Tomorrow!

Well, now that I have had my new passport surgically attached to my body (they do that cheap in China, not to worry!) I am breathing a sigh of relief, albeit, a polluted sigh. Yesterday there must have been a warm air inversion holding all the smut down in Beijing and it was tough to breathe. Some people here walk around with surgical masks on all the time. Today it was lifted and we noticed that the air is changing very quickly to late fall. Time to leave. We went to a pearl and silk market and spent the last of RMB's which are Yuan but local name is RMB. I bought some lovely table runners and jade chopsticks. None of this of course is necessary, packing tonite will be fun, but when in China...

Last night we had a birthday party here at the hostel for a woman from Minneapolis and Ivan and I went on a scavenger hunt for a bakery, which we eventually did find, and bought the loveliest cake you can imagine for about $6.00 USD or 58 RMB. A bunch of us from the hostel went out for dinner and had hot, spicy food and rice wine and ended up bringing the sweet little waitress home with us to sing and celebrate. A great time was had by all - Ivan and another buddy playing guitar, everyone else with tamborine and egg shakers - until a man came out of his room (Ivan believes sent by his wife) to tell us all to go to bed which we did reluctantly, but, it was time to go to bed.

TOMORROW - we are on the plane to Bangkok and then to Phuket to decompress from China, much needed, I assure you. The tough part for us to do now is to get something reasonable booked for Christmas as masses and droves are still going to Thailand, Tsunami be damned. We will probably shoot for an obscure island in the sun and lay low until after the holidays but all remains to be seen. We will not miss this noisy hostel much but for the people and Roger (the resident dog mooch) and the great folks that we have met here, one of whom we may be travelling with a bit in the future whose name is Cameron from Winnipeg, lovely lad. We will not miss shared showers and the room we are in which I have accused Ivan of smelly sock syndrome but really, it's just the room! The things you don't put up with on the road. Thailand here we come.