Ok, I haven't updated in a long, long time, and I apologize to all those who've taken the time to let me know how disappointed they are in me (I'm looking at you, Sandy.) I've decided to create a new blog, since I can't view this one here in China. I'll also be able to post pictures on my new blog and thus create a complete multimedia hullabaloo of goodness. I hope y'all enjoy.

Doug's New Blog

Here we go again…

First, let me tell y’all about my class schedule for this semester – it rocks. Here’s why: I am teaching the same class (different students) that I taught last year. This means no new lesson plans. I also have every Friday off. This’ll let me do a whole lot of short trips out of Beijing. Also, I start on the 20th of September. (That’s a week later than everyone else.) I’m doing everything I can not to gloat in front of the other teachers, but it’s really hard.

I just returned from a short trip to Shanhaiguan – the place where the Great Wall meets the Pacific Ocean. It’s a beautiful small town (150,000 people) with a really laid back, friendly attitude. It was pretty much everything Beijing isn’t. Let me give you a quick breakdown of what happened. First, Mike and I took an early train from Beijing to Shanhaiguan. We rode “hard seat” class – the least expensive and most uncomfortable way to travel. Thankfully the ride only took 4 hours. Upon arriving in Shanhaiguan, we walked around in an attempt to find one of the three hotels which are listed in the LP. Since the map included was lacking in detail – and the fact that I only saw one street sign as we wandered – we managed to get more than a little lost. Thankfully we did stumble across a pedi-cab with a driver who knew of a great hotel and took us there without too much trouble. The hotel was a remodeled courtyard house and it was in great shape (for China.)

After getting situated Mike and I went for a wander to get a feel for the city. The Great Wall runs along the east side of the city and the part of the city that had our hotel was inside of a gate in the wall. (A gate in the Great Wall was a walled compound that housed a whole lotta soldiers to protect the gate from invaders.) The ocean is South of the city and the Great Wall meets the ocean at laolongtou (old dragon head.) Eventually Mike and I found a museum, which we toured with a guide who spoke English fairly well. An interesting tidbit about this museum – it had no point or purpose. It was a little bit of everything from everywhere in China. Most museums in China have just a little bit of this problem but this one was completely random. After that, we went to dinner at a crazy restaurant recommended in LP. We were the only people in the restaurant and when we finished eating the guy took a picture of us to hang on his wall (the wall was covered with pictures of foreigners.) Also, I ordered a can of coke and watched the waitress run down the block to a convenience store to purchase my coke.
After dinner we wandered around for a while and eventually found a row of shops that were selling tourist junk at remarkably reduced prices – most stuff sold for a tenth of the Beijing price. The next day we went down to laolongtou and saw the ocean. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and a steady breeze. We headed back to Beijing in the afternoon – another long and painful train ride – and dealt with the impenetrable crowds around the Beijing train station.

Mike took a lot of pictures and he has website where he'll be posting them soon. I've added a link to his website - feel free to check out his pics.

The past few days have been incredibly busy – I’ve been playing floor mom for all the new teachers. They’re a decent bunch, although they don’t seem to be adjusting at all. They’re struggling, to put it mildly. Here’s an example: Saturday I took three of the new teachers to the Lido Hotel – the Lido sits in the middle of a great bunch of DVD stores and close to a couple of foreign import stores. We arrived and two of them headed straight to one of the import stores. They purchased loaves of French bread, went outside to the curb, sat down, and ate the entire loaf. I was surprised by the display (as were the masses of Beijingers who teemed past.) So I made sure that they had some lunch and answered more questions. I’ve answered more questions in the past week than I ever have. I mean that sincerely. I’ve actually posted hours on the door of my apartment, because the newbies seem to have no sense of time – have you ever had someone ask you at three in the morning where to buy cheese? I have. (The person in question was very homesick as well as concerned about dairy products.)

More newbies arrive tomorrow; I’m writing a short guidebook that should answer most of their questions. I also bought English maps of Beijing to give them and hopefully this will solve most of their problems here in Beijing. The problems that they’ve taken with them I can’t do anything about.

It’s thundering outside, and it’s bound to start raining at any minute. The sky’s all ugly and bruised, so it’ll be a doozy. The air was thick with pollution today, but tomorrow it’ll be clean and crisp for awhile – until the pollution rolls back in (around noon, most likely.)

Well, that’s enough for now.

The past few days have been a blur – I haven’t been feeling too well and I’ve been taking it really easy. I spent Sunday with the Brassers, Monday I went to PriceSmart, a bulk goods store like Sam’s Club, and browsed around, Tuesday I wandered around the embassy district, and today I moseyed down around the Forbidden City. I’ll give you a few highlights of the past four days:

1. The weather has been spot-on perfect. Bright blue skies, minimal clouds, and a nice breeze is all we’ve had for the past three days – no smog or oppressive grayness.

2. I went down to Silk Alley with Mike T. (the teacher – Mike B. is my friend of Calvin fame.) Mike T has been almost everywhere in Beijing, but he hadn’t been there before today. Silk Alley is one of those “flagrant tourist” spots – it’s a market where everything is overpriced (but you can haggle) and I always keep a hand on my wallet. Silk Alley dead ends into a US embassy, but you can’t get there thanks to a large wall of barbed wire and Chinese guards with automatic weapons.

3. Today I had the strangest dish at lunch – it was beef jerky in a peppery sauce. It came on the recommendation of a waitress, and I don’t have a clue as to what it is called. But it was really good.

I still haven’t heard when classes start or what I am supposed to teach. I’m trying to be patient, but it’s getting hard to be calm here in Beijing.

A whole slew of new teachers arrived today and an old one too. Mel's back for a goodbye tour of Beijing - she's been travelling around Asia since she finished teaching and felt that she had to say goodbye to all of her friends here one more time (real reason: she left most of her possessions here. It is good to know that she cares enough to
lie.) She ended up hanging around my apartment and we caught up on the happenings and managed to watch 6 episodes of 24. Yes, I am aware how sad that sounds, but I'm still a little jet-lagged and Mel was really tired and out of it.

I also replaced my crappy, plastic, dribbler showerhead with a nice and powerful brushed stainless steel model. I also replaced the flexible hose that connects the pipe to the showerhead - I now have a hose long enough that I could easily shower in the middle of my living room. Not that I would, of course, but it is nice to have that option.

I've been hearing rumors that my classes might not start until Sept. 13, but they are just rumors . I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find out that my classes start Tuesday. I'll keep y'all posted.

