April 14, 2006
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How I got from Bejing to Shanghai to the Taipai:
The third day in Bejing was spent first the Summer Palace. Thatis a place I’d like to retreast to during the Summers! If you remember the beginning of the Godfather II when their at Lake Tahoe and there in this nice house next to the lake. Now imagine someting similar scaled up 10x and then you might get it. YSP.
The afternoon was spent looking at the best universities of China, Bejing University and (fill in english later) University. Bejing was Eastern in architecture and still had faculty housing that looked hundres of years old. The other university look like any other Ivy league school except there were a couple more Asians and they all spoke Chinese fluently.
We then went to the Temple of Heaven. It was a but of a juxtaposition to the other sites we had been to though. Apparantly, the admittance is free to locals. So part of the park was similar a community center where locals were playing cards, singing and dancing. The other part was historical. It had an echo room, which was really cool. You could yell into the wall and the sound would travel around clearly. There was also a stone of prayers where you could pray to the Gods, and it also had some cool geometric properties associated with it. YSP. There were also a bunch of sacrificial areas. Sacrifical rooms. And sacrificial storage areas. And sacrificial inspection areas. There
was finally the Music Arena where sacrifical music was performed in.
The fourth day started by visiting the electronics district. 6 floors of electronics. And pirahnas of people trying to sell you stuff. If you thought the people trying to pawn off cellphones at malls was bad. You ain’t seen nothing.
We then went to the Temple of the Dali Lama. It was amazing the Buddha figurines and sculptures there. I saw sculptures that were in the Ginuess Book of World Records. It was that big. And carved out of a single piece of sandwood. It was interesting to see many Westerners that had converted to buddhism come and pay respects. All colors held together by a single belief. It was refreshing to see.
