十月份时我们一起去看 Alex 和 Tommy 一起登 Fitz 的纪录片 A Line Across The Sky，我这位著名的风控狂人朋友说，「电影是个好电影，但是他们也太不小心了，每一步都是关乎生死的大事，他们还有心情开玩笑？」 我告诉他说，我读过Alex的传记，里面说了很多那些看似疯狂的计划背后的故事，对与这些专业运动员来讲，一旦上了墙，剩下来的就只有execution，而更多的工作，已经在上去之前就完成了。就像那些最伟大的画家一样，看似用最随意的线条创作出随意的效果，但实际上每一笔都是非常认真的。
“All the soloing I had done during the previous several years had taught me the value of preparation. But I’d never prepared for a free solo as diligently as I did for Moonlight. Rehearsing the moves on toprope for two days until I had every sequence lodged in my memory was crucial, but so were those days of just sitting and thinking. Imagining every placement of each hand and foot all the way up the huge route. Visualizing everything that could happen. . . . In a real sense, I performed the hard work of that free solo during the days leading up to it. Once I was on the climb, it was just a matter of executing.” ― from “Alone on the Wall“
After Christmas last year, I spent a couple of days in the small town of Jiaoxie (角斜), close to Nantong (南通), three hours west of Shanghai.
Nantong is an important river port located on the northern bank of the Yangtze River whose prosperity was catalyzed by a local industrialist, Zhang Jian (张謇), who founded Nantong’s first cotton mills in 1899. Nantong has remained an important center for the textile industry.
The main street in Jiaoxie is a hive of activity with small shops and restaurants spilling welcomingly out onto the pavements. Run by Mr. Wu and his extended family, one such establishment is Wang Wang Breakfast (旺旺早点), where tasty buns, wonton noodles and flatbread are the order of the day all year round.
Everything is made by hand and, while the tools might be basic, the skills and techniques required have been honed over years of experience. Watching Mr. Wu form each lump of dough into a precisely formed bun is almost hypnotic!
Nian gao (年糕), a type of rice cake, is made by mixing rice with glutinous rice and then steaming to cook.
年糕，一种大米做的糕点，是用大米和糯米混合蒸成。
It is considered good luck to eat nian gao during Chinese New Year, because “nian gao” is a homonym for “higher year” (年年高升).
在新年吃年糕寓意吉祥，因为”年糕“与”年年高升“谐音。
A wooden grid is used to form the rice powder into squares before placing on a damp cloth to steam. Sometimes they’re filled with sweet red bean paste.
In the popular Chinese fantasy novel Journey to the West, the Monkey King is stationed as the Protector of the Peaches and ends up stealing one in order to prolong his own life leading to much mischief!
– 港铁钻石山 C2出口，乘坐 92路双层巴士到终点站西贡镇。 MTR Diamond Hill Station, Exit C2, take bus 92 to Sai Kung Peninsula.
– 从西贡镇汽车站乘坐94路双层巴士，开往黄石码头方向，在北潭涌下车。 From Sai Kung town catch bus 94 towards Wong Shek pier and alight at Pak Tam Chung Station.
– 从北潭涌车站沿着大网仔路走大约五分钟，到达麦理浩径起点。 From Pak Tam Chung Station, walk along Tai Mong Tsai Road for approximately five minutes until you reach the start of the trail.
– 沿着西贡万宜路绕过万宜水库南边，经过水库的西坝和东坝，最后到达浪茄沙滩。 Pak Tam Chung → Long Ke
– 由西贡郊野公园的北半部，沿着郊野公园的边界而行，跨国西湾山，下吹筒坳、西湾、经咸田湾到达大浪湾。 Long Ke → Tai Long Wan
– 从大浪湾出发，经赤径1抵北潭凹为终点。此地有巴士返回西贡镇。 Tai Long Wan → Pak Tam Au → Sai Kung town
赤经中段会经过蚺蛇尖并路过一个很小的赤径码头，旁边那座山叫做狐狸叫(Wu Lei Kiu)。从狐狸叫乘船至黄石码头后，可乘96R路巴士直接返回钻石山 ↩
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs.Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you’ve had quite enough
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the ‘milky way’
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us, it’s just three thousand light years wide
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go ’round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth
