Actually, I have been really busy because I've been visited by FAMILY! Anna came and visited for 10 days, and my mom came a little later (and is still here, sharing a room with me and snoring as we speak...). Despite all of my anxiousness surrounding their visit (trying to book a decent hotel room with people who only speak Chinese, figuring out how to get from point A to point B), it has been wonderful to see them. It has just been fun being able to experience China with them, laugh about our cultural... differences, and being able to just be comfortable. Words can not express how wonderful it was to shower at my mom's hotel room... a consistent stream with hot water and good water pressure. Goodness beyond description.
Since it was their first time in China, and I hadn't yet seen the "Beijing sites", I've been taking some time off of work, and we have visited almost everything there is to see in Beijing: Lama Temple, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen, Hutongs, as well as eaten more food than we would have thought possible. It has been a fantastic two weeks of sight-seeing, family-enjoying, great-food-eating fun. Here is the mandatory picture of us at the Great Wall.
I feel like I'm starting to get a little more into the groove of life in Beijing. I'm starting to notice the patterns in my daily routine, who usually stands where on the street and what they sell, how people interact with each other (they virtually don't do this with strangers), how often public transportation arrives and how physically aggressive people are to get an ideal place on the subway. I was waiting in line for the subway today, and as the car pulled near, people started crowding me and getting super close to the door. I just stood there and thought how funny this is, adult people pushing and shoving people out of their way on the off-chance they'll get a seat on the subway. Ahhh, life in Beijing.
Another apparent aspect of life in Beijing is how rapidly change takes place. I was walking to work today down my normal sidewalk, only to find that in the last 4 days, they had completely ripped up the old sidewalk, and re-routed walking traffic to a new sidewalk. And things like this happen all the time... one day you'll walk by a familiar place, and all of a sudden a new structure is there. It is crazy. It is really a fascinating time to be living in Beijing. Stating this may be completely obvious, but the Olympics are such a big deal for China. The more I'm here, the more I fully understand what hosting this event means for China. It is their international recognition, they are inviting the whole world to come and see their progress, to enjoy their city and to prove that they are worthy of being equal. This means big-time work for China in every aspect; adding to and re-vamping current public transportation, cleaning up (trust me, this is no small issue), making sure food and hotels and public places are up to international standards (this too is no small issue). It is fascinating to see the amount of change that has occurred even in the short time I've been here. I can't only wait to see what else this city has up it's sleeve...
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