Video taken looking out of my bedroom window at midnight.
Happy Birthday to Me
This is a cross post from Teach Less Learn More
Today is January 13th and I am 61 years old. That really seems impossible as I don’t feel a day older than 43 though my bad knee makes me feel 85 often.
Why am I writing a post to celebrate my own birthday? Because so much good stuff has happened during this past year and 365 days ago I was very depressed about the future and what it might hold. Now I am excited about the future and all the possibilities. I know where I am going to be working next year and am thrilled at the opportunity to learn a new culture, meet new people and possibly learn a new language. (I have not been very successful on that previously with French and Chinese but I live in hope that my language learning gene will suddenly kick in).
Celebrating my birthday with my great class.
The first of the new years
The first of the two new years I will experience this year has just happened. It wasn’t really much of a celebration because I was flying 35,000 feet move the earth on my way back to China. I have no resolutions except to try and post to this blog on a more regular basis. Regardless, Happy New Year.
Reasons to Love China
Why do I love China? That is a question I get periodically especially I am back in Canada for a visit. I have lived here for seven years and while it looks like I will only be here one more year I continue to love here. OK we will not dwell on depressing topics today.
So back to the answer. One of the reasons I love here is the weirdness that goes on right in front of everyone and is accepted as everyday life. Case in point was the arrival of the iPad 2 in Beijing yesterday. I have included an article from Micgadget that without a doubt shows what it is like here. My favourite part is the sign in Chinese saying that no scalpers are allowed and the comment that all the scalpers are meeting together behind the sign. Too funny.
The picture with the person holding all of the money in cash is normal here. This is still very much a cash society. When I came seven years ago it was totally cash no credit at all. I remember going to this small room which at that time was the Finance Department to get my refund for my plane ticket which was $1,200 CAD. The cashier went and pulled out a big lock box and opened it up and I looked inside and there was literally tens of thousands of RMB (Chinese Yuan) in the box. She just reached in grabbed a stack of bills and put them in the automatic counting machine and then gave them to me, closed up the strongbox and put it back on the shelf. I was in shock.
When you go shopping at the markets or small stores the money is usually kept in a cardboard box under the counter. All the bills mixed together and the owner just pulls the box out and finds the change. Of course, the fact that the owner and his family also usually live in the store also makes it a bit more relaxed. OK that is a discussion for another day.
Back to the iPad2 arrival. Enjoy the article and especially the pictures. This is a wonderful Apple Store in The Village in Chaoyang District in Beijing. I visit this store usually at least once a week. Today, now that all of the craziness is done, hopefully, I am going to go and buy a cover for my new 13″ Macbook Pro that I received from the school last week. We are going Apple, Yippee!!!!!!! Ok that is also a post for another time.
Love China…..
Give Facebook a new look
I just found out about this great site that gives Facebook a new look. It can be found at PostPost . In China you will need to use a VPN but it looks interesting. I am going to try it for a week or so and see what I think.
The video about it is below.
PostPost You Tube video
So what do you think?
It is still Chinese New Year in Beijing
It may not be understandable to many people but Chinese New Year celebrations are not for just 24 hours like they are at home but last for 15 days. I have not idea why though I am sure it is found somewhere in the ancient past. It really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other except that I sorely miss my sleep during the nights of this celebration.
About a week before New Years Beijing is suddenly inundated with temporary fireworks stores. This year I was able to watch one up close and personal as it was built right below my bedroom window. It is made of two buildings – one as the store and the other as the storage I presume though I really don’t know. One night about four days before the big celebration I was kept awake on and off as the two big transport trucks pulled up and unloaded their cargo. While it was nice that the workers were happy, their continual laughter and chatter carried up to the 10th floor and disturbed my sleep.
Once the stores opened business was brisk especially the day of New Year’s Eve.
This all continued until dusk and then the fireworks started and continued until about 2:00 am. It was and always is amazing. Words cannot begin to describe what happens here on this great night.
