks

turbulence aboard for china flight attendants

by howard w. french - the new york times - jan 12, 2005

shanghai, jan. 10 - it was just after 6 p.m. when china southern's flight cz 3593, packed to capacity, backed out of the gate to begin a 90-minute run from zhengzhou to shanghai after a five-hour delay.

there were too many carry-on bags to fit in the overhead racks, so the flight attendants began stuffing them into one of the rear bathrooms, setting off protests by passengers sitting nearby. hearing the hubbub, other passengers began to shout about how hungry they were, while others bellowed about how the delay had spoiled their business plans.

under siege, the flight attendants withdrew behind drawn curtains to consider their options, finally deciding, with the cockpit crew, to return to the gate, where the excess luggage could be placed in the hold. at the gate, though, the situation steadily worsened over an hour or so, with some passengers demanding dinner even before takeoff, and others clamoring to simply get off the plane.

one passenger cornered an attendant in the galley and lectured her about crisis management procedures he had picked up in other countries. she broke down in tears.

"we are doing our best to take care of all of you," the attendant said. "we are doing our best."

pity the chinese flight attendant.

in a short time, china has spent a fortune assembling one of the world's largest passenger airline fleets, building some of the most aesthetically pleasing and passenger friendly airports anywhere, many of them in the country's secondary cities. the airlines are government owned and operated.

yet passengers numbered 80 million last year, a fourfold increase from 1991. that means the flights have a circuslike quality, and the airline workers are stretched just to get through the day.

with so many new travelers, there is no culture of passenger etiquette, the kind in which travelers generally buckle their seat belts without being told, remain seated while planes are taxiing and defer to flight attendants.

china's flight attendants, the frontline workers in the country's mass air-travel revolution, say their jobs offer solid middle class wages, with $1,000-a-month salaries common. but the work shifts are brutal, often involving three or more unrelated segments to far-flung destinations in a day, and intemperate passengers. there are unions, but they are weak, and there is little regulation of working conditions. most of the flight attendants are women.

"when i was very small, this was kind of a dream job: a beautiful woman's profession, a life for a gentle person," said liu lixia, a 21-year-old flight attendant. "but one dreams these things less and less. daily life is full of difficulties and stress, and there's no time to relax, really. last year i had just seven days off."

a typical day for ms. liu can involve a flight from shanghai, her home, to beijing in the north of china, a nation comparable in size to the united states, then to kunming in the southwest and to guangzhou in the southeast, before coming back to shanghai at night.

on her interactions with passengers, she seemed to strive for a diplomatic tone.

"people's level of education and culture isn't always the same," ms. liu said. "you say, 'please fasten your seat belts,' and people don't respond." sometimes the cabin is just extraordinarily noisy, with some passengers even singing. "you ask them to quiet down, and they just stare at you," she said.

chen qi, a flight attendant for a major airline, said: "i've been a stewardess for 10 years now, and i think the quality of the passengers has changed. i've had a passion for this job, but i've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things, and my main feeling is the pressure just keeps getting heavier on us all the time."

in addition to legions of gruff business road warriors, inevitably, given a population of 1.3 billion, on any day many passengers are first-time fliers.

"we get tourist groups to places like haikou, where most of the passengers have never flown before," said bao xiaochun, another flight attendant. "they have to be watched very carefully. some have to be taught things like how to clear the pressure in their ears, while others have tried to open the emergency hatch in midflight (whaaat??? - j)." ms. bao, who asked that her airline not be identified, called her job "a mixture of sweetness and bitterness."

industry attrition rates are not published, but the shock of this job was so great for yuan jia, an otherwise irrepressible 22-year-old, that she quit after three months. "you work 22-hour days, always on your feet, walking back and forth, with no time to even wash your face," ms. yuan said, pronouncing herself happily unemployed. "my dream was to travel overseas, but you have to wait 10 years for that."

