From the Far East

Hello or Ni Hao, (pronounced knee how)

Thank you Lord, I can finally access my blogsite.  Who knows how long this will be applicable due to gov watching your every move, especially if you try and blog ANYTHING!!  That's what your looking forward to my fellow bloggers if you keep letting gov run the show in the good ole usa! Watching, watching, watching.  Lucky me, a friend from another country showed me how to do a work around to access my fb, blog and on line games.  I am sooooo happy!!!!

However, that being said, here goes from the Far East!

Weather here is nice the last few weeks, nice fall weather and all.  No smog yet as the gov doesn't turn on the heat till November 15.  I kid you not folks, no heat till mid November and that is all over the country.  They also shut the heat down in mid April so for those of you living in the Northern states, you understand that it can still be quite cold in April.  For instance, we had snow in NY state on Mother's Day 2010.  How do I stand it?  I am married to an electrical engineer sweeties, and he has purchased oil filled heaters to keep the chill out of the apartment for a few more weeks.  Luckily for us the weather has warmed again for the last couple of weeks and hopefully will last till heating season.  Yesterday a maintenance guy came and check our heating system getting ready for the winter season here that usually has a minimal amount of snow, if any but bitter cold weather although dry.  The sun usually shines during the whole of winter if you can see it due to the layer of coal smoke wafting throughout the sky during the winter and if there is a weather conversion then that "stuff" hangs over the city for weeks on end.  Traffic doesn't help. 

Can you believe that Beijing actually licenses over 1500 hundred cars here daily.  the traffic has become so bad they have to pull cars off the roads in Beijing depending on their license number and the day of the week.  Not to mention no one wants a four on his apartment, license plate or telephone number.  Why?  Bad luck.  Four is unlucky here for them just as we don't like the number 13, so it also applies to floors in any buildings.  For instance:  there are no fourth floors, no fourteenth floors and ha, ha, also no thirteenth floors in any building so although our apartment is the sixth, we really live on the fifth floor.  LOL

Things here are never dull and as much as they try, they ALMOST GET IT RIGHT.  Yes, that is my mantra for this place.  Almost Right!  It really applies to everything and anywhere.  I know that seems to be hitting below the belt but if you are very observant, you will see it is also true and has been for over 25 years.

The other irritating thing here is that one has to do is outlive the workman redoing the apartment below us, for new renters or possibly the owners of the apartment.  Seems like as they are laying tile floors in the entrance way with lots of volatile glue that would be way too much to spend on renters.  Here where we live in cental Beijing, in an ideal location within a 15 minute walk to a major transportation hub, everyone wants to live in this area.  You don't need to drive and can basically hail a taxi and go anywhere in the city for the equilvalent of $2.00 usd. We had to abondon our apartment last weekend due to the glue fumes seeping into our apartment due to these morons.  How they lived through the application is beyond me, or maybe they didn't and new workers came in, however, my husband went to the complex management and they (management stopped the workers).  Made them ventalate the apartment they were working on, use fans, open all windows and now we are back with no fumes but lots of drilling, hammering and noises that go from 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m.  Something my husband doesn't let bother him as he is never here till after 7:00 p.m.  The workers are not allowed to do these things on the weekend so there is hope on the horizon.  Today is Friday also.

Now for myself, I have cloistered myself into my apartment and each day I work on my SU cards, gift tags, goodie bags, etc for the upcoming fundraiser for the Rotary Club here.  I have participated in this event for almost five years this time around living and working here for my husband in Beijing.  However, I usually travel back and forth several times a year so I have the best of both worlds. We basically first came to China in 1985 and have lived all over the country due to my husbands business.  Now some of you might think how wonderful this is or isn't.  Depends on your point of view.  Travel wears you down after so long, there is always something you forget to bring with you or can't bring along due to weight and limits however, this time my husband graciously allowed me to use his allotment of luggage to bring my su goodies.  Naturally, I forgot to bring a sqare and oval punch, enough paper, but plenty of glue and tape.  Never enough stamps and lucky for me my IB&C and the current holiday mini.  If only I had the demonstrator option for China, can you imagine how many downlines I could work up too?  LOL

I head back to the States in January and will reload my goodie suitcases for next trip here.  By then the new catalog will be out and new stuff that none of us "can do without".  Next time I will travel smarter and have all of my cards, tags, bags and bows done in advance so I don't have to carry the whole "kitchen sink" so to speak.

Looking forward to posting again soon and maybe if I can get my camera to open the lens, I can take some photos of some of the items and the fundraiser to be held on the 20-21 of this month.

So so long for now, or how they say here:  zai jian  (pronounced:   sigh gin)

BTW, there is an elementary school behind our complex (the complex consists of 24 high rise apartments each with 21 floors or 18 if you discount the 4, 14, and13th floors)  and they are singing outside in their playyard right now.  The other day they were playing music from "I'm a little teapot", it was interesting to hear them sing it in Mandarin.  Cute. 

OMG, the walll drilling has started AGAIN!!!  and the workers don't go to lunch till Noon!!! It is now 10:30 a.m and they have been at this since 8:00 a.m.   :(