Breakfast at Ron's

This morning I had breakfast at Ron's. Ron is an American who teaches English here at Erwai and lives in the apartment above me. He sang opera professionally until the front wheel of his car was literally driven into his throat in a car accident when he was in his forties, killing any possibility of continuing his singing career. It took three years for him to recover full control of his voice. He became a Wall Street broker, lived in a $2700/month apartment in New York, until "some guy in India" took over his job. He's 67 and retired and doesn't like China one bit. He invited Loic (French teacher), Karen (an American teaching American culture and Women's studies), Helen (another French teacher), and I to breakfast this morning. It was delicious - French toast with real maple syrup (from Quebec, no less!), Canadian bacon, fresh fruit compote, real coffee...the works! It was delightful! And Ron is so entertaining. We watched bits of some ballet program he had on DVD, listened to one of his favourite singers - Marlene Dietrich - and of course, also listened to some of his many stories. He's watched legends on stage and met famous figures and tells wonderful tales of his adventures. He's quite a character.

So I thought I'd give you guys some pictures of cute kids. Lots of girls for once. Apparently there's 117 males for every 100 females in China. The world average is 103 females for 100 males. Of course the disproportionate ratio is much less apparent in urban areas, such as Beijing.


Forbidden City during the May 1st Labour Day Holiday.

After we (Jessie took one too) took this picture, the guardian that was with the two girls asked to have a picture taken with us, which we happily agreed to. They're dressed up in traditional imperial clothes. Gotta love kitsch!
In front of a very famous wall - the 9-dragon wall - in the middle of the Forbidden City.

Lots of gates, lots of doors inside the Forbidden City.

It's very funny - they're doing renovations at the Forbidden City, and because everyone's disappointed they can't see the main building, they've painted the main building on the scaffolding - brilliant!

And let's end with a shot showing the reason for taking photos at all - being able to look at them afterwards!

Snapshots of Beijing

Thanks to Jessie, I've got a few photos of "life in Beijing."
We saw a group of cyclists go by in front of these pretty trees in bloom. Jessie must've taken 5 photos and in only this one is there actually a cyclist (in the others there's nobody!).

I didn't talk much about spring in Beijing. There are cherry trees with pink and white blossoms, and many other flowers also could be seen. I didn't realise how brown and grey the campus was until spring arrived and all this new green sprouted about everywhere. It's really quite refreshing.

We took a pedi-cab twice. Pedi-cabs are very common in Beijing, but aren't all that cheap. They're good for very short distances. Jessie and I were happy to take one to get from a subway station to a nearby temple. However, the t-shirt design of our driver was a little disconcerting...the name and capacity of ten rifles.
We went by a wonderful-sounding mall: Alien's Street!!! I've never been...

"I chocolate you" is the slogan for a cell phone. Here's an ad for it in a Beijing subway station.

At the temple we saw these three girls wearing the same top, just in different colours. They looked cool.

Here are the three girls mentioned earlier praying at an alter at the Llama Temple. Aren't they cute?
Life in a Beijing subway...subway rides are always fun in Beijing. It's a great place to people-watch. And the funny thing is, many Chinese people love watching you back too!

We walked around some hutongs and found this child waiting in the back of a pedi-cab.Men playing a Chinese board game in the background, with a typical street worker in the foreground. He's pulling dirt. The players are sitting on bricks.

A famous street corner in Beijing. Can you spot the teapot in the middle of the picture, to the left of the woman-in-pink's head?

Children playing in the street. A street worker. There are quite a few of them in Beijing. On the whole, the streets are pretty clean, but there are many spit-balls squashed on the ground. Look at those green trees!!!
A security guard's head lost in the parasol at the south gate of my university. The red building you see in the background is the building in which I teach most of my classes! The security guards wear huge army coats to keep warm in the winter, and hid under parasols in summer...so funny!

The Great Wall

It's an experience I wish everyone could have. It's evident why it's considered one of the Great Wonders of the World. I didn't know what to expect. Nobody told us you walked on a paved road to get to the wall. I didn't realise what "un-repaired" actually meant (it means rubble - slippery rubble ready to crumble!). I didn't think it would be such a work-out! It surpassed my expectations.

I don't know what these women expected...luckily I didn't have to put myself in their shoes!!!



I didn't expect so many stairs...imagine four hours of Grouse Grind!

Some amazing views...

Great Wall Graffitti!

Many parts were in disrepair, but this made cool photos!
Some parts were quite steep. Sometims we walked on the sides of stairwells...


It's amazing how satisfying it was to imagine we had walked from a point in the distance that we couldn't even see anymore. Yes, we zig-zagged all that way (that's behind Jessie) and still had the energy to continue!
Steep stairs in both directions - down, and then of course, up.

Steep stairs for children too... We saw a mother carrying her small child down some stairs - that's not recommended!

Phew! It gets hard!
But the views are well worth it...
At least some aren't complaining...
Some more rubbly-stairs in need of "repair."
Some more great views.
Nap time.
Yay! We walked from Jinshaling to Simatai in four hours. Absolutely amazing!!!
We were rarely by ourselves. There were often people around us.
I can't get over the views we had!!!
We made it! It was a trek that took us a couple days to get over. We were pretty exhausted after that. We had had to wake up at 4:45 AM to catch a 6 AM bus in the centre of the city (but it was the cheapest and least hassle-way to get there!) and didn't get to sleep until night-ish (the bus was back in the city centre by 7 PM, but we had to catch a subway home - an hour away at least). The next day we were up early again (8 AM?) in order to catch a glimpse of dead Mao, but his masauleum ended up being closed because it's a holiday!!! We were disgusted...