Blogs from Haidian district, Beijing, China, Asia - page 16

this is the first time to beijing .,i went to the Wangfujing Street first and then to the forbidden city ,the photo here is my mother in the church square , you can see the blue sky and green trees , so i think it's more beautiful than i thought before . We will hold 2008 Olympic Game , hope friends frrom every country can join us... read more

"We're all goin' on a ... summer holiday". Now this is a place where I could happily spend my summer holiday. The Palace began construction in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) but it was extended continuously over the years. By the time of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), it had become a luxurious royal garden providing royal families with rest and entertainment. In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi embezzled navy funds to reconstruct it for her own benefit, changing its name to Summer Palace (Yiheyuan). She was an interesting character. She is known as 'The Dragon Lady' and no I'm not talking about my mother-in-law. She apparently wasted China’s entire military money turning the palace into a luxurious playground. What a dragon lady! spending the kid's inheritance like that. At the same time the Japanese were spending gazillions building ... read more

The heat that we had in July, and which abated for the first half of this month, is coming back. The sky today is blue, but not the crystal-clear blue you get after a good storm. If you look to the west, sometimes you can see a temple on the mountain; if you can, it means the pollution levels are relatively low. Today, you could not see the mountain. At the horizon, the sky faded to an ozone blue-beige. When I woke up today my throat felt very scratchy. My day: 7.50 Woke up. Blearily had a shower in my ensuite. Got dressed. 8.15 Met the others and cycled to breakfast. Had pork dumplings and eggy bread. 8.40 Got back to the dorm. Checked emails, read and generally faffed. Got ready to go. 9.20 Left for ... read more

The Thames is flooding, and half of Oxford is underwater. Luckily not the expensive half, though. I heard from Will Sweet, who took seven hours to go from Oxford to Wales for a party and had to drive through a foot of water at one point. On the BBC website, I saw a picture of Newbury station with a good amount of water completely covering the tracks in between the platforms. The predominant weather here: warm and wet (average 32C, 70% humidity). It feels like you're living inside a mist-sprayed greenhouse. I've sent a few people postcards this week. I've also begun the slow process of making notes of all of last year's Materials course. That's right: it's pre-emptive finals revision. I am that bored in the lab. I feel a moral obligation to be there, ... read more

The past week: Saturday 7th July Lewys was supposed to meet someone in his department - who, we found later, had been too lazy to turn up - so April and I went to Tiananmen square for a look around. We saw the big portrait of Mao on the Tiananmen, and the Mao mausoleum (built against his wishes as a power ploy by a wannabe-successor) and marvelled at the sheer communist pomposity of the place. It's easy when you don't understand very much of the significance. I wondered if Chinese people come to London and think the same things about Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster, but to me the inhuman scale of Tiananmen square and the modern buildings built around it showcases the vapid idealism and inhuman scale of modern Chinese architecture, whereas London is ... read more