The Eastern Peak Mountain Temple (东岳庙）

One snowy Sunday in January Ross, our close friend Chao (超) and I, all went to eat Cantonese dim sum at a new restaurant and to our surprise found a neat little temple right next door. Here is some history about the temple. In a nutshell, it is a Daoist temple founded in 1319 and rebuilt several times through the centuries. In the 20th century it served several secular and governmental functions until a few years ago when it was declared a national treasure and restored.

Above, Chao is taking a picture though he looks like he's getting shot. Behind him are some stelae with all kinds of records inscribed in them. They look to Westerners like gravestones, but more often than not they record things deemed important or noteworthy... like test scores, decrees, new laws and notable visitors.

Ross slipped in the snow, it was really funny

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Below are plaster dioramas with people, mythological monsters , gods and spirits all intermingling; representing the 76 departments of the Daoist supernatural world. They are situated in 76 rooms surrounding the main courtyard. Among the different Departments are
"The Department of Individual Destiny", "The Department of Rewarding Good Conduct", "The Department of the Rain Gods", "The Department of Gods and Monsters", "The Department of Controlling Bullying and Cheating and Department of Suppressing Schemes", and my favorite "The Department of Urging" ... whatever that means.

the character in the palette above is read "ling", it means order

Snow days

This past winter was especially snowy. The pictures above and below are from the first snowfall on November 1st which was the earliest in decades and later announced as "artificially induced" by the government.

The scene above is just downstairs from our apartment. Under all that snow lies Ross and my bikes as well as Silvia's old bike and some of our neighbors's.

A red curtain in a crazy temple we visited on a different snowy day

One of the three wheeled cars (三轮车) for quick, cheap transport in any of Beijing's neighborhoods

An example of the heavy condensation that happens inside of heated buildings and vehicles on cold, snowy days

I'm sorry.... so sorry....

It's been over a year since my last entry. I had just arrived home in Beijing after a friend-filled escape to Europe when I last posted. At that time, the Chinese government became increasingly hostile towards internet freedoms and expression; so around May, Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and many other websites were suddenly not accessible. Proxys and other scramblers and unblockers were ok for a while but even they faltered and my blog became a small casualty of all the hullabaloo.

A lot has happened since then. I said goodbye to quite a few really close friends, travelled to Inner Mongolia and other places within China, began working again, had little adventures around the 'Jing, went home to America for a few weeks, and now I find myself with a HUGE backlog of pictures and stories ready for posting.

This is the weekend when things change. Ross and I just paid for a proxy, so I'm safe from internet censorship for a year :)

I'll be sure to get my €34 worth

A wonderful reunion

Armando, Jackie and I were all good friends in New World high School. We've all managed to keep in touch through the years, but haven't hung out together since those days. Just about 8 years later we managed to meet again and spend a great few days in the south of Germany.

My brother/best friend and I in Munich, at Alexanderplatz

above and below: a great afternoon wandering the many beautiful parks in Munich with two people very special to me

Left to right; Armando, his great girlfriend Christine, Jackie and I enjoying coffee in the main square in Augsburg, where Armando and Christine currently call home.

Friends in Paris

Myself with some of the Martha Graham dancers (left to right) James, Jackie and Lloyd along with the one rented bicycle we all had to share

The guys

James and I after a long, long, long day at the Louvre

above and below: Jackie and I and beautiful, beautiful Paris

Parisian streets

Walking around Paris is a wonder. There's so much city and detail to discover at every single corner . This all sounds tacky, but you really have to be there to understand fully.

That's the island where Notre Dame Cathedral and a million other famous things are located or nearby.

Jackie and I wandering near the theater she performed at before the show.

This is one of my favorite store window display in Paris, it's a an extermination supply store and taxidermist? I think... anyway, it made me laugh a whole lot.

More of my favorite art, The Musee d'Orsay

The Musee d'Orsay has the best collection of major French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting anywhere in the world. It also has a few other great period pieces. A visit there was a nice and peaceful way to spend an afternoon, exactly what I feel Impressionism was made for.

I saw this Manet a few years ago at the Met in New York, still looks the same I reckon.

Above and below: The museum has a great collection of Art Nouveau furniture and decorations, this section was my personal favorite despite the plethora of famous Manets, Monets, Degas, Tolousse-Lautrecs, and other rediculously famous paintings.

These are from a wall display I loved featuring the props from a famous shadow puppet theater from in Paris during the late 19th century. Other figures include soldiers, armies, bourgoise figures, farmers, animals and more.

A great painting I remember nothing about :(

Chinese Tombs in Pere Lachaise Cemetery

Something I never expected to see in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery was a bunch of tombs for Chinese people and families. Some of them also Christians. Here are just some of the Chinese tombs I found.

Cemetery Fun!

In doing research before I came to Paris, I came across a few websites about increasing tourism in Paris' cemeteries. Two particularly popular stops are the Pere Lachaise Cemetery and the Montparnasse Cemetery. I made my way to both on my last full day in Paris, in the cold and under light rain. Still, it was probably the best new thing I did on my trip. I saw the tombstones of people like Edith Piaf, Charles Baudelaire, Jim Morrison, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Man Ray, Serge Gainsbourg, Susan Sontag, Rossini, Oscar Wilde... and a million rich and ornate family tombs some dating back hundreds of years.

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvior

A personal highlight, the tomb of Serge Gainsbourg

Edith Piaf

Oscar Wilde's tomb, something really amazing and unlike anything else I've ever seen

Pere Lachaise is the older cemetery and seems endless. It feels like miles and miles of tombstones and family plots fighting each other for space and attention. I highly recomend these excursions for a break from museums and other more formal and established tourist sites in Paris. All cemeteries provide a map with the names of noteable people buried there and an approximate location of their tomb.

My favorite art in Paris, some of it anyway

I spent most of my time in Paris wandering (lost is the more accurate word) the halls of "the great museums". Here are some of my favorite pieces.

Above: A great show at the Centre Pompidou on Alexander Calder's Parisian years in the late 20's and early 30's, where he created a toy circus and started the wire scultptures and mobiles that would make him tremendously famous years later in America. This show was my favorite art thing I saw in Paris.

Below: Also at the Pompidou, a giant and complete retrospective on Kandinsky's paintings, prints and drawings.

Above and below: More important stuff (above), and things i really liked (below) from the Pompidou

Above is a Hawaiian funerary mask made of shells. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It was at the Musée du Louvre.

Above and below: Also at the Louvre, Egyptian and Mesopotamian art. Two of my favorite ancient cultures, it was quite amazing to make my way through the vast and well presented collections this museum has.