The Weekend: Part Two

Last time on Nathan’s blog, we left our hero snoozing peacefully in his hotel bedroom...

I think I could have slept well into Sunday afternoon, but the sunlight through my window woke me up at about 9:00. My first reaction was to roll over and get back to sleep, but then after a few more minutes it hit me... BRIGHT SUNLIGHT WAS COMING THROUGH MY WINDOW!

Now for you, dear reader, you may be fortunate to live in a place where the blessed sun comes up every morning, but for me, having seen in the four months I have been here only about as many sunny days as I have toes on my feet, sunlight filtering through the shades is big news. As tired as I was, I wasn’t about to waste good, wholesome daylight and fresh air sleeping inside my room, so I bounced out of bed, threw on some church clothes, packed a backpack for the day, and took off on my bike.

Church was great, but church is always great (Reference my previous post about the international church.) The message on Sunday was given by a Cantonese pastor in Mandarin and translated into English. His message was about the power of words, from the book of Proverbs. “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Prov. 18:21) This was a message aptly timed, I needed to be reminded to be careful of words which can discourage and destroy – death – but I should also use the tongue’s power for encouragement – life – more often.

The weather was perfect for a long bike ride. I had not yet been to the University district on the opposite side of Beijing, about a 1.5 hour bike ride, so I took off in that direction. Lunch consisted of food-cart-fare: a crape-type thing with egg, onions, bread, and a hot-dog all folded together (3 Quai) which I ate on the road.

The university district looks and feels completely different from the rest of the city. The streets are clean, the buildings are modern and very nice, and the students are young, bright-eyed, and idealistic.

I rode through two campuses, pausing often to take in the scenery, poke my head into buildings, and talk to people. These pictures are of the International Language and Culture University, and of the famous Peking University, China’s Harvard and Yale. These two campuses are beautiful, and the feel riding around the place made me think of Texas A&M.

I cruised the University scene until about 3:30. Only about 15 minutes north of the universities is the Old Summer Palace, or Yuan Ming Yuan Park. Somehow I got lost and managed to turn a 15 minute ride into over an hour, but at that time the whole park was illuminated by the most beautiful sunset I have seen these four months in China. The ruins are European style, built hundreds of years ago by Jesuit architects for the Chinese empress. It was destroyed and never rebuilt by a British invasion of China in the late 1800’s, if my memory serves correct.

Tall American

This view alone was worth the 1.5 hour ride.