Beijing

I have been in Beijing for almost two weeks now, and things are finally getting easier...my friend Audrey and I got off to a rocky start! Somehow, we thought we could just show up in Beijing and find an apartment immediately. This was not the case! Audrey had just gotten back from a long trip to the US and I had just returned from Germany, so I think both of us were distracted and din't plan properly before coming to Beijing! Four agonizing days later, we found an apartment, but this was not the end of the fiasco...Our apartment is brand new, we are the first ones to live in it, and I am not sure our landlord was quite ready to have tenants. Almost everyday some little thing has needed to fixed or finished or dropped off at our place. Also, as foreigners, we had to register our address with the police at two different police stations and provide them with a copy of our lease and our landlord had to come with us. There was a slight issue when I didn't know how to write the characters of my new Chinese name, but the landlord figured it out, luckily. Every day since we moved in, the landlord has been telling us that the next day the internet would be installed. I was beginning to thinkit would never happen...but guess what...today is "the next day". Yay! I am so happy to have wireless internet in our apartment! Now I can be reunited with my beloved computer and can catch up on all my emails and long overdue blogging. I can't wait to run home from school tomorrow and peruse the internet at my leisure in the comfort of my own room! (Yes, I know, my attachment to the internet is sick...but what can I say, I am far from my family and friends and lately the internet is the most consistant thing in my life.)

Aaaahhhh...home

Matt and I are now back in Hong Kong, after being gone for 18 days. It feels good to be home, even if will only be for about a week. I leave for Beijing on the 13th, but I have a lot to do in the next week!

Everytime I come back to the Hong Kong airport I have a serious "Aaaahhh" moment. The Hong Kong airport is the nicest airport in the world, as far as I am concerned. It is clean, efficient and workers are friendly. Everything runs smoothly and you can practically eat off the floor it is so shiny and clean.

When we got back into our apartment it was a steamy, pungent sauna because we had been gone for so long and had turned off all the air conditioners and the dehumidifier. I turned the dehumidifier on when we got home and after just 3 or 4 hours, it was completely full of water!