Heading home

After almost 5 weeks, It's time to go home. Yes, it's been 2 days short of 5 weeks since I left the Aussie shores, & so much has changed since then. I'm (personally) about 2-3 kilos heavier, probably A$2,500 poorer (which is still a bargain considering the travelling & shopping that I've done), have a job interview lined up 6.5 hours after I land, & most of all not quite as healthy. Pooping (sorry for the faeces talk) has been irregular for pretty much the entire time I've been away, only for the last week or so (since Beijing) I've been, well, 'watery'. Now I'm even flu-y. I wonder if I'd actually have enough fitness for the uni meeting & interview tomorrow.

On brighter news, my camera is fixed. I was trying to stuff it into my carry-on luggage just now & as usual it beeps just as much as you try to move it. In case it starts beeping again mid-flight, I was going to take the battery out when the stuck lense decided to retreat & function normally again. Great. It gets stuck for a week & stopped me from taking pictures of the Great Wall & the wedding from MY camera, & now just as I'm leaving (checked in, arrived at airport, bought duty free, about to board & all) it decides to function again. At least I don't have to send it out to be fixed when I get back. I fewer thing to do on my already stuffed schedule for the week.

Moving on to sad news, received email that my co-supervisor's mother has passed away over the weekend. That makes 2 funerals within a month. And refering to my earlier post (http://ragdearyme.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-weddings-funeral.html) it is no longer 3 weddings & a funeral, but 3 weddings & 2 funerals. But, having said that, I've heard that this comign funeral is family only, so probably still only going to be just 3 weddings & a funeral for me.


Ergh, feeling so sick...

Meanwhile, here is a selction of my Beijing photos:.

Beijing tour, in English

I went for a long weekend tour of Beijing with Angie (my cousin) this past weekend. As those of you who follow would know, I usually open each blog with a related pic or have a link to some uploaded photos of the said trip. Alas, I can't do it for this post. At least not yet. Reason shall be revealed asap.

I was going to go to Beijing by myself & on an airfares + hotel package, but seeing that Angie is also back & she is also interested, we decided to join a tour instead. Reason being we were both a bit worried about the transport situation - not that we thought Beijing would not be easy to travel around, but that the traffic would be rather crazy & that we'd more likely be run over 3 times crossing a street than anything else. So we joined a 4-day tour, which started very (and I stress VERY) early last Friday morning & finished Monday night. How early? We needed to be at the airport by 6am. We ordered a cab for 5:30, but because I had a pretty big dinner the night before & lots of tea, I couldn't sleep at all that night. Luckily I had a job appliction to do so that killed some time. Anyways, we knew Beijing was going to be cold, but because we have been in te temperate to warm weather of HK for a while, the freezing coldness of Beijing kinda came as a shock. Daily temparatures ranged from -5'C to +5'C, but for some reason it felt colder. Despite the fact that I brought along a down jacket that I borrowed from my uncle my legs & feet were still freezing. It was so cold that the 1st chance we got we went to the shops & bought underlays (long johns) & wore that everywhere for the next 3 days until we reached the airport.

We went to lots of tourist attractions. The 1st day after lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven (天壇) followed by free/dinner time at 王府井. Day 2 we spent the morning at (頤和園Summer Palace) & the afternoon at 紫禁城 (Forbidden City) with silk shopping snugged in during the day. Day 3 was jade shopping, traditional chinese medicine, 十三陵 (Ming Dynasty Tombs), & the best part of the tour - 萬里長城 (Great Wall). I'd show you pics, but unfortunately my camera broke while we were at the jade factory (the lens refuses to go back in when I was trying to turn it off. So there aren't any pics of the Great Wall on my camera. Luckily I went with Angie so all the pics from then on are on hers. I'm still waiting for a reply form the Canon customer service to see how I can get it fixed. So, for now, people, you just have to wait until I get the pics off Angie or I go download my own pics when I get home. Hopefully I get my Great Wall pics soon...

Oh right, right. English tour. We joined a HK tour company, but most of the people on the tour with us came back to HK from overseas (to live, to study, etc). Seriously, who would have time to go on a holiday tour at this time of year but OS residents? More still, the 4 girls sitting behind us were exchange students to HKU from various places in N America, there was a Englihs-born HK woman who married a Scot who now both live in Bordeaux (yes, French-land), 1 extended family of 8, with both of the guys my age born & grew up in the US... In the end, I ended up speaking English more than Cantonese, let along Mandarin. I think that was also the most English I have spoken since leaving Aussie shores a month ago. Great acclimatisation for my return-home trip :)

HK is finally getting cooler for winter (down to low teens by weekend). Only 5 more days for me before heading home. Have sent revised Ch 1 for meeting next Thursday. Hopefully I will also have a job interview lined up as well.