Hi All!
Just so you know, I'm still alive, I have a bunch of posts to make but I'm pretty busy with work travel etc at the moment.
I promise I will post when I get back to China
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Heating... Part 3
As people suggested might happen, now that the heating has been on for a few days, it's now really hot in the house! Before I was sitting at the desk wearing a jumper, merino jumper, t-shirt, jeans, socks and slippers and sometimes my beanie if it was really cold. I still got cold hands after a while even wearing all that.
I'm now down to jeans and a t-shirt and I wouldn't feel uncomfortable wearing shorts I don't think. The floor is heated too so I don't even need my slippers any more!
It's warm enough that we've now had to open a window, so I guess the Chinese like it warm in their houses (and shops, offices etc)
Bring on the depths of Winter now, I'm ready now that I know I have a nice warm house to come back to.
I'm now down to jeans and a t-shirt and I wouldn't feel uncomfortable wearing shorts I don't think. The floor is heated too so I don't even need my slippers any more!
It's warm enough that we've now had to open a window, so I guess the Chinese like it warm in their houses (and shops, offices etc)
Bring on the depths of Winter now, I'm ready now that I know I have a nice warm house to come back to.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Heating... Part 2
Just a couple of hours after my last post, I realised that it wasn't so cold in the apartment any more. Then I was in the kitchen putting stuff in the bin (which is right in front of one of the wall heaters) and I noticed it was warm!!
So the heating now seems to be on, which is very nice. No one is sure if it's just on for testing or on properly but since it was coming on next Tuesday, I'm hoping they're not going to bother to turn it off.
We have heaters in all the rooms, which is really nice, and it seems like there is under floor heating too. Either that or the apartment downstairs is really warm! So the house is at least a few degrees warmer, I was too warm last night and I definitely don't need thermals and a jumper like I was wearing before.
Now all I have to do is to keep making myself go outside when it gets really cold!
So the heating now seems to be on, which is very nice. No one is sure if it's just on for testing or on properly but since it was coming on next Tuesday, I'm hoping they're not going to bother to turn it off.
We have heaters in all the rooms, which is really nice, and it seems like there is under floor heating too. Either that or the apartment downstairs is really warm! So the house is at least a few degrees warmer, I was too warm last night and I definitely don't need thermals and a jumper like I was wearing before.
Now all I have to do is to keep making myself go outside when it gets really cold!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Heating...
A few people have asked me about the heating (probably because we've been complaining about the cold:)
Some background to this in case it hasn't come up is that most buildings have centrally controlled heating which is in turn controlled by the Beijing government. It turns out that there are some guidelines as to when they turn it on. Basically testing starts around the 7th of November but the heating itself doesn't get turned on until either the 15th of November (next Tuesday) or until they get five days in a row of average temperatures below 5 degrees. Which is pretty cold for early November.
In short, it looks like the heating will come on next Tuesday because although it's getting into the negatives at night, it's still getting up to the mid-teens during the day.
Some background to this in case it hasn't come up is that most buildings have centrally controlled heating which is in turn controlled by the Beijing government. It turns out that there are some guidelines as to when they turn it on. Basically testing starts around the 7th of November but the heating itself doesn't get turned on until either the 15th of November (next Tuesday) or until they get five days in a row of average temperatures below 5 degrees. Which is pretty cold for early November.
In short, it looks like the heating will come on next Tuesday because although it's getting into the negatives at night, it's still getting up to the mid-teens during the day.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
One month of guitar
After a month of learning the guitar (well pretty much) I have come to a few conclusions:
I do have a book to learn some more songs as well but right now I want to finish this section and get to the chords which seems to be where most courses start. I am also hoping that the heating comes on soon (this weekend I think is the plan) because my hands keep getting really cold when I'm playing!
However I am still having fun, even with the boring exercises!
- I have no particular natural talent for music! Maybe no one does, but I certainly don't
- Even though I'm not very good yet, it's still fun
- Apparently children are good at learning this sort of thing but as an adult I have the advantage of knowing how to learn stuff and a lot more willpower than a child which is nice
- Years of studying language and my current Mandarin helps a lot with reasonably abstract things like music notation
I do have a book to learn some more songs as well but right now I want to finish this section and get to the chords which seems to be where most courses start. I am also hoping that the heating comes on soon (this weekend I think is the plan) because my hands keep getting really cold when I'm playing!