I just returned from IKEA with a really comfy faux-leather recliner and footstool. I just thought I'd let y'all know. (My couch with its rock-like feel managed to offend my mother's sensibilities, and I know that she was concerned about my seating arrangements.) This afternoon I'll be heading out to the Underground Market - it's a fun mixture of antiques, souvenirs, everyday essentials and crap. It's a great time, and I highly recommend it.

I’m back in Beijing. I arrived last night. I suffered through the longest and most painful set of flights possible. I flew with the main airline of the Great White North (I’d mention the name, but I’d rather not get sued for libel) and it sucked. Here’s why:

1. No food from Vancouver to Beijing – GWN air is having a contract dispute with its caterer, so no food for me (they did have drinks)

2. A 7 hour delay in Vancouver – I can understand this, but no explanation was given and we were strung along – just fifteen minutes more, just thirty minutes more

3. I ended up sitting next to an older lady who could hardly hear and seemed a little disoriented. During each movie she would elbow me viciously every five minutes or so and then ask me to explain what had just happened. She also gave two long monologues – one about UFOs and aliens and one on the different types of demons and angels (according to tradition.) It was fantastic.

4. The movies sucked. We saw Man on Fire, Fantasia (a crappy Hong Kong movie, not the Walt Disney classic) and Hellboy. Feeling a little depressed and abandoned? Try watching Hellboy while listening to an incoherent monologue on demons after 10 hours of a 14 hour flight.

But I’m back in Beijing now – I’ve been cleaning and rearranging furniture today. Not much else is happening around here - most of the teachers are arriving over the weekend.

Most of you are aware of this, but for the few who aren't in the know - I'm back in the sleepy town of Holland, Michigan. I left Beijing three weeks ago and have been dividing my time between the beach, friends, and relatives. I head back to Beijing in three weeks, and I'm ready to go... adjusting to life in the USA has been a little rough.

As I'm sure you've noticed, I've taken the time to overhaul my blog. I'd been unable to view my blog in Beijing (I can see the text but not the look & feel) and these changes are long overdue.

It’s over.

I’m sitting on my balcony in the sweltering heat of the evening, sipping a cold, frosty beverage. It’s nice out here – there’s a little bit of a breeze, and I can smell the night jasmine in the park fourteen stories below. The sky is remarkably clear (for the perpetual smoginess of Beijing’s air) and I can see the moon and stars tonight. I’m in an excellent mood – I’m done with classes for the year, and I have a month to revel away before I head back home for the summer.

I finished my “special” class a week ago and I’ve been relaxing for the past week. I have visitors arriving on Monday (my little bro and my mom) and so I’ve also spent a considerable amount time organizing and cleaning my apartment – I think I have almost everything squared away. I’m packed and ready to head back at the moment – hopefully this’ll make it easier for me to travel after my visitors head back to the States.

For those of you who talked about visiting when I left and haven’t yet found the time to mosey on over, I am very disappointed in you. But I’m going to be really nice and stay an extra year so that you’ll have a whole ‘nuther year of chances to visit. This was not an easy choice to make, but I feel that I’ll have a better chance of accomplishing my goals if I spend another school year here in Beijing. For the record, this goal does not involve marriage – I really want to develop my Chinese, and if I stay in Beijing for another year I should be much closer to fluency. I will be heading back to Michigan in July to decompress a bit and reconnect with good ole American culture… and Mexican food. (There is no authentic Mexican food in China, at least none that I’ve seen and I’ve looked hard. There are a few attempts, but they fall short.)

Yesterday I had to attend an awards ceremony for foreign teachers – it was really short. It took 25 minutes, tops. I walked away with a Beihang t-shirt and a Beijing bottle opener. I also had to go to dinner with my department head and random professors. This took substantially longer than the ceremony, and I had to eat “formal” Chinese food – things like spicy fish scales and dried camel hump – yummy! Afterwards I went out with most of the other foreign teachers to Tomato – a German pizza restaurant especially popular with the Korean college students in Beijing. It’s an okay place – they have there own micro-brewery and that’s all right with me.

Let’s see, what else has happened in the past few weeks…………… not a whole lot, apparently. So I’ll stop here.

Mwhahahaha! I removed quite a few viruses from my ‘puter, and now I can access the internet from my room. (I managed to find a real licensed copy of Norton AV in the high-tech district of Beijing.) I’m back in the nineties, technology-wise. It feels good.

I’m done with my semester, and I have two days of teaching left – it’s a special introductory class that takes place next week. I’m not exactly sure what “special introductory class” means. It’s only 12 hours of teaching, and I’m supposed to spend 4 of those hours testing their English skills. So it’s not that big of a deal and I’m finished with all of this on June 10. The end is near (at least for this semester…)

I have the entire week off, but I still have a few non-work commitments which have resisted my attempts to weasel out. So I won’t be traveling – what will I do? My goal for this week is to find the first 7-11 in Beijing. Apparently one recently opened here (although no one seems to know exactly where it is) and I’ve decided that I have to track it down. Chances are it’s on the east side of Beijing, since that is where the majority of foreigners live. I haven’t spent a lot of time in that area (I live on the west side of Beijing) and I’d like to explore it – this seems like the perfect excuse.

Last night I judged an English language karaoke contest held at Beihang. It was long – it lasted for almost three hours – three hours of mostly off-key karaoke. All of the karaoke-ers were students at Beihang, and more than half had been students of mine. Some of the contestants were excellent, but most were so-so at best. I was a little upset because I had been planning on giving feedback to the contestants – I had been told that by my boss – and I had spent some time preparing some really good slams. Didn’t get a chance to let’m fly.

I’ll be filling in the gaps in this blog in the upcoming weeks – keep checking for updates

Yo.

It's time to take a small preventive step and share a story that will eventually find its way to your ears. I do not think this story is that funny, in fact I'm slightly embarrassed by it. But a good friend of mine (whose last name coincides with the subject that I'm teaching) has been sharing it, so I'd better beat him to the punch. I had this awful dream about a raging penguin who was trying to kill me for some atrocity I'd committed against all penguins (I'm not sure what it was - the dream was vivid but not specific.) The murderous penguin was at least six feet tall and incredibly intelligent- it managed to track me all over the world. It eventually cornered me and I flat-body jumped awake. Unfortunately I had placed a chair in a corner which had a large pile of laundry strewn over it. I'm cursed with a slightly overactive mind and a large set of lungs - when I saw the penguin lurking in the corner waiting to deliver the finishing peck, I let a scream of complete unabashed terror escape. I spent the rest of the night trying to get back to sleep.

