I thought I'd cap this post with a very flexible kitty I photographed outside of Zhongguanxinyuan. This series is a set of photographs from the Friday I mentioned in an earlier post where I was given leave from work. I used it to go exploring southwest Beijing with Cunningham; it seemed to be solidly middle-class Chinese. We visited a series of temples and mosques.
This is one of two mosques we saw; we did not visit this one. It was Friday (holy day) so we didn't even try to enter this one, as it was a practicing, functioning mosque.
This is the second mosque; we were invited to enter and look around. It was called the Cow Street Mosque, translated roughly. Neither of us were dressed appropriately so they gave us capes and long skirts. (Cunning: man-tank with the words "Let's Get Wild With Alpha Phi. Me: sleeveless, and slightly low-cut blue tunic with leggings). My skirt was lurid turquoise with the same spotted cape; I was wearing bright red plastic sandals, a blue dress, and a red purse. Unfortunately those photographs are on Cunning's camera, but we looked
ridiculous.
This was at the Buddhist temple. Touching the scaly fish is said to bring rain.
American Gothic
At this street/ Buddhist temple (!) we found a wholesale jade and jewelry market. It was fairly large and the jewelry was beautiful.
Believe it or not, the public toilet here was one of the cleanest and least smelly I've been to in China. This Communist Red Guard panda may have something to do with keeping the toilets of Health.
I accidentally ordered us this... Cunning asked me to ask the waiter to bring us his favorite dish. When he was bringing it out, he sang, "Yao huaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" and I was like oh shoot! These are kidneys! For some reason, Cunning was convinced they were crocodile.
Afterwards we walked along the river to get back to the nearest subway stop. It was really pleasant; people were fishing and generally hanging out.
Our fairly wonderful Chinese teacher Sophia. I was late for class after these explorations.
This is one of two mosques we saw; we did not visit this one. It was Friday (holy day) so we didn't even try to enter this one, as it was a practicing, functioning mosque.
This is the second mosque; we were invited to enter and look around. It was called the Cow Street Mosque, translated roughly. Neither of us were dressed appropriately so they gave us capes and long skirts. (Cunning: man-tank with the words "Let's Get Wild With Alpha Phi. Me: sleeveless, and slightly low-cut blue tunic with leggings). My skirt was lurid turquoise with the same spotted cape; I was wearing bright red plastic sandals, a blue dress, and a red purse. Unfortunately those photographs are on Cunning's camera, but we looked ridiculous.
This was at the Buddhist temple. Touching the scaly fish is said to bring rain.
American Gothic
At this street/ Buddhist temple (!) we found a wholesale jade and jewelry market. It was fairly large and the jewelry was beautiful.
Believe it or not, the public toilet here was one of the cleanest and least smelly I've been to in China. This Communist Red Guard panda may have something to do with keeping the toilets of Health.
I accidentally ordered us this... Cunning asked me to ask the waiter to bring us his favorite dish. When he was bringing it out, he sang, "Yao huaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" and I was like oh shoot! These are kidneys! For some reason, Cunning was convinced they were crocodile.
Afterwards we walked along the river to get back to the nearest subway stop. It was really pleasant; people were fishing and generally hanging out.
Our fairly wonderful Chinese teacher Sophia. I was late for class after these explorations.
I've been to that mosque! I insisted on going because I had never been to a mosque in Beijing before that.
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