HD-BJ and other news

Hey Everyone,
Here's a little update on what I've been up to these days:

Last week I made a spontaneous visit to Beijing to see Weiwei again. We took in all the major sights in a swoop of what felt like only three days: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Great Wall, 798, Summer Palace, and, of course, the Fake Markets.
Here are some impressions:

At the 798 artsy place

At the Forbidden City

Who's the great chairman now?

In the Forbidden City

So, 798 is pretty cool. Of course it's commercialized with all the tourists and whatnot, but if you spend some time looking around there really are some nice exhibitions to see (and it's all for free, too!). It seems to also be a favored location for events, as there was a big Mercedes-sponsored fashion show going on when we were there, and I saw some of the best dressed mainlanders in all of my years watching Chinese people so far.

Tiananmen and the Forbidden City are, of course, the places everyone goes to see when they're in Beijing. Swarms of tourists from the provinces and overseas alike, and rightly so. The palace complex sits smack in the middle of the city and is just huge. I highly recommend also heading up to Jingshan Park, which is right behind the Forbidden City, and probably has one of the best views in all of Beijing. From there you can also sneak a peek into enigmatic Zhongnanhai, although it's not nearly as interesting as I imagines (just the lakes and some boring buildings, no limousines, helicopters, or tanks).

Great Wall 1

Great Wall 2 (I appear somewhat enervated)

Great Wall 3

Great Wall 4 (I told Weiwei to make a patriotic gesture, expressing her love for the fatherland. This is what came out.)

Now, of course one also visits the Wall. Since I wasn't in the mood for a 4-hour bus ride, we opted to head to Badaling, which is the part of the wall closest to Beijing (which, again, was reflected in the hordes of people present). From a tourist center in the middle you can hike on the wall for about a half hour in either direction, until you hit the blocked-off section. Certainly disappointing. It's probably wiser to spend some more time on the bus and make a day trip of seeing the 'wild wall', with all the hiking and climbing the heart desires. Nevertheless, imposing architectural & logistical achievement, that wall.

Summer Palace (This was supposed to look like we're the same height. I was to lazy to crop the picture.)

Lastly, the summer palace. It's in the suburbs of Beijing and easy to reach by subway. We took a stroll around the lake but didn't go inside the temple thingy (extra 15RMB, pah!).  Due to the early spring, there was already some blooming and flowering going on, and I imagine it's even prettier in the summer.

What else did we do?
Lots of shopping (the fake markets are kind of sucky compared to Shanghai; apparently the government made a huge clean-up effort for the Olympics or so, and everything is much too tame).
A Hutong tour (do yourself a favor and don't go to the advertised places - it's just a Starbucks next to a hostel/bar/café next to a Starbucks. We just took a walk around where we were staying and stumbled upon the quaintest old-school hutong, tucked away between the skyscrapers).
Eating (mostly fancy Japanese stuff, although it's much more expensive than in Shanghai, presumably  because there are less Japanese in Beijing. Other than that, mostly classic Chinese, but we also went to check out the famed South German Bakery, which serves acceptable cakes and is the only place in the city where there's more foreigners than Chinese - all the pasty-faced Germans go there after work to get there dose of no-nonsense, no-fluff German bread). 
Anyways, it was good to see Weiwei again, and to also finally meet her sister in person.

 In less recent news: I finished my bachelor's last fall and I'm now doing my master's (still Heidelberg, still physics). I also just started working part-time as a software engineer at this place. So far it's really interesting and I'm learning a lot.
After four and a half years (with breaks) I'll be moving out of INF 133 at the end of this month. Not to worry, though, I'm not going far, moving to bourgeois Neuenheim. Come visit me at my new place some time!

If you've come this far: Thanks for reading! Drop me a message if we haven't spoken in a long time!
Best
Dennis.