Here are some random photos that were taken on my phone this month! Thought I’d put them up here so they get their place in history - lest they be lost forever.
Caroline - a French friend from Paris - came around for some internet squatting last week (the connection in her dormitory is atrocious and doesn’t deserve to be called internet). We treated her to her first ever Chinese Hotpot and she’s now a convert. Couple of pics 
As you will all have noticed, this blog (and my other blogs) have undergone a heavy dose of redesign. Today, I upgraded my blogging platform to Wordpress 2.5 and decided that as some changes to my old theme would be necessary anyway, I might as well chuck the whole thing out the window and start off afresh. The old theme was cluttered, unattractive and not very easy to read.
The new theme I have chosen is based on a popular Wordpress theme called ‘Simpla’ but with lots of my own modifications. I have opted for a clean template with easy navigation despite the tendency these days to choose something colourful and flashy - after all, it’s the content on a blog that matters!
I have also enabled ‘Gravatars’ - when you leave a comment, you can also have your ‘avatar’ displayed alongside it. To get your ‘gravatar’, please go to http://www.gravatar.com and sign up.
If you notice any bugs, please do let me know. I would also like to know what you think of the new design so please leave some comments
Thanks - I’ll try and put some ‘interesting’ posts on here soon!
Now that the weather is picking up in Beijing and the season for shorts and t-shirts is rapidly drawing near, me and Siqi decided we would head slightly out of Beijing to 香山 (The Fragrant Mountain), a popular walking spot for Beijinger’s who want to get a breath of fresh(er) air. Conveniently located on the western fringe of Beijing, 香山 is only a 20-30 minute bus ride away from our apartment.
Whilst renowned for being absolutely packed out with people on Weekends and during the summer tourist season, if you make a sneak visit late on a Friday afternoon (as we did) you can have the place to yourselves - well… almost!
The path is the walkers equivalent of a motorway and there is also a chairlift to the top for lazy chinese businessmen - although this hasn’t started up yet this year. Its probably about a 1:30 h walk to the top for the fit and healthy and is pretty steep at some sections… I couldn’t help but think about some parts of the great wall during the climb up!
Once at the top there is a ‘great’ view of Beijing (smog, greyness and what I can assume is an increasingly patch of greenness separating the city from the mountains). On the other side of the hill you can also see some Coal fired power stations that have been hidden away from the public eye - this may well have something to do with the olympics! It must be said that there was a pleasant and reasonably fresh breeze on the summit of the mountain and it was nice to do some exercise again and get out of the city for a bit. After a bite to eat on top, we headed down the mountain as it was getting dark quite rapidly. We did the last section in complete darkness which was rather interesting!
Last stop, a lovely restaurant where we enjoyed 京酱肉丝 (Beijing sweet pork strips wrapped in tofu skin) and 清炒油菜心 (Stir fried bok-choi hearts) along with a couple of bowls of rice. Feeling somewhat full, we got the bus back to our house and watched some DVD’s!
I really enjoyed this walk and it was lovely to get out of the city and into the countryside again. I think more than anything I was surprised that the countryside was so accessible and at such a short distance from Beijing. Me and Siqi are hoping to make a habit of this and try and get out every Friday afternoon (neither of us have classes) for a stroll up the mountain - especially as the weather gets warmer.
Here are some photos:
Jono
