First impressions

So after two days of mooching around Beijing, these are some of the highlights:


1. Split pants


Simultaneously the greatest and most disgusting invention with regard to children's fashion. I assume it's probably a mother's dream to devise a system that requires no nappy washing and, at the same time, results in less long and arduous toilet training. Not being at that stage of my life yet, all I can see is a kid pooing on the ground that I may accidentally step in at some point, which would clearly result in a very nasty looking stain on my beautiful orange flats. But hey, Chinese people discovered many of the world's great pre-modern inventions, so maybe I should just deal with it.


2. Ganbei!


Only my second night in and I'm already being pressured to drink. We were taken out to our first Chinese banquet tonight, and it fulfilled my expectations completely. Baijiu, gorgeous Chinese food, a fair bit of MSG, and great people with whom to share it all.


As an aside, baijiu (rice liquor, ~55% alcohol, usually served at Chinese banquets) is absolutely horrible. Not only does it make you shiver violently as it goes past the taste buds, but it burns all the long way down to your stomach. The stuff we tried was admittedly not top quality—certainly far from the infamous maotai—but the local Beijingers at the table still tried to force it down our throats, ganbei after ganbei! Our host was, luckily, a little flexible on the contents of our glasses, having had a few experiences himself where a night on the old baijiu was a bit much for his stomach (although he maintained that, at our age, he was able to drink a bottle and a half without breaking a sweat). So we also got to sample the local pijiu (beer)—yanjing, which is a Beijing beer reflecting the city's namesake before the Song dynasty. Perhaps to complement the ... strongly flavoured baijiu, the pijiu is actually only half strength—roughly 3%—so it tastes a bit like beer flavoured tea. I hear you can get full strength beers (although they are largely pale ales) so I'll have to look out for them. But really, the style of beer suits the perfectly balanced salty, sweet, spicy, sour mix of flavours of Chinese food, so there's really not that much point in bucking the cultural norms.


Speaking of Chinese food ...


3. AMAZING!


Every meal I've had here (a statistician may say that's not a representative sample of all Chinese food) has been cheap, fresh, full of veggies and delicious! The night before last, we went to a beautiful restaurant in an old hutong courtyard house. The place was a small hole in the wall with crumbling floors and a very suspect sewerage system. But the interior was softly lit with lanterns hanging from the roof and lamps on the tables, and decorated with gorgeous peacock feathers and wooden features. It was full (but not bursting) with a mix of locals and expats talking and laughing, which mingled in with the general noises of the street. And the food. The food! Dish after dish of eggplant in sweet spicy sauce, chillied mint, chicken hotpot, whole fish, field mushrooms in garlic sauce, and delicate little jasmine flowers served with a sort of scrambled egg! And all for less than AU$10 per person. Why did I not move to Beijing earlier?


4. Subways


So I guess living in a city with 19,999,999 other people you should expect to share a bit of space on the subway. Still, having my first Beijing public transport experience was a little bit of a shock. So so so so so many people! All on one tiny funnel through which they are trying to move with surprising velocity. Coming from a reasonably small city (especially by Chinese standards), my imagination was running wild with pictures of being trampled by hoards of overworked Chinese people, passports being stolen by snatching hands, and hours of queuing for an out-of-order ticket machine. But, to my even greater surprise, the queue was incredibly orderly, polite and safe. It's a kind of organised chaos that I've never come across anywhere else. Almost as if people respected each other. Maybe the world could learn a little something from the Beijing subway system.

Welcome to Beijing, ladies and gentlemen

I actually quite like long plane trips. Don't get me wrong, I can certainly value-add to a Sunday arvo pub conversation about worst international plane rides, but there's something about being stuck in a 1sqm space for fourteen hours straight that appeals to me. It's like having your mum look after you when you're too sick to go to school - the situation is clearly suboptimal, but the undivided attention of a caring mother is unrivalled.


I feel the same way about plane rides. There's someone to attend to your every need, while you get fed at regular intervals, there are no dishes, and you're given an endless supply of every kind of entertainment imaginable.


This particular plane ride was fairly nondescript, so I won't bore you with a blow by blow. But here are a few pretty pictures: the fog over Canberra, beautiful Lake Eyre (that's my assumption anyway) and a cool Island near Denpasar.

Wise words from a friend

I hope I can live up to to these beautiful sentiments!

You must be having butterflies in your stomach by now. Less than a week before D-day. I am sure you are well prepared and looking forward to that wonderful experience that lies ahead. As the departure date approaches, it may be a bit scary  to imagine what you will find when you land in that totally foreign and exotic environment. But I hope you nonetheless feel quite excited to have the opportunity to live such an adventure.

You will have wonderful moments and also some difficult down periods. Concentrate on the good experiences each night as you review your day. Those will be memories that will be lifelong. As for the challenging times, keep your sense of humour and remember that you will look back at them later as funny adventures you can narrate to your grandchildren. 

Take the time to discover who you are, what you really value and how much inner strength and resilience you have. I am sure you will have the time of your life and in the moments you do not believe so, then think of me and all the positive waves I am sending you for this experience to be a success.

Awwwww ...

T-4 days and counting

A bit of existential vertigo*. Why am I doing this again? The prospect of adding 5 or 10 to the mercury is my sole emotional draw card at the moment.



* unfortunately not a phrase I can lay claim to, but now that it's out of the closet of its creative owner I'll hang on to it for dear life.

Must keep reminding self about amazing things I will experience in Beijing:
- Fabulous new people with whom to share fun times
- Cups of tea in a Chinese tea house
- No more (paid) work until December
- Mountains to climb! Lots of them!
- Tai chi in the park
- Jiaozi
- Oh yeah, plus the life-changing personal, spiritual, professional journey (yes photocopying is certainly a worthy professional feat! Not to mention exercising my super flying barista talents).