Here's the aftermath: the next day I was a little late for class and hurrying in that general direction when one of my neighbors grabbed me (literally,) stopped me, and asked if I was all right. I tried to blow it off, since I assumed it was social pulp, but he asked again. I assured him that I was fine, but late for class. He seemed greatly relieved, and explained that he'd heard me scream the night before. He thought he'd better check up on me. So keep this in mind - if I should happen to slip and while both flailing and falling manage to pin myself under my bookshelf (it's happened in GR) - I'm screwed, since my neighbor prefers to wait when checking up on screams.

It's the end of the May holiday; I've had the past week off and I return to finish out my classes - give exams and watch movies - tomorrow (and for the next three weeks). I did some traveling over the holiday; I spent five nights in the fab city of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia (it's a province in China that is next to Mongolia, hence the apt name. ) I ended up in Hohhot through some strange twist of fate - my original plan called for me to go to Qingdao, a lovely city on the sea where all the women are foxy and the beer flows like water. This plan fell through - the friend (who shall remain anonymous) I was to travel with had something come up at work at the last minute and could not back out. Thankfully, Mel, also a teacher at Beihang, invited me along on her trip - which she had already planned.

I accompanied Mel and her friends Debbie and Cat to Inner Mongolia. I managed to have a pretty good time, although I would not say that the trip was relaxing. I managed to postulate a few rules of traveling in China after all the pain and suffering - I'm sure that most of you won't be surprised, but if I can spare a few people some frustration, it'll be worth it.
I'll include them in the timeline - I'll place them at the moment they became obvious to me.

The trip started at 8 pm Saturday - Mel, Debbie and myself met Cat at the Beijing West train station. We proceeded to the lounge to wait for our train to discover that it was loading - and so we hurried to find our beds in the hard sleeper section of the train. Doug's Rule #1: when booking hard sleepers, never book a bottom bunk. I had never been on a sleeper train before, and I was not as impressed as I could have been. It was tight and crowded, and our bunks (being on the bottom) were used as seats for the teeming masses until lights out and as steps on the way up and the way down. Thankfully the majority of the train ride was at night, and our intentions were to sleep away most of the time. This was not to be. Directly above me was a man who was quite possibly the loudest snorer that I have ever heard. Now my father is known for his ability to make the house shake with the noise of his sleeping, but my father could not hold a candle to this man. It would have been impressive, had I not been so tired. The one highlight was watching Mel (who is maybe 5'3" and a hundred pounds) pummel the man above in a slight fit of righteous rage.

Early the next morning we arrived in Hohhot. We gathered our belongings, moved off the train and were met by a man who had been sent by the hotel to make sure that we arrived safely. I was a little wary, but the girls hopped into line and followed him. I followed the girls. Thankfully the hotel was directly across the street from the train station - we could not have missed it had we deliberately tried. Upon entering the lobby the man finally introduced himself as a tour guide who worked closely with our hotel. He began talking to the clerk and eventually became quite rosy in the face - apparently the hotel had taken our reservations but not kept any rooms for us to stay in. The tour guide smiled and led us casually out of the hotel and down the street to a different, less classy establishment. Doug's Rule #2: do your best to avoid staying in places that post room rates by the hour. After a bit of haggling we procured two rooms - a single for me and a five person for the three girls. We said goodbye to the tour guide and went to our rooms to settle in and regroup. Upon entering my room I was a little surprised - it seemed very clean and the bed was quite comfy. The girls were not so lucky - there room was a complete disaster. Seeing as we paid 10 kuai ($1.25) for my room and 40 kuai ($5) for their room for the night, I wasn't terribly surprised. They seemed to be. After a bit of hemming and hawing, we headed out into the streets of Hohhot to find an agency to arrange a tour of the grasslands.

This was not as easy as it appeared - The Lonely Planet guide to China turned out to be completely wrong in almost all respects to the city of Hohhot - the map was completely wrong, descriptions of sites and attractions were completely false and misleading- nothing was where it should have been. Doug's Rule #3: Never trust a guide book So we were led on a wild goose chase through the back alleys of Hohhot. After hours of searching we stumbled on to the Inner Mongolian Hotel, a five star hotel located far away from the city center. An official tour agency was supposed to be housed inside according to the lonely planet; unfortunately it was not to be found. What we did find was the hotel tour guide who tried to sell us on a grassland tour, gave us a real, correct map of Hohhot, and found us cheap rooms in a three star hotel (attached but not affiliated with the Inner Mongolian Hotel.) Since we had booked our other hotel for the night, we (the girls, really) decided to spend that night in the sleaze joint and spend the next night in the three star. I'm still not sure why they chose to do this - their room was scary.

On the way back we stopped at the Inner Mongolian Museum, a place so packed full of propaganda that it was more amusing than informative. It did have a sweet wooly mammoth skeleton, but that was the highllight of the Inner Mongolian Museum. We headed back to our hotel and now set out on our original mission: find a tour of the grasslands. We eventually stumbled across another tour agency that had a guide who spoke pretty good English; we decided to book an overnight tour of the grassland with this agency. This made me happy, since my Chinese is OK, but not great - Mel was happy to have me come with her and her friends since my Chinese is better than theirs. Doug's Rule #4: Always travel with someone who speaks the language better than you do. Having an English speaking tour guide made my Chinese skills almost a moot point. So I was a little happy and a lot relieved - all would be well.

It was supper time, and we set out for a Mongolian hotpot restaurant for our nightly repast. For those of you who aren't in the know, Mongolian hotpot consists of a large pot of bubbling broth that you use to cook meat and vegetables. The broth comes in two varieties - mouth-numbingly spicy and sweet. It's a lot of fun and pretty tasty. It also takes a remarkably long time to eat - we had been eating for a little over two hours when our waitress came over and motioned for Cat to follow her into the kitchen. Cat disappeared for a few minutes, and then reappeared to ask Mel to come back into the kitchen as well. A few minutes passed, and then Mel and Cat sauntered out laughing and giggling. They sat down with rather pained smiles on their faces and informed Debbie and I that the waitress had told them that two customers in the restaurant were planning on robbing us when we left the restaurant. The waitress had said that we could wait in the restaurant for as long as we wanted - they would eventually leave. Now I wasn't terribly worried - mugging a foreigner is a crime that has the stiffest of penalties, and I assumed that they would just try to pick our pockets. But the girls wanted to wait, so wait we did. Eventually the customers in question (a man and a woman) left, and we headed back to our hotel without incident.

