The Art World of Beijing

Today, we went with Mandi, Jonathan and his sister to 798.  798 is an area of art galleries, exhibits, and stores.  There are little shops and restaurants. 

 Mmmm.....a little pesto.  This tapas restaurant was a complete failure.  We ordered, and then the waiter returned to the table multiple times to tell us that they didn't have that particular item.  It was a rather frustrating visit to a restaurant!

Amanda is about to eat corn ice cream.  It is as disgusting as it sounds!

After lunch, they went to the airport to meet some friends, and we went to Ikea for some more shopping.  We were pretty happy when we were able to tell the driver where we wanted to go successfully!  We met everyone back in Yizhuang at Otto's for dinner.  It was a fun way to end the day!



Longqing Gorge

This week, Amanda and I don't have school.  We are out and about in the city of Beijing!  There is no school due to the National holiday, which is like our July 4^th.  I don’t know anything about it other than the fact that throngs of people come into the city.  So.  Many. People. 

Monday, we went with our friend Anne to Longqing Gorge (pronounced Long-ching).  It is about 1.5 hours outside the city, but it took us over 4.5 hours to get there.  Traffic is an ugly thing! I was glad to get out of the city and into the mountains!  On our walk to the gorge, we saw some people farming.  They harvest the corn by hand!  Stalk by stalk, the sun darkened people remove the corn from the stalk, shuck it, and throw it in a pile before moving on.  It was so crazy!   Amanda and I rode a boat through the gorge.   It was really pretty!  When we got back, Anne talked us into riding these little scooter things down slides that went down the mountain.  As we stood in line waiting with the rest of the masses, we noticed the signs above us that said something about if one hits the person in front of you, “One bears all responsibility.”  That’s encouraging!  We flew down the mountain on those little things!  With a metal handle in the middle, the driver of the scooter can control the speed. 

We stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom with the rest of the masses.

This mother is putting her child back in the car after he squatted by the car to go to the

 bathroom in the middle of this stop and go traffic!  Oh.....China.

Donkeymeat Sandwiches.  They are called

China's Hamburgers.  They are delicious!

We ordered more of them after we ate the first ones. 

The restaurant we stopped at. 

Walking up to the gorge in the beautiful fall weather

was a much better choice than paying for a trolley. 

The grounds we walked through to get to the gorge.  Beautiful.

This dragon has escalators in it to take us to the top.

Enjoying this beautiful fall day with friends.

Don't eat me!

Decisions, decisions.  Take the cable car or the boat? 

The boat it is!

I enjoyed seeing some of the country of China. 

We got really cold when we were not in the sun!

We had fun riding in the boat!



This guy grabbed the scooters as they came up on a conveyor belt,

and threw them on the track. 

Ride at your own risk!!!  These things went REALLY fast! 

Amanda took off and was really far ahead. 

I'm glad we did it!

At the end of our journey in the gorge. 

 We passed many people in the fields harvesting the corn by hand. 

This terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad picture does one thing!  I

t documents my very first sighting EVER of The Great Wall of China! 

I may or may not have gotten a tad bit excited!

What a wonderful day!

It was a great way to start our week off!

Out With the Girls

Amanda, Bonze, and I went shopping today!  We spent the entire day in the city.  Amanda bought new 'toms' at yashow.   I bought a fun red coat.  I started looking at the coats while Amanda and Bonze were in another part of the store.  That saleslady thought she had a gullible (going to pay way too much) customer.  Too bad for her that is not how things went.  Bonze and Amanda came over, and Bonze did some fabulous bargaining!  I walked away with that coat for a great price....and we left behind a grumbling sales lady.  After getting our nails done, and enjoying a foot massage, we headed toward Qianmen.

My new red coat! 

On our way to Qianmen, we found out that the subway stop had

 been closed.  We had to take a exponentially crowded bus from the subway stop.  

I really like Qianmen!  It has lots of real shops (Canon, Swatch, etc.) and then in the streets beyond the main one there are tons of small, local shops. 

This is like no Starbucks I have ever seen!

We bought scarves!  This makes the cheap ones you can buy in nyc seem expensive!

We finally found the correct bus to get back to the subway. 

It was a double decker bus with a very low ceiling!   

We had a successful trek back to the apartment!  What a great day!