Marco Polo Bridge

A few months ago I visited the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. I had been waiting for a day when I had lots of free time and the air was nice. This is a rare combo in Beijing, but it finally came. It took me quite a while to get there as its on the south west side of Beijing and where I live is on the north east, basically as far opposite as one can get. When I arrived at the nearest subway station I wasn’t quite sure if I was in the right place, but I did finally arrive at the Marco Polo bridge. The bridge dates back to 1189 and is somewhat famous in the modern context because it is where the Japanese invaded Beijing and in an ancient context because Marco Polo commented on it in his travels, hence the modern unofficial name. The bridge itself has been restored and looks quite nice. Lucky for me there were not too many people there so I got a little quiet time. One thing I was a bit perplexed by, the maps show a river that the bridge crosses, but it was more like a pond. One end of the river was clearly dry. Why build a bridge? Seriously though, Beijing is getting drier and drier. Maybe someday in the near future the bridge will span a sand dune. When I looked this up I came across the gem of a description, “In recent years, the water of Yongding River has been diverted to different areas of Beijing so often there is no water under the bridge.” Apparently there is not so much water under the bridge (Ba-dam-ching!!), because right across the street was the war museum.