Beijing crowds on National Day - October 1st. We were in Xidan - a shopping district - which is usually pretty crowded anyway, especially on week-ends (I had already been with a couple of my students one Saturday afternoon).
Crazy Beijing crowds.
People like to sit and stare into space or at their cellphone screen.
Sports Day at BISU (the university I work at). There are runners in the distance, going around the track.
Sports Day - it's a glimpse of the campus and the place where I work (I work in Building #1 - the big red one on the right).

I felt OK this morning, but after work I didn't feel so hot. Maybe it's the beginning of a flu of some sort. Sucks. Ate lunch with Katia, Loic, and one of Loic's good students whom I see very often now, Wang Sheen (not sure of the Pinyin spelling...). We bought our food at the cafeteria and went to eat it outside in the sunshine. It was wonderful.

Spent the afternoon visiting the very interesting Lama Temple in the north of Beijing. It was a beautiful - and quite warm in the end - afternoon. There are lots of places to pray to Buddha, and many intricate statues of different buddhas of varying sizes (one is 25 metres, or 80 feet, high, and is apparently made of only a SINGLE piece of sandalwood - it looks amazing!).

Got two hours of class tomorrow, then I'm off to the countryside (the real outskirts of Beijing) with 18 of my students and one other English teacher (of Chinese origin) for the week-end. We're leaving early Saturday morning and coming back Sunday afternoon. Horse-back riding is apparently an option and we're going to eat farmers' fare, including a whole sheep! I'm looking forward to the break. :-)

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