Zaijian (Goodbye)

So my time here in Beijing is all but over. Today, Friday, is my last day of class, and then early morning on Sunday I fly to Hong Kong for a few days.

I have really enjoyed Beijing. When I first arrived from Tokyo I thought, in comparison, that Beijing was just chaotic, dirty, and crowded. It is: but the chaos is, somewhat, controlled, there are beautiful parts of the city: lush parks, immaculate temples, and awe-inspiring modern architectural wonders, and while you can't really evade the crowds, you get used to them. I haven't even left yet and I'd already like to come back.

Eating birthday noodles.
(although actually it is just one really long noodle, which symbolizes long life)

The host family situation was interesting. If I could go back, would I opt to live in an apartment? No. Living with a family yielded great cultural insight and offered an opportunity for language practice. It also got me away from the modern parts of the city and allowed me to see more of everyday Beijing life. On the flip side, would I do it again? No.

The Great Wall at Huanghua.

Last weekend I went to the Great Wall. There are many sections of the wall that you can visit around Beijing. The most famous is Badaling, which is a restored section of the wall not far from the city proper. It is supposedly wonderful, but the problem is that you have to fight through hordes of tourists and souvenir vendors to see anything of it. For a more genuine experience I opted to go to the Huanghua section of the wall, which is unrestored and not as touristed. The government, so I've heard, actually discourages visitors going there, as 1) the wall is unrestored and therefore possibly dangerous (no guard rails or security as at Badaling), 2) they feel that heavy traffic might be detrimental to the wall (there were definitely times when steps crumbled beneath our feet and stones moved as we leaned against the walls), and 3) tourism there takes away revenue from the restored portions of the wall. Well, Huanghua was great. We hiked around for about half a day and were about the only ones there, we had the whole wall to ourselves. The surrounding landscape was almost as impressive as the wall itself, with rivers, undulating hills, and mountains in the distance, and definitely heightened the experience.

Some portions were incredibly steep, at least this section had stairs though.

Yesterday was awesome:
Yesterday was my last day that I had the bike as I was returning it to my friend/coworker yesterday night. I think I've already said this, but biking around Beijing is awesome! It's fun, and a convenient alternative to fighting traffic in a taxi, bus, or, wow, I guess you could have a car here and drive around yourself, but wow, why, what a way to ruin your day... Anyways, so I was riding my bike to school yesterday (about a 30 min. ride), and as I do it everyday I guess I was a bit complacent. I was cruising along, I had my IPOD going and I was looking at a park to my right where a group of elderly people were doing early-morning TaiChi. The bike-paths here are between the sidewalks and the car lanes and are about the size of car lanes themselves. I was going with the flow of traffic but it's not unusual for bikes to go against the flow, and also cars cut in and out of the bike lanes, so you have to pay attention. I wasn't. I turned my gaze from the super-seniors in the park back to the road only to find a bike with a cart in tow heading straight for me. The bike took up about half the lane and I tried to swerve to avoid it but didn't have enough time. I avoided the bike but my right knee, my sweet, twice-operated-on right knee, slammed right into the wall of the cart. Everything really went into slow motion right before impact: I thought, I remember thinking this "it's going to hit my knee, it's going to hit my knee, it's going to hit my knee... yep, that's my knee". I was in shock for a bit and just crawled from the bike path to the sidewalk. The cart/bicycle driver was nice and helped me up. He apologized but I told him it was my fault. I was really afraid that I had messed up my knee, but I think it's ok. It's bruised and cut up, but it doesn't feel like there is any internal damage.

Later on yesterday I thought, "ok, the wreck had to have happened". It's a requisite Chinese story. Everyone I know with a bike has been in a wreck, I wouldn't have had the full Beijing bicycle experience without one. Also, it was my last day with the bike, so it couldn't have happened the next day, it had to have happened when it did. Haha. Take it in stride, take it in stride...

Saying goodbye to my bike the night before I was set to return it.

I had arranged to return the bike to my friend/coworker at 6:00 and then we were going to go out to eat. Around 4:00 I stopped by a market to buy a couple of shirts for work in Germany (Polo polos for $4 baby). I parked my bike alongside about 3000 others and secured it with two locks. Broad daylight. I was in the market for about an hour and then left around 5:15, 45 min. before I was set to return the bike. I walked outside, no bike. 45 minutes before I was going to return it! I walked around in circles for a bit, dumbstruck, in total disbelief. "Maybe someone just moved it."

I called him and told him what had happened and offered to pay for the bike, or at least treat him to dinner. He said that I could pay for the dinner and we'd be even. He picked up the tab though. Nice guy.

The whole experience is pretty funny,my knee still hurts, but it's funny.

Chinese class (candid photo).

My Chinese has vastly improved since I've been here. It's nowhere near good, but I can get around. I finally feel like I have a really strong base. More so, I feel like I understand the language. I'm not talking about spoken or written comprehension, but I'm saying that I understand, or am beginning to understand, Chinese as a language. Its structure, its rationale, the formation of the characters, everything has a bit of sense now. I will definitely continue with it, and am sad that I'm leaving.

I've already made reservations for hostels in both Hong Kong and Bangkok, so I'm looking forward to a good next week!