Its been a month since I last wrote: a busy month with rather too much working and helping out AIESEC, but compensated for with plenty of fun too, including another trip skiing/snowboarding and a trip to the Great Wall, where I finally fulfilled one of the many things on my list to do -see the Great Wall in the snow.
It was indeed beautiful, though somewhat dangerous as we were rock-climbing up parts of it (same part as we went to last May, but only then there was no snow on the wall)! The great thing about Beijing is that it is just so easy to hire a van (with driver), grab some friends and go hiking for the day to get some fresh air and some exercise in the mountains around Beijing; some are as close as half an hour away (though the air there is not as clean an those further away).
China has been in the news this month for 3 main reasons: the economy (of course, like everywhere else... who knows if there is light around the next bend of the tunnel), Hilary Clinton coming to China to try to save the climate and the economy, and Tibet -as it is a month of anniversaries in Tibet, none of which are particularly good ones, and all stem from the first one -when the Dalai Lama was forced to flee the country (50 years ago); with riots 20 years ago and 1 year ago (as you might remember as it impacted on the Olympic Torch journey).
In order to prevent anything else happening this year the government has restricted travel to Tibet and many of the Tibetan areas in other provinces for all foreigners, including journalists, and has even taken down the internet and mobile phone networks in Lhasa. They have always been monitoring them, but it is a new thing to take them out of action altogether! China Mobile has said there are repairs and network issues that are ongoing, but last year they had 99.something % reliability. This year will be a bad year for their statistics i think.
The other highlight of the last month was watching Spurs lose to Utd on penalties. A highlight because, well, we played the best team in the World and didn't get slaughtered -and, there is some hope (misguided, i am sure) that we might still finish in the top 8 this year. Plus the bar i watched the game at was full of Spurs fans, so we could all grumble and moan together. A problem shared is a problem halved!
Spring has arrived now; we were skiing in the glorious sun, and now it is time to get rid of our thick jackets. Hell, i have had lunch outside for the last two days! It has been a long 5 months of winter, but bring on Summer.
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