And we're off

Weather: windy and freezing
Temp: -15 to -8
Exchange rate: RMB 1 = R1,47
No balance required: You don't need to skate when you go to Houhai - you can also cycle or sit on a ice chair. Only in China.

We leave for Vietnam today! And not a minute too soon I tell you, cause it's FREEZING. The wind chill factor is crazy. Beijing has central heating and it's a life saver, but usually we don't turn it on cause everybody in our building has theirs on so the building is pretty warm and toasty and usually the radiant heat from the other apartments is enough to keep us warm. But not last night. Crazy me went to Sanlitun yesterday to get a New Years present for our Mandarin tutor, Demi. I was half-frozen when I got home. I turned on ALL the radiators in the apartment: kitchen, bathroom, lounge bedrooms... And I was still a little cold. NuNu curled herself into a ball and didn't move.

I'm totally freaking out about turning 35 next week for various reasons. It's closer to 40 than to 30. And right now I'm not buying that 40 is the 30. 40 is 40, although I know some pretty cool 40-year-olds. Mmm. And a big thing for me: I'm moving from the 20 - 34 age group (which marketer like me so love to use) to the 35 - 50 age group. I'm not ready to be counted with the 50-year-olds (apologies to those 50 and over but I'm freaking out here). And of course the biggest issue is that I can no longer join the ANC youth league... Aaah, perhaps every cloud does has a silver lining.

I won't be blogging for the next week - we're not taking the laptop and I don't think we will have an internet connection anyway. We'll be on the island of Phu Quoc, on the beach, drinking cocktails. You all have fun.

Tough decision, but...

Weather: Wind-chill factor from hell
Temp: -15 to -5
Exchange rate: RMB 1 = R1,46
Year of the ox: Yes, that's an ox. Can't you tell?

Hot off the press: I got a job offer.
Not so hot off the press: The salary is absolutely shocking.
Outcome: I'm not going to take it.
Yes, I know. I'm desperate to find a job in marketing and now I'm turning it down. The offer was for a marketing position at a Canadian High School that specialises in getting students from Asia ready for Canadian University. It seemed perfect: a Canadian company, so none of the crap that goes with working for a local firm, and at the interview it seemed that they would pay a decent wage. It wasn't an easy decision, but I have more than 10 years work experience and I'm not going to work for peanuts. I could make more money teaching part-time than I would working full-time. Tough decision, but ultimately I think the right one.

If you were born in the year of the ox you are stubborn, are also steady, reliable, trusted by others and are born with natural leadership abilities.

Bring on Vietnam

Weather: mild for Beijing this time of year
Temp: -5 -7
Exchange rate: RMB1 = R1,49
Frozen solid: This boat will not be speeding anywhere till Spring.

I stayed up last night to watch Barak Obama's inauguration. It was nearly 2am when I crawled into bed. Despite being a little tired this morning, I'm glad I stayed up. I'm not terribly interested in American politics, but I do hope with all my heart that he will bring change to the greed invested world we live in.

I absolutely cannot believe that January is almost over and that Feb 2009 will be upon us before you can say 新年快乐 or "Happy New Year"! The Chinese Spring Festival and New Year is next week and it's almost like Christmas, just with no Santa Clause.

The countdown to our Vietnam holiday has begun. Only two sleeps left before we head for midday highs of 30 and above. Bring it on.

Today is last day of mild winter weather in Beijing for a while. There's a lovely cold front rolling in and the rest of the week looks like this:

• Thursday:-4 to -16,
  
• Friday: -8 to -12,
  
• Saturday-6 to -11,
  
• Sunday-1 to -11

But who cares! We'll be in Vietnam.

Getting from A to B

Weather: cold
Temp: -7 - 6
Exchange rate: RMB1 = R1,48
Same, same but different: Lingering is almost the same as skipping - skipping is just a little more cardio intensive and you look less shifty whilst doing it. And you get to wear a dress, which is a nice touch.

Life is a funny old thing. After Rachael left last week I was not having a good week. Actually I was having a pretty rubbish week. But that was last week and this week I'm back on the horse and getting on with things. For all the bad stuff that happens, there are also loads of great things that happen.

At the moment I have pretty bad taxi karma and in a city where the average temperature is below zero and you don't own a car bad taxi karma can seriously screw with your day. I've discovered that not all taxi drivers are born equal - some of them know the city really well and others know the main roads and that's about all. Add a foreigner who can only speak a smattering of Mandarin with a South African accent and things can go wrong pretty quickly. And then if the universe really wants to throw you a curve ball you get a grumpy old man who'd rather be somewhere else. So, getting from A to B has generally not been a pleasant experience for me. But then I started chatting to my students about my bad taxi experiences thinking that it was because:
a) I'm a foreigner
b) I don't speak Mandarin
c) I'm female
d) the universe has it in for me

But apparently I'm not that special. Mostly taxi drivers don't know where you want to go cause they're not from Beijing. The average wage for a taxi driver is RMB3000 per month, which equates to about R4500. This may sound like a lot, but they work 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, with no set holidays. Beijing is probably the most expensive city in China to live in so 3000 yuan don't get you very far. Thus native Beijingers no longer want to be taxi drivers and migrants from other cities and provinces now make up the bulk of taxi drivers. That explains the lack of language skills and possibly also the scary driving.

Also, taxi drivers are apparently one of the most harassed groups in China. The police don't love them and if two people complain about them then they loose their jobs.

