What I've been up to this month

The last month has been a treacherous month of work. With lots of projects ni the pipeline for 2013, I could barely take a breath to stop and take check. Today is the last day of January -8.5% of the year has passed us by.

That said, January 2013 marks a special month for me, it's always a month of firsts in many ways, first month of...school, getting into a relationship, living abroad, going skiing, starting new job, and this year, I climbed the great wall. Well, just 4km of it. In the remote border between Beijing and Hebei lies the beautiful and less touched Jin Shan Ling. We scaled the steps before the crack of dawn in the ice and snow to be able to catch a glimpse of the sunrise peaking over the mountains of Hebei. The moment and the view, it was breathtaking. Nevermind that my eyelashes were stiff and frozen from the cold, my fingers fingers swollen and slightly frost bitten, thighs freezing up like a slab of bacon out of the freezer, scaling up the stairs and muttering to myself it is the last time i'm ever doing this, It was worth it. and i did it again, two days later with Mr Mo. And i'd do it again! but in another season perhaps.

Beijing, my unexpected experience. To be honest, I have always been apprehensive about visiting china -- with all the horror stories i've heard, swindling, rudeness, arrogance, loudness, pollution, etc.. i could go on. Yes it is true, the sewer system sucks, it stinks up the entire city (I shudder to think of Beijing in summer). The pollution, the smog, unbearable. I had trouble breathing when I arrived in the airport last Wednesday. Even indoors, my eyes watered from the particles in the air. The sky was a dirty yellow.

The spitting, oh the spitting, I have to watch where I walk, carefully avoiding the line of fire of saliva every 10 meters. Everyone smells like szechuan pepper spiced ashtray, especially in the tube.

Those were my gripes of the city. That said, I was overcome with the city's architecture, it's people, smiley, warm, polite, genuine, a civilisation that now see signs of, but has yet to be destroyed by western globalisation. A city, where people are humble and enriched by history and culture. I am humbled by this experience. Perhaps we were lucky with the people we met, a synical part of me could say it is jsut a facade, and what do I know, I'm just a tourist. I do though, look at this country with a different lens now. Despite it all, Beijing has truly charmed me.

7 January

So we sent Mr Mo's mother off over the weekend, and spent some time lounging and recuperating. It was a quiet epiphany, the last few of which have been spent in Paris having galette des rois, a lovely almond pastry with various loved ones.

So it's back to school today, and it's bizarre to see that festive preparations for the chinese new year are already underway here in Singapore. It is like a two month long party !

Ushering in 2013 - a cold start in Hanoi

For the first time in 6 years we celebrated the new year in Asia, in a super peaceful and quiet environment, certainly a far cry from the parties till dawn we have had in the last few years! This year we spent the new year in the north east of Vietnam, in the Quan Lan village near bai thu long bay, having bay's less known sister. Mr Mo's mother visited over the new year and he took us both to Hanoi and The Bays for a week.

We first arrived in Hanoi on 30th December , a night flight and an hours bus journey into the city centre. Suffice to say initially the 'balmy' winter was a pleasant surprise and change from the humidity and heat I had been warbling over the last few months, but my packing left much to be desired as I severely underestimated the weather.

We revisited an old favorite dinner place and bia hoi of Mr Mo's in a side street which specialized in bit tet--- beef steak to the uninitiated. Sizzling plates of 'beef' drenched in gravy, or pummeled discs of unfathomable meat like texture, mi xao piled with onions, our fellow diners happily sucking on their pigeon feet, to be later spat out and crunched under the shoes of the next unknowing diner, indeed we are in Hanoi. One thing that puzzled me to no end is mr Mo's frequent indignance about tze char and chicken rice in singapore which always came bony but he relished in the pigeon feet strewn on the ground with discarded corn cobs, something I'd never understand. 

On that note, we got relocated against our better judgment from the bluesky hotel as they were fully booked, to a dodgy looking guesthouse whose front of house reminded me of a gambling den in malaysia from the 80s. Not a great start. With no heating and single glazed windows, we huddled in the cold to fall asleep. Remind me the next time I set my perimeters for a hotels in cold climates -- hot water which we had, clean rooms (bed was at least clean) and a goddamn heater (as opposed to a wonky air con which served no purpose other than to keep us awake with its clacking drone throuhgout the night).

Tomorrow, we start our adventures to the bays.