Eric's Beijing Diary

I went behind Fragrant Hills Park today and hiked up over the mountain to Badachu. Lots of old structures, but the pagoda pictured here looks brand new. Not sure what's up with that. But the park is very pretty. Still like my side of the mountain better though. I don't know...maybe if I lived over there, I would be thinking of reasons why that side of the mountain is better. Doubt it, though. To much glitzy commercialism. A lady with some horses tried to hit me up to take a ride. I told her that it was my first trip there so I wanted to walk down. She told me that she would give me a ride, then bring me back. Well, I figured that might not be too bad. Only 10 kuai. But once I got in the saddle, she started telling me that it would cost me 10 kuai to go, and another 10 kuai to come back. I got off.

In one sense I don't blame her. Usually, tourists climb the mountain, and they are tired, so they want to ride down. So she didn't want to bring me back up. But it's her dishonesty that bothered me. She knew that if she told me the truth, I wouldn't take the ride.

Actually, I should have just refused in the first place. Most people climb up the mountain, and then they are tired and they want to ride down. But I came over the mountain from the other side, so I was starting at the top. I had never been to the bottom of the mountain or anywhere in between, and I wanted to see it. Anyway, as I said, too much commercialism. I get tired of that stuff really quickly.

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I decided to take the bus back, because I was tired, and not really in the mood for hiking back over the mountain. After a few stops a whole bunch of school kids in their uniforms got on the bus. One of them happened to be the little boy whose family I lived with last year in the village behind Fragrant Hills Park. What are the odds of that? I didn't recognize him at first, although he looked familiar (they all do). But when he said my Chinese name, I knew it had to be him.

In other news, China released three of the four Japanese nationals they had arrested. They couldn't release the fourth one, because when Japan released the sailors on that fishing vessel, they held the captain for awhile longer. So I would expect to see the fourth Japanese national released in another week or two. We'll see.