Greetings everyone!

I'm going to fit in one more post before we head off to Xi'an, and hopefully I will be able to post there as well, but not telling how much free time we will have. Our train leaves at about 6:50 tonight and is an overnight train, so we should get there bright and early tomorrow morning.



So picking up where the last post left off, I slowly recovered Friday and kind of took it easy most of the day. We had our closing ceremony at 4pm, which consisted of a couple of speeches from some of the residents, as well as some comments by Dr. Wong (the lady in charge here) and Dr. Strobel, as well as two of our classmates. We received a nice packet with information about CMU.



We were given about a 30 minute break before the closing banquet. After Peter gave the opening toast, we were free to start eating. The food was much better than what we have been getting in the dorm previously, and luckily some of our classmates went out and bought some pijou (beer) before dinner. So as is the custom in China, there were many toasts to go around, resulting in mass consumption of beer.



After dinner, a small group of us decided to go to our local beer joint, the Easy Dream Bar (Laura & Caraleigh had not been there). We hung by ourselves for a while, but then decided to invite Jojo over to have a drink with us. She declined the drink but did sit and chat with us for a while. She is quite and interesting lady and speaks very good English.



Saturday morning, Laura and I decided to head to the sports park just south of the campus here to watch the track and field activities that the medical students were participating in. It was quite an elaborate event, but we were only able to see the opening ceremony.



When we got back to the dorm, we meet up with Lindsey & Caraleigh, and we all headed up to Beihai park. This turned out to be about a 4 hour ordeal. We started at the south gate and visited Tuan Cheng (the Round City) which houses Chengguang Hall and a white jade statue of Sakyamuni from Myanmar. Supposedly you can see damage to its arm from Allied forces during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, but we weren't allowed to get very close, and could not take any pictures.


View Larger Map
(The link isn't working so well... Beihai is the area just north west of the area on the map, you can drag to see it. It has a long vertical north/south lake, with a island in the south park)

Next we headed north to Jade Islet and to see the White Dagoba which is the centerpiece of the park. We had a pretty good view of Zhonghai Lake, as well as the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park. After walking around a bit more, we decided to rent an electric boat ride around Beihai Lake. Somehow we ended up with one of the slower boats and decided to head in after getting a few more pictures.





A short ferry ride took us to the North shore of the lake and on to Jiulong Bi, the Nine Dragon Screen. This is a 5m x 27m spirit wall with colored glazed tiles of, you guessed it, dragons. Right next to this was Xitian Fanjing, another temple with the past, present and future Buddhas. This one was unique in that it contains eight golden effigies on both sides including Tantric statues.



We were all starving by this time, so we decided to head to Fish Nation (seemed like the safest place close by for Laura). We had wonderful food there, and Laura had fried food for the first time in over 3 weeks! (Fish & chips, of course). The hostel that Lindsey & I are staying at was on the way here, so we were able to stop by and see the outside.



We tried unsuccessfully to find a vintage t-shirt store that is in Lonely Planet, but had an interesting trip down a hutong that is being rebuilt. We headed to a large bookstore at Xidan next, but Laura & Caraleigh decided to head back as it was getting close to time for Mass. Lindsey & I looked around for a bit, but then had to search for about 15 minutes for a cab.


(Laura got separated from us on the very crowded subway)
We got back shortly before 6pm, and around 6:30, Yang came to pick Lindsey & I up for dinner. We were supposed to go with Yang and his girlfriend, but she couldn't make is so he invited Anna to come with us. We headed north to the Olympic park area, near where Yang lives, he took us to one of his favorite local places to eat dinner. We were the only white people there, so he said that was how we could tell it would be good :) He was definitely right, it was one of the best meals we have had here so far.




(Me, Lindsey, Yang & Anna after dinner)

Next, he drove us around the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, so we could see them lit up at night. While I wasn't able to get a good picture of the Bird's Nest, I did get to stop and take good pics of the Water Cube, lit up in an amazing blue light. We weren't able to get too close because they have very tightened security around there, but we did find an opening in the fence where they were allowing people to take pictures.





Finally, Yang took us to see the National Theater, just west of Tiananmen Square. I had seen this from a distance during the day, but it was much more amazing at night. There is a large pond surrounding the front, and the only way to get in is a walkway that goes under the water. Unfortunately we could not go in because it was too late.



I have been taking it easy today, packing and preparing for our long train ride. We are heading off to Beijing Xi (the West train station) in about 2 hours to head out to Xi'an.

I hope everyone is doing well and hope to hear back from everyone. Thanks to everyone who is reading, and special thanks to those who are commenting.

