textures | tones

Thoughts on traveling by train in China after ten plus years.

I’m sitting in the equivalent of a dining car right now, the privilege of which I had to pay 30RMB for a pot of coffee for, surrounded for the most part by train workings with large calculators going over piles upon piles of receipts. I had thought that buying a bottle of iced tea would be enough to assure me a seat in this car, but then I was very politely informed that the seats are reserved for people partaking in “afternoon tea.” Hence the coffee. At least I also got a small plate of salted peanuts for my troubles. I’m also using my iPad to type as I’m not certain the individual cars have power ports so I don’t want to use my laptop unless I absolutely have to. People are also more and more speaking Cantonese, the southern dialect of Chinese that is entirely incomprehensible to me. I feel my ability to communicate quickly slipping away so for the most part, and also to get some semblance of preferential treatment; I’ve switched to using English most of the time.

The last time I was on a train in China was trying to get home to Beijing from Shanghai. We had purchased our tickets late, or it was some kind of hurry to the station, but whatever the reason we didn’t have the right tickets and were stuck for all intents and purposes standing, many people deep, trying to breathe through a small opening in the window. Compared to what I’m sitting in now, it’s like a completely different world, though I guess that statement’s reasonable considering how China works. Skipping over some details and leaving a whole bunch for later, on that trip so long ago we managed to upgrade our tickets on board to the “soft sleeper,” the type of ticket I’m in right now. What I’ve described before were the “hard sleeper” or “hard seats,” I don’t remember which. The major difference is that instead of six bunks per open compartment with infinitely more people just hanging out in all the hallways and walkways, the “soft sleeper” only has four bunks, air conditioning, and a door. In fact, it was such a difference in temperature, so much colder, that I actually got sick by the end of the trip. But that was then, and only serves as historical context of a sort. This record is about now.

The coffee is quite good by the way; very rich. I only got two packets of sugar, and I have a feeling they’ll charge me if I ask for more, so I’m going to try a cup unsweetened it’s just that good.

My train tickets cost just over 200$ round trip, much cheaper than any airplane option. The train takes 24 hours each way, and is only reasonable time wise because I am unemployed at the moment. As unreasonable as it must seem, there’s a part of me that really enjoys traveling by train. I like the sounds, the views, the way the train shakes as it goes over the tracks. I like the people. Being much older than I was that first time taking the train, having, I hope, matured a bit, I actually regret getting the fancy seat that I have. I feel very isolated from the rest of the train and the people on it. The people traveling in the “soft sleepers” are usually families, and they buy up the entire compartment and close the door for privacy. It’s like their own private little train compartment, and they don’t come out, and they don’t interact with other people. In fact, I feel a little bad for intruding on the other people in my compartment, a Chinese couple and their son, but what can you do. I met some foreigners from Yorkshire in the car I’m in, but they’ve retreated into the safety of their compartment as well. I must have wandered the length of the train as far as they’d let me 3 or 4 times already, seeking out people, not necessarily to talk to because I am still deathly shy, but just to watch, and see how they pass their time.

First is that they really like to share beds. There’d be three young Chinese girls all sitting on the same tiny little bottom bunk, sharing one thin blanket, across the way from an equally crowded other little bottom bunk, this one full of adults, and they’d all be playing cards on a makeshift table made using their luggage. I’m talking about the people in the “hard sleepers,” where there are three levels of small bunks in compartments of six. Quite an impressive site actually also watching these people climb up and down these layers of beds. I had though it difficult to climb onto my bunk which is just one level up, but to imagine climbing six is something else altogether. There are these tiny little fold out metal steps built into the walls, one for each level. They still have the price tag on some of them: they cost 6RMB each apparently.

They also like traveling food. Even the family in my compartment, they have an entire suitcase full of just food to eat. Last I saw them they were slicing their way through one of those cream roll cakes. It looked very good actually, but I personally find it difficult to travel with that much food. My mother is like that though, and in the past whenever I’d leave from home to go back to college she’d back even perishables into my luggage despite my best protests. I think it’s because I like to travel light so it’s difficult to justify an entire extra piece of luggage devoted solely to food. I mean, what do you do with the luggage after the journey when it’s empty? I don’t plan to eat on this journey, mostly also because I don’t think I can bring myself to use the toilet facilities. There’s also this really famous Chinese kind of snack food that’s a whole chicken or duck that’s been stuffed into a vacuum-sealed bag. Walking up and down the aisles it’s easy to spy multiple families going at this piece of cold meat with impressive gusto.

Hard to believe I’ve not yet typed two pages after all this time. It’s actually quite difficult and perhaps not entirely worth it at all. I might transfer this file over to my laptop and continue the typing from there. I’ve switched to my laptop now. I have about an hour and a half of battery life left and I’ve switched the font size formatting. I’ve now typed even less than I had thought for all the effort it cost me; definitely typing on the iPad may not be the world’s greatest idea. I’m also feeling a bit motion sick right now which is surprising.

Some kind of companion on this trip to take in the sights and observations with me would be appreciated. It’s only been a couple of hours and already I feel like I’m running out of things to do. It’s just that, and I think the Chinese people want it this way, like I said I feel very segregated from everyone else. The private compartment, the locked doors between trains, the “fee” to sit down at the dining car, it’s like everyone else wants to be left alone, except me. I want some company. In a way that’s a very Chinese inclination; people who for most of their lives were never alone and so are not used to being alone, find solitude a luxury, something to pay extra money for, and I technically have, so I guess I’m reaping what I’ve sown. It’s still kind of weird though, like, there’s no observation car like in the States, a place to lounge, hang out, and chat with the other passengers.

The entire process of getting on the train was a little harrowing. Apparently I was late without evening knowing I was, but this particular train stops boarding 20 minutes before departure, and I got here at 20 minutes before, and was at the wrong entrance on the wrong floor and had to go all the way back down to go through immigration. I’ve technically “left” the country already, as far as my passport is concerned. I guess that makes the interior of this train like an airport and airplane, a pseudo no man’s land where I can temporarily be in and out at the same time. But I hadn’t expected that, which caused the mad rush at the onset. My entire day actually was surprisingly hurried, so much so that I never got to take that shower I was planning on.

This morning I went to get my cell phone registered so that it could be used outside of Beijing. Unless your phone is registered either with a China resident or under your own passport, apparently your usage is limited to the city in which you purchased it. I noticed this for the first time on my way to Tianjin with the IFC when half way there, my service just stopped. I figured if I’m going to be on this train for 24 hours, and in China proper for the vast majority of it, I may as well be able to make and receive phone calls. So I ran over to my cousin Michael’s place and we headed to the China Mobile store to get things taken care of, when to our dismay, apparently we needed some PIN number that was on the back of the SIM card holder when we first bought it and no one bothered to keep that little piece of plastic, so lo and behold, we can’t make any changes to my service without changing the PIN first, and that process takes 2 weeks or more. So, solutionless, I buy another phone number, activate it properly, register it, pre-buy a whole bunch of time because I have to as a kind of deposit, forward my old number to it, and voila, here I am, in the middle of no where, but still in cell service. Not the most elegant of solutions, but one nevertheless.

