My way to work

So, after Mark stole my idea and wrote about his way to work, I feel that it is time you find out about my every day adventures:

Depending on the workload I leave for work between 7.30 and 8.30. Coming out of our sheltered little compound you can see all the schoolchildren being put on the bus by their parents that live in Season's Park too. The school is next to my work, so about 20 minutes walk, but clearly too far for parents to take their kids there. Then again most of them are busy people, so probably understandable.

Coming out of our gate, people are still wearing pyjamas in the street (a Beijing fashion) and are doing their morning exercises of walking backwards, attempting a jog or stretching (any age between 15 and 90). The biggest challenge is to cross the main road (Donghzhimen), because even during green pedstrian lights it's ok to turn (if you have any kind of wheely item with you), so you have to be aware of taxis, bikes and diplomtic cars, which just make up their own rules for traffic. At least it wakes me up!

Once having braved the road, the street is treelined (Ginko) and now all the different leaves are red and yellow and glow in the sun. The first building I pass is Pizza Hut, but the next one hosts the embassies of Mauritius, Lesotho and the WHO. Crossing a little street I see the Armenian embassy on the left and the Australian one on the right (I regularly nearly walk into the ambassadors car, I have just adopted too much of a Beijing attitude to cars and his driver seems to like nealry hitting people). Then, turning left, one of the diplomatic compounds is currently being painted (not sue what colour yet, last week it was blue and then grey). One more big street to cross, but here no one can turn, so it almost feels boring. Usually on the other side of the road, one of the diplomtic cars sneaks past just in front of me and Friday two girls in saris on bikes nearly got run over by a taxi, so not too boring.

The embassy of Guinea has one of the most alert guards and every morning he walks across from his little house to guard the gate when I walk past, I clearly look like I would do Guinea harm if I could (obviously I wouldn't). On the other side of the road Nepal and Saudi Arabia share the same block. Many plants and flowers greet you in front of the Kenyan embassy and then passing the school buses I cross the road to our building. The embassy of Usbekistan is worth mentioning for the fact that they have a random suitcase lying on the street in front of their gate which has an antenna and a little red light. Still trying to find out what this is for, but the security guards take good care of it.

Last Friday it struck me how amazig just walking around is. I finished work early at 5 and walked down towards the Chinese supermarket to pick up some noodles and stuff. The whole city got ready to begin the weekend and workers came out of the big building site near by to get their meal from their employer (it was delivered in a little white van). Then I turned around the corner and the smell of fresh popcorn immediately made me appreciate this town 10 times more. Fresh popcorn is available from lots of little stores, now that the corn has been harvested. Then just outside the supermarket the smell of sweet pineapple struck me. They even remove the skin for you if you want and form beautiful little shapes. I had to get one and also the tiniest clementines I've ever seen. They're about the size of a table tennis ball and really sweet.

Walking home with my purchases I could feel the icy air and the typically cold wind that has now taken over. Amazingly, you can even see the stars most nights.

Life really isn't a chore here, it has to be said.