Twinkly sparkly festive time!!

Heya gingerbread folk!

Yes, jolly Crimbly time is upon us once more, and to celebrate I've been teaching lessons with a festive theme and having yuleish adventures around Beijing! I'm going to be teaching on Christmas Day, but only until 10am, at which point the Crimbo lounging and gorging shall commence! I've just purchased some apple cinnamon tea, so I really couldn't be feeling anymore festive this far away from home.

Here I've captured a few of our recent pre-Crimbo antics:

Miss Sarah Marsh and her pals the baubles.

Me inspecting a plastic crab at the Christmas market.

Bonding with the baubles.

Now for two little videos that I made (filmmaker extraordinaire that I am!):

Yes, this is the rather splendid Kempinski Hotel, which has the HUGEST EVER Crimbly tree in its lobby! We popped to the deli for coffee and nibbles before venturing out in search of Sarah's Christmas tree.

I am emitting a somewhat witchlike cackle in this one because Sarah had already been endeavouring to open yonder box of tea for quite some time!!! Oh ho ho ho!!

Erm... I'm not sure whether these are actually going to be watchable, or if they simply spend forever buffering! We still can't access Blogger blogs from here so I am, as ever, unable to actually see my own blog!

Either way, I wish you and yours the most wonderful Christmas yet! This time next year I shall be home and near you all, but until then: let the festivities commence!!!!!!

Do, do, do enjoy! Much Crimbo love,

Beijing Bec x x x

MONDAY AGAIN?????????!!!!!!!!!!

Tee hee... oops! It seems that a WHOLE week has passed since I last wrote. My 'Week in the Life' didn't go quite as planned! Not to worry! I'm going to give you recent highlights instead...

How are you lovely people? Feeling festive I hope! I'm in reasonably festive spirits, aided by the fact that I stepped outside into a snowy winter wonderland this morning! Woo!

I've received some Christmas parcels over the last week or so! I'm soooooooo lucky and spoilt: thanks to everyone who's sent Christmas gifts, cards, wishes or thoughts (yes, I'm psychic as well as forgetful ;))

Here are a few snaps from quiz night at Lush (cafe/bar) last Wednesday:

Sarah and I in wondering mode.

Our team 'The Twittering Sparrows' (Sarah M, yours truly, John A (my next door neighbour) and Jarod Z (my film watching buddy)) posing with answer sheet.

The world is prettier when viewed through a cocktail (and they have buy 2 get 1 free from 8-10pm!)

Me pretending that I may actually know the answer to a question.

All quizzed out!

John's mojito gave more assistance in question answering than the combined efforts of his three teammates!

Mr Zhang enjoying the quiztastic experience.

Brain strain.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee! We did pretty well (5th out of 20 I believe), but sadly left without the first prize (a bottle of Jack!)

Monday again?

Happy Monday(s)?!

Mmkay, let me give you the enthralling details of the rest of my Sunday before I give you the slightly gloomy account of my Monday so far!

The morning was spent lesson planning, followed by a trip to the photocopy dungeon (I kid you not) after lunch to print and photocopy my worksheets and handouts to use in Monday and Tuesday's classes. Along the way I took a few snaps of campus:

Da da daaaaaaaa! Welcome to China University of Geosciences Beijing (中国地质大学北京 pronounced Zhongguo dizhi daxue Beijing). I don't think that this photograph quite captures the magnitude of our resident on-campus Mao Zedong, so I took it from another angle:

Ah yes, he really is a sizeable guy! The building behind him (known to its friends as Building 5) houses the photocopy dungeon (here in the bottom left of the photo). I visit there 2 - 3 times a week to prepare material for class. The photocopy man is there all day every day in a windowless room. I have no idea how he stays same! I wouldn't say that we're friends, but we've progressed to the "Hello" and "Goodbye" stage, which is more than I ever managed with the previous photocopy people who were, frankly, frosty much of the time. Too long in such a setting is bound to induce icicles in ones personality! We've also developed our own semi-Chinese semi-sign language mode of communication, and he always gets my requests right first time. Happy days!

This shows our Mao's view. If you look carefully you'll see that the campus of the university across the road has an almost (if not completely) identical Mao standing in the same position looking towards ours! Could he have found a better situation than to be looking at himself for the rest of eternity?

Here's an example of the building work currently happening on campus - new buildings are springing up here, there and everywhere!

The main road through campus which I stroll along at least twice a day. The leaves have been falling for the last week or so, which is really rather pleasant. However, around here they're viewed as a mess which needs to be swept up, and a number of sweeping people dedicate hours each day to piling the leaves up and taking them away. Alas. No kicking ones way through the crisp autumnal leaf fall in Beijing!

