Another day, another RMB

Frankly the fact that you are reading this is pretty impressive. FYI, Cliff and I did not fall off the face of the planet. We've been alittle busy with school--since the last post we've taken a Business Stats exam, which Cliff scored the highest grade in the class (surprise, surprise), taken a vacation in Thailand and returned to a midterm in Business Management (grade TBD).
As some of you already know, Cliff and I had a 10 day holiday during the last part of Sept. We decided to take our much postponed trip to Thailand. Many have asked about why we had such a long holiday...we were given a break to honor the founding of the PRC. Here is more info, courtesy of Mr Wiki:

The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. The Central People's Government passed the Resolution on the National Day of the People's Republic of China on December 2, 1949 and declared that October 1 is the National Day. The National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau with a variety of government-organised festivities, including fireworks and concerts. Public places, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, are decorated in a festive theme. Portraits of revered leaders, such as Sun Yat-Sen, are publicly displayed. When the anniversary is a multiple of five (e.g. the 50th, 55th, or 60th), large scale official celebrations may be held, including an inspection of troops on Tiananmen Square. More notable of these events included Deng Xiaoping's inspection in 1984 and Jiang Zemin's inspection in 1999.

Needless to say, Cliff and I are considering staying in town for the 2009 National Day. We're already planning on camping out overnight in Tiananmen to be in the front row on the parade route. Cliff says you'll be able to spot him quickly--he'll be the one in front of the tanks with grocery bags. tee hee.

We are still processing our pics from Thailand, so I'll save the commentary for that post. I've been taking pics every once in awhile in order to get a good grouping on life here in Beijing--I think I've finally got a good commentary on a typical day. First, just to update you on our latest purchases, we bought bikes up in Wudaokou. As school was looming (several weeks ago), we knew we'd need a way to get from the Wudaokou metro station to school, which is about 1.5 miles apart. Typically, most students have a bike, and we would be no different. In all our wisdom (or what we mistook for wisdom at the time) we bought the cheapest bikes we could. I figured that they'd only be used for a year and they'd only be ridden for a mile at a time--how bad could they be?Above is Cliff, with our friend Oscar, from Venezuela, inspecting his new bike. Unsurprisingly, as soon as Cliff's bike was assembled, he dug into the guys toolbox, grabbed a wrench and started tweaking his bike. He tightened the brakes, secured the basket and made some modifications to the seats.
Here he is smiling like a fool. At this point, neither of us knew the jalopy we had just been tricked into buying.
Look at the foreigners on their chariots from hell. No joke, as great/normal looking at these bikes are, they are minimally better than walking. The frames must have been recovered from a junk yard--they are pretty brittle. don't get me wrong, if I contributed to a little backyard recycling project, give me a cookie or something...but these bikes are little chariots from hell. The chain has fallen off, the seat keeps on falling down, the baskets are made from play-doh or something, the wheels are made from solid rubber and the brake pads have lasted about 3 weeks. Of course, it all comes down to the 150 RMB (about 22$) we paid for them. There have been some great deals here in China, bikes (as the transportation of the people), are not to be trifled with. But, I digress.

So, Cliff and I have finally gotten our routine down...we wake up about 2 hours before class starts, run like wildmen around the apartment trying to get ready (since we sleep in as late as possible), grab a coffee and apple on the way out the door and both hop on one electric bike. Most mornings we'll drive by the egg sandwich place, pick up one special sandwich (two eggs, no sauce please, for Mr Picky) and one regular. From there, we'll jet over to the local metro station, park the hog (see below) and hoof it to the line 13 train.
The subway here is always sponsored by someone--the flavor of the month is CocaCola. Yaoming and his smiling, million RMB, coke swilling grin greets me every morning.

2RMB later, we get on the train. We actually go the long way to get a seat for the entire ride, rather than transfer halfway through (as we would if we took the faster route). Here is Cliff, complete with cheery morning face, excitingly anticipating all the wonder the new day has to offer.

The great thing about the metro, is that they have TVs in the cars...sometimes we watch news, sometimes we get traffic reports. During the Olympics, we watch live telecasts, but most times, we get to watch videos. Either way, most of it is lost on us, as the volume is pretty low and my reading is still alittle slower than an average newscaster speaks.

Below is a pic of an average commute before we hit the big transfer spot. Once we get there, if I lift up my arm for a picture, I can't get it back down. No joke, to get off the metro in Wudaokou, we have to elbow people and push people out of the way. One time, Cliff couldn't even get off the car and had to go to the next stop and turn around. Riding the metro during rush hour in China is like participating in a tag-team wrestling match. Every man for himself, and elbows are mandatory.

Once we fight our way off of the metro, we bail our bikes out of bike jail...this is the bike farm next to the station. This is where the hotty-totty folks pay someone to watch their bikes. Mostly students just lock there bikes up outside on the side walk. No joke, the metro station looks like a bike cemetary. We ride our little harbingers of death to the Beijing University International MBA building, which is part of the University's Economic Center...it's in this beautiful courtyard, so we get a great view everyday. Below is the courtyard next to our classroom:


Here is the entrance to the Economic facility:

Here is the outside of our classroom:

And....the inside of our classroom. As I said earlier, it is so great to have a beautiful and traditional place to take classes at every day. The down side is that the heat has not been turned on yet (seasonal in China...probably won't be turned on until Nov) and its freezing in the classroom.
Well, this is a basic day for us right now. Standby for Thailand pics...