Packed Weekend: Zoo, BeiHai Park, Beijing Opera...什么的

So Happy Independence Day! Some people are going out to the one BBQ place in all of Beijing to celebrate, but this weekend has depleted all my energy. It's hard having to cram all the things I want to do all in the weekends, especially when we still have homework to prepare for Monday. Oh and did I mention our midterm is coming up? The oral portion of which is a 15 minute skit? So yeah this week along with my regular homework I will be preparing for my midterm (on Friday), packing for my week in Inner Mongolia (we leave on Friday), and preparing the report I'll have to write about Inner Mongolian Folk Dance and Music Traditions (due as soon as I get back).

As full as this weekend was, it was pretty fun. First stop, after our test on Friday we went to the zoo! Because a trip to China just isn't complete without some pandas.

We of course looked at some other animals. There were penguins, a green lake, and it was feeding time for the big cats.

Saturday Morning: We head off to Yale Chinese 110/120's beloved 北海公园 (BeiHai Park). We had a picnic. It was beautiful. But incredibly hot. Like Beijing pretty often tends to be.

This is the view from the 白塔 (White Pagoda). Celia and I were so sweaty at this point that we didn't want to get any closer to each other to take this picture. But the love was still there, don't worry.

After coming home for some 休息 (rest) we went to see Beijing Opera. Ok so Chinese performance is what I'm here for and I was soooo excited to see this. It was great. The Chingrish subtitles were funny, but over all it was a great show. This was our table that we watched the show from.

And this was how the waiter poured hot water into our teacups.

The actors putting on their own makeup before the show.

Beijing Opera was truly great. I'll let these videos speak for themselves. I'm in the process of trying to upload a video of mostly singing. But until then, here are two videos that display acrobatics, which along with music, dance, and singing, is another important feature of Beijing Opera.

After the show, we had a very pleasant dinner. The staff was really impressed with our Chinese. Cab drivers have also been complimenting our Chinese skills. This is a really gratifying feeling, and it's nice how appreciative they all seem of our interest in their culture.