Back on track, so, I met Emily, and we went to see 后海, one of the man-made lakes settled into the suburbia of Beijing. Which, btw, is highly integrated with the tourist business. As you walk down the street, you find yourself suddenly in the midst of one of the market streets, where the road is filled with walking throngs of people (mostly Chinese in this instance), who occasionally, absent-mindedly move to let cars through. The cars, for their part, are used to it, and honk with good cheer. In addition to the curio shops that line this marketstreet, vendors set up selling everything you could think of (not literally, but you get the idea, or rather, let me demonstrate. Gourds, bracelets, bunny-ears as hairclips, stickers of popular american bands, incense, postcards, yogurt and milktea (every 20 feet) meat kebabs, nuts, are you getting the picture? Perhaps not. Pictures will be forthcoming from round 2, I promise) and hawking their wares to passerby.
后海 Houhai (ho' high) is really quite pretty. With traditional wooden bridges built in a zigzag fashion crossing the lake, you can get a good view of the entire thing. At the moment, it's partially frozen, and I've sadly just missed the period of time where it's frozen over enough to skate on. According to some of the things I've read, some wizened citizens like to strip to speedos and go for a brisk swim in the cold waters. No eyewitness accounts yet though, so I'm a tad skeptical, but could see it happening.
We meandered around the market street for a bit, and stopped in at a shoe store, where Emily browsed, and I tried to look like I didn't not want to be there. None of them would fit me, anyway, though they were quite pretty. Some of the other stores we entered reminded me quite strongly of places like those in Fayette mall. Something about a small world goes here, right?
We returned to campus after our trip, and I took some photos along the way, don't blame me, blame the cameraman for the fingers in the way.
After we got back, I found out I would have some free time, until Monday, when registration began. So I had 2 days without adult supervision. What trouble could I get into during that time? Not much, it turns out. But we'll get to that.
That night, I was charged by myself, to find food for myself. Which seems simple, right? Until you factor in a terrifying and crippling anxiety about walking into a restaurant during dinner rush and saying, 'knee how' and having people look at you like a donkey trying to talk. Look, let's move on for now, we both don't really want to talk about it, right? I'll give it it's own post.
So I eventually suceeded in not doing anything, and went hungry for the night. Not one of my best moments, I know, but there is nowhere but up from rock bottom. On the plus side, my pacing without entering let me see almost all the restaurants along that side of the camus, somewhere around 30 places.
But yeah, the next two days I worked up the courage to enter some places, wandered around the other two sides of campus that were busy, and read like 3 books, watched two movies on CCTV6 and practiced my Chinese. Very relaxing.
That's all for this post, more in the next.
-Ben
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