Belgium

Sorry that I haven't posted in a little while. We have been exploring the big, bad Beijing. When we first arrived we had nice blue skies, but we have also got to experience the oppressive pollution. Yeah, I think I will have to go on the inhaler come winter - whoohoo Albuterol!

We have been trying to clean up and out the VIA apartment. It has been in use for about 20 years or so. Needless to say a good purge is in order - the closet has been primed for an full scale excavation.

We have met most of the other foreign teachers we will be working with - so far they are all nice, blah, blah, blah good and stuff. I will start teaching a short term class on Tuesday. Matt and I need to work out some of the details of our contract - there are a couple of inconsistencies between our schedule and what we thought we agreed to. Anyhow, it should be fine as long as we get paid the correct amount for any hours over our contracted teaching hours.

We have done a little sight seeing as well with Naree (VIA volunteer), Adam (former reporter from the States) and Joe (retired teacher from Guam). There is so much to see around here - we hit the Forbidden City and the big T Square a couple of days ago. What else have we been up to? I dunno. Not a whole lot. Trying to get familiar with our little part of the city, try out the buses and metro, etc. We can get pretty decent Mexican food, and an Indonesian restaurant was discovered as well. We also joined a gym. After one year of no physical exercise, our first visit was quite a humbling one. I think I was sore for the next four days. So, I think the next big sight I want to go visit will be to see Mao up close. Yup. Want see that mug as close as I can. I bet it is a little creepy.

Beijing is huge! So much different from Guyuan, not necessarily good or bad just really, really different. Hopefully we will be able to find some side projects to do here and I would like to try to find someone to give me some paper cutting tips and find out where to buy the professional tools I have been hearing about. Anyhow, we read somewhere that the size of the municipality of Beijing is about the size of Belgium! Damn!

I miss my kids. They have been writing me by email and I just got a nice letter. It will be hard to not to be able to see them everyday, I really had fun with so many of them. But then again, they could really be little shits when they wanted to!

Anyhow, I'll try to be better about updating once things settle down a little bit. I have some more pictures up on my flickr site and am working on another video post that I'll get up in a few days - it's "interesting" and a little bit sad. Oh, I'll also send out my address in a mass email, if you don't get it and want it, let me know or if you can't read the Chinese characters, let me know. Even though we have access to a lot of western goodies now, that doesn't mean we can afford them! So all care packages are still more than welcome!