Eric's Beijing Diary

This is one of those few holidays in China that is not lunar. It begins every year on the First of October, which is the "birthday" of the People's Republic." Yesterday the new English majors came out to join me for a hike. I don't know these kids that well, because we have only had one week of classes, so I have had them for one class session. But the weather is really nice, so I thought it might be a good chance to take a hike to Badachu. Fragrant Hills is really packed to the gills during the October holiday, but the road to Badachu goes up behind the park. Not very many people are interested in walking all the way from Fragrant Hills to Badachu, so we really didn't see that many people once we got to the area behind Fragrant Hills Park. There were a fair number of people in the park at Badachu once we got there, but not anything like the Fragrant Hills. And the main thing is that the country road through the mountains between the parks is almost completely untraveled. Very pretty, and we had the whole stretch to ourselves.