The next day we packed up our stuff and moved into the three star hotel - I had gotten a great night's sleep, but the girls had not fared as well. They had spent most of the night trying to keep their skin off of the sheets and pillowcases. After settling in to our rooms, we decided to head out to see a "picturesque" mosque. It would have been picturesque, had it not been under construction. We then moseyed down to the main shopping district, where the girls spent an enormous amount of time shopping for jewelry and gloves (for the grasslands) while I desperately tried to keep myself entertained. I've always had a pretty easy time staying entertained, but even my most valiant attempts failed in Hohhot. Their desire for shopping sated and my patience having expired a few hours before, we headed off to dinner at a restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet. This restaurant was right where the LP said it would be (a first) but the restaurant did not have famous dishes mentioned. Relying on my formidable pantomime skills and modest knowledge of Chinese, we managed to only order twice as much food as we needed and left the restaurant quite full. Since we had to get up incredibly early the next day, we turned in early.

We arrived at the tour agency a little after eight am and were on our way to the grasslands by nine. Our English speaking tour guide turned out to be slightly more insane than we hoped - she loved to sing Mongolian songs to us and force us to sing western songs back to her - Edelweiss and Jingle Bells being her favorites and what she demanded from us. She also forced us to take milk tablets (white pills that have the taste and texture of pure unadulterated evil - and I am being kind when I say that.) Upon arriving at our "resort" we deposited our bags in our yurt (a large Mongolian tent) and hopped on our horses for a two hour ride around the grassland. My horse, while nice and tame - some might say with one foot in the grave - did not respond to English commands. It sat quietly until the tour guide clucked and all the horses started plodding along. It was quite thrilling. When the riding was finished, we watched a horse race and some "authentic" Mongolian wrestling - it boils down to grappling, since no hitting or kicking is allowed. After this we had an "authentic" Mongolian dinner. During dinner the baijiu appeared. Baijiu is "white wine" or as I would call it, watered-down engine degreaser. It tastes slightly better than a milk tablet. The Chinese people at our table began pouring out toasts to us foreigners and we, not wanting to offend them, drank with them. Thankfully we were sunburned from the ride, and they thought that we were blushing from the booze. They did slow down a bit, but they all ended up sloppy drunk. I did not end up in such a condition, and I will not comment on the state of my companions. While they were drinking they would sing and then, like our tour guide, would force us to sing to them - we used American Pie, Yesterday, and Oops,..I Did it Again to placate them. After this we were treated to a show of "authetic" Mongolian culture - singing and dancing. Apparently the accordian was invented in Mongolia - I was unaware.

After this wonderful display of "authentic" Mongolian culture the four of us headed back to our yurt to sleep. I haven't mentioned this yet, but the grasslands of Mongolia are known for horses and wind chill - a stiff gale constantly blows, and makes a beautiful spring day feel more like winter. At night it gets mighty cold. Yurts are lined with heavy wool cloth to keep in the heat and stop the wind, but our yurt was a little defective - there was a sligt draft which kept us up all night shivering. So very cold - Mel and Cat both admitted the next mornning that they were positive that they were going to freeze to death - I knew that I would have to suffer. The next morning we headed back to Hohhot after an "authentic" Mongolian breakfast consisting of Chinese breakfast foods.

We wasted a lot of that morning sitting in a coffee shop trying to get warm. We spent most of the afternoon in a park sunning ourselves. The park had a zoo, which was depressing, and a ferris wheel, which offered a great view and a high probability of death. We went back to the hotpot restaurant from the first night for dinner, and after dinner boarded a sleeper train back to Beijing. We had a soft sleeper this time, which provides a private cabin for four with a lock on the door to keep out stewards, robbers, etc. It was nice.

That's a quick run through of my trip to Hohhot - it was a good time, although I'll never travel under those conditions again (especially not to Hohhot.) A few random thoughts for some random people...

Rachel: There are free horses in the grasslands. All you have to do is lassoo'em and tame them and they are yours. Getting them home might be a slight problem.

English: Mel blames you for everything that went wrong on this trip. Just thought you should know.

Beth: I think a yurt should be the "next step" in our families camping escapades. A yurt's supposed to be portable (although the ones that I saw were anything but) and I'll see if I can rustle one up for this summer.

I promised I'd flesh out a few details today and that's what I'm going to do. I've spent a little time reminiscing about the last two months and here's what stands out...

Ethnic Minorities Park - a large park in Beijing that celebrates the different ethnic minorities of China - there are mock ups of their villages and houses that you can walk through and explore - pretty neat in a depressing sort of way (most of the real settlements and authentic houses have been knocked down and replaced with China's solution for modern living - the large soulless soviet-bloc apartment.) It was pretty much void of people and quiet - unusual for Beijing. And it was a bright, sunny, and warm day - all in all, perfect. I've got plenty of pictures.

The perpetual cold that I have had for the past six weeks or so - it's starting to get better now, but I've been hacking and sneezing for that whole time. Maybe it's allergies - I don't know. I've also been getting more than enough sleep in the last month or so - I've actually started going to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour - my mom must be proud.

Tom From Guam - a good friend of mine will be coming to Beijing soon, and while I have many good friends here in Beijing already, more never hurts. No that's not his real name, but I don't think he would like it if I was to put his real name here. For the sake of posterity, I feel I should say (as far as recruiting goes):
Team Beijing: 1-confirmed 2-probables 1-potential
Team Hong Kong: 0

LOTR:ROTK - I finally managed to see this movie in a real theater two weeks ago. The movie wasn't officially released in Beijing until March 14, although it was available earlier in slightly less legal forms, which I avoided like a plague. I wanted to see it in the theater first. Just getting to the theater was a quest in itself - Every mode of transportation that I took broke down on the way to the theater - taxi, bus, subway, ankles (a minor twist, nothing to worry about.) The trip should have taken an hour - it took me just under three to get to the theater. I did enjoy the movie.

That's all that really stands out - I'm sure I'll think of more as time moves on, but that's all you're getting at the moment.

