One Blonde in a Sea of Brunettes

Saturday September 4
This morning we ate breakfast at the delicious buffet in our hotel then headed off to the summer palace and had a great time just walking around and taking in the beauty of the park. They had build a huge boat made entirely of marble that obviously didn’t float but was impressive non-the-less. The lake around there was really nice too, lots of pink lotuses and lily pads. Most of us were pretty sore from the Great Wall but we struggled through it just because this place was so great! Some of the people trekked up the palace on the top of a really huge hill there and they said it was incredible, but honestly I didn’t feel like I could make it up there so several of us found a quite place to have a popsicle and people watch. Its so cute how all the older people do their taichi in these parks all over Beijing. Then we went to the zoo in the middle of downtown Beijing to see the pandas (strange place to see them I know.) The zoo was pretty unimpressive and completely packed with tourists. The pandas were definitely cute though.
    Afterwards we went to get lunch at the coolest restaurant. It was decorated in a very modern fashion and had a really big Buddha. The best part though was that they were holding a wedding at the same time! This wedding was really impressive. They had big cardboard cutouts all over the place of the couple and huge news cameras all over the place with big dishes of incredible food and  a really large tv projector of their wedding pictures (since they take them before the wedding.) The food we had there was really good too, we tried some duck in sweet sauce that was pretty surprising.
    Later we headed to the temple of heaven, which I had no idea how HUGE it is! Its almost as large as a small city! There were a lot of really incredible bridges, doorways and architecture.  I’m so glad we were able to go to this site because it really moved me. Though I overheard my professor say that not very many of the emperors used it very often, even in times of famine. What a shame. We also saw a man painting with water on the marble walkways. His calligraphy was so beautiful!
    That night we decided to head out to Houhai again since it was so fun the night before. We went to the same bar as before for the cheap drinks, then ended up walking to another bar that played flamenco music for similar priced drinks. This bar was really funny because it had a lot of posters of white girls acting badly. One was a picture of Brittany Spears getting out of a car with her goods showing, another was of Avril Lavene flipping off the camera with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
    When we left the bar and were dropped off by the taxi, Des and I decided to get a bite to eat before going to bed. On our way back from the connivance store we heard a crash behind us, and when we looked it was someone who had flipped over his moped and was lying face down on the ground. It was shocking and neither of us knew what to do. It was three in the morning and we were the only ones on the street. We both ran over to him and tried to see if he was alright or if he could sit up. Des ran back to the store to get some help, while I waited with him and cleaned the blood of his head with his shirt. I really tried to not touch his blood but I’m not sure if I did or not. About six cars passed by and didn’t stop to help even though I tried to wave them down. When one finally did stop it was a couple of guys blaring techno music. They were really helpful though, even if they didn’t speak any English. After a lot of the guys asking the drunk mopedist who they could call for him they finally decided, after our recommendation, to call the police. I couldn’t believe how long it took for them to even consider that, but at the same time they guy was bleeding everywhere and clearly needed an ambulance. I wish I knew more about why they were so concerned with calling the police but I have no idea. When the police arrived about fifteen minutes later they asked the guys a bunch of questions and we figured it would be alright to leave then. That was such a traumatizing experience that Des and I had to just stay up in order to not have any horrible nightmares. Luckily though Tom and Jerry was on tv and that lightened our spirits.