A little more than a week after visiting the Olympic Green, I decide to spend a morning exploring the 680-hectare Olympic Forest Park. It is cloudy today, with a forecast for rain, so I suspect it will be less popular than usual. I, however, have a very enjoyable time wandering around by myself.
Along the edge of the large, southern lake of the park, a few people are feeding the koi fish — and what a strange sight it is! Hundreds of fish swarm all into one spot, some of them rising much further above the surface of the water than I ever would have expected.
After recovering from my shock at the fish frenzy, I start
walking around the lake when the dull whirring sound I’d
been hearing could no longer be considered dull.
Turning
down one path, it sounds like a million insects chirping,
singing…shrieking? The whirr is loud enough to be painful, yet
pleasant: for a moment I forget that I’m in a bustling, smoggy
city. I suspect the sound comes from cicadas, but after looking
and looking I never spot one while hearing the sound. Several
other areas throughout the park also whirr with gusto.
After about half an hour, I keep noticing all sorts of
prohibitory signs that are simultaneously intrusive and
entertaining. They say things like, No littering,
No fires permitted in garden,
No swimming,
No stepping on the ice,
No climbing,
and my favorite, No picking and digging fruit and wild
vegetable.
No litteringsign on the left really completes the picture for me.
As the drizzle subsides, I decide to climb the hill that overlooks the lake. Unlike the highly-maintained areas that I have just walked through, the path up the hill has been left to be (slightly) more wild. The aroma of pine trees washes over me as I pass through a grove, and I stop at the first landing for a short time — but, the trees are too tall to see over and I don’t want to disturb the woman doing yoga, so I continue up the path. By the top, I am even sweatier than I had been at the Great Wall, but it is well-worth the view of the Olympic Green and city beyond.
Wanting to finish walking around the lake, I head back
toward the subway stop, getting slightly lost in the extensive
serpentine paths of the park. At one point, I cross paths with
a mother and her son — and after about a minute of them
conversing in Chinese while I take pictures of the scenery, he
runs over to me to say Hello!
His (English) name is Jack
and he is 8 years old; and I think he is very excited to practice
his English with a foreigner. It’s a great way to end my adventure.
I am on my own for the last two days of my time in Beijing. The design program ended Saturday and everyone has left, but at least I still can chat online with them. With my flight departing at 8 am Tuesday, I need to find a way to the airport — but the subway opening at 6 am will be too late.
Hacking together a translation, I show the hotel
receptionist my phone, hoping Google Translate is accurate
enough and that my VPN won’t cut out. (A Virtual Private
Network is needed to access a number of Western websites,
including Google, because of The Great Firewall.
)
A few badly translated words from the receptionist’s phone
and a few more confusing looks and finally nods from each of us,
I go back up to my room feeling mostly confident that she
will have a taxi ready for me the next morning at 5 a.m.
It’s 4:30 am. I’m excited to go home, sad to leave, and nervous about navigating the in-between. I triple-check my luggage and check out of the hotel. And there, in the little parking lot in front of the hotel, is a taxi!
I show the driver a map destination of airport terminal 3, he nods, and we are off. An hour and 122 yuan later — after all, it is quite far across the city — I am checking into my flight to Chicago, with a layover in Shanghai. Fortunately, the airport staff speak enough English to help foreign travelers.
After three short weeks, I’m once again over the north Pacific —
— zài jiàn, Beijing. Until next time.
Special thanks to the many people who made this trip possible, including the organizers of Jiang China Design, my supportive friends, and especially my family. Xiè xie.