But this process took longer than I thought, and there’s construction going on at my mother’s place again as they try to fix some of the small things while they’re in town, and for some reason my grandfather showed up again, and everything was out of place and I was already running late and I just ran out of time. I had also never been to the Beijing West Railway Station before, so I had no idea how to make my way around it, which didn’t make things easier. It’s a pretty station though, massive in size and scale, overpowering even in its façade, kind of monumental, and like all things Chinese and new, it sported those traditional temple style roofs of red and gold, just enough of a tacky hint to make it look like a Las Vegas hotel. This is actually the older train that I’m on, and I think it takes longer, but when I purchased these tickets I didn’t have options for the other one, or I couldn’t understand the options for the other one, but here I am. The good thing about this train is that they have 2 person compartments with private bathrooms, but since I wasn’t planning on getting one of those compartments anyways it may have been more reasonable to try to get on the newer train. Ah well.

What did impress me a lot though was that as the train was leaving the platform, there were these uniformed staff members, standing at attention, at set intervals along the platform, watching after the train as we left. It felt like they were sending us off, with style even, and I felt sort of like royalty.

Getting on the car, they traded my paper ticket for a plastic one, I’m not sure why. The staff also came around and wrote down everyone’s name and a form of ID, probably to make sure they don’t lose anyone, though I’m not actually sure if there are stops along the way, we haven’t made any yet, so there may not be an opportunity to lose anyone. The first hour or so I took lots of pictures out the windows, but they’re really dirty and there’s a pretty strong glare. I took some interior photos, and almost got a very good one of the uniformed staff before one of them shyly turned away and asked me not to take his picture. I want to have photos of the rooms, compartments, other people, but I worry that it’ll impose on someone else’s privacy. It’s an odd feeling, being out of place, and I definitely feel it right now. I’m operating under the assumption that I paid for my pot of coffee, I paid for my seat in the dining car, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave any time before I’m good and ready. I already fought off an attempt to be dismissed when I went to get my laptop. I asked one of the staff to watch my things and not take away my coffee because I’ll be right back, and she suggested, rather strongly, that I just leave. And now, I’m the only one left in here, surrounded by staff going about their business, cleaning the floors, getting boxed lunches ready, taking their meals, smoking, and everyone now and then one of them gives me an odd look as if to ask why I’m still here. Nevertheless, I don’t intend to leave unless I want to.

They do allow smoking on these trains, incidentally. That and the cold coffee and the reading as I type is probably what’s contributing to my minor bout of motion sickness right now.

As I said, I probably walked up and down the length of the train 3 or 4 times. There’s just nothing else to do. I was glad to be able to walk even because before the train started to move, all the interior doors between compartments were locked. Even the bathroom was locked, and none of these doors were meant to be opened until the train was underway. You still can’t go very far though, even with the opened doors, and there are still doors that aren’t open or places that you get waved rather pointedly but politely not to enter. Again, I’m cultivating that American aura in myself right now for the preferential treatment. As I walked, I’d look into all the cars as discretely as possible, and saw what I’ve described already, and the following:

A foreign couple wearing matching black and white horizontal striped shirts, the guy sporting a massive beard, wearing paper Chinese complimentary sandals. Everyone’s wearing those sandals incidentally, though I haven’t switched to them yet.

Rows upon rows of sleeping Chinese, in the middle of the afternoon, the provided blankets wrapped tightly around them as they sleep with just the tops of their heads poking out of the piles of bedding.

Chinese children, jumping around with more energy than is appropriate, even so far as jumping between the two bunks, climbing all over the place, even on the three level bunks. They’d straddle the open air between the two stacks of bunks, one foot on either side’s foothold.

Families setting up their own personal “space,” including massive water thermoses they’d fill from the provided boiled water spouts at the ends of the trains.

Teenage looking Chinese kids watching foreign TV shows with Chinese subtitles, shared on one monitor on a makeshift table.

Lots of staff, in their own private though tiny little compartments, reading newspapers with one foot up against the wall, oblivious to my presence as I walk by.

In the “soft sleeper” rooms there are also fold out chairs against the windows on the hallway. In the “hard sleeper” compartments they also have these seats but in addition they have a small table between them, a much better layout I think than in the “soft sleepers,” again one of those instances where I don’t think we’re expected to use those fold out seats in favor of the provided table inside the private compartment. And again, I want one, a better place to camp out is all I have in mind.

That’s about all I remember from looking in to the train compartments, I’ll probably take another walk around later though to stretch my legs.

The scenery’s been off and on at times serene, peaceful and impressive. There’d be fields of agriculture as far as the eye can see, tiny Chinese row houses built of grey brick with blue metal roofs, massive apartment complexes in various stages of completion surrounded on all sides by construction materials, piles of steal and brick, construction cranes, huge swathes of just dirt, like its been strip mined for something, little rivers and ponds and insect breeding grounds, intricate networks of pipes connecting various bits of farming equipment, power plants and highways. There’d even be a town or city that we’d speed through, abandoned looking other train stations with people sitting against carts of fruit, strip mall type places that must have just sprung up due to their proximity to the train tracks, and other trains that rattle our car as they’d pass in a blur. We’re going surprisingly fast actually where I can’t get a still photo of the scenery right next to us. It all passes in a blur.

I’d taken a good number of trains in the past in the States. I’ve gone cross country by train a few times, a 60 hour trip, on the cheap even where all I had was a seat. Those trips go through Chicago, and get stopped along the way by cows crossing the tracks. And as uncomfortable as it is sitting here amongst the staff all taking their breaks, it’s still a bit of a slice. Some of them speak Cantonese, which I can’t understand, but what I can understand is that they’re making fun of one of the staff for having already eaten a bowl of noodles and rice, and still eating more. There’s a closeness to these people, a kind of camaraderie, and they’re so into their own little things that I really don’t think they pay any attention to me at all. In the States such a thing would never happen, the staff would never all surround a customer on their breaks and take their meals. But I forget what I was going to talk about now. They’re really loud though! I go back and forth between listening to them and my iPod, though I can’t really write when listening to music, nor can I write though listening to really loud Chinese people. It’s nice listening to my music though, I realize I rarely do that nowadays, and it’s very appropriate when travelling by train because it feels sort of like a soundtrack to the scenery going by, and I feel it affecting my step as I walk even. And it’s neat when the track changes because the difference is great when watching farmland going by and listening to Depeche Mode versus Eminem; really great.

I wonder what happens at night on these trains. Does everyone go to sleep? Is there staff around still? Most importantly, is there a place for me to hang out when everyone else is asleep and the train is quiet, some place away from the cigarette smoke and chatting Chinese people, where I can look outside and watch the darkened landscape go by. It’s a paradox really, my desire to be with people during the day, or at least in some kind of company so that I don’t feel too much like a tool in my private little room surrounded on all sides by white walls, and my desire at night to just be alone to watch things go by.

I’m going to stop writing now, to continue later, but the cigarette smoke is actually really getting to me plus I’m out of coffee and peanuts and iced tea so I feel like I’ve gotten what I’ve paid for from this dining car. To be continued at another time then, these thoughts on train travel. I will re-sync though with the iPad so that I can continue writing there if I’d like later.

I am once again sitting in the dining car, 30RMB for a pot of coffee and the privilege of sitting here. I guess they don’t understand the idea of public use on trains. Having listened more carefully this time, apparently my choices were either a pot of tea, a pot of coffee, or absolutely nothing but the privilege of sitting here. Again, I went with coffee. I guess if I’m not going to eat I may as well drink lots and lots of caffeine. I’m not entirely sure how I want to handle the sleeping situation. You see, I don’t want to disturb my fellow travelers in the compartment and have excused myself outside. This also gives me a chance to charge my computer; I have thankfully found a charger in the dining car. Not that I’ll really need it the more I think about it. I do get in decently early tomorrow and apart from this evening there’s not much time left.

