It was sticky rice ball festival yesterday(I am sure there is better translation somewhere). The last day of the Chinese spring festival.

I came back from Beijing in the evening. Took the airport bus No. 5 - the taxi line was long. In the television on the bus, I saw programs on the festival, how the festival started, what do people do in this festival. You never thought you’d learn things from those tiny bus TVs full of advertisement, then here I was, listening intently about how the festival is characterized by “nao”, meaning noisy, and people do three things today, eating sticky rice ball, seeing “hua deng” (flower lamp), and guessing riddles written on pieces of paper hanging from the lamp.

I saw a large white moon hanging in the middle of the sky as I pulled my luggage through the doorman’s new concrete shed. He has gotten used to seeing me dragging my luggage in and out. My room is cold comparing to the Beijing dorm room Alan lives. I turned the electronic heater to the maximum in the living room, and the air conditioner in the bedroom to 28. Air conditioner as heat source is unheard of anywhere else, I heard people comparing the heating AC with a hair blower. It is supposed to be able to heat up the room fast, or it makes you feel heat fast, the room, however, never gets hot.

Oh, I miss the heat in Beijing already. Radiator heating, just one piece under the window, but it gets so hot that you have to open the window, and then you have to only wear T-shirt, or a tank top, with just our shorts. Alan and I wore our shorts while we worked on my report. She helped me to type, while I focus on what to say and say it out loud.

Beijing warmed me up inside out. I recently discovered that friends and family warm one’s heart, from a comparison experiment.  The control is Shanghai where I don’t have friends and family, the experiment is Beijing, where I have friends and family. Well, it is not really a controlled experiment. Because there are other warming factor about Beijing - the beijing people. When you ask for directions on the street here, people tell you! I have given up asking for directions in Shanghai already, especially in older neighbor. They never tell you - you are not buying, why should they waste their brain power to tell.

Maybe it is just that I spent a good weekend in Beijing. Maybe it just happened that Alan’s warm home and warm heart met the cold traveled heart. Maybe it was my liangliang jiejie’s cooking, the authentic potato and hong shao rou, the donggua soup, the ants climbing tree, the chao suan tai, the three treasure tofu mushroom, the chicken feet, all home made, all authentic. I eat out in good restaurants a lot. This meal was the best since I came back to China.

I started to understand Beijing’s road. The center of the city is the forbidden city, then there are circles of high ways radiating out from the center, second circle, third circle, fourth circle, fifth circle. Thus it is easy to identify a place in Beijing. You say which circle, then you say east, west, north or south. With these simple ordinance you pretty much identified the place. The north of the city is more desirable, because it is “high wind, high water”. It is said that the water for the tap in the north part is better for drinking than that is from South.

I had not like the roads of Beijing, but as I start to understand it, they started to make sense. I guess it is just another way of living and deciding how the cars to. It is not the most beautiful, but it is pretty efficient. After all, why should there be only one way of planning the city.

Anyway, last night sucks. The fireworks outside, only to contrast the cold and lonely sight inside my apartment. I had to work on the report to the board.

Stayed up till two. Went to bed. Had to get up early so that I can get to work by nine.

A new year has started.

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