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It's been a long long time and this is my penultimate update until I reach London in under a month's time. As of Tuesday morning I will be an intrepid explorer as I'll be living one of my dreams and taking the Trans-Siberian Railway through Mongolia and Russia, with stops in the Gobi Desert, Ulaan Bataar, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, Moscow and St Petersburg.
Trying to be brief, since my trip to Shanghai I've had the busiest few months of my whole time in China . I went to a great yoga retreat in the mountains west of Beijing over a long weekend which was fantastic, and then there where a suite of birthdays, including mine. For those of you who didn't know, one of my best friends Leeann came all way to Beijing to share my birthday with me; the best present ever.
We did a "Best of Beijing" 10 day tour which included eating everything in sight and a few new touristy things for me, like a five hour hike along the best part of the Beijing Great Wall on a stunning day, a Chinese acrobatics show and spotting a hoopoe (a stunning bird I never knew existed, especially not in Beijing!). Leeann and my other friends helped me celebrate my ageing in fine style, ending with a "special" blue birthday cocktail that certainly helped me forget how old I am as well as how we got home that night.
After Leeann left, I went into full moving-out mode: photos and paintings came down, the suitcase came out and the superfluous junk I've accumulated despite my best efforts were thrown into piles. I just sent off the first package home via surface mail: 20kgs! In my defense, that one had all my books and boots. In the last two weeks I've had a suspicious looking moley molely molely mole (a la Austin Powers) spliced out of my arm, which left a nice little bowl shaped wound that looked like a leprechaun has come in the night with a mini-melonballer (be "Sun safe" people!); I was "fare welled" at work last Friday though I wasn't leaving for another 11 days; and Chralotte and I spent a days shopping for a hideous outfit for our 'Farewell China' costume party I'm arranging called the "Best of China Kitsch". I tried on a pair of shorts and Charlotte laughed so hard she was actually crying. There will be many photos soon, watch this space.
Finally, I am almost properly online again after having sold my old laptop and having to wait nearly three weeks for the new one, and it's fantastic! With the help of Lee, my IT guru, I choose the new Asus Eee and it packs a punch for something that weighs less than a kilogram and cost less than AUS$500. I will be able to do some writing while on the train which excites me no end, and will be able to get online if I manage to find a wireless cafe in Moscow. Fingers crossed!
Four days and four hours to go before I leave... but who's counting?