So, I'm going to try my best to cut them some slack, but just to be on the safe side I'm cycling a lot more these days. I've come close to frostbite a couple of times, but until my good taxi karma returns it's a risk I'm willing to take.

Where the hell have I been?

Weather: mild
Temp: -6 - 6
Exchange rate: RMB1 = R1.46
Skating on thin ice: Rachael and I skating on Houhai Lake.

Sorry I haven't blogged in ages. First I was busy cause Rach and Peter were in Beijing for 5 days and then I discovered a site with seasons 4 and 5 of Grey's Anatomy on so I watched that non-stop for 2 days. Then I hated being in China and then Frikkie had his first weekend in 5 weeks so we hung out and now it's Monday and I thought I'd better blog otherwise I'm never going to do it.

I dig hanging out with Rachael. She's cool. We went ice skating on Houhai Lake near the Forbidden City. We had a good laugh about the fact that there we were, two trailing spouses, skating on a frozen lake in the capital of China on a Monday morning. Rachael is a lawyer by profession and like me, she's struggling with the "now what do I do" question. She is also a much better skater than me. She lived in Canada for a while and she's pretty good. I on the other hand totally sucked and landed on my bum a couple of times, but because it's so cold there's no water on the ice, so at least you don't get wet when you fall. You just get up, brush yourself off and get going again. In my case you try to get going again. Until you fall again. But it was fun and Frikkie and I will go once we get back from holiday.

On Thursday night I went to my school's 6th birthday celebrations. It was an eye opener. A couple of weeks ago, I got a mail from my school asking if I have any special talents and if I'd like to take part in the performance during the party. Since I have no special performance skills I politely declined. That was a good call on my part. My Chinese colleagues and some of the younger students performed in the programme. There was full on latin dancing. Then some traditional dancing, some games, and wait for it - singing karaoke and speaking karaoke. It was all very bizarre. Especially the speaking karaoke - imagine a scene from Shrek 3, with the volume turned down and people doing voice-overs... I'm told that this is absolutely normal and that it's the done thing at office parties. Apparently it's a left over from the cultural revolution when people had to entertain themselves. Yes, those heady revolutionary days before television.

Sick. Again.

Weather: serious wind chill factor
Temp: -12 - -2 (yes, that's right folks)
Exchange rate: RMB 1 = R1,41
Oohm: Buddhas at the Panjiayuan Market, Beijing biggest and best "antiques" market.

My head cold is in full swing. It's obvious that I have NO resistance to these new coodies that I'm encountering in China as I've been miserably sick twice since we got here. And it's not 2 days in bed and I'm right as rain either. It lingers. For a week. At least. I can see a weekend of vegging on the couch coming up. (Yes, I'm feeling rather sorry for myself)

I was looking at my teaching schedule this morning and can you believe it - I've been teaching for more than three months. Bizarre, but there it is. On average I teach for about 6 hours a week, which isn't a hell of a lot and I don't exactly contribute millions to our monthly budget, but every yuan helps.

I'm off to the Vietnamese embassy to get our visas sorted out. The countdown to our holiday has begun...

I love my mom

Weather: cold, but clear blue skies
Temp: -8 - 4
Exchange rate: RMB 1 = R1.36
Amanda: Kyk Ma, jy's ook famous in China

I tried phoning my mom today, but I suspect that she's at Hole in the Wall in the Transkei and knowing my mom she's not carrying her cell with her where ever she goes. The long and the short is that I miss her. After the Monkey orchestrated destruction of my laptop I was offline for a while and then I couldn't remember my skype username and password, blah, blah. The end result is that I haven't spoken to my mom since Christmas. Usually we have a nice long chat at least once a week, so I'm having mom withdrawal symptoms. Sigh. Luckily May is fast approaching and I'll get to hang out with her then.

By the way, Dell came back today to let me know that Monkey's little water adventure ruined the keyboard and mother board on my laptop. Argh, bloody, argh. It's going to cost about R6000 to fix, so to avoid bankruptcy and financial ruin we're not going to repair it right now and I'll be using Frikkie's precious Mac until further notice. The IT guy at the office did say that we could have it fixed for half the price, by his local connection...

And last, but certainly not least: Congrats to Georg and Rhone - Georg popped the question!

Are you ready for 2009?

Weather: cold

Temperature: -1 - 6

Exchange rate: RMB1 = R1,37 (this is not good for us)

Good times: Me, Frikkie, Pete and Rachael on New Years Eve 2009 in the Edwards' roof garden.

Sorry I've been so quiet, but my laptop is buggered. Even my best efforts to save it have proven futile and Frikkie has taken it to the office for Dell to come and collect it to see if anything can be salvaged. We also, quite unexpectedly, went to Shanghai on the 31st and only just got back last night. As always we had a great time. I got to hang out with Rachael, which is always cool and to explore Shanghai a little more. Frikkie and Pete were working most of the time, including 1 January, but we did to spend some time together... Frikkie's starting to look a bit worse for wear, but we have our 10-day holiday in Vietnam at the end of the month to look forward to, so hopefully he'll recharge his batteries then. Shanghai doesn't really seem to agree with me and I've picked up some cold/flu bug, again. I feel like I've been hit by a small truck. But onward Christian soldiers - I have to teach for 3 hours today, so can't really mope around the flat all day. 

Happy birthday Joni! Hope you have lovely day and a splendid year. And Happy, happy to Georg and Chris for yesterday! Hope you guys had a fun day.  

The weather forecast says it may snow on Thursday, so hold thumbs.