Back to blogging

How's that for a creative title? As much as I dislike internet cafes,
they do have cold coke in glass bottles, and really, only a few things
make more happy than that does. One thing that I forgot how happy it
makes me is cooking. I have been fairly content with eating out, I
definitely can't make Chinese food,. And they do it so well, might as
well eat out, well I recently have been preparing my own "western"
meals and it is so fun to cook and make yummy non Chinese
–when-you-are-done –a-giant –pile-of – oil- is – left meals. I recently made German potato pancakes from what I could best recollect the last time my father made them [1987] and they were so yummy. Go me. Maybe I’ll open a breakfast café here [ok no].

The famed Hilary R. O'Brien and trusty traveler Madam LA Brown have
just visited, it was a whirlwind two weeks, and we all had a great
time. After a few days [this is going to get graphic] they noticed
that their throats hurt, they had a little of the ol' la du zi [spicy
tummy], and generally were feeling wiped. Aside from their added jet
lag and touring around Beijing is 95 degree heat, that is the general
body state that one deals with while in Beijing. You just… get used to
it. Other things they noticed that I have gotten used to: the thinness
of the Chinese plastic bag. At Alison's house I was bagging some
unused food in plastic bags that were American brand and was surprised
at how thick they were! And for what? The Chinese bags work 85% of the
time. Also: there are people everywhere. Everything is always crowded.
But, as we also discussed, Americans live well beyond their means,
enjoying most of the world's resources, and if the Chinese lived like
we did [or anywhere near it really] they would consume every inch of
the entire world's resources. So, by having thin plastic bags and
filling every bus every time, they are managing to live below their
means.

I have yet to develop my photos but Hil has got her’s on her mac website, check them out at:
http://homepage.mac.com/h.obrien/PhotoAlbum3.html
The last bunch of photos are from Hil’s and my trip to the province just south of Beijing, called Henan, to a town called Luoyang, we had a blast.

In other news, Summer is about to disappear to the land of the Swiss, off ot get married… I can’t wait til she leaves I can clean the house, no more cigarette ash, throw out her nasty garbage cans… I found a new roommate. she’s still in the US but we’ve been corresponding and she seems pretty cool. She writes:

>>I went to Middlebury College, in Middlebury. (About
one hour south of UVM/Burlington). I majored in
cultural anthropology/sociology and Chinese (joint
major). I graduated in 2004, worked at the Earth
Policy Institute in DC for half a year after
graduation, then traveled and WWOOFed (volunteered on
organic farms, www.wwoof.org) with my boyfriend in
France for the spring. Now I'm back in CA, staying
with my parents in Ukiah (about two hours north of
San Francisco). I grew up in a recycled wood cabin in
the woods near here, solar powered, composting toilet,
hand crank washing machine, etc... we moved into town
when I was 13 and I still miss the land.<<

So I said, why not? She gets here September 2nd. Between now and tehn I will be going on a mega business trip, there are a couple OTC medical conferences in Shanghai and Nanjing so I am going to represent the company that I teach English for, mostly to get them to pay attention to us and come to our conference. Use that big nose.

I think that’s it for now. Sorry I haven’t been a better blogger… now it seems that China is just… life.