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I’ve been rationing myself, now that I’m reduced to the $100 US (almost Y700) that I got changed out after I lost my wallet. It’s been good, because it’s been incredibly easy to resist the urge to buy unnecessary things (everything) at the markets, though I’m sure I’ll splurge once I get to Shanghai and get my ATM card back. God bless Visa, they’re really wonderful people, and I don’t ever pay them anything! It’s great. I’m finding it incredibly manageable to keep my spending down, as meals are at most Y30 and at the cheapest ~Y5. Subway fares are Y2, regardless of how far you travel, and taxis are cheap enough when you split them 4 ways. I hear that Xi’an is the last place where things are super cheap though-our professor keeps saying that Shanghai is going to be much more expensive than Beijing or Xi’an. I’ll just have to trust my high school friend Xiaoxia to take me to all the cheap places and bargain for me.

After class, we walked back over to Zhongguancun, the “Computer City”, to the Aigo headquarters. Aigo is the largest Chinese manufacturer of portable electronics, and now they produce media players, ultra-portable PCs, voice recorders, GPS machines, media cards, etc. Professor Liu set up a tour for us of the facility with the assistant to the president and CEO, and it was very very interesting. She gave us a history of the company, and took us to the product room where we could demo some of the products. Professor Liu kept insisting that I should try to get an internship there, that it would be perfect for me-It did seem like a very cool place to work, so I took one of the CEO’s assistants cards. I do plan on gapping a year before grad school (if I get in), so who knows-maybe an internship in Beijing would be great for that.

After Aigo we went to the new Summer Palace, which was awesome. Another example of spending too little time at somewhere really cool, but it was necessitated by hours of operation this time. The first part of the palace is quite a climb to the top, but the entire climb is developed (1800s style), and there are beautiful ponds and rock faces that you can (illegally) climb while your professor yells at you. There was one rock face that lead right up to the walls of this closed off tower, so of course I hopped over (you’d think I’d learn) and my friend Chavon came with me. The place inside was very clearly well visited, but wasn’t lit at all. There were two staircases leading down into nothingness that really freaked me out. The rest of the palace was beautiful though-there was a statue and temple to the Buddhist god Shiva at the top of the complex, overlooking a man-made lake apparently in the shape of a peach. The greatest part about the trip is that by the time we got to the top, the park had technically closed, but they kept it open just for us.The place was absolutely empty, so we did our worst taking pictures and being rambunctious, like any self-respecting American in a foreign country should.

We were supposed to have “reflection night” again tonight, but our professor decided to push it back to this coming Saturday before our flight to Xi’an. I’m kind of relieved; it’s been an exhausting day.