Chengde

This weekend we went to Chengde! Chengde is just outside of Beijing where the Emperor would go to escape the summer heat. Unfortunately we were not escaping the heat as it's October, but instead we went into the cold. Saturday we saw the Emperor's resort and Sunday we went to Sledge Hammer Peak to check out the giant rock.

The wood is a special type that has a strong smell and is supposed to last forever

Emperor's seat

Empress Cixi

This was a sign in our hotel - too cute!

And there's the rock.

I didn't climb all the way to the Sledge Hammer rock because I had a bit of a "pollution cold" and wasn't feeling the giant staircase up to it so instead I went and saw the Frog Rock (below). I still don't see how it looks like a frog...

This weekend I was also able to meet with my friend Susie! The last time I saw her was in the beginning of the semester when we both didn't have school. She's preparing for the SAT now and so it's difficult to find times to meet with our busy study schedules. She's learning 400 English words a day! We went for lunch and she was using her new vocabulary words and honestly, I wasn't even sure what half of them meant! 

This is pigeon. It was actually really good! 

Not everything we had is in this picture, but I had chicken feet (which is VERY difficult to eat because you have to put the whole foot in your mouth and then use your tongue to separate the bones), pigs feet, shrimp dumplings, spring rolls, mango nectar, egg tarts, beef pastries, etc.)

Later we went for a walk around the streets and got these giant drinks. They're freshly prepared and too good to share!

Last Monday night at Bible study someone mentioned seeing a shirt that said "Life is like a bicycle". I found it funny because when you hear that you're like "what?!" But the Chinese people didn't find it funny and knew exactly what it was referring to. Turns out it does correlate a bit with the Bible, but also with a Chinese proverb meaning that you need to continue to move forward with your life because if you stand still you will fall. Huh. The little quote I have as a subtitle for this blog sounds a lot like that - what a coincidence.