Moving again: Beijing
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008After about seven weeks in Sydney, Wendy and I moved to Beijing last week.
We’ll be here for about six months while working with the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, and leaving at the end of August once the Games are over.
So far, Beijing has struck me as a really fascinating and enjoyable place. In some cases it’s extremely modern, with huge ring roads and skyscrapers everywhere, and this was my first impression of the city. But after doing some exploring over a couple of weekends I’ve found that there are so many places – parks, lakes, temples, and hutong (traditional residential alleyways) – where you can escape the noise and traffic of the city and feel as though you’re in a small provincial town, and this is my favourite aspect of the city so far.
There are many things to see and do in and around Beijing (a nice contrast to Doha); so far we’ve barely scratched the surface. As long as we continue to get a decent number of ‘blue-sky days’ on the weekends, we’ll start knocking things off our list one by one and hopefully by the end we’ll have covered a fair bit of ground.
When we were in Southeast Asia I began studying some Mandarin, and while I slacked off in Sydney and am still very much at the early beginner level, it’s something I’d really like to continue doing as long as I have the time. I’d like to get a tutor while I’m here but I’m not sure I can fit it in with all my work (and sightseeing!) commitments, especially as the Games draw nearer.
Anyway, I probably won’t write much in this space over the next few months but after we leave Beijing we’ll hopefully begin another long journey through Asia and I’ll blog about it here.
Nick