Well, it's been a while. I've been a little busy, and when I have had some free time I haven't really felt like writing. Things are settling down a little now so I think I'll try and get back into it.

What's been happening?

About a month ago winter suddenly ended. It was very strange. It went from being around -8 or -9 during the day to being +8 or +9 in the space of about 48 hours. This year is the earliest that winter has ended for many years. At the moment the weather is generally around the high teens during the day, which is fantastic. It's even gotten into the 20's a few times. It's amazing how different everything and everyone is. Everyone is happier now that the long winter is finally over. A few weeks ago birds suddenly started appearing. There are huge flocks of birds flying around the town, the fields and the nearby mountains. I only notice them now because they were conspicuously absent during winter. The weather has been so nice that I've been getting out everyday for some exercise. I've actually been out jogging most days, which is a surprise for me because I have always hated long distance running. What's more surprising is that I've really started to enjoy it. It's just so nice to be able to spend some time outside after spending the best part of winter inside. I've also been riding my bike to school everyday, except for the days when I go to school in another town (I can't see myself doing 60km on my grandma's shopping bike).

What else? Well, it's now officially driving season. In Japan, there are two main seasons for me - snowboard seasons and golf season. However, there are very few people in this town that play golf, which means that I rarely get the chance to play. So, I decided to change golf season to driving season. Driving season started about 3 or 4 weeks ago when all the snow finally melted from the roads. It is great to be able to drive as fast as I want without worrying about sliding off the road and plunging down the side of a mountain. Two weeks ago I changed from my winter tires to my summer ones. When I changed them I noticed that my summer tires were in terrible condition. They were bad enough that at times it was hard to keep the car straight while driving. So, last weekend I went out and got a new set of tires and now everything is running nicely. I wasn't too worried about spending money on new tires because petrol has now become cheaper. On April 1st, after endless complaints from the public, the government decided to cut fuel taxes. This brought the cost of fuel down about 25 yen (30 cents) a litre, which is great for me because I do a lot of driving. The cost is still too high, but at least it's better than it was. A few weeks ago I paid over 7000yen for a tank for the first time - that's over 70 bucks! Too much.

I had about 2 weeks off for spring vacation, but it wasn't really a holiday. I had various events to attend, lots of farewell parties and welcome parties and other stuff. Most teachers only attend 1 farewell party at the end of March to say goodbye to the staff that have been transfered, and a welcome party at the start of April to welcome their replacements. Because I go to so many different schools and I am part of so many different groups I had lots and lots of parties to go to, so a lot of my holiday was spent recovering from long drinking sessions. There are quite a few new faces this year, but there are also lots of interesting people so it's good.

I don't think I have any other big news, so I'll make one final push and try to finish my China trip. When I left it last I had arrived in Beijing, I think.

After finding my hotel I decided to go for a wander and I spent most of the afternoon walking around Beijing. Beijing is a deceptively huge place. It's huge in the horizontal sense, unlike Shanghai which is huge in the vertical sense. You can look at your destination on a map and think 'Oh, it's only 3 blocks away', but those three blocks could take an hour to walk (a fact I discovered the painful way while walking around). However, it is definitely an interesting city to walk around. The other options for getting around are taxis (which are dirt cheap) and the subway (which is even cheaper). Taxis can be a bit of a pain because the traffic can be really bad at times, but the taxi drivers seem friendly enough and not too worried about driving foreigners around. The subway is the exact opposite of the Shanghai subway in almost every respect. The trains and stations are old and the routes are not particularly good. Stations are not really conveniently located for a lot of things. A lot of the stations are dark, cool and spartan, and when you walk into them it feels like you're walking into a set from a cold war movie. Tickets were either 1 or 2 yuan (I can't remember which) for travel from anywhere to anywhere. There was nothing high-tech about the ticketing system either. You give your yuan to a lady in a booth, who then gives you a little piece of paper. You then and that paper to the attendant waiting at the top of the stairs to the platform. If there's no attendant, then you don't have to pay. Passengers are all much more friendly. There's no fighting, no pushing and people seem to help each other when someone has a problem. Overall, the Beijing subway was a great example of an out of date low-tech system that worked well, while the Shanghai subway was a great example of a new high-tech system that didn't work.