But rich coffee and salty peanuts are good accompaniment to reading, which I am doing on the iPad. Again, I paid for it so I intend to stay until I am content. In the intermission between writing I spent a good time doing nothing, just listening to music and watching the scenery go by. I also spent some time taking photos like a hawk, camped out in front of the cleanest window I could find, snapping away happily. I unpacked my bag a little so that I could carry it with me around the different compartments. I suppose I’ll go back to my proper room in a little while. For now, I’ll charge my stuff and read my book, and write off and on when the fancy strikes me, and drink my coffee and eat my peanuts. Although it’s cost me close to nine dollars already, I find the environment of the dining car peaceful, though smoky earlier in the day, but much more mellow now that even the staff are tired and half falling asleep in the chairs.

I’m going to post this now to the blog as I’m not sure what else I’d like to write about it. I’m sure more will come later, and that will make the second part of this series, if I get to it. I’m sure I will as I will undoubtedly need things to do on the return journey as well.

One last observation though was just how drastically different the scenery was the second day on the train. All of yesterday was farmland and flat with some farming and agriculture infrastructure visible every now and then, along with an odd town of sorts. But as I half asleep and blearily peaked out the compartment windows into the morning light the first thing I noticed was stone! There were huge mountains on either side of the train with shear, exposed stone like one would expect from those cliched Chinese paintings. And there were small creaks and streams, and while still lots of farmland, more power generating infrastructure, and definitely more things in ruins. It was noticeably more tropical also, with banana leaf looking plants, actual palms instead of plastic ones like in Beijing, and the housing architecture had changed. Not the massive apartment complexes of which there were still plenty, but the small row houses reminded me of ones you’d find in the Caribbean: low, made of stone, with dirt floors and exposed windows and roofs to let in the sunlight and elements, painted bright colors of blue and red and yellow. And though the entire trip didn’t have many stops, maybe four and none of which lasted more than a few minutes or were we allowed off the train, but this second leg did see a proper hour or longer stop in GuangZhou, a decently big city apparently, where they separated the car because some people were getting off and only some of us, those who’ve gone through immigration, were continuing on the rest of the train. Oh, and as creepy as it is, as soon as the train crossed literally into the border of Hong Kong, my cell phone service automatically switched, I received a text message welcoming me, a text message informing me on how to continue using my phone, and another text message informing of the new rates for calls. Yeah, the Chinese government’s not stalking me or anything…

i apologize for the lack of capitals in this post, but i’m posting from my ipad and i disabled the auto correct feature because i found it to be less than intuitive about what i actually wanted to type. i also apologize for the general lack of posts on this here blog, but we’ve both been quite busy in one way or the other, more so in the one way for her and the other for me, but what can you do. and i’m mostly posting now because maria asked me to, and thought it might be good for me, and even jokingly said that it’s close to the only way that she’s able to find out what’s going on with the sean. so here goes.

i would like to comment a bit on the odd day to day expenses that occur in th is country. now it is very cheap, unreasonably so even, to eat out, buy groceries, cook, find entertainment, see friends, etc., so that in general, one does not actually need to make a lot to live very well. we buy massive bags worth of fresh produce for less than 30rmb, all the groceries we could want for less than 50rmb, plus fruit and freshly prepared cold chinese salads and we’re looking at no more than the equivalent of 20 dollars and we’re set for at least a week. by some estimate, one only needs a quarter of that to live very comfortably in this country. but then, there’s rent.

now maybe i’m unreasonable, but i have a certain standard that i find hard to give up, especially when it concerns the place that i call home, the bathroom that i do my business in, and the kitchen that i prepare meals for the ones i care about in. you can rent a place very cheaply, no more than 30 dollars a month, but it will be underground, is a literal room, have a shared bathroom with no gauranteed hot water, no gaurantee of windows, and definitely okitchen htough you can bring your own electric stove and many people do. that’s the bottom of the pole.

and then there’s the chinese style apartments which are, for most intents and purposes alright, but shoddy, feeling like they’re falling apart, and they are, with no regard for the common spaces of the buildings meaning you can be on the highest floor and all the lights will be out in the hallways so you’ll feel like you’re living in a cave. and the bathrooms, lord save me from the bathrooms. so that’s like, the middle, wh ich, unfortunately, from a standards point of view, i find difficult to accept.

now i realize this might make me seem like a snob or something, but for the same reason that i never understood why people don’t care about the quality of their hotel rooms while on vacation based on the flimsy pretense that they don’t plan to stay in that that often didn’t and doesn’t make sense to me i mean, you need a place to stay right, some place comfortable because what happens if you’re sick or too drunk you don’t want to passout in a trash heap i can’t come to terms with an apartment that i dread the thougt of taking a shower in, which is most chinese apartments. but that makes up the middle tier as far as quality goes.

then there are those places meant for foreigners to stay in, built from the ground up for them, and are of decent quality. noe i say decent only because even they could use a good bit of work. one common complaint is the abundance of mold on the walls of even the most expensive, and i do mean most expensive as these places can run for close to western prices, of places just still feel like they are falling apart, and they are. but, you can find places that will satisfy my standards, but again, they’re expensive.

which brings us to the point that i find myself in an odd employment state. you see, i’m no longer. the foreigner who’s willing to relocate and work in beijing, i’m the foreigner who’s already here and is looking for a job, with the major difference being that while the former has an allure of self sacrifice, and thus the appropriate compensation to go along with what ever jobs may fall under that category, the latter does not, and will pay close to absolutely nothing for work that in any other country will earn me a decent living. bottom line, i can’t make more than 700 dollars a month doing full time programming work in this god forsaken country. now that isn’t actually bad by chinese standards, and were my only goal to pay for our day to day expenses, i’m golden, but i need to pay for rent, and i need a place that i am comfortable taking a shower in, and that’s where the conflict comes into play, namely i for the moment just, can’t.

and the irony of it all, my father just got a new place in beijing and it meets our standards, and is cheaper by far than anything else out there we’ve found, but is in the wrong part of town, and i think that makes all the difference.

but the plan is to continue searching, both for a job and an apartment, and i think we’re going to venture way the far out of town to a place that’s still subway accessible, and easilly accessible might i add, but hopefully very inexpensive by virtue of it being far away, and we might be lucky out there.

let’s see, other problems that plague the sean. he needs to leave again out of the country by july 15 to get on his last entry into the country. and this will be the last one as his visa expires at the end of august, as in proper expires and he will need to go back to the united states to get a new one, which he really does not want to. for reasons beyond his countrol and knowledge and patience to sort through his working visa still hasn’t come through, and neither had maria’s, but she no longer needs to worry because a) she’s going back to the states anyways and b) she will get a student visa through tsinghua. the sean’s plan though is to get on his last entry, as cheaply as possible, then at the last mi nute switch while in country to a 90 day single entry visa, which he knows he can, so he cwn stay in the country until the end of november by which time hopefully some other, better solution would have presented itself. at the moment he doesn’t care which: his father comes throug, he gets employed elsewhere, or he pays somebody 1000 dollars and they give him the visa in that shady, underhanded, sort of grey area kind of way. it really doesn’t matter.

