Suppose there is a big cornfield, and you are asked to pick up the biggest golden ear of wheat, and the condition is that there is only one to pick, and you can only go ahead without return, what you will do?

Some picks up the first big ear of wheat at their first grasp, that might be too recklessly, as there is nothing to do when they pass by some really big ones. Or, some might get a so so in hand just before they realize that it would be rather too late for nothing.

Ideally, the best solution on this problem could be handled in three steps:

1/3. We will not pick up any ear of wheat, just walk and setup a criteria.
2/3. Do the same thing as in step 1, and if possible make some correction on the criteria.
3/3. Pick up the best one we encounter.

Mathematicians can deal these steps into a more quantitative approach: total departure between big and average wheat ear size, percentage of big wheat ear in the field, synchronization in these two data should make it easy to know what is the perfect size. So far as those big enough wheat ears are perfectly random-scattered in the field, criteria can be setup in the middle point.

Anyway, criteria once made, fetch a big enough wheat ear whenever you meet!

This is very useful in our daily life, for example, when we trying to buy some souvenirs in an overseas travel, people would not buy a lot stuff at the first or second stop.

By the way, sociologists are more seriously on this, they even name it as Wheat Ear Theory, it could be also very helpful in search one’s Mr. or Mrs. Right. For instance, if we take a look of a girl’s married age from 20-30 years old, and if we cut this time into three stages: 21-24, 25-27, 27-30, according to the statistics on 2006, the married age of the girls in Beijing is 26 years old (just in time), in Shanghai is 28 (Oops, a little late maybe!).

As a matter of fact, unmarried mature females with high education levels and high salaries are quite common in Beijing, the more they have missed, the harder they will have to make up a decision.

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About a month ago, I began to prepare this trip.

First about the weather. From a local Chinese, I was told as the country is now in the raining season, temperature could be very varied day to day, so I didn’t prepare summer cloth, and days before departure, as I was busy about the Chinese New Year, I didn’t follow the weather forecast. Once we touch the land at Tel Aviv, I knew that I was in summer.

Something about the flight. This is also my first time to fly with Israel Airline, the security check is much more attentively than any other airlines, after a friendly and brief interview with the airline staff, then we began all the regular procedure, as I took a gift for a local Chinese in Jerusalem, I was invited to a separate room to be checked over. Everything runs smoothly and professionally, but it takes time, that is why we were asked to check-in 4.5 hours before departure.

The Ben Gurion Airport locates in the middle between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we arrived at about 03:30 AM local time, this flight takes more than 10 hours. An hour later, we found ourselves at a local hotel, but the day was at dawn, hours later we will start the tour in Jerusalem, I was not sleepy at all.

This is my first glance of Jerusalem.

As I said I didn’t prepare summer dress, the morning time tour was hot for me. I didn’t have a big lunch (my stomach was still in China maybe)  instead I drunk three big glass of iced water, that made me some trouble in the afternoon tour. In the afternoon, we made a tour through the old area of Jerusalem, the highlight of this trip I think, I prepare my sharpest lens, check the battery and my GPS,  I was looking forward to take some really cool pictures, everything seems to be ready, but once we past through the old city gate, we were in the old city alley area, my belly was upside down. We went through some churches and along the road where Jesus past through 2000 years ago,  everyone in the group was attentively listening up to the guide, but I was thinking where can I find a nice toilet! I should have taken more photos, if I didn’t drink that much water, but here are some:

Kids in the old city, I don’t know what this gesture means:

Here, you can find a panorama picture of the Wailing Wall.

A close up photo.

2nd day, we had a some more tour around Jerusalem, on top a hill, I took this panorama photo, we didn’t spend much time at Jerusalem this morning, as we need to go Bethlehem in the Palestinian, a local guide and bus were waiting for us at other side of the wall, as I was always the last one in the group, I didn’t catch up much with the guide’s introduction. I was told this is the oldest Orthodox Church in the world, it was very busy with tourist, this is one of the photos that I took here, I hope it will make some sense of history.

After lunch (this time I didn’t drink any water at all), the whole afternoon we were on the bus to Eilat, the summer resort for locals.

This is a snapshot from inside the bus, the wonderful cloud blur the sun, so easy for me to take a photo like this.

3rd day morning, I had a dive in the Red Sea, it was fantastic to see the colorful fishes just below the water, and my only chance to drive away the hot from my body. Eilat is definitely a small town in the eyes of Chinese, beyond the city skyline, everything in your eyes is just sandy hills, it is a little humid even in the night, but the temperature of the sea water is just fine.

