Greetings from Beijing!

Firstly I must apologise for my very poor form in updating my blog. This been very slack.

But in my defence, and anyone who has ever travelled will understand this I am sure, travelling is super hard work! It's very hard to pull those few minutes out to check your email and update your blog. But that said I should have been better and I'm sorry. However I have been checking my email (that's a relatively quick thing to do) and I want to thank everyone who messaged me and sent me email greetings. I love you all! *Huggles*

I will try and upload some photos when I get back to Shanghai so that you can have a look.

Anyway I am currently in Beijing living it up with Sarah, Johnny and Johnny's friends from university Ruba and Grace.

There's probably no point in going through a blow by blow account of our adventures suffice to say that it has been SUPER, SUPER fun. :p

There are however, a few things worth mentioning.

Firstly it is FREEZING here in Beijing. We've been rugged up in all thermals and the like constantly but it has simply not been warm enough. We can only spend a couple of hours outdoors before our toes lose feeling and we have to hide indoors again. We then spend the next hour moving from one warm place to another. I have yet to come up with a catchy name for this behaviour - I was thinking the warm walk or the warm swarm. I am open to suggestions.

Also the best club in Beijing in Mix. It is located opposite a club called Viks near the Worker's Stadium. It is justifiably awesome. The DJ's there churn a constant fantastic stream of RnB and they have bartenders that juggle (Yay! Xin loves juggling!) and breathe fire and set the bar on fire. The pyromaniac in me is so happy. Plus the DJ is open to requests and the staff are super friendly :p It's just soooooo fantastic in general. The drinks are a bit on the pricey side but I would still highly recommend. We went there last night, and when we came out it was SNOWING, for the first time this winter. It was the perfect end to a fantastic night... *happy sigh*

Also the cold does have an upside. The snow here is just incredible. I woke up this morning and the whole world was covered in a magic blanket of white. Plus the flakes here are super soft for some reason. It is nothing like the snow in Australia. When the snowflakes fall from the sky and rest on you they are actually shaped like all the pretty stylized flakes you see in pictures. It's so incredibly beautiful...

And may I also just add that there is nothing better than trekking over some of the most amazing monuments in the world (Forbidden City, Great Wall etc.) with a whole bunch of friends.

Xin is happy. But she'll have to cut this short as she is also super sleepy and needs her sleepies. So goodbye ... I promise I'll write again soon, hopefully.

Ice Rink?!? Awesome!!!

Yesterday I went ice skating!!! I didn't even know there was an ice rink in Shanghai!

Now some of you may recall the last time I went ice skating, it was a long time ago, I think first or second year. Remember, I organised a giant ice skating party, took a roll call and marched everyone to my local ice skating rink??? What no you don't remember? What you purged the awful memory from your mind? Well pish posh! You may still remember Jaci looking at Andrew for the longest time skating in his phat pants before finally asking - "Xin, why is Andrew wearing his sleeping bag?"

But anyway yesterday I went skating with Johnny and Jessie and I rediscovered, wonder of wonders, I LIKE ice-skating. Now for those of you that know me this will probably come as a shock. I KNOW it's physical exertion, I KNOW it's exercise, I KNOW I can't do it wearing high heels and I KNOW I am the most uncoordinated person in the history of the world - yet I still like ice skating. I love it - I love it all the more because Johnny absolutely sucks at it. So while I am gliding around the rink (yes I do glide! I didn't fall flat on my face once! yes, ice skating is easier than going up stairs!) I get to watch Johnny trying to skate and falling flat on his face = endless amusement.

Jessie took photos and video so watch this space - they will be coming soon!!!

Guess Who Has Short Hair?

That's right, for the first time in over 10 years Xin has short hair! (see photo) Wow...
And the greatest thing about China is that the wash, cut and blow only cost me $2.50AUD (and it wasn't even the cheapest place on the street!! Oh gar!)

I actually didn't want my hair that short but I think the guy cutting my hair was egged on by his mates saying things like "Don't be so cold hearted", "Don't cut her hair short", "It was so much better before when it was long" - I understand that saying things like this to any male is pretty much like waving a red flag in front of a bull - rather akin to Ewan's "I dare you..." approach to getting things done :p Oh well it will grow - and I kind of like it. The only two things annoying about it is that my hair no longer keeps my ears and neck warm and one particular strand of hair on the right side of my head that is too short to tuck behind the ear but just long enough to fall into all my food - grr.

Apart from hair though everything is well here - I have managed to catch a cold but I'm hoping this means that I will be immune to all other kinds of diseases for the next 8 months because I'll have anti-bodies. (Hey don't you say anything to crush my optimism!)

