Beijing's Beating Heart

Usually when my nose picks up an odd scent, I reach for my scarf or tug my shirt up to my face to protect my body from breathing in the odd, non-descript, often toxic stench. For example, the other day I sat outside a quaint cafe drinking wine with my friend M and her mate, Damien, talking about health and hospitals, when suddenly the conversation erupted in laughter and giggles seemed to escape from the inside and spill all over the table. Health isn't usually such a funny topic, but we noticed that our brains had been temporarily poisoned by the buckets of paint thinner the cafe waitress was dumping onto the sidewalk from ongoing renovations in the cafe. It was fine and funny enough for us, but the stray cat strolling past our legs wasn't probably doing so hot.
This is very common in Beijing. Streets are being ripped up, torn up, and built up... the same goes for parks... grass being lifted off the ground to make way for a brand new sheet of greens to be laid down the next day... and even the trees are changing from brown to green overnight - literally... one day they were there, the next they were uprooted, leaving large holes in the sidewalk, and a few days later new trees put back in! Not to mention the what must be thousands of dollars being spent of putting millions of potted pink red purple and orange and yellow flowers into every inch of soil lining the roads in the Chaoyang district. If there's any place that can master a full city makeover in such a fast period- its Beijing. The feeling in the air right now is so different than just 3 weeks ago. Summer is coming, the games are beginning, and this is going to be BIG.

Feverosa Olympica

However, the smell seeping into my pores and my lungs right now is beautiful. It's the sweet scent of fresh sawdust as some Chinese guys next door to my cafe on NanluoguXiang Hutong saw, and nailgun, and hammer the walls of a new shop. The smell of my father and my brothers building our house on Sooke road, the smell of Dad's old workshop on Rocky Point road on a saturday morning as he built, yet another, exquisite book cabinet for his bride... furnished our kitchen, built me a bunkbed, let me sand down and paint the bookshelves...

Beijing is beginning to feel more and more like home.

This is a beautiful sentence to write. There are bugs and insects in the air, an enormous landscape to discover, smiling taxi drivers, men selling turtles to you while you sit at a red light in your taxi, amazing artists and writers, a gorgeous community of great people living here, all uncertain of their next steps, all passionate about learning, adventuring.

Also, it could be the fact that:
*I got out to do some camping in the wild, on the great wild wall of china (jiankou area)
*Visited factory 798 - the art space I have been meaning to see for a while
*Got some eyelash extensions and a manicure- because thats what you do in China
*Strolled through the Summer Palace, the most exquisite summer retreat of Empress Cixi
*Watched my niece fly through the air like a kite twisting in the wind at gymnastics practice
*Ate a CHICKEN HEART ON A STICK -----------fhriegheitvetva-r9*U$(*U@) -------

anndd... that I'm heading up north to a town called Yabuli, to work teaching oral english to the resort's staff up there for 2 hours a day for the next month. It will be a time of solitude, and I will come back fluent in english, with a nice butt from hiking the ski hill every day because there won't be much else to do there. Yabuli is a town with barely anything, and the closest town to it is 30 mins away and also has almost nothing there. Harbin, the main city up north, famous for it's winter ice festivals, is 3 hours away on a bus and has white tigers though!

If anyone has any contacts who will be here this summer, possibly working for the CBC for the Olympics and needs a Production Assistant - PLease let me know....

Yours Truly,
Ever-changing-plans-Gala...


Lots of love to my family out there... Janet and Ted, thinking of you every day and sending all my best support and well wishes!!!!!

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