再见,
Adam

Rain in Beijing

(Cloudy skies)

Hello everyone, I'm back! Sorry there has been such a delay between posts, but I'm just so busy here, and I don't have my own computer, so I'm having to borrow one, which proves to be difficult when so many other people are in line. And please leave comments so I know people are actually reading this (thanks to those who are still leaving comments).

For the last week, it's been really crappy weather in Beijing. Apparently this is highly unusual, as it is normally very dry here, but our sight seeing was hampered last weekend and yesterday due to rain storms.



On Sunday, Lindsey and I decided to try and go to a couple of museums since it was raining so much. After a very late start, we headed to the Imperial City Exhibition, which is rated one of the top 5 museums in Beijing in my Lonely Planet book. Unfortunately, that part of the museum is undergoing renovation (as is much of Beijing), likely in preparation for the Olympics. So all we were able to see was an exhibit on ancient Greece and a photographic exhibit downstairs. While it was interesting, we were a little disappointed that the main exhibition hall wasn't opened.



After this, we wandered around for a bit before heading to Wangfujing. The subway stop deposited us at right at the next museum on our schedule, the Beijing Paleolithic museum. This is located inside the Oriental Plaza which is a big western style shopping mall, so Lindsey was pulled in the shopping direction, while I hit up the museum. It was quite small, but interesting, with several animal bones and stone tools discovered at the site where the mall was built. The original excavation was preserved in the middle of the exhibit.





After meeting up with Anna, Jen and Tanner, we east towards Purple Haze, a Thai food place that we had heard good things about. Upon exiting the subway, it was raining much harder, and we had about a 3/4 mile walk. The place was tucked down a small alley and it took us a while to find, so we were thoroughly soaked by the time we got there. But luckily it lived up to the hype and we had a great dinner.



On Monday, we started at Beijing Children's Hospital, the most well known hospital for kids in China. The place was unbelievably busy and we started of with the Respiratory department. The residents presented us with several case reports that were somewhat interesting, but unfortunately we weren't able to see many of the patients that morning.





Monday evening, we had another get together, this time with the TCM students at CMU. They had two groups that sang for us, and had 3 students perform Tai chi. Three of our students gave presentations, and Lindsey gave a great one about life in America.





On Tuesday morning, we were with the Hematology department and visited the wards. It was pretty sad to see all of the little kids on chemotherapy with no hair, but reassuring when they told us they have about the same cure rates that we do. And most of the children seemed very excited to see the foreigners.

We went to the Beijing Military Museum during lunch since it was just a couple of subway stops away from the Children's Hospital. The museum was much larger than we expected, and we were only able to see about half of it. Of what we did see, it was quite clear the level of control that the government has on the information that gets out. There was obviously nothing about the incident on 6/4/1989, because according to them, it didn't happen.







Tuesday night we went to a gokart place to the north east of the city. The karts seemed to go way faster than any I've been on back home, and we had a lot of fun. They sold beer upstairs, and let us drive afterwards, which seemed a little bit unsafe, but luckily nobody was injured.





On Wednesday we rounded in the PICU and NICU. The facilities were similar to most we have seen in Beijing...crowded and very hot. But the kids were again in good spirits and seemed very excited to see us.

Wednesday afternoon we went to Chaoyang Park and found the Hamster Balls. As you can see from the pictures, they were a lot of but very tiring. They allow you to stay in for about 10 minutes before you run out of oxygen, since they are completely sealed up.







Thursday we headed to Tongren Hospital, known mostly for its Ophthalmology and ENT departments. In the morning we were with the endocrinology department and learned about diabetes in China. Obviously the incidence of type 2 is much lower here as they is less of a problem with obesity. The afternoon we split up into two groups and I went with the ophtho department. The part of the hospital we visited was for VIP patients (those who could pay more money) and was very nice. We were able to watch a little bit of LASIK suregery, and they were just breezing through the procedure with about 20 patients lined up outside of the OR.







By the end of the day at the hospital it was raining, so we decided to head back to the dorms and postpone some of the park activities to this weekend. That evening we had reservations at Makye Ame, a Tibetan restaurant (Since we aren't able to go to the Lhasa). Lindsey, Anna and I left here around 5:30, and took a cab to the subway, with a plan to stop by the Silk Market on the way, so they could shop. Unfortunately for them, it was rush hour, and the subway was ridiculously crowded, so much so that there were subway workers standing at the doorways to the cars, literally shoving people in so enough people fit. We were crammed in like sardines, and didn't get to the area until about 10 minutes before dinner.





