Temple of Heaven and Some Architecture

Sunday was a trip to the Temple of Heaven with Candy, a coworker from Horizon. I got a bit lost and arrived late, but found her, and we went in. Like other parks on weekends, especially in the mornings, lots of folks were out in the park, practicing what outdoor activities they liked. Lots of singing, dancing, etc:
Some Dancing...
Singing...
Some Strange and Elegant Sport

We went by all the major sites, though with a strange sense of blazing speed:
The Temple of Heaven
Proving to Myself I Was There
The Temple's Plaque

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is an ancient part of the Temple in which the Emporer had the obligation of performing a wacky and complicated ritual, full of animal sacrifice and fire:
The Temple's Most Popular Part

Heading south, we got some good views of some excellent gates:
Gates to What? I don't Know.


This altar-looking platform, with 9 steps, is apparently quite significant. I didn't remember why:
A Very Expensive Plaza

We then went and got lunch at one of Beijing's xiaochidian, or snack shops. She decided to order some famous Beijing dishes for me to try, despite the fact that outsiders almost never like them. Why are they famous?

This terrifying mess was literally a soup of many pig organs, including stomach, heart, tongue, liver, intestine. The liver was by far the worst part. Tasted like toxic chalk. Behind it, sweets that seemed to be more Candy's realm than mine (she did not want to try the soup, she'd already tried):
Delicacy, baby.

These next two dishes were not quite as offensive, but were offensive nonetheless. The bowl of white stuff is some sort of soy concoction (it's not like soy milk, it's more like rancid tofu) that is supposed to be healthy for you. The further bowl was either some terrible seafood or some more intestine. One dipped it in sesame sauce, almost as an apology to its own taste.


These two dishes were decent; the rings (which I hoped would be a bit like onion rings) had no taste and the chicken had this strange sourness that gold old pretty quickly. But it was at least edible.


so that was an adventure. Here is my torturer, my lunchtime inquisitor:
"You Like It?"

The walk home was a victory in architechture. Some good stuff:
Beijing Normal University
An Apartment Complex
Something Under Construction

Weekly Wrapup

Week three is ending on a pleasant note. I may finally be getting used to this place. Much of it was rather uneventful, but it has been fun, save the rough week at work.

Monday was Beihai Park with Callie--a great way to relax. It's a pretty park, too:
The Island of Beihai
We had lunch, a rather expensive one, at a restaurant on the island, famous for looking and tasting like the Emperor's personal cafeteria. So I got to eat like an Emperor. It was pretty good.

The park's prettiest feature was probably the Nine-Dragon Screen. It was just a buncha dragons, but they had a lot of dignity:
One-Third of the Dragon Screen
I, of course, was inclined to join them.
One More Dragon In the Fold

The last very cool sight to see was old ladies using long sticks with brush-shaped sponges doing water-calligraphy on the sidewalks, explaining to us what they were writing. The one phrase I bothered to try to read said "A harmonious family leads to a joyous life:"Probably Been Doing This For a Long Time


We then managed to get ourselves lost in some Hutongs (literally, "alleys;" areas preserved by the gov't to be quaint and old, selling cheap wares), and I missed the opportunity to buy a bunch of Cultural Revolution posters--I will go back, but this time, Callie protested because she didn't want me giving everyone at home the wrong impression of China. I sighed. The deeper we went into the Houhai Hutongs, the more old people stared at me with slight hostility. When I spoke Chinese at them, they got a bit scared.

Tuesday and Wednesday were work, and then dinner. Work sucked because I spent the whole darn week transcribing an English lecture by a man that hadn't had too much practice speaking English, recorded on a terrible tape-recorder, too far away from the speaker (the sound quality was poor), in a noisy office, with poor headphones. It was a two-hour talk. Along with all the breaks I took out of fist-shaking frustration, the project took me until this morning to finish. Bummer.

But walking home from dinners, I got some pretty cool pictures. The first is some dudes welding 8 stories up. I missed the initial shower of sparks, which was sad:
This Guy Probably Makes $2000/year

The second is outdoor pool:
Doesn't Look Like Too Much Fun to Me, Either

The third is sunset behind the Poly Art Museum (not a museum of polygamy or polytheism or polypeptides, so I'm not sure where the name comes from):
Some Well-Placed Modern Architecture

More Of the Same

Anyway, then Thursday rolls around, and man, that was the worst of it, at least at work. But, it was the birthday of my good good buddy Chris, and so he, I, his girlfriend, his xiongdi (literally "brother," but good friend), and a pretty girl I had not yet met all made our way out to Karaoke--my second time ever (they were shocked when they heard this. Asked me what the hell was wrong with Americans that we don't love Karaoke). Anyway, I say "thank god, we're going to have fun, I had a terrible day, blarg," and then as we are getting into the cab, i hear a terrifying rip, and yup, I just went through another pair of pants, my third since getting to China. Later tonight, I'll be stitching them, but, really, good gravy. So we move on with our lives. It's not like I can really go home and change them, right?

