So today "We" walked around the summer palace. The name in itself is deceiving. It is not ONE palace, but basically a HUGE lake resort around Kunming Lke. Again, amazing to think that this place was built so long ago and the sheer size of this place was absolutely astonishing. The actually astonishing part was the fact that while it was enormous every little facet was carefully decorated. Which is in stark contrast to the US way of things where they are mass produced and very little "personality" is put into them.
Ok, so there are several ways to handle this lake. You can either A take a boat around the whole lake, you can take a paddle boat around the whole lake, you can simply walk around the lake or you can walk around the lake and walk to various islands and up and down hills to different pavilions, towers, halls, etc. Clearly, since We are into dominating things, We walked around the whole lake and took detours to visit various towers, halls, pavilions etc. This was up hills, down hills through little passageways. It was actually somewhat dangerous and I'm pretty sure that this place would not be allowed to exist in its current form in the US because of the risks involved with climbing through some of these places. Which is why I love China.
Now at night I met up with some friends of mine from Yale. Presser and Luci were DEF in the house. I also met some other Yalies, which brought the number up to 5. We went to a club/bar place which was hot, kind of gross, full of Americans, with some Yalies, played hip hop, was free to get in and there was no dress code... Don't worry I know what you're thinking... TOADS!!!!!! We stayed there for a while before we went down the street to another free club place called... bar blue, which had a dance floor, bar area and a pool table... Again those Nashvillians who have ever been in the Vanderbubble know... "bluebar." It was odd because for the time that I was there I really felt like I was in not in China. for now... that's all...
August 7, 2008
this city is Forbidden
for future reference unless i otherwise specify, when i say "we" i was with Ann. So the day began like every day should, with a nice hearty breakfast. We went around the whole area where my friend lives only to get rejected by almost every place that claimed they did not serve breakfast. Since Jimmy was about to come out and Ann's alter ego was also about to make an appearance we decided to just suck it up and go to Mickey D's... Somehow in the midst of us ordering they decided to change from the breakfast menu to the other menu. Frustrated we left and eventually found a restaurant around the corner where I'm not sure I can think of a time i was more satisfied with a meal. I had a flatbreadish dish w/ a sweet bean filling, which tasted like peanut butter w/ noodles and Ann had porridge and a different flatbreadish thing and a carton of juice. All of this ran us about $7USD and had us about to burst and not hungry for hours.
Afterwards we went to the Forbidden City. Now we could have just taken a taxi, but obviously we took the subway. It can get kind of crowded, but you just kind of make your own way and push through. Anyway, the Forbidden City was so much larger than I expected. The highlights which were unexpected was all the people that came up and asked for my picture. Obviously there are not many chocolate chips in this ice cream and I am kind of a big deal in this town. The highlight of which was a boy pointing at me and saying"black person" in Chinese and running away laughing. OK, so the forbidden city is interesting because while it is large, the buildings are very similar when you walk through them from the outside, however each one has a ridiculous amount of detail put into the smallest facets of every little thing. It is kind of insane actually. It's amazing to think the Forbidden City is actually a city inside of a city and the city goes straight for a while with hella little side street areas. We were there for a solid 5 hours of walking around and didn't even go through all of the little side areas. Also this place was rampant with tourists, Chinese and Foreigners. Also with people trying to sell you stuff. I realized that you deal with those people the same way people in the states and just ignore them, and if they get too pushy i have Ann tell them in Chinese and they automatically leave you alone. Oh another highlight was DEF the paddle boats. There is a lake of some sort by the Forbidden City, where there are paddle boats in a very green lakeish sort of body of water. Well anyway, we paddled around the lake and added to the nice burn that we had worked up from walking in 85+ degree humidity filled weather. Again, I was the star of the show and there was a little boy who was in a motor boat with his family and was dead set on either circling around us ramming into us. Luckily, i'm an outstanding paddle boat driver and was able for the most part to avoid the motor boating summama ***** (sorry i had to do it) Eventually, we left and went back on the packed subway... that's all! (Again pictures would be nice and I'll be taking them from Ann soon)
Did you know... That the Forbidden City occupies 720,000 square meters and the Vatican measures 440,000 square meters
Afterwards we went to the Forbidden City. Now we could have just taken a taxi, but obviously we took the subway. It can get kind of crowded, but you just kind of make your own way and push through. Anyway, the Forbidden City was so much larger than I expected. The highlights which were unexpected was all the people that came up and asked for my picture. Obviously there are not many chocolate chips in this ice cream and I am kind of a big deal in this town. The highlight of which was a boy pointing at me and saying"black person" in Chinese and running away laughing. OK, so the forbidden city is interesting because while it is large, the buildings are very similar when you walk through them from the outside, however each one has a ridiculous amount of detail put into the smallest facets of every little thing. It is kind of insane actually. It's amazing to think the Forbidden City is actually a city inside of a city and the city goes straight for a while with hella little side street areas. We were there for a solid 5 hours of walking around and didn't even go through all of the little side areas. Also this place was rampant with tourists, Chinese and Foreigners. Also with people trying to sell you stuff. I realized that you deal with those people the same way people in the states and just ignore them, and if they get too pushy i have Ann tell them in Chinese and they automatically leave you alone. Oh another highlight was DEF the paddle boats. There is a lake of some sort by the Forbidden City, where there are paddle boats in a very green lakeish sort of body of water. Well anyway, we paddled around the lake and added to the nice burn that we had worked up from walking in 85+ degree humidity filled weather. Again, I was the star of the show and there was a little boy who was in a motor boat with his family and was dead set on either circling around us ramming into us. Luckily, i'm an outstanding paddle boat driver and was able for the most part to avoid the motor boating summama ***** (sorry i had to do it) Eventually, we left and went back on the packed subway... that's all! (Again pictures would be nice and I'll be taking them from Ann soon)
Did you know... That the Forbidden City occupies 720,000 square meters and the Vatican measures 440,000 square meters
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