Take me to the seaside.

"Are Australia's beaches famous in America?" An Aussie asked me, a friend of my sister's roommate.

"Are you kidding?" I responded incredulously as I continued to snap pictures of the beach that stretched in front of us farther than my eye could see.

Growing up far from the mountains and even farther from the sea, I'm usually enthralled by the sight of any peak and most large bodies of water, fresh or salty. However, the allure of Australia's beaches outweighs most.

At that moment, my sister, her roommate Ed, his friend and I were overlooking a sea that varied in shades of blues, teals and turquoises I hadn't seen before and couldn't describe. I could only murmur, "it's beauuuuutiful." And with that, I snapped more pictures from our cliff outcrop that offered sweeping views of the beach. It was New Year's Eve and a perfect summer day to get a nice tan, possibly a burn with the new intensity of pale I'd reached in China, and if I was feeling brave, which was doubtful, a dip in the frigid water. A map will show you that Melbourne is Australia's largest "down under" city and its surrounding water is the last to warm.

Still it was NYE, usually I'd just be freezing in the cold chilled air of the Midwest, while counting down the hours until it was socially acceptable to start drinking for the new year. This year, I was going to drink a cold beer on the beach, while it and I both sweated in the heat.

"This is Australia," the boys chirped back nonchalantly.

Natives.

Being the world's largest island, Australia has few competitors on total miles of beaches, or rather kilometers, as most of the world measures. From what I saw, Australia truly has some of the best in the world, save for Thailand. I've never seen any place more naturally beautiful, sorry Australia.

However, what I didn't add to their curiosity about America's fascination with Australia and its beaches is why. While they are gorgeous, the same can be said about the presumed beach patrons that are a large part of the obsession, if you want to call it that. Namely, it's the boys, which according to American myth are all surfers and all are more attractive than could be genetically true. Baywatch, Down Under, on steroids. If I had to boil it down. The stereotype is as strong as the one that all Australians love Foster's Beer. How it happened, I'll never know.

Unfortunately, this wasn't evident in Sorrento, but it does magically exist farther north, according to my sister and friend Lauren, a fellow Aussie lover as well.

(Need I say more? Except, actually, I will. It'll come later in a blog post about where this was taken--aptly named Surfer's Paradise, or anyone's paradise, really.)

Regardless, after the beer, we bolted to the beach. With both of us exhausted from full-on work schedules and holidays separated from family, Ingrid and I mildly distracted our minds with beach literature as we squished the hot sand between our toes. When life is good, sometimes it's devilishly good, it almost feels sinful.

I napped in the sun, while Ingrid splashed in the waves with Ed and his friend. I stayed far from the surf; I hate cold water with a vengeance and always will, I'm sure of it. Not that it mattered to Ingrid and Ed, nor did my screams of protests echoing down the beach, as they also carried me off into the cold surf and dumped me in. "Noooooooooooo!" Nope, I certainly wasn't going to forget Sorrento Beach now.

Before the sun dipped below the blue edge of the sea, Ed drove Ingrid and I back to the train. We needed to get back to the city for the night. Besides being NYE and wanting to celebrate it with proper dresses and bubbly in the city, we had an early flight to catch out of the Melbourne airport to see more of Australia's vast coastline.

Snow?

Growing up in Iowa, it doesn't feel like winter without a good dumping of snow. You become conditioned to it like Pavlov's panting dogs at the sound of a bell. Six inches today, oh yes, it must be January.

As I mentioned before, however, since September, ZZ had yet to receive a drop of precipitation of any kind. A drought of grave importance for an agricultural province; for me, it meant living in a cold dust bowl without a winter. Yesterday, finally, on the last day of February, it happened. Chemically induced snow blanketed the city, thanks to the government's mysterious mocktail that was launched into the air.

Creating, what I must say, the first day ZZ looked pretty and even picturesque. The inch of fluffy snow looked like lace attaching itself to the palm trees that greet me outside my apartment. Something I've never seen in Iowa. Looking out at the city on the eleventh floor at our new gym, you couldn't see much of the sprawl, like most days due to the smog, but I wished I had my camera all the same. The swirling flakes actually seemed natural in their flurry that casted gray over the obstructed scene, even though they weren't nature's creation, just like the smog.

I crossed my fingers for school cancellations (all we got was a rescheduling of office hours), attempted to build a snowman and threw a few snowballs until my fingers froze outside.

