This is the weirdest internet cafe
ever. My screen is so big I feel like I'm piloting an elaborate spacecraft, this room is huge, and there are mirrors on the walls. Also, the floor is glass and, beneath the glass, there is this plastic garden of fake grass and flowers. Imagine levitating above an easter basket, piloting a space ship, and trying to check your e-mail.Strange.
So Beijing. Of course any description of a city like this is limited--I am but one individual filtering and interpreting an unimaginable teeming throng of bicycles and hutongs and office buildings and shishkebob stands and streetsstreetsstreets and peoplepeoplePEOPLE. However, I have managed to plot my own course through this city, and below is my attempt to iron it all neatly into language for you, my loyal readers.
It began just a few days ago. Upon our arrival to this great capital, Miles and I immediately tracked down the Beijing Frisbee community and showed up for summer league. Mostly recovered from an injury but extremely out of shape, I heaved myself across the Frisbee field with a gregarious bunch of expats, Chinese onlookers ogling us through a chain link fence. Afterward we went out to dinner, and it was utterly bizarre to be walking with a stereotypical gaggle of ultimate players (complete with baller shorts and off-color humor) through the streets of Beijing.
The days following have lifted their petticoats and sprinted by--they don't mind the humidity and they leap over puddles when the monsoon-esque rains occasionally fall. I am often lost and walking in this brusque city, but then I encounter an expansive park that booms with cicadas and smells slightly fermented like late summer, a street artist writing calligraphy on the cement with a giant brush dipped in water, or a couple of random Americans playing guitars and harmonicas at a subway stop for no reason.
The food has been an adventure. Yogurt here comes in re-usable ceramic pots and is sipped through a straw (this is delicious, but, for the record, yak-yogurt still wins). Friendly shop-keepers grill spicy lamb skewers on virtually every street corner. (They often tend their flames with hair dryers. One day I may forgive Miles for ordering what were undeniably ears on a skewer.) In the Night Market they sell snacks that range from scorpions to starfish. After a desolate quest for a Peking Duck restaurant (we were lost for over an hour) we discovered that we are not cut out to eat at venues with starched tablecloths and signature dishes that smear sea cucumbers across large white platters.
I would also like to mention the clocks. By far the most exciting element of the Forbidden City was the Hall of Clocks--apparently the great emperors of China had quite a collection, and now all of these amazing time pieces are gathered a drafty room with vaulted ceilings (again, we were hopelessly lost for an extended period of time as we tried to find this place, but you can probably apply this addendum to any story I tell about Beijing). THESE CLOCKS ARE FABULOUS. There was a clock that used elaborate waterfalls to indicate the passage of time, a clock shaped like a dirigible, a clock with a working model of the solar system (complete with moons and housed in shark leather), a clock that was also a pillow, and a clock with a little man that uses a brush to write the time with Chinese characters every time an hour passes. I am planning a clock heist.
Slow down days! I may miss coniferous forests, and the moon may look lonely, stuck as it is in an impenetrable bank of smog, but I am enjoying Beijing. I am striving to be a Billiards Master at my hostel's pool table. Every morning Miles and I 1) respectively read Augustine's Confessions and the Tao de Ching over coffee, 2) eat breakfast, 3) fabricate an adventure, and 4) execute an adventure. Existence is good.
*"Atticus Atlas and the Taxicolor Getaway" refers to my experience today at The Beijing Natural History Museum and The Beijing Zoo. Atticus Atlas is the scientific name for a BEHEMOTH moth that we found pinned to the wall at the natural history museum (think in feet, not inches), and Taxicolor is the species name of a spectacularly awkward deer that marveled at us as we strolled through the zoo. When I heist my clocks, I am going to use this deer as a getaway vehicle.
John and Nicki, the two Londoners we traveled with, on the highest train in the world en route from Xining to Lhasa.
The monks debate at the Sera Monastery.
The Sera Monastery, in Lhasa. Tibet, how are you so photogenic??
Tibetan Michael Jackson breaks out the dance moves.
A Chinese surveillance camera over the Potala Palace.
A smiling nun washes the dishes.
The solar eclipse. We are on the roof of our hostel, wearing mock-mountaineering goggles we purchased on the streets of Lhasa. Note the cloud cover.
Miles and I in the back of a truck with our fabulous guide Lumbum.
Lhasa being spectacular just before sunset. I was eating delicious chicken masala on a rooftop when I took this picture.
Bridles, anyone?
An awesome-eyed cat I found on the streets of Lhasa.
Miles with a ridiculously small puppy, also found on the streets of Lhasa.
These peace pilgrims were prostrating all the way from Kham to Lhasa.
The pass we drove over on the way to Namtso Lake. This is about 16,000 feet.
Namtso Lake, the highest lake in the world, in all it's glory.
I could make a career of yak portraiture.
For some reason the restaurant we ate at at Namsto had a couple of yak heads sitting outside. They lied about the oxygen.
SWEET TEA in the nomad tent.
This is where we spent the night.
There are always prayer flags on the high mountain passes.
We put goggles on some small children that were playing on the streets of New Tingri.
Everest, or Qoomolongma, at nightfall. Thank-you Miles for being my tripod.
On our way to the Nepali border. We drove beneath this waterfall. In a bus.
Drom, the terraced metropolis on the Nepali border.