back to i here, i think. i had also planned on joining maria in the states and nyc for her internship this summer, but the feasibility of it is minimal. the expenses unfortunatly just far outweigh the gain, and if i go, i have to plan on staying, which is a decision i’m not yet ready to make. i definitely want to be here when maria starts her school so if i head back to the states it will be after that so no point making the expense now. startup expenses in general back in the states is also just in general prohibitive so even if i wanted to, maybe the best i can do is go back to los angeles which actually doesn’t sound that appealing. i’m kinda holding out that china will still work out in a bit way and we’ll all make our personal fortunes here and change the world for the better.

which at least there’s still a chance of, and having lost most of my steam for blogging, i will end here by saying that no matter what, the sean is trying to be optimistic, and hey, he hadn’t thought of this but maybe he and maria can get married; that’ll solve his visa problems.

oh and the restaurant is a complete bust incidentally. to summarize in the quickest way possible, there’s been management issues from the get go, the owners no longer like each other, for some reason one half viewed my desire to no longer be their full time employee as a sign that they should exit the business as well so they gave my dad some time to find someone to buy them out, and since it obviously didn’t happen fast enough they’ve been threatening to close down the business and then wanted to buy us out which, well, hey, seemed like quite a good deal actually because we were done with the stupid thing anyway and didn’t want to have anything to do with it and if you’ll listen to my father about it, he’s convinced the entire thing was a conspiracy to get the entire business by the other half owners at a greatly depreciated value by driving me out, driving the restaurant down, then lording over us the fact that they have more money to convince us to sell out to them, but things really came to a head when, afraid that they might steal our business licenses my father put up fake copies on the walls and, lo and behold, the next day they were stolen from us, and then when maria and i went to go check our mail because we’re using the restaurant as our mailing address because it’s convenient we find that they had changed the locks on us and were no longer able to get in, and that they had fired all the staff and closed the restaurant without telling us! what is wrong with these people? they were just in the middle of negotiating how to buy our half our when all of a sudden, chaos. so now maria and i have no place to get our mail which is a) a shame and b) just inconvenient as far as timing goes because we’re expecting her all important actual enrollment confirmation packet from tsinghua which should also have the confirmation that the chinese government is going to pay for all her tuition and housing and give her a monthly stipend to live on in. that was sarcastic by the way, though it’ll be cool if it happened that way, but we are actually waiting for this packet and it’s being sent to the restaurant and we’re not sure how to get it anymore because these people are insane!

…

so here’s to hoping it all comes together, heh, and that those we’ve wronged or disappointed in the past may forgive and move forward with us towards a brighter and better future.

My conference call was canceled this afternoon, and Sean and I had been a bit stressed out, so we took the afternoon off and strode out into the streets.

It was an excellent food-and-walking day. Google Maps clocks us at some 13 km, hardly hastily executed at some 6 hours, and in any event involving many stops, detours, tea and food purchases, bathroom breaks, and window-shopping interludes. Starting on a familiar route, we got Sean a chicken-and-potato bing; shortly we detoured for convenience-store pudding.

I don�t remember if I have ever before specifically desired Chinese pudding�more jelly-like than the American version�but once my wish was verbalized Sean was a man on a mission. In truth, the convenience-store pudding wasn�t quite what I had in mind, so we followed it up with a second pudding event later on. That second event took place at iTea at the mall at Wangfujing and went by the name Triple Pudding, if I recall correctly. It was guinea pig-colored, and it tasted like coconut, chocolate, and pseudo-coffee in a caramel-y sauce and was served as a beverage with a straw. Perfect.

The Wangfujing Oriental Plaza is a very mally-y mall, and we�ve done it before; no surprises there. We checked out the movie theater�I had previously noted that it had on offer an English-language film called the Echelon Conspiracy, which we are skeptical is marketed in the States. Something to look into, but we decided to give it a miss for today. We window-shopped at jewelry and bag stores, not because we need anything in particular, but just for fun�I have in mind a white patent leather handbag, and am in 0 hurry to find it. The hunt is more fun than actually owning it would be, unless�perhaps�someday�I can find that elusive Perfect One. As an additional benefit, the mall offered some relief from the area�s oppressive pollen. There�s something in the air right now to which I am miserably allergic. I�m going through a box of Kleenex a day. Gross-ba.

After heading back out into the humid summer air, we got a grilled corn, which Sean agrees is superior in texture to the simple boiled one, and watched and mingled with the crowds. We stopped to thoroughly examine a group that turned out to be comprised of international MBA students from Carlson, apparently visiting the Cheung Kong business school. I refrained from busting out the camera for them, but we were far from the only gawkers. In fairness, it took them a decently long time for them to get organized on some office building steps and figure out how to display their banner so their cameraman had a shot at catching it in the frame. I did stop to take a picture of a World Cup ad, though, which features fake crowds into which aisles have been blatantly interlaid, with the intention of making it look like a stadium event. Bwhahahahah. Fail.

In good time we found ourselves out of the crowded mall-and-office area and following a long park which runs between the two sides of a divided boulevard. The sunlight was golden. The trees looked almost tropical, and so many roses and other flowers had been planted (especially red and yellow ones) as to make me feel like I was back on campus. Floofy dogs also abounded, and we observed that the volume of the floof on the dog in the tricycle basket is proportional to the crappiness of the tricycle and the decrepitude of the adoring Chinese man pedaling it. As Sean often observes, this country is weird. We also saw some old men flying kites, which were pretty damn far away, high in the sky. How did they do that?

Night fell, and we reached Nanluoguxiang, tourist alley of tourist alleys. 15 kuai �mojitos� beckoned, and although I find it difficult to believe they actually contained alcohol, they were pleasant and sweet and welcome in the warm night. Further walks took us past adorable kittens (�Buy a shirt and get a kitten free!�) and the stand where they sell mix music. A police van came by the DJ just as we did; poof, and the music was off, the player hidden, and the crowd innocent. Two minutes later and it was all back to normal; we purchased three nameless CDs, hoped for the best and set off again home.

It was a good day, and a relaxed one. I get the feeling my relaxation is drawing to a close for a good while; June may be the end of it, and I�m cherishing this free-wheeling Beijingness while I can.

I’ve not had any dreams lately, at least none that I can remember. When I just wake up, and I know I had a really good dream, one full of wonders and fantasy and whatever else makes such things perhaps a bit better than real life, it slips away, much quicker than before, well before I’ve had a chance to write it down. So I mean, it’s an excuse really, but this is why I’ve not written down any dreams lately. Also sometimes they’re just mundane, like the one where I dreamed Maria said one thing to me and it turns out she actually said another or nothing at all, ones that happen after I’ve moved from the bedroom to the couch to continue sleeping so that I can keep her company, albeit unconsciously, probably after the point in the day when one should still be asleep and so perhaps my punishment is boring, normal every day dreams. And maybe it is a punishment; maybe I should pay more attention to real life.

Which lately hasn’t been all that great. Lots have happened actually, and I can’t believe it’s been twenty days since I last posted anything, since anybody last posted anything here. I wonder if it’s possible to get my membership with expat blog revoked? It’s not like I’ve been doing anything horribly expat-y lately, though we did buy a water cooler, and that was an adventure in and of itself.

