Beihai Park

08/08/13

Today we were up nice and early in order to get a health check. We met the other teachers at headquarters and set off in the school mini-van. It took about an hour to get to a medical centre which is set up especially for visa health checks. After having our picture taken we were sent off individually to a number of rooms. Each room was for a specific test and it probably sounds odd but I found it really exciting. It was sort of like Halloween rhyming but instead of being given money, they were poking and prodding you. 

The eye test was fairly standard, I didn’t even have to take my contacts out and I only read two letters before he signed the form and send me to the next room. Here I had a chest x-ray which was pretty cool and super efficient. The next test was an ECG, so I went in, lay down and before I knew it this little Chinese woman was whipping my top up, pushing my bra off and sticking all kinds of things to me. That was an experience to say the least. The next room also involved a Chinese woman pulling my top up, this time for an ultrasound. I’ve always wanted one but without the actual having a baby bit so this was a dream come true. She squirted the jelly on and moved the little stick thing up my side and over my ribs. While there wasn’t anything to look at it was still pretty fun. The last thing on the list was a blood test which was extremely quick and yes mum, I did see the needle coming out of a sealed wrapper. 

Once the health check was out of the way we headed back to the apartment and as it was still early we decided to head back to Beijing to check out Beihai Park. Apparently this was the former palace of the great Mongol emperor Kihlai Khan and a back garden for the subsequent Yuan dynasty emperors. To be honest, I just thought it was a park with a lake we could sit by but I was pleasantly surprised, especially by the Nine Dragon Screen, a 5m-high and 27m-long spirit wall which was super colourful and one of only three left in existence in China. 

Chillin' like a Villain

The Nine Dragon Screen

The lake

Close up of a Dragon

Whities!

There were loads of these little hidden paths in the park

A river boat

Massive dragonfly

After dandering the length of the lake we exited and decided to walk back to the Tian’anmen Square subway. Somehow we ended up in a really traditional backstreet which was actually really nice. The houses were pretty old and built practically on top of one another but the street was lined with trees and of course, we were the only whities about. 

Despite being worried that we were lost we left the street and ended up coming out at the Forbidden City which was so brilliant because there wasn’t a tourist in sight. In fact, there wasn’t anyone about. The place was completely deserted so we followed the moat round to the entrance gates where we took some more snaps of the Forbidden Palace (this time on a nice sunny day) and headed home via the subway. 

The moat

  

Umbrellas to keep the sun away - standard!

My favourite picture!

Despite some seriously annoying pushing and shoving while getting on and off the subway, a stupid child punching me in the backside in an attempt to get past and lots of people staring it was a good, sunny and smog-free day in Beijing! When we got home we headed back to Wanda Plaza, had a Pizza Hut and went back to Carrefour to buy some more things for the apartment. We decided to take the plunge and buy a meat cleaver for all the cooking we plan on doing but apparently you can’t just buy meat cleavers. A shop assistant came to unlock the knife cabinet and with hand signals conveyed that he needed to see ID. Rory showed him his driving license but then he called over another worker and another and eventually we were surrounded by seven smiling Chinese boys who couldn’t speak a word of English. Eventually we realised that they might need to see our work visa so we gave them that and soon enough they had taken our name and we were the proud owners of a £2 chopping meat cleaver thingy. It’s good to know that if anyone ever hacks us in to tiny pieces they’ll be able to trace the knife to the store and to the person who did it! And I have some American friends who think the gun control in their country is too strict – try coming to China, you can’t even cut your dinner without a background check!