Springtime

For all effective purposes, springtime has officially arrived in northeast China. This means better weather, fresh produce, more stuff to do, and cherry blossoms everywhere. It almost feels like a different city without the ridiculously cold wind. 

I have found out that one of my new favorite things to do is go around the city and find the best open air markets available. Beijing is huge and obviously this many people need a huge amount of food, which means that there are more opportunities to go see really fancy and exotic feeling 'open-air' markets. 

In fact, I recently went with my Indonesian classmate to a classic Indonesian open-air market. They had everything. fruits, vegetables, fish, dried fruits, and even specialty items. I found out that if you want a specific food item in the city, such as a certain brand of cereal, then your only chance of finding it will be at these specialty markets or a very western, and expensive food mart. 

Speaking of food, I thought I would mention the above restaurant -Peter's-. It is a pretty authentic TexMex place in East Beijing. I think it is an unavoidable tradition that after Thursday night Small Group, everyone heads over to Peter's to grab a burrito, milkshake or whatever. It is always a really good time. For me it is pretty surreal to 'escape' the Beijing atmosphere and just eat a couple tacos. Go figure. 

With springtime in Beijing comes a lot more outdoor activities. Unlike the Winter where you would rather just stay inside, the Spring in the city allows for some rather nice scenery and good chance to experience life here. The above picture is from a public park in central Beijing. The International Student Center here at BIT planned this trip to show us the famous Japanese cherry blossoms that bloom all at once like clockwork. I think we arrived a bit too early in the season to see the best of the park, but it was still nice to walk around and chat with the other international students. 

I thought I would mention this. Above, we have a random group of rather elderly people gathered on the edge of the lake singing. If you look closely you might even see that they have a band with them. From what I gathered they are singing ancient Chinese songs form several hundred years ago. Don't ask me what for- I have no clue, but that is what they are doing, and it actually sounded pretty good. The cadence and pitch that they sing with is impressive and even lets them be heard on the other side of the huge lake.

As anyone in the city knows, this season in China means more than sight-seeing and better weather; it means that the crowds are huge and traveling on the weekend is a big hassle. After a rather long winter, everyone in Beijing is ready to get out and go shopping, traveling, etc. Effectively, this means that every weekend or holiday all of the subways and buses are packed. For me, even though this is really inconvenient, this makes sense. The city has 20+ million people  and they all want to be outside doing whatever. 

But, even through the crowds there are still plenty of things to see. Little glimpses of city life shine through, and for the most part one is able to really enjoy a day out in the market or hanging out with classmates.