Just got back from Beijing, after a day of shopping and Western treats with Griselle. It takes about an hour and a half from Baoding to the Beijing West Station on an express train, which costs 25 yuan - less than three euros. We had Starbucks coffee, cheesecake, and dodgy curry in another restaurant, bought Western goodies like chocolate and cheese at the Friendship Store, and jumpers and scarfs at the Silk Market. And DVDs in the street, I got Matrix Revolutions, which just came out this week, not bad :) In the one week that I've owned my DVD player I must have bought 30 films already...

Coming back, we just made it to the train one minute before it left, after a slow bus ride on a bus whose motor actually kept dying on the way and then coughed and coughed until we moved again. Made a mental note to give it a lot longer next time...

From the little that I saw today, Beijing seems like a nice city, I'd love to go and explore it more, hopefully next time we'll go there for a whole weekend. Yet, I'm happy to be living in Baoding, where everything is near and the city is easy to grasp, where there are no tourists (and hence souvenir sellers and aggressive taxi drivers) around and where it's maybe easier to get close to the Chinese way of life. Of course we don't have Starbucks here or any fancy Western shops, but I see that as a positive thing, especially when Beijing is so close for when I get those cravings.

The weather really feels like winter now, the forecast for thursday night was absolutely right and I woke up on friday morning to a world covered with a thick layer of snow. But although it's cold, it's been sunny and beautiful since then, so no complaints. Well, just the fact that they haven't turned on the heating yet...

A propos thursday night, the restaurant I went to with my class was really nice, I'm glad that I went in the end. It's a place that has been made up to look like old Baoding, with little streets and houses and courtyards, it's like a little city on its own. Sound kinda tacky, I know, but it was actually just beautiful, and the food was Baoding style, not bad at all. Will have to go back one of these days.

I was wrong about Juan and Bob by the way, behind that facade of snapping at each other, they really like each other a lot. But now I need to plan for my class tomorrow morning at 8, I'm already running out of ideas...