time oh time, where have you gone.

Time surely does fly… regardless. This not to mean I haven’t been having fun, because yes, the quote usually does end with ‘when having fun,’ which I’ve decided to take out. But recently I’ve discovered, time in general just flies by. In a blink of an eye it has already been 4 weeks since I’ve already lost all my free time. Imagine, in a year or so, this is going to be my life everyday. Wake up, grab something to eat really fast, travel to work, wasting an hour on public transportation, work, travel from work, wasting another hour… only to get home too pooped to do anything but sit and … sit. To those of you working already, I greatly applaud you. I don’t think I’m ready for that lifestyle yet, but then again, when you guys made the transition, I’m sure none of you ran towards it with open arms. Or perhaps it’s just that I haven’t found a job that stimulates my brain the way it needs to be. But either way… future, could you please not come so quickly.

Wow, sorry, this travel, update on my life in China, blog has turned into rantings of a college graduate, a working (almost) college graduate. But alas, that’s what life here has been full of lately. I’m working as a consultant (trainee) at an internship placement company for foreigners. Ironic, huh. Go check it out: www.yourinternshipchina.com. My job there is rather scattered, as I do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and everything in between. Mostly though, my job is to talk to foreigners, from everywhere, who are interested in our program. Get a sense of what sort of internship they are looking for, and then find them one. It’s a startup, which I like because I can freely voice my opinions, which are often considered, with a pat on my back for thinking so creatively.

In regards then to actual traveling… since work started, traveling has come to almost a complete halt, minus the little mini excursions on the weekends. On a side note, a good friend – Alick, from Taiwan, came to visit a few weeks ago. Friends from elsewhere are always a breath of fresh air in a foreign country where everything everyday is a new adventure. This is to say that if you’re free you should make a trip over to Beijing, and give me a breath of fresh air, or at least a breath of different… familiar… air. That’s the weekend we went to Inner Mongolia. Did the whole horse riding in the grasslands, camel riding in the desert, living in a yurt – Mongolian hut, drinking baijiu – white wine (not your typical white wine, with over 50% alcohol content), eating lamb, and more lamb, watching sunrises and sunsets, thing. 

self explanatory.

self explanatory.

sunset. sky is so pretty in inner mongolia compared to beijing. night sky was even more amazing.

4:30 am - to watch sunrise with alick. we look like such nerd. 

outside our little mongolian hut. 

inside our little mongolian hut with new friends

lamb leg for 10 kuai each. yum. i thought i didn't like eating lamb too.

being bored at a temple somewhere in inner mongolia. sarah and alick.

Another good friend, Joanna, from San Diego, came by Beijing a few weeks ago also. Did the whole Forbidden City thing. I have decided I dislike being a tourist, a tourist that needs to fight with the other million tourists to take a picture of a random pot, or throne, or something. I am sure that this pot, or chair has plenty cultural significance, but really… what can a picture of the pot / chair mean. Proof that you saw it for a split second. Proof that you were there. Junks. If something has cultural significance I want to be able to enjoy it, let it sink it, the fact that an emperor used THAT pot, centuries ago. I don’t want one hundred other people shoving me to simply get a picture of it. Perhaps that’s too much to ask for, when the average number of people who go through 5 star tourist attractions in a day range in the millions. 

i am turning into a local with my umbrella. with joanna! at forbidden city

details of hall of supreme harmony (i think) ... it has 11 dragons, the most out of any building symbolizing the importance of it; only the emperor's building would have 11 dragons.

everyone fighting to take a picture I failed to take a picture of

With all this said, I think I’m more or less doing the ‘tourist things’ here in China. I’ve done the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Temple of Heaven.  True, I haven’t made it to Summer Palace, nor Lama Temple, but hey, they can wait till the weather cools down a tad. Speaking of weather, here seems ideal to insert my little rant about taxis, and local Chinese citizens. Yes, weather, taxis and locals do indeed relate. 

[Insert of my rage straight from the day I wrote it, no editing, just purely as I wrote it that day this ‘event’ occurred]

08/10/09

Attempt to go to the zoo clothing market w/ some girl friends: Left around 4 pm… started raining, so we decide to go eat some food first and wait out the rain…4 30 pm rain lightens so we attempt to catch a cab, so does about 20 other people… we wait and wait and wait… can’t catch one so we walk somewhere else… wait another 10 minutes, still can’t catch one… walk somewhere else… wait another while… rain starts falling harder… finally decide to walk to subway station, which is about 1 km away… rain progressively gets worse… get to subway station, shoe breaks… already pretty wet … take subway w/ a broken shoe to jishuitan… get off and try to catch a cab… don’t have to fight w/ the other 30 thousand ppl also needing a cab… but wrong. Also plenty of ppl outside subway station wanting to catch a cab…. POURING rain… getting soaked… few cabs pass us… other ppl catch them  >:O one guy even waves bye to us… as he steals our cab; we decide to start walking… more cabs pass us by w/ FOR HIRE sign up… we wave them down… they look at us, shake their heads and drive by. WTH. we are too wet. No one wants to picks us up. We begin the 20 minute walk back to school, it is now the worse rainfall I’ve ever been in. Shoe won’t even stay on my feet anymore… have to walk barefoot. Continue to wave cabs down. w/out success. Straight up asks a rickshaw to take us to school…. He says ‘no’. by the time we get back. We are soaked. Even my underwear is soaked. Terrible.

Same day:

To Wangfujing to meet Joanna for dinner– ask about 10 cabs if they know how to get to this one street. No one knows. I can’t call jo. I’m already late. I’m still at school when I should be there already. Still no taxi knows… finally decide to take subway… get to subway station. Train comes, I get on… conductor tells everyone to get off. WTH!?

[end insert]

at least they look happy.

but, i most definitely am not, as my shoe is broken. Zoom into left foot, it's missing a strap :C

To make that day even worse, the day before that, I went out with some friends at night, and on the way back we tried to catch a cab. It took about half an hour till it was obviously our turn to catch the cab, and an empty cab came around. We hail it down, hella excited to have FINALLY gotten a cab. I go to open the door, and from behind me I hear footsteps, and suddenly a girl runs up, opens the front door and sits down. I was so pissed. I just got jacked. Her boyfriend sheepishly comes up from behind after I had slammed the door out of rage and gets in. Another taxi pulls up, and this other guy jacks it from us again. This time, I screamed, or more like sighed… or maybe more like rawred very loudly. The guy was about to give up his taxi for us, but luckily another taxi came. I’ve learned 2 things from this: 1. Guys are 20,000 times nicer than girls. 2. China is making me meaner. I hope I don’t come back to America a monster.

So yes, weather, taxis, and locals. I can’t wait till fall when it cools down. I’m hoping people will just be more pleasant in general.

So, that in a very small nutshell is my update. I was really craving cheesecake the other day. I finally got my fix...

i miss desserts. they are so hard to find here. Fanny.

but when there's a will, there's a way. :D Audrey

It’s almost 5am here now, and my writing is making less and less sense even to me, thus the random insert about cheesecake.... I should definitely be sleeping, but the adrenaline rush that I get after I go clubbing hasn’t worn off. 

at Vics. with Winter, Audrey, and Fanny. 

But tomorrow morning is the summer language program’s graduation ceremony, and after that: Shanghai. I’m going for the weekend. AH. Shanghai. I’m excited. Let’s hope I like the city. 

Much Love.