Beijing, beijing

I'm alive! In Beijing! Woots I jumped over the great firewall of China and here I am! Just a quick one before I zoom into bed.


Been house-hunting since arrival. A very difficult task given the huge demand and limited supply. It's like an ever-changing stock market fused with a competitive fish market. Walk along any street and you see young guys in white shirts and long pants and you know you've spotted housing agents.


Just some random thoughts-

Becoming quite an expert at crossing roads.

Default phone-answering protocol is now "喂，你好。"

Life is hard but the chinese are like weeds - resilient, hardworking and able to survive anywhere.

It seems to me that the chinese can speak chinese better than the english can speak english. Compare speed and fluency.

I miss clear blue skies. It's "misty" everywhere for pollution and dust hangs still in the air. You can look at the Sun directly without feeling any discomfort as it's masked by the clouds, dust and pollution.

Have done pretty retarded things.

Our agent is so nice and helpful we had to double-cross another agent for him and it made us feel so bad and stressed we were like pulling our hair out. He treated us to hot milk and worked overtime for us so we owe him a treat no matter how he likes to laugh at us.

Our senior is also so nice and helpful we owe him alot for being able to survive our house-hunting endeavours and for all things foreign to us. For skipping classes for us and delivering breakfast and seeing us back to our hotel after midnight before getting lost himself, we sure owe him a treat too.

China people our age are much more capable than us :( Fellow BUCM students feel like they're already TCM doctors in their own right.

Singaporeans are too sheltered for their own good.

There are no 7-11s here and Beijingers are not very tall. (Except for our agent) It's not very hot and it rains.

It's surprisingly rigid here it feels as if communism still existed. Makes SG feel so much more liberated. We were forced to follow the arrows and only enter at entrances and exit at exits. No fruits to be brought into the department store - locker deposits available with high tech bar-code scanning for access, and they're free.

Horses here are used to drag cartfulls of fruit like gigantic watermelons and stop at the roadside for fruit sales before moving on.

When crossing roads, right of way depends on speed, wit and judgement instead of traffic lights. Best to follow locals. Everyone beeps it's so common nobody turns their head or minds it.

The streets are lined with little makeshift stalls at nightfall and everything is cleared up by 10pm.

At carrefour there's a guy dedicated to standing at the top of the travellator to help pull trolleys up when customers with their trolleys arrive at the top. Lame and a waste of resources if you ask me. But it's a way to boost employment maybe.

Department stores have so many security guards you think it's for security but they're more like human-traffic directors, blocking ppl from entering this way and pointing them another way etc. Another waste of resources. Why can't it be free for all like on the roads?

There are so many uniformed people around you can't tell a security guard from a policeman, a doorman, a warden, a soldier or a government/stat board worker. (Unless the soldier is marching on the road with a beret on or has a hard helmet on and walks up and down in the bank)

Sludge smells are distinct if you stand too near the drain or you're in a toilet. Seems like poor drainage and maintenance.

There are many hairdressing shops with hip young guys sporting funky hairstyles standing at the door. These are about the only shops which blast English music. As you walk along the street, you might spot a random clothes shop which looks totally out of place with the other shops. Housing agencies make up the bulk of the tenancy. Most eateries sell 火锅 and 烤肉窜.

Parking lots are very long but people tend to squeeze 1.5 cars into a lot so there's no difference with having small lots. Cars here are cheap.


Ok it's 2.10am. Better go sleep. Can't afford to be like a zombie tmr. Night guys, more next time. Won't be regular though. Till I move in and suscribe to internet. Hope all is well on the sunny, clean island.