The campus library. They're not terribly visible here, but a group of people at the top of the steps are swinging swords around. Hurrah!

After a swift stroll to the shops in Wudaokou and a phonecall home, it was time to head to Jasmine's apartment (another British teacher at our uni) for our weekly mahjong session. This is a recent addition to our lives and has become a much anticipated highpoint in the week. Snacks, joviality and confusion abound! These photos are actually from last week's game:

Building our walls just after the 'twittering of the sparrows' (my favourite part of the game in which we move the tiles around the table in order to jumble them up and often push them off the table in the process! Hoo hoo!) Notice Brandon and Jasmine's hats in this photo: all four of us decided to literally put on our 'mahjong hats' for this game ;)

Our constructed, slightly wonky walls, pushed tightly together to prevent evil spirits from entering.

My tiles at the start of the game. Woo hoo!

Eek, I'm running out of time! Here's Monday: the brief version. I opened my eyes to see a cockroach scuttling past: aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh! Then, whilst my shower worked perfectly well yesterday, it wouldn't work again this morning! Monday morning with no shower = disheartened Bec.

Off I tootled to class by 8am, with my faithful hat hiding my unwashed locks. Classes were reasonably good but, as is my wont, I'd prepared too much and had to carry over to next week content that I wanted to complete this week. Hmm. Today we were discussing stereotypes, generalisations and exceptions, and chapter 5 of The Magician's Nephew (yay Narnia!) which we're reading together. Teaching time always positively flies by as a teacher, so again I forgot to take photographs! Classes finished at 12 and I sped off to meet my language exchange partner, Martha by 12:30. She's fab! This week she'd discovered a new, cosy, reasonably priced cafe near her office (just one subway stop from Wudaokou). So we did lunch, exchanged English and Chinese, and generally chatted about this, that and everything for the next few hours. Here we are:

Eeeeeeeeeee! Okay, now I'm going to beat my shower into submission!

Have a marvellous Monday dear readers! x

Saturday - Sunday: The wee small hours

Hallo!

After I left you yesterday I continued to twiddle with my Christmas decor, and have now added the following mirror tiles (two are, regrettably, a smidge wonky) and extra fairy lights! Wa hey! Can a girl ever have too many twinkly twinkly fairy lights? (YES!!!!!!!)

I then had a very unforunate experience. As you will know, a shower is one of THE very important features in my day, without which I find it impossible to function at a reasonable level. Well, I had been in the shower for approximately 2 minutes when... the water became COLD. Completely cold! The boiler had cut out and refused to reignite. Annoyingly (or maybe luckily) enough, it still worked for the hot tap in the kitchen, so I spent the following half an hour running back and forth between the kitchen and the bathroom filling a washing up bowl with warm water, throwing it over myself with a jug, and alternately feeling satisfyingly warm and horrifyingly FREEZING! Time consuming and uncomfortable. Also unusual. My warm shower is something that my apartment usually unhesitatingly provides me with. Boo hoo.

I downloaded a selection of Christmas music to keep myself in the festive mood, then dashed out to meet my buddy Sarah at our favourite vegetarian restaurant for a late lunch. This place does seriously great and healthy food, and it's right up the road! It's situated near to the Google and Microsoft buildings, which I like to peek in as we pass. Here we are on our lunchtime mission:

The tea was ginger and jujube. Yummy yum to the extreme!

Yes, I am about to eat a napkin in this shot.

I then dashed back to my apartment by 4:30 (we like to take our time when we dine at the veggie restaurant: it has good ambience ;)) and dashed back out to meet my pal Barry at Wudaokou subway station (again, right up the road from where I live, this is a light rail station that conveniently connects we who dwell in the university sector with the rest of the city) by 5pm! Together with some other friends of Barry's we went to a bar to see the following:

Maybe I'm being really obtuse, but I can't work out how to rotate her! Argh! Anyway. these guys call themselves 'Too Dumb to Die'. They've been travelling around the world for 5 years, mainly by bicycle, supporting themselves financially by making music in cafes, bars and on the street, and by selling their own CDs and artwork (for a very reasonable local price, I must add). They were great, and their music was fantasticaly unusual.

This was the main event. They are the Beijing Improv, and they did a series of 'Whose Line is It Anyway'esque stuff which was soooooo funny. Their humour and the speed of their improvisation was really impressive. Woo, how we laughed! Plus, there was free lemon water to drink AND a free buffet with great salads! Happy Bec!

After this, we went to a club called White Rabbit who were holding a World Aids Day awareness event. From that point I sat on sofas with a single White Russian (which I eked out with baby sips ;)) and chatted to the extent that I forgot to take photos. Alas. I need to cultivate my photographic instinct; the photographer in me has lain dormant for too long.

