china 8 - beijing (6/19)

my last full day in china was spent at the 798 art district. neither alex (a harvard paddler who had stayed behind) nor i wanted to do anything super touristy so when he suggested an artists' colony i was immediately interested. even better is that soso recommended it as did both of my guidebooks.

alex and i met up late morning and spent the entire afternoon in the district just walking around. turns out we have a lot in common, so the afternoon went by pretty quickly. and after a few days of looking at the more traditional side of china, it was nice to wander around a more modern section of town.

the 798 art zone was originally state owned factories that were eventually converted to art galleries and studios. there was a ton of great and really varied art around: traditional water colors, calligraphy, oil paintings, pastels, sculptures, furniture, jewelry, mixed media, photography, graffiti... i love graffiti. seriously.

 

eventually we headed back to soso's apartment so we could all go out to dinner. soso and i had planned to get peking duck, but alex is a vegetarian (vegan, actually, but on vacation he's just vegetarian) so we nixed that. i asked soso to take us somewhere "a local would eat". so she took alex, me, and her friend edward (who does also speak english) to... a korean place. lol. i had a few dishes i've not had here before, but overall, i think the korean food here is better. :)

alex and i had talked about going to the lake district after dinner to see some of the nightlife, but it was pretty late after dinner already and the place was not too close. i also got the feeling that alex wanted to party a bit, and i was not so much interested in that. after walking him to the metro station i went back to soso's apartment where edward eventually joined us and we had a nightcap. it was a great end to my time in beijing.

funny story. when the three of us were talking after dinner, edward mentioned that when he was younger, his dream was to go to harvard. he was quite sad that it would probably never happen (he's married with at least one kid). coincidentally, when i was in taiyuan i'd received a few harvard trinkets: a jersey, a rubber bracelet, and a leather luggage tag. edward seemed so down that i went to my luggage and pulled out the luggage tag and bracelet and gave it to him. the luggage tag came in a really nice box too, so it was pretty fancy looking. edward was so surprised i had this stuff. he seemed pretty over the moon about it when i insisted he take them. (i did not give him the jersey, however, haha. it's a women's extra small and edward needs more of a men's extra large.) but i felt pretty lucky to have happened to have these things and was really happy to be able to possibly make his day especially since soso had been so kind to me.