It's been seven weeks since I last updated this - I'd apologize, but I don't really feel like it. So let me give you a quick overview: I'm starting my eighth week of the second semester - I only have six weeks left to teach before the end, and I have my students giving speeches for the majority of the time (this both minimizes my time spent making lesson plans and gives me pseudo-concrete things to grade them on.) My spare time is spent napping (I'm always tired and I've had a perpetual cold for the past few weeks,) cleaning, studying Chinese, playing Euchre and strategy games with Jared, Mike, and Christie, and watching the occasional DVD. My time is flying by here in China; I haven't seen all that I want to see nor done all that I want to do...I'm debating over staying for another year at the moment. I'm leaning towards staying right now, but I haven't made any final decisions yet.

A lot of interesting things have happened - my journal is getting thick and I have been documenting a lot of things for posterity with my camera - but alas my internet is still down, so I can't cut and paste like I'd like. I'm not going to take the time to retype everything, but once it's up again (should be relatively soon, now - I've put the machine in motion) I'll make up for all this lost time.

I know I've said this before, but I'll fill in more tomorrow - I have to put the finishing touches on my lesson plans for the upcoming week.

The internet in my room is still down. This upsets me greatly, since I have to meander down to the nearest internet bar and fight with the teeming masses (who are playing Counter Strike) to get a computer. But now that I'm on a 'puter, I'm not getting off for a while. So let me tell you about the past week.

It's been rough. Apparently there were some problems with the grades that I gave to my students last semester. My boss knew this. Rather than talk to me about it, he gave my phone number and my address out to ALL of my students, so that they could get in touch with me. This upset me, since he's the one who told me not to give this information to my students. My phone had been ringing off the hook, students kept "popping in" at inopportune times, and I spent most of my free time trying to sort through this gigantic mess. Eventually I unplugged my phone - I had given all of my students my email address, but they'd rather call, so this way they had to email me - and spent as little time as possible in my apartment. Yesterday was the last day to change grades for the past semester, and the madness has thankfully stopped. The worst part was that I'd resubmit a grade, and it would take two days for the registrar to change it officially (and notify the student of the change.) So I kept getting upset calls and angry emails and late-night visits from students that I'd already helped. 'Twas frustrating. But it's done now, and I can move on. Hopefully.

My classes are much smaller than last semester, and the students seem to be a little more confident than the previous ones. I'll be spending more time this semester doing lesson plans, since I don't really have a textbook. It'll all work out, I hope.

This past weekend I helped Mike and Christie move in to their new home - I was impressed by how fast it went (although I wasn't there for all of it) and how easy it is to find. It is very conveniently located, and there's even a coffeeshop (which makes great smoothies) right outside their door - ah, the extravagance. That's a word I'm surprised to use.

Wednesday night I hung out with Jared, and when we were walking back from the restaurant, we stumbled across an rink where a bunch of people were playing hockey. We were invited to play, and I had quite possibly the best time that I've had in China. I'll mention this, because I'm sure that Jared does on his blog - I had forgotten to wear a belt, so my pants kept wandering in a general downwards motion, especially when I would try to sprint.

That's all for now, I have to run to my next class. I'll fill in more later.

My internet connection is down in my room. This happens much to frequently around here, and since I prefer to cut and paste my blogs out of Word, I'm out of luck. I have a diatribe prepared - it's all ready to go, nice and informative - but it'll have to wait. So I'll do less than give the highlights - I'll give two. I'll fill the rest in later, when the internet is back up and purring.

The first is that I now have my schedule for the next semester (starts on Monday) - I'll be teaching 14 hours - 8 hours of post-grads, and 6 of master's candidates. I will not have any of the same students this semester - there's no overlap. I also am without a night class - my latest class ends at 4pm. So I'm happy. My schedule could change but hopefully, it won't.

Second - This morning I sat in on a taping of a tv show. I was one of the "experts" (Mel and Jared were also experts.) who gave his/her opinion about learning Chinese. I still don't know why I was there, but it looks like I'll be on tv, so all in all, it's a good thing. The taping was done in a coffee shop outside of Li Gong Daxue (the place where the Calvin students study) and it was very informal. I ended up with two new - free - Chinese dictionaries, so it wasn't a total wash. That's all I have time for at the moment. Sorry.

Here’s what went down in the last week and a half – my apartment is spotless – almost sanitary. I’ve spent an enormous amount of time studying Chinese – I’ve memorized four hundred characters since I’ve returned from Kashgar. I also acquired salsa – this was harder than it sounds. It took me three long, hard days of visiting import shops all around Beijing to find the right salsa. I’d been given a large bag of white corn Tostitos (that’s a long story that I shouldn’t tell without getting permission. I’ll ask and let y’all know how it works out) before I left for parts distant and I wasn’t going to eat them without the proper salsa. Beijing has food from all over the world, but Mexican food is few and far between. There is one restaurant (which I know about, there are probably more) that sells Mexican food in Beijing; it is unlike any Mexican food that I have ever had. That’s not a good thing.

Wednesday night I went to Tomato, a new Italian restaurant in Wudaokou, with the Brassers and Jared English. The food was good and the company was great. Afterwards we went to Sculpting in Time, a coffee shop next door to Tomato that is known for its slow service, and discussed handwriting – theories on and what ours looks like and used to look like. After that we went to Wisdom, an adult toy store, according to the sign. It had numerous games and brainteaser-type puzzles – we didn’t buy anything, but we looked around for a good, long time. When we had finished, the Brassers took off for home, while Jared and I headed back to my place to watch Fight Club, a movie that Jared had never seen. That was the extent of my past week and a half. I could write more, but this is it for the moment.

All right everyone, I know that it has been a long time since I last wrote, so I’d suggest you prepare a drink or two (whatever suits you – I’d pick coffee, except that it’s so hard to find real brewed coffee here), put on your reading glasses, and get all nice and comfy – this is going to be a long one. Everything up to now has been pamphlet-sized – this is going to be a novella. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I promised last time that I would talk about Christmas, so let’s start with that. I’d hate to break a promise. The week of Christmas I didn’t have to teach any classes – they were left open so that I could finish my finals if I needed the time. I had to finish finals in three of my ten classes – the other classes watched a movie or were cancelled if they met on Christmas or the day after (Boxing Day, if you aren’t from the USA.) I say that they watched a movie, since I offered each class the same choices – Mission: Impossible, Shrek, The Truman Show, and The Princess Bride – and each class chose Mission: Impossible. I kept the choices the same since I figured it was a fluke – surely one class would want to watch Shrek… apparently not. I spent Monday and Tuesday watching M:I .in the morning (four times in two days) and the nights grading the listening test finals that I had given to my graduate students the week before. On Wednesday I finished a final with my continuing education students – they were the best and the brightest of my students, and I gave them a conversational final – each student would come to the podium and we would talk for five minutes, and then I would give them a grade based upon their listening and speaking skills. It was much easier to grade than my listening tests, and it seemed less subjective. The listening tests were not well designed – I had to decide how correct the answers were – 50%, 60%, 20% - not just if they were right or wrong. But I digress.

