Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

So, Beijing! Whew!

It is nice to be able to set down and have an home once again rather than strapping on my pack and riding around on the rails like a hobo. But, there is something to be said about the hobo lifestyle. But, we are officially homeless no more!

Beijing. Um. Doesn't suck as much as I thought it would. It is actually fairly clean and...blue skies! We can actually see some stars at night too. It is big though, but I expected that at least. Big, big, Beijing. I will be sending out a mass email soon with address and other contact information when I get around to it. Also, if you Skype, send me your user infomation and we can chat for free! If you don't have Skype, why not? Seriously. Go get it! I'll wait...don't just sit there staring at me, go, it's free - Skype click here!

Alright, what else...the train ride up here was fairly uneventful, cabin mates were pretty well behaved though. China turned out the lights around 11:00 PM and then promptly woke me up before 6 AM with shrill flute music. I was on the top bunk again, but no one sat on me, so I was pretty happy about that. I think I can officially give western food a little rest, I think over the past week I have consumed about 2 pounds of cheese. Not kidding and that is probably a conservative estimate.

We met with our new waiban, Chen, and she seems like she will be good to work with. Tomorrow we meet the other VIA volunteer at the train station and then head on down to the friendly PSB office for processing. I guess that there is another foreigner coming with us, so we will get to meet him as well. I still don't know what I will be teaching, but I will only have 10 classroom hours this year and the rest of my hours will be at Huiling - an organization that works with the mentally handicapped.

So, what else have we been doing? Not a whole lot. We have been exploring a little bit, picking up things for our apartment, planning a big purge of things that are junking up the place, etc. The apartment is a lot smaller than in Guyuan, but still nice. It has been the residence for many VIA vols over the years, so there is quite an excavation waiting for us in the closet.

I think I many poke my nose into the Olympic planning headquarters one of these days - we saw an ad on CCTV 9 (the international station) which said that they were looking for English speakers and foreign volunteers to help with Olympic stuff. Don't know what I would be doing, but could be interesting.

I never thought that I would be so excited to see the golden arches of McDonald's, but out here, it is like the best thing in the world. There is a little area we have been walking to where we pass a McDonalds, Subway, KFC and a Pizza Hut on the way to the subway station to go to the Walmart. International corporations are cool. Sometimes I am so happy about being able to get a sandwich, I want to cry. The Walmart is huge! Three floors with full grocery store - read, "imported cheese" - it is too expensive for a routine sort of thing, but I have a feeling that that gouda wheel will get a little visit from me come October!