A Beijing Weekend

This past weekend was packed with things to do and places to see in my continued exploration of life here in Beijing.

Saturday rained and rained and rained, reminding me of the days in The Eug when I thought I would never see the sun again. The only exception is that it's warm enough here that I can wear shorts in the rain. Our class field trip was to the Beijing Planning & Exhibition Center, where they document the civic development of the city from ancient days to the current and future, especially with all the development surrounding the Olympics. The scale models of the city were awesome. I highly recommend this as the first place to visit on your list if you come to Beijing in order to get a sense of the layout of the city. After that, I ditched my classmates and walked around Tiananmen and went to the National Museum. The museum is quite a disappointment but I found the wax figurines quite amusing, although there was no english on the signs so I recognized very few people. The funniest was seeing figures of Yao Ming, Beckham, and Michael Jordan all wearing the wrong brand of shoes. (i guess you have to be a sports marketer to fully see this).

Then, I met up with Allison, her mom, and friend Jumi to go visit her sick dog at the vet. The news wasn't so good as the dog has been in the hospital over a week and he just didnt look in very good shape. It was quite depressing since he is so adorable. Al left for the US for a month so I guess I'll see her when she gets back.

Sunday, we went to the Forbidden City and all that it encompasses. It was a nice and clear (for Beijing) day. This also meant more people there than the eye can see. I think there were more people in Tiananmen and the Forbidden City than all of the Eug. It was crazy. The city is spectacular though.

Later that night, I went to Ikea (E-GEEA in Chinese) to eat dinner and look for a rack to hang my clothes on when drying. I really take for granted having a dryer back home when washing clothes. Going to Ikea made me miss my Poang chair but the meatballs tasted the same. I also had some curry chicken. The menu is definitely altered to Chinese tastes.

After going to Ikea, I decided to wander around by foot and found a couple of public parks nestled in between a couple of major expressways. These parks are gorgeous getaways from the concrete and humanity of the city. They have nice paths, rose bushes everywhere, ping pong tables, and little exercise yards for the community to enjoy. It was great to see so many people able to co-habitate together on a nice Sunday evening. I guess I just don't see that very often in the parks back home. A couple of the key points were the outdoor karaoke on the sidewalk next to the street, a step aerobics/line dancing group in the center of the courtyard, and kids playing around in the fountain. Anyways, it was nice to see.

It's the middle of the week now and classes are back in full boredom. Tonight, I'm gonna try to go watch the Beijing Gu-an take on Manchester United, who is on their Asia Tour 2005. It should be awesome. My first pro football/soccer match.