Also on the wow super cheap side of things I finished House of Dead 4 for only $3.00AUD - awesome!!! And I want to say that I did improve throughout the game. My accuracy went from 0% (no that's not a typo, there is nothing meant to be in front of that 0) to almost 60%. I'm so proud of myself.

Err, I realise that was just a super long boring rant but hey at least I attached a photo which should be some source of excitement for at least 2 seconds. :p

Of AAARGH, PANG and YEAH!

I believe that aside from the neutral emotive position there are three key states of being.

AAARGH! This is a state of intensive frustration and annoyance - frequently felt when people cut in front of Xin on the freeway and then proceeds to drive really, really slowly - AAARGH. In these situations I am, of course, forced to tailgate, but I digress.

I had plenty of AAAARGH moments yesterday on my journey between Melbourneand Shanghai. The first was when mum used the beeping intercom system to wake me up at 4:00am after only 4 hours of sleep. I don't think she understood the concept that I thought I explained clearly - please wake me up at 4:00am because I don't want to be jarred by the alarm. So waking me up with a loud and obnoxious intercom system sort of defeated the purpose... hmm...

The second AAAARGH moment occurred when I got to Melbourne airport. Some silly Qantas staff member harried me constantly as I waited in the check in queue. "You know you're only allowed 25kg of check in luggage", "Are you sure your cabin luggage is cabin luggage size?", "I think we had better try and get it in the cabin luggage frame checker", "You know it must weigh only 7kg right", "Let's weigh your hand luggage" - phbbt, no wonder planes are so expensive and airlines are not performing well. It's not the fuel crisis it's the stupid money wasted on pointless employees!!!

Luckily my flights went relatively well - nothing to really AAARGH about until I arrived in Shanghai and queued to get through customs. And when I say queue I really mean queue - I don't think anyone has really experienced queuing until they queue for something in China. However the fact that I had to queue is not really cause for AAARGH but what really made me got AAAARGH is the fact that they had 4 queues for foreigners and 2 queues for DIPLOMATS... am I really to accept that 1/3 of all foreigners going into China on any given flight are diplomats?!? It maketh no sense!!! GRRR... and to make matters worse I was queuing behind some guy that was really sloooooooow to move up the queue when it actually did progress (GAH! I am not one for patience) but I also had 3 really, really drunk guys behind me talking obnoxiously about how much their wives love them... hmm.... now having sampled how truly bad the scotch and dry on the flight was I am not really sure how they got THAT pissed but I suppose unlimited quantities of alcohol will do it for some people... I don't think I have ever been so relieved to clear customs!!!

YEAH! is pretty self explanatory - and the best example I can give of a YEAH! moment actually happened yesterday. I saw a taxi being fined by the police as I was driving to the airport - HELL YEAH!!!

I had only one other YEAH! moment yesterday and it happened as I left Pudong airport in Shanghai. It's not cold enough here to require thermal underwear yet!!! YAY!!! *Does the happy dance* Of course it will get colder soon and will DEFINITELY be freezing when I get to Beijing but for now I am content with what I can count as a small blessing! :p

PANG is a state where there is a super tug on the heartstrings. You feel it most acutely in the twist in your gut and the cold in your heart.

I had one super, super PANG moment yesterday when I kissed Rufus (my gorgeous teddy bear) goodbye and looked around my room to realise that I would not be back here for 8 months. I left the room exactly as I would have if I was going to be back tomorrow - clothes strewn everywhere, bed awkwardly made but as I turned off the light and closed the door the fact that I really was NOT going to be back any time soon really hit me - I was really sad.

I'm really going to miss Melbourne and all my gorgeous friends there...

(not that that's going to stop me from having a ball here! :p)

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane ...

on Sunday!

Wow! That's soon.

Thanks to everyone who came to my happy pool party on Saturday! *Huggles*
I had a great time :p
Poo to all the people who had lame excuses like "I'm afraid of pools" and "I don't go out to the suburbs" - you know who you are!

Anyway, I suppose here is the time to make some introspective comments about how it feels to be leaving the country for a rather long time. However I find that I am suffering from a distinctive lack of excitement. At the moment I am more excited by the fact that the fact I am leaving is a fantastic excuse to catch up with fantastic friends I never see because everyone is super, super busy all the time! So in the next 2 days that I will be in Australia for I will be doing more of that. My time is super booked at the moment but if you drop me a line I promise that I will try and make some time to at least grab a cup of coffee with you! You know how to find me!!! :p

PS: To all the people who asked - I'm sorry I didn't end up buying a pink suitcase. I bought a boring brown Antler suitcase - light, soft (thank you person who I think is Ross) and practical. Soooo disappointing, I know. But blame Johnny and all the other people who told me that buying a pink suitcase would be equivalent to putting up a giant pink neon sign asking guys to take me home to do naughty things with! I will have to see whether this decision was truly wise - I will keep you all posted. :p