Now, it can be spring.

The Motherload. A story of triumph.

Sure, it's irritating that you can be on an island off the coast of Thailand, yet, you can stop in a 7-Eleven, eat Italian sorbet, buy muesli imported from Norway, communicate with most anyone in English and send a postcard that may arrive in less than one week anywhere in the world. How Thailand, how?

In a city of 5 million, I only wish.

But this weekend, we discovered there are ways, with a little ingenuity and craft, to trick your mind in believing that you are far from street hawkers offering the usual Chinese fare of mystery. Sure, you can't have the sun and the gelato too, but some imports can make you forget about those, at least for the moment.

Let me start by saying that Gill is a master of scouring food blogs for their best. Without her, most of my favorite "foreign food" meals in China would not be possible: risotto, stuffing, homemade pizza, red curry, bacon wrapped shrimp and more. All from a hot plate or toaster oven. In my kitchen, I burnt my pancakes; actually they were charred. And they came from a box.

But this post isn't about my losses, but about last night, another triumph of Gill's. With two bottles of imported wine, one tasty, one putrid, we ate homemade bagels (thanks to Gill) jazzed with smoked salmon, pastrami, a large tomato slice, feta cheese and a good shaking of pepper. It tasted like an orchestra on my taste buds. Seriously, a jazzy perfection. I wasn't just trying to make sure that I secured a plate the next time she cooked; they really were the best tasting bagels I've ever had.

To live the expat life in China, one must be sleuth and hold a Metro membership, the key to the one import haven of ZZ. Life in China doesn't have to be as limiting as one may think.

(Not the bagels, but another masterpiece of Gill's.)

Now if only they could rid the sky of that constant gray haze...

Down Under--Melbourne.

I arrived in Melbourne, the "cultural capitol" and my sister's adopted city, feeling jittery and cold, despite the fact that I had just left China's freezing winter only 10 hours prior. Where was this hot Australian sun I had heard so much about?

Actually, I hadn't done much research. Melbourne is like Australia's Seattle and as the following weeks proved, I was just lucky it wasn't raining too. In the brisk wind, I wrapped my thin cardigan around me and double-stepped it to find Ingrid.

It's a strange feeling meeting up with someone you've kept in contact with--almost daily via video--but haven't seen for months. The last time we had said goodbye, I was feeling jittery before returning home--jobless. Luckily that had changed and this time we were both employed and with much better jobs than before.

We shuffled out of the station and onto a passing tram, a Melbourne speciality. I pushed myself on, heaved my suitcase behind me and continued to gush with eagerness about all things China.

"Oh, and our last banquet, Ingrid, the baijiu, you know how I feel about that, oh and the

Christmas soiree, finals, and blah, blah, blah...."

Ingrid jabbed me, "Anna, quiet down. Everyone can hear you and a few are staring."

Ingrid didn't like it; I hadn't even noticed.

"WHAT?!" I asked in what probably seemed like a yell to her.

"Everyone can hear you," she jabbed harder into my side.

Right. I looked around. I certainly wasn't in China anymore. Hair, evoking the colors of the

rainbow lit up the tram in comparison, natural and not.

"Oh, and you don't need to push so much to get on. People usually line up," Ingrid added while she had my attention.

Sure, I'm not Han Chinese. For credibility, I'm a slaughterer of tones. However, when it comes to acting like one, at that moment, I felt like I should have been in Zhongguo fighting my way onto a busy bus on WeiWu Lu.

After 4 months of living in Zhengzhou, I had dropped the habit of eavesdropping. When I tried, a conversation usually sounded like: This-aldjf-person-a;lfj-China-;aldfj-is-;alsdjf-bus. If that.

I smiled and whispered to Ingrid, "I'll try to remember my manners."

----------

We hopped off and I gazed somewhat jealously. Ingrid's neighborhood is just so cute. Sure, cute is a word for conversation, but for a blog, Anna? Yes, I admit it, even in the third person. It's hard to find any other word to aptly phrase it better.

As Bill Bryson, a native Iowan as well, stated in his book Down Under; you fly for hours, across oceans, Asia, more oceans and suddenly you arrive a day later and you can't believe this exists. Tucked seemingly away from the rest of the world, it just seems magical. His words, more or less. I had to ditch the book in Vietnam after I finished it. But it's true, *quaint* row houses, dating back only as early as the mid 1800s, line the neighborhoods. Cafes spill out into the sidewalks. In the morning, Ingrid tells me, the wafting smell of espresso and bacon fill the air. Boutiques and book stores, both used and new, wedge in between. I take a deep breath; I can breathe again! People run. People relax. People, just be.

