NO I DON’T WANT ANY POSTCARDS. NO I DON’T WANT TO VISIT YOUR ART EXHIBIT. NO I DON’T WANT A KITE. NO I DON’T WANT TO LOOK IN YOUR STORE. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Ok, sorry I had to get that out. After listening to questions like those for most of the weekend and most of the time I’ve been here, it has started to drive me a bit crazy. Speaking of which, where were the postcard sellers when I first got here? Anyway, this week didn’t start out that well. As I previously mentioned, I got sick in Hong Kong and unfortunately that lasted most of the week. This was not the week for this to happen either. I had many things to take care of at work with some changes that have been going on. Luckily I have lived through this week though. I also finally shaved this week! No more yeti look for me. After about six weeks without shaving, the beard finally got to me and I had to get rid of it. Many of the people at work made comments like “you look so handsome” and “you look so young”. I couldn’t disagree with them, but told them to quit mixing vodka with their tea anyway. Unfortunately I don’t think that any of them had a clue what I was talking about. Oh well.
This weekend began with me heading out to the Summer Palace on Saturday (yes it is open in the winter). This (along with the Temple of Heaven) was one of the last places in Beijing I wanted to visit, but had not seen yet. The place was amazing. While one of the main buildings was under construction and I didn’t get to see it, there was so much land to walk around that I had a wonderful afternoon. There is a huge lake on the property that was frozen over and I walked around. There were a number of people actually walking on the ice, but I had a good time just walking around. I took a ton of pictures and stuck around for the sunset. This past week has actually been kinda clean in the air around here, so it was nice to watch the sunset and get some awesome pictures. After the sun went down, I headed back to the hotel to relax a bit and then to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I then picked up a few movies and relaxed at the hotel after a long day of walking.
Sunday I finally headed out to the Temple of Heaven. Again this was a huge park and the main building was under construction 🙁 I would like to come back to Beijing after all of the construction is done to see many of these sites again. Anyway, I spent a couple of hours walking around before leaving to finish up some shopping. Some people are just so hard to buy for! Anyway, I got all of my shopping done! I don’t have to haggle with people anymore. While I kind of enjoy it, I also find it tiring. Again it was a quite night at the hotel with another movie. I’m looking forward to what this week will bring me. I am looking forward to heading home soon. The only thing that is bothering me now is that I don’t have my friends to talk with every night. It is quite a change to go from talking with some of them everyday or every other day to not at all, except by email. I’ve resorted to having conversations with many of them in my head. So if I talk to some of you when I get home like I’ve already told you something, you now know why 🙂