We are cooking finally! It feels great to use the kitchen. There are 2 grocery stores within a 10 minute walk: the WuMart which has all your standard Chinese sundries and April Gourmet which is stocked with a lot of western essentials and isn't too overpriced. They have doughnuts there! My roommate had one, not bad, just a bit stale. They make them here in Beijing. And lots and lots of cheese. But I'm turning lacto in toleranto so that is exempto. The sky is so blue today I am going to run. Very much looking forward to that. Putting up some more pictures here of the Forbidden City and a trendy street in Hou Hai (back lake) where a lot of the old elements of the city have been preserved.

Certain things get blocked here. Youtube, NyTimes, Google.
It just comes and goes. Kind of like a fierce wind that comes and goes too. You get used to it. Maybe its because I live in a richer area, maybe not, but I have seen a lot less suffering here than I did when I lived here 4 years ago. Less people on the street begging. There are certain areas where the beggers go to beg and there are certain trains they walk on, but in general it seems that they left before the Olympics. The subway plays Olympic videos on the videoscreens inside and the beggers passby. I wonder if they understand or can see the screens or not. It's warming up, but the heat has been turned off and the cold still persists, its slowly waning off you can sort of sense spring is coming. The willow trees have turned green. Its refreshing. We're happy.

Raise it up Raise it up.

Long week we had there. I went to Shanghai where it rained the whole time and Hong Kong where the weather was absolutely fantastic compared to Beijing. I basked in the humidity as my hand's and skin have turned into a turtle due to the dryness here. Going to both places made me really realize how much I appreciate Beijing and love living here. Shanghai is nice but the people are a little more curt, they don't have any of the "down home-ness" that you get in Beijing. I think as a foreigner in China, you never get to feel like you are part of the family, but at least in Beijing you can get a sense of that. Its a total over-generalization I'm making here but I'm just going from my experience. Hong Kong is a blast but its like NY to me: nice to visit but I would never want to live there. No space, high rent, everything costs a ton of money, even the b-u-s. Oh, the horror!
Job search is sort of fudging along, everyone is taking their sweet time about hiring. I don't blame them; scary times call for scary reactions and being cautious is a lot less scary than other potential scenarios. I have to leave again in 30 days to stay legal here so I'm going to Vietnam. I have the miles, hopefully I'll get a job soon so I won't have to keep doing this. Yes, its nice to travel every 30 days but only when you have the money for it. Mongolia is also an affordable option, maybe I will take the train there if I have to leave again in 60 days. Aiyooo. Thats it for now. Will post more when there is something relevant to say.

Street Life


Yesterday I was exiting a small restaurant where I had a lunch of eggplant and noodles, a couple came up to me and shoved a piece of paper in front of me and asked me to translate it for them from English to Chinese. We were in the middle of the street (the one on which I live) and I asked them to come to the side of the road with me. They could have been trying to scam me, steal my wallet or something, but my gut told me it wasn't so. Besides, there was a giant emblem with the words "Canada" and the Canadian flag logo on the top of the paper. I recognized it instantly since I frequently walk/drive by the Canadian Embassy here. I read the paper and it was a letter to the woman saying that she had been rejected for a work permit in Canada based upon the fact that the consular officer did not have significant evidence that she wouldn't return to China once the permit expired. I told the couple this and their faces grew long and grim. They asked me to read it again and to explain to them why the Canadians would feel this way about them. I said that it didn't say why, but that probably there where other people who stayed past their permits and the Embassy was drawing a connection between the woman and other foreigners. I said that its tough to be a foreigner no matter where you are, and even in China. They thanked me for my time and walked away but I couldn't help feeling remorse for them. Here we were, 2 different people trying to exchange places in a world shaken up by globalization and rapid economic development. I want their right to work in China and they want my right to work in the "west." But for all the promises that globalization and the interconnectedness of the 21st century provide, the first steps for many of us in realizing and pursuing these promises are so treacherous and decapitating. I hope she gets what she wants, unfortunately she's standing in a long line that seems to never stop growing.

My landlord is sucking. She never wants to fix anything so I had to call my real estate agent to talk to her. My agent is a really nice girl and told me to call her anytime if something like this happened. I think because I'm western and the landlord is not cooperating for this or other reasons, and our perspectives are just different. But she left a lot of her personal stuff here and I want it OUT. How hard is it to take it out or have someone take it out? Seriously. Get your crap and go.

Thats it for now. the sky here looks awful. Its either light brown or dark grey the past couple of days. I feel like I am in a greek tragedy the way it ominously looms over us lately.

The other night my electricity went out. In China, you have to go to the bank to pay for it, so it was about 6 o clock and the bank closed in an hour. So I had to run down there, pay for it (Only $9 for 3 months!) and then run back to the apartment and plug in this type of credit card that has your bank account and apartment number into the meter in the main hallway of my floor. But of course the landlord didn't give me the key to the door to enter all the meters so I had to wait for her to saunter over. I'm not trying to rant, but its just the flavor of life here the past couple of days. In other news, I did have an absolutely amazing massage at a "blind persons massage" place the other day with my new friend Anna. My masseuse wasn't blind at all but she was awesome. I think no trip to China is complete without this activity. And I'm all about paying $12 for an hour long massage that would cost at least $80 back home.

My fish keep on dying. It doesn't make sense, I clean the tank, give them air, only feed them once a week like I'm supposed to and I still end up flushing them down the toilet. It's quite depressing actually. If one dies, do they all start dying?