More Catching Up on Sunday....

It's Sunday in Beijing and now that we've been here a full week, I'm starting to get a feel for the layout of the city. The street names are familar and so are many of the large obnoxius billboards lining the streets, mostly in Chinese with wacky English translations. Most are for expensive homes and new developments in line with the booming market in upscale housing.

Today has been spent on mundane housekeeping things. But in China, even the mundane seems to operate on a completely different pace taking longer than anyone would expect.

I spent the morning doing laundry which was a major undertaking. We have one small washer on our floor but no dryer. To use the washer, we must buy a card at the front desk for 50 yuan, $4.50, which includes 10 washes in the little washing machine. Then we can get 15 yuan back when we turn the card in. Very elaborate. So another student and I split the cost of the card and I started doing laundry at 7:30 am this morning because I couldn't sleep. It takes about an hour for the washer to wash. Then I had to find a dryer. The rumor was that there were dryers in another building so I put two more loads in to wash, one on floor 2 and one on floor 4, and headed to building 6 to find the elusive dryers. After a stilted conversation with the woman at the building desk, I purchased two small tokens for 10 yuan and was directed to floor 4. At the far end of the hall I found a set of two washers and dryers almost straight out of a laundromat. I put my two tokens in, picked the temperature and pressed start. Now we were on the right track. The next two hours consisted of me walking between the two buildings and the different floors to check on the laundry. Finally I got all three loads done and even though much of it was still quite damp, but its clean!

This afternoon Sara and I took a cab across town to find a wireless internet hookup. We tried a place called Steak and Eggs which is run by a diner cook from Florida and has some super tasty diner food that actually tastes like American food. The Chinese interpretation of American food is interesting and the hamburgers tend to be deep fried like a pork tenderloin. But Steak and Eggs has great pies and cakes and I think we're gonna try to order a lemon meringue or key lime before we leave. It's certainly not cheap food but it really is a nice break from the food we've been eating.

I wanted to try to catch up on all the sightseeing that happened last week and put some pictures up as well.

On Wednesday, we went to the Summer Palace which is near our school. The Summer Palace was the summer residence used by Chinese royalty to escape the summer heat of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The site is especially relevant because it symbolizes the impact of the West on China. In 1860, British troops badly damaged the Palace during the Opium Wars and later again after the Boxer Rebellion when Chinese workers killed a number of Westerners. Despite it's beauty, many Chinese find it to be a sad reminder of the long history of Western intervention and force in China. Much of the grounds and buildngs have been overhauled although renovations continue in preparation for the upcoming 2008 Olympics.

My experience began with being annoyed at the sheer masses of humanity that were everywhere when we entered. Group tours usually come in the afternoon and it seemed to be a particularly popular sit on that day. As we started to enter the Long Corridor, I only saw masses of people and we decided to take a quick side exit into a small courtyard. I actually accidentally hit the audio on the camera and also got my reaction to this sight which was something like, "Oh, my god! Do I have to really go through this crowd!"

Luckily, we didn't. The small corridor led to a courtyard and many other paths that led to the other parts of the garden. From here a few of us scattered up the small paths and found really wonderful views of the gardens and Beijing. Here's a small sample of those pics:

The next afternoon, we went to Cultural Street which is recreation of an old Beijing street although I think it's just another opportunity to sell stuff to tourists. It was interesting to walk through but with many tourist sites in Beijing, it's hard to enjoy anything when 15 people are trying to get you to come in and buy something. This was not as bad as in Silk Street which is a five story building packed with little booths selling everything from knockoff Gucci bags to electronics to "Rolexes" along with curios, tea, and souveniers. It was the most exhausting experience I've ever had. Imagine an aisle as wide and long as a grocery store aisle with booths on either side and women almost yelling "Hello ladie. Come inside and look" or some variation on that on both sides for the entire length of the aisle. Now mutiply times 10 rows times 5 floors and you've got an idea of what I'm talking about. I need to go buy a belt this afternoon and I'm already dreading it.....

That night we went to dinner to have Peking Duck. I haven't eaten any kind of fowl in a long time but I decided that I came all this way I should try the duck. So they bring a whole roasted duck that has been specially prepared and then slice it in to around 100 pieces. The skin on the duck is super crispy and its a little fatty, but really good. To eat it, you get small pancakes that look more like mini-tortillas or won ton wrappers. Then you take the pancake and put some cucumber, which I skipped, and some bamboo shoots and then duck on top of that. Lastly a little sauce and then roll it up and eat it up. I think I'm gonna try to go the really famous Peking duck restaurant, Quanjude, later this week. I'll try to take some pictures to put up from that experience.

After dinner, we went to see a Chinese acrobatic performance which was amazing. I am always impressed by the amount of skill, training and concentration that goes into these performances. It feels a bit odd acting like a tourist, but I had already paid for the show and didn't want to miss it. I have a few pics and hope to get more later but here's a small sample:

I still have the Great Wall to talk about but I think that I will put that in a new post.....