After classes on Christmas Eve I went out for lunch with Mike. On the way back to my apartment, my cell phone rang – it was Mel, letting me know she was sick. I stopped at the store and bought some water and Ritz crackers and dropped them off on my way back to my apartment. I spent the rest of the night grading listening tests and well, that’s about it. I may have spent some time cleaning – my sister was visiting that weekend – but I doubt it. I honestly don’t remember; it was over a month ago.

Christmas morning I awoke very early and called my Grandma Lubbers – the party was going on and I had to call to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. After that I went shopping for Christmas presents – I had a party at the Brassers later in the day. No, I didn’t take the time to prepare earlier – I had a couple of hours to spare, and it all worked out ok. I had lunch at KFC – it was the first time that I’d had KFC in China and it was an experience and a half – it’s like stepping into a pseudo-high-class restaurant –everything is clean and the staff is friendly. ‘Twas very strange, even for Beijing. After that I went back to my apartment to warm up – it was a very cold and blustery day. A few hours later I headed over to the Brassers – they were having a Christmas ham (a real ham, even) and other Christmas foods. We exchanged presents – I received a sweet chair from the Brassers and they received an assortment of stuff from yours truly. After dinner, presents, and a little celebration, I had to leave – Stephanie was having a party of her own that night and I’d promised to stop in. The party was a good time – all the foreign teachers stopped in and the party went long – well into the night. I left early, since I had one final to finish the next morning.

The next morning – Boxing Day, if you prefer – I called G+G (Grandpa and Grandma Hulst) to wish them and the rest of the family a Merry Christmas. After that I went to finish my finals – I had four students that I needed to grade, and after twenty minutes I was finished with my classes for the semester. I believe I went back to my apartment and went to sleep. I don’t think I did anything else worth mentioning, so I’ll skip over it.

Saturday I awoke early – Mike and I were planning on taking a bus trip to the Great Wall. We walked over to the bus stop and waited for about an hour. After realizing that the bus wasn’t coming, we headed over to the terminal to wait inside a bus for about two hours. After losing almost all of my patience, the bus left for the Great Wall. Mike and I rode on a sixty passenger bus with about 5 other Chinese people (including the tour guide.) The tour guide did not speak any English, thankfully Mike speaks Chinese pretty well. We headed to the Thirteen Tombs, a pass in the Great Wall, and eventually to Badaling (though we didn’t really get off the bus at Badaling.) Because it was a private tour bus, we stopped at everything of minimal interest on the way to the three stops. This trip should have taken about four hours, but it took about nine hours. It was quite possibly the longest nine hours of my life. The tombs were interesting for about five minutes or so – the best part was the Chinglish on the signs which were placed about five feet apart all through the tomb area. The best was, and I quote, “Please according to priority for visitage.” It must be a deep truth; I don’t understand it. There really isn’t anything else worth mentioning – it was a nice day for photos and being outside, but I was preoccupied since my sister was arriving later that night.

Ok, let’s move on to Xinjiang Province. I went to Xinjiang Province (Xinjiang can be loosely translated as Western Regions) on my “vacation” (really week three of my seven week break.) I stopped at Urumqi (the capital of the province) and Kashgar – a major stop on the Silk Road. Xinjiang Province is an interesting place – the majority of people belong to a minority group known as Uyghur (pronounced Wee-gir – insert joke about Eminem here – we always did.) Uyghurs look nothing like Han Chinese (undoubtedly what you picture when you conjure an image of Chinese people – they look close to the stereotypical image of a Chinese person, though not exactly, of course.) One could say that Uyghurs hate Hans, since the Han people have been settling in Xinjiang in droves for the past twenty-five years or so. The government encourages the settling and development of Xinjiang, and this upsets the native Uyghurs – they are not happy with the local government. The local government (run by the Hans) has declared the Uyghur way of life unsanitary and have been knocking down the Uyghur housing and rounding up the people who complain as terrorists. There have been protests in the past and the region has had problems with stability – though no foreigners have been targeted in the recent past.

There is an underlying tension in Xinjiang, and it divides both of the cities that I visited. There is a Uyghur part of town and a Han part of town; the Han section is modern and feels a little like Beijing. Step into the Uyghur part of town and you feel like you’ve jumped back in time at least a thousand years, maybe more. All the houses in the Uyghur part of town are made out of straw and mud and sometimes pressed earth. There are modern conveniences, but they are few and far between.

We – Jared English (a friend from college who works in Beijing,) Jason Sigsby (one of Jared’s former roommates and colleagues,) and myself, left for Urumqi early on Friday morning (the 16th of January.) We arrived at the Beijing Airport early – too early to remember the time. Early, very early. There weren’t too many problems in the airport – I made it through security without setting off the metal detector, but Jason wasn’t so lucky. His belt set off the detector, and the security lady de-belted him with an amount of flair that surprised all of us. The flight to Urumqi took 4 hours (almost due west of Beijing) and the plane had video games as well as a highly edited version of Pirates of the Caribbean (all of the scenes that had skeletons in them were cut – so essentially the last half of the movie was gone.) Upon arriving in Urumqi, we had to wait for about an hour or so to claim or baggage – efficient Urumqi ain’t. As we waited we kept placing bets as to when our luggage would come down the chute, and after placing bets for the fifteenth time, our luggage arrived. Stepping outside was painful – it was incredibly cold and dry – it hurt to breathe for the first few minutes. We flagged a taxi and were taken for a ride – it took us over an hour to get to our hotel – it only took ten minutes the other times. The hotel was really nice, in fact it was a five star…and it showed. Everything was modern and the staff were actually helpful (which is impressive for China – there is absolutely no concept of service over here…it is a strange, strange country.) We wandered around the city after dark, and found out that there aren’t enough taxis in Urumqi – we had to wait for at least a half hour before an empty taxi drove by and stopped for us.

