Time flies...

We're leaving China in less than a month. I can't say I'm sad about it. Especially in the last few days - in which we met the Chinese bureaucracy again. To make things short- Rob needs a new visa, and we need a registration form for him, which is hard to get coz without knowing we "broke" the law- he didn't register again after coming back from Germany (in China you need to register as a resident - and let them know exactly where you are all the time). This means that he needs to pay a fine and show our contract to the apartment. Problem is that the contract ended yesterday, and we're staying here with the landlords permission. No prob you say? just get the landlords to get us a new contract or something? true. But we couldn't reach them in the last 2 days. Well we got them today, but this story isn't over yet... Not very interesting I know- but my point is that I'm really getting sick of this place, and now- as the cherry on top-blogspot is blocked again in China. At least that's what I understand- coz I can't go into any of the blogspot blogs. If I had to say how I feel about it today it would be a mixture of frustration and anger. I thought about the question whether I'll ever want to live here for more than a short period of time, meaning- more than a year, and I must say that now the answer will be "no". There's tons of good things about living in China, if its the cheap prices, or the interesting challenges you meet everyday, the great food (just pay attention to what you're eating - to not be surprised...), and even the occasional nice Chinese person you meet outside (and I admit- most of them are nice ppl) all of the above do not make me feel it's worth all the rest. I'm tired of being stared at, tired of dealing with the system all the time, and that's even though I'm not naive: I know that bureaucracy is the same shit anywhere on this planet. Here it has another dimension to it: The big brother knows all. I can not deal with that. I'm such a person of live and let live - and I just can't live in a place where someone above decides for me what websites I'm allowed to see. I can't wait to be back in Europe, and later Israel- to read in Wikipedia (I miss you my love!) or just click my favorite blogs list- and not get a page that sais "Action Cancelled"...
I still want to travel a bit, when you travel you usually don't see these little problems, or they just don't annoy you as much, but I am ready to leave.