Adventure in Beihai Park continued

Here are more pics of our epic journey to Beihai Park back in September. That day we not only conquered land, but also water. We went around Behai Lake in our pedal-powered duck boat while ramming into innocent vessels.

What a sleek ship!

Working on our tan

Cost of duck boat rental was 60RMB / hr

Lunch at Google

I was invited to the Google Beijing office for lunch yesterday. There building is very near where I live in Wudaokou 五道口 in a commercial complex called Tsing Hua Science Park. Needless to say, it was very Google-like, with colorful hallways, lounges, some cubicles wildly decorated by stressed-out engineers. 

The highlight was definitely lunch. BJ Googlers eat in a canteen which felt like a high school cafeteria. There was a Chinese corner (many choices) and a Western corner (not so many choices). The quality of ingredients and way of cooking was quite high. I had duck & lotus root soup, abalone (???!!!) with tofu, fish, chicken, salad, yam, fruit....best lunch since coming to BJ!

Facilities and freebies in BJ office:

- all kinds of drinks

- all kinds of fruit

- snacks like chocolate, biscuits, cookies

- coffee, tea

- massage chair

- massage room with 3 tables & massuse

- gym with trainer

Adventure in Beihai Park

Here are some pics of our (me & Denis) trip to Beihai Park 北海公园 back in September. 

Here is Denis at the entrance of the park. That white tower on the hill is the White Dagoba. It was built by the 1st emperor of the Qing Dynasty in Tibetan style architecture to show his belief in Buddhism.

Here we are after climbing up the hill.

These guys like to stand on each corner of the pagoda roofs

Peace charms decorating the side of a incense cauldron 

This little man was having a blast firing cannons at invading tourists!

Denis and I finally found the fabled dew catcher statue. The story was that the emperor believed that drinking fresh dew every morning would allow him to live forever. That's Denis in the corner trying to catch dew droplets.

Hooters!

Ok here is the long awaited review of Hooters BJ. Made a trip here 2 weeks ago for my b-day dinner. Actually I have never been to a Hooters in the states, so this is a non-biased review.

Food - of course American style. Very nice chicken wings, a bit on the oily side but that's what you would expect right? I also had a philly cheese steak sandwich which was only ok as the bun was a bit soggy and the steak a bit tough.

Entertainment - every hour the girls get up in front of everyone and do a little dance. It's not very exciting as they don't seem to be having much fun. I imagine that in the States the girls would at least be pretending to go wild. Here's a pic:


Here's me with our waitress, hot stuff? Maybe next time....

Best of Beijing: A handicap-friendly city

In preparation for the Paralympics, Beijing has made a number of improvements in handicapped  accessibility, especially in the tourist areas. 

However, not all improvements were welcomed. Gardeners at Beihai Park 北海公园 realized the utter waste of space these public phones are, as everyone and their dog has a mobile phone. 

What better way to remedy this than to flowerize them!

Tsing Hua University 清华大学

Visited Tsing Hua University 清华大学 back in September. The school is located on the NW area of Beijing in the Haidian district 海淀区 (also where I live).

Tsing Hua is considered one of the best universities in China, together with Beijing University, they are like Oxford & Cambridge.

Here are some pics from when I rode my bike around the Northern side of campus. It's quite beautiful!


Cool sculpture


Cammo trees (yes they are real)! I wonder why they need to hide...


Old Tsing Hua building


There is even a park in the university!

What a nice park!


Students dancing in the park. This seems to be a popular pastime for Beijingers. In many of the parks, you will see a gathering of people practicing waltz, cha cha, swing and even the macarena! All while bad music blares from a 1990s stereo system. 

A soon-to-be Tsing Hua student's biology experiment

New favorite artist: 盧廣仲

Ok not a post about BJ but I love listening to 盧廣仲. I'm not very in-touch with pop music so bare with me if you already have been listening to him for the past year.

He is a Taiwanese singer / songwriter who picked up guitar cause he got into an auto accident in his 1st year of uni! I think his songs are really relaxing to listen too and with meaningful lyrics. Also his music videos are all over China MTV & Channel V.