All in all, a great night! Bed = 3:30am. Now = 9:54am. The fairy lights are lit, the advent calender has been adjusted, the music is serenading me, and I am about to start lesson prep for the coming week!

Happy Sunday my lovelies x

A Week in the Life

Welcome back one and all!

I've happened upon what might be a brilliant (or equally might be a dim) idea for this here blog: I'm going to present a week in the life of Beijing Bec! Mm hmm!

This is going to be my life as it's lived (as opposed to the entertaining version), and will show just one little life lived in a rather extraordinary setting. Living in Beijing no longer feels unusual to me (I'm surrounded by people who are doing the same!), but when I stop and ponder on it, I realise that in fact it is!

So, I'm going to start here, on the 1st of December and delight you with some shockingly festive photos of my morning.

I woke up with my alarm at 6am, turned it off and dozed until 7:30 (yum)! Then leapt out of bed with the happy thought that it's the start of December and I can therefore get my Crimbly tree out and try out my brand new advent calender which arrived yesterdy, care of my wonderful mother (thanks Ma!) Morning is my favourite time of day in my apartment - a time to light candles, listen to BBC radio and do some work, reading or thinking. See the photos below for my progress in Christmasfying my apartment so far:

Yes, that little stumpy fairylit affair is my Christmas tree. He usually evokes questions and ridicule from those who encounter him, but I love him dearly.

The stocking dangling from yonder bookcase is another pal of mine - we've spent every single Christmas together so far! He was created for me by my grandmother Omi Lynch (from 'Oma': German for grandmother).

The rather bare tree on the desk was a purchase from Ikea (in Beijing) last year. I think it's fantastic, and it stays out all year long. The bauble is a recent addition, bought for me at Harrods last week by my jolly friend Sarah Marsh (who lives upstairs).

Although it may not be so clear in this photo, the bowl on the table is filled with mini Christmas crackers, kept from last year. Ah! The festiveness of it all!

I think that my advent calender warrants these close-up shots: isn't it superb? The little star moves day by day to a new pocket in the countdown to Christmas! It's a calender for life and it requires no chocolate (although it came in a parcel with a considerable amount of the latter! Ma!)

Time to start the day. I'll take my camera and keep you informed of goings on!

Do enjoy your Saturday x

Autumnal arrival

The serene corner: it can always be found, if I look hard enough (and walk long enough)! Here I found one in inner-city Beijing:

Surprises never cease in the land of BJ: this week subway tickets were reduced from RMB 5 (a combined light railway and main subway ticket) to RMB 2 (to ride the WHOLE subway system, including the newly opened, super shiny Line 5!) Olympic fever is in the air!

Sooooooooo, Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature. Bravo! I've never read her books, but I'll make a point of doing so soon. Especially as I'm rather inclined to agree with her comment that:

"I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed"

This trend has been troubling me for some time, and I plan to be more proactive in stamping it out. Of course, we typically make jokes based on differences; but lines are being crossed...

Has anyone read Anna Karenina? I'm at the half-way stage! I'm identifying with Levin far more than Anna at the moment - how odd does that make me?

Umm, back to Beijing: autumn here is wonderful! Classes are going well! The Chinese language is finally starting to find its comfy spot and make its groove in my brain (think bum on a beanbag: even a language has to be comfortable!) I start Qigong classes this weekend - I'm not entirely sure what that entails, but come Sunday afternoon I shall reveal all!

Do be well, do be happy, do be comfortable, but do be daring!

Bec

x

Snap happy

Woo! Another weekend... how delightful! It's been a rather long week, but a really good one. More on that later.

For now, here are two more Facebook photo album links. These are not chronological... aiya! Both contain photos taken before I left Beijing this July (hence the scruffiness of my general appearance).

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12712&l=029a7&id=507326991

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15254&l=e9b4c&id=507326991

I hope the weekend's kind to you!

Bec
x

A summer in snapshots

Maybe this is the lazy person's way of showing holiday snaps, but I see no point in uploading photos twice, sooooooooo... I am slowly putting my summertime collection on Facebook and, even if you are not signed up to the site (which I reluctantly suggest that you be: it's horribly addictive, but there are too many contact-worthy people on there to resist) you can view them using the following links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14879&l=fb48d&id=507326991

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14881&l=6bad7&id=507326991

Please be patient when it comes to missing photos, or photos minus captions - I am plodding on with them!

Here are the links to some earlier photo albums from my last year in Beijing too:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2643&l=f8bc6&id=507326991

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1339&l=62685&id=507326991

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1634&l=7c2d6&id=507326991

There are many yet to be added... one day!

Okay, now I'm really going to do some work in preparation for Monday (first teaching day! Argh!)

