Just some fun stuff for your entertainment.

Where it says East Gate.. the Chinese says "South Gate." Bet English-speaking tourists LOVE that.

*See sign in lower right corner* 'No' translates to 'Yes'. Thanks.

Vc. "Following audiences are inadvisable to watch the shows: pregnant women; people who are old and infirm, overfat, or drunk; the handicapped."

Well I hope I never become “overfat” or “infirm”.

Well then..

So after failing to hit the planetarium and zoo the week before.. we planned ahead and finally got to go to both in the same day : ) Conveniently, they are right down the street from each other.

Beijing Planetarium:

Haha.. so where else would you find MIT kids on a Sunday morning? lol.

Here’s the entrance to the planetarium. It’s soo cool.. kinda like a black hole..

So the planetarium was filled with these exhibits… planets and sun, etc.

Most of the exhibits were solely in Chinese.. so it was basically me, Bradley, Xuefeng, and Mark standing there guessing words off the informative displays… being able to read nouns like black hole, time, etc.. but not knowing what they were trying to say.. meanwhile all these 2nd graders were flying through the exhibits and reading all the words. It was kind of depressing. Clearly reading is fun.. being illiterate is not.

But we did get to go into the Digital Theater (kind of like IMAX) and watch this crazy movie about our universe… actually.. i think we kind of all fell asleep in it at some point because the chairs were super comfortable and reclined… but still.. very cool.

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Then we headed over to the zoo… but on the way, in the underground tunnel to cross the street… some lady was selling PUPPIES!!! : ) haha. They were really cute.. though the selling them is probs illegal…

Puppies!

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But we did end up making it to the Beijing Zoo.

Only.. due to the swine flu epidemic.. all the animals were dead. Tigers, lions, alligators, pandas.. it was a travesty.

haha jk. no it was just incredibly hot like none other… I think we should’ve taken a hint from nature and just went home.

Here’s some random scenes…

Look Dave, a picture with me in it!

Beijing Aquarium

Turtle Central. Do you see the snapping turtle? how crazy is that..

Some other animals at the zoo… The mongoose one rocks. and I finally figured out what a tapir was.. especially since they have a whole labeled section for them at the zoo.

Oh, and we saw these two elephants in love… but separated by an iron curtain.. i mean, fence.

But then there were some not as happy scenes.. For instance, we went to the amphibian & reptile area.. and a bunch of the cages had baby chicks in them.. and everyone was skipping them wondering why these chicks were there..
yeah, you can figure it out…

See Chicks. See Snake. *Insert Jaws Theme*

Anyways, clearly, the best part and biggest attraction of the Beijing Zoo are the PANDAS!!!!! Check ‘em out.

Beijing Zoo: Olympic Games Pandas

That's my kind of panda.

Life: It's a walk in the park.. i mean zoo.

And that was the zoo in 100 degree weather.

I am about to start summarizing last weekend. Another informative peek into being a tourist in China.

Saturday-

Temple of Heaven:

We found an Abstinence Temple.. and well.. we HAD to check it out..

which we successfully found.

No meat, no women.. just you and the gods.

Here are just some scenes from the Temple of Heaven. There’s a lot more stuff there.

Anyways, the best part was the nature… away from smog. It was so weird to actually get oxygen when I inhaled…

The entire time I was just excited about seeing grass and nature.. I almost hyperventilated from excitement and the overabundance of fresh air…

Oh, and there was a biology lesson too.. in the middle of the park…

Chinese Pavilion Undergoing Meiosis

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Still Saturday -

Tsinghua University & Peking University

So after Temple of Heaven, I rushed back because one of my host’s friends wanted to take me to see colleges of China.. (Yes.. I was that Asian. I tried not to look like a tourist.. although I did have a camera). We went and saw Tsinghua and Peking U.. So here are some scenes..

Here’s Tsinghua University:

Tsinghua Front Gate

Here are scenes of the field, student union, dorms, classrooms, etc.

They even have a nice lake loaded with lily pads where the students can study or just chill out.

Right next door is Peking University.. this is the front gate.

