So sad!

That this is my last night in Beijing. I've been trying to take pictures of things I see everyday and the places I go, but I should've started this project at least a day ago.

I won't be updating for awhile since I fly out tomorrow and get in really late. Fortunately those 12 hours of my life that I unwittingly gained when I flew here will be given back to me, so that in essence I will be going back in time tomorrow to arrive in the States only 40 mins after leaving Beijing. Oh if only travel was that quick. Luckily I now have several books to keep me occupied on the plane, both in English and Chinese, and assuming Continental hasn't downgraded their facilities thanks to the economic crisis, I should also have some movies to watch in-flight. Looking forward to everything except the actual getting to the airport part, which is always a pain but in Beijing (of course) even more so.

All right now I'm off for my last night of karaoking (or KTV, as we call it here)! Oh how I'll miss you, cheap singing entertainment in classy rooms with terrible music videos on screen.

Transport-hation

After Tuesday night's failed attempt to make it to dinner on time via the 394 bus to BeiDa's west gate, I was quite gratified that yesterday I found a bus to take us directly from Bei Wai to the Wudaokou clothing market (hurray 836, you are convenient and efficient!) HOWEVER it took me half an hour of playing around on bjbus.com to figure out the right schedule, AND the bus of course took forever to come while all the other buses (including the loathed 394) whizzed by, repeatedly.

Not to mention while we were waiting, we stood there for enough time that a creepy middle Chinese man approached my and asked me for my phone number and email address (among other questions.) Luckily I had encountered this situation before (on a bus, coincidentally) and I told him my phone is broken and proceeded to give him a fake email address. I would feel bad except I was being polite and he was trying to pick me up, even though I told him I am returning to America in three days and I'm totally not an appropriate age for him. WTH China.

Also I just learned that those strange people who stand outside Carrefour asking for your receipts when you leave actually have a purpose in collecting them. I never gave mine up, but I wondered why they wanted them, because it's not like the receipts have credit cards numbers on them since everyone pays with cash. But apparently they collect them and then sell them to other people who want to claim them as tax returns. What??? Can't you find a better way to stick it to the man?

Oh, China. I've been thinking that a lot lately. I'm trying to take lots of pictures in my last few days here of the random stuff I see everyday, just so I have a reminder of how truly crazy this place is. On one hand, I'm glad to be going home and seeing my family and not having to deal with Beijing transportation/pollution/haggling etc, but on the other hand I know that I'm not done with China yet. So I'm going to enjoy my last few days here, think "Oh China" a lot, and then look forward to some serious R&R back in the US.

COLD NOW

The wind is making scary howling noises outside my window. The good thing is, I wasn't going to go out to find food anyway, because I'm sticking to my budget and therefore dinner plans consisted of making ramen. You'll appreciate my bad eating habits when you get a cool China gift, I promise.

Anyway yesterday our environmental issues class took a day trip to Tianjin. I can't really say much about Tianjin except that they have an awesome planning museum with a truly epic movie about how awesome Tianjin is. We saw where they are planning to build an eco-city on the coast, which should be completed within 20 years or so. It'll be interesting to see how that goes... right now the area is a bunch of polluted grasslands with a nasty polluted river running through it. We had a nice Hunan lunch and then saw a couple factories and then left. Yeah, not the most exciting field trip, but I guess now I can say I visited Beijing's sister city... I guess.

More importantly, Tuesday night we had a lecture where two of Beijing's prominent translators came to speak. Since this just so happens to be my independent research project topic, it was quite fortuitous, really. I will follow up with more info on this later. Tomorrow I've got two tests (and my final day of Chinese class!!) so I might wanna start doing something for those... maybe.

Finally

We have the internet again! There's something about China in that when you have a problem, you just have to wait around until someone else gets around to fixing this problem. No matter how frustrated you feel or how much you complain, you usually just have to wait it out.

Saturday we went shopping at Sanlitun's Yashow market and I spent wayyyy too much money, Sat night we sat around at Lush chatting for several hours, and on Sunday I literally did nothing. Well, Cheng and his Qinghua friends came here to eat Uighur food for dinner, but other than that. Nothing.

I just found out that tomorrow my program is hosting a lecture from a couple prominent Chinese literary translators, and my prof invited me to eat dinner with them beforehand since I'm doing my research project on this very subject. How coincidental and fortunate! Hopefully I'll get enough information tomorrow night to put together a good presentation next week, and then I'll have more time to kick around Beijing instead of worrying about research.

Only two more weeks. Yikes. Also, just so you all know, today is the first of December and the temperature this afternoon was probably in the 60's. Mmm global warming.(Photo after our Chinese competition. My team (Heli Bote) won! :)