Beijing Dongdan Silver Road Hotel

... chaos that suggests itself to the observer is more than a suggestion. It's a disorganised mess that seems to be ephemeral, different every day, its buildings being the only constant, yet even they shift to make you confused and disoriented, until you're ready to throw the towel in. I've arrived back from a day of cycling to find myself in a transformed street, unrecognisable, always doubting that I was in the right place, until I have finally came to the hostel. I cycled fast as my ...

... It was surreal to finally be in China. I was really tired too so I don't think I could really take it all in. In the forbidden city is where I met my now good friend Vivian. She got separated from Erica (another of my now good friends) and so we "pal"ed around for the rest of that day. This day we also went to the Temple of Heaven and to the Pearl Market where everyone wanted you to buy there items and you had to bargain with them. (not my favorite ...

... to locate the street and then the building itself. As the sun rose higher in the sky, it grew more pleasant to walk about in the shadows of the trees which here really seemed to be in abundance. And as opposed to those trees, people were remarkably few. We walked about for a while, and it was evident that we were in the embassy row. All the streets were lined on either side with low buildings, heavy metal fences and guarded compounds, often hedged, proudly flying an array of ...

... unspoken system was followed by all the white people in the museum, but they found their view constantly blocked by Chinese who found it impossible to read the two-inch high characters unless they were two inches away. It quickly became apparent that this was also the Chinese way to look at exhibits that were behind glass, only now the automatic 'reach out and touch' response was blocked. This left greasy hand prints all over the glass making it harder to see clearly what lay beyond ...

... the time remaining anyway. My students were sweet and wished me a happy birthday and sang to me. One even drew me a picture as a gift. I was happy. Then Adam and Jason met me for lunch, and we went to the mall. On my birthday, I bought Adam and myself a present. We discovered a t-shirt printing shop that had clothes more wearable than your run-of-the-mill souvenir ****. Mostly because I fell in love with a sweatshirt that had a Chinese design and ...

... out the window. When I mentioned Obama, the student's faces lit up. They have read about him in the newspapers and he is popular enough to have a transliteration of his last name. It's pronounced something Ow Bow Mah. One student then called out "he won the president". First I corrected his grammar then I corrected his facts. No, actually he won the primary. What's a primary? Blah Blah Blah. And that's how my class learned about the American political ...

... a bed in a 8 mixed dorm, which was a new experience for me. I entered at 9ish and everyone was already in bed trying to sleep! i had to get my bags through in the dark without making too much of a noise! This was a struggle but then i had the problem of taking my clothes off and where to put them? I ended up shoving everything at the end of my bunk. I learnt, in the morning, that everyone has different sleep patterns, so its really easy to get lil sleep, but i had mastered ...

... there will be some ppl here in china who thinks they know what they are talking about when they really really dont, so dont trust asians, they are out to steal ur soul. good example of that is when i went shopping for some stuff, and this lady made me buy some sizes way too small.....long story, but i had to get new ones on my own. ya, you all konw that i would write a blog about it, but if u ask me about it i would tell you everything. oh OMG ROFL!!! hahaha omg ok so ...

... many parks where people were doing exercises and Tai Chi. People were also starting to cook out in the street. When i got to the river the police were trying to rescue a man that had fallen in. Wen. afternoon we came to a town called Hangzou. It is a town built around a small lake. There are a lot of faberic mills here. 6/21/07 Hongzou is an amazing city. Thursday we took a tour of a temple that has ...

... safe are these anthills? The shopping malls are full of merchandise, the newest cars, computers and telephones are readily available. What's next? A cure for AIDS? Men on Mars? Maybe, as I just read in the newspapaer today that the first Chinese business man paid about $200.000 for his trip into space in 2008. Anything is possible. Nothing that happens in the world's most populous country, a place with an average annual economic growth rate of 8% over the last 25 years ...