Re-reading my post on the Summer Palace excursion, I don't think I was fair to it. Marianna and I did have a great time, but we were just so dogged-tired by the end of it that, for me at least, it badly influenced my initial recollections of it. So I have decided to add a bit more detail than the last posting.
We started at the Northern Gate, which turned out to be a great idea because you walk straight to Suzhou Street. This is the town/shops on the water level. We arrived just before it opened and were able to walk around the very narrow pathways without a great many people, and thus fear that we might be taking an unexpected dip.
Now since we did not want to shell out the 5 or 10 kuai (1 to 1.50 USD) for a map, we were just wandering blindly up the Eastern side of the main palace complex. We are able to avoid the crowds (which only seem to be walking straight, you can see it in my pictures of the Forbidden City as well) stroll at our own pace, and catch sight of some pretty awesome moments. Here we found the group performing the sword dance. Our jaunt somehow brought us to where we wanted to be, the Tower of Buddhist Incense. The Tower sits just below the crest of the mountain, but above the main palace construct. From the South entrance the whole of Kumming Lake stretches out before you. Unfortunately, for us it had started to drizzle so the view was less than spectacular -- and made us pick up some pace on the way down so we could grab a covered paddle boat.
Still debating weather we got the broken paddle boat (laugh at the idiot foreigners) or we are really just paddle boat incompetents. We had good fun, whichever the case may be, and that was how I was able to get those pictures of the 17 arches bride. There was a secondary motivation for us to rent a paddle boat: personal space! All of the covered passages had been camped out in to avoid the drizzle, so renting out a paddle boat to eat lunch in peace sounded like the greatest idea. This plan was naturally foiled by teenage boys in motorboats who decided that each of their three boats needed to separately ram our small paddle boat.
The rest of our sojourn through the Summer Palace was just a bit too wet for my liking. We couldn't see Cixi's marble boat since it was under repair, the largest imperial opera house was definitely worth the visit, but all inside spaces were completely jammed by this point, making the end of the day particularly frustrating with everybody and their umbrella crammed into a space. I think we were both just so ready to leave the crush behind and our feet certainly didn't protest our decision -- so we rushed through the last little bit that we wanted to see, and were off like hot potatoes. Some guardian angel must have seen us then, and pointed us on down the road to the metro where by and by we ran across a Starbucks! Perfect place to rest some weary feet and dreary spirits.
I will note here, that I later looked at an actual map of the Summer Palace, and I think we missed a whole third of the complex!
June 18
Last week was a bit odd. Most Chinese were off of work and school for the first three days of the week due to the Dragon Boat Festival. The short version of the tale goes like this:
There once was a great poet who loved his king, but his kingdom more. One day the king ignored his advice and the kingdom was lost. In his sorrow, the poet wrote a long, lamenting poem before drowning himself in a river. The poet was so loved by the people that they did not want to see the fish eat his flesh so they threw food into the river.
I am not sure how Dragon Boats come into this, especially since I did not hear about any races in Beijing. I also, only got out of school for Wednesday; however, this meant I had to go to school on Saturday. I am definitely not agreeing to do this again, my poor, overtaxed brain needs two whole days to recover before beginning the 6 hours a day Mandarin Marathon.
All my whining aside, LTL (name of my school) is really great. Hui is probably everybody's favorite person -- followed closely by Annie. Hui is in charge of all the living arrangements, and very, very, graciously calls my host mother about three times a week to explain one thing or the other to her. Like, last week, she explained to my host mother that I really had no idea what she was trying to tell me this morning, but I thought it was this: am I correct? Or when I decide to go out with friends for dinner, Hui will call her to tell her for me.
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| Hui |
I say Annie follows closely not because she takes us to the bank and walks us through deposits, or because she mans the front desk and directs the flow of money, information, and action; BUT because she puts in the daily food delivery orders. So on days when I feel especially lazy, Annie will have my lunch delivered withing 5 - 10 minutes of me getting out of class! FANTASTIC!!!!
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| Main Office -- Annie is at the front desk |
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| Boss Man hard at work |
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