My complete Summer 2008 Travelogue is now available at http://www.princeton.edu/~nkeyes/pib2008/
Enjoy!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
北京的空气质量
In Beijing, the air is a funny thing. Yes, it's mostly polluted, and yes, that will cause a problem for the Olympics, but it's the extent of variability that has me most intrigued. Contrary to what the New York Times reports, the current situation is not impossibly dire. Compare these two photographs, taken 21 hours apart, where the variable factor was a 30 minute rainstorm around 11am this morning. Honestly, if cloud seeding can produce a mini shower every morning during the Games, the government is all set. I'll keep taking photos from this vantage point periodically throughout my remaining time here to see how, and how rapidly, it changes over time.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
圆明园,四通的附近
In case you hadn't heard, Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympics. This small fact put a dent in my plans for today the size of the hole in yesterday's Melbourne-bound Quantas flight. Like the flight, it was an inconvenience but not an incredible disaster; unlike the flight, I think it turned out for the better overall. Beijing's university campuses have been transformed into housing for Olympic athletes and administrators, meaning that security measures are at 11 out of 10. Beijing Normal University, where PIB is held, is flooded with security personnel, and presumably other campuses are the same. You're only allowed to enter the campus if you have a student ID card; therefore, I was unable to tour Peking University, and shop at its amazing mini-mart (think Walmart compressed into a school cafeteria) as planned. However, this meant that I was a light traveler today, and was able to walk around without carrying a lot of stuff.
Peking University's restricted gate
During my $4, 20 minute taxi ride from 北师大 to 北大, I had a nice chat with the driver, whose Chinese accent was much clearer than the average person on the street. After being turned away from the Peking University gates, I walked about 10 minutes north to 圆明园, the Old Summer Palace which was burned down by the British in 1860. Today it's site a little off the radar of the typical tourist, but teeming with the well-to-do locals who can afford the $4 admission fee.
I spent about 2 1/2 hours walking around the restored landscapes and stone ruins of European-style buildings. (Many of the ruins have also been "restored" and look far more organized than they should.) All of the Chinese-style buildings were made of wood and were destroyed in the burning.
Most of the time the amusement of a Chinese sign is caused by its translation; in this case, it's definitely the accompanying diagram which takes the medal.
After Yuanmingyuan, I decided to walk the five miles back to Beishida and take in the city sights along the way.
Beijing's major streets are mostly 8-lane avenues with an extra lane on each side for bikes. Crossing them would be a nightmare (and is physically blocked) except for the abundance of 过街天桥, or footbridges, which simultaneously provide safe passage and also serve as makeshift resting spots and street markets starting around 5pm, after the heat of the day has mostly passed. They also make for great photographic perches.
During the course of my walk I took a detour from the major streets and cut through an extremely nice 四通 district residential neighborhood of gated-community apartments like those highlighted on page 2 of the recent NYTimes article about Beijing's preservationist movement. I think this 15-minute segment of my walk qualifies as the highlight of my non-tourist explorations.
In China, these awesome bike locks can be seen all over. They simply lock the bike to itself so it's inconvenient to steal, but the way it works is that turning the key activates a spring-loaded mechanism to retract or extend the bar at the bottom, so it takes about half a second to secure or unlock. Sure beats the combination chain locks that populate campus back at home!
Well that's the essence of my 312-picture day. Time to switch back to the native tongue!
Peking University's restricted gate
During my $4, 20 minute taxi ride from 北师大 to 北大, I had a nice chat with the driver, whose Chinese accent was much clearer than the average person on the street. After being turned away from the Peking University gates, I walked about 10 minutes north to 圆明园, the Old Summer Palace which was burned down by the British in 1860. Today it's site a little off the radar of the typical tourist, but teeming with the well-to-do locals who can afford the $4 admission fee.
I spent about 2 1/2 hours walking around the restored landscapes and stone ruins of European-style buildings. (Many of the ruins have also been "restored" and look far more organized than they should.) All of the Chinese-style buildings were made of wood and were destroyed in the burning.
