My Feet Hurt...
Holy crap.
It seems as though I will never really have much time here. Today was another day that was jammed full of things to do. It was all pretty cool, but still.
I woke up early and met my orientation group at west gate. Beiwai’s campus is split in two by the third ring road, so west gate is the entrance to Beiwai’s west campus (the gate is facing east) and my dorm is at the far side of east campus. When I got to the gate Ai Laoshi explained what today’s morning activity was. “Mystery Beijing” is an exercise in getting around the city. You get a place written in characters on a slip of paper, and you have to get there, get proof that you have been there and then get to Yihe (the Summer Palace) by 1:30pm. The rules are that you may use any mode of transportation, except for a taxi, and you can only ask non-native English speakers for help.
My group was three people (not a pair like most groups). Ashley, Ryan, and I decided to team up together. Our place to go was Jianshan gongyuan (Coal Hill Park). The park is just north of Gugong (The Forbidden City) and has a hill/mountain in the middle that was formed from all of the dirt that the dug out of the moat around Gugong. The park wasn’t too hard to find. We ended up taking a bus to the subway, taking a subway to Tian’anmen, and then walking north to the park. Our orientation group’s RA, Marc, shadowed our group. He wasn’t allowed to help us find Jianshan gongyuan, but he could help us find Yihe.
The park was really cool and very cheap to enter. It had several pagodas set up at various points on the hill, and at the top was a large building that housed a Buddha statue. We climbed to the top and climbed down again, taking pictures all the way. The coolest part of the park was not the architecture, but the old people. Apparently old people will all wake up early and go play at the park until the afternoon when they all go home and cook dinner for their families. The old people are all so cool!
When we entered Jianshan gongyuan there was a lady doing taichi with a sword, and a group of people playing a game that resembles hacky-sack. They stand in a circle and kick a little weighted thing with feathers on one side. The old people let us play with them, but we were very bad at the game. The stupid foreigners ruined their game for them, but they were all very nice while we did that.
There were also people singing Chinese songs, people doing ribbon dancing, people playing cards, people playing chess, people playing all kinds of games, people line dancing, people ballroom dancing, and people doing calligraphy on the sidewalk with water. It was cool.
Then we followed Marc to Yihe, where Feng Laoshi the calligraphy teacher took us on a tour of the palace. Feng Laoshi’s grandfather was a servant at the Summer Palace under the Empress Dowager Cixi (he was also suppose to have died at age 123), so Feng Laoshi had all kinds of stories and information to impart. Unfortunately, Feng Laoshi only speaks Chinese which does not help lower level students understand complex ideas. Marc translated for us. The tour took several hours.
After that we rode a bus back to Beiwai, had dinner at the Jiaozi restaurant and went to another informational session. This time the speaker was the managing editor of “That’s Beijing,” a free English language magazine about Beijing culture and food. It is generally very light reading.
Cool day, lots of walking.
People wanted me to go out with them tonight, but I declined as I have to hunt some ice and take some druggies.
More pictures tomorrow.
I have also decided that I need to purchase another battery for my camera before the Yunnan trip. I’m certain that I will want to take a billion pictures on the trip and my camera can certainly handle HOLDING them, but my battery (fully charged this morning) died at about 5pm today after 150 pics. Bad news bears.
It seems as though I will never really have much time here. Today was another day that was jammed full of things to do. It was all pretty cool, but still.
I woke up early and met my orientation group at west gate. Beiwai’s campus is split in two by the third ring road, so west gate is the entrance to Beiwai’s west campus (the gate is facing east) and my dorm is at the far side of east campus. When I got to the gate Ai Laoshi explained what today’s morning activity was. “Mystery Beijing” is an exercise in getting around the city. You get a place written in characters on a slip of paper, and you have to get there, get proof that you have been there and then get to Yihe (the Summer Palace) by 1:30pm. The rules are that you may use any mode of transportation, except for a taxi, and you can only ask non-native English speakers for help.
My group was three people (not a pair like most groups). Ashley, Ryan, and I decided to team up together. Our place to go was Jianshan gongyuan (Coal Hill Park). The park is just north of Gugong (The Forbidden City) and has a hill/mountain in the middle that was formed from all of the dirt that the dug out of the moat around Gugong. The park wasn’t too hard to find. We ended up taking a bus to the subway, taking a subway to Tian’anmen, and then walking north to the park. Our orientation group’s RA, Marc, shadowed our group. He wasn’t allowed to help us find Jianshan gongyuan, but he could help us find Yihe.
The park was really cool and very cheap to enter. It had several pagodas set up at various points on the hill, and at the top was a large building that housed a Buddha statue. We climbed to the top and climbed down again, taking pictures all the way. The coolest part of the park was not the architecture, but the old people. Apparently old people will all wake up early and go play at the park until the afternoon when they all go home and cook dinner for their families. The old people are all so cool!
When we entered Jianshan gongyuan there was a lady doing taichi with a sword, and a group of people playing a game that resembles hacky-sack. They stand in a circle and kick a little weighted thing with feathers on one side. The old people let us play with them, but we were very bad at the game. The stupid foreigners ruined their game for them, but they were all very nice while we did that.
There were also people singing Chinese songs, people doing ribbon dancing, people playing cards, people playing chess, people playing all kinds of games, people line dancing, people ballroom dancing, and people doing calligraphy on the sidewalk with water. It was cool.
Then we followed Marc to Yihe, where Feng Laoshi the calligraphy teacher took us on a tour of the palace. Feng Laoshi’s grandfather was a servant at the Summer Palace under the Empress Dowager Cixi (he was also suppose to have died at age 123), so Feng Laoshi had all kinds of stories and information to impart. Unfortunately, Feng Laoshi only speaks Chinese which does not help lower level students understand complex ideas. Marc translated for us. The tour took several hours.
After that we rode a bus back to Beiwai, had dinner at the Jiaozi restaurant and went to another informational session. This time the speaker was the managing editor of “That’s Beijing,” a free English language magazine about Beijing culture and food. It is generally very light reading.
Cool day, lots of walking.
People wanted me to go out with them tonight, but I declined as I have to hunt some ice and take some druggies.
More pictures tomorrow.
I have also decided that I need to purchase another battery for my camera before the Yunnan trip. I’m certain that I will want to take a billion pictures on the trip and my camera can certainly handle HOLDING them, but my battery (fully charged this morning) died at about 5pm today after 150 pics. Bad news bears.