Live From Beijing, It's Friday Night

Good evening everyone!  Look who's back online!  I ended up breaking down and paying for a proxy service just to get access to Blogspot again.  I tried a few free options, but nothing was yielding any positive results, so I opted to just throw money at this situation.  The internet connection here at the hotel is pretty slow to begin with, and routing through a proxy really isn't helping anything, but at least I'm able to get something written.

I actually made an attempt last night to use an old tool I'd set up ages ago.  Blogspot generated a secret e-mail address, and any e-mail sent there would be turned into a blog and posted here.  Pretty handy sometimes when access to the website was difficult.  You may recall that I made use of that a few times when I didn't have a computer handy, but I had my phone.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be functioning anymore.  I may have to go in and reset something.

Time to catch everyone up since my last post.

We got in to Beijing on time yesterday and made our way to the hotel.  First impression of Beijing was how surprisingly green the city is.  Euphy told me that at one point they'd cut down nearly every tree for miles to fuel their growing industrialization but that it had the unintended side-effect of nearly turning the city into a desert due to topsoil erosion.  Learning that lesson the hard way they went to work trying to get some plantlife back in place to anchor down the soil.  Apparently when China corrects a mistake the correct it with gusto because I've never seen such a well forested city.  It's really quite lovely.

The next thing to hit me was a sense of familiarity.  I attributed it to the fact that we were on a bus into the heart of the city, and the freeways of Beijing feel a bit like home due to the fact that they drive on the right here, and the bulk of the cars are familiar makes and models.  Lots of Audis, Hyundais, and Volkswagens, with smatterings of Hondas, Chevys, and Buicks.  It seems like the vast majority of taxis in Beijing are Hyundai Elantras.

Now, once we were off the main highways I was sharply reminded of where we were... especially in the evening when we were out of a bus and into a taxi.  I'd heard of the legendary driving over here, but it really is something to experience it first hand.  I'm still not entirely convinced that there are rules of the road... and yet somehow it works.  In a way it almost seems cooperative since each person just does exactly what they feel like at any given moment, and all the other vehicles around them adapt the the sudden change of situation.  I saw the cab I was in slow down a few times to let a guy in front of him merge, or stop suddenly when someone making a poor excuse of a U-turn put their car completely broadside to oncoming traffic.  I'm pretty sure the only rule here is to just merge when you need to merge and hope everyone around you lets it happen... and they always seem to.  I don't think it's quite the altruistic desire to make other people's lives easier though.  I imagine that any illusion of cooperation is entirely caused by the desire of other drivers not to die in a fiery crash.

So yeah, there's my first impressions of Beijing: beauty, familiarity, terror.  In that order.

At any rate, we've had a very busy day, and it took more time than I would have liked to get myself onto Blogspot, so I really need to wrap this up.  I'll try to catch up with the events of the last few days when I get on tomorrow night.  For now I'll just leave you with a photo to prove that I'm still alive and well.  Have a good night everyone.

Finally, a hat that reflects my left-leaning politics.