Wednesday leaving wudaokou and going to zhangguancun (hereafter zgc). zgc is the silicon valley place i went to for dinner when i got here. Although i did not realize it till i got there. The reason i went was because there was a bookstore listed on the map and i thought it would be good to get a beginner's guide to Chinese. Also i wanted to see how far that distance was so i would know later on what was walkable. It turned out to be pretty far (45 minute walk) but it was cool seeing more of the city.

Note: I was going to provide a link to the walk I took in Virtual Earth / Google Maps. Looks like China does not like providing detailed satellite info of their country. This is the best I could get.

here is a good example if the dichotomy i was talking about earlier. You have homes that are very small and not furnished very well, like no indoor plumbing well and behind them you have a larger new building going up.

here is another building i walked past. It was not inhabited so i am sure it will be torn down in the next couple of months to put up a new large building. It is amazing how entranced with large high rise apartment buildings Beijing is. i am sure they make huge sums of money though so that might have something to do with it.




lonely shoes.












the easiest way to get across the fourth ring road. i actually have to cross this train track at least twice a day to get to work and back and still have yet to see any trains on it. This is slightly bizarre because a couple of kilometers to the south of here they are adding more train tracks.





homes disappearing for the new buildings.