So Maria had been feeling dehydrated, and so have I frankly, and the water in China is a little dodgy and though you can boil it and clean it of whatever bacteria might be in it, we couldn’t help the film of sediment that formed on our water kettle nor the layer of detritus on the bottom of our water bottle into which we poured our boiled water. This meant we didn’t have much faith in it actually, and have substituted water when thirsty with perhaps not too healthy, sugary others. So we had talked about it a while ago, but the solution was to purchase a water bottle, one of those big ones that you see on the backs of trucks being delivered in the States. I had fond memories of using one the last time I was in China because it provided instant hot water and was a perfect means of re-constituting instant noodles. I only just recently realized, since it’s gotten to be summer and the weather is hot and humid in Beijing, that you can also get instant cold water and so have a nice refreshing beverage whenever called upon. But this was some time ago, the discussion I mean, about getting a big water bottle, so we revisited it recently and decided to actually go forward with it.

So in China, it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Just down our little alley there’s this guy that sells these big jugs of water. They weren’t open that day actually, so it was their loss, but we found another guy selling the exact same thing serendipitously actually on our way to the supermarket. Apparently they’re just everywhere, and they all do basically the same thing, and they all have a guy driving around a three wheeled bicycle that takes these things and delivers them to you. So we go into this little hole in the wall store, filled with big bottles of water, and the guy is very nice in that salesmen-sy kind of way and he lets us sample the water and he explains how it’s the best kind of water there is and he says they’re having a special where if you buy ten bottles they’ll give you two more for free. Whatever. The point though was that it was easy. He had the machines there that provided the instant hot and cold, he had the bottles of water, he had the guy to deliver and install it all, and a quick exchange of money later and we were on our way to fresh water heaven. We’ve a phone number to call whenever we need a new bottle and he’ll send the guy on his way, and he’ll maintain our water machine thingy for a year. Obviously the point’s a little moot since we’re hoping to move by the end of June, but apparently it’s a universal machine, capable of housing and carrying any and all kinds of big water bottles, so we’re good. It’s humming away happily as I write actually, and it breathes; every now and then you’ll hear it gurgling pleasantly. In short, everyone go get a water cooler! Huh…I just remembered that those things are called water coolers…

So that’s the bit of China that’s kind of non-bloggy and kind of expat-y and I hope it justifies my existence in the expat blog directory listing.

Since I last wrote we’ve also attended a friend’s wedding up in San Francisco. We needed to get out of the country anyways to enter on our next visa entry and Maria was running her first marathon in the States, which turned out very well. Fully expect to see some more milestone updates later on but at the moment I’m a little fuzzy on all the dates. But the wedding was nice, I got to see some of my family and Maria got to see an extensive bit of hers. We were apart for two weeks, and it killed me. That was when I was doing the whole nocturnal living thing as evidenced by my previous posts about biking in Beijing in the middle of the night. Not exactly the pinnacle of healthy living here. I’m hoping though for things to regain a semblance of sanity and normalcy soon.

The restaurant is also fast out of my hands, hopefully, I pray. Skipping over all the pertinent details because they’re not mine to disclose, but the headache and stress of having to deal with being in the food service industry may soon be behind me. That does mean I’m still out of a job, and have been for a while, and haven’t been paid by anybody for a really long while, and the whole process has still nevertheless sucked this transitioning out of my hands and will probably suck long after the actual transition takes place, but um, it’s still a load off, and will be even more so of one when I have my high paying power job that lets me live the life of luxury in this town, no sarcasm intended, obviously.

And speaking of jobs, I had the world’s worst interview today, ever. Not only was it for a job that I applied to a very long time ago and so now have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of what it was about, but they had layered themselves in so many different company names an recruiters and go betweens that I had no idea who I was even applying for a job with. It was an hour away by subway, out in the bums of nowhere, though it was really pretty, kind of tropical looking on the ride out due to it raining today, and when I get there I knew immediately it wasn’t going to work but had to still sit through it all, much to my general embarrassment. See, I knew at once that it was a Chinese company, without even a hint of foreign-ness to it. There were no English signs, there were no foreign employees, and you could just feel that tinge of Chinese laziness in the air where they hire a bunch of people with credentials on paper who all they do is the least necessary, if that. I’ll come out and say it now: the majority of Chinese employees try to get away with doing as little as possible. Maria just read somewhere recently that Chinese greed is only outweighed by Chinese laziness, and it’s true. There’s a whole floor of people sitting in cubicles, everyone looking at their own computer screens, all messing on the internet in one way or another, without so much as a word being spoken to anyone, without that sort of collaborative creativity and productivity one feels in US offices. Just with that, I knew I wouldn’t want the job, but apparently they didn’t want me either. Ah the other thing was the actual applications I had to fill out. First, there was a questionnaire and one of the questions was in Chinese; obviously a test of my literacy which I obviously failed. Second, all the boxes to fill in information like “name” or “relation” or “previous employer’s name” where too small; you couldn’t write the English in there even if you wanted to. Obviously meant to accept Chinese characters only, and obviously another count on which I failed. Then there were the questions about HTTP protocol and DNS lookups which I actually just don’t know, so obviously I’m not qualified for the job either but I don’t actually remember because it’s been ages since I first applied and these people put so many buffers between the actual job and me I went in completely blind. So there wasn’t even a real interview. Some guy came out, said thanks for coming out, said I probably wasn’t qualified, asked if I had any questions, and that was it. Hours of my life wasted in what is probably the biggest job interview fail of my life. I’ve been failing a lot really, and it’s kinda putting a crimp in my self esteem.

But the pluses do also exist. I’m doing some freelance programming work which allows me to flex some of my programming muscles. I’m doing some music work for pay as well and that’s always a good thing. There are a few social events on my calendar coming up with people whose company I enjoy, and I at least am very excited by my father’s and Maria’s business opportunities coming right over the horizon. I’m hoping for lots of good things from them.

A bigger short of it though is that I’m not entirely sure I’m happy, but I’m hoping to find what I need to fix that so that I can be, so that this opportunity which has been afforded me and which I have undertaken with Maria, my partner in all of this, will have ultimately been beneficial. Um…so that’s the meaning behind the title, actually. I’d like to enter a process of discovery and more specifically, rediscovery, of all the things in life that I love so that I can share them with the person I love.

So ever since I purchased my 200RMB bike, and ever since I repaired it (incidentally, the seat has since been replaced, so has one of the bolts on the pedals, the right hand brake handle broke and hasn’t been replaced yet, and the rear wheel brake belt broke and also hasn’t been replaced; I’m just running this bike through the ringer aren’t I?!), I’ve biked every day, and biked long distances most every day. The farther I’ve ridden before today was 20km, sort of just randomly through the center of town, along roads I recognized, and it took me about an hour and a half; not the fastest I know, but Beijing is so very obstacular and even at night rides like a video game dodging cars, pedestrians, street cleaning trucks and construction crews that fling water and dirt respectively at you. Today, I biked my farthest distance yet: 22km. It also took me an hour and a half, for reasons that will be explained in further detail later.

First, some raw details:
I started at 3:30am and finished at 5:15am for a total of an hour and a half.
I biked for a total distance of 22km, just about 14 miles.
At around 4:30am the sun had started to rise and the skies were lightening.
I took a measure of my speed at the one hour mark and I was at about 16km/hour, or 10 miles/hour.
I took the circle route around the city, basically tracking around the 2nd Ring Road, one of 5 major highways that circles the city at different intervals. I had actually always meant to ride around this, but this was my first time.