Can you see a fish in the center of this photo?

In the afternoon, we entered the border for a two days visit in Jordan, our destination was Petra, along with the King’s way, the local guide told me, just about a week ago, the road was still frozen with snow, but now the sun come up with us, this week it was hot as in summer. I should say, Jordan is even hot in day time, but after sunset, temperature dropped quickly. Our hotel locates perfectly by the canyon.

Next morning, just before dawn, in the coldness of morning I took some photos of the mountain:

In minutes, I took some more of this panorama view here. The Petra was a fantastic place to visit, a more through visit should be around 2 days, but our schedule was just in 3 hours. An early visit is more advantageous, as you can avoid big groups, and take some nice photo without too many tourists.

For the rest of the day, we were rushing for Amman, except a lunch at Madaba, a short visit to the Mosaic Church, and some photos stop at Mount Nebo, we arrived at our hotel in the downtown of Amman by 18:00.

Morning call was set at 6 am, but it was needless, I was waked up by a beautiful song from a local mosque somewhere, a calling for Friday morning ceremony. We started day by a mini city tour in Amman, a city famous for 7 mountains or hills, here is one of them. By the time of lunch, we were back in Israel again, the day was hot as usual, good time for a float in the Dead Sea.

Tel Aviv is a city with a history just about 100 years, different from Jerusalem, it offers much sense of commercial and modern life. This is our last day for this trip. The beach is just 5 minutes walk from our hotel Marina.

Here is Haifa, another port city, just about 1 hours drive in the north.

During the returning flight, I successfully fall into a sleep, next morning, when I waked up, I took this photo, we were already above the Province of Gansu China.

The tour is over, but I am still in the mood to go somewhere else, and in bed, I still hold a book about Jerusalem in hand, maybe trying to make up me my time lost in the old city, or maybe, my real trip is not finished yet.

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Decoration on top a courtyard entrance.

Candy in the street.

Some hot and spicy food in a small alley.

One of the party members on top of roof.

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Last year I got an add-on device for my Nikon camera, it was very convenient to locate the photos that I shoot, wherever I was, the GPS data will be inserted behind the photo, and when I go home, I just upload the photos to the Panoramio site, it was fantastic, all the photos will be mapped automatically on the map.

It was fun till last December, when I upload photos to the same website, the photos were mapped somewhere else, the offset could be even a hundred km away. After a little research, I think the Panoramio got some problems recently, the proof is, to upload a same picture both to Panoramio, and Flickr, they were mapped at different spot, Flicky got the right location.

I don’t know when Panoramio will fix this problem, but before that, I have to map them manually. I will have a chance to visit Israel by the Chinese New Year, hope I can find myself in the map.

By the way, if you have a Nikon, the GPS will work on: D5000, D90, D200, D300, D3, D3x.

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I am sure, there will be another rush for this.

For more detail, check the engadget site here, or just go to Apple’s site here.

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Today we use just about 3000 characters for most of the daily use, it is also pretty good enough for most of the academic works, but how to express ourselves properly in sense of modern life, how to say, for example, “internet” in characters? instead of creating new characters, modern Chinese is prone to put characters together mostly for new meanings, and by this way, every year some new words come out.

Today let’s see two Chinese characters.

This character pronounce in Chinese as “GU”, it has several meanings:
1. Water springs out from a valley, note the shape on the left, the Inscriptions on the oracle bones represents water splash out from the water orifice.
2. Valley, gorge, or something narrow as the water to go through.
3. Grain.

Pronounced as “GE”, meaning song or lyrics as noun, sing or praise as a verb.

If we put them together, they should pronounced something like “GuGe”, meaningly the song of grain, or the song of harvest, guess what is that representing? okay, you can move your mouse to the folllowing blank space, you will get the answer.

Maybe you got the news recently, that Google China is Go-Go from mainland China, we hope that this word is not going to lay down in the dictionary.

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Click here for more my last visit to this place. The place is very close to the subway station at the Chongwenmen.

This is the Corner Tower from the Ming Dynasty.

The photo below was the Signal Station of the old railway to Shenyang, if you keep going about 2 KM west, then you will get to the Peking Railway Station, which today is very close to the Tian’anmen Square, and the station is now renovated into a railway museum.

I also made a very simple 3d sketch to the wall:

And here is the map of the park:

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2-The Xishiku Cathedral (西什库天主堂), commonly referred to as the Beitang (北堂, the North Cathedral) is one of the most ornate and magnificent church in Beijing. Established in 1703, the Xishkiku Cathedral is also where the Beijing Cardinal Bishop Office is located at and it is affiliated with the Patriotic Catholic Church of China.

