Saturday, July 12, 2008

Out on the lake...

Today was a great day! Six of us went out to Houhai ("Back Lake" in English) and rented a paddle boat. The weather was perfect even if a bit hot. We had blue skies (I got the pics to prove it). We got frozen yogurt afterward and then I split off from the group to meet Xu at the art store they went to last weekend. The taxi driver was a dumbass. I wanted to get dropped off at Hepingmen subway station and got dropped off just south of Tianamen Square instead. So I headed west through an alley (people actually live here) and found the Liulichang cultural street after a bit of walking. Xu helped me buy some scrolls and I got a painting of the Great Wall. I spent a total of 850 RMB on that stuff...and I might just go back next weekend.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Things Fall Apart...

No, I'm not refering to the famous African novel by Chinua Achebe; instead I refer to the things that have fallen apart in the last several days. A round-bottom flask exploded onto my hand this morning when trying to attach the tube that facilitates the removal of trace solvent. I broke a 300-mL Erlenmeyer flask this afternoon when it slipped out of my hand (the top was already broken...we use a lot of slightly damaged glassware in the lab). Then the doors on one of the cabinets fell off (but they had been ready to fall off since I got here in June). And the plastic buckle on the waist strap of my knock-off backpack broke, but I think I made a good repair using epoxy...we'll see how that goes. I won't try to break anything else...I promise!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Dear readers...

So my colleagues have told me that people other than Dr. Coppola, my family, and people affiliated with my school are reading this blog. I'd like to take time to thank Zach's family and Alisa's family for reading the blog (along with everyone else that reads this blog). My goal is to keep these posts entertaining while providing an accurate portrait of life in Beijing.

If there's ever a topic that you want me to blog about, just leave a comment here or email it to me and I'll try to write something about it.