The rest of my time in Beijing was spent packing and saying goodbye. I made a lot of friends there and spent each lunch and dinner I had left with them, but unfortunately I still missed a lot of good friends before I left. Packing kept me busy the rest of the time, and without internet in my room, I made occasional trips to the Hope Cafe to keep in touch with home.
On the morning I left, I finally said my goodbyes to my neighbours on the 13th floor. A great bunch of people. Hopefully I'll get a chance to go to Spain, Chile, Brazil or the US soon. I shared around some Tim Tams (Australian chocolate biscuits) which were really popular.
This is just after waking everyone up at the crack of 10.
Permanent reminder of the awesome people on the 13th in the first half of 2010.
I had to get going, so I left all the things not worth taking with these guys, checked out and got my deposits back (room key and air conditioner remote, Y100 total). Then I took a cab to the airport, and nothing unusual happened from then until I got home (almost didn't get on the flight because it was overbooked, had very little time to transfer in Singapore, and spent a bit too much time getting through Customs, but none of this really mattered as I got home as planned).
Very glad to be home. The differences between China and Australia are clear - the air and ground are clean here, everything feels more open since the buildings are all shorter, and things are greener here. Adelaide could never be considered crowded by Chinese standards, and things are safer here, with pedestrians having right of way and sane road rules being followed. I saw someone crossing the road in a wheelchair on the way home from the airport, which is something you'd never see in China - ramps and smooth surfaces are uncommon, a severe impediment even without considering the motorbikes and vans speeding through what would in Australia be exclusively pedestrian areas.
In all, I had a great time in China. I spent long enough there to discover many great places and things, from the desert in Inner Mongolia, to the ice festival in Harbin, to the historical sites in Shenyang, to the street food around the south gate of my school in Beijing. I also spent long enough there to see many of China's flaws as well, many of which I've already written about, but I suppose can be vastly oversimplified and summed up as: Despite pervasive first-world technology, and rapidly improving incomes and standards of living, the culture, habits and ways of doing business in China are lagging behind. I can take some of the fastest trains in the world, but there's no way of getting a ticket without physically being at the station, and if they are sold out, I can bargain with scalpers. Many things in China are much harder than they really should be, thanks to pervasive, overcomplicated and overstaffed (and most of all, lazy) bureaucracy. All this, I suppose, makes it an interesting place to visit. There is enough variety in the amazing things you will find and people you will meet to make it worth dealing with all the "monkeys in tall hats".
So, to all the people who have been following my adventures, if you thought it was interesting - go there yourself! My only regrets from this trip are that I didn't go out and see more of China. For Westerners, it is accessible, cheap, safe (just use your common sense!) and probably as foreign a place as one can find. People all over China are friendly and welcoming, and interested to find out about where you are from and how it's different from China. There is a sense of optimism you just don't see much of in the west - whatever happens, things will improve.
I don't know when or how, but I'll definitely go back. And despite all my cynicism and frustrations while I was there this time, some of that optimism must have rubbed off on me, because I know when I go back, it will in some small way be better. But I think I'll need a new camera first.
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