The campus itself is just really classic.. with pagoda buildings and extremely scenic. Here’s a depiction of what the additions on the campus will look like:

Honestly, the best part, I think, is this WeimingHu.. which is basically the drop-dead gorgeous lake on campus, eqipped with a tower. The campus is located relatively close to the Summer Palace and where a lot of the previous emperor’s used to build their vacation spots. According to my host’s friend, a lot of the famous authors of China were inspired by this lake. I guess it’s the Chinese version of Walden Pond. Either way, if i went to college here and had this lake.. I would get no studying done and probably just be covered with mosquito bites.. it’s just soo placid.. it’s unbelievable.

tourist weekend to be continued..

This is from my Beijing Zoo trip this weekend. I am.. still not over how ridiculous this is.

Here’s the context:
I think you can figure out the storyline…

During the last Friday of every month, our company throws a little party for all the people who had birthdays in the past month. For one of the interns, it was her last day, so some short speeches ensued. She’s studying in Texas for grad school next year.

She began her speech first in Chinese and then, due to the pressure from co-workers, she started translating to English. (Not everyone speaks Chinese, but everyone understands English)

Intern: I am very happy to be here. I learned a lot. If I can, when I come back to China, I will stop by Beijing and visit before I fly home to Shanghai.
Deputy Director General: No! Wait 7 days first!

Thank you swine flu.

Here’s another look at China..

Or at least another look at ancient China…

So here’s the bell tower. Back in the days before clocks and such, they functioned based on the sun rising and setting… as most cultures did..  Using the bell inside this tower, they would ring the bell at certain intervals at night, which would signal the gates closing, the streets clearing, and bedtime.

o no, you didn’t think that was the whole thing did you?

It’s fit to be a fortress.. So the natural question becomes.. how do they get up there to signal night time (since clearly people couldn’t tell by looking outside)? Well I dunno about them.. but here’s how you do it now…

Well, first you buy a ticket.. in which this sign is prominently displayed outside..

Hello death wish.

And then you buy your ticket.. and walk around the outside. everything is happy.

But then you walk around the corner and get into the door.. and you look up… or when you’re at the top.. you look down.. but at this point, they look exactly the way either way..

and any hypertension, heart disease, and acrophobia all set in simultaneously.

So I decided to skip-step up this whole thing up. Bad idea. Especially since these steps were made centuries before a standard stair width and height were established. And if you missed a step.. there would be a long way to fall. To say the least, my heart was racing when I got to the top. and my head was throbbing since it was over 90 degrees.. too much blood pumping.
But here was the view…

And this is the Drum Tower right across the street. It was unfortunately closed for construction.

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Anyways.. then.. later that week, I decided to go to Beihai, which is the Imperial Garden. Here are some scenes.. This lake is HUGE by the way. Built for the ego of an emperor… so I guess the theme is go big or go home.

It’s supposed to be designed for a Buddhist spiritual get-away.. It took me 2 hours of straight walking and climbing before I finally got out of there.. in 95 degree weather..

Random fact, so my company works with bamboo… and I FINALLY found some real, legitimate bamboo.. but I couldn’t take any because it’s protected by China…. but eventually.. I will find some hopefully.

Here are the stairs to Beita – which is called the “White Tower” along with the view of the FOrbidden City.

Yeah. All I have to say is that the invention of escalators in the 1400s would have been nice… at least for posterity..

This one is a long one…

So I’ve basically been hanging solo a lot, especially during weekdays and such, since I get back from work around 7, eat dinner, and then it’s about to get dark.. and I have to get up early so I don’t fall asleep on the bus.

1. Friday: Seeing the Nightlife. After work and dinner, I kind of was just in the mood to take a walk, so I went around the two lakes again. Only this time, it was way more exciting than the other times because it was Friday night. And the two lakes are just completely lined with bars and restaurants.

So you literally walk by all the bars of Houhai and there’s some guitar player/piano player in every hole in the wall at all the bars.

On a totally unrelated note, but graphically related.. there are just lights EVERYWHERE in Beijing.

That’s basically how bad the light pollution all over the center of Beijing is. It saddens me that people here will never know what it feels/looks like to see the night sky in its dark.. I’ve seen 1 star since I’ve been in Beijing.. and that’s the sun..

