So I arrived in Beijing this afternoon, on the first day of the year
of the rat. The plane coming over was almost completely empty, since
everyone had already travelled home for the holidays. A very nice
thing, an almost completely empty 747!
My friend Janet, who is living in Beijing for a year working with the
Olympics, met me at the airport and off we went to her high-rise, very
new China apartment in the Chaoyang District. Her apartment complex is
called "Upper East Side" --- very fancy. And it is a very nice
apartment, with a great view of... construction and high rise
apartment complexes... which is a great deal of what Beijing is about
these days.
We went out this evening to go to a "temple festival" --- a fair,
really --- but it was closing up when we got there. Lots of gorgeous
red lights and decorations and we plan on checking it out tomorrow
morning. So instead we went to a chic, well-known dumpling restaurant
and had yummy crab and park dumplings and chicken soup with hairy crab
roe meatballs. (It was delicious, and no hair.) Janet and some of her
work friends went out for a drink afterwards, but I came back to the
apartment. Jet lag is hitting me. Tomorrow afternoon, we leave for
Phnom Penh.
Just hope I can get some sleep. There are fireworks being set off all
over the place! You can get a great view from Janet's 38th floor
window! On our way back to the apartment after dinner, we stopped
outside her building and watched some families setting of fireworks...
people set big cardboard boxes full of fireworks out on the street and
light them up! Oh, and there are stands selling fireworks set up
everywhere.
Okay, I'm fading now. Time to put in the earplugs and go to bed.
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