I hung out my bedroom window and took incredible videos on my Flip Camera. I was so amazed how well it operated. For about six hours I took pictures with my big window wide open wrapped in my winter coat, mitts on and a scarf wrapped around my neck wearing my fuzzy slippers (the floor is heated).
I have posted the biggest of the videos on You Tube as the new year rolled in. As I have said before – it is breath taking. Part of the reason I was so thrilled is because it was the first time I had had a 180 degree panoramic view of the whole thing. My new apartment is wonderful for a clear view forever. The fact that the night was totally clear also helped.
The next morning after little sleep the fire crackers started and continued all day. If they are far enough away they can sort of fade away in the background and you can live with them but if they are right outside your apartment you might as well just give it up. Watching tv is impossible without a headset and any conversation must wait for a while. The small firecrackers can be irritating because they can be bought in strings of 500 and go on forever but it is the powerful bombs that shake a building that I really dislike. They are loud, scarey and bright.
There also is no real guidance about where fireworks and fire crackers can be let off. The road is always really popular and not just on the side of the road but out where cars are driving and bicycles are going by. The night my friend Melanie was riding her bike back from skating rink at Solana when someone set off some fireworks right in front of her. If she had not been aware of what was going on around her and slammed on her brakes she would have ridden right into the firecrackers just as they were going off. It is scary.
Things finally settled down and we can go back to sleep and then the 5th night of New Year’s arrives. I have absolutely no idea why the noise starts again with a vengeance on this night but it is loud and continuous. There are not as many fireworks and a really emphasis on noise. It is my least favourite night of the whole celebration.
So now we are now ten days into the celebration and things are relatively calm with just the occasional noise. We just have to wait until the Lantern Festival which is the 15th night for more celebrations and then we will officially be in the Year of the Rabbit.
Regardless of the noise and the consistent lack of sleep I wouldn’t miss this experience for anything.
Learning to Ride – mini update
Ok, BB is all better thanks to my lovely ayi Liu Shi Hong. She even got me a new basket with a nice butterfly on the front.
So this afternoon I struggled to get BB back out of the apartment and to begin to learn to balance and ride this thing. The circuit inside the apartment complex is an oval and I figured this would be a good place to practise. So out I go. Get on the bike, turn on the bike, turn the throttle and start to tip over. Off I went with one foot on the ground balancing and one on the bike. This is how I went around the first circuit. It took a long time. I wanted to give up but I didn’t. That time it took me about 15 minutes to get around the circuit.
The second circuit was a bit better. I had figured out that there was a nice gentle speed that would keep me on the bike so I tried for that. It was hard adjusting to the weight of the bike though. I was getting a bit better – not much – but a bit. An old couple were walking around the complex and were going faster than I was. They very quickly realized that I was trying to learn to do something new and kept smiling. I wobbled by them a couple of times.
I was really tired by the third time but I decided to give it another go. I did well – it sure wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t straight but I was starting to stay on the bike for longer period of time. I finally was able to go about 1/4 of the way around the circuit without having to rebalance myself. When I finally decided to stop my wrists were hurting and my shoulders were hurting but I had been successful.
People that saw me were really supportive. One of the guards gave me a thumbs up as I wobbled by. 
Tomorrow is another day and another time to practice. I am proud of myself today…..I got out there.
OK Learning to Ride a bike is not going to be that easy……
BB sitting at home
My Chinese New Year holiday has begun and one of the things on a short list that I want to accomplish seeing I am staying in Beijing instead of going to any lovely warm climate, is to learn to ride my new bike. So the first thing I did this morning was try to begin that process. How hard could it be? Well, I learned a lesson.
First of all, my bike, known as Black Beauty (BB), is parked in my apartment to keep it from being stolen. So there it sat in all her glory this morning just waiting for me to take her out and learn to ride. That turned out to be quite a challenge because turning a 50 pound bike around in a confined space when it has pedals attached is not a graceful task, at least not the way I did it. After much lifting, turning the handle bars this way and that because I was backing up, I finally got her headed out to the door of my apartment. I already knew I was going to have to do something about the direction I parked her in when she was in the apartment. Now we head for the door and those pesky pedals, which I won’t be able to use anyway because they are in an awkward position, kept hitting everything plus it is almost impossible to push a 50 pound bike over a shoe that I have left in the path to the door.