While I was wandering around I saw quite a few things. I didn't take pictures of everything, instead I just took random pictures when I felt like having a rest.

My hotel was only about 15 minutes walk from the Forbidden City. I didn't go in on this day though.

Here's a couple of people flying kites in a tiny park. The kite is so high it's very hard to see. I hope the people are good pilots because I can image it would cause problems having a kite comes crashing down into a speeding car.


More kites.

This is what a lot of Beijing is like. Incredibly wide roads, made even wider by special bike roads. Notice how clean everything is. I'm sure it wasn't this clean before Beijing got the Olympics.

This is a great example of modern China. This building was about 200 meters away from a very poor area I had just walked through. On one side of the road, people are living in dirty, cold buildings, barely making enough money to survive. On the other side of the road, a Maserati and Ferrari dealership.
And we can't forget Lamborghini.


And why not throw in Rolls Royce too.
After wandering around the city I went back to the hotel for a rest. The hotel was actually quite nice, and my room wasn't too bad. It was small and clean, and it was the first hotel room I can remember staying in that had no windows. This wasn't a problem as there wasn't much to see anyway, and it really helped me sleep. I slept like a baby each night I was there. On the way back to the hotel I dropped in at the convenience store which was conveniently located next to my hotel. I was grabbing some random things to try when I found something amazing. There's a great scene in the Simpsons when a drunk Homer calls up NASA and exclaims "I'm sick of your boring space launches! And another thing, why can't I get any Tang around here?". Well, the answer is that he should have been looking in China.

Ok. So it didn't really taste like Tang. It actually tasted like very weak orange cordial. But it was still good. I also got some Mint Iced Tea.


The iced tea was not too bad, but it had a ridiculously strong mint aftertaste. It was lick drinking tea then sucking on a bottle of toothpaste. It was ok once, but probably not worth a second go. Finally, I got a bottle of 'Rice Dew'.
I was immediately intrigued by Rice Dew when I saw it. What is Rice Dew? How is it made? What could it possibly taste like? What kind of crazy person could come up with a drink idea like Rice Dew. And the result - well, it kind of tastes like... rice... dew. Hmm. If you went out early one morning and scooped up a glassful of dew, then put it in a blender with a cupful of rice, this is what it would taste like. Again, it was a unique experience but one I probably don't need to repeat often.

After a rest I decided to go back out and look for something to eat. Amazingly, my hotel was located about 50 metres from a popular night food market (a fact I was unaware of when I booked the hotel). There were about 40 stalls selling a variety of usual and unusual food. There was the usual fare of dumplings, noodles, fried goods, tofu etc. However, this was also the place to come for weird and exotic food. Just about everything that could be skewered and fried was available. There were lots of bugs and insects, scorpions, starfish, small rodents etc. After walking around all the stalls I noticed three things. First, the only people eating here were tourists. In my experience, this is usually a sign of less than authentic food. Second, everyone had jacked up the prices because they knew that there would be an endless stream of cashed-up foreigners wanting to try scorpions and starfish. Third, almost all the people working in the stalls were from other parts of China or even other countries altogether. They looked different, sounded different and some of them couldn't even speak Chinese properly. I don't know what this means, and I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing, but it was interesting.

The view of the market from the doorstep of my hotel.
Some fried dumplings.
Lots of tourists, both foreign and Chinese.
A burrito-like thing. Chicken and vegetable chopped up, covered in a sweet sauce and wrapped in a thin pancake. It was great. However, the next day I was reading my guidebook and it suggested avoiding eating cooked meats from food stalls. Whoops. Hope I don't get the chicken flu.
After the market I walked to the nearby Wangfujing mall, which (surprisingly) was open till late every night.
There were some food stalls here too. A little more authentic than the other market.
Some guys singing on a roof.

Actually, I should just mention how happy I was with the location of my hotel. It was a little bit of a hike to the subway, but apart from that there were shops and stalls just a minute or two away, and it was about 15 minutes walk to Tiananmen Sq. and the Forbidden City as well as a number of other sights.

Anyway, I'm tired now, so I'll stop. The next installment will be "Beijing - Day 2", which was actually the best day of my trip.