Temple of Heaven Picture Post/Vital Statistics

These are all pictures of the Temple of Heaven, built* during the Ming dynasty at the behest of one Emperor Yongle, who is Max’s favorite for some reason, and used for the emperor to come and pray for future harvests. Since then it’s been restored three times, most recently in 2006. The temple’s most notable building, the round Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, is a very famous Beijing landmark and was, as expected, mobbed with tour groups, but the surrounding park was very peaceful, and we had a fun time wandering around and getting about a bajillion free tea refills at the coffee shop in the park. Afterward we went to the dumpling restaurant I’ve mentioned before, upping the Dumpling Tally admirably.
It has come to my attention that now people are reading this who have not met me. Hello, you! Since this post is not sufficiently meaty, I will provide you with a quick rundown of my fascinating** life and times: I was born in Seattle and still call it home, as all my relatives live up there. At age five I was forcibly located to a small town in Northern California. Although I’ve spent the majority of my life there, I don’t think of it as the place I’m from; it’s more of a holding tank, although it was a nice enough place to grow up. Now I go to college in Chicagoland. How I feel about this depends on the time of year – if you ask me in October through April I’ll probably roll my eyes and say something about how I could have done no work in high school and gotten into the University of Hawaii, but ask during the summertime and you will hear me gush effervescently about it until I’m blue in the face. The real truth is that the winters suck beyond what the English language can convey, but the first two weeks of June make up for every pile of snow you accidentally step in several times over. I like my actual university a whole bunch, though. I am co-president of College Feminists with my excellent friend Arianne, who is both the brains and the beauty of the operation (I am probably the muscle, whatever that means) and on Model Congress team, which I am quite good at due to having done it for four years in high school. I work part-time at a mom-and-pop shoe store, which I love. I really hope they hire me back when I return; I was great at selling shoes, but with the economy the way it is I have no idea if they’ll need me back there. In my spare time, which I have a surprising amount of given that I’ve taken course overload for the past year while working 20 to 25 hours a week, I knit (I have been doing this for ten years and am really good at it), read, eat food, and attend fifteen-person iPod ragers, where I dance until the wee hours of the morning. I also go out to coffee a lot, which is weird considering that before coming to China I hated coffee. I’m of Norwegian descent and am immensely proud of this (in fact, this piece ran in the NYT recently and made me homesick almost to the point of tears, but this is where I’m from and where I’m going back to someday). In an ideal, pipe-dream world, I would have gone to culinary school instead of college and started a really nice, authentic Chinese, prix-fixe Michelin-star type of restaurant on the shore of Puget Sound. I do not consider myself particularly materialistic, but have an inexplicable passion for adidas sneakers. I drive a 1992 Volvo 240 sedan (or at least I do when my little brother isn’t busy absconding with it and filling the CD case up with his CDs). I am bad at every sport ever invented, with the possible exception of skiing. Before coming to China, I ran for exercise, not because it was good for me but because all the runners I knew had really nice legs. I love corduroy and the song “The Seed” by the Roots. I hate limp handshakes, insincerity, cauliflower, being cold, and whoever decided to cancel The OC. My favorite food is Tibetan food, I think Adam Brody is the most gorgeous human being ever to walk the earth, and I am currently trying to nominate Girl Talk for a Nobel prize. That’s pretty much it.

Dumpling Tally: 167

*Fun Temple of Heaven fact: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is built without cement or nails, which is impressive given that it’s hella tall (scientific term).

**HA