The next day we went back to the airport and left for Kashgar – it was an hour and a half flight (due west) from Urumqi, yet it’s in the same province. Kashgar is really close to some of the “stans” – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It’s also pretty close to India. It was one of the main stopping points on the Silk Road back in the day. After we checked into our hotel – the fabulous Qinibagh Hotel (we were the ONLY people staying at the Qinibagh during our stay) – we headed out to explore. We stopped at a little restaurant decently close to our hotel for lunch, and sat a table close to the door. The waiter/cook/owner walked over, and Jared ordered some yan rou tang (lamb soup) and nang (it’s a type of bread.) The w/c/o said, “rice?” Jared repeated the order again – same response from the w/c/o. So we had “poloo” - rice stir-fried with carrot, pumpkin, a huge chunk or roasted lamb, a few small shards of bone to slice up your tongue, and sometimes raisins or pomegranate seeds. We ate this frequently in Kashgar – it seems to be a staple of the Uyghurs, and it is pretty good. After lunch we headed down a street that was lined with hat and knife stalls. Since we seemed to be the only foreigners in Kashgar at the time (it’s a huge tourist spot in the summer,) we attracted a crowd wherever we went. We walked past a large number of fruit stalls which sell a variety of dried fruit – Xinjiang is known for its fruit, and quite a few open-air butchers who had their wares hanging right on the street. It wasn’t as unsanitary as it sounds, since it was colder than a meat locker outside. I even stumbled across a few blacksmith and carpenters who were working their craft the old fashioned way. We also walked through Old Town – the Uyghur suburbs, for lack of a better term. I can’t do it justice, so I won’t try – you have to see it to believe it. After that we went to a really bad museum – it was the most unimpressive and boring thing that I have ever seen, and I’ve driven through Northern Ohio at night…

On Sunday we went to the Sunday Market, the largest open-air market in China. Salespeople come from all over China and the ‘stans to sell their wares, which are primarily spices, knives, rugs, hats, and fruit. Everything else under the sun is also sold here, though in lesser quantities and varieties than the previously mentioned items. Mohammed (a curtain salesman who worked at the Sunday Market, spoke almost perfect English, and was very friendly – we’d met the day before on the street) led us around the market. When we’d seen all that we wanted to see, he suggested that we go to see the livestock market outside of town. We agreed. I’ve never seen so many sheep, goats, donkeys, and horses in one place before. We browsed around for a while (thankfully there weren’t any camels, I’d have purchased one if there were any present) and eventually wandered out of the sales area to watch blacksmiths shoeing horses. Eventually we grew bored, and Mohammed suggested that we visit a cemetery that wasn’t to far away. It turned out to be the most interesting part of the visit to Kashgar, at least as far as I was concerned. The cemetery was immense, and the customs (as explained by Mohammed) were very different from the western set. I won’t go into them here. After that we headed back into Kashgar and began a general mosey back towards our hotel. That night we took a right out of the hotel instead of a left (left led us to the rice? place) and after a two minute walk we were smack in the middle of the Han part of town. We had “Chinese” food for supper instead of Xinjiang food. There are three things you should know about Xinjiang food: no pork (because the Uyghurs are followers of Islam,) no rice (it’s too cold to grow it in Xinjiang – they eat nan, wheat bread, or laghman, wheat noodles, instead,) and the food is hallucination-inspiring, tongue-numbingly spicy. It was a nice change of pace, but I couldn’t eat it everyday.

Our plans for Monday had us taking a trip to one of the borders to look into one of the ‘stans, but due to inclement weather – it was winter – we were unable to get anyone to take us even remotely close. So we went back to the hotel and decided to go back to the Sunday Market - that’s its name, it is open every day, though more stalls are open on Sunday. We acquired a few more souvenirs, and wasted time – we were ready to leave. There isn’t much to do in Kashgar during the winter, since all the tourist attractions are outside of the city and the routes were closed due to snow. That night we went to a Mongolian hotpot joint for supper and I had squid by mistake. ‘Twas the highlight of the day.

Tuesday we left the Qinibagh Hotel behind (good riddance – it was bad, and not in the as time passes my disgust will fade away way – I’ll stand by that feeling ‘til the day I die) and went back to Urumqi. The Kashgar airport left a bad taste in Jared’s mouth – the lady in charge of the airport tax was late, and we had to wait for her to arrive so that we could pay the tax and consequently proceed through security. Jared was chosen by Jason and myself to wait in line for the tax. Why they don’t include the tax in the price of the tickets was a deep question that Jared pondered as he waited; I know this because he kept repeating the question until we arrived in Urumqi. We also rhapsodized about songs for Urumqi on the flight back – we’d adapted “Rock the Casbah” into “Rock the Kashgar” – but Urumqi left us stumped. We checked back in to the Hongfu, and settled in. Eventually we left and explored Urumqi – we found an Islam import store called Istanbul that had all kinds of interesting foodstuffs – like Naibao – a Whopper-esque candy that was really good – good enough that Jason bought at least five pounds of them in bulk. Tuesday night we went to a park that had ice sculptures – bears, dragons, elephants, camels, castles, etc. Jason rode an ice elephant for a pretty sweet picture; when he dismounted, we noticed a large crack had developed in elephant’s tummy region. We moseyed a little faster at this point. We also discovered that the park had a skating rink.

Wednesday morning we went skating at the park, or rather I tried to skate while Jared and Jason skated – the largest skates available were still to small for feet. After two hours Jared and I headed back to the hotel; Jason skated for six hours or so. We had been invited to dinner by the Executive General Manager of the Hongfu – he was from Canada, and we happened to be the only English speaking foreigners staying at the hotel. He’d been in China for fifteen years, and had many stories to tell – especially about the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. After dinner Jared and I headed down to People’s Square at about eleven-thirty for the best fireworks display I have ever seen. Nothing in America comes close (Wednesday was the eve of the lunar new year, and it’s the Chinese equivalent of Christmas.) We were in the center of a large square – maybe a quarter-mile to a side. People were lighting firecracker and rockets around the perimeter, and the mortar tubes were maybe 50 fifty feet away. Fireworks were going off all around and directly overhead – it was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know where to look or what to focus on. It was truly awe-inspiring.

Thursday we took it easy – nothing was open, since it was New Year’s Day.

Friday we went to Tian Chi – a picturesque lake in the middle of a mountain range near Urumqi. It’s a main tourist draw in the summer, and in the winter, when the lake freezes, you can ride horses on it. Or if you prefer, you can take a sleigh. There is also a tube slide – sort of like a bobsled track, but not as steep or as much fun. It was beautiful. We ate lunch in a yurt (it’s a big tent that the Tajiks – the people who live around Tian Chi – used to live in.) It was horribly overpriced and the food was awful, but I can now say that I’ve eaten in a yurt. We relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday was spent relaxing – we had a western breakfast which was the highlight of my day (this was the first western breakfast that I’ve had since coming to China.) We also purchased large quantities of souvenirs in a last minute purchasing attack. Other than that, we didn’t do anything worth mentioning.

