[ Beijing ]

Since arriving in Beijing I’ve been ill, propositioned by prostitutes (in a coffeeshop, no less), sated on legit German wheat beer (while listening to a live, K-pop version of Nirvana’s “All Apologies”), lost, scammed by two “school teachers” from “the Northeast,” and drowned in the minutiae of VPN protocols.

There was also food: deep fried scorpions (large and small), starfish, squids and octopuses (Trump fans may call them Octopussies after his recent intrigues, I suppose), crickets, and a spicy-seaweed hotdog. And that was just tonight.

Tomorrow I’ll take the high-speed rail far south, to Wenzhou (near the East China Sea), and then spend a month learning Mandarin in a small town named Yueqing.

Though I suspect decent broadband, I will be avoiding All Things English, so I hope you won’t hear too much of me for a while. But I’ll be out here, Transglobalisting (?) my fool head off.

Take care, and we’ll chat soon.

In the meantime, here are a couple of pics just to prove I ain’t lying to ya…

Namaste,
—jim