Simatai Chang Cheng (Great Wall)

My friends, Wang Leyan and Wu Ceng, escorted us to Simatai Chang Cheng (Great Wall). Of the three sections of the Great Wall you can see in the Beijing area, Simaitai is, in my opinion, the most spectacular. With the help of Leyan, I hired a car and driver and off we went for the day. The weather was cooler and slightly rainy that day which was ideal since the previous week had been very hot and humid. Simatai is on a mountain ridge and the general feeling, when you are at the top, is that you are in an airplane with the valley far below. After our hike we had a nice lunch and drove back to Beijing.

-Having Leyan and Ceng as friends in Beijing made the trip extra special. Leyan met Hannah and I at the airport when we arrived and helped us get settled in at the University and they took us to restaurants and places that we never would have know of ourselves. Their help was very much appreciated.

Top Left: Wang Leyan and Wu Ceng

Top Right: Picture of the Great Wall from inside a tower.

Note: The main picture on The Riverlands blog (at the top of the page) is from Simatai when I first went there 11 years ago with another friend, Dong Qiang. Tourists are not allowed to walk that section any more as it is too narrow and dangerous.

Temple of Heaven Musicians

Here's a video of some musicians playing classical instruments. As with the singers they are just another group of people who get together and have fun.

Temple of Heaven: singing

Here's a short video of some singers at the Temple of Heaven Park

Tian Tan: The Temple of Heaven

One of our first weekend excursions was to the Temple of Heaven (Tain Tan). The Temple is amazingly beautiful but also a lot of the fun was going through the side entrance and seeing people enjoying their weekend by dancing, singing, and playing musiic.

Top right: A lady playing with a ribbon in the park.

Top leftt: Man writing calligraphy with water and a giant brush on the sidewalk near East Entrance to Temple of Heaven Park.

Bottom: The Temple of Heaven (and lots of tourists)

The Bird's Nest and Water Cube

One of my classmates told me Beijing is a architect's dream. They can design and build world class projects in relatively short periods of time as compared to other countries. The Olympic stadium and Water Cube are two examples. The day we went there the air quality was poor and it was very hot but it was very interesting actually be there.

Our Dorm

Here's a picture of our dorm. There's 10 stories. We were on the fourth floor and walked up the stairs 3-4 times a day. It was good exercise- and we needed to exercise to prepare for going to the Great Wall. Occassionally we were lazy and took the elevator.

BLCU Classes

We took an intensive class in Chinese language. Hannah was a beginner in Level A3. I started in a "C" level class but dropped to "B4" level the first day because it was too difficult for me. Two days later I dropped from B4 and ended up in B3 level which was just right. Class levels range from A-F and there are intermediate and advanced classes within those levels. We spent 30 hours a week in class and probably another 4-5 hours a day studying and preparing for the next day. We both learned more than 300 new words in Chinese (Average 25 new words a day. Many days we had to learn much more).

This was my second time at BLCU. Almost ten years to the day I was in the beginning level class there. It was fun to go back and see how the University has grown.

Top: Hannah at the entrance to our building, The College of Intensive Chinese Studies. (Making a "V" sign is very popular there when taking pictures. We have fun adopting that pose.)

Top left: My class. Zhao Laoshi (teacher) (blue shirt) is just right of me and Jiang Laoshi (teacher) (white & blue dress), our grammar instructor, is next to her. Both were excellent teachers. We also had two other teachers for listening and conversation classes. Students came from many countries including Sweden, England, Iran, Russia, Japan, Spain, South Korea, and Malaysia to mention a few.

Bottom: Speaking teacher Zhao Laoshi and student. She was very nice and very patient with us as we stumbled over the words and pronunciation in text we had to read outloud. The blackboard in the background is typical of our class work. Zhao Laoshi never spoke English and it was very rare for the other teachers to speak in English also.