We're not going to do daily sight seeing in Beijing, since we did that last time we were here. Yanmei is visiting with friends and family. However last night we did go to Tienamen square. Unfortunately they don't let people in at night anymore.
The place we live has a reveille at 7:55am everyday. I've never seen that before, but I've only stayed in international hotels in China before. Yanmei hasn't seen it either. It turns out there is a military barracks nearby and that is where it is from.
The other strange thing is the lock on the apartment. If you lock it from the inside it can't be unlocked from the outside, and if you lock it from the outside it can't be unlocked from the inside! We didn't know this and Yanmei went out for a “short” time and I ended up locked in the apartment for several hours. Yanmei suggested it might be like that to keep kids from going out. I don't like it, what if there was a fire?
Many buildings in the US don't have a 13th floor, the same is true in China, but there is also no 4th or 14th floor, 4 being an unlucky number, so our 15th floor apartment is actually on the 12th floor.
It is about a 3.5 hour flight from Taipei to Beijing. Our flight was uneventful, but when we arrived we disembarked onto the tarmac, which I thought was a little strange. In retrospect they must have wanted to get us down and out of the plane asap, because before we even cleared customs it started raining and there was lightning. By the time we got out the flight status boards were full of delays and cancellations, so we just barely made it. Lucky!
Yanmei has a friend, Amy, here who is letting us stay in her spare apartment. As I understand it, it is an investment property, and there is no one living here, so she is letting us use it for free, which is great. It is a pretty nice one bedroom apartment on the 15th floor of a 20 story building. There are several other similar buildings in the complex.
View from our apartment
Since I am a foreigner and I'm not staying in a designated hotel, I have to register where I'm staying with the local police within 24 hours of my arrival. Amy said she would come back in the morning to take us to the police station.
Yanmei and I went out to a local restaurant to have dinner. There was a TV playing a Chinese war movie based in ancient times. I kept glancing at it because I felt like the actors were familiar. Finally I recognized they were Jackie Chan and John Cusack. Cusack was the leader of a Roman legion that somehow got to China, and Chan was the leader of the Chinese army. Seems like an interesting premise, I wonder if it will be released in the US, or if it has been I've never heard of it. The name of the movie is DragonBlade, I will have to look it up when I get home. I didn't get to see how it ended.
Anyway, the next morning Amy came back and took us to the police station to register. There was a door there that had an English translation on it “Propaganda Office”. I wanted to take a picture of that, but I thought it might be frowned on, and since I was in a police station I skipped taking the picture. The registration went smoothly, although I couldn't understand anything that was said. It is so nice to have a native speaker to help me.
After that Amy dropped us off at the subway, and we took it to Peking University, Yanmei's alma matter. We met four of Yanmei's friends that she'd met at UC Berkeley. Three of them were visiting scholars, and the other still lives in the Bay Area, and just happened to be visiting Beijing at the same time as us.
After lunch we toured Peking University. It was familiar to me because last time we were here we toured it, but then it was frozen in January, now everything was green and in bloom. For Yanmei it was nostalgic. Lots of new construction she says. Also the school anniversary is coming up on May 4th, so she's planning on going to that and hoping to see some old classmates.
By the way the weather is quite pleasant here so far other than the storm when we arrived. I regret packing my jeans, I haven't worn them once, and it looks like I won't need them.
Sign above us says Peking University
-David
P.S. Internet access is slow here, so I'll be limiting the number of photos I upload for now.
We're flying to Beijing, China tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll have wifi access there so posts will probably be less frequent.
Today we met up with Yanmei's friend Amanda again. She has been a great host to us here in Taipei. As you can see I got a new hat. We happened to see a Roots store here, so I picked up that hat. It is an interim hat until I find a good one with a full brim.
David, Amanda and Yanmei in front of Taipei 101 tower
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