HBO, hot water and face jobs

Weather: smoggy, chilly
Temp: -3 - 7
Exchange rate: RMB1 = R1,48
Days left in kitty prison: 7
All the pretty lights: Red lanterns are all the rage in China this season...

There's no doubt that China is a very interesting place. We're still busy settling into our new abode - we now have cable TV again (rubbish HBO included), but spent the weekend without hot water. Yes, that's the whole weekend. And why did we not have any hot water? In China, or perhaps just in our complex, you have to charge your apartment's hot water card with credits, insert the into the hot water card slot in some obscure pipe outside your apartment and voila, you have hot water. Small detail that nobody remembered to mention: the water heating company is only open on Mondays, between 8 to 12 and 1 and 3:30. And if you run out before then, it's just tough cookie. I tried shouting at the complex management company on Saturday morning. No luck. So it was pots of hot water on the stove for bath water all weekend.

We had a busy day on Saturday. After vouching that we'd not go back there again, we spent about 3 hours in Ikea. The thing with Ikea is that once you're in, it's hard to get out without a trolley full of stuff you didn't know you needed or wanted. Plus Frikkie's colleague Leong is coming round for dinner and we thought that perhaps we'd upgrade from the paper plates.

I finally found a wool shop in Beijing. It's miles from where we live, but they have great wool and I stocked up and got some more knitting needles. I'm now working on three projects. One, is, surprise, surprise, a scarf. We then went to Yashow Market to try and find me a coat. It didn't quite work out for me. I still don't have a coat. I'm going to try the Silk Street market - I've been told it's the place to look for long, down winter coats.

After being all vuur en vlam we didn't go skiing on Sunday - we were pooped from missioning about on Saturday and vegged out all Sunday. We will try again this weekend.

Frikkie is in Shanghai tonight, and having dinner with Rachael and Pete as we speak. Lucky bugger.