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2. Saturday: Found a Bookstore. After doing my usual rounds of Skype and gchat online in the morning, I ate lunch and headed out to this bookstore that I found online the first week I got here and had been wanting to see it. I basically pass by it every morning and afternoon on the way to work, but since I normally am rushing to get back for dinner, I never get to really hang out there. Therefore, with nothing else in particular planned, I decided to go there and get some stuff done for the afternoon.

This bookstore is called The Bookworm, and is in the “SoHo of Beijing,” centered in the middle of a lot of ex-patriate action. It’s a library, restaurant, bar, and bookstore all rolled into one with couches, tables, etc. Needless to say, I got there and it was awesome. I ordered a mango banana smoothie, looked around for a bit, and sat down to write. It was so incredibly nice to be completely surrounded by English.

It was unbelievable. At one point, I was helping this Chinese man find a plug for his computer and talking to him for a bit, but I overheard two men approach this girl asking her if she went to Harvard and that they were one was from the JFK School and the other did research at both MIT and Harvard.. then they talked about E52 being built. I was going to pop in.. but I was still helping Asian guy across the room.. that by the time that all finished, the two guys and the girl were gone. But that’s crazy right?! small world. I’m totally hanging out there from now on during downtime.

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3. Sunday: Massage and Dinner. I met up with a bunch of other MIT kids that are currently in Beijing, some for MISTI-China and another taking a Chinese class here. We initially planned to go to the zoo, but by the time everyone had arrived, it was getting too late.. so we decided to go get massages in Sanlitun instead, which was excellent. Then we had dinner at Bellagio, which is this excellent Taiwanese-style chain restaurant in China. I think these pictures speak for themselves:

That’s the exterior of the Bellagio and the food we ordered, which was probably the best food I’ve gotten in Beijing so far.. but more importantly…

I FOUND BUBBLE TEA!!!! AT LAST!  Check out our assortment of drinks : ) 

And then… we did it. The Bellagio Breeze is like a foot-high of shaved ice covered in different beans. and then Mango Supreme is mango and coconut ice cream with Mango pudding and.. mangoes. : ) 

I just had a meeting with the graphic designer for my company on Skype chat. She’s from Ecuador and speaks Spanish with limited English. We started in English, but I could tell she clearly would prefer Spanish.. We talked for an hour and a half in Spanish.

Oh yeah, small detail:

I DON’T speak Spanish.

The only Spanish I’ve really learned (since a 6 week exploratory in 6th grade) was in Arizona/Mexico for Alternative Spring Break, where I only learned phrases like

“yo quiero (tenador, cuchillo, cuchara,…. taco bell)” =  “i need a [fork, knife, spoon,.... taco bell + anything in their commercials/menus]” and

“tu (cara, madre, see nouns from above) parece nalgas” = “your [face, mother, fork, knife, spoon, taco bell] looks like a … (see all previously listed nouns)”

None of which, to my dismay, came up in conversation.

Gracias Google Translator.

This is the weather for this week in Beijing:

5-Day Forecast

!

Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
95° F | 71° F	102° F | 66° F	96° F | 73° F	100° F | 73° F	98° F | 75° F
Clear	Clear	Scattered Clouds	Chance of Rain 20% chance of precipitation	Scattered Clouds
Hourly	Hourly	Hourly	Hourly	Hourly

Yeah…

China and apparently Europe, according to my fellow intern from Holland, all use A4 paper.

This totally explains why pdf forms from China always got cut off when printing them in the US.

I’m finding that America is just.. i guess.. stubbornly holding onto so many un-standardized units..

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Random Facts in Afterthought courtesy of Wikipedia:

According to Wikipedia, the US and Canada are the only two still using a different standard, and Ronald Reagan made this paper the paper size for all U.S. Federal forms.

Just for a breakdown: (Yes, I’m American. I use the Imperial System instead of metric)
A4 paper is 8.3 x 11.7 inches = 97.11 inches²
US Letter is 8.5 x 11 inches = 93.5 inches² <–Look, we save more trees/paper! But then again, English is much less space efficient than Chinese. ::shrug::

Bottom line: We’re special.