Belated Beijing Photo Post
I can't keep up with Pete's real-time Berlin traveloguing, but I can put up a few more pictures from Beijing.
I still don't have about a quarter of the pictures I took, since it took me a little while to figure out how to put the memory card in my new (and small and totally cute) digital camera (read: I didn't push the memory card in the whole way) so by the time I figured out I was actually saving pictures to the camera's own memory (which the Circuit City guy had told me it didn't actually have) I'd left some pictures on Mike's laptop, where I can't get to them for a while. Good story!
I'm actually really lucky I have the rest of them, because I left my camera at the security gate at the Beijing airport when I went through and didn't even notice it was missing, occupied as I was with watching my toiletries bag being methodically disassembled. Fortunately, I'd also emptied out of my pocket the index card I'd (in an act of unnecessary anal-retentive preparation) written my flight number and departure time on, and since I was an hour and a half early (in another act of unnecessary anal-retentive preparation) the airport personnel actually had time to deliver it to the gate, where they handed it over to me while I looked at them in bafflement. (Where did they get my camera?) They knew it was mine because the last picture in the camera was this shot of me on the No. 2 subway line that I made Mike take that morning.
(Usually the subway was significantly more crowded than this.)
Anyway, other random photos (click for larger):
This building likely means nothing to you, but to me it is the beloved "Three-By-Obloid" building that served as my principal orienting landmark near the Xizhimen subway stop, out by where the Exhibition Center Hotel is. Like much modern Beijing architecture it is clearly European/contemporary but somewhat lacking in charm. I was always happy to see it, since that meant I was more or less in the right place.
The Exhibition Center itself was running an exhibition of construction equipment the second week I was there. I didn't go in, but the cranes out front cut a fairly echt-Beijing scene. The first week I was there there was an exhibition of police vehicles.
This is a pedestrian bridge near Mike's homestay apartment, around 7:30 in the morning during the second week I was there. It was really windy that day and the weather had been good in general, accounting for the unusual sight of the mountains out there in the distance. I still don't know how far away they are, but usually they're completely obscured by middle-distance haze. The first time you see them is kind of a jolt.
On the main road near the hotel was an excellent sidewalk-fronting skewer-meat place (this is called, phonetically, "chuar," although I think that retains the regional Beijing accent) and, outside that skewer-meat place, one of the best pieces of public art I've ever seen. Late that night the bucket was gone, but the whole mass of everything in it had just been dumped on the sidewalk for trash collection. The skewers themselves are incredibly tasty, mostly since they alternate chunks of lamb and chunks of fat. Refreshingly, one can order these simply by holding up one or two fingers.
The Great Wall at Mutianyu, again. Mountain view from the wall, below. Really a beautiful day for a walk there.
The Summer Palace is one of the most-touristed city destinations, and by the time I got there (Wednesday or Thursday of the second week) I'd acquired some landmark fatigue. The main complex of buildings running up the hillside there is worth seeing, though; you make your way up and have a good (if hazy) view from the top. The Summer Palace was an imperial getaway built during the 1700s, I want to say. I guess I could look that up. (I don't want to sound too intellectually uncurious, but . . . really, landmark fatigue.) This isn't a great photo but I like how it makes the place look deceptively sleepy. Yep, no tour group throngs here.
I took a bus out to the Botanical Garden, which wasn't at its peak season yet. There were peonies out, and some people looking at or photographing or sometimes drawing the peonies. My favorite spot there was a modest arboretum filled with the sounds of unfamiliar birdsong. (I guess, actually, if the mountains are that close to the Botanical Garden, then they're not that far from the center of the city; that was about a half-hour city bus ride from 3rd Ring Road, I think.)
The Temple of Heaven Park, closer to the center of town, is a must-see spot, on the other hand. One attraction there I was glad to have caught was a short demonstration of yayue music (imperial court music) at a building called the Divine Music Administration. (Wikipedia link.) It's music composed with a very deliberately designed sonority, with several elemental types of sound combined into a very appealing, resonant whole. Essentially the ensemble is a small orchestra with strong pitched percussion notes. I'm curious whether any of these ensembles have been established at any universities in the U.S., similar to the way gamelans have been. It's a pretty gorgeous sound. I bought a CD at the gift center, although much of it is taken up with contemporary song arrangements rather than anything traditional, according to the English in the liner notes.
Also at the Divine Music Administration, a room with a large set of pitched gong bells you could play around with (I want some of these), and a room that makes the boosterish claim "China's Study of Tonal System Holds the Lead in the World." I don't know to what extent or in what way the Chinese type of twelve-pitch-class music theory traveled elsewhere (I've been meaning to look this up, actually) but I love the idea of staking a claim and making a big deal about pioneering the study of tonal systems. Yeah! Music theory is great.
The Divine Music Administration had been rebuilt several years ago after decades of serving first as post-revolution barracks and then as residential housing.
Another scene at the Temple of Heaven Park, displaying some obligatory Olympic excitement.
I had to take a picture of this item on display in the Beijing Opera section of the Capital Museum (with sign detail below). I may not be able to do much more than wander around Beijing doing tourist stuff and buying bottled water, but there are still some things I know that they don't.