proxifoiled

i've moved into my new apartment and for the first time in 6 years am back on broadband. it's not extremely broad band, as my tested speed is between 50k and 125k on the 512k connection, but still better than a modem.

only issue is that my proxies don't seem to work anymore, hence i'm not able to read any blogspot.com websites. will see if i can find a way to get by this, otherwise will have to go back to using a modem for surfing 'banned' sites.

paeng maak

possibly the world's most expensive room service chicken satay:

in thailand this would cost approximately 20 baht, or 50 cents.

party time

are you ready?

hey! hey! hey!
watcha got to say?
say hey! hey! hey!
watcha got to say?
hollywoooood, hollywood swingin'
hollywoooood, hollywood swingin'


i remember, not too long ago (hey, hey)
i went to a theater, and i saw the kool and the gang show.
i always wanted to get into a band
to sing my songs, and then become a bad piano playing man
so here i am, in this hollywood city
the city of the stars, movies, women and cars
well, i guess, i guess i'll start


hey! hey! hey!
watcha got to say?
say hey! hey! hey!
watcha got to say?
hollywoooood, hollywood swingin'
hollywoooood, hollywood swingin'

want some more? click here. you won't be disappointed!

traffic jam

over the past 10 days there has been a huge surge in traffic from people searching for photos of the tsunami. by chance if anyone has come here looking for info regarding specific people or hotels (as per a couple of emails i've received), please go to the following websites which will be able to help you far more than i can:

forum.thaivisa.com - a discussion forum with lots of current info. if you have any questions about specific hotels or people you can try searching the site or posting a question. there are also lots of photos for you photo hunters.

2bangkok.com - the newsfeed of a large thailand blog (of sorts) that for a while had as good or better info than the thai newspapers. also has its own discussion forum.

this really isn't meant to be a resource for news on the tsunami, but this site appears relatively high in page rankings so anything i write about the incident tends to result in another surge in traffic. as such this will be the last i post about the tsunami until things quieten down.

to those looking for info on specific people i wish you the best of luck and i'm sorry that i can't help you more.

tsunami survivor

thought i'd share this excellent first-hand account i found on a frequent flyer forum discussion:

"I am not quite sure how to even start this post, except for the fact that I am extremely grateful to still be alive, and I feel the pain for those who have lost loved ones, because I was staring death in the face for the first time in my life.

A total of 14 family members including myself had just begun a four-day trip to Phuket, Thailand on Christmas Day. We were all staying at a hotel right above Patong Beach which is the main social/bar/shopping drag on the southwestern coast of Phuket. The weather had been picture perfect for days on end during what is considered the absolute best time to visit southern Thailand's idyllic beaches due to lack of rain and relatively low humidities.

On Sunday, December 26, my sister, cousins and I started out at about 7:30am to an outlying island to spend time engaging in watersports while our parents and grandmother toured Phuket town and visited Buddhist temples. We chartered a small speedboat to take us to and from the island. After arriving at about 8:30am, we decided to start the morning off with a banana boat ride (being dragged around the island by a speedboat), then go parasailing, jetskiing and wakeboarding. Just as we were about to start out, the tide suddenly retreated by no fewer than 30 feet, dragging all the watersports equipment out to sea and immediately beaching squid and fish on the sand.

Having watched a documentary recently about tsunamis, I briefly wondered if this was it. Regardless, we started up towards the restaurant and tourist center further up the beach. Within seconds, we saw the sea swell and water start to build up towards the shore. Out of what seemed to be nowhere, a large wave started cresting and we ran for our lives. There were many people who just stood there watching. We didn't look back, but we heard loud crashing noises, people screaming and the unforgettable sound of waves hitting everything they met.

We waited what seemed like forever. Expecting possibly more (and worse) waves to arrive, and remembering that the safest place to be when tidal waves hit is the middle of the ocean away from the shore and shallow sea floors, we found the captain of our speedboat and asked him to steer us into the ocean. Not surprisingly, this was met with extreme reluctance. We basically told him that we needed to either go out to sea (the wave had subsided at this time, but we thought more would come - and apparently a second wave did hit later) or go up to the top of the island. It took a while, but we eventually convinced him we were safer out at sea than on the shore.

