Above:The Baha'i House of Worship of Asia. Below:Life and times of your fellow World Citizen, Kolya

This is actually adapted from a mail i sent to Karsten and Katherina...

There might be a few new pics in my album since you last looked.

I've been in Beijing the last few days to get my visa for India processed. And spent time with my Beijing friends in the mean-time. On Tuesday, I'll be in New Delhi for the last time, while my parents still live there, and for the near future, for just 33 days. Which is not as long as it seems. Four weeks fly by very quickly indeed! Almost the best thing is that the The Return of the King will be released while i'm there! (Alright, so i'm a Lord of the Rings freak-geek). It'll be my last chance to see my Delhi friends for something like 10 years, at least, probably :.( Which is very sad but i definatly want to go back eventually, as time and money permit.

But the good side is that my next parental visit will take me back to Europe (in summer of 2005, hopefully, finances permitting) which'll enable me to visit Berlin again! It'll have been at least 4 years since i was last there!

I went to see my favorite Beijing band Saturday night with some friends. The band, named after the lead singer, "Arken", is from Xinjiang "Autonomous Region" in the NW of China, which has a muslim majority. Their music is like Arab influenced Flamenco. But sometimes with Chinese lyrics (otherwise Uyhgur).

However, some information that was posted on a website, regarding the starting time was wrong and so we got there early but that was fine, since one of my friends and I hadn’t eaten yet. We went to the Lebanese Restaurant, 1001 Nights, which is near “The Jam House,” were Arken was going to play. We went upstairs to eat. It wasn’t my first time there, and so I was surprised to find that it was possible, at least up there, to order a hookah to smoke from! At a table near us there were two kids who looked like they might have still been in high school who were cheerily puffing away at one as they talked. (What they were smoking, of course, was just pipe tobacco, in case you should wonder). Another friend joined us while we were there and then we left the Philippine band and then the belly dancer, and hurried back to the Jam House to get back out of the cold. Some more friends of my friend Zaynab joined us there, and we all very much enjoyed Arken’s performance, although the volume was turned up a bit too high, IMHO.