However I am still having fun, even with the boring exercises!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
After bedding
Yesterday we decided to make the trek out to Ikea to get a warmer doona as it's pretty cold in our apartment. When we've tried to look at this sort of stuff in Carrefour, we were basically mobbed so in the interests of that not happening and also having a bit more of a look around, we headed out on our bikes.
It had just started raining a tiny bit so Jane went back to grab some rain coats. As we left, a guy came barreling around the corner on his fold up bike going stupidly fast, saw us, slammed on his front brake, instantly locked the wheel and fell on his face right in front of us! We went to help him up, but he jumped up, looked pretty silly then rode off! It's very slippery!
It's chilly in Beijing at the moment, a maximum of about 12 so kind of an Australian winter so far. We headed out past where we buy our fruit and veg to a turn off where google maps said there was a road that would take us there and the Lonely Planet Beijing app said there wasn't. It turns out that Lonely Planet were right (good on them!) and there is as yet no road, just a confusing series of alleys that don't go anywhere. Back to the main road we went then and it meant we had to ride against the traffic on the side of the road which I'm not a big fan of. It wasn't too far fortunately and aside from almost being run over by a taxi when we arrived (the lane marked as a bike lane going in is also marked at the other end as a taxi lane going out), we were there. We'd been told it was ridiculously busy but still nicer than Ikea at home but maybe due to the weather it wasn't too bad.
We went in, eventually found doonas, cover and pillowcases and (most excitingly) some fitted sheets! I also got some fine slipper/boot things that make me look like a Christmas elf so that's all good. Most amazingly, our reasonable winter weight doona cost ... 249 yuan which is a bit less than $40!
Attempting to deal with the crowd (which in true Chinese fashion was about 50% going the wrong way, but they know best of course, not the Ikea architects!) we made our way to the exit and joined the very well labelled "Card Only" line. This is pretty common here. Not common or well marked enough for the people in front of us though who put all their stuff through (about 3 bags full) then pulled out cash to pay :(. The poor checkout girl had to go and find a supervisor and get them to come and sort it out. Then when we went to pay, she took Jane's card, and ran off. We never worked out why, maybe it's because it has a chip or something? We haven't had many issues with it before.
Coming home was much easier, we could go with the traffic and it's pretty straight to get back too.
The new sheets and doona are really nice and warm too!
It had just started raining a tiny bit so Jane went back to grab some rain coats. As we left, a guy came barreling around the corner on his fold up bike going stupidly fast, saw us, slammed on his front brake, instantly locked the wheel and fell on his face right in front of us! We went to help him up, but he jumped up, looked pretty silly then rode off! It's very slippery!
It's chilly in Beijing at the moment, a maximum of about 12 so kind of an Australian winter so far. We headed out past where we buy our fruit and veg to a turn off where google maps said there was a road that would take us there and the Lonely Planet Beijing app said there wasn't. It turns out that Lonely Planet were right (good on them!) and there is as yet no road, just a confusing series of alleys that don't go anywhere. Back to the main road we went then and it meant we had to ride against the traffic on the side of the road which I'm not a big fan of. It wasn't too far fortunately and aside from almost being run over by a taxi when we arrived (the lane marked as a bike lane going in is also marked at the other end as a taxi lane going out), we were there. We'd been told it was ridiculously busy but still nicer than Ikea at home but maybe due to the weather it wasn't too bad.
We went in, eventually found doonas, cover and pillowcases and (most excitingly) some fitted sheets! I also got some fine slipper/boot things that make me look like a Christmas elf so that's all good. Most amazingly, our reasonable winter weight doona cost ... 249 yuan which is a bit less than $40!
Attempting to deal with the crowd (which in true Chinese fashion was about 50% going the wrong way, but they know best of course, not the Ikea architects!) we made our way to the exit and joined the very well labelled "Card Only" line. This is pretty common here. Not common or well marked enough for the people in front of us though who put all their stuff through (about 3 bags full) then pulled out cash to pay :(. The poor checkout girl had to go and find a supervisor and get them to come and sort it out. Then when we went to pay, she took Jane's card, and ran off. We never worked out why, maybe it's because it has a chip or something? We haven't had many issues with it before.
Coming home was much easier, we could go with the traffic and it's pretty straight to get back too.
The new sheets and doona are really nice and warm too!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)