Samstag, 10. November 2007

Saturday: Hot Yoga and Gu Gong

Like in Germany I don't have to work Saturday and Sunday. My Chinese colleagues don't have to neither - only in special occasions when there is a peak in work load.
So what did I do today?
I did sports and sightseeing.

Sports: A colleague of mine had recommended trying HOT YOGA in a nearby yoga studio. That's what I did. The class began 10 am.
For those of you who don't know what hot yoga (also called bikram yoga) is (description in German)

"HOT YOGA ist eine Serie von Yoga-Übungen, die bei 40°Celsius praktiziert wird. Die Wärme ermöglicht das intensive Dehnen, trainiert Herzkreislauf, fördert die Entgiftung und macht den Körper beweglich."

In my own words after having made this experience: it's like doing gymnastics in a sauna. Amazing! I had already tried yoga once before in France and didn't find it that exhausting, but moving in a 40 degree celsius hall brought me to my limits. I had to do some breaks and I also had to drink a lot. The lesson was 1,5 hours long!

In the afternoon I visited "gu gong". "Gu gong" is pinyin (Chinese pronunciation written with our letters insted of the Chinese letters to make it easier for foreigners to learn Chinese, but also in order to have an offical Chinese because of the many dialects) for the king's palace in the Forbiden City. The Forbidden City belongs to Unesco World Heritage Site.
I visited the whole area for 3 - YES, THREE hours and still didn't see half of it. Equipped with an audio guide I saw some of the offical representation purpose king's premises as well as some former concubines' places and part of the imperial garden.
The audio guide told sad storys about a king dying, concubines dying, but also nice things.
However, many buildings are being restored at the moment, which unfortunately means you can only see the roof and not the whole building.
I especially liked the imperial garden where you can also see some weird stone formations and bucklet (German: "krumme und schiefe") trees. I don't really know whether these were natural or not. Don't think so.

So much for today. Bye.

1 Kommentar:

Anonym hat gesagt…

Hot Yoga - jaaaaa, das erinnert mich an eine Stunde im August 2003-draußen 30°C, schwülwarm, drinnen 40°C, noch schwülwärmer (wenn es das Wort noch nicht gibt, sollte es für Hot Yoga erfunden werden).

Ich kann Dir Dein Vergnügen bestens nachvollziehen (zwischendrin dachte ich, mein Kreislauf kippt um und ich muss tatsächlich in ein chin. Krankenhaus...)