During our journey out back to sea, what was once clear water immediately turned a disgusting murky brown. We eventually made it back on shore hours later, and witnessed first hand what the waves had done. We bypassed several floating corpses by the beach as we approached.

But the worst was not over yet. We were driven to and inland area where we were dropped off at the mall, but at that time, telecommunications were virtually non-existent. What's worse, we heard that the hotel area where we were staying - Patong Beach - was severely hit by the tsunamis, and we could not get in touch with the rest of our family.

I will never forget that pain - of not knowing the fate of your loved ones. I think each of us briefly pondered being the only survivors in our group. I cannot begin to describe how that feels. You can't cry - you're just absolutely numb to the bone with shock. You are hungry but you can't eat. You're tired but you can't sleep.

What made things worse in a way was that the mall we ended up at was fully functional, and an internet cafe was open. It was packed with tourists looking up news of the unfolding disaster, trying to find loved ones. We knew it was bad, but we didn't know how bad other areas - and specifically Patong - were hit. Until we saw pictures. We saw the restaurant at the entrance of our hotel completely wiped out. The phone lines were dead, we couldn't call our parents. We went on the internet and found our friends online to try to call from all over the world to see if anyone could get in touch with our family. At times, we only got "network busy" messages, at other times we could get through to all six different cell phone numbers but each and every one went to voicemail.

We began to assume the worst. We knew they couldn't run for their lives because they also had my 87-year old grandmother with them. I started to imagine them trying - and having to decide to stay together or leave her behind. You don't imagine yourself ever having to make such decisions in your life.

More than seven hours after the disaster began, we got a lone "I GOT THROUGH" instant message from my cousin's friend. She had just talked to her father and everyone was all right. I immediately broke down and cried. Again, another indescribable feeling.

As I write this e-mail, safe and sound in Hong Kong, I count my blessings. I also realize that many tonight are still missing loved ones, enduring that horrible sinking feeling I briefly experienced that day when I did not know the fate of my family. I pray that they may have strength to deal with things that no one expects to have to deal with.

On a final note, those of you who have faced near-disasters may agree, I sit here typing this with a profound sense of hope and humility. How small we are in this world that what we have can be taken away in a split second without hesitation or warning. In the grand scheme of things, I am learning to let go of smaller things that trouble me, and not take things for granted.

Hug your children tonight. Show the people you love you care. Show your enemies compassion. We are just all brief visitors here on earth. Make your stay here worthwhile."

carrefouring

the arrival of the new year meant that it was time for me to move into my new apartment. although the apartment was furnished i needed to buy a great deal of household things like pillows, sheets, towels, plates, glasses, garbage cans, food, etc. fortunately, shanghai has a lot of choices for this kind of shopping and one of our office staff recommended that i head to the french supercenter, carrefour.

armed with a piece of paper with the carrefour wuning location written in chinese on it, i headed off to do some serious shopping.

after a bit of confusion on the taxi driver's part, i found carrefour wuning. it was an enormous windowless blue building with some banner advertisements outside and a lot of people milling around.

entering carrefour one stands on a multi-story escalator, slowly moving people past stores and advertisements describing carrefour, its products, how wonderful carrefour is, and so on. it reminded me a bit of disneyland as i rode the escalators up and up.

on a middle floor there was an information and returns desk. i decided to quickly ask what time the store opened and if they offered a delivery service. i waited in 'line' (actually a mass of people up against the desk) but it seemed like both information and returns were swamped with people returning items. hands would be thrust forward clutching receipts, and it seemed that those who shouted the loudest would be served first.

after several minutes it seemed like i was not getting anywhere at all. about that time a chinese man next to me began shouting very loudly. i turned to find out who was giving me partial hearing damage and saw that this guy was clearly pissed off. veins stood out in his neck and his eyed bulged as he shouted away. this tactic seemed to work, as he was serviced right away.

