An interlude

I'm again too tired to write in detail tonight. We went today for a huge walk through the Summer Palace. Absolutely beautiful. I then had a dinner of noodles at Sha's house and showed the family photos of Canada, England, Wales and Australia. They want to invite grandma to Beijing to share some food with them! They also really like Alexander and think that he looks like his mother!

Anyway, I thought that tonight I'd put up some photos that Sha has taken ... they seem to make me out as a completely crazy person. She's now calling me "crazy jiao zi" (jiao zi sounds similar to George in Chinese and means "dumpling").

Maybe I should also worry mum a little and mention being in a car in China. It's rather exciting. They don't seem to have seat belts nor road rules. I recall today a car going backwards through a red light at a busy intersection. We also missed crashing into another car by about 1cm with a good screech of the brakes. It's common to have three cars trying to share the same lane on the road. Also waiting for a break in the traffic is certainly not done. You just pull out assuming that someone will give way and let you in. Then you have to dodge the horse-drawn cart, or the bicycle carrying three people, or the motorbike stacked with the contents of someone's entire house! Amazingly it all seems to work.

Sha and I have just been sitting outside on the street drinking beer and eating various random kebabs that we pulled from a pot of hot chillies. Now it's time for me to fall asleep!! More tomorrow.