Home Inn (Beijing Jintai Road)

... themselves on the best route to the subway. The verdict is handed to token bus lady, who tells me we should have taken the bus on the opposite side of the street in the opposite direction. I laugh. Fortunately, the bus people took pity on our plight and did not charge a fee. Mom and I get off and start to cross the street, (p.s. street-crossing is an adrenaline rush as anything can come out at you from anywhere. Crosswalks are death traps because they give you a false sense of ...

... China. It was hard to decide to leave but it just wasn’t clicking with me. I don’t know, maybe I was just homesick for the first time. And did I mention the internet chaos? It was crazy… my e-mail worked about half of the time and many websites were inaccessible altogether. The one place you’d kind of expect wireless access to be plentiful it wasn’t. I decided to stay in Beijing long enough to see the Great Wall and do a couple other things ...

... at work.... We were supposed to meet Jamel at one of the subway stations at 7:00 pm... We took the Beijing subway which is beautiful... Really, it's great. There are TV screens. It's well lit... There is a glass partition so you can't fall in. Quite nice. Anyone who knows Jamel knows where this story goes next.... So when we got to the subway stop around 6:50...we saw that we'd missed a text message from Jamel that he was running late asking ...

... at køre hjem, hvor jeg foran vores lejlighed fandt et lille frimærke med græs. Om eftermiddagen tog vi til julehygge i ambassade-praktikantlejligheden, hvor 1. december blev fejret med konfekt, bolle, kage, kaffe og hjemmebagt rugbrød. Andreas (en af praktikanterne) viste billeder fra sin tur til Nordkorea i sidste uge. Det var meget spændende at høre hans øjenvidenberetninger fra dette sindssyge land. Weekenden blev afsluttet hjemme i lejligheden med den nye Indiana Jones-film.

... has not been so passive. The restive Uighur Muslims of western China's Xianjiang province have responded to crackdowns in past weeks by attacking and killing up to 30 Chinese police and others. In censorship-dominated China, millions of Chinese followers of Falun Gong have not been heard from during the Olympics. Without evidence, Chinese officials outlaw Falun Gong, which combines spiritual beliefs with bodily movements, labelling it an "evil" cult. Meanwhile, the ...

Needless to state the obvious but expect a crowd when visiting the sights of Beijing on a Saturday. The first stop was Tienanmen Square. Imagine a parking lot, 6 soccer fields big, full of little people with occasional light posts (I do not know why there are light posts because there is a curfew and no one is allowed in the square after sunset)and a big monument in the middle. Trying to not get in anyone's picture was next to impossible with ...

... the entertainment starved Chinese studio audience is seen saying amongst themselves, "Dude, that is SO 1988...move on, pal." There are historic dramas, and contemporary soap opera type shows, and some program that features some strange Ninja Monkey character in a live action children's show that apparently is aired a minimum of 35 hours a week...day and night. The haunting sing-song Chinese language flows over me as I continue to nap on ...

... massage followed up by something called the "Imperial Ginger Steam" (supposed to improve circulation and ease stiff muscles), which consisted of me first getting my feet and legs steamed, and then she packed my legs, from ankle to knee, shin side only, with a thick ginger paste. (It smelled heavenly!) After that, she wrapped my legs in plastic and then laid steaming towels over them. Oh hot hot hot hot. And quite literally, even after she'd peeled off the plastic and removed ...

... as the place in 1989 where students demonstrated and were brutally killed by military force. No one knows exactly how many were slain as the goverment controls that sort of thing; estimates range from several hundred to a couple of thousand. From Tiananmen Square, we met our van and went to a Peking Noodle King restaurant for lunch. This was a loud, communal dining kind of place, fairly dirty in terms of sitting down in the last person's mess! Chi made ...

... She is a nice girl and lives in a home belonging to the Charity, looked after by a House Mother, with 6 others. Zhao Zhen did not want to come into the centre last week although the temperature has plummeted.With the concerted effort of the Leaders and his parents cajoling and pushing, he just sat down.He came to the Library but wouldn't go in.When persuded to go in, he went to the cloakroom and wouldn't come out ! Zhi Hai Yun is the Leader, and has a great sense of humour. He is 22. I ...