Observations

China is full of great benefits and drawbacks:

- Today is so foggy and/or polluted that we can barely see the buildings across the street. My eyes are stinging a little, so I decided to check the air quality index. It turns out we're at 128, which is "unhealthy for sensitive groups". Anything under 100 is satisfactory. Surrey, in contrast, is at 9 right now. I'm just hoping that cold, cold wind from the North will come and blow the blue skies back again.

+ On the weekend, I took my first motorcycle ride back to campus from the Qing Gui for only 50 cents.

- While walking out to dinner in Kai Fa Qu last Thursday, we passed by an outdoor pet market. The puppies looked way too young to be separated from their mothers and many of them were shaking with their tails between their legs. One of the puppies jumped out of its box to the ground two feet below. I gasped in shock when the pet salesman gave the pup a good hard kick (the puppy squealed in protest) and then picked the poor animal up and threw it in the trunk of his car. I can't wipe the image from my mind. I just wanted to buy the whole lot of animals then and there. It looks like there is no SPCA in China.

+ Yesterday, I took my bike club guys on an hour ride up to the golf course and back. The views of the waves crashing along the beach were extraordinary. The pollution makes the sunsets even more brilliant. It was a great way to unwind from a long, long day.

- The list of foods which are safe to consume keeps getting shorter and shorter. So many things are tainted with melamine that I'm beginning to lose track. At first, it wasn't so bad. Chinese milk was infected, but then I never did like milk all that much, and I could always get New Zealand milk from Metro. Now all our dairy products are in question: yogurt, ice cream, coffee creamers... What took the cake was when they announced that Snickers and Dove had melamine in it. How dare they take my chocolate! Now it turns out that Dalian eggs are not good and our oranges have worms in them.

+ To end on a good note, we discovered another little luxury after our Halloween party on Friday night. For about 14 dollars, you can stay overnight in a lazy-boy at the Kerren Hotel, enjoy the spa, watch tv, and even get a massage (for a little extra). I was going to take advantage of it, but ended up going back to Jinshitan instead. It's nice to know that I can always stay there overnight if I'm out on the town late. One of these days I'll sleep there just because I can.