Random Adventures in Beijing

The rumors are true, apparently – the solvent supply for the chemistry lab will be cut off at the beginning of July, leaving us unable to perform column chromatography, and thus, reactions, so we will have to perform other procedures such as spectroscopy. I’m not really sure what my lab will be doing specifically, but I’ll also be faced with difficulty as the fourth floor of the chemistry building is going to be renovated, so people on the fourth floor (my lab) will not be able to work there.


Last Saturday I attended a lunch with the other students from Professor Zhao’s lab to celebrate a birthday. The lunch was at a Korean BBQ restaurant about a block from the Wanliu apartment and lasted for about 4 hours. It was really nice to hang out with my lab members outside of the lab and talk with undergraduates my age. The food was fresh….really fresh – the crabs were still live, and we didn’t realize that when we opened the covered plate, so a crab came running out. As the girls scattered away, others tried to use chopsticks to catch it, but it eluded capture as it scampered off the grill until someone picked it up by hand and put it into the soup.


After hearing Xu talk about getting a good breakfast on campus in the morning, I decided this week to wake up a little earlier and catch the earlier shuttle to join him – best decision ever! Maybe it’s just because I miss having a good breakfast (it’s hard to heat food without a microwave or pot) but “bao zi,” which are steamed buns with pork, and a bowl of “huen dun,” which is essentially dumpling soup, with a cup of warm, fresh soy milk is definitely enough to wake me up.


At work, most undergraduates have returned to their labs after their final exams, so all the labs have gotten noticeably more crowded. I am also working with an undergraduate in my lab, Xiu Yuan, who has helped me perform reactions and understand more about my lab’s work. This week, editors from the American Chemical Society were visiting to get feedback from professors and graduate students. They also gave lectures on the journal publication and selection process, which was interesting for me to hear about. On Thursday I saw “Kung Fu Panda” with members of my lab, Donna’s lab, and Kelly, Xu, and Zhaleh, which was a lot of fun, and on Saturday I went into work since there was a reaction that I really wanted to perform.


On Sunday, we were planning to go to the zoo, but when we saw rain in the forecast for the whole day, we decided to postpone the trip. After a few episodes of Desperate Housewives, however, we were ready to get out of Wanliu, so Donna, Zhaleh, Kelly, Zack, and I hopped on the first bus that we saw hoping to get off somewhere exciting and took it out to someplace along “Datong” road. We still haven’t quite figured out which direction we’d gone in, but it was probably near the edge of the city since people noticeably kept staring and the area seemed less urban. We stopped in for a snack at a small bakery, then took a different random bus and got off at a park where we played on exercise equipment and walked around taking pictures. Random traveling was definitely a great way to see the city beyond our comfort areas, and maybe on a less smoggy day we will do it again and see more of Beijing.