Stranger No More

I moved hotels today, and heard from my contact. I expect to meet up with him and be on a bus to Datong Friday morning around 1030.

At about 0930 this morning, (when I sent my last email), it began raining and continued throughout the day. At least I think it did since I had to have a nap from 1300-1700. If there was ever a city in need of a washing this is it. It helped. A bit. I can’t tell if all the smog is from the traffic or from *everyone* smoking. Likely the amazing traffic. After about a day you stop listening to the honking of horns, they seem to figure that the car has one so they should use it. Constantly. I’ve also become quite the bold pedestrian in my attempt to follow local custom. Most major streets have frontage type roads on both sides for bicycle traffic so you have extra opportunities to get honked or ‘belled’ at.

This evening I went to the night market with the street vendors offering fried everything. I took some pictures but couldn’t bring myself to actually eat any. Or grubs. Or grasshoppers. Or squid. I had both chicken and beef but it wasn’t nearly as good as the lamb, (or maybe it was goat since it was described using sounds), that I had last night. I am trying to not eat at anywhere with roman characters. I’m thinking about breaking down for som KFC but it might just make me more homesick.

My fellow round-eyed tourists aren’t generally social although I have met a few that were friendly. Most just nod and keep walking but some don’t even do that.

The major plaza here is a bit like Times Square only you can’t understand most of the words unless they are major corporation, (Nestle - Good Food, Good Life), but it is glorious eye candy.

My Chinese has improved to the point that I now say ‘thank you’ constantly,(shee-shee), and ‘please’, (ching) quite a bit as well. Oh yeah, ‘ni hao’, (nee-how), is hello so I’ll mutter that quite often. It also how they answer the phone.

The Kings will be playing the Rockets in Beijing on the 14th and the 17th. I’m hopeful that I can come back since the 17th is a Sunday and attend the game. Now that’d be cool.

I look forward to having more regular internet access. I miss you all. The movies I brought to watch only seem to make me more homesick. I found a store today that has movies still in the theater for you on DVD for me. I might swing by and get Shrek 2 and Collateral.

Hope you all are well. I am making it. I appreciate all of your support!

O.

This is pretty crazy. I’ve been propositioned twice by Chinese prostitutes. Don’t worry, I said no. Both times. I did see the one from last night with a round-eye in my hotel last night. The other was at 0830 this morning, (it is 1015 now).

I also got stopped by two girls that wanted to ‘practice their English’ when it was really an attempt to coax you to look at and purchase some of their art. Very nice but maybe on my way out of the country.

So glad to have emails!

I ate at a street vendor last night and had fantastic lamb kebabs for ~$0.80, it was so much because I ate a lot. This morning I ate in some alley kitchen/restaurant thingy that was full of non-English speaking locals and had a bowl of what I think was warm yogurt with a sprout and mushroom soup over it accompanied by three dumplings of some sort of meat and some fry bread. It was all yummy but I wasn’t really into the fry bread. Total cost of breakfast? Y3, which is somewhere around $0.40. Some Australians I ran into told me about a street vendor with grasshoppers, snake and scorpion kebabs that I may try this evening.

My hotel is a nice one but is Y448 a day so I think I am going to check out and move to one that is Y280 i found while walking. The name of the one I expect to move to is Fangyuan Hotel at 36 West street of Dengshikou in the Dongcheng District. They have their own email address at fangyuan_hotel@sohu.net and webpage at www.cbw.com/hotel/fangyuan . It is still nice and there were some other Australian tourists staying there and they said it was fine. They were discussing the hot water which isn’t a problem at all in my current hotel - I took a 30 minute shower this morning. The bathroom is all stone, (maybe marble), and has a drain in the floor so basically the whole thing is a shower.

Still haven’t heard from Kevin McCray who is my contact. His email should anyone need it is american_k@teacher.com. Since tomorrow is the first day of a week long national holiday I think I’ll move to the less expensive hotel and stay for the first day and then just take myself to Datong City. With luck I’ll hear from him tonight.

Beijing has to be one of the most beautiful filthy cities; it turns out the ‘fog’ last night really is smog that just hovers. It is hard to say since it was sprinkling a little this morning so there is also a cloud cover. The people seem nice and it seems to be a safe city as I was out last night until 0100. When I got back to my hotel the bar was empty but I went in and got a drink; the only hard liquor was Chivas and it was Y50 for a really fat shot which I think is right about $6.00.

Odd thing about the flight is that it was entirely during the day as we were chasing the sun.

The clothes really are cheap here. I bought this great shirt for Y98 which as I get used to the math would seem to be about $12.

O.