Well, we finally negotiated the doorway, my little hallway, the door out to the elevator and I was finally waiting for the elevator praying no one would be on it when I went to push the bike inside. No one was. I pushed the button for the first floor as I was planning to have my first practice session out in my complex where it is not busy and there are straight sections but that is when I got the IDEA. Why not practice learning to ride in the garage underground? No one would see me, there would have to be straight areas and it would not be as cold as outside. Brilliant idea – NOT!!!!!!!
Got down there and introduced myself to the level one garage. Yes, it looked feasible. On I hopped, settled myself with my foot balance on the ground, remember to turn on the key to start the bike, turned off the blinker which was beeping and pushed the handle bar towards me and off I staggered. It was not a pretty site but I figured my fear was not helping and I needed to go a bit faster if I was going to be able to bring my foot off of the ground and get it on the bike where it belonged. Just as I got that done I came to the end of the straight away and needed to turn. That wasn’t great but I made it ok. Stopped the bike, straightened it out and started the whole process over again. I was doing quite well, feet up, balancing well, good speed when everything feel apart.
I really don’t know why except that I suddenly panicked and rather than going straight the bike began to go to the left. I didn’t have room to straighten it out, I couldn’t remember how to stop the bike, I didn’t take my hand off of the throttle or turn it down and I plowed into a cement pillar that holds up the garage. Well, I stopped……I will say that for the pillar. I didn’t fall off or anything but I knew I had done a bit of damage to my baby. I backed away from the pillar and checked the bike out and yes my lovely new black basket that I was so proud of is now all bent on the left side. Apparently, cement and inexpensive Chinese baskets don’t mix without one of them coming out the worse for the wear. I felt bad about that but was determined to continue on my journey of learning to ride the bike correctly. That is when the other rather bigger problem arose.
The alignment of the bike is now off. The front wheel of the bike and the handle bars are now not going in the same direction. When I have the handle bars straight the front wheel is turning to the left so in order to go straight I have to have the bars turned in a different direction which even if I could ride the bike would be difficult for a newbie like me it was impossible. I decided the bike lesson was over for the day and went to get back on the elevator to go home. That is when I found out that in order to get out of the garage you need to have the swipe card. Thank goodness I had that around my wrist and I was able to escape from a depressing and obviously not very safe basement.
I awkwardly got the BB out of the elevator and back through the door, down the little hallway to my apartment only to find out that I had left the front door to my apartment (well actually the only door to my apartment) wide open in my stress of getting BB out of the apartment. Everything was fine. I parked her back in her spot, took a close look at the handle bars and realized until that particular problem is solved I will not be taking anymore riding lessons. It won’t be much of a problem though. Just have to find the local, street corner, bike repair man. I hope he hasn’t packed up shop for Chinese New Year.
Lessons learned: 1. Don’t ride a bike in a parking garage as a way to learn to ride. There are cement pillars and other cars and trucks.
2. This is going to take me a little bit longer than I thought to get the hang of it.
3. I have not lost my enthusiasm for this task just have realized I need to adjust my time line a bit.
Bent Handle Bars
Jamaica Blue and Giant Bikes
Lunch was spent with a good friend, Melanie, at our regular stop – a nice coffee restaurant called Jamaica Blue. It is located in an excellent area – between two high end apartment complexes that specialize in accommodation for expat families from large companies and across from Chaoyang Park one of the largest parks in Beijing. We eat here so regularly that even though the tuna salad is no longer on the menu I can still order it. Another friend orders french fries and gets them though they have never been on the menu. It is a place where we hang out. While not exactly cozy it does feel a bit like home and in the warmer weather it has wonderful tables with umbrellas where we soak up the sunshine.
