Days Eight & Nine - Summer Palace & Moonlight Scouting

May 10:

Yesterday, we went to the Summer Palace, which is essentially what it sounds like. It was a place for the Emperor and Empress to relax in various Chinese mansion-like buildings surrounded by water. When we first got there, we wandered around a while in search of a tour guide so that we could get the most out of the visit. We had no luck with that, and settled for an audio guide, that one of us listened to and described the explanations to the others.

The Palace architecture was beautiful; there were long corridors (specifically the "Long Corridor" was hundreds of meters long and consisted of hand-painted ceilings) and strategically slanted paths that were lined with flat, shallow stairs. My favorite part of it was the Buddhist Incense Tower (such a surprise, I know), whose view could be slightly comparable to that of the Eiffel Tower - it was so high up and it overlooked all of the Summer Palace. We off-roaded it a little bit to get to the top of the hill it sat on...when I soon realized that flip-flops were a poor choice (haha odell). But we made it, and it was worth it. Unfortunately I hadn't thought of re-charging my camera battery the night before, (I used up the entire battery during Temple Day!) so I couldn't take any photos, but others took a lot that I will have to borrow later.

I experienced another daily photo op with some Chinese people as they randomly asked me to be in their photo (after we hiked up the hill). The day wouldn't be complete without that! We then ran into a small art gallery while walking the Long Corridor, that housed oil and watercolor paintings done by local professors. I found one that I really liked that was of the Last Emperor, and really wanted to bring it home, but it was over my price range and too big for my suitcase. At that point I convinced myself that I could just paint it when I got home if I was still intriqued by it - so I borrowed someone's camera and took a photo..

Excited to sit down for a little while, we took a sceneic boat ride around the Palace, which actually didn't result in seeing all that much and just took us to the other side of the lake. Another architectural note: the bridges in the Summer Palace were gorgeous. There was one with a particularly high arch that looked amazing from a distance. We sat in a little pagoda surrounded by willow trees and took in the scene for a while before heading elsewhere.

We took cabs to the Wangfujing area - which I thought was like the Fifth Ave of Beijing. One side of the street was lined with "luxury shops" and some American brands such as Adidas, while the other side of the street was lined with dollar-store-type places and watch shops. We also went down a small famous street market area that sold infamous scorpians on a stick (which were still alive..) and other mysterious meats and street food concoctions. It was all part of the cultural experience.

A bunch of the group met up later for dinner at Pyro's Pizza - an underground pizza place not far from our hotel. The food was great and the pizzas actually were made in an American style. I had some really good nachos. It was refreshing after the French-American food gone wrong last night hahaha. We were going to watch a movie back at the hotel to have a chill night in, but I think something was messed up with the computer cables so it didn't end up happening. Annie and I fell asleep relatively early.

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May 11:

Today we had lecture with another Chinese professor for most of the day. I thought he was more lively than the last professor, so I wished that I was naturally interested in the topic of finance and banking....but oh well. It could have been worse. We had lunch in-between at Yan again - another meal of rice. I needed to re-stock on food for my room.

After class the original plan was to go somewhere for a mean pedicure. All the dirt on the Beijing streets combined with miles of walking are not wearing well on our feet. But somehow the plans got lost in translation and Annie and I ended up back in our room for a while. We talked and caught up, since I haven't seen her in a while, as she's been visiting with friends who had been in the area. I caught up on some emails and didn't update this blog (finally catching up now). We then took a nap and agreed to go on a nail place search when we woke up; I needed to sort some stuff out in my mind. We left three hours later..

Our pedicure search resulted in failure - but we had a really nice time wandering the streets of Beijing, as the weather was beautiful and the sidewalks had a calming, steady pace for a Monday night. We stopped in at the Charlie Brown Cafe (which is adorable and I want to go back) for milkshakes and Annie got some street food (meat on a stick?) as we asked the locals where we could find a good pedicure and wandered aimlessly into different spas who were either closing for the day, or whose manicurist had already left. We decided to try again tomorrow; maybe we will start the search before 8pm next time. So we ended up re-visiting the Lotus Center Supermarket again to stock up on food and drinks. I have an addiction to this peach flavored water. It sounds weird but it's amazing. Maybe I'll brush my teeth with it. Got to change it up a little from Watson's and Nongfu Springs. It will be nice to be able to drink tap water again in a few weeks.

I should probably go do some coursepack reading for tomorrow.

Miss you,

Karen