There's also a reconstructed maze, which is actually rather challenging and took me a good five minutes to solve.
This picture is a perfect example of why I love Chinese. The big character in the center means "tea," the backdrop to a giant-scale tea set. The effect would be simply ruined using a large sign with roman characters.
Most of the time the amusement of a Chinese sign is caused by its translation; in this case, it's definitely the accompanying diagram which takes the medal.
After Yuanmingyuan, I decided to walk the five miles back to Beishida and take in the city sights along the way.
Beijing's major streets are mostly 8-lane avenues with an extra lane on each side for bikes. Crossing them would be a nightmare (and is physically blocked) except for the abundance of 过街天桥, or footbridges, which simultaneously provide safe passage and also serve as makeshift resting spots and street markets starting around 5pm, after the heat of the day has mostly passed. They also make for great photographic perches.
During the course of my walk I took a detour from the major streets and cut through an extremely nice 四通 district residential neighborhood of gated-community apartments like those highlighted on page 2 of the recent NYTimes article about Beijing's preservationist movement. I think this 15-minute segment of my walk qualifies as the highlight of my non-tourist explorations.
In China, these awesome bike locks can be seen all over. They simply lock the bike to itself so it's inconvenient to steal, but the way it works is that turning the key activates a spring-loaded mechanism to retract or extend the bar at the bottom, so it takes about half a second to secure or unlock. Sure beats the combination chain locks that populate campus back at home!
Well that's the essence of my 312-picture day. Time to switch back to the native tongue!
迟到比没到好得多
Yay for mixing idioms in different languages! For those of you who don't read Chinese, the post title is an approximate literal translation of "better late than never;" for those of you who do read Chinese, you probably know a better way to express it, preferably with a Chinese idiom, which are so much fun to translate back into English.
Now, for a quick history lesson and explanation of the blog title:
forgotten.legend: get an LJ or twitter for CHINALBAG
sorry
CHINABLAG
me: what's CHINABLAG?
forgotten.legend: A BLAG YOU WRITE WHILE IN CHINA
me: ah
It's not LJ or Twitter, but CHINALBAG now exists. You can thank Picasa for the reference to blogger.com.
Most of you probably received my email last week summarizing my first month here. For those of you who didn't, you can ask me for it and I'll send it to you. I could also post it here but that would make too much sense.
My daily schedule consists of attending class, doing homework, eating the planet's best value food, and sleeping if there's leftover time; not the most well-suited for daily blogging in terms of content or time for updates, but you can definitely expect plenty of news from weekend activities. For example, out of the 1269 pictures I've taken so far, 1065 of them were concentrated into six days; meaning that the remaining 32 days have averaged six pictures each, most of them documenting the little changes taking place around campus over time.
Well that's enough for an intro post. I'll write about today's adventures soon.
Now, for a quick history lesson and explanation of the blog title:
forgotten.legend: get an LJ or twitter for CHINALBAG
sorry
CHINABLAG
me: what's CHINABLAG?
forgotten.legend: A BLAG YOU WRITE WHILE IN CHINA
me: ah
It's not LJ or Twitter, but CHINALBAG now exists. You can thank Picasa for the reference to blogger.com.
Most of you probably received my email last week summarizing my first month here. For those of you who didn't, you can ask me for it and I'll send it to you. I could also post it here but that would make too much sense.
My daily schedule consists of attending class, doing homework, eating the planet's best value food, and sleeping if there's leftover time; not the most well-suited for daily blogging in terms of content or time for updates, but you can definitely expect plenty of news from weekend activities. For example, out of the 1269 pictures I've taken so far, 1065 of them were concentrated into six days; meaning that the remaining 32 days have averaged six pictures each, most of them documenting the little changes taking place around campus over time.
Well that's enough for an intro post. I'll write about today's adventures soon.
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