Sunday – we packed up, said goodbye to the Hongfu, and flew back to Beijing.

Since then I haven’t done anything except write this. Most of the other foreigner teachers are still traveling – Stephanie is back, but I haven’t run into her yet. That’s it for the moment – I’ll do this more often from here on out, because this took too much time to write. Later.

Unkie Tom, this one’s for you

Well, it is the New Year, and my sister, Sandy, is here in Beijing visiting with me. She’ll be here until the 6th of January. She’s taking a nap at the moment – she hasn’t fully adjusted to the time difference and so we are taking it easy today.

She arrived on Saturday night, and after an uneventful ride from the airport, we settled in and took care of the most important thing – my Christmas presents. (We also caught up on the activities of everyone and everything in Holland and the US in general.)

On Sunday we went to church, and afterwards met with Jared and his cousin, Susannah (she was visiting him over Christmas.) We went to Lido to buy DVDs and for lunch, and eventually made our way to Silk Alley for Sandy’s first taste of Chinese bartering. Now, I can’t say what we purchased – it might have been presents, it might not have been. All you need to know is that we haggled out excellent prices for everything that we bought. Later that night we went to Mike and Christie Brasser’s for dinner and games.

Early Monday morning Sandy and I met Susannah (Jared had to work and asked if Susannah could accompany us on Monday and Tuesday.) and we started our whirlwind tour of Beijing. We started out at the Forbidden City – we went through it at an incredible pace (with Roger Moore as our guide – he narrates the audio tour) and after that we headed to Jingshan park – it is a park directly to the north of the Forbidden City that has a big hill in the middle. The hill was made from the dirt, rocks and debris that were removed to create the moats around the Forbidden City; it also gives a very picturesque view over Tiananmen Square and the F.C.

At this point we went to lunch with Christie - we had an authentic Chinese lunch of baozi and jiaozi (steamed dumplings and filled steamed buns.) After lunch we went to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and spent a few hours wandering around the park – it’s gigantic, to say the least. After we had seen most of the sights – the echo wall, the processional bridge, etc. – we went to Hongqiao Market. This market is known for its pearls, but it has everything under the sun.

Once we had finished shopping (bartering, really) we met up with Jared for dinner. After a very random dinner (we had eel, fruit salad, celery and lily root, and sizzling rice) we went to see an acrobatics show. The show was excellent – contortionists, unicycles, and the Leaf-Men (guys should not wear leotards, especially ones with strategically-placed leaves.) It was impressive and disgusting – people should not bend those ways or have such a great sense of balance.

After that, we went our separate ways. On Tuesday we started later – at 9 am – and began by heading to Tiananmen Square to view Mao’s body (we’d missed it on Monday, and it’s one of those things that you have to see if you’re in Beijing.) I didn’t get to see Mao, since we all had bags, which aren’t allowed in the mausoleum and someone had to guard/hold the bags. After they had seen the Cat – as Mao was known – we headed to the Lama temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing, and there are a whole lotta Buddhas in the temple. There is even a 18m tall giant Buddha in the very back of the temple. It was interesting, but not too terribly interesting – there were only a few signs in English.

After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. We took a bus, and it took a long time to get there. Once we arrived, we moseyed down the Long Corridor – a covered walkway that is over a mile long, is covered with painted scenes, and runs the length of the lake. We ended up at the Marble Boat and then headed around the backside of the mountain and scaled the rocks up to the top of the palace. Scale probably isn’t the right word, since there were “steps” carved into the rocks, but it was steep and slippery. After we finished there, we went back to Jared’s apartment to wait – he was at work and we were tired. When he arrived he was bleeding – he’d fallen off his bike and scraped his hands and knees. Once we got him patched up, we headed out to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant. Mongolian hotpot is a very involved means of eating – you personally stew meat, vegetables and noodles in pot that is on your table. Sandy and Susannah didn’t seem to terribly enthralled with this, but they survived.

After dinner we went to Houhai – a bar area in Beijing that is built around Houhai lake – and cruised the scene. We ended up in a club listening to DJ Leaf do his mix. A live band came on after a while, and Jared requested a song. When the band got around to playing the song, they invited Jared onto the stage to sing with them. He did. The club had a deal going with their “specialty” drink, which tasted they way rubbing alcohol smells. So we each had one, and that was more than enough.

Wednesday was spent at Fuchengmen Market, a large market that has everything anyone could ever want (well…) Sandy bought a sweet blanket – heavy, warm and fleecy-good. I have one, and Sandy had latched onto mine. So I made sure that she acquired one of her own. We also bought quite a few presents, since Fuchengmen is THE place for good presents.

We went out to a Korean barbeque joint for dinner – Sandy, Mike (it was his going away party – he left on Friday), Mel, two of Mel’s friends from Shanghai, and yours truly. Korean barbeque is some of the best food on Earth – the meat and veggies are cooked over coals directly in front of you – tasty-good. After dinner we went to Sanlitun (a different bar street – the main one, in fact) and met up with Jared and Grace (one of Jared’s friends.) We spent New Year’s Eve in Durty Nellie’s Irish Pub listening to a Filipino band play covers of Pink Floyd and U2. Eventually the bartenders threw handfuls and handfuls of glow sticks to the throng. There was a countdown to midnight (though I’m pretty sure that it happened fifteen minutes after midnight, I might be wrong, but I doubt it.) We headed back to campus after one, and had to climb the stairs (fourteen flights – the elevator shuts down at midnight.)

Thursday we slept in and eventually ambled down to Wangfujing (the main shopping street in Beijing) and window-shopped for awhile. We stopped in at the chopstick shop and the foreign language bookstore and bought a few sets of chopsticks and reading material. After Wangfujing we headed down to the Friendship Store to see the real deals – real jade and pearls and antiques. It was enlightening. That night we went to dinner at Ashtray – a local eatery of decent edibles. Sandy was impressed with my ability to order and express myself in Chinese (well, not really – ask her for details.) After dinner we went back the apartment, watched a DVD, and went to sleep.

Now, I know that I promised more on Christmas, and I will – next time. I promise.