The Mad Philosopher

Crazy. It’s been a crazy past couple of weeks. Or maybe it hasn’t even been that long. Some cool things happened since my last weblog entry, so I’ll tell you about some of them.

On my flight back to Beijing, I met my cousins for brunch in Vancouver for something to do for the layover. We had a good time catching up on their lives in Canada and my life in China. My french toast was pretty good too. As we were saying goodbye before I entered the security gate for International Departures, I just happened to check the screen to find that my flight to Beijing had been cancelled. So we all went over to the check-in desk to find out what was going on. Well, the plane never left Beijing the day before, so there was no plane to take me back there. Probably unlike most of the other passengers that day, I was pleased. It meant I could spend 24 more hours with my cousins, plus see various aunts and uncles too. My uncle Paul was even in Vancouver on a business trip, so I got to see him. It was great to hang out in Vancouver like this. I even got to meet my cousin Ann’s husband Steve. They got married this past year while I was in China. He’s pretty cool. We have a lot in common.

I was a little concerned about how I was going to get a seat the next day since they were going to combine the two flights into one. The ladies at the desk told me to just come early (really early!) the next day. Well, I did that and everything seemed normal. I just wasn’t certain that I had a seat on the plane until I was sitting in it. It didn’t look like the crowd at the boarding gate would fit on the plane. But we all made it, some of us a day late.

I spent one or two days at the office when I got back. Not everything was where I had left it though. For one, the entire building had been cleared out and moved into the new building next door. I had gotten some advanced warning via an email though, so it wasn’t too bad.

A devastating realization hit me as I was unpacking from my vacation. I couldn’t find my laptop. I then realized that I must have left it on the x-ray belt as I went through security in Vancouver. How could I do that? Well, let’s just say I had a warehouse of electronics in my backpack and even though I was careful not to lose any of them, I forgot about the tray with the laptop in it. For one thing, I was held up by the metal-detector thing for several minutes. I set it off, which I normally don’t do, and it took a while to search me with the wand because I wasn’t wearing anything that should have set off the detector in the first place. So I was a bit flustered when I went back to the belt.

Anyway, after realizing my mistake (when I was in China) there wasn’t much I could do except call the airport lost and found. I did that, and because of email problems and my subsequent travel (more on that below), I didn’t actually hear from them until this morning. I spent a week in the dark about my laptop’s fate. The good news is that they do have it. I’m very lucky. So I’ll send one of my cousins back to the airport to fetch it for me. I was fully prepared to never see it again, the worst part being that all the digital pictures I took in Canada were only on the laptop. But this morning I had a feeling that I would hear some good news.

After settling into the new office for a day or two, I left for Hainan, in the southernmost part of China, for a 4-day training conference. The conference itself was two days long, with two days of tour tacked on the end of it. Oh, and the conference was in Chinese so my employer didn’t actually expect me to attend. I was there just to travel and experience more of China. I didn’t object.

There are only a few stories from my trip to Hainan. I got to swim in the South China Sea and it was pretty beautiful. I spent most of the trip, however, just recovering from my month in Canada. All in all, I’m just glad to be back in Beijing again. I haven’t seen any friends yet nor done any swing dancing. I’ll see Ilse for supper tonight. Maybe when I get home I can do some laundry!

Ever since I saw this clock last week, I’ve been obsessed with it, like I just had to buy it and bring it into my apartment. I’m not really sure why. Fate knows. But there is a connection between me and precision instruments, somewhere deep within. And I guess I’ve always liked mechanical clocks, coveting them as I saw them in stores here in China.

The only problem is that all the “mechanical” alarm clocks I’ve seen aren’t real. They are of this style, but the bells on top are plastic and non-functional. And there are a lot of these kinds of clocks, from “Hello Kitty!”, to Snoopy, to Winnie the Pooh.

So when I was browsing through IKEA and saw that their Dekad alarm clock was real, I fell in love with it. I even had a fascinating dream about an intricate mechanical clock the next day.

It took me a week to come to the conclusion that I had to buy it to satisfy my obsession. It only cost me 39 RMB, or $8 CDN. It’s black, though I remember it as being blue. It has an adjustable rate, and I’m still fine tuning it to keep accurate time. It wakes me up though (if I remember to wind it), and I can know what time it is now by just glancing across the room.