When we got to the place, the menu left something to be desired at first, and we thought about leaving after the other 5 people in our party showed up. But when they arrived, we decided to go along with the plans, and we were very glad we did. I got Sharpa Chili Chicken and fried vegetable rolls which I shared with Lindsey, and it was amazing, albeit very spicy. At the end of dinner a group of singers came out and sang what was presumably some traditional Tibetan music. And of course, we all had to try the yak butter tea... yummy. It tastes like melted blue cheese.







Today was our last day in the hospitals, and our last day of medical school for that matter. The Sharpa Chili Chicken caught up to me around 9:30am, so I head to head back to the dorms (luckily the hospital, YouAn Hospital, was right across the street, so that was no problem). This afernoon/evening we are having our closing ceremony and banquet, and we are heading to the train station Sunday afternoon for a 12 hour ride to Xi'an, 西安. I'm not sure what our internet situation will be there, so I might not be able to post again until the 1st.

I hope everyone is doing well back home and I miss you all. Please leave some comments so I know that someone is reading this (thanks to those who are commenting).

再见,
Adam

Finally, the Forbidden City

This week has been very busy, and Thursday, we started out at a new place, Anzhen Hospital, which took us about 90 minutes to get to. The day was pretty exciting, as we started out with a cardiologist who had done some training in Galveston (what a small world). In the afternoon, we went around the pediatric cardiology wards and were able to listen to a bunch of murmurs.



We had a long lunch break, and we were already in the northern part of Beijing, so we decided to walk up and see the Olympic park, with the National Aquatics Center and the National Stadium, or Bird's Nest as it has come to be known. They are both very impressive structures, but we weren't allowed to get very close from the direction we came.





A group us us decided that we would take off on Friday, and try to fit in some more sight seeing. So we got up early and headed to the Yonghe Temple, 雍和宮, known as the Lama Temple, one of the holiest Buddhist temples in China. The place was very impressive, topped off with a statue of Buddha 18 meters tall (that's about 60 feet) carved from 1 piece of sandalwood.



After this, headed southwest to the Confucious Temple & Imperial College. This primarily contained rows upon rows of tablets with inscriptions of the names of those who had mastered the philosophy and completed the final test which consisted of spending 3 days in a room measuring 1.5 square meters. According to my book, those who didn't pass either died or went crazy. But the centerpiece of the temple is at the west end, where I believe the remains of Confucius are.







We were getting hungry by this time, and I found a British owned place nearby in my book called the Vineyard (seemed like it would be safe for Laura). It took us a while to find as it was tucked away in a hutong off the main road. The food there, while not local cuisine, was quite delicious.



Lindsey and I went to Ditan Park, while Laura and Caraleigh went to Olympic Park, as they had not seen it the previous day. There wasn't anything too exciting at Ditan, but it was a nice place to sit down and relax for a bit and I was even able to get in some exercise!





We meet back up with them in a hutong near the Drum & Bell towers. By this time it was close to 5pm and we only had time to see one of the towers so we chose the Drum Tower, which had been used as a clock for the city in times past. After walking up a very steep set of stairs, we reached the top for an amazing view of the city. At 5pm we went back in the tower and watched a brief performance on the drums.







Between the two towers was a little bar, naturally called the Drum & Bell Bar, so we stopped by for a couple of beers. Afterwards, we headed off to Sanlitun to find the Tree, a pizza and beer joint that most of our friends have been to and raved about. While the food was amazing, the atmosphere of the place left something to be desired as it was very crowded (as is everything in Beijing) and smoking (where is the smoking ban!?)




(on the way to the Tree)

Saturday morning we woke up early to finally go see the Forbidden City. While we were there right after the gates opened, it was still one of the most crowded places we have visited so far. And at almost a complete square kilometer, we had a lot of walking to do. The bad part is that it is going over some extensive renovations and we weren't allowed to go into the centerpiece, the Hall of Supreme Harmony. However, we were still about to spend about 3+ hours exploring all of the other numerous halls and palaces.







After this, we decided to go to Grandma's Place, a small restaurant that Lindsey had really wanted to go to. Even though we have been eating too much Western food lately, this was one that will have to be repeated. They serve Western style breakfast all day, something that I have not had in over 3 weeks.

Next, we headed north to Jingzhao Park. This park contains a large hill that was created from all the dirt that was removed around the Forbidden City to create its moat. Upon climbing the top of the hill, there is an impressive 360 degree view around the city, with all of the Forbidden City visible to the south. While it was very hazy, it was still quite an impressive sight to behold.



One of the most surreal moments of the trip came Saturday night when eight of us headed to Tim's Texas BBQ for Aggie Muster with the Beijing A&M Club. While it wasn't celebrated in the traditional way of Muster, we all got together and had some very good barbecue, along with ice cold beer.







Today we area heading to Behei Park, just northwest of the Forbidden City.

Photos coming soon!

再见,
Adam