This morning we got up at a respectable hour (by that I mean a normal time by Western standards). We grabbed a little bit of food from the room, I made a quick swing by the room, and we were on our way. Today, we were riding bikes to church. Biking in Beijing is by far the best method of transportation, and to omit riding bikes while in Beijing is a most heinous and inexcusable crime.
So we rode. There was one catch: the wind was coming from the north at a pretty good clip, and our northward progress was severely checked by Mother Nature.
We made it to church by about 11:05, and we were early enough to get a seat. We were sitting, waiting on the service to begin, when Bing-Bing and one of my other friends from the fellowship takes a seat on the row in front of us. The service soon began, and it was a very good sermon, surprisingly good by Chinese standards. The speaker had excellent English, and unlike many of her peers, it was evident that she had studied English in the States, and not in England.
After the service ended, we hung outside the church for a bit, and then stopped in a 7/11 just outside the church. I gave Morgan an introduction to convenience stores in Beijing – an animal very different from American counterparts. Then, we rode over to a BBQ restaurant near the church, for our noontime meal. We ordered a “typical” Chinese BBQ meal, comprised of lamb chuar, chicken wings, chicken gizzards, bamboo shoots in vinegar, and roast bread. As is the case any time that we eat at a restaurant in Beijing, something always happens with the waitresses. In this instance, the waitress tried to give us two fruit bowls that we did not order and spent about 5 minutes arguing with us, other waitresses, and the cook.
After eating our fill, we rode north to the Old Summer Palace. On the way there, we got a little turned around and missed our entrance. I would attribute some of this confusion to the large amount of traffic on the road on this Sunday afternoon. I honestly have no idea what that many people were doing riding around, but we spent the ride dodging certain death at the hands of 18-wheelers and black Audis.
If I may, dear reader, please allow me to give a little history of the Old Summer Palace. The palace proper was built in the early to mid-1700s, and was comprised of a number of palaces for dignitaries, temples for lunar festivals, artificial lakes, and an expansive garden area for the enjoyment of the emperor and his empress. Everything was kosher in the Old Summer Palace for over a century, but then… The Opium War! The foreign devils, after ravaging the Chinese countryside and destroying valuable Chinese heritage through pillaging villages and national treasure, invaded the Old Summer Palace to wreak havoc. The Old Summer Palace was left in a state of some disrepair until the early 1900s, when the 8-Power Alliance (England, Germany, Denmark, France…) invaded the country once again and completely destroyed the Old Summer Palace. Of course, at that point in time, there was only one summer palace. The “new” one would be built shortly after the 8 Powers left the country, and the “old” summer palace would fall into disrepair as a mark of China’s cultural shame.
We walked around the park for some time, seeing a number of the “well-preserved” sites in the park. I remain a little hazy on the definition of “well-preserved” by the park’s standards. A mound of rubble and a fallen stele do not look “well-preserved” to me. Also, everything in the park was “one of the 40 attractions of the Old Summer Palace.” I’m not sure how many “40 attractions” there were, but I would surmise much more than 40.
We rambled about the park, and soon we found ourselves in what appeared to be a maintenance section of the park. We looked around, and the only people that we could see were two old ladies in the distance washing by hand what appeared to be clothes (or performing some other menial task). We then realized that we were in a no visitor area of sorts, and this realization was solidified when we found the main lake area. A fence blocked our way to the visitor area. WE looked as must look inmates in a prison at the other visitors, arousing a number of incredulous glances from the more enlightened visitors of the park.
After following the fence to its terminus, we were able to join the rest of the visitors of the Summer Palace. There were a number of construction projects in the palace, and it would appear that the Chinese are abandoning their ideal of letting the park go to waste as a token of their cultural shame. It seemed like everywhere we walked our progress was impeded by construction. We were not alone in our plight either. We watched Chinese people jump over fences, run across dried lake bottoms, and stroll through garden areas, trying to find an exit to the park. I had no idea how to get back to our entrance, as every path westward (we entered the southwest gate) was blocked by construction. We exited the park and decided to walk around the perimeter of the park.
After much wandering, we found our bikes, unstolen and undisturbed. On the way back, we had a very nice tailwind, taking us less than half of the time to get back to the dorm. On the way, we stopped at a DQ and purchased two Blizzards. We sat outside the shopping center in which the restaurant was housed and people watched. This is one of my favorite pastimes in Beiing, and is a great way to learn more about a culture. I would highly recommend doing so when visiting the Far East.
We finished the rest of the ride back to the dorm, where we got some water and thawed out. We checked email, uploaded pictures to the computer, and hung out in the room for about a half-hour. We coordinated a dinner date with Wes and Hannah, and walked over to Chengdu Roast Fist for some supper. Ever since my first time eating at the ChengDu roast fish restaurant, I have been on a mission to eat roast fish, a deliciously spicy whole fish, served over vegetables of your choosing. However, my plan has been consistently thwarted by my eating companions, complaining of price (a negligible cost at that), dietary restrictions (I don’t like and can’t eat spicy food), and general lack of adventurousness. Today, I was going to realize my dream. We ordered a whole roast fish – a catfish served on a bed of celery, onions and bell peppers; green beans with peppers; and sliced potato served in an iron bowl with bell peppers and onions. Everything was very spicy, but very satisfying. We washed down the spicy fish with boiling hot water and a bottle of Qingdao.
After a full day of running around Beijing, we drug ourselves back to the hotel, exhausted. We watched part of a movie, Winter’s Bone, on Wes’ recommendation, while we got ready for bed and nursed our protesting stomachs. The movie was interesting, but very dark.
Sleep.
I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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