about agile software dev. long but interesting.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html

Theodore Roosevelt

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win
glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor souls who neither
enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the
gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

anticipation

previous moto: things are well and getting better
current moto: good things come to those who wait

Beijing international (half) marathon

today i finally sorted out the payment for the event. exactly 40 days to go.

longest so far...

the meter showed 16km...

hand made pasta (noodles ?!) in the market

fabric market - south beijing

yesterday we headed south to visit the a fabric market. above is a collage of the colorful sites we came across.

the more repulsive sites were of the furs. a lot of furs just out there for anyone who wants to buy. the smell around these stores is terrible and basically i was standing there practically shocked. i have heard about illegal hunting for furs but never had the chance to see that part of the 'channel' :(

first personal goal - 160KM in 4 weeks

completed in 4 weeks minus 2 days :)

Karaoke

Wednesday night (aug 29th) Karaoke. it's been about a year since we had our first Karaoke experience...
the first time was VERY strange: a group of rather not very young group of people meet together in some sort of a 'fake salon' to simply sing !@#$ not to mention that most do not really sing very well :)

seems like things have changed as this time - we sang a lot (!) it takes some substances and the proper mood -- and you sing as if you are competing in COHAV NOLAD finals :)

hot pot

we woke up rather late yesterday. while making coffee - electricity went off (again - we forgot to pay!). luckily banks were open so we could buy electricity immediately.
we took a taxi with K up north, to the famous mushroom restaurant we wanted to go to basically almost a year. others took the bicycle and road part of the way.

about an hour outside of Beijing and you end up in a very roaral kind of scenery. fresh air, a lot of green trees and grass around you.

this is the kind of farm where you can pick fruits by yourself. the restaurant at the farm is a hot pot one, where the menu is comprised of numerous types of mushroom you order and cook by yourself. the dish was excellent.

we arrived back around 17:00. squash with J.

later on - another pre-scheduled hot pot dinner with M and family. one of the guests is a good friend of the owner of the restaurant. after an amazing dinner - really one of the best hot pot i ever had - it turned out that the owner insisted to make the entire dinner (9 people) on the house!

the street where the restaurant is is very nice and actually very close to our apartment.

the ming piao is for the dinner hot pot.

the pictures above are from the mushroom restaurant:
北京市顺义区北石槽镇西赵各庄南御杏园内

http://www.baiguyuan.com/gb/b6.htm