Anyone else feel the earthquake today? I am on the 14th floor, the building was swaying a bit, thought it was me, but I put a coat hanger on a nail and watched it swinging back and forth. News around the world reporting 43 people dead and 20,000 homes damaged.

Anyone here when the Lijiang earthquake happened? How bad was it here? And my girlfriend is worried about going to New Zealand because of earthquakes... at least we don't do *much* tofu construction there...

Just came back from the train station. Saw about 40 single travelling lao wai males getting on the train to Quijing. They were all eyeing each other up, were all dressed up for partying and most had at least 1 pocket full of condoms. Will be interesting to be in the Quijing maternity ward 9 months from now though for the ones that slip one past the goalie. Chris8080, what have you done?? I booked my ticket for tomorrow, hopefully its less crowded :-p

For me - love (met my girlfriend here while visiting last time), learning the language (always wanted to do), experiencing and learning about a place that is SOO different from the west yet just as relevant and to post long boring diatribes on expat internet forums :-p

I have semi changed my mind in that I can understand better laotou's point about having a gun as a preventative for normal citizens in a country where gun control is fragmented (different states, different controls, yet no cross state border searches) resulting in a proliferation of the weapons. However I never feel safe visiting America as I am aware of the gun proliferation.

But I have lived in a country that went through a near "free for all" attitude to gun control to a "highly controlled" attitude - in the response to mass killings at home and abroad. While my father bitterly complained (he owned many rifles for hunting including semi automatics which I was bought up with and used on rabbits/possums/other pests frequently - my family were/are very much in pro gun circles) at the time about increased gun controls (basically he had to have yearly assessments by police/psychologists etc to continue having a semi automatic weapon), he now sees that his country is much safer by the increased control of weapons, has got rid of his semi automatic rifle and has changed more to pro gun control. His reason for getting rid of his semi automatics was that he didn't want them to ever be stolen and fall into the hands of criminals - not something he really ever thought about before, and the onerous requirements of ownership. He now owns 3 rifles .22, .22 magnum and a .308 which he uses for deer, rabbits, pigs and possums (a pest in New Zealand, sorry Aussies!). He now has to keep his weapons in a locked steel vault, the bolts and ammunition in 2 separate locations. Basically he couldn't use the weapons for defence of his property/life, but doesn't feel he would need to as it is highly unlikely now that intruders would be armed and he lives a lot happier life with that knowledge.

When the laws changed to virtually outlaw private ownership of assault weapons/hand guns etc in my country there was a government amnesty where for (I may be wrong) about 2 years illegal weapons could be handed into any police station. After that time ownership of these weapons without the proper licenses (basically you have to be a member of a gun club to gain access to the weapons and even then are constantly assessed by police etc, to fire a weapon requires a well regulated license) would result in jail time and destruction of the weapons. The laws surrounding these weapons make casual ownership of them so onerous, and the punishments so large that owning them becomes too much of a hassle. Added to this the guns are virtually impossible to buy and the societal cues telling you that gun ownership makes you a "crazy", uptake of weapon ownership by young people has dropped dramatically. Go to any rifle club in my country and the owners are generally middle aged men.

The result of the law change stemming from a massacre in 1990 was staggering from a national psyche perspective, particularly those that were pro gun. In a few short years owning a gun designed for offence/defence turned from something "cool and sometimes necessary" to being very very uncool and if you still had one illegally you were looked at as a paranoid psychopath. People felt a LOT safer. Gun violence dropped dramatically. However we do, on occasion, still have gun violence, usually when a weapon has not been secured properly and/or falls into criminal/unstable persons hands or accidental hunting deaths. And there are still quite a few floating around illegally, but that number diminishes every year.

You see, pro gun people, I have lived through an era of tightening gun controls in a democratic free thinking country. The result is NOT doom and gloom, it is quite the opposite. The country prospers as a result through less gun violence and (probably more importantly) a shift in the psyche of people who own guns from a militarized pro gun warmongering type attitudes (I include a few of my relatives in this) to a much more even, clear headed, thinking, peaceful people. Thats why I can see that defending gun ownership based on antiquated notions of defence or irrelevant dissonant arguments shows you are stuck in the same paradigm many in my own country were previously, which makes me sad. So Texas Boy, have I changed my mind? NO!

There is one behind the China Mobile shop/building on Renmin Zhong Lu. Guarded and inside out of the weather. I think the lady charges 5 kuai for you to charge ya bike there. From there its about a 5 minute walk across Renmin Zhong Lu to Green Lake. Its listed as "A Go Go Comic and Animation" on google maps.