after having seen the operating hours on the wall (8:30am to 10pm) i gave up and decided that there was no delivery.

i rode the last escalator up and arrived at the true entrance on the top floor. it seems i was not alone in wanting to shop at carrefour that day as it was swarming with seemingly half the population of shanghai. i grabbed a shopping cart (fighting off a woman who wanted the same cart) and decided to walk the store in an organized manner, aisle by aisle and pick things out as i saw them.

i quickly found out that this would be impossible. there were people absolutely everywhere, rushing around, standing in the middle of an aisle, pushing past, or (as would happen a few times) staring at me.

first stop was the nearby electronics department, something i'm very familiar with. i found the ethernet cable i was looking for then went to look for a cheap dvd player. after a few seconds of pondering a cheap one stacked at the end of an aisle, a friendly saleswoman pointed me to where the rest of the dvd players were- a selection of about 20 or so.

she immediately pointed out the most expensive one, compete with dvd-r capability. i told her (in english, even though i knew she didn't understand) that i only needed something basic, with only an rca left and right audio output- nothing fancy.

a salesman arrived, speaking basic english- great! i settled on a dvd player and we changed the menus from chinese into english, which attracted a crowd of about 5 or 6 people. i asked if there was a delivery service. there was, he told me, and when i finished with my shopping i could go back and find him ('william') and he's arrange it all. perfect!

the sales areas were on two floors, the top floor focusing on housewares whereas the bottom floor was food. i managed to find many things i needed, but the towels will definitely need to be replaced as they are paper thin, and there wasn't much in the way of ceramic dinnerware.

there were people absolutely everywhere, and wherever they were they were in the process of moving somewhere else. maneuvering my heavily-laden shopping cart around felt like driving a 10-wheel trailer truck as other shopped crashed into me, bounced off me, and pushed my cart to one side. oddly enough, the worst offenders (including one guy who pushed my cart into a display, knocking the display over) were the red-shirted carrefour employees. to them, it seemed, us shoppers were nothing more than obstacles in their way of rushing around.

the hardware section was useful, as i found light bulbs, surge protectors, tape, a little toolkit, an emergency flashlight, batteries, and a thermometer all in the same area. i was in such a frenzy, grabbing so much stuff it reminded me of the south park wal-mart episode- everything was such a bargain, i had to have it all!

as i was shopping in the hardware aisle a chinese man took notice. he pointed at a pen knife, smiled, and said something in chinese. i told him, 'cheap', in english. it was, only 3rmb.

my cart was getting very full. the last thing i wanted to buy that day was a hat as it has been so cold in shanghai lately (see 'snow in shanghai') but i couldn't find anything. i located an important-looking woman wearing a carrefour badge and asked her where the hats were, using a putting-on-a-hat pantomime to get the meaning across. i was astounded when she replied in fluent english that i could find hats 'over there'. over where, i asked. over there in the appliance section, she replied.

i fought my way back against the flow of people to the appliance and electronics section but at first glance i couldn't see anything even remotely like a hat. i went up and down each aisle, using my heavy cart as a battering ram, to see if perhaps the hats were hidden in between a couple of refrigerators. no such luck, so i decided it was time to see william again.

returned back to the electronics section to find william and arrange for delivery. no william. no saleswoman who knows william. no other english speakers around. looked like it'd be a taxi full of shopping back to the apartment.

check-out was fairly uneventful, though it was absolutely the most amount of checkout counters i've ever seen in one place. a very helpful young woman started chatting with me. turns out she studied english at a local university and worked in carrefour part time. she complimented me on my eye color (not brown) and steered me to a faster checkout aisle.

that was my first of three trips to carrefour this weekend. i've learned that one has to be quite aggressive in these types of places lest one's shopping cart be appropriated, one be knocked over by an elbowing housewife, or one not get anywhere because of blocked aisles. thanks to a helpful taxi driver i've also learned the chinese for 'turn left', 'turn right' and 'go straight'.

