Vagabonding begins!

PERL stands for “Practical Extraction and Report Language” and is a UNIX scripting language that can take over the internet (as well as the world) in the hands of a master.

Pearls are the white pretty things that come from seafood and women like to wear them. Usually.

When I wrote about the “Beijing PERL market”, I was having a flashback from my pre-vagabonding, pre-traveling, computer-hacking days. Oops.

Not that the average 3rd grader couldn’t beat me in a spelling bee, but still. Thanks for correcting me Andy!

I blame the fever.

I managed to eat a bowl of soup today and not be looking at it again 20 minutes later.

Thats quite an improvement over the last 48 hours. I’m definitely still weak and not up to par, but hey – I’ll take it over being intimate with a Chinese toilet any day.

The weather here is cool and clear, even the pollution seems to have taken the weekend off and revealed a gorgeous blue sky which is normally obscured by Beijing’s signature depressing blanket of gray. The same gray pollution that is going to give the Olympic swimmers quite a treat when they stick their mouth above the water to suck in that one precious breath of much needed, race-winning oxygen next year.

I decided to celebrate my freedom from the toilet by getting a haircut. Always an ambitious endeavor in Asia it seems. I took a walk down Dha Zha Lan, where my hostel is, and found three places. One was shut, one had three guys with similar mohawks sitting inside smoking waiting for another victim, and one had a young, nice looking Chinese guy inside. I picked the last place, and flopped myself down in the chair so that he could do his worst. I opted for the $3 haircut instead of the $1…as if it made any difference.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the best haircut I’ve had, but it wasn’t the worst either. At least I didn’t leave looking like the white-trash version of Eminem like I did coming out of the Shaolin School 2 months ago.

Walking back from my haircut, I was smiling. A rickshaw driver almost removed two of my toes. Motorbikes, pedestrians, and bicycles mixed in a chaotic orgy of danger. A man was holding a smoking squid on a stick in my face trying to tempt me, people were calling to me from rip-off shops, and a whiff of sewage blasted up my nostril making me close my eyes for a minute.

This city can only be described as helplessly chaotic and dreadfully addictive.

I love it.

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