A new route home

It wasn’t really very much of a move – less than a mile, as the crow flies.

However, I have crossed two – arguably three – psychologically significant boundaries in my recent switch of apartments: I've moved from Xicheng into Dongcheng district for the first time in 8⅟₂ years; I've moved east of Jiugulou Dajie for the first time ever; and I've moved back outside the North 2nd Ringroad, after two years of being properly a city centre dweller.

The chief impacts of this are that I now have to cross the 2nd Ringroad (or its racetrack-dangerous fulu – ‘service road’ – anyway) on a daily basis; and that I no longer go down Jiugulou, but down the modest alley of Beiluoguxiang, nearly half a mile further east, whenever I head into the city on foot. My walk home from my 'local', 12 Square Metres, now takes me more-or-less due north.

Hmm, maybe it’s the walk down there that’s homeward….