Back from Beijing

View from front window of apartment, 4/27/08

Greetings from scenic New Haven, Connecticut, where the air is cool and unpolluted and spring has been arriving in my absence. I had a pretty great time in Beijing (and, last weekend, in Shanghai) with Mike. I'll write more about it down the line.

I think my advance expectation about the city was that it'd be like Canal Street in New York, only huge, so I was relieved that it wasn't as overwhelming as I expected. You can fake your way through most of your solitary-tourist agenda without speaking Mandarin: there's a fair amount of ambient English (street signs, subway stop announcements, menus) and it's never hard to find public toilets or places to buy bottled water. Usually I was on my own from morning till late afternoon, and then I'd meet up with Mike for the evening.

I may be ruined for editing, although I guess I'll find out tomorrow. For two weeks I've been gratefully gobbling up scraps of much-needed English without worrying about how well articulated it is. I think ultimately this is a healthier existence.

The plan for Sunday: (1) Have an iced coffee and a scone in a coffee shop while picking through the two issues of the New Yorker that arrived while I was gone (done); (2) Laundry (partly done); (3) Take it easy and idly wonder at what point today my brain waves inevitably go totally out of whack.