through the looking glass

first blocked in china, now overwhelmed with comment spam. sigh.

fortunetely, a miraculous event nine months in coming finally materialized a few days ago. no, I wasn’t pregnant. I GOT MY CHINESE DRIVER”S LICENSE! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am at long last legally entitled to operate a motor vehicle on this side of the planet. and to top it off I was actually allowed behind the wheel for a while, the director wanted to see my driving in action and handed over his keys. needless to say, in an officer’s car with him in the passenger seat I wasn’t exactly a nascar contender (and I do think nascar would be the appropriate analogy for driving in china rather than my preferred indy). but who cares, I got to drive.

I’ll try to get my act in gear and post a pic of the little piece of paper in its pretty black plastic case (provided), which I find particularly amusing since some trick of the lens has my head looking entirely too big for my body in the attached picture. apparently bad license pictures are a global phenomenon. but right now I’m running around asking just about everyone I meet on the street if they know where I can pick up a used car. any used car.

if I strike gold I’ll take some time to check out the mechanicals and do some maintenance, then I’ll be heading west towards the high end of gansu and, if all goes well, on into xinjiang. keep your fingers crossed for me : )