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