reflecting...

So after the Summer Palace I spent a lot of time going out on my own exploring. I tried to find a park in Chaoyang area, but failed miserably. :( But on the bright side I got to visit a very nice little cafe/bookstore/library/bar (yes, it was actually all of these things, all on the second floor of a small dilapidated building.) I also got to wander around Beijing. It was fun, and pretty interesting too.

Environment Brigade, to the rescue!

Lab on the go!

These things were outside of just about every subway entrance in Beijing.

View from a pedestrian bridge in South Chaoyang.

Finally found the bookstore!

I believe that was on Friday, so Saturday I decided to go to Maliandao street, which is an entire street dedicated to nothing but the sale of tea and tea products. They had a department store in the middle which had four floors, the bottom three all dedicated to tea vendors. The forth floor was cameras for some reason. Still can't figure that one out. The subway took me to the Beijing West Railway Station, which also happened to be right next to the Garden Expo. I didn't go in (other people went before and said it wasn't much,) but there were some fun set-ups around it.

Afterwards I went to a culturally preserved hutong, or alleyway. It was very tourist oriented, but had a lot of interesting shops.

I'm afraid I didn't get an actual picture of the hutong, but one side goes behind the picture, and the other behind the teahouse. I got rained on a little, and had to take shelter under that tree you can barely see on the right. Then I decided it would be much more interesting to wait out the rain in a shop, so I ran to the nearest one that didn't look like it was too empty (so I wouldn't attract too much attention, and could wander around aimlessly.) Luckily the rain let up quickly and I was able to explore the rest of the area.

I had to hurry back, because we were all going together (all the PKU summer program students) to an acrobat show. I'll talk about that in my next update, along with a very fun trip I took with a classmate, which will have a lot of pictures. After that, all I'll have to talk about is a few farewell dinners, then Japan! Woot! As most of you know, I have made it home already. I'm missing my travels, but glad of the opportunity to take a break, without feeling guilty about all the sights and experiences I'm missing. However, if at least as a way for myself to record my adventures, I will continue to update this blog until I finish up my trip, when I find the time. Hopefully that won't be a "when I find the time" kind of thing. XD

Trying to catch up a little

Alright, so the last thing I posted about China was Tiananman, right? ... Wow, there's a lot. I'll try to sum up.

We had a welcome dinner for all of the summer program students. It was at a nice hotel restaurant and we had a talent show etc. Pretty fun. Great food.

On the second-to-last Saturday we went to a teahouse to see a show. It was great, there was comedy, shadow puppets, theater, martial arts and epic tea pouring. (Super epic.)

Lunch. Why are their happy meal toys so much cooler than ours?

The tea house.

Kabuki show.

Then that Sunday Jenny and I finally made the trip to the antique market in Chaoyang district. It was huuuuuuuuge. With a lot of cool things. Mostly fakes though. And you have to bargain really hard. But there's a lot of fun things.

There was an entire mall filled with nothing but glasses and people selling glasses. A lot of shops out on the street to. So much glasses...

We then went wandering around South Chaoyang, which, as far as I can tell, has some of the best shopping in Beijing. They have a "SOHO" area too, some nice malls and interesting shops. This one was my favorite.

Lunch at this interesting place.

Mondays I don't have class, so I took the chance to go to the Summer Palace just North of campus. It was really beautiful there, and I got to climb a big temple to get a really great view of the surrounding area. It's also really big. You could spend forever wandering around in there. At almost every monument they mention how it was destroyed after the French invaded and how it had to be restored. They're pretty bitter. For pretty good reason though, this place is really nice.

Old market street re-made

One of the many lakes. (All man-made.)

Hibiscus as big as my hand.

There were a lot of really long hallways with paintings everywhere.

Can't help it. It's the Toxoplasmosis.

Some interesting creatures inside the temple's walls.

Great view.

Then on Thursday I went searching for Chaoyang park, but it looks like it was closed for construction or something. Everything is constantly under construction in Beijing; including Peking University (BeiDa) and the lobby of our dorms, which they suddenly decided needed a new glass wall between the elevators and the fancy restaurant on the other side. However, I did find a really nice english bookstore/library thing. It was really fun. :)

Annnd that's all for this post, since it's getting pretty long. I'll try to write another one after I take a shower, but we'll see how that goes. It's pretty late already. But hey, now I'm only about a week behind! I'm getting there! I have a lot to post about Japan too, I love this place! I'll let you know later!

OMG JAPAN.

AHHHHHHH I'M IN JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHOOOOO
And I have no time to tell you guys about it! XD SO just a really really quick run through of my first impressions.

btw, I have now changed the time stamp to Tokyo time! Yay!

Osaka

1. Wow, this airport is really empty.
2. These people are so nice!! T-T
1. Lady from lunch store was really nice
2. Lady who heard me asking the conductor when the Haruka would be there struck up a conversation with me and we talked all the way to Kyoto

Kyoto

1. It's SO CLEAN.
2. Woah, look at these people actually waiting for the walk sign to change, even when there's no cars. This place is crazy.
3. Haha, the ATM was funny.
4. Wow, this walk is really l--BAM there's a temple. 
5. People are so nice! Oh, this river is so pretty! Oh, hey look, it's the guest house!
6. This hostel is pretty nice...
7. So many Kimonos. O.O
8. Wow, there is a lot of stores here. 
9. There are so. many. cute. guys. here. Guys. Seriously. 
10. BOOK-OFF!!!! :D
11. Ahhhhh, where am I. Seriously. It's just road after road after road of shops. I need landmarks here.
12. I should probably start heading back, I'll just walk along the river. .... ... there's going to be a way back up to the street eventually right?
13. AHHHH SO MUCH WATER PRESSURE
1. ah, ok, that's better.

And that was my first day in Japan! :D I was actually going to update everything I've missed so far a the airport, but that didn't work out... yeah, more about that later. The airport thing was crazy. Any, I really have to go now. Later!