Not-so-impressive weekend

Friday night was ruined by an untimely headache, so I spent much of the evening napping, and then I didn't feel up for much else. I read for a little while, and ate dinner in the apartment. After the long week of sleep deprivation, it was nice to just rest. Of course my nap made it difficult to sleep that night, which seemed to throw off the entire weekend.

Saturday, I planned to get up bright and early and head to Summer Palace. I ended up getting out of bed around 8:45, but was determined to finally see the palace after having put it off for so long. So despite the fact that I had to work at 2, I headed off for the subway around 9:45, after getting ready and stopping by the office to grab some breakfast granola bars from my desk.

Because everyone else has been, and Dan didn't care to see it, I was on my own for the day. I hopped on the number 27 bus, which goes to the subway, and only costs 1 Yuan per ride. So getting to the palace and back only cost me 6 total, whereas taking a taxi would have added at least 24 more. Pretty awesome.

But when I got there, it was far less awesome. First of all it was a hot sunny Saturday in Beijing, which means two things: lots of people will be outside, and most of them will have umbrellas.

I got up to the ticket counter after having been cut in line several times (because in China, lines are for losers). There I paid for the more expensive ticket, which allows access to many more things in the park than I'll ever have time to visit, because I didn't know how to tell her I wanted the cheap one. I still paid less than $10, so it's not a big deal. It just added to my frustration.

The first thing I saw when I entered was this little market street below a bridge:

It looked pretty cool, and I planned to go down there on my way out, but unfortunately I wasn't able to go back.

Just a bit farther on, I came upon the palace. Now the beauty of Summer Palace is seen from across the lake, where you can take it all in. Since I wasn't able to make it that far, or anywhere near it, this is one of the best photos I have of the palace.

It was pretty massive, and well preserved. If you can imagine, this is less than half of it.

There were lots of fun photo spots, which would have been more fun had I not been alone. They were still pretty impressive. The palace was just built into this gigantic hill!

Speaking of gigantic hills, I climbed up near the top of the palace, and this is what the city looked like. Summer Palace is technically in Beijing city limits. I believe this is looking north, out of the city, which explains the lack of skyscrapers.

That photo also brings up the next annoyance of the day: smog.

After a small hike down some tricky stairs leading from the palace to the lake, this is what I found. I would remind you at this point that I said it was a bright, sunny day in Beijing. This photo wasn't taken in black and white. The pollution was just that bad Saturday. That distant shoreline was my goal. I walked for an hour and, because of all the trees surrounding the palace, I was nowhere near being able to see the beautiful, iconic photo spot. I think, though, that had I reached the other side of the lake, I would have been disappointed by the smog. If I couldn't see the other side of the lake from here, it wasn't very likely that I'd be able to see the palace from there.

So anyway, after being bumped, pushed, hit by countless umbrellas, annoyed by hundreds of people around me blowing souvenir whistles, ripped off at the counter, and after walking for an hour with no foreseeable chance to get my photo, I saw an exit nearby and took it.

I had to be at the office to do some overtime work at 2, and because I didn't spend nearly as long at Summer Palace as I thought I would, I had an extra hour and a half. I took a short nap because I was exhausted from the walking and the heat, and then I grabbed some Ramen for lunch before heading up to the office.

After my work, I spent a while researching for my upcoming trip. I've decided to go to Mianshan Mountain, an area not too terribly far from here that has lots of small things to do not too far away from each other, or from the hotel. According to George, the employee who spend the spring at UNC and is a former travel agent, Mianshan is not famous, which is just what I wanted after my crowd fiasco at Summer Palace.

Moving along.

Saturday night Annie went with a friend to hike on the Great Wall and spend the night with a rural family, so I had the room to myself. I watched a movie--Changeling, which wasn't bad, but was a little long--and then I slept it quite late. Actually I woke up around 9, and started reading and fell asleep again until about 11:30. But after not getting much rest all week, the sleep was really good.

I finally got up and I headed back to Yashow, a market in the east part of town I've been to a couple of times now. I had a pretty long list of people who needed gifts from China, and I got through almost all of them Sunday, which was fantastic. I went in, knew how much I planned to spend on each person and what items I wanted, and for the most part I got those prices/items. I even found some stuff for myself, which I had been sort of avoiding up until now. After spending almost all the money I carried with me, I returned to the apartment quite happy.

I came up to the office for a while to check email and such, and then I went back to the apartment and watched Big Fish, then slipped off to sleep.

Yesterday was pretty cool. I went to tour the Beijing Enamel Factory, where they make the traditional Chinese vases known as Jingtailan, Jingfa, Chinese Enamel, or Cloisonne. I'm working on a photo story about the factory and the process, so I'll share that when it's done. No more information until then. (Just to make sure you come back for more!)

Last night after work I went to the gym, to the grocery store to get some bananas, peanut butter, and apple juice, and then made a peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner. After that, Brian, P.A. and I went up to the pool hall instead of our usual night trip to the office. This pool trip was much more productive than the last. The first game was over in no time. We were just all on point last night, which made for fun competition, especially by the third game when none of us could hit anything.

I've been feeling pretty sick today, so I wasn't too productive at the office. I'm also getting a real hankerin' for some home-cooked food. There's so much left to do in China, more than I could do in a lifetime, so while I'm not in a hurry to get home, I'm really starting to miss it. I've started realizing that I won't be able to do some of the things I planned to do, like Beijing Opera. They only has shows every now and then, between other kinds of performances, and the only one left while I'm here will be while I'm at Mianshan. So little time... and only three days of work left! Such a surprise!