Happy weekend.
x

Here we go again

In what may be a slightly confusing way of doing things, I'm going to work backwards from now in my account of what's been a-happening. When I reach the point at which I no longer want to reverse, I'm then going to leap forward to the present once more, and start working with time again, rather than against it. Hmm. Good luck to us all.

I knew that this journey was not going to be the smoothest I'd had when Jet (my pal Zhang Zhe 章哲) called from Beijing airport a day early to ask me where I was. Uh oh.

I then realised that my beloved orange coat with the HUGE buttons had been misplaced during our Proms in the Park escapade and I would be leaving Britain without it (I was rather lucky to acquire a replacement green one, however, with striking lime green lining, but no GINORMOUS buttons!)

I later listened, without surprise, as a bodyfree voice (with a rather lovely Irish accent) told me that my flight was at best delayed, and was in fact more than likely not going to leave at all (that day). Luckily I'd forced seven books into my hand luggage so I dug in at my Heathrow departure gate and, after informing us that the fault had been with the plane's anti-collision system (too, too, TOO much information), the kind Irish man allowed me to board my Air China flight after all and leave the UK only two hours later than planned.

For the first time ever I had a talkative seat buddy. This has always been a DREAD of mine on long-haul flights, but in fact, partly because he's the first Chinese I've met able to take off an array of British regional accents, and partly because I was tired and verging on hysteria, he kept me entertained and reduced my flight-induced terror considerably! We nattered until the man in front told us to stop (!), and woke up in the morning only to resume our conversation. Jolly.

Descending to Beijing involved passing through a familiar cloud of gunk, and at this point my sense of impending doom returned. The air was smelly and stuffy, and I was sent back from every airport desk I approached (a total of THREE times), to complete forms - the necessity of which I had somehow blotted out of my consciousness.

Walking into arrivals I discovered that neither of my mobile phones was working and that I was surrounded by fake taxi drivers trying to rip me off left, right and centre. The real taxi queue was astoundingly and horribly long, so when an official looking lady (why will I never learn?) with a shiny gold "We are the taxi finding department" (or something suchlike) badge on approached me, I was hot, tired and stupid enough to indulge her enquiry by confirming that I did want a taxi and telling her, in Chinese, where I wanted to go. She proceeded to point to a card in her hand and tell me that they would be kind enough to drive me to my destination for 450 RMB (it's an 80 RMB trip). I laughed/snorted in her face, which was the kindest I could manage when what I really wanted was to spit in it (even this pacifist can be pushed too far), and stomped off in the direction of the airport bus.

For a mere 16 RMB I acquired an airport bus ticket without a hitch. Unfortunately, when the bus arrived 20 minutes later, I was not allowed to put my suitcase in the luggage compartment underneath the coach (which contained only one suitcase and had the capacity for at least ten), but was informed via curt gestures and a steely stare, that I was to take it on the bus with me. I dragged my 32 kilo (yes, 32) case to the bottom of the bus stairs and, as fellow passengers shoved me aside in their eagerness to get a seat, wanted to do one, or both, of two things:
1. Cry
2. Go home
Okay, melodramatics aside, the bus driver eventually took pity on this pathetic person and helped me lug the damn thing on board.

We then got wedged in the rush hour traffic. Somewhere between the airport and Wudaokou I discovered that my Chinese mobile was receiving texts and calls, and a few well wishers managed to lift my spirits from the depths of extreme irritation and gloom. Approximately two hours later I reached my beloved apartment and, generally, all was well (with the exception of a cockroach in my bed), and has been ever since.

But that's another story.

Love to you all!

Bec
x

Supplies supplies!

Well, well, well... just when you thought it was safe to turn on your computer, I have returned to shatter your sedate surfing experience once more! Helloooooo!

Regarding my year-long non-stony silence: it seemed a smidge self-important to assume the world would want to read accounts of my life in China for more than a year. However, I stand corrected, so thanks to all of you who bemoaned the absence of my nonsensical scribbles! I also love writing. When I don't write, I rapidly morph into that person in a party that you sit next to and quickly wish you hadn't because I'm busy rummaging around inside my head for the answers to questions which really, truly are not appropriate party thought fodder.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm writing my blog again and I'm glad! For those of you fortunate enough to have dodged my dodgy emails for the last year, it was spent teaching at a university in Beijing and was a great year (more on that later). I returned to Britain for a spectacular summer (more on that later also), and now find myself back in Beijing, at the same university, for one more year! Pheeeeew!

I hope you are wonderful on this DAMP Friday. Welcome back one and all! I am truly disgraceful at keeping in touch, but I will get there in the end, and I look forward to hearing from you very much... regardless of time lapses!

Loves and hugs and jujubes,

Bec of the East
x