Beijing, China. What's Happening to Me: The Twenty-Ninth Day

I got up again to my new alarm clock - the sound of hammering below my window. It was very annoying, but I needed to get up anyway. I cooked eggs and turkey breast for breakfast and could not find the salt again. I watch some episodes of The Dukes of Hazard and then practiced on my instruments. Overall, it was a good morning. I am almost done with the second season of Dukes (which it all that I have) so I will have to start watching The Office or some of the movies next.

At 900 I went down to the lobby and met with my "peoples". The husband of the girl from my lab took me; she went back home to sleep. I found that a little strange. But anyway, I could never catch the name of the husband so from now on he will be referred to as "the husband". We walked to the subway station and rode it, with a transfer at line two, and then a few stations more until we got on a bus. There was some confusion on getting to the bus. We had to cross the highway, and the crossing was pretty poorly designed. In order to get to it, one had to duck under some barriers and go over the feeder road to get to one of the bus stops then one could get to the flyover walkway. We went there and then tried to find route 315. It took quite a few "askings" to find out where it was.

Once we got there we got onto the bus and luckily there were seats, although not together. So we sat. The buses on the routes I was on today were very jerky, it seemed to be pedal to the metal whenever they were accelerating and the same for the brake. We were on route ### (forgot the actual number) bus for a long while, maybe an hour. At one point we got seats together, but I gave mine to an older lady and stood for a while before the bus cleared out again, and I got to sit down. The seats that we ended up in for the rest of the ride were near the engine block and were very hot. One of the others sitting there moved to a cooler seat.

We got to our bus stop and looked for route 314. We soon found it and were on our way again, for another 30-40 minutes at least. We started getting into more rural areas. We passed a massive roundabout with a statue of a very important Chinese man on a horse on it. We started getting closer to the mountains and soon were in a valley. In this valley were the Ming Tombs: three of which have been excavated, ten of which have not along with other concubines' and princes' tombs that are undisturbed.

As we were going along in the bus I noticed that we seemed to be passing a ton of peach trees. It turns out the entire area was a peach orchard (except of course for those areas protected because they were tombs or had buildings). Throughout the entire venue, there were tons of people trying to sell peaches. They would get in your face at the Dingling Tomb. It was okay though, we made it without buying peaches.

At the station, we disembarked and walked to the ticket area and bought tickets. We then entered into the Dingling Tomb area. We walked around and saw some of the buildings and the foundations that buildings used to stand on before reaching the actual burial mound. This was built like a castle, a round one, and inside the walls was dirt. The walls made a bowl, and it was full of dirt. There was a garden on top of the mound. We walked around the walls to avoid people. It was absolutely beautiful. The sky was very clear for here. Almost as good as CS. There were mountains on all sides, and it was green, without much trash or people. We continued around the wall until we reached the tombs entrance. We walked down seven flights of stairs; it was a deep tomb and entered into the right hall. From there we walked through the burial room and saw the thrones that were put there. They were very well crafted. Even the doors in that place were extremely well crafted.

As people would walk by, they would throw money into the exhibits for some reason. There was a ton of money there. It looked like the people at the place just swept it into a big pile. It was not as big as I expected it to be. After a bit, we were headed back up to the surface again.

After Dingling we went and got the free lunch that was given to us for some reason (maybe it was part of the ticket price). It was okay but nothing great (it was not even as good as the cafeteria food here). We then walked to the Chingling Tomb. That is one that has not been excavated yet but had the largest entry way. We went and saw that which was pretty cool. There was a hall there that was absolutely beautiful. It was huge and gorgeous even without some of the decorations that had flaked away over time. There was also some jade work that was incredible.

After that, we were going to go see Spirit Way. Here we ran into a small hitch. We started walking and began to hear thunder. Then it started to rain - luckily, the husband had brought an umbrella. The rain cooled it off and made everything very sticky and humid. On one of the roads, a car pulled over and started telling us that we were going the wrong direction so we turned around. Then the husband thought that we had been going in the right direction so we turned back around. Eventually, we turned off the road and into a compound that the orchard keepers lived in and began asking for directions. We ended up taking the bus to the Spirit Way. It was route 67. Once on the bus, I started nodding off (I have been fighting fatigue for several days now). Once we got to Spirit Way, we entered in and walked the wrong way through it. It was still very cool though. The size of the carving was immense. It seemed that special care had been taken to make sure that all the people and creatures on the carving were males. We got to the load bearing turtle (see photos) and turned back the way we came to head back to the bus. It was awesome. It was impressive in a different way than any of the other things that I have been at. I still like the Summer Palace and the Great Wall, but this place was pretty amazing. Back at the bus stop, I saw an old lady who was picking up bottles and had her husky with her - it was a beautiful dog, very blue eyes. We boarded route 67 and headed for CAAS after that.

Back on 67 we rode for a while, passed the statute of a horse and watched the mountains get smaller. We eventually made it to a train station where we got on line 13. Line 13 is an above ground line for the most part so it was cool to watch the mountains get farther away until we could no longer see very far because of the buildings (no pollution impediment today). They got rain here in Beijing as well. On the line 13 train, there was a small child with her parents and she seemed to be very bashful. I would wave at her, and she would hide her face. It was made me smile.

We transferred and then transferred again until we got to Weigoncun (which by the way tries to auto-correct to concubine), our station, and got off. As we were going through the exit, there were some people who looked like they needed help with luggage, so I asked. We helped them carry it to the Beijing Institute of Technology, which is directly across the street from CAAS. It was nice to be able to help someone. After that, we crossed over the highway and through the gates. I tired to teach the husband how to do a proper handshake before he headed out to get food. I may have failed.

I headed back to my room and got water before going to the Sesh Wan place. They know me pretty well now. They know that I want the peanuts and the soybeans always, and the BBQ guy knows to open his cooler and show me his wares so I can pick out what I want. I had the peanuts and the soybeans, with some awesome fried rice, and three lamb ka-bobs and two gizzard ka-bobs. IT was so good, and it cost me 38 yuan, or 6.08 US dollars. I will be having that meal again, for sure. On the way back I bought a peach to go in my yogurt tomorrow morning and another watermelon (seeing as I am about to finish the one I started a day or two ago). My brothers would be so proud.

On the stairs, coming up with my H2O melon and peach, I ran into Vincent and another African guy. They were heading out to the Sesh Wan place - I told them that the fried rice was great tonight. The other guy said that he had seen a watermelon rind in the trash, and he knew that it was mine as it had the spoon marks in it. We had a good laugh at that.

Heading in, this is the Dingling tombs way.