Obviously the hours I’ve been keeping have be weird. Part of the problem is that I’ve been a bit depressed and lonely, mostly because Maria’s been out of town and I’m having job woes and family problems, etc. Whatever. The short of it is that I’ve been avoiding the day time opting to spend most of my waking and productive hours at night. It’s also been getting warmer and warmer, to the point of almost 80 degrees, and that’s just too hot for me to do anything physical in! So it’s been much nicer to bike at night. We’re talking warm summer nights here, the kind where it’s cool but not cold in that special refreshing kind of way. The city also quiets an awful lot in the middle of the night. Probably to save electricity and such but most of the lights are off, even some of the street lights. That makes it a little weird to bike in actually as at times it gets really dark, but it also means the streets are for the most part empty. Obviously, it’s not totally clear; you still have the cars, the people, and the little rickshaw type bikes roaming around. And, though this isn’t really a negative because everyone hates construction during the day, but the crews are out in mass and so are the street cleaners. So this means you need to avoid massive cranes and bulldozers tearing up half the street as well as big tankers literally washing down the street whether or not you’re on it; it’s really one of those “everyone for themselves” kind of philosophies as far as navigating the street goes in China. But um, what was the point? Ah, that biking at night is wonderful in this city and everyone should try it!

So let’s talk about my route. First, a picture of it:

I almost made it all the way around 2nd Ring Road

It’s pretty convenient to have such a ring that goes around the city. Even though it’s a highway, there’s always a road that parallels it for people to get on and off and onto the intersecting roads. On the North and West side, it’s a literal highway so the parallel road is on the ground below it and flat. On the East side, it’s kind of a “low-way” of sorts and the road I was on is above it. On this side there are also these massive roundabouts to help people get on and off and over the highway road. Pretty harrowing to navigate across actually because you can’t quite tell if the cars are coming towards you or still going to circle around. But this also means they’re convenient in a way because there are no traffic lights to have to wait and stop at, and it’s pretty; the side road I was on had a dedicated bike lane that was surrounded by trees; idealic really. The West side was easier to bike because there are no roundabouts, but that means there are lights, so it was less scenic to look at. Since the side road parallels the highway though it also means that at times I couldn’t quite tell if I was on the bike lane, the side road, or the highway itself. They all sort of blend in together, especially at the corners of the 2nd Ring Road. Very difficult to get around actually because that’s also where lots of roads all intersect together because there are these diagonal roads that let those cars on the 2nd Ring Road head out towards the other numbered Ring Roads. But um…yeah, short answer, not that easy to get around. But still lots of fun! It’s like biking in New York City; exciting in that way that you really shouldn’t find that exciting because it’s due to the adrenaline that comes from that hint of danger and having to keep on your toes.

So the sun rises really early here! It was getting bright right at around 4:30am. I don’t ever remember the sun rising that early before back in the States. I wasn’t expecting it, nor was I planning it, but when I set out and realized the skies lightening I thought to myself “how neat, it’s going to be really beautiful soon.” And it definitely was, and by the time I was about finished with my bike it was full on bright, but still peaceful in that nice way, with birds chirping and such, but it was definitely getting more and more crowded on the roads, in a noticeable way. I wonder next time just how much later I can actually consider still biking outside because I think lots of people start their commutes early in this city. I had also biked some of this route before, or at least close in the vicinity of it, but that had been in the proper night and not this half dawn time; everything looked different in the subtle light.

It is definitely weird though some of the people that are still out in the middle of the night. There were couples walking hand in hand, old men walking their dogs, lots of workers, people picking up trash on little orange bicycles, construction workers digging up trees and planting new ones that looked oddly like palm trees (can you imagine palm trees in China?!), tired men biking on their way home presumably, girls walking arm in arm also, coming from or going to I don’t know where, and then, of course, me. :)

There was also a huge crowd of people gathering at TianAnMen Square, in front of the Forbidden City. I started noticing quite a bit away that there were people walking towards the center of the city, and there were huge spotlights on also making it bright as day just up ahead, and as I approached at first I thought it was a tour group or something, but then not seeing the telltale orange colored caps or flags, and the fact that they were all waiting there plus the large numbers of military officers standing at attention, I realized it must have been the flag raising ceremony, which I had never actually seen before myself. I was tempted to pull over and join in the festivities, but it sufficed to just tuck a mental note away to come back some later time and see the event as this time I was out for the biking.

I also think this city just can’t decide what temperature it wants to be. As I rode, I distinctively noticed different strata of temperatures that I was riding through. First it would be cool and refreshing, an almost kind of misty feel, then it would be muggy and humid, much hotter than before, almost suffocating in its pervasiveness and density, then just kind of, normal, like what one would expect for a warm summer night, then just completely and utterly wet (though this was probably due to the street cleaners) and you can feel the water drops on your face, and every now and then there’s be the overwhelming scent of cooking food from who knows where because it hits when biking along some random part of street where there’s not a restaurant in sight and even if there were they wouldn’t be open anyway. It makes me wonder if there’s some massive underground ventilation type system (there probably is at least in part due to the subway system) that just vents out at intervals and changes the air around it.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I fully intend to do it again. I think the next time I’ll do a proper circle all the way around 2nd Ring Road; that should let me get in a full 25km and I am such a fan of proper whole numbers. It also shouldn’t take that much longer or be that much more difficult. Speaking of which, it wasn’t actually that difficult of a ride to do. I wasn’t going that fast, and I’m not entirely sure I could have gone much faster, and I never got too tired or anything and am not that tired now either. The only thing is that after the first hour or so it really started to hurt a bit sitting on that tiny little seat. And I’ve noticed a stiffness in my right knee that sort of comes and goes; I hope that’s not indicative of some bigger problem. I’ll see if it bothers me more in some greater way and then maybe get it checked on some how. So next time, the full way around, and maybe with a better bike; I have a sneaky suspicion that my current bicycle may be on its last leg as far as long distances biking goes and I really, really, really don’t want to have it break down on me in some major way, especially in the middle of the night, at some far distance from my home.

It was so relaxing, so refreshing; I don’t know what was going through my mind; I wasn’t consciously aware of any deep or insightful or meaningful thoughts. What I was aware of though was a kind of wild eyed wonder and amazement that overtook me for the city at night, at how quiet it all was, at the massive buildings all empty and dark; I couldn’t stop looking around, and all I could hear was the sound of the bicycle gears churning, the friction of the wheels on the ground, its deep bass rhythm vibrating through my legs as I rode, a cool breeze against my face. Quite fantastic really.

So I’m a little bit deaf right now. Everything’s sort of muffled and even when I talk to myself it’s as if there’s cotton filling up my skull. It was an overall crappy day, punctuated by some good times. I had rehearsal with the IFC Youth Choir, which was lots of fun; I’ve always enjoyed working with developing voices and these kids, though small in number, make a wonderful sound together. I hope to do more work with them in the future. And thankfully, I also got paid; it’s nice to get paid to do music work and this would be the first time that I was paid for such work in China. But the crappiness in general stems from the fact that for the past 48 or so ours I’ve been on my own, kind of just cooped up in this altogether much too large apartment that I’m in. It’s surprising just how used to having Maria around I’ve gotten. The weather’s also been weird; much too hot for my tastes so I’ve switched my schedule around so that I do most of my active and productive things during the night and sleep during the day; but this means my sleep is fitful, disturbed by the heat. I mean, it was so bad that as I was talking to Maria on the phone, I missed her so much and it was all I could to do stop from crying. I ran off to the restaurant at some point and, disgusted by the whole affair, drank my sorrows away with alcoholic girly drinks.

