ram-a-lama-beer-pong

You all out there in the world may or may not realize that there is a great amount of joy to be had by going to sleep. I dont say this in jest, but for the last few weeks I have been traveling and doing all kinds of sleeping on the most random of beds. Last night was the first time in a long time that I could lay my head down on my pillow and allow the dark calm to overtake me. The bed I have is no splendid nor even great its pretty hard and basic, but when I turned over in the middle of the night, the shadows were familiar the sounds known and the room itself was one I recognized. This was made all the more pleasant as I was exhausted from the previous nights accommodations. A cold hard metal bench at terminal B in shenzhen. You see the flight from bangkok to shenzhen arrived at 11 pm and the airport is 45 minutes from the city and the flight in the morning left at 8 so I would have traveled an hour and a half in order to sleep for about 3 hours and would have been miserable anyway so I bit the bullet and slept hobo style. The best part was at about 2 in the morning two police officers walked by and checked my passport, took down some info and then went away. A little surreal, I didnt know if I was doing something that was a serious violation of some rule or if they were just keeping tabs on the bench sleepers. I guess I could have asked but I almost never want to start a conversation with a police officer, why invite trouble. Anyways it is good to be sleeping in my bed, though it will be great to have a new bed tomorrow as that is when I will move to beijing.

pack it up pack it in

Let me begin. I am back in the long hu, but only for a day or two, then beijing bound to defend from the front lines. I have been reading a lot about the troubles that china has recently encountered, and I am not one that portends to know the future but this could be a very interesting and pivotal moment in the course of china. Not the least of which is that the capital will be blessed with my presence. There is much to do in the next few days get moved, settle in, get all tore up with those that I still know here. There was some very good news from the new job in beijing, it turns out I will be getting a two bedroom apartment after all, not the smaller one bedroom. So if you hanker for hunk of something more than a chunk of cheese, drop me a line. If the east wing of the property isnt occupied you will be invited to come dine and dance in the great halls of the permissible palace. They already have a "forbidden" palace and that just aint my style.

relax

This is the last day I get to have outside of china for a few months. Today I will fly back to shenzhen but as the flight is not until late I will have to spend the night in the airport at shenzhen, then the next morning early I will fly to zhengzhou. Lets hope that the heat has returned to the apartments. The shit thing is that I cant take advantage of the duty free as I usually do because I have only one full day to pack my house and get everything posted to the new school. It isnt that I can not drink a bottle in a day but I wouldnt want to mistreat the good stuff. Kind of pointless to slug back bombay sapphire if you know what I mean. Alas reflecting on the vacation it was good it wasnt nearly long enough but I just have 16 weeks of teaching then I get another 8 weeks of vacation. Where oh where shall I go next?

shopping and dirty bastards

In the last two days I have gone to two different markets here in bangkok and while I hate to shop I needed to buy some gifts for those friends and coworkers back in beijing. So here is what I noticed, we collectively as americans are absolutely terrible representatives of our home. I walked through the market listening to people talk and looking at how well dressed and clean the people were. The italians on the whole were well dressed and clean those who were speaking spanish the same. The americans however were fucking dirty and generally looked like shit. I know that it doesnt mean we are bad people, but come on americans we are representing our country weather we asked to or not, and you not shaving or showering for a week, never changing your clothes and generally being slovenly doesnt help our cause. It really got to me today as the thai people put a special emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene. Other than that did in fact find the things that I was looking for. Didnt pay too much and tomorrow I head back to china.