So we get there, and I am just trying to avoid letting the girls know that the pants are ripped--I don't think they'd deal as well as the guys. But just keep in mind that there's a huge hole right where my butt meets my leg this whole night. Anyway, we sit (thank god) and start singing. This is the birthday boy:
Look at That Face

He starts singing. So do others, but I felt more comfortable photographing him:
Remember to Let Her Into Your Heart, Then You Can Start to Make it Better

I am having a good time, too, despite my regrettable singing talents:
That's the "I'm Sorry I Can't Sing" Smile

After we got bored of all that, we moved on to a club. This club, truly, was a place of conspicuous consumption. Knowing I'm not getting paid for the internship, Chris has summarily refused to let me pay for anything. But since it was his birthday, we were a bit confused as to what might happen--until xiongdi saved the day and busted out his credit card. I am not complaining. Anyway, we get a personal waitress and a platter with scotch, cold sweet tea, and beer. She starts pouring the sweet tea and scotch together to serve to us, and I jump up, join her, and pour myself a glass of the scotch straight. It was the smoothest stuff I've ever had, but apparently liquors are very rarely drank straight in China, so Chris and xiongdi were unwilling to even try the stuff without drenching it first in sweet tea. But that is okay, I usually cannot handle much of the stuff myself.

(Note, they stored my camera, so there are no shots of this) I made the mistake of playing a dice game with everyone, and kept losing because my grasp of the rules, explained in Chinese, was very limited. Every time I lost, more scotch.

At a trip to the bathroom (luckily, on the way out), I got stolen away by a bunch of kids, ages ranging 15-25, who all wanted to talk to me in English and figure out what the hell I was doing there (I was definitely the only white guy there, and certainly bigger than all their security guards). Well, I was drunk, and not so good at getting out of their clutches. I had my guard up--I didn't want to get scammed in any way. But it turns out the guys of the group were asked by the girls to come get me (they drunkenly admitted) so the girls could hang out with me. Go figure. So I lost track of time, and found it was 2AM by the time I realized I really needed to get the heck out of there (I should have realized it was time to go when I found out one of the girls trying to get my number was 15 years old and kept talking about how guys her age weren't mature enough or ready for love...). I run back to our table, and of course, my friends are gone, after having spent 30 minutes looking around the club for me. Chris happily assumed the girls had taken me back to their place--he got my backpack and camera, and took them to work the next morning.

I got a cab home, and woke up at 9AM...which was when I was supposed to get to work. I jumped out of bed and almost ran to work, arriving at 10. I explained to my bosses what had happened, and luckily they just thought it was all pretty funny, and that I shouldn't worry so much. Well, that's a relief. I spent the day with a nasty headache, and am going to relax in a very alcohol-free way this weekend, I think (though the occasional Qingdao may slip its way into my tummy).

So I finally finish the damn transcription, and start working on fixing the deplorable English on the Horizon website (if you go now, you can try to guess which pages I've already fixed!). But right before it was time to go home, everything got real dark, real fast:
Beijing, 5:30 PM

And when I got outside, there was rain. It started as a frustrating rain, creating that weight in your chest that you feel when a car has almost-but-not-quite stopped at a red light, waiting to bounce back. While waiting for the skies to open, I got this shot:
Sinister!

But then the rain came. And I loved it. I got soaked right through, but the night was warm, the water was cool, and I felt like I had been cleansed. The Embassies looked more epic than normal in the torrents:
Espana

My walk home looked more epic, too--this picture is really just a nice row of trees along the sidewalk:
My Stalker Waits Just Behind One of These Trees

Finally, I made it home, and went to the gym after changing. It was a challenge--the fifth floor (with the alleged "gym") is a quiet and flowery-smelling spa, with pictures of the Buddha everywhere. I grew skeptical and almost left, but then just sucked it up and asked. I was shown to a room, literally the same size and form as mine (with a sink and stove and everything), with 2 treadmills, 2 bikes, one bench, and a dumbbell set. Despite the woeful inadequacy of this place, I threw on my headphones and went to work, and managed to make myself rather sore all over. I am tired, and clearly out of shape, but at least I can get there easily and get some sort of workout in. I came back, having lifted for the first time in 3 weeks, feeling great:
My "People's Republik" Shirt is Excellent for Lifting, I've Found

Now I'm cooking dinner--tomorrow, off to shopping with Callie, and then Summer Palace with MIT kids Sunday. Should be a good time.