Hot, Steamy Beijing days...

Photos

Well, late last week I thought I would have nothing of interest to share with you this update week, so I went out and had extra big adventures. No, I didn't really, but being China, something unexpected was waiting just around the corner for me.

On Saturday, I jumped at the invitation of two friends to join them on a day trip out of Beijing. We were originally going to a mountain reserve about 80km outside of Beijing but the buses took so long (1 and a half hours to reach halfway) we wouldn't have had time to get up the mountain. We got off the bus and had a bit of an adventure finding the bus station to our new destination. We found ourselves in the Huairou district which is quite large and modern, but had the feel much more of a rural city. It was quite nice actually, but I was SO glad I was with my friends as they both speak fluent Mandarin (Annie is Taiwanese, and Charlotte studied Chinese) and it still was very hard to find what we were looking for.

Walking through the city toward the bus station, a man sitting on the road looked at us as we passed and said something rather loud to his friend. Both Charlotte and Annie both turned around and made very indignant noises at him. Annie replied, "She's my friend!" (I think) and we walked off. I shot him a dirty look for good measure, but then hurried to catch up and whispered "What did he say?". He apparently said, "Look, they brought a translator" which understandably offended them both! I thought to myself later that I wonder what people say about me quite audibly but I don't understand. It seems ironic and a bit sad that it's the people who have made the effort to learn the language and love it here are the ones who actually have to bear the brunt of the few rude people and their careless remarks.

Anyway, having found the bus station eventually, we made our way to our Plan B, a kind of Buddhist temple "theme park", which wasn't as cheesy as it sounds. It was originally a famous and revered Buddhist temple. It was quite beautiful actually but did have it's quirks...

Such as the snail thing. It's formal name is the "Temple of Magnificent Light" but it's always been known as HongLuo Xi, the Red Snail Temple. There are these snail structures lying about the place and the story goes that two princesses of the Jade Emperor were incarnated as red-glowing snails (as you do) and guard the temple. What I want to know is, why snails? If I was a princess I would turn into a tiger or something. What exactly can you protect as a snail?

The temple grounds are surrounded by beautiful forest, which made it lovely and shady. And humid. I'd say it was about 95% humidity. So, while exploring we took the turn off the a second temple, and the path started to go up. And up and up and up. The temple, as it turned out, is on top of a mountain (so we got our mountain climb after all). By the time I got to the top, I was DRENCHED in sweat. I mean, I was beyond dripping, I looked like I'd had a shower with my clothes on. It was so humid, and still over 30 degrees, and at the very least I thought when I reached the top that I could look forward to a cool breeze but there was not breath of air up there. Looking at my book now I see it says that if you want to see the second temple "you'll need to prepare yourself for a pilgrimage up a tough flight of stairs" which I swear appeared was not there when I read the page the first time. Annie and Charlotte breezed up the hill but boy, did I struggle. It was that point that I decided that I needed to go back to the gym. A lot.

Another quirk was the garden of 500 arhats, or 'enlightened monks', that also guard the temple. Between the two red snails and the peace loving Buddhist monks, this is one heavily guarded temple... Described in the guide book as "dressed to impress", each arhat had a brightly coloured cape on (like the real temple monks of yesteryear) and the effect of hundreds of statues with orange or red capes on was quite impressive. Though, and I know it's so wrong, the jokes were SO easy. Like, each arhat was doing something slightly different, one was sleeping, one was happy, (grumpy, happy, bashful, sneezy, doc...)



Back to Beijing and the most satisfying shower of my life. And the electricity didn't even go out in the middle of it this time, bonus!

So, last Friday I joined the gym, which was an interesting experience as gym lingo wasn't covered in my survival training. I called Annie to interpret over the phone, bless her, and joined for the year at a rather reasonable Y1099 (AUS$170-ish). That was all fine, and after only a short session as I needed to get to work, I managed to ask for a locker all on my own by repeating the word for lock and miming a, well, locker! They sold me a combination lock and the lady walked me into the changing rooms and pointed to a locker. Proud of myself I left a towel there as I didn't really have anything else, and left.

Flash forward to Monday morning: resolved to get back into shape after my pathetic mountain climbing effort I go to the gym before work, go to the changing room, and my locker is open and empty. Like robbed. Completely exasperated (it was first thing Monday morning, I hadn't found my tolerant hat yet) I had to call poor Annie yet again and explain my stuff was gone from the locker. She spoke to the man again and as it turned out, lockers are only for the day and are BROKEN INTO AND EMPTIED AT THE OF EVERY DAY. I had to pay for a locker (which is actually what I thought in the first place, but when they sold me a lock and "gave" me a locker I figured it was included in the cost of the membership).

I then had to go through the rigmarole of playing language tag (now you look blank, now my turn, ok back to you etc.) and trying to properly get a locker. At this point, the man found a manager who spoke English to help me fill in the form and get a locker. I asked him if I could have my stuff back and explained what happened. He gave me the most quizzical look and said "So, you did not empty the locker at the end of the day?!".
No, I explain grimacing as nicely as I could, I didn't.
"Oh," he said, equally quizzically.
They did give me back my towel and lock which they neatly CUT OPEN and the lady took me to another locker in the changing room and gave me it's key this time (a good sign I felt).

Going back out I thanked the man for his help, and took advantage of having him there to ask a few more questions. I had seen a girl walk into the gym wearing a swimsuit under her clothes so I asked him if there was a swimming pool or sauna. He said no pool, but the "dry" sauna was next to the shower. Figuring that was why the girl was wearing a swimsuit, I asked if it was OK to wear a swimsuit in the sauna. He gave me another of his deeply quizzical looks and repeated "Swim suit?". I tried to explain swimsuit in a different way, to realise he understood what I meant, just not why I was asking.
"Why do you want to wear swimsuit?" he asked even more confused, but this time with a little amusement.
"No clothes then?" I replied sheepishly.
"Yes. No clothes," he said, definitely amused this time.
Yes, I did feel rather silly at that moment.