Oct. 3 - Another Stroll in the City

Since I had been wandering around the city so much, my friend Dan asked if he could go with me anywhere during the national holiday break. So, that Friday we decided to head out to the southwest of Beijing to do a little bit of aimless exploring. 

Once we arrived via subway, the first thing we wanted to see was a place called "Baguo Temple", as was designated by our tourist maps. So, as we trekked along, I couldn't help but wonder to myself, "Strange....now why doesn't my guide book mention this temple?"

Well....to put it bluntly, because it's not exactly a temple in the traditional sense anymore. 

The grounds were covered with nothing but row upon row upon row upon row of souvenir stands. Now, what exactly happened to reduce this place to such a condition, I only wish that I knew. 

Anyway, once we realized there was little else to see there at the "temple", we trekked a few blocks over to the Niujie Mosque....where we got no further than the front gate, because according to the sign there, one can't enter if they're wearing shorts. So, we then hiked on to the Fayuan Buddhist Temple not to far away. 

My apologies for the lack of pictures here. It was about here in the day that I started to feel a bit ill, with an ugly combination of light head, chills every now and then, and even a hint nausea at times in the morning. Fortunately, it abated somewhat a little later, but then came back with a vengeance after we returned to campus. 

Lamb kidneys.....hmmm......that's something you definitely don't see everyday on your way to the park. 

So anyway, as it turns out, there was the absolutely splendid park a couple blocks over, which provided me with a perfect place to doze off for an hour or two while Dan explored. 

After the park, we headed for the closest subway station, stopping along the way anywhere that appeared interesting, such as this one establishment that we believe is some kind of "dinner with a show" place. We weren't quite sure, though, as it was completely empty, and we just sort of walked right in. 

What made it all even weirder was all the unnaturally filthy cats that were hanging around outside. 

From there, we paid a visit to Liulichang Culture Street, AKA a street designed especially for the Beijing tourist, which was packed with shops of all sorts, hawking everything from calligraphy supplies, "antiques", statues, shirts, carpets.... basically anything that a visitor to the city  with some extra spending money might like to purchase.   

Needless to say, we didn't find anything here that caught our fancy (at least anything that was in our price range), although we did get quite a kick out of one shop's curiously aggressive sign.   
Unfortunately, by then I was starting to feel under the weather again, and was even shivering when we got back to UIBE. Thus, I was basically out of commission for the next two days as the flu bug worked its way through my system. 

But I guess this abrupt halt to all my exploring isn't anything to lament about, because if that wasn't going to force me to finally get some schoolwork done, then the rain and overall poor weather that we experienced over the following two days would have been more than enough to get the job done.