more travels and observations

Some observations:
-its exciting when you spot words and characters you know, especially when you spent your entire time in China seeing a building every day, and then all of a sudden know what it is! I wish it happened more often!
-conversations with taxi drivers are enlightening. Everyone has told me this before, but i don't experience it much due to poor chinese, but now I have been told that i should not bother putting my seatbelt because we go too slowly for it to make a difference (despite over 900 deaths in China each day from traffic accidents!)
-Americans are fun and loud
-Italian chefs in China are hilarious (and complain about China's ingredients for pizza!)
-There is a whole other bar street in Beijing I never knew about (and its called Lady street!)
-Beijing is hot! 30+ degrees most of the time and www.accuweather.com is THE best weaterh forecasting service ever!

recently we went to the local beach (local meaning 3 hours away) and since we always travel with low expectations in China (it makes sense, since most chinese tourist spots are pretty much crappy due to bad management, high entrance fees, lots of tacky shops etc), we were pleasently surprised with the beach (small, cleanish, not overcrowded) and enjoyed teh afternoon lying in the sun and swimming in the sea (first time for many years i think).

we also went to the area where the great wall begins (at the sea), and explored that for a few hours which required a hair-razing boat ride to see it from the sea, a 3 hour uphill hike past 'no entry signs' to see some 'real wall' and a 30 whole minute cable car ride down again. it was a fantastic weekend with another 8 friends, great food, bizarre KTV experiences (not us singing in the bar someone else..very badly) and pollution-free air.

Yesterday we went to the aviation museum, sat in Mao's bed and chair on his plane and walked around a huge bunker cut out of a mountain packed full of old planes and models of other countries' planes (including a US Apache). we also went to the great wall (again!, since more people keep arriving who are yet to see it) -although the driver got lost and went to the wrong bit of the wall (a bit i had already seen, instead of a bit i had not); but on the way there was a fantastic journey though pleasent smelling forests and villages. Rural Beijing it was for sure, green and clean. This is my favourite part of Beijing and I always love leaving the city :D

Peter and Pierre (new full-time AIESECers from Czech and India) have arrived along with John (2 months here from Canada) so we have new laowais to hang out with (like at the Hard Rock Cafe and Italian restaurant-on-a-boat in true foreigner style). Too much partying this week -so less next week!

thats all for now...in the next 2 weeks my future for the next year in China might be decided; either doing the current AIESEC job paid full-time or working for Lenovo (who offered me a tempting job). hmmm, very tempting to work for China's most famous, ambitious and exciting Multinational in a very interesting role; but then its my passion to work in CSR and education; to take what I have started 1 step further, to really start making a difference in China and to feel like I can make a personal difference on a large scale.

Its not a tough choice really -its AIESEC! Will update you once things are sorted out (AIESEC job not confirmed yet), but its nice to know that if AIESEC doesn't work out, there is a good back-up option (I'm not too interested in working for the Chamber long-term).

Adam

p.s. my sister did really well at Uni, damn, she always gets higher marks than me!