Ballet inside the Water Cube

Perhaps the only way I can get Scott to go see a ballet performance is if it's inside of a cool venue. Today we watched a performance of Swan Lake inside of the Water Cube. Post-Olympics the Water Cube has been remodeled to include a water park and has been equipped with lighting and staging to house performances like Swan Lake.

You're probably wondering how it's possible to perform a classic like Swan Lake in a swimming venue. Easy! Add two stages and add synchronized swimming and diving as part of the performance. It definitely made it more interesting for those who wouldn't typically enjoy ballet (like Scott). My only issue with it was that the diving and the main dancing stage were on opposite ends of the pool so your head had to do a quick 180 degree turn sometimes to follow the action. I'm not sure if ballet purists would approve but we were happy to see the inside of the Water Cube for the first time while becoming a little more cultured.

A new view of Beijing

Unfortunately it's rare to have a clear day in Beijing. After a little rain and a little help from some wind, Scott and I got a wonderful view of Beijing's cityscape from the CCTV tower located in the southwest corner of Beijing. I was surprised at how big Beijing is. From the street level, it's easy to forget that you're only seeing a little bit of the city at a time. The top picture is a view from the tower facing East toward Tiananmen Square and the bottom picture faces the Northwest part of Beijing which includes the Summer Palace.

Year One

It's been exactly a year since I arrived in Beijing and time has certainly flown by. As part of my resolution for the first year I said I'd try to find some sort of routine and I'm happy to report I found a few things.

Scott and I enrolled in an evening Chinese language class since it became evident that we'll need to learn to speak the language if we're going to be here longer. I'm restarting from the very beginning to build up my basic language skills. I haven't been meeting with my language partners as regularly as we had liked because their schedules had gotten busy and as a result any language skill I had at one point has disappeared. You could say I'm in the UN of Chinese classes - every one of the six students enrolled comes from a different country and similar to the real world the American (me) speaks the fewest number of languages. We have an older gentleman from Portugal, a girl from India, a girl from Russia, a guy from Germany, a guy from Iraq, and of course our teacher from China. English for the most part is the unifying language. Also, I'm continuing my online accounting classes through San Diego community college.

The other new development is I got a part-time job helping a lady in my apartment complex create teaching material for her English language school. Her material of choice are Goosebumps books and Disney movies. I'm not sure how Goosebump books are appropriate for 6-7 year old kids but what do I know. For part of the job I had to listen to a recording of a real class and I have to say that maybe it was a good thing that I haven't been able to find a teaching job with elementary school kids. I'm not sure I could handle them.

My plan is to post pictures from the past year but the process is taking longer than I want it to. I think most people consider me a patient person but I just can't get myself to babysit uploading pictures. Maybe for this year, I won't post an entire year's worth of pictures at one time.

Dalian

Before everyone else in China decides to travel for the mid-Autumn/National Holiday vacation, we went to Dalian for an extended weekend. Dalian is a coastal city located on the northeast peninsula of China next to the Koreas. I was able to find cheap airfares for $130/person roundtrip and we stayed at the Holiday Inn for $60/night including breakfast and internet. The Holiday Inn wouldn't be our first choice in the States but the ones we've been to so far have been nice. Yes, you can find cheaper rates at a Chinese hotel but we enjoy the comforts of a familiar US chain that's reasonably priced.

Dalian would be similar to maybe Portland in that it's a nice place to visit but if you're traveling from a foreign country it wouldn't be at the top of your list of places to go to when you have bigger cities like New York or San Diego with world-famous sites to see. Once occupied by the Russians and Japanese you can see their influence on the city's architecture and layout. We actually thought it was nicer than Beijing at least in the parts we saw. Their major landmarks are it's many squares which are actually circular. We stayed near Zhongshan Square where there were plenty of shops and places to eat (including Starbucks of course). The visit had to include a visit to the Pacific Ocean which I realize I took for granted when I worked at Scripps. After visiting the major cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Xi'an) I'd recommend Dalian as a place to visit.

Safety Last

What will never cease to amaze me is the risk Beijingers put their lives in everyday. I'll admit that Scott and I have picked up some of these bad habits like crossing 6 lanes of traffic where cars don't stop for you (maybe because their light is green and ours is red) so we stand in-between lanes with cars passing behind and in front of us; or driving around on Scott's bike without a helmet. These are minor though compared to the what I see at least on a weekly basis. Most recently, I had a repairman hanging out of the window of my 22nd floor apartment.

We have individual air conditioning units with the vents of course leading outside. One unit wasn't pumping any cool air (sorry, brothers) and so we finally had someone take a look at it. I didn't realize that looking at the air conditioning unit meant looking at the outside portion from a 5-inch ledge. First for the repairman to even get outside, he had to completely remove the 1'x4' window segment that swung open. He then had to go through this 1'x4' opening and step out onto a 5" ledge. For security he tied a thick rope around his waist and tied the other end to the guest bed and the room's heating coils. I sat on the bed for extra leverage but since it was only me and a girl I hired as a translator, I'm not sure what we would've done if he fell. Luckily nothing happened but I don't think you'll ever find someone step out onto a 5-inch ledge on the 22nd floor of a building with only a rope around his waist in the States. A few days later I look across the street and see men without any security ropes walking across a ledge of the hotel. Granted their ledge was thicker but still, I don't think safety was the first thing on their minds.



Road safety is another one that shocks me. It's one thing if they all decide to not stay in their respective lanes while driving but at least you'd think they'd be wearing appropriate seatbelts inside. Nope! I saw a mother carry her baby on her lap in the front seat and while traveling on the highway (maybe going 40mph) there were kids standing out of their car's moonroof. Aside from the one-child policy, maybe lack of safety precautions is the way China is controlling its population…