last day in Beijing

Today, I went to the Capital museum in the morning. I think the Chinese government did quite an impressive job renovating this museum; the building and the content are quite nice. The only thing is that most of the descriptions are in Chinese, and only in Chinese. There are very few descriptions in English.  But overall, I found the museum quite informational, filled with interesting facts. They were also doing a temporary exhibition on the Ming Dynasty on Emperor Wanli and artifacts from the 13 Ming Tombs. This is a very interesting emperor. He became the emperor around the age of 10. His mother, the empress Dowager and a person of an important rank called Zhang Juzheng helped him govern his country. So when this Zhang person died, he decided to do things his way. Finally one day, he decided that going to work every morning to meet with his ministers was boring so he stopped going to work for 20 years. Oddly enough this was the time when the Ming Dynasty flourished the most in terms of its economy, culture, and literature.

The second floor consisted of a timeline of the history of Beijing from 221 AD to the present. There was also a separate room talking about the communist revolution in 1949. On the other side of the wall, is the timeline of the world. So, this was a quite interesting exhibition.

After the museum, I went to see the Bird’s nest, where they held the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. I also visited the place where they held the swimming competition, where Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals. There is also a water park there, which I’m sure I would have leaped into the water had I brought my swimming suit.

Saw a whole bunch of these people walking around

After that, I went shopping, but I really couldn’t buy any more stuff because I can’t put it into my suitcase anymore.

So there goes my few epic days in Beijing. I’m going to drink some wine with my aunt. Here’s to the next voyage, wherever it may be in the future, or the near future. It is back to the states, back to studying and my daily life.