This weekend, it’s summer palace and something else… haven’t decided yet. To the subway! On the way I enter an unexpected dialog:
*attractive girl approaches*
“Hi, do you speak English?”
“Yes…”
“Do you speak Chinese well?”
“I don’t know any Chinese.”
“I can get you a beautiful Chinese partner. She will help you learn Chinese ;).”
“lol no”
Subway ho! Down in out and up, I’m at the gate. Already wowed by the scenery. Lush trees and an amazing view of buildings extending to the hilltop.
And one of those awesome lions.
Up the assortments of stairs and around the ancient structures. Many picturesque sights captured along the way up.
Like this one.
Made it to the top, but there’s no good place to look down from. For once in Beijing, there’s too many trees! The summer palace is just over the wall, but it’s barely visible and completely inaccessible. I see a lake a t’other side, and head down the huge slope. Paths are boring – through the brush, and I’m there. Long wooden walkway along the waterfront and through the trees is prettyful. Paddleboats piddle around the lake. I walk around for s’more sights in the perfect weather.
A sight – the palace is the right big’un.
Tour the place for an uneventful few hours, and back to the stairs. I see a building that I can potentially jump into for a sweet soccer vid shot. It’s a 3m jump, and I can totally make it; 1% chance of failure. Set up the camera and ponder the decision I’m about to make. Fall and I’m pretty dead. Rocky bottom 8-10m down. Sketchy about Chinese health care and it’s a pretty stairy distance away from the base of the hill. After a great deal of consideration (and excessive adrenaline pumping), I decide that 1% x death > 99% x sweet video shot. I think this is the moment in life that I can point to as being the divisive line between adolescence and adulthood. How unfortunate.
Quickly down to the gate then subway. Back to Zhongguancun to face off with the crazy sales people. This time I’m prepared. I take out my camera to video-capture the experience of walking through the crazed aisles. Turns out they’re camera shy. I barely get shouted at, and most of them go to engage me, then turn away, embarrassed. I’m hardly empathic, as people always have cameras pointed at me.
Wielding my repellant light-collector, I march into a store. They but ask what I want. I’ve been crafty. Online, I’ve found the video camera models I would buy and how much they cost. I’ve written the model numbers on a piece of paper. Beside each model number is the price of the model, but 20% off. I ask them if they have the model. They do. I ask them the price. Two times the actual price eh? Not happening. I show them the number, indicating the “price in Canada.” I calculate the amount in yuan. They look horrified. They say “not in China.” (agreed, not in Canada either) Best price they can give me happens to be the price in Canada. That’s reasonable. I look at the number and grimace a bit, and say I can get it better in Canada. They genuinely can’t reduce the price. Excellent. Leave feeling good about decimating the attempts to relieve me of more $$.
A Zhongguancun night.
Home sleep and up. Beijing zoo seems like a fun place to go. Head there. Zoo of people is what it is. Crazy numbers of people. Little kids everywhere. They keep hitting me with their balloons… Panda first. These pandas are boring. Most exciting thing they did was defecate. They didn’t even walk. They all looked dead.
Dead looking panda – their hind legs look funny.
Look at some birds. They’re unexciting. Look at some monkeys/gorillas. They look deep in thought while staring at the crowds. Check out the big cats. They just want to eat everyone – pacing the front of their cages, eying the mob.
Hungry kittehs.
The rest of the animals… elephants, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, kangaroos, deer, etc. all want nothing to do with the masses. They hang out at the back of their cage facing away from the audience. The exception being all the ones being fed by visitors.
Pretty sure the yellow sign says “No Feeding”
The crowds, most unruly, jump the fences to feed the animals, throw rocks and food at the ones lazing around in the open, and jeer until they can cheer/clump when an animal gets up from its nap. No park officials to be seen. Lots of landscapers and moneymakers though. Stores for food or souvenirs at every corner of the huge park. Appalled and discontented with the whole zoo experience, I go to head out.
This contented me a little… a robot carriage for kids.
30mins later, I arrive at the gate. Wow, big zoo. Animals aren’t the only attractions. I appear to be just as interesting. Some people were discreet - like a cellphone that happens to follow me as I walk by. Some were blatant - like a kid laughing, running in front of me, and flashing a camera in my face. Regardless, I made it home.
-dougH
Also, I’ve been working on some freestyle soccer videos while in China. Check out the first of the series:
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