Back in Johannesburg

We landed about this time yesterday morning after a 24 hour trip. Beijing -> Singapore -> Johannesburg. During our 4 hour stopover in Singapore (landed 10pm, left 2am) I grabbed 3 blueberry muffins, a cappuccino and went to sleep on the floor next to the shop. Dad came and kicked me in to action at 1:30am and we got on to our SA flight.

Coming into SA I was faced with a scenario I'd played through my head many times: how to get Andrew's iPod through customs. I bought his iPod in Singapore for 30% cheaper than SA (our local Apple prices are ridiculous when compared with the international prices) but needed to get it through customs. Luckily my Dad was bringing in some rocks to assay them locally, and they were housed in a suspicious box - so when we went through the "nothing to declare" line the guy pulled us over and asked us to open the box. After looking at the rocks and establishing they weren't from Botswana (???) he let us through - and we hadn't even handed in our SARS forms. Hooray!

It's nice to be back in SA. "Nice" is an ok word - not too much emotion, just a few notches above ambivalence. I'd like to spend more time in China - 8 days wasn't enough. Maybe some kind of part-time work or something - but at least I'll be back for the Beijing Olympics in 2008...

Over the next few days/weeks/months I'll be posting more pictures as well as more stories of my experiences in China. Stay tuned via rss!

Hometime

I'm sitting in the Beijing airport doing some internet stuff while waiting to check in for my flight. It's been a great trip - can't believe we've just been here for a week. So much to learn! I'll hopefully be back sometime soon. Hamba gahle, China.

Breakfast in Harbin

"See China right in front of you," sings Bono in his killer U2 song, "Beautiful Day." Funny - I'd never picked that up before...

The good news is, last night was the last night we would be drinking jiu (which is a great relief, I can tell you). It kinda creeps up on you. Instead of drinking glasses and glasses of the stuff (Dad says the closest English translation of "jiu" is "rocket fuel" - no wonder the Chinese are 1 of only 3 countries to have put someone in space!) we just had one...but even an hour after finishing it I could feel it still absorbing into my system. Gumbe!

An advertisment for Apple

I love my iBook. For those who know me some might say this is the reason I'm still single (and no funny comments about my beard either) - because I'm really attached to it. It goes with me everywhere - and I mean everywhere. At the beginning of this year I took it with me on our Garden route trip - and we used it to keep up to date with the latest breaking news (via Google) on the Asia tsunami where Kath's brother Mike and his girlfriend Fern were (we'd heard they had flown into Phuket the day before the tsunami - turns out they were still in Vietnam but it caused us some anxious days).

I've taken my Mac with me to China and it's been great - they work on the same power as SA so I just plug in and I'm ready to go. I've used it to keep up to date with my website work in SA, keep in email contact, chat as well as skype. I've uploaded my flickr photos and kept this blog updated, bought some skype credits and called Mom, Heath and Lynd at work and on their cellphones through my laptop using the (free) hotel internet connection.

Currently I'm sitting on a train in north eastern China typing out this entry while looking at some spectacular scenery outside.

I love my iBook!

Train journey to Harbin

I'm sitting on a train going to Harbin from Mudanjiang (that's a 4 hour trip which we got up at 5:30am to make - we left at 7) - which is in northern China for those of you who aren't familiar with Chinese geography. We have had breakfast so it's Super C's all the way. The scenery is spectacular - very lush with many crops. We're travelling through a floodplain next to a river which I'm sure overflows in Spring - especially good for the rice. Funny, because when I think "rice" I think Vietnam rice paddies cultivated by farmers with pointy round hats, not like it is here.