Time for a weekly check-in!

A lack of posting shows that I am adjusting well-enough to my current life in China.

Ah.  There we go.  That's the topic.  There is my unifying theme for this week's little posty-post.

Let's try to look deep and reflective.

Current.  My current life.  I have already had moments where, while I am really enjoying China, I am looking forward to my next place.  London, Istanbul, Tokyo, Numazu, Edinburgh... I walked into those cities and went, "yeah.  A'ight.  This... This could be home.  I could make a long stay of this one."  Beijing isn't doing that for me.  I am just not feeling this amazing place.  Don't get me wrong.  I am exceptionally appreciative of being here.  I love the people I have met, the schools I work in, the students I have, the professional and personal support I am receiving from all sides.  My apartment, while having a few small flaws, is large and comfortable.  I can walk or ride my bike to work.  When I am not at work, I am still in Beijing.

Like me.  Rough, man.
See this water?  Yeah, filled up my container at work.

And Beijing is silly big.  So, I am in the far west side of the city.  To get to the east side, not the SUPER east side, just the east side, can take two hours, more if there is traffic.  That's amazing.  I could get from Numazu to Tokyo by local train in 2.5 hours, and that was in another prefecture!  I guess I just got too familiar spending time in places like Kadikoy and Futakotamagawa with so much waiting for me just outside my door.  Ah well.  It's nice to live somewhere where I feel completely safe jogging at 5:50 in the morning.  Vegas is rough.



Rather than spending a lot of time giving you the day-to-days, and it has been far too many days anyway, let's me just do the good ol' fashioned photo drop so I can go to bed.

Cool building, Bro.

We drive 5 kmh in my area and NEVER
while playing the trumpet.

I can't negotiate prices to being with, but THIS guy
was a PROFESSIONAL.  "No.  Too high."

Do I look like the kind of person that should own these kind of knives?
I look a freaking PICTURE of myself playing with them!!!

Sunsets are made more lovely with pollution.

How to get to the subway station...

*cough, cough*  Well.  I know what I am buying
everyone when I go back to the States.

HEY BUDDY OL' PAL!!!

Slightly nicer neighborhood than where I live.

YAY!!! Fancy manhole cover!

My shoes have no chance of lasting a year.
Too much walking to do.

Alas, I looked.  They had nothing Top Gear-ish...

Ah, beer.  Even better than durian.  

Mischief.  

LOL.  They have to tell us?

 And a few that highlight how different schools can be from the States...

My school had a soccer game during school hours.
This means classes had to be canceled. 

Music class for second grade!

Yet another reason you shouldn't be an ass on the streets.
Yes.  Every Chinese person has probably studied Kung Fu.

And they also did dance so they have confidence in dropping you.

 Lunch is longer here.  I usually work on lessons, walk laps with my coworkers... do something normal to pass the time.  Last Friday, however, one of the the art teachers invited me into her classroom to make a thing.  Monica made an iris.  Liu made...uh.. a flower.  I don't speak Plants.  Both of them made amazingly life-like faux flowers.  I, however,...

Gentlemen, yes.  I remain single.  

 Two major Life Events happened this week.  First, I joined a group of people though BeijingHikers to do a day-hike at the Huanghua section of the Great Wall.  Yep, I am just going to drop, "I hiked on the Great Wall" toward the bottom of a random collection of pics.  Yeah, this goes below my octopus.

 I climbed 8kms of the Great Wall.  That's like...
nothing.
It's like I did nothing.
Pretty day though!

Second HUGE event.  I got one step closer to completing my registration in China.  Forget all the stuff I did to get here.  AFTER I arrived, there was the police office registration the next day from when I arrived.  There was the medical exam (which I STILL have a bruise from!). My boss had to gather all this paperwork and take it to another office to get a passport-looking Certificate of Expertise made (that took a week).  Now, all of that, and my passport (!), are in the hands of the Chinese government and I should get everything back in three weeks juuuuuust in time for the summer holiday.  Yeah, that's all very interesting.  The big thing was this...

!!!!
I am a type A- NOT O- I always thought I was.

 You don't understand.  I know you don't.  This is a big deal to me!  This is like finding out you aren't really a Gemini or your mom is actually just some nice lady who adopted you as an abandoned infant.  Yeah.  Completely the same.  I just lost part of my identity.  I AM a type O person.  Type A?  Really??? Does that mean I have to, like,... take stuff seriously now and strive for perfection?  NOOOOOOO... I am a well-meaning idiot!  I mean, Sailor Moon is a type O!

Ugh.  I need to process this again.

That's it for now.  I had company today. The art teacher, her son, some other lady with her two kids, and another teacher from work came over to my house to make dumpling at 9 am!!! That meant I had to get up early after an early day the day before (Great Wall hike required a 4:20 wake up) to clean.   Also, after I tried REALLY HARD to explain that I only own 1 plate, 1 fork, 1 plate, 1 pan and so on, the art teacher bought ALL the ingredients needed for making dumplings (and two other dishes!!!) and a couple of kitchen necessities like rolling pins and paper plates.  I felt like an ass.

Damn it!  It's 10!  Good night one and all.

Good job, little iPhone.