Pictures to My Heart's Content

Welcome, friends. When last I left you (save those filler quotes) I was on my way to KTV, the Chinese version of karaoke. I went with 5 others to the most upscale KTV joint in town, the 'Money Cabinet' / 'Party World.' The reception and waiting area looks like a cross between the lobby of a Hilton and an ipod store. This picture is poor; apologies.


It being Saturday night, we had to hang out in the lobby for a bit, then proceed to the 5th (of 6) floors. We walked down shining hallway, passing tons of food (which I assumed would be expensive. On the contrary, much was free, and the rest could be gotten in semi-limited amounts by using tokens that come with use of the room.) As we continued down the hallway, we passed many doors, and as I got close to each one I could hear bits of music. Eventually we got to our room (537) and went in. A few people went and got some food, then we proceeded to hang out there for 3 hours, eating, drinking, singing, and generally being merry. Two of the guys we went with were really good. Not pictured below are Kat (who's taking the picture) and the flatscreen TV and computer setup for playing songs. Watching lyrics as people sang in Chinese was a great way to 'study.' Kat and I sang some old American songs (think Tearin' Up My Heart by N'Sync) and the Chinese kid sang some older American songs (think My Way by Frank Sinatra.) Many songs were set to largely unrelated video clips of Chinese dancers and/or orchestras. It was a great time, and each of us paid about US $7 for everything!


So I had a pretty awesome Saturday. Who would have guessed that I would also have an awesome Sunday! It started out at Reasonable O'Clock in the morning (11:30) at the Wudaokou subway stop. First, I got a picture of those brooms I've seen people sweeping in the street with. (As shown just below this paragraph.) Then I didn't die because Erik heroically gestured at me to move out of the way of the large pole about to hit my head. (Also shown in imminently appearing photograph.) Well, actually, I was too focused on the broom and didn't notice Erik. But I got out of the way of this train crossing pole in time anyways. And then many people waited for the *single engine* to cross. These barricades were really really ghetto by the way. Also, Kat taught the Chinese guys at work the work "ghetto" recently, and they took the fact that (espec. when it comes to slang) their dictionaries are not always correct the hard way. Oh! And today I learned the expression, 'er bai wu.' Literally: 250. In common usage, for inexplicable reasons: a bad-impulsive-careless person.
Eventually we proceeded to get in some cabs and arrive at the Summer Palace, located in the North of Beijing at higher elevation than much of the city. 'We' by the time we entered the grounds had become a group of 6; 3 MIT students, 2 Beijingers, and 1 Lepac. Lepac is, among other things, Erik's former boss. Having her along improved the trip by an order of magnitude. She began by telling us about why old Chinese bronze urns are so intriguing and often impossible to replicate with today's methods.

Then we learned about the Taihu rock, and about the flora. Especially the flora; botany is Lepac's specialty. I'm sorry that I don't remember the name of this one; a Standing something-or-other... I do remember that it's 200 years old...

Eventually I realized that asking Lepac the, "Do you know anything about _________," question was a waste of time. The answer was always some variant of yes for such diverse topics as Designer Jewelry, Architecture, History, Science Fiction, Wilderness Survival, Pearls, Fitness Routines, Practical Engineering, and especially Botany.

This is a really neat corridor. One side is windowed and the other screened; it's designed such that you get best results looking out one side in the morning and the other in the evening (because of the position of the sun.) The windowed side has four windows of different shapes and with different paintings on them and angles on the outside garden. Looking through each gives you a different 'feel.' On the painted decoration about the windows, the blue paint has faded more than the red or green because of its composition. Thanks Lepac! Seen in the corridor below, from Right to Left are Erik, the hand of Lepac, Linda, two random tourists, Callie, and Callie's friend.

We climbed up worn stone steps lined with mosaics of stone with characters of good fortune depicted. As we reached a peak, we paused on these rocks and asked one of the nice elderly couples if they would take our picture. Left to right: Me, Linda, Erik, Lepac, Callie, Callie's friend.

From that height we were able to see a misty image the 17-arch bridge and many boats on the lake. Descending a again, we found bamboo groves as well as a marble boat built by the Extravagant Empress Dowager Cixi.

Those of you who've read my last summer's blog may recall that I enjoy autotimer races; that is, setting my camera up with a view of something nifty, giving myself ten seconds, and racing into position. Here are the results of this Sunday's autotimer races. I actually got each of these in one take, in contrast to the one on the slippery rocky hill on Helgoland last summer!After we ceased to be amused by the Summer Palace, we moved on to... Yuanmingyuan! Ok, that likely doesn't mean anything to you :) It's this nearby ruins of an imperial garden, and it was Absolutely Gorgeous! We visited some ruins (blame/thank the French as you will) and a maze (of course we walked through it.)I think I could have spent all day sitting by the water lillies and trying to take pictures of them.

Lucky water lillies (so say I because of the abundance of what appears to be four-leaf clover beneath them.)

Water lillies with drops of water on them shining in the sun.
Water lillies under a willow.
Water lillies being blocked by me... Well, it's my blog; I have to show up sometimes.
So that more or less wraps up the weekend's adventuring. There's been some minor adventuring this week, particularly on Tuesday night. But that can be written later, since it is already the increasingly-less-wee hours of Wednesday morning for me. Tomorrow evening after work I plan to go out with coworkers for 6 hours of KTV, to send off a bunch who are finishing their internships this week. And so, 21 pictures (well, 22 if you add in the thousand+ words as well) later, we've come back to where we started :) 再见!


ps. If you want anything from China, let me know asap so I can look around...