But the good way; I got to go to a club in China! For the first time! And though I groaned and griped the entire time saying I didn’t want to go, it turned out to be lots of fun! I went with XiaoXing, one of my only friends in China at the moment (damnit Maria, when are you coming back…). But uh, yeah, details about the club, because well, it’s not even close to anything like clubs in the States.

So they’re called something I can’t remember but I think is related to some phonetic rendition of the English acronym “DJ.” Apparently there are a lot of them and they’re really popular with the young people. I mean, it’s almost 4AM now and we left early, and when we first got there it was jammed packed. For some reason, it was called “GT Banana Club.” Yeah. And the Chinese name…”GT Banana Club” pronounced phonetically. Yeah. It’s tucked away next to some business center somewhere and the neon sign is half blown out so you really have to look carefully to make out the “banana” part of the name. When you get in, there’s these really crappy looking marble stairs that lead up to the first layer of the concierge. Here they take the cover, which wasn’t that much, somewhere around 50RMB as it varies depending on gender and day of the week. Up yet another flight of crappy looking marble stairs (I’m talking faux chic and glamorous here, kind of like porn shoot marble) and you get to the next layer of the concierge where they check your ticket and scan you with a hand held metal detector. The first thing you’ll notice when you get in, the fruit platters. Every single table has a huge, ornate, excessively decorated fruit platter. Don’t ask me why; apparently it’s communal but I’ll be damned if I touch it. But I later found out that apparently it costs money but they just leave them around and it’s just kind of, gross…I can honestly say, despite my lack in clubbing knowledge, that this was quite unlike anything in the US I’ve ever been to. The space was really big, with multiple floors, with multiple seating options ranging from huge and luxurious booths to tall round tables with stools to almost private room type booths. And again, don’t forget the fruit platter on every table top. There’s a bar, decently well stocked, though the whiskey is the highlight. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet but whiskey is the only liquor that’s managed to penetrate the Chinese market in any way. Go to any bar or restaurant and you’ll see at least a dozen different kinds of top shelf whiskey, but try to find any top shelf vodka or tequila and you’re fresh out of luck. Someone needs to market Patron here; they’ll make a killing. But uh…so we ordered two Long Island Iced Teas, not that expensive really, but that was the cheapest stuff on the menu. They had this massive VIP “Set” that you can order that costs over 15,000 RMB (2000 USD). Not sure what it includes, but at least a fruit platter and a couple of bottles of whiskey with mixer and a sort of private staff who takes care of your needs, and which apparently also includes some dancing girls. It was weird; next to where we were standing there were these two mid-30s looking men, one of whom was really fat and passed out, around this table arrayed with a massive fruit platter and multiple bottles of whiskey, while two staff girls danced for them and a male staff member poured more drinks. And the guy was passed out. Apparently that’s what happens; you can pay for people to keep you company, and I wondered how many of the girls in there were like that, because something seemed fishy given how ugly most of the men looked.

But that brings up the dance floor, which was huge, and which bounced! The entire floor bounced! Even if you didn’t want to dance yourself, just by virtue of standing on the floor you moved in rhythm to the music! Pretty neat! And there were lots and lots and lots of bubbles from a bubble machine :) And lots of fog, and a separate, smaller stage that lifted like 5 feet onto which at one point were three staff dancing girls, dressed all in white 1920s style flapper type dresses, dancing to a really crappy Chinese dance song. Speaking of which, the music was mostly European and American, except for the odd few of the Chinese ones that emulated those styles. I have a feeling these people have absolutely no idea what the words in the songs are because they’re all shouting along happily to “Fuck, fuck, fuck” and “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.” It’s like my staff singing along happily to “Like a Virgin” with absolutely no idea what the words mean! I’ve also never seen so many groups of the same sex all dancing together. Now, obviously, some of gay; there’s a lot of those in China apparently, or maybe I just can’t tell because men in China have a much closer and physical form of camaraderie than in the States. Either way, but where I’d expect men and women to be dancing together in the States, there were just large groups of men and large group of women, all dancing in that pseudo-inappropriate club sort of way with lots of grinding. And then there were the tall caps. What the hell is with the very tall baseball caps?!?!?!? I’d like to just chalk it up to Chinese people being weird, especially when it’s like, they have a limited exposure to Western popular culture, so whatever they do see or find they then emulate and apply a multiplier on in their own special “Chinese” way that just puts it all the more over the top. I mean, imaging a Chinese man, probably mid-20s, with an afro, and a massive, tall baseball cap sitting on top of the afro, that says “Let’s be Colorful” with “Colorful” written in rainbow colors…

In short though, it was a lot of fun, especially the music. It helps when I’m feeling down to just be so completely taken over by something; the massive vibrations of the bass literally shook me to where I couldn’t stand straight; when music is that physical it helps me to kind of forget everything else and just be literally moved by it. Maria, my dear, I miss you so much. I wish you were there; you’d enjoy it a lot. I’ve already got it in the plans for us to go there together :)

Heh…neat. I’ll also write some updates. Me physical in China was quite painless, aside from the 7 vials of blood they drew. It was at this pretty big clinic that apparently specializes in physicals. It was quite obvious very early on that I would need lots of help so I was basically walked through the entire process; lots of smiling politely as I asked for a translation or someone to read the Chinese to me, which most of the time I still didn’t understand. It felt mostly like a US physical, but instead of one doctor they had many that specialized in a particular exam and you went from room to room filling out your little sheet that says what you want to do. All in all, quite a pleasant experience, and so cheap! I got more things examined than I could’ve hoped for at about 150USD, what would have cost me at least a grand in the States since I have to pay everything out of pocket. I pick up the results next week, and assuming everything turns out alright with the results process, I would highly suggest this experience to anybody in China needed a routine or not so routine physical since they do so many procedures. And yes, I also hope to be generally healthy and such.

So last week was the final week of rehearsals for the IFC before we performed on Saturday. The last week of rehearsals is always at the Children’s Palace (ShaoNianGong), right behind JingShan Park, less than 3km away from my apartment. Unfortunately, rehearsals are at 6:30PM, right when rush hour hits this wonderful city that I live in, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get there. At worst, the last day of rehearsals that Friday, I spent 1 hour and 45 minutes sitting in the cab, 1 hour of which was below the minimum speed at which the cab is considered “stopped” and I get charged a different rate. I could have walked there and back in less time. This just sort of reinforces what I’ve always known to be true: there is absolutely no reason not to either walk, take the subway, or bike to where you need to go in this city. Obviously walking has its pitfalls; some places are just too far, and the subway doesn’t reach everywhere. So lo and behold, the perfect solution: bicycling.

