Summer Palace

It’s been just over one week that I moved in my new apartment. I feel comfortable so far maybe with the exception of the renovations going on directly under or maybe beside my bedroom. It resonates so much that I lose my morning sense of orientation. Almost every morning, at around 7h30, I wake up with the sweet symphony of a drill into the concrete wall beside my bed. Heavenly!

The bright side of that is that I’m forced to get up at a decent hour which is a good thing. So on one of those days following such a wakeup call I decided to make the most of it by going to visit the Summer Palace in the North West edge of the city. It used to be the summer residence, garden, and playground of the Emperors of the Old. There were lots of people but no shortage of space. It was easy to imagine how magical a place it must have been when it housed none other than the imperial court. I spent my whole day there wandering around until sunset and there remains much more to be seen.

It was rather amusing to look at him go. He was using his net not only to pick up algae and trash but also as a paddle. I thought that was pretty smart.

Today, Thursday the 18th of October, I started my very first official Mandarin course. It will be held 3 times a week, 2 hours each time with speech classes on Tuesdays and Fridays and writing classes on Thursdays. I will take it one class at a time since it’s promising to be daunting challenge. According to some people that I have met and that have been here for a few years already, that’s what it takes, a couple of years of intense training before being fluent in Chinese. Well, we’ll see in time. Whatever I can learn can do no harm. It’s time well wasted.

A sunset nearby my home...