Last thoughts from Beijing

It's February 5th: Luke's birthday (happy 16!) and two days before the start of ChunJie (the Spring Festival aka Chinese New Year). The fireworks have been going off all day along the streets of our Hutong. But, I've been in Beijing 38 days now, and I'm ready to move on. The last 10 days or so have been fun, but I'm exhausted from doing the tourist thing, and I'm ready to move on. Tomorrow night at 9:41 we leave for LuoYang, where, naturally, we'll keep doing the tourist thing (details). It seems vaguely appropriate to start Lent by moving somewhere new. But it's only temporary- by the 13th we'll be in Hangzhou and starting orientation for the new semester. Renli, Lili and I have worked Hangzhou up to be essentially paradise (warm weather, no wind, cheap food, no cars-or people for that matter...and a church that I can get to) so it will be a relief to finally be there (warm weather or no). Really, I think I'm just looking forward to structure and studying again. Hopefully the classes will be more engaging...

Last Monday, we went to District 798-an art district that was started in an old industrial section of town. Artists there are pretty 'kaifang' and apparently get shut down sometimes...but there was a big exhibit of Greek Comics-really cool stuff, dealing a lot with death...and cycles. but really neat. There was also a photo gallery where there was a series called "Family Stuff" where the photographers had a family bring all of their possessions out in front of their home to be photographed with them. They picked a 'typical' family from each region of China. It was so interesting to see what people owned-not much, and a tv. Tuesday we went to China's ancient Observatory which dates back to Kublai Khan (built sometime in the 500's) and is one of the oldest in the world. It was a working observatory until the 1920s. They had a ton of cool equipment that was stolen by the French and Germans, but returned after the Treaty of Versailles. Wednesday we went to a museum on Luxun, a famous Chinese writer born in the last 1800s. He translated in a billion languages (okay, well, I think we counted at least 7), taught biology (!!!) as well as all things literary. Really fascinating character. Then we went to the White Dagoda which was just next door and quite beautiful. On Thursday we somehow managed to eat pigs brain for dinner...or rather we ordered it, I began to recognize brain structures, and then we stopped eating it...because it's texture was very...brain-y. But we made up for it afterwards with egg custards and ice cream. On Friday we went out to Ba Da Chu, which is a big national park with 8 temples in it. It's on the fringe of the city, and I really enjoy being out that way-kind of in the same place as the botanical gardens. We saw a Glacial Rock (kept in a cage???), and one temple that dated back to 735 (with a 500 year old tree in the courts). It was so cool. The last couple of days we've been hanging around here, doing last minute shopping and preparation for traveling. Lissa left on Monday for Nanjing...and Lili and I are too lazy to go out and do anything...plus we've done everything we want to do in Beijing, well everything we can do. On Sunday we tried to go to the Temple of Earth Park...but they wouldn't let us in. even though the gates were open. and the sign said they were open until 5. but whatever....I'm going to put pictures on facebook of the things I bothered to take pictures of....

Lili just informed me that it's in the 40s in Luoyang! I am so excited for slightly less cold weather! Anyhow, back to packing i suppose....