day 18: 定州 (dingzhou) – 定州 (dingzhou) = 3,3km

At 9am I looked at my breath: a white miniature cloud dispersing into the quiet cold of my hotel room. The inside of my sleeping bag was cozy and warm. I closed my eyes.

When I woke up again it was already too late to get anywhere walking. I decided to check out 定州塔 (dingzhou pagoda) and look for a different hotel, one with a radiator.

The pagoda was pretty but not accessible:

Not that I cared much actually, because I didn’t have my wide-angle anyways.

Then I ran into local students 苗林 (miao lin) and 任丽丽 (ren lili) who were very helpful and showed me the way to the local museum:

定州市博物馆 (dingzhou city museum) has an AAA-rating (the highest rating is AAAAA):

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:

There was no mention as to what this was or when it was made, but I enjoyed looking at it 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, 100% made of jade, and sewn with silver. Great detail!

I didn’t spend that much time in that museum though, actually. Instead I went and paid 苗林 and 任丽丽 a visit in their school, the 冀中职业学院 (jizhong vocational college). I was going to learn English with them:

This is a detail I found in the courtyard. I thought it had a very powerful visual impact the way it was.

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

This class and I spent two hours talking about stuff, and I gotta say, I had a great time! Very friendly students and a charming teacher, and we would basically just chat away about this and that, Germany and China, movies and the Olympics, music and the lack of hot flavor in German cuisine…

Now I’m in my hotel room, it’s 10pm and the couple next door is audibly making love, and I’m not making love, I’m writing this, and what’s worse is I noticed the heating just got turned off here, too…

Well, well, I have chips and I have coke.

And today was a day well spent.

Soundtrack: Elephant Man – “Head Gone / Wine Up Uh Self”

—total: 258,6km