It seems that in order to really fit in at JB’s though you have to be a member of one of the special clubs – you either have to have a baby or an Apple electronic device of some sort.I fit in with the latter club though I have many friends who are now members of both. A group of friends who used to work together or still do for a few of us began meeting there about three years ago so we could stay in touch. It was a predominately female gathering though we weren’t opposed to being joined by the men we knew. We would sit around a bunch of table pulled together in the middle of the space and talk and laugh and complain when the mothers would come in with their babies in large carriages or prams as my friends called them. These things took up so much of our valuable space and we didn’t appreciate it at all. Well, fast forward two and a half years and a number of the group are now married with babies of their own whom we all adore and are unofficial aunties. Now we are the ones still in the middle but with baby carriages of different sorts jammed into the space and taking up much more than our alloted space. Do we care??? No , not really because we are still meeting and laughing and sharing. The only difference is now we pass the babies around as we continue our talking and gasp at how fast time is going as we watch them grow up.
So today it was just Melanie and I eating at JB but we were definitely part of the Apple Club as were most of the people in the cafe. Melanie played with her new iPhone and I worked and shared on my iPad. Then we switched until my eyes couldn’t see the screen of the iPhone anymore. We surfed the net thanks to the great wireless connection and shared about our past week. It was great. Eventually, Melanie left for a while to go and pay a bill at the bank next door and I settled in for a long wait. Banking in China is a unique and time consuming exercise. She kept texting me to let me know how many people were in line in the bank. JB’s got noisy and crowded as the mom and baby crowd arrived and jammed with the prams. But as I looked around I realized that over in the corner around a small table were seven Chinese gentlemen with two computers deep in discussion and occasionally typing. The man sitting near the window in the big easy chair was writing on a notepad and then checking on his computer. A couple in the corner were drinking coffee and both had their computers open and were talking and typing. Another group of women were crowded around a square table, no babies in sight, but were all looking intently at the screen of a computer looking at vacation pictures. I realized how special it was to be part of this crowd…a place where we all belonged even in a country we didn’t call our own.
When Melanie came back we decided to go and look at electronic bikes. I have been considering one though I have depended upon drivers and taxis for the past seven years. Something seemed to click this morning in my brain and I wanted to check one out. Melanie was stunned when I said I wanted to walk to the store which was a good distance away and the wind was brutal but off we went. Well, the trip which was suppose to be investigative only turned out to be a bit more than that. I am now the proud owner of a electronic black bike with a really comfortable seat. It will be delivered to me tomorrow evening. You may ask why it is being delivered rather than me hopping on it and driving it home. Well, the answer is I haven’t ridden a bike for 50 years so it is going to take me a bit of practice before I will attempt the streets of Beijing. Regardless of the fact that I will just use it on weekends for here and there small trips I already feel a bit of freedom I didn’t feel last night. I have wheels……
So Black Beauty or BB as I will call her will be home tomorrow and she will be parked inside the apartment in a nice place I already have for her. I was going to put a new digital piano there but that is a dream still to be fulfilled. So until that part comes into play BB will spend the time when she is not traveling with me enjoying life in my apartment.
Black Beauty (BB) is now mine.
All told – life is good at 60.
Now all I have to do is learn to ride her.
Decade off to a good start
I have been 60 for a week and I am doing well. One of the things that has surprised me is the difference in my attitude. Usually a birthday gives you a new beginning of sorts but apparently turning to a new decade gives you a big new beginning. When it hit me was this evening when I was working on my two blogs: this one which is my personal blog and my professional one Teach Less Learn More. I realized that my professional blog was looking a bit dark, dramatic, but dark and so I went looking for a new theme and came up with something so unlike what I would have formerly chosen that it was a shock. I love it. The colours, the set up, the bright and airiness of the whole look. I next decided to take a closer look at this one and figured it looked a bit boring and so again went looking for a theme and chose this one. Again, totally different from what I would have previously considered. HMMMMmmmm…. makes me wonder what else there will be around the corner.