"I want to stay here forever," I tell Ingrid.

We hadn't even gotten food yet, but the celebratory bubbly had hit me just right.

"I told you," Ingrid reminded me yet again, "just wait until you have your first parma."

Parma is the quintessential Melbourne pub food experience, especially when paired with a good microbrew. It's gooey, cheesy, large, pasta-riffic, carb-heavy and in finale, topped with a large breaded chicken breast. It's everything you probably shouldn't love about food, which makes it even better, especially with fries on the side. Or as they say, chips. We dug in and swished it down with a beer I can't recall for a name, but it tasted just as good, well, almost. Maybe after the third.

That's the thing about living in China. Microbrews are nonexistent in vocabulary and real life. You're lucky if you get a draft and its cold. Stout or imported varieties are the winners of the comment, "hey, this tastes pretty good." In Zhengzhou, it's the little things.

In Australia, the beers needed no justifications, save only for price. Making bank in China, in relative comparison, I felt like a king that had just got dethroned in another land. Nothing was cheap, especially for my kuai-accustomed mind. In China, a big beer will set you back only 50 cents at many local restaurants.

For background, the Australian dollar is now 1:1 with its American equivalent. The great problem, however, lies in the fact that on the big island, the minimum wage usually starts around 15 dollars, and as so, most of the prices reflect that. They can afford it. A beer at a restaurant will hover just under the double digits. The cheapest we found was 4 dollars a pop. Just one place, a brewery connected to a hostel and we didn't want to leave there either.

Nevertheless, Ingrid reminded me yet again, this is part of the magic of Australia. It's Western and you'll pay those prices, and sometimes more too. Still, we were in post-parma bliss with much to look forward to. I still had 16 more days of Australia-time with my sister and it was already shaping up to be pretty, pretty good.

(This picture isn't of the brews we had in Melbourne, but actually Sydney. I take a lot of beer photos, but apparently not enough.)

Back To Chiner.

Little is subtle about China. The smog is thick. It's political policies are harsh and resistant to quick change. The food must always include rice, unless it's noodles. And the population, as we know, is booming beyond all. Only its great firewall, luckily, can be climbed with a little help from my VPN (Virtual Private Network) and some grease (money).

When I flew back to China, I found all this the same. In fact, the government was already in the process of firing chemical rockets into the air surrounding Zhengzhou in an attempt to disrupt the drought that had been plaguing the countryside since early September, I read in the China Daily. Business as usual, it was happening before anyone even knew, but as they promised, nothing could wrong with it. Mysterious chemicals in the atmosphere and no harm? Well, there are no studies that show negative consequences, the person quoted quipped, perfectly safe. I doubted there were any extensive studies yet, as I brushed the condensation off my plane window to peer outside, only to find it wasn't there. The obstruction of visibility was the smog outside. Again, the usual.

As I rode into Zhengzhou, the characteristic endless string of red lanterns lined the highway, but here they were a new addition, signaling something had changed. The Spring Festival had passed. I knew I had missed it (on purpose): the Chinese New Year, the dragon parade, the dumplings, the Lantern Festival and the cherishing of the rabbit, in its new year. Bloom, one of the students at HMC who picked me up from the airport, told me it would be okay if I just ate some dumplings instead. I didn't need to feel any guilt for missing it. Around town, exploding firecrackers, fireworks and the sound of noise-sensitive car alarms--BOOM! CRACK! DINGDINGDING!--brashly broke Bloom's subtlety and thundered in my head, even though the holiday was indeed over.

Despite my late timing, I hadn't even managed to miss a hint of the madness. China, subtle, you are not.

(This is actually not a picture taken in China, but in Hanoi, Vietnam, just two weeks before the kick-off of the Spring Festival. As I've been told, Hanoi has the world's largest Chinese New Year celebration, outside the Middle Kingdom, of course.)

Two days later, I started teaching classes again. *Real life* has resumed and luckily the noises have subsided. I'm now teaching 4 days a week, one section less, making me a very happy person to be back here after all. China is China; love it or leave it.

Helloooo again.

I have much to make up as far as blogging goes, but for now, a nap. Sweet dreams readers.