Kenny's Pictures, Batch No. 10
Home was fun but it's time for another semester in Beijing. The first thing to do, then, was to travel to the extremely cold Northeast of China. After a week of cold, it was time for a new semester to start. But once school got more settled, and after I moved into a new building, more fun things began to happen such as the day trip to the Summer Palace and the weekend trip to Datong in Shanxi Province. These are all digital pictures, so of course there are some things that were only taken on film or slide. Nonetheless, the digital format is important and thus I will not try to neglect it or this page! Look forward to more activities and pictures on this page or future batches in the coming months.

Harbin Trip, February 2001
Two days after I flew back to Beijing, I was on a night train to Harbin, in Heilongjiang Province. It was already cold in Beijing, with temperatures in the below zero Celcius range. But instead, Jamie, Candice, and I opted for an even colder climate in Harbin, where temperatures would dip to -30 or -40 degrees Celcius. Spending a week going through the major cities was fun, even though icicles would form on our faces. We spent 3 days in Harbin looking at the tigers and ice sculptures, then two days in Jilin (where we missed the ice-covered trees because we woke up too late), and finally two days in Shenyang to look at the old Imperial Palace of the Qing. The digital pictures here only reflect the first two days in Harbin, mainly because it was too cold and I ran out of batteries! That and I didn't want to take out my camera because my fingers would get too cold.

Summer Palace (Yiheyuan), February 2001
Since we live in Beijing and so close to the Summer Palaces (both old and new), I thought it would be nice to take another trip to the places where we have gone before. This time, to Yiheyuan, where the lake is still frozen over. It was much more pleasant this time, as last time we were there, it was scorching hot. This trip made me realize that there is still so much more to explore around Beijing, especially since we were there for almost 3 hours and only covered half of the park. David was in charge of my digital camera that day, so many of the pictures he took, while I tended to my traditional film cameras. Afterwards, we went to eat Peking Duck and sit in a bar.

Moving and Cheese Party, February 2001
With life getting increasingly boring in building 8, I decided to move to a cheaper, more active building. So, in mid-February, I moved to a room in building 1 with David, which is working out smoothly. The next week, we had a cheeze and sweets party, courtesy of Macy, whose mother brought over a ton of them over Winter Break. It was delicious... havarti, brie, gouda, lemon bars, brownies, chocolate chip cookies... the works.
Wudaokou and the Beida campus, March 2001
In the hopes of getting the Olympics for 2008, it seems that Beijing is closing down all the hotspots to get illegal stuff. One of these is illegal CD's and software. Wudaokou is not far from Beida and was torn down on March 8. Because of that, we had to make a trip there to see it one last time, much like going to Sanlitun before that closed down back in December. This was also when the wind was out of control, so it was somewhat inconvenient to go out.
Work and Downtown Night Pictures, March 2001
I took my digital camera to work one day in March and took a walking tour of Jianguomen, the Train Station, and the area around Wangfujing. All the downtown pictures were taken at night, which reminded me of the fun of taking pictures at night. These are some of the ones that turned out the best from that night.
Datong Trip, March 2001
I've been planning this trip for a while now, and I was glad that it finally materialized. I love taking weekend trips around China and the freedom it affords me. Datong is one of the last close cities that I had yet to visit, so it was high on my list of cities to visit. We left on Friday night, got a driver and car for two days, and returned to Beijing on Monday morning. Along the way, we visited the Yungang Caves, Datong City temples, the Hanging Monastery (Xuankong Si), Wutaishan, and the Wooden Pagoda (Muta). There are a lack of pictures from Wutaishan because I had to recharge my batteries, so you'll miss the numerous temples there. But it was cool because we got to meet some of the monks.

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Created by Kenneth Kao.