spring fever.

Spring officially began last Sunday and to mark it, the Beijing government officially turned off all of the central heating, everywhere.

Every year like clockwork, the city officials dutifully flick the switch that is the capital's source of heat. For these 4 months, from November 15 to March 15, can Beijingers actually remove their jackets indoors... for the months leading up to and afterwards, that's another story.

As a result of this rather unexpected change in room temperature, my body hasn't been coping well and somewhere in between home, school and the local restaurants, I definitely caught something that resulted in a sore throat (especially painful when yawning - monday mornings are the worst) and chain sneezing. With the help of (the useless) western medication, hopefully my body can fight off the notorious Beijing bug soon, and *fingers crossed* develop enough resistance to prevent any potential future Chinese hospital visits - something I do not want, EVER, to blog about...