Apparently bicycle theft is rampant in this city. I’ve heard stories of gangs of thieves who specialize in stealing one particular type of bicycle. Due to this, I decided to go the cheap route when purchasing my bicycle in case it ever got stolen. So I had one of my staff help me and we walked to one of the nearby bicycle shops and there it was, the most beautiful bike I’ve ever seen in my life, for just 170RMB (not really, but it was that cheap). Add a basket and a lock and I evened out at just about 30USD. Very excited to finally own a bicycle and the new possibilities it opens up for me, I decided to bike to my father’s home and visit him and my grandmother who’s out of the hospital now. It’s just about 5 miles each way, and I made it in just over half an hour each way. It was great! So much fun actually, sort of reminiscent of the times I spent biking in New York City.

But then the honeymoon ended, one 10 mile bike ride later: the seat was starting to break, to the point where it was being bent in a very “awkward” way if you know what I mean, with the front pushing precariously upwards…And I’d also noticed that the pedals weren’t spinning very smoothly either; they kind of had a jerky sort of feel to them. But I ignored these problems, since I only paid 30USD for the bike, and put it away for the night in the little courtyard in front of my apartment. I was actually a little bit paranoid, but then once again reminded myself that I only paid 30USD for it.

The next day, today that is, I decided to bike out to the Western Academy of Beijing, which is about 18km away, just over 11 miles. I wanted to see if it was doable and in how long because there’s at least a chance I might be working there doing IT work for them. I make it half way there, the long way incidentally because I got pretty lost on the way, and one of the pedals breaks! Thankfully there’s a bicycle repair guy just at the street corner where I broke down and he fixes it for me but the whole incident kind of spooked me and I decided to just bike home and forget trying to make it out to the school. I still got about 10 miles of biking in, which is good, but the bike quite properly breaking down at just over 15 miles of total riding is a little…pathetic. I talked to the bike repair guy and he said that if I’m doing long distances, the bike I had will not be adequate; it was only meant for short distances.

Well, you live and learn I guess! But that means I’m going to need to buy a new bike later! Next time I get that cheap, somebody slap me.

As far as other updates, as I mentioned I was in a concert this past weekend, one in Beijing and the other in Tianjin. This is the first time I’ve been to Tianjin also; pretty neat city, it’s only like an hour away by car and half an hour by high speed train. It’s also a port city, which Beijing unfortunately isn’t, and on the way out I could smell the sea breeze and that was very refreshing. Being a port city though means that there’s actually a lot of Western influences in the city, maybe even more so than Beijing, especially in the architecture. For instance the concert hall we sang in reminded me very much of a European opera house. All in all the concerts were good, despite how weird the music was, and Maria and her friends like it as well.

Speaking of whom, Maria left this past Monday for the States. She’s going to visit her family and friends and run her first marathon in Cincinnati! I’m really excited for her and wish I could be there, but I’ll be seeing her relatively soon on May 10th when I also go to the States and we both go to attend Miguel’s wedding in San Francisco. It’s pretty convenient because this also allows us to get on the next entry of our Visa, though this is hopefully the last time we have to do this whole Visa renewal thing because our work Visas will be ready by then, fingers crossed. I also hope I have a job waiting for me when I get back…

I’m also going to try out the Chinese Medical System this Sunday! Woot! Not? I don’t know what to expect really, but it’s been over two years since my last physical and I figure it’s time to get one again. I had called some US doctors about taking care of it when I was in the States, but they wanted to charge me 1000USD to do it! I guess I had no idea how expensive these things were because I’ve never done them without insurance before but that’s what happens if you pay out of pocket apparently. So I discussed it with my cousin Michael in China and he suggested this chain of clinics in Beijing called CiMing that specialize in nothing but physical examinations. The prices are great, beyond great. For less than half the price of the US exam I can get so many more procedures done, not that I’d want to. I’m hoping to not have to spend more than 100USD actually to get everything I would’ve gotten in the States and more and thus satisfy my own paranoia about not having had a physical in a while.

Aside from missing Maria quite a bit and not having all too much to do these days, well, since I’ve not that much to do, that’s about all I have to write about for now. I have more I should write down but I’m feeling really lazy and probably a bit depressed, but that’s alright. Things will be better when they’re better.

Hard to believe it’s been a week since I last posted anything, and even longer since I last posted anything of any substantive meaning. The short and only answer you’re getting is that I’ve been feeling a little off, emotionally, and it’s made it difficult to muster up much if any excitement for anything. However, I believe this to be a temporary state of affairs, and I expect that it will soon make it over that proverbial hill and it will be smooth, clear, fine sailing from then on. Maria has been very supportive and for her sake, for our sake, for her support, I will write this entry, and a couple of extra, and introduce a brand new idea into my blogging repertoire as a reward.

The idea being I think I’ll start keeping track of my dreams. It’s really that I run out of or lose interest in the things I’m writing about rather quickly, so I find it best to have multiple things to write about. Of course I am not abandoning my trip down memory lane project, I am simply adding another parallel project, something to help me vent my writing steam so that it doesn’t pent up yet is less restricted in that I have other topics now. So dreams. Plus, many people have suggested I keep track of them, and my dreams are rather brilliant if I do say so myself, and Maria likes them a not, so hey, what the hell.

Also, as a general update, here goes:

1) Maria got in to both business schools she applied to! Yay! She now has a choice :)
2) The restaurant is sucking, business wise, and there are many things moving and shaking within that realm that I’m not currently at liberty to say, but suffice it to say that there are many exciting things about that hopefully just around the corner as well.
3) My concert is next Saturday; hard to believe I’ve only a week or so left to fully learn all the notes; just kidding.
4) Maria leaves for the states in just over ten days :( Booooooooo! Whatever am I supposed to do with myself for two weeks in Beijing, unemployed for the most part no less?
5) Lots and lots of web projects to do, though mostly for free. The Connections restaurant site is up, I’ve made a Document Management System for Maria and my father, and I will soon be revamping and redesigning literally all of my father’s company’s sites, for no pay; again, Boooooooooooo!
6) I’ve also gotten quite wrapped up in the inner machinations of the choir I’m in. At the moment, it’s all volunteer on my part, but I hope to be able to fully insert myself into their circle and ultimately be compensated for my efforts, which thus far has included taking on their ticket sales, to the point of actually going around to people’s homes and tracking them down to give them their ticket and take their money and agreeing to escort around the composers of the piece we’re singing. Not that I don’t do all of this out of the graciousness of my heart, I do enjoy doing it, but my finances are very tight at the moment; though I look forward to being compensated for working with the Youth choir in May, which apparently I will be; I wonder if I can get that to be a full time thing?

Otherwise, life trudges on, the adventure that it most definitely is; my father has become enamored with the iPad, and we’re wondering if we should get one. Both our power cords are dying, and my battery is as well. Hard to believe but my laptop is two and a half years old! Time sure does fly; I wonder if I should get a new laptop…maybe I’ll drool a bit at the new computers that are available, though, and hold your breath, I’m thinking of switching back to a PC!

No, it’s not a Sepia tinted photo; it is dust! Apparently, and I’d forgotten all about this, but Beijing gets pretty bad dust storms right around this time of year, between Winter and Summer. And here I thought we’d have a lovely Spring to look forward to. Apparently it has something to do with the winds that kick up this time of year as well which brings dust from the neighboring deserts. Thankfully, this only happened once, and hasn’t happened again, and as can be attested by the previous post’s photos, the weather is lovely, although it still rains occasionally for some reason, but today was supposedly 70 degrees! But, without further ado:

Dust!