Today was an excellent day. Not only was it Saturday, not only was the sun shining (as it usually does), not only has my kitty been increasing in size in a very healthy manner, but two things occurred today that made my day brilliant, but they both resulted in me getting a sore bum and blistered fingers, respectively.

First, I bought a guitar. Eric, and (I think) his girlfriend Maggie – both in my college spoken english class, came with me to the music shop, to help. Eric plays guitar, and I wanted to hear the two prospective guitars from the front, and so needed someone to play for me. He’s a sweet player, got some good jazz and blues stuff goin’ on. We both ended up agreeing that the cheaper guitar was better value for money, and so I bought a mid range steel string guitar for 700 yuan – about AU$175, and about US$90.

Hence the sore fingertips. I’ve been playing everything from the Beatles to Black Velvet Band to Hotel California, right through to Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes. You know that healthy sore finger feel, when you know that if you go gently enough, you will end up with good quality callouses? That’s what I’ve got.

But what about the sore bum? you ask. I’ll put you out of your misery: I bought me a BIKE today! I’ve not had a bike since I was about 10. The feeling of power that you get, when you get off your feet and suddenly whiz along, the breeze in your face, cooling your skin with the sweat that you got from walking. Here’s my gorgeous bike:

See? It has a basket at the front, for my cat (I put him in there, but he yowled at me, so I took the hint, and took him out again!), and it even has the cool handle bars that look like they should have little streamers coming out of them. I shall have to find some…

Dushanzi is almost totally flat, and this afternoon, Michael and I went for a 2 hour ride, going from one end of the town to the other, and then out into the desert on the other side. I’ve finally worked out how to use the auto panorama on my camera. It’s quite spectacular to watch it stitch together images. I’ve been wanting to show you the foothills of the South Mountains for awhile, with the snow capped peaks off in the back ground. (To save on bandwidth, I’ve made this a popup image, so that you don’t have to load it every time you check my blog. It’s also a very WIDE photo. You may need to scroll the image to see all of it!)

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Everything you see here is in the “Forbidden Zone” – the photo was taken from the edge of the forbidden zone. It sounds very imposing, but all it means is that foreigners can’t go in – it’s full of camels and shepherds and real live cowboys.

Speculation is rampant between Michael and I as to why it’s forbidden. We’ve come up with countless theories – it’s a intercontinental missile test site, a landing gound for missiles launched in the far south of china. We know that the test missiles do land somewhere in Xin Jiang. We also heard that in the later half of last century, the Chinese were worried about invasion from Russia, and so have large weapon caches in there, so that they could fight a guerilla war if they had to. There is also the story of the many prison camps in there, not to mention the numerous military bases. Who knows really? Everyone has a different theory, but noone seems to be able to give a straight answer for why we as foriegners are not allowed in there, apart from the broad excuse that it’s for “military reasons”

My own personal theory is that it’s China’s own version of Roswell. There’s a Chinese Area 51 in there. I’m sure of it. They have alien spaceships and everything. A goat told me. It was a very reliable goat.

Baaaaaahhh!

Charlotte

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