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This is a post about a 3km walk within Dingzhou. I look at the Liaodi Pagoda and teach an English class in a vocational school.

At nine in the morning I looked at my breath: it was a white cloud disappearing in the quietness of my hotel room.

The inside of my sleeping bag was very cozy and warm. I closed my eyes.

Sleeping felt like the best thing.

The best thing…

The best…

The…

When I woke up again I painfully realized that it was already too late to get anywhere walking.

Liaodi Pagoda

So I decided to go for a walk within Dingzhou, check out the Dingzhou Pagoda 定州塔 and look for a different hotel. I wanted one that had a working radiator.

The pagoda was nice but not accessible. I learned that it was also called Liaodi Pagoda 料敌塔, and that it was the tallest premodern pagoda in China.

I didn’t mind that I couldn’t go in, because I didn’t have my wide-angle lens anyway.

the penis suit

The Dingzhou Municipal Museum 定州市博物馆 had an AAA-rating.

The highest national rating is 5A.

It was an okay place to look around for a little while, even though it was fairly small and not all the objects were self-explanatory.

For most of them, there was no mention as to what they were or when they had been made. But I enjoyed looking at them anyways.

There was a little explanation to the next object though.

This is an imperial jade burial suit 玉衣. It was designed to help the deceased emperor gain immortality. Therefore, it had to be made of jade and sewn with silver. I figured that being an Emperor entailed wanting to go into the afterlife in style.

Notice something about the suit though? Great detail!

English class

I didn’t spend very much time in the museum, though. Instead I went to the Jizhong Vocational College 冀中职业学院. I had run into a few students near the pagoda, and we had decided that it was time for me to go and teach some English there.

There was a statue I found in the courtyard of the college. It was broken, and it looked as if nobody cared.

I thought it had a very powerful visual impact just the way it was.

But I didn’t spend much time outside, since I had come to learn English, and learn English I did.

The students of this class and I spent two hours talking about stuff, and I gotta say, I had a great time!

We were all a bit shy at first. But both the students and their teacher were very charming. Once we overcame our initial timidness, we just chatted away about this and that. We talked about Germany and China, about the movies and the Olympics, about music and the lack of spicy flavor in German cuisine. It was a lot of fun.

a new room with new sounds

Now my walk within Dingzhou is over, and I’m in my new hotel room. Is it better than the last one? Well, I am not so sure.

It’s ten in the evening, and the couple next door is making love, and I’m not making love. I am busy writing this, and what’s worse is that I just noticed that the heating here got turned off, too.

Well, I have chips and I have coke.

And today was a day well spent.