I still don't have about a quarter of the pictures I took, since it took me a little while to figure out how to put the memory card in my new (and small and totally cute) digital camera (read: I didn't push the memory card in the whole way) so by the time I figured out I was actually saving pictures to the camera's own memory (which the Circuit City guy had told me it didn't actually have) I'd left some pictures on Mike's laptop, where I can't get to them for a while. Good story!
I'm actually really lucky I have the rest of them, because I left my camera at the security gate at the Beijing airport when I went through and didn't even notice it was missing, occupied as I was with watching my toiletries bag being methodically disassembled. Fortunately, I'd also emptied out of my pocket the index card I'd (in an act of unnecessary anal-retentive preparation) written my flight number and departure time on, and since I was an hour and a half early (in another act of unnecessary anal-retentive preparation) the airport personnel actually had time to deliver it to the gate, where they handed it over to me while I looked at them in bafflement. (Where did they get my camera?) They knew it was mine because the last picture in the camera was this shot of me on the No. 2 subway line that I made Mike take that morning.(Usually the subway was significantly more crowded than this.)
Anyway, other random photos (click for larger):
This building likely means nothing to you, but to me it is the beloved "Three-By-Obloid" building that served as my principal orienting landmark near the Xizhimen subway stop, out by where the Exhibition Center Hotel is. Like much modern Beijing architecture it is clearly European/contemporary but somewhat lacking in charm. I was always happy to see it, since that meant I was more or less in the right place.
The Exhibition Center itself was running an exhibition of construction equipment the second week I was there. I didn't go in, but the cranes out front cut a fairly echt-Beijing scene. The first week I was there there was an exhibition of police vehicles.
This is a pedestrian bridge near Mike's homestay apartment, around 7:30 in the morning during the second week I was there. It was really windy that day and the weather had been good in general, accounting for the unusual sight of the mountains out there in the distance. I still don't know how far away they are, but usually they're completely obscured by middle-distance haze. The first time you see them is kind of a jolt.
On the main road near the hotel was an excellent sidewalk-fronting skewer-meat place (this is called, phonetically, "chuar," although I think that retains the regional Beijing accent) and, outside that skewer-meat place, one of the best pieces of public art I've ever seen. Late that night the bucket was gone, but the whole mass of everything in it had just been dumped on the sidewalk for trash collection. The skewers themselves are incredibly tasty, mostly since they alternate chunks of lamb and chunks of fat. Refreshingly, one can order these simply by holding up one or two fingers.
The Great Wall at Mutianyu, again. Mountain view from the wall, below. Really a beautiful day for a walk there.
The Summer Palace is one of the most-touristed city destinations, and by the time I got there (Wednesday or Thursday of the second week) I'd acquired some landmark fatigue. The main complex of buildings running up the hillside there is worth seeing, though; you make your way up and have a good (if hazy) view from the top. The Summer Palace was an imperial getaway built during the 1700s, I want to say. I guess I could look that up. (I don't want to sound too intellectually uncurious, but . . . really, landmark fatigue.) This isn't a great photo but I like how it makes the place look deceptively sleepy. Yep, no tour group throngs here.
I took a bus out to the Botanical Garden, which wasn't at its peak season yet. There were peonies out, and some people looking at or photographing or sometimes drawing the peonies. My favorite spot there was a modest arboretum filled with the sounds of unfamiliar birdsong. (I guess, actually, if the mountains are that close to the Botanical Garden, then they're not that far from the center of the city; that was about a half-hour city bus ride from 3rd Ring Road, I think.)
The Temple of Heaven Park, closer to the center of town, is a must-see spot, on the other hand. One attraction there I was glad to have caught was a short demonstration of yayue music (imperial court music) at a building called the Divine Music Administration. (Wikipedia link.) It's music composed with a very deliberately designed sonority, with several elemental types of sound combined into a very appealing, resonant whole. Essentially the ensemble is a small orchestra with strong pitched percussion notes. I'm curious whether any of these ensembles have been established at any universities in the U.S., similar to the way gamelans have been. It's a pretty gorgeous sound. I bought a CD at the gift center, although much of it is taken up with contemporary song arrangements rather than anything traditional, according to the English in the liner notes.
Also at the Divine Music Administration, a room with a large set of pitched gong bells you could play around with (I want some of these), and a room that makes the boosterish claim "China's Study of Tonal System Holds the Lead in the World." I don't know to what extent or in what way the Chinese type of twelve-pitch-class music theory traveled elsewhere (I've been meaning to look this up, actually) but I love the idea of staking a claim and making a big deal about pioneering the study of tonal systems. Yeah! Music theory is great.The Divine Music Administration had been rebuilt several years ago after decades of serving first as post-revolution barracks and then as residential housing.
Another scene at the Temple of Heaven Park, displaying some obligatory Olympic excitement.
I had to take a picture of this item on display in the Beijing Opera section of the Capital Museum (with sign detail below). I may not be able to do much more than wander around Beijing doing tourist stuff and buying bottled water, but there are still some things I know that they don't.
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