Olympic Park Earth Hour

I made it to Olympic Park for the first time... finally. My father was lucky enough to attend the Olympics in 2008 in Beijing, but I had not been back since 2007, so had yet to make it there. I have been here 6 months already but it is quite far from where I live, and it's been cold almost since I got here.

Tonight we had an event for our students called Earth Hour. It is celebrated around the world (but never heard of it while in the states). It's a moment when all lights and electricity is to be turned off for one hour. Now we weren't able to turn the Birds Nest off, but we had activities and games for the kids. I was in charge of painting the t-shirts... which was a giant cluster of people... and hello... paint doesn't dry that fast. It ended up being extremely cold and windy. Was only supposed to last 2 hours, but after an hour and a half we had maybe 20 students. Most of the people had already left it was so cold. My fingers and toes are still numb.

It was definitely a pleasurable experience and nice to see the kids all having fun together. Also, getting to meet and hang out with many of my colleagues I have never seen before. Not sure why I got myself into working until 830 at night when I have a class at 845 tomorrow morning... but oh well. I can now say that I have been to the Olympic Park and that I celebrate earth hour--- in a non-envrionmentally friendly way, unfortunately... toxic paint, lots of paper, lighting, etc doesn't make for a ecofriendly world... it was still an experience.

                                    

This was the 3rd shot of this picture... but it was so windy the shirt wouldn't hold still and neither would my freezing hand.

Reading...

So I have made it back to Beijing. Enjoyed my four days in Hong Kong... was able to breath clean air and enjoy the warm weather. Did some shopping, wandered around, dinner with old friends. It was nice to be away, but I didn't want to leave and now dislike Beijing even more and want to move to HK even more. I was sitting around a table reminiscing about BJ after 9 years of seeing my friends and the only things I could come up with about how Beijing has changed were all negative.... hmmmm. I do enjoy the international life and always having something new to do... but I'm over Beijing. Just six more months to go.

In the meantime... while on travels and in downtime I have been reading a new book. It was given to me by a friend as a birthday present. If you are a woman or just love a good read... you have to read this. It is called How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran.

Some may have heard of it already... if you come by a copy... check it out. Moran is a British author who I have been heard as the Tina Fey of England. I wanted to highlight my favorite passages in the book.

"You know, when it comes to sex, you really do have to remember men are blessedly forgiving creatures. They don't care what kind of knickers you're wearing. By the time you've taken your skirt off, you could be wearing Gregg's paper bag with holes torn in it, and it wouldn't put them off. THERE ARE MEN OUT THERE HAVING SEX WITH BICYCLES. Men don't remotely care if you're wearing sexy pants or not."

The next is at a wedding.. I was similarly lacklustre at Cathy and John's wedding, when Cathy's dad gave me a tour of their beautiful, all-white house, as I trailed behind, swigging red wine.
'And this is my favorite view,' Cathy's dad said, as we reached the master bedroom, and he strode over to the window. 'On a clear day, you can see right down the valley.'
Then a bat flew in through the window, and right into my face.
I don't know if you've ever had a bat fly into your face, but you don't have an enormous amount of time to work out your coping technique. You kind of...ride on instince. My instinct, it turned out, was to scream 'WHAT THE FUCKING?', and hurl my red wine right across the world's whitest room."

Love it.... yes it's crass and sometimes over the top... but hilarious... I actually busted out laughing on the plane a few times... that's all for now...