After the games on Saturday, I went home, took the subway around the city just to see new parts of it, and changed money (Finally! I've lived off of 200 RMB, which is like $35). We relaxed at home that evening, got up, went to church, and then saw the city for real. I've had this planned for weeks. I've been locked up in the part of Beijing that I live in for the whole time I've been here, and I was itching to go out, so I did! The area around the Forbidden City is packed with stuff to do and see, and I covered...oh about a sixth of it on Sunday. You can spend a ton of time there. The first place I went to was the Drum and Bell Towers, which were used to house a big bell and a bunch of big drums that were used for timekeeping in the Qing dynasty and several other periods. Here are some pictures!
This is the stairway that leads up to the drum tower. You can't tell all that well but it's VERY steep and it made for some good exercise.
This is just one drum of about 25-30. They have a mechanism inside that's on a cycle. A ball is sent through these tubes inside every 14.4 minutes and when the ball gets to the end, it hits a mechanism that hits the skin of the drum and makes a REALLY big noise. I believe that's how it works, but I just got that from reading the signs, not from an actual tour guide, so I may have misunderstood it.
The towers are so tall that you can see the entire south side of the city from the drum tower and the north/west side from the bell tower!
This is the huge copper bell that gets rung on a cycle as well. It was forged a lot of times but they kept getting it wrong! The Emperor said that if it was not forged properly within 80 days, all of the smiths in the city would be killed, so the daughter of one of the coppersmiths worked with her father to get it done. As they were about to finish casting it, she fell in and was killed, and the bell is named in her honor. Aw.
After the towers, I went to the Nanluogu Hutong, which is famous for being home to Beihai and Hohai parks. Both parks have lakes and waterways in them, and they were absolutely beautiful. There were tons of streetfood places and cool little alleyways. For everyone who's been to Israel, it's JUST LIKE the Old City of Jerusalem, just with a Chinese flavor to it, combined with the boardwalk in Eilat. It was like medicine for the soul.
Here's the entrance to the little alleyways that culminate in the lakefront.
We're almost there!
Here I am at the lake. There were all kinds of people walking around. At night it was beautiful because it was all lit up, people were dancing, the breeze was blowing, the sky was clear.
I'm learning a ton about parenting. I don't watch parents do it, but I see the effects of good and bad parenting every day for sure. There are a lot of kids here that I referee in soccer who are just about the brattiest kids you could imagine. I'm sorry for making this a long blog post, but I need to tell you about one case today. We finished our games early and were just hanging out playing basketball with soccer balls, and this kid was kinda throwing balls at me every now and then, and after a little while of asking him to stop, I had to be pretty firm with him, because I'd ask him to stop and he'd just laugh it off. He kicked a ball at me when I was trying to teach another kid something, and even though I shouldn't have gotten angry, I felt that he needed to be talked to. You know how you have your "please stop" voice and then you have your big boy voice that you discipline children with? The big boy came out to recess today. The kid kicked the ball at me, I grabbed him by the shoulder, he kept smiling and laughing with his friends, and so I firmed up the hand I was holding him with, put on my big boy voice, and told him that life isn't all about you, or playing games, or beating other people. It's about respecting authority. Anyway, by about halfway through my speech, he started to look around with embarrassment because a few of his friends heard us talking too. I hope they all take it to heart. I was the same way as them and I found out the hard way that life wasn't all about me getting as much pleasure and power and comfort out of it as I could. Now, I can't tell them how the gospel fits in directly, but I figure that if you tell them that they aren't the head honchos, that there is authority over them, and therefore that they can't get away with anything, that's almost as good as you can do. I apologized to him later for embarrassing him and for getting angry, and he said the coolest thing in return: "I know exactly what you mean. I'm not my own authority. I'm sorry for trying to take your authority." Whoa. He's in about 4th grade, so maybe 9 or so. He looked like he felt terrible. I've learned my lesson not to get angry so easily, and I've learned a lot about little kids. He really taught me more than I taught him. He taught me to be humble and accept criticism. Thank you Ignus. If you ever read this, thank you.
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