白云观 - The Baiyun Temple

During the week I continued my classes and extracurriculars, which now include calligraphy, Tai Chi, robotics, and ping pong! Next Friday is the end of the quarter, which means that I am gearing up for mid-term exams next week.

This is a picture of the birthday cake SYA bought me and that I shared with my classmates during lunch on Monday.

On Friday, after dinner, I took a rickshaw down the street for the first time. It is basically a motorized tricycle with a little box you can sit in on the back, and they zip through the crazy Beijing traffic.

There are small canals that run through certain parts of the city, remnants of a larger canal system that was used to transport goods. This is sunset (through the pollution) over a small piece of the canal near school on Friday.

Though the pollution was better over the past week, it returned to “hazardous” levels today, which makes it difficult to be outside for long periods of time, as I find myself getting headaches. However, I do have a mask that I try to wear while I am outside, and this helps a bit.


Today I went to the Baiyun Temple, which is a Daoist temple that is home to many actual Daoist monks. It was great to see the monks praying and practicing their calligraphy in addition to exploring the Temple, which was quite large and consisted of many halls.

Afterward, I took the subway to Chongwenmen, which is the site of the last remaining section of the Ming dynasty wall that once surrounded the city of Beijing. It is amazing to think that what was once the edge of the city now lies almost in its heart.