am now preparing for today's adventure... the xiang yang market.

khao lak satellite photos

khao lak was one of the hardest hit areas in thailand. the wave that struck khao lak was possibly more intense than the one that hit phuket- that, combined with the relatively flat ground compared with phuket's hills, meant that the tsunami did a great deal of damage to the area.

before:


after:

scale of this image is 3.8km by 6.3km. there's not a problem with the color in the bottom image- that's the result of the water penetrating up to a mile inland. some of the land of pakarang cape is completely gone, and much of its surface features have been wiped out.

blue village satellite photos

one of the khao lak hotels washed away by the tsunami was the blue village pakarang resort. from the (still up) website:

"pakarang resort, a four star resort is surrounded by white scenic beaches, natural forest and waterfalls. our modern thai style rooms and bungalows are fully air-conditioned and provide hot & cold water, satellite tv, idd phones, refrigerators, safety deposit boxes and hair dryers.

only one hour from phuket international airport, pakarang resort provides 3 choices of residences. the coral suites, pakarang suites and superior rooms. the pakarang resort is a paradise where you and your family can enjoy peaceful tranquility, memorable bliss and luxurious comfort."







before (click on pic for full-size image):

after: (click on pic for full-size image):

the small stream dividing the resort became the primary drainage path for the receding tsunami waters. as you can see, there is little left.

sofitel satellite photos

from the thai tour website:
"the sofitel magic lagoon resort feature the 319-room luxury resort is built on 50 rai of land and features low-rise buildings designed in an elegant thai architectural style that complements the lagoon-style landscaping. with buildings a maximum of three stories high, the resort blends in with the natural surroundings and offers panoramic sea-views from many rooms. the landscaped gardens and the sound of flowing water impart a deep sense of tranquility. most primary building materials have been sourced locally in thailand."





before (click on pic for full-size image):


after (click on pic for full-size image):


from the accor (sofitel) website:
"accor confirms that this hotel has been severely damaged. lots of guests are reported missing. a crisis support team is coordinating efforts in bangkok and paris. other teams have left bangkok for the hotel to assist. individuals seeking further information regarding guests, please call: accor bangkok call centre on 662 237 6064 from france accor paris call centre on 08 10 10 40 16 from other countries accor paris call centre on 33 1 40 61 74 02"



"the sofitel coralia magic lagoon resort opened in may on a secluded stretch of khuk kak beach. the resort boasted the world's largest lagoon pool with six bars. guests could swim from their rooms along a meandering pool through gardens to the beach. for this, they paid up to $800 a night. now, this man-made paradise lies in ruins. when the waves hit, the water roared through up to the second floor, bulldozing all in its path.

only half of the 415 guests are known to have survived. a third of the 320 staff are missing." (more)

coral cape satellite photos

the following pics are of coral cape, aka laem pakarang, named because it was known for the large amounts of coral that washed ashore on its beaches. there was a large development in the middle of the cape (looking like missile silos in the 'after' image) but i've not been able to determine which hotel/bungalow/resort it was.

before (click on pic for full-size image):


after (click on pic for full-size image):

krabi tsunami satellite photo

i've always been interested in satellite photos and have been looking at the various images of the tsunami damage on the internet. surfing around i found an interesting satellite photo taken the morning of the tsunami which appears to show the wave itself.


i don't know the exact scale of this photo- i would guess 50km from left to right as it is about a half a degree longitude. the city of krabi is located at the northernmost point of the water, its airport faintly visible to the northeast of the city. koh phi phi is just to the southwest of this image.


zooming in closer one can see some disturbance in the water showing up as a light blue color, especially just to the north of koh jam in the center of the image. for the full size (1104x1924, 755k) image, click here.


closer still, one can see the actual rush of water, with strong waves also following behind. even with so many imaging satellites in orbit, it's still amazing that this image managed to be taken during the time of the tsunami.