Acclimatization

Day... 5?

Yup, 5. Feels like longer already. It's about 10:30am and I don't have anything to do today except for study for a placement test I THINK I'm writing tomorrow. I dunno.

Yesterday and the previous day were fairly eventful in a weird, vacation-y sort of way.

2 days ago (Sunday):

I spent an hour or two wandering around campus looking for the place to get my meal card. No such luck. I then spent another hour wandering back to the dorms, where I found out that I was IN the building where you get the card, but on the wrong side of it. By that time I had already bought a couple snacks from the market on campus, and was frustrated.

I decided that I would do what many women have done since time immemorial to relax and blow off steam. I would go Shopping. That's right, I would spend money I cannot afford to spend in order to get my mood up.

I kid, I needed 2 things. A cell phone, since I was dumb enough to forget the one Ervin gave me at home, and a bike. If you've ever even seen a picture of Beijing, you'll get why I need a bike.

Anyways, I asked the desk reception girl in broken mandarin where the best place to find a bike was. She replied in broken english that 五道口(Wudaokou) was a good place to start. I shrugged and went to catch a cab before one of her friends ran out and said he wanted to sell HIS bike. I agreed to look. It's a grand, stylish, touring sort of piece-of-shit that wouldn't even be allowed on the road in the West. Still, it's better than about 40% of the bikes on the road here, and it works. It was also only 18 bucks, with a heavy-duty chain lock, a basket and a back seat.

I decided I would _ride_ my bike to Wudaokou then and there. I got on the newly purchased wheels and headed off with a vague notion of where to go. It turns out that 15cm on a wall map is really a LONG distance. About 4km of desperately unused bike muscles later, I arrived. I shopped. I didn't find anything. Then I decided on another route home, resulting in my getting lost for an hour in this crazy, dilapidated back street full of (you guessed it) bike shops. New bikes, mountain bikes, electric bikes (which are VERY popular) and so on. All for less than what I paid.

Buyers remorse. I got my bearings, I came back to campus and I fell asleep. On my way into the gate though, what did I see but a man selling brand new bikes (nice, dual-suspension mountainbikes) off the back of a trailer to other expats. I laughed my way back the dorm.

Yesterday:
I went to 中关村 (ZhongGuanCun). This is the electronics district of Beijing. Boy is it ever. I hopped a cab this time.

Did you know it was possible to get saddle-sore from a bike? My ass is black and blue, I swear. Still can't con my new roomie (Cristoff, a German MBA student) into checking for me though.

Anyhow, 中关村 is home to dozens upon dozens of electronics markets and shops. Untold THOUSANDS of laptops, computers, hardware (more motherboards than I've ever seen), cameras and anything else digital under the sun. It's downright unbelievable. I wandered through 5 of these mega-malls. 5 Storeys at a minimum, here I found some of the pushiest salespeople I've ever come across. They aren't allowed out of their store though, and there is a central walkway past the booths, so it's a lot like walking through a gauntlet of clamoring shills.

I had my noise-isolation headphones in, with some nice music in. They only came out when I needed a response to a question.

Anyhow, today's rainy and VERY overcast. Muggy as all get-out.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing.

Thanks for listening, folks,

- Nathan