Back to the old school!

I have long been planning to attempt a month of 'back to basics' living - surviving on the kind of scant budget I had to make do on in my first year here. It's partly an exercise in thrift, to try to restore the savings that I've depleted slightly over the past 18 months. It's undertaken rather more in the spirit of challenge, to see just how little money I can spend in a month (though I'm not setting myself any arbitrary targets; and I very much doubt if I'll be able to keep it down to the 1,000 or 1,500 RMB per month limits that are typically set for such endeavours). But mostly, it's because I had more fun in that first year than at any time since. Sitting on the sidewalk outside a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or a xiaomaibu (a mom & pop convenience kiosk) for hours at a time, shooting the breeze and watching the world go by, and sucking back big bottles of beer for just a few kuai..... man, life just doesn't get much better than that. And I very seldom get around to doing it any more.

So, here are the 'Rules' I'm setting for myself

(The Weeble always insists that "there have to be rules"; I usually try to give myself the escape clause that "it's more of a guideline".):

1) No foreign bars

2) No foreign restaurants

3) No fast food (other than Chinese street snacks)

4) No taxis (other than when unavoidable, for work reasons)

5) Absolutely no baby bottles of Tsingtao, under any circumstances whatsoever

6) All drinking to be done in cheap Chinese restaurants, on the street, or at home - no more than 4 RMB to be paid for a beer (and, preferably, only 2 or 3 RMB)

7) I will only allow myself to visit a bar for a live music performance; I will only do this for a particularly good band; and I will endeavour not to drink at all, or not to spend more than a maximum of 50 kuai on drink

That's a pretty severe set of restrictions, and I think, realistically, I am probably going to allow myself an exception here and there. Tonight, for example......

Well, tonight is a 'special occasion' - I am therefore notionally removing it from the month of June, and may continue my regime of self-denial through the 1st July by way of compensation.