China 2004

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
through wood and dale the sacred river ran.
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.

Tue, 27 Jul 2004

Meeting in Beijing

I actually arrived at the Haoyuan Hotel on Sunday before Ted did, so I went out for a walk and found him napping when I got back. For the first couple days he has been here, it’s been raining, which meant that mercifully the heat has let up.

Pace-wise, we haven’t been pushing ourselves as hard as I did as the hostel. On Sunday we went to bed early; Monday (yesterday) we took an exploratory walk through some hutongs north of Tiananmen, browsed the foreign language bookstore on Wangfujing for history and econ books, lunched at the China food court in the Dong’an Mall, and met Katie Beth and her father for dinner at Tian Wai Tian, the duck restaurant I frequented as a summer student at the Normal University. I’ll have pictures of this uploaded as soon as technically possible.

I’ve been instructed to write more stories on this weblog, but I forgot to ask how. Until I figure this out, and likely even after that point, the best stories can be found on Katie Beth’s xanga.

permalink | Micah/Beijing | 2004.07.27-15:05.00

Sun, 25 Jul 2004

Oops

The day after I tell John and Dwight that the Spanish don’t travel, I help a couple Spaniards find the USB port on a hostel computer.

Uncle Ted arrives today. We’re going to meet at the Haoyuan Hotel, just east of Wangfujing.

permalink | Micah/Beijing | 2004.07.25-10:39.00

Wed, 21 Jul 2004

Random Photos

Technology Enters Into Our Lives

Kathryn and Lou

permalink | Micah/Beijing | 2004.07.21-13:25.00

Sun, 18 Jul 2004

Saturday

I know I’m slacking on these entries, so I’m making up today.

Saturday morning I was planning on doing something with John, but he was out during the morning so I took the subway up to the Yonghegong, Beijing’s official, still functioning Tibetan lama temple. The neighborhood is full of incense shops, I wonder how they all survive. Margins must be high, and costs low. I had a bean-paste shao bing while I waited 10 minutes to make yet another call to John’s place. The temple was nothing much to see (hence the lack of pictures), the only item worth mentioning is the giant statue of the Maitreya Buddha, which is three stories tall and carved out of a single tree. I’m sure the fact that it has a narrow building built around it makes it look more impressive as you can only see it by looking straight up.

The subway whisked me away to Xidan to purchase the Chinese guidebook for five bucks USD, and as it was lunchtime I stopped into the Korean place in the Times Square food court for an iron bowl of Korean bibimbap goodness (no picture, I was feeling very “watched” and a little self-conscious). As I left, I walked past the line of people waiting to go into the cinema to catch Zhang Yimou’s latest. I wonder how soon it will be available under the Jianguomen underpass.

Back at the hotel for an afternoon nap, I picked up some toilet paper at the corner store, got my clothes back from the cleaners down the street, and met Catherine, our new roommate from Canada. I finally got a hold of John, and so invited Catherine to go along with us to a concert that night. First, we met at the Wudaokou subway station for a Korean dinner which was absolutely fantastic. It’s great to dine with John, he’s a great conversationalist and ultra-polite. The ghostly hand in that last picture was our waitress, who did us the kindness of grilling and cutting up all of our meat.

We caught a taxi to the western gate of Tsinghua and walked about 200 meters straight south to a little alleyway where the Loup Chante cafe was hosting Jimo Xiari in concert. Kaizer Kuo had recommended them, so I wasn’t disappointed, and John really liked them too. But mostly, we were pretty happy to discover this little cafe right next to the Tsinghua campus. The staff were excited about the music, and had plans for the cafe (live music, Tarantino films), and the atmosphere was very homey (used furniture, low couches, local art). A few of John’s friends ended up swinging by near the end, they had been at the Zhang Yimou film showing.

I stepped out for some fresh air at one point, and realized that the fresh air was inside the bar. It was pretty humid outside.

Conversations

Food

permalink | Micah/Beijing | 2004.07.18-16:33.00

Friday

I decided to postpone my trip to Tianjin because I heard Katie Beth was leaving town soon. We met at Wangfujing at lunchtime, Katie Beth, her dad, and me, in the map section of the Wangfujing bookstore. Lunch happened at the Dong’an Shichang shopping mall, in the same food court where I got my curry chicken. After lunch, we took the subway to Jianguomen for a look at the astronomical observatory. Katie Beth’s father had done navigation for the air force, so we talked a bit about the sextants and armillaries, and how they would have been operated.

Beihai park was our next destination. We were approached by a friendly sidewalk calligrapher who traced a message of Sino-American friendship for us on the ground. Hopefully our friendship will last longer than the water stains did. While Katie Beth’s dad chatted with the calligrapher, she and I climbed to the top of the hill, the base of Beihai’s lama temple.

We reached our next destination, Houhai, by a whirlwind tour of the the hutongs on rickshaw. Houhai was nice, it has been very developed, so that the waterfront is bounded by bars and restaurants. After a little dancing, we split up and headed back to our respective hotels. I stayed up a bit to watch a movie with Cindy and Isaac on his laptop, then fell asleep.

Man reading the bus stop list.

I like the idea behind Araz’s weblog. It’s a weblog written by other people, about Araz. I’ve considered starting an “interview weblog”, where I interview people. What better to interview people about than one’s own self?

Food

permalink | Micah/Beijing | 2004.07.18-16:08.00