Beijing, China. What's Happening to Me: The Fifty-Sixth Day

Saturday!! I got up at 800 this morning surprisingly well rested from my late night excursion. I talked to Madre and Padre and then worked on the paper for an hour or so. I got another 800 words before I had to leave to go meet the Scotts. I left here at 9:50 after playing the intro to "Stairway to Heaven" on my guitar (I know, pretty cliche guitar riff to learn). I got on the subway and made it there in good time. I watched so many of the cartoons with vegetables telling everyone what to do and not to do (on the subway). I got to the Chungwemen station at about 1037, and they were supposed to pick me up from the south east exit. When I got there I went to the exit labeled south east exit. When I got up to the surface, I waited and looked at the map. I notice almost immediately that this was not the southeastern most exit to the station even though it was called the south east exit. I waited there until 1107 with little hope before walking over to the other exits in the south east and checking them. There was no one at those places so I went back to the south east exit and waited for another minute before pulling out what Mrs. Scott had written. Showing it to the officer on duty there, she pointed in different directions as if asking directions and finally pointed me to the south and so I went to the south. I ask another guy who thought that it was near here, and we back pedaled for a little while before he could read the large sign on the tall building. This was the correct building and so I followed the instructions and went to the fourth floor. There I found waitresses - a good sign. I showed the paper to one of them and they took me to a room with two people in it. These people turned out to the the correct "personas". I talked with them for a while as it turned out that everyone else was late due to traffic. For some reason, they drove instead of taking the subway.

The man was Mrs. Scott's uncle, I think, and the other was an aunt of hers. They asked me some of the normal questions but not many of them. The uncle was the ambassador for China to "somewhere in Europe" for many years, and the aunt was a pediatrician. I told them how I knew Rachel and a few other things before the cousin of Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Scott's parents arrived. The aunt and uncle were the cousin's parents. We had quite a good meal - despite it being one of those very fancy places. They were surprised at how well I used chopsticks and equally surprised that Rachel could not use them very well. This was pretty funny.

The first courses were interesting: there was a fermented milk thing that was very strange along with some other unique dishes. I tried a duck foot. It was okay, but I would not go out of my way to eat it. Overall the food was very good. The tofu, of course, was excellent, and the Peking Duck was as well. Everything went well. The dessert was some of the red bean paste things that were also good. Mrs. Scott liked the ones that the name of them was something like "donkey rolling in mud".

After eating, the Scotts and I headed out to go to the Temple of Heaven. We were only two stations away from the temple so we walked the mile to it. We got there in a reasonable time and went in. On the walk over, I asked Mrs. Scott about the smoking when she was here 20 years ago. She said that it was worse then. On the question about cars, she said that there were no real cars around back then for people to drive. Everyone used bikes.

At the temple we walked about, me for the second time so I was kind of a tour guide. We all went in and saw the temple and stuff before going off where I had gone before and heading directly west of the temple area. This led us to some very nice pavilions and "natural" areas. We got some great photos there (I believe - I still have to look at them).

After that we went to the fasting palace which was directly south and saw everything in that. Then we walked east and got back onto the main way to see the echo wall and the marble plinth. After this, they made a potty stop, and I waited on a bench. Both Rachel and her mom have the life straw systems (water filters) which are very handy as they can just fill it up anywhere and get clean water. I ran out of water and got rather dehydrated. After we went through everything, we exited out of the same gate we had come in through and went over to the pearl markets (after I bought two frozen waters). At the markets I got David a shirt - I do not know how he will like it. There were no Mao shirts but there was an Obama one with him in the Guevara garb. I opted for the Chinese beer shirt. I haggled the price down from 120 to 40 yuan. I then went up a level and bought pearls. I walked about to see prices and look at different styles before buying them from one of the dealers. I haggled (all of this with Mrs. Scott help) the price of some stings from 30 yuan to 22 yuan and all of the fixings for them. I got 9 strands for 200 yuan (plus clasps and extra pearl string).

After this we all headed back to our respective places. The Scotts were on line five at the closest station, but I had to make another 2 transfers so after the first 2 stations I said goodbye to them and got back to the dorm.

There I did a few pull ups and then went to eat. The wind started blowing a ton as I left the dorm and when I finished eating at the Sesh Wan place, it was pouring. I ran for it and made it back alright, apart from a burning in my throat. I think that the pollution has gotten to me more then I thought it had as my lungs and throat do not feel great. I am very ready to work out and hope that this exposure to so much cigarette smoke and crap will not damage me permanently.