Again Grey & Cloudy, but Productive

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Wednesday morning has brought more grey and cloudy weather to Chengdu. It is unusual and unseasonal to have so much cloud and sporadic rain at this time of year. Regardless of that it makes for good writing weather. I prefer to have grey skies when I work. I don't have to look out the window and think about being outside on a beautiful sunny day.

Yesterday was quite busy with a lot of running around here and there. Out to the Antique Market, back to Jinli and a Starbucks break, over to the University, back the to the Market, and finally over to the Rainbow Bridge for a little rest and a spicy noodle dinner before retiring for the evening. The noodles were so good I had two bowls - filled abundantly but not excessively with Sichuan pepper and chillies. Aside from the good food, thankfully I had access to a car all day and didn’t have to rely on taxi service.

Despite all of the moving around it was a productive day of writing and organizing various materials. Today will also be uneventful as far as plans go, and not being able to Predict the future. I intend to find a nice quiet spot, with non-stop pu’ur tea, and write.

I haven’t received a confirmation on the ticket for Beijing as yet, nor the hotel reservation for Friday. The writing is important because I don’t know how busy the weekend in Beijing will be. My fear is that it will be extremely over scheduled and very social with all of the evenings filled with semi-formal dinners and endless conversation and pleasantries. There is however a promise of seeing rare art.

With luck I will be able to see some collections that I haven’t previously been able to see in Beijing. The really great thing about the field of Himalayan Art is that you never see it all. There are constant surprises and collections turning up that have been previously unknown, hidden, or ignored by universities or museums. Wasn’t that the case a couple of months ago when 60 or so paintings were photographed for the first time at a Yale University library?

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