That Friday Feeling

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The heat that we had in July, and which abated for the first half of this month, is coming back. The sky today is blue, but not the crystal-clear blue you get after a good storm. If you look to the west, sometimes you can see a temple on the mountain; if you can, it means the pollution levels are relatively low. Today, you could not see the mountain. At the horizon, the sky faded to an ozone blue-beige. When I woke up today my throat felt very scratchy.

My day:
7.50 Woke up. Blearily had a shower in my ensuite. Got dressed.
8.15 Met the others and cycled to breakfast. Had pork dumplings and eggy bread.
8.40 Got back to the dorm. Checked emails, read and generally faffed. Got ready to go.
9.20 Left for lab.
9.30 Reached lab. Unpacked my stuff, plugged in my computer etc.
10.00 started making up a carbon nanotube suspension (I had water to do it this time).
12.00 found out that the metal-coated silicon wafer I needed to actually do the experiment wasn't going to be ready until Monday. I didn't want to prepare the CNT suspension and have it sitting around all weekend, so I decided to pack up and leave early.
12.30 made it to the canteen a bit later than usual; had dumplings and noodles for lunch. After lunch I headed back to the dorm and watched Paul Merton in China: the first of four programmes, this one was about his arrival in Beijing. On his first night he goes to Wangfujing snack street and meets a lady with perfect English who takes him to dinner. The restaurant she takes him to serves meals made of penises, with a donkey's as the centrepiece, and snake cock soup to finish. TCM says that eating any given part of an animal makes that part of you stronger. Add to this the 'famine cuisine' that China has developed and you have a very eclectic food culture.

It had been my intention to go into the centre of Beijing to do some shopping, but I felt completely knackered, probably as a combination of my efforts at the gym last night and today's heat. I spent the afternoon reading and sleeping, and went to buy some supplies before dinner. I had sweet and sour beef with peppers and pineapple and lots of rice, with a quarter watermelon (costing about 10p) for pudding.


Tomorrow we're off to the Great Wall with David Yang, the brother of one of the professors in my department to whom I was introduced because he had wanted to learn English. He doesn't speak very much himself. We're meeting him at 7am and he's driving us there. It should be an interesting day.

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