The cathedral’s present cast iron Gothic architectural style and elaborate grey marble facade was built in 1890. The church stands in a spacious grounds surrounded by pine and oak tree and two Chinese pavilions.

3-The Wangfujing Cathedral (王府井天主堂), also named St. Joseph’s Wangfujing Cathedral or to the locals, Dongtang (东堂, the East Cathedral) is a historic Catholic cathedral located in the downtown Wangfujing shopping street. It was firstly established in 1655 by two foreign priests,and was rebuilt in 1904. After the restoration in 1980, the church reopened. It is a tourist attraction spot and many people like to take their wedding picture here.

4-The Xizhimen Church (西直门天主堂), or Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church (圣母圣衣堂) is a Roman Catholic Church located on the southern side of the Xizhimen Nei Street in Beijing. It is commonly referred to as Xitang (西堂, the West Church) to the locals. The Xizhimen Church is the youngest and the smallest church of the four grand Catholic churches in Beijing. The Western Church was first established in 1723 by the Italian missionary Teodorico Pedrini; destroyed in 1811, it was rebuilt in 1867; after a second destruction in 1900, it was built again in 1912 as we can see it today. Delicate Collins pillars and Gothic peaked arches inside the church create a grand, elegant and solemn impression upon visitors.

6-Nangangzi Christian Church (南岗子天主堂)， locates in Yongsheng alley, Xingfu Street, Chongwen. It started as a nunnery and a local hospital in 1910, was enlarged and restored into a Gothe style church in 1923. In 1952, it was closed and reopen in 1986.

7-Protestant Asbury Church at Chongwenmen (亚斯立堂), is the biggest Christian church in Beijing,and also was the first church constructed by the American Methodist Church in Northern China. In 1998, US president Klinton visited here. It holds the service in both Chinese and Korean.

8-Zhushikou Protestant Church (珠市口堂)，locates at the intersection between Zhoushikou Xidajie and Qianmen Dajie, it was established in 1904, closed during the Cultural Revolution in 1966, and re-opened in 1980. Some modern technology said to be used in this church.

9-Gangwashi Church (缸瓦市堂)
This is a very small church.

10-Kuanjie Church (宽街堂)
Another some church

11-Haidian Church (海淀堂)
This is just rebuilt, it is very big and new, locates just behind the Zhongguancun Dinghao Computer City.

12-Beijing Anglican Church (英利甘教堂、中华圣公会堂), is the first Anglican Church in Beijing. It was build in 1907. In 1990, the building was purchased by a Hongkong based information enterprise.

13-The St. Michael’s Church (圣弥厄尔教堂), in Dongjiaomin Alley was first built in 1901. The twin-spired, Gothic-style church served firstly as the place of Christian worship for the French community of Beijing before 1949, The church was closed in 1958 and did not reopen again until 1989. Its entrance is in the south, and the whole building follows typical Gothic style.The church is known for its beautiful stained glass windows. Mass is held from 6.30am on weekdays and at 7am, 8am and 6pm on Sundays. English services are held on Fridays and Sundays.

Others more to be explored include:

The Dongguantou Church, is located at Dongguantou Village of Fengtai District in southeastern Beijing. The time when it was first built is not known. There used to be an ordinary one-storey house, which was torn down in 1991, and a new church was built at the same place. The style of the church reflects the architect’s inspiration, the fa?ade is proportional, and the two warped cornices resemble flying wings and show its individuation.

Longzhuang Church, is located in Tongzhou, suburb of Beijing. There used to be an old church. Local people said that it had been there for more than 100 years, but the exact time cannot be confirmed. In 1998, the Longzhuang Church was rebuilt in the west of the village. It is a red brick construction and faces south. The towering spire points to the blue sky, making the church spectacular.

Housangyu Village Church, is located in Mentougou, suburb of Beijing. It was the oldest Catholic church in Beijing. According to historical records, it was originally a small church built in 1334, with stone-carved poodles in front of it and carved with eight Chinese characters Zhen Zai Ji Li, Huai Lin De Yi (bringing good luck to the house and lofty moral to the world).

The Housangyu Village Church was expanded in 1896, and was rebuilt in 1988. With the grand view of mountains, the towering white spire looks striking and splendid. In line with the mountain shape, a winding road was constructed towards the Virgin Mary Hill at the mountainside, which presents a unique view. The church once made contribution to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Invasion.

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