Chinese Lotto

We kept seeing these little shops with big wall charts of numbers in red and black - turns out to be Chinese lotto. Our RMB 2 bet on #789 yesterday in the "3D" game of the Beijing Welfare Lottery (www.bwlc.net) did not prove to hit the jackpot (452 was the winner). We have no idea how it works...that is a topic for our next visit.

Now I am having pre-partum depression. Conrad left this morning, I washed & dismantled the Bike Friday (major loss of freedom) and have been packing up the apartment for the trip back to Hoboken tomorrow. On the one hand, it will feel very nice to be back with Walti again after such an extended separation; on the other, the two months in China were an important experience for me, and it is difficult to pack up and leave...

I look forward to reflecting on the flight home.

The plan is to return again for February and March 2007, but that will depend on how things devleop with both my and Walti's work. For now, it is time to shift gears to the various tasks at hand, the upcoming trip to Nairobi for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, a short stop in Switzerland on the way home, holiday festivities, and January vacation in Utah (skiing and the Sundance Film Festival)...