Kunming

It's been a long time since I've been able to post. Google Blogspot is still blocked in China, but I found a proxy site I can use. It's slow and glitchy， I can't see the comments and I don't think I can post pictures, so it's not a long term solution. But for now it will have to suffice since I haven't been able to find a non-blocked blog host.

Since I last posted, I finished school in Jinan and moved across China to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the southwest, bordering Vietnam and Myanmar (no, I didn't feel the earthquake yesterday). I'll be continuing my Mandarin studies at another school here for at least another semester. I decided not to return to Seattle. Maybe someday to visit.

I'm sharing a 3-bedroom apartment with a woman from Australia. It's a palace compared to the dorm in Jinan, although not without it's problems. It's fairly large and my half of the rent is $80 a month. It's in an older neighborhood, comfortable, green, and hopefully not on the verge of being bulldozed, although the nearest open market is coming down next week. Kunming, like every other city in China, is rapidly being rebuilt. There is a good Wikipedia write-up on Kunming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming).

Hopefully I will be able to use this workaround to post regularly, and maybe even upload pictures. If not, maybe I can use Flickr, although it's currently blocked...