Long Weekend

It's been way too long since I've posted. It's due in part to the fact that nothing big has been going on lately, and also because I've been up to my ears in homework.

But this weekend is going to be different. We've got a three-day weekend worked into our schedule, starting tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to making the most of it. Some folks here are using the opportunity to get outside of Beijing (I have a couple of friends who are going all the way down to Sichuan!), but I'll be sticking it out in the city, trying to catch up on the things that I've missed while holed up in my room working on my characters.

I got off to a good start on this plan just today, deciding that I wanted to go see the Temple of Heaven. It was a cold, hour-long walk from the subway station to get there, but because Beijing is relatively far north, and winter is coming about, the whole city is bathed in an orange, 'sunset' kind of light from 12:00 noon onwards 'till sunset at 5:00pm. This made it a really beautiful walk by myself, especially once I got inside the park (in which sits the Temple itself).

I've gotten the pictures posted on Facebook here, so have a look. To be honest, the Temple wasn't that spectacular up close. Strangely enough, it looks much more majestic and imposing from far away. The temple isn't the only sight to see, though; its just the northern-most of a number of religious sites devoted to ancestor and deity-worship generally dating back to the early Ming Dynasty. From there, you go south to another temple complex that sits in a perfectly circular wall, rightly dubbed the "Echo Wall", because if stand at the edge of the wall and yell down it's curving length, someone far away down the wall can hear you as if you were standing right next to them!

This is about the point that I met the companions on my trip. Just like at Fragrant Hills a month or two ago, I was walking by my lonesome when I got accosted by a couple of Chinese girls who wanted to speak English with me. One of them, named Sun Li Li, is going to a university to become a tour guide. She's a freshman from Anhui province, and hasn't had much opportunity to check out Beijing's sites yet, so the three of us got to meander around the park and enjoy watching people pray at the altars. She also has a biting sense of humor and, unlike almost every other girl in China, a knowledge of sarcasm. I feel lucky to have met the two of them; we've arranged to meet up again to go to another section of the Great Wall on Saturday. I'm hoping this isn't just a very elaborate plot to steal my kidneys.

On another note, I've begun doing research on where I'd like to travel during the winter break. I worked with my program director, Ai Laoshi, on planning a route, and he gave me some fine suggestions and lent me his Lonely Planet travel book for the weekend. The tentative plan is to either:

1) Train-hop down the eastern coast of China, passing through Shandong (Confucius' home), Fujian, and occasionally hitting some of the islands off the coast until I find myself in Hainan, the "Hawaii of China"; or,

2) Go down through central China, hitting Shanxi (whose capital is Xi'an, where the terra cotta army is), then down through Henan and Hubei, taking a detour into Sichuan, and then going through Hunan (Mao Zedong's home province) and Guangxi down into Hainan.

You'll notice that Hainan is playing an important role in both plans, largely because it's getting cold here in Beijing. It doesn't get much above freezing anymore, even during the peak daylight hours. It's good, then, that two weeks ago I purchased a bona-fide People's Liberation Army winter coat! Check the Facebook photos; I look great. Really though, this thing is thick, heavy, and wonderful. Great purchase.

I'll update once I get back from my adventures this weekend. Wishing everyone well!