the view from my window is typical of Beijing i think. There are high-rise modern apartment blocks, a shiny green glass office tower and a building site that seems to have lay dormant for the last two weeks. but when i woke up this morning and looked out of the window, the ground was covered in snow! so the view was slightly less grey. it was only half an inch thick, but meant that a) all of the taxis were full, b) the subway was absolutely rammed and c) the OAP Slo-Mo Tai Chi Regiment were not on parade. not that they should be barrack-bound for long, no one does organised snow clearing like the chinese. brighton and hove council take note!
hit a bit of a dry patch this morning work-wise, so i'm actually writing this out sitting at my desk in between reading about boring chinese contract law and reading a local litter reduction unfortunately titled 'BRING BACK TRASH!'
it's been a few days since i last wrote and i've seen a bit more of beijing. i went to a networking event at peking university and spent two hours trying to explain my (apparently quite complicated) plans for the future to a hundred different prodigal law students. met a 17-year old girl in her second year of university, reading for TWO degrees at the same time. it was a bit like meeting an oracle or shaman. nevertheless, she was mighty impressed that i'd been in a Student Union (read: infighting events committee) and so i talked it up appropriately. gave out some business cards to try and get some guanxi. got none back.
we did a lot of sightseeing at the weekend, the highlight of which was probably buying a traditional robe and then wearing it to the supermarket. it looked like this:
we also went to Tian. Square but that was a bit of a disappointment. just a square really! went to the forbidden city (not a city, more a decorated wind tunnel) and it looked like this:
also we went to the summer palace which was amazing - a giant park with a huge man-made lake. this sounds normal enough, but in true Beijing seemingly-normal-but-at-the-last-moment-completely-insane style, the next clearing we walked in to was FULL OF DANCING OAPs! there were hundreds of them all bopping around to the sounds of a crooner standing at the front. it was casual enough so we joined in but, in response to some subsonic cue that we must have missed, the OAPs suddenly moved into a line formation and started to dance choreographed dance in unison. a sort of maccarena meets the Cha Cha slide. needless to say, suddenly feeling very sheepish, we floundered in the sea of nimble oldies for a few minutes before breaking ranks and shuffling awkwardly away. we were delayed for a few minutes by this man's advances:
but we made it back to the hotel in the end.
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