Beijing Hospital - Part Deux

Making progress on my tour of Beijing university hospitals, I paid a visit to the Beijing Language and Culture University Hospital this past Friday - having been the recipient of a large Japanese elbow to the lip during basketball practice (the elbow belonging to my friend and teammate). Here's the play by play: I was guarding Fumi on the low post; he fronted up to the basket; I backed off to try to throw him off balance then came back to contest is shot; I didn't see anything that happened after that, but something big and heavy slammed into my face. I came away with a sore jaw and deep cut to my lip that required 8 stiches . Doc said it should heal up in a week, but I'm going to the Beida hospital to get it checked out again today. Right now I'm just taking it easy and trying to keep my situation moisterized like P-Diddy. I'll post updates on my recovery and spare everyone the post-op pics.

I'm Back

Mmmmm, I just had some mad good Cantonese for dinner.

Hello! Sorry for the lack of updates as of late. I want to say that I’ve been too busy to post, but that would be only half true (the other times I’m just too lazy). I think I’ll ditch the weekly blog and just write whenever something interesting pops into my head (which hopefully means I’ll be posting more frequently?)

So the past few weeks... I finally settled on plans for the October holiday and actually got around without any major transportation difficulties. I visited a few sites in Shanxi Provincefor a few days with friends and friends of friends from PKU. For a more detailed (and far more eloquent) account of our trip, check out Shelley's blog linked on the left (I'm not going to tell you which it is). The cities we visited – Datong and Taiyuan – were incredibly dusty and chaotic - the dust largely attributable the coal mines in the area while a total disregard for traffic laws created the chaotic atmostphere. I thought the main tourist sights we visited were pretty interestersting but nothing too remarkable. I really enjoyed exploring a broken down section of the great wall. There was nobody there but us and a group of curious kids. Here are some pics:

Rachael in the Yungang Buddhist Grottoes - one of China's UNESCO World Heritage Sights and home to thousands upon thousands of Buddha sculptures (I wonder if anyone has tried to count them all)

The six of us in front of the Hanging Monastery near Hengshan, one of the 5 holy Buddhist mountains.

Shelley admiring the sunset from the Great Wall ruins.