Creatures in the Night

My tennis group had to find another place to play after the university across the street from our office banned people not related to the university from using the sports facilities.

We ended up finding a court a short drive from our office near the Third Ring Road, in a residential area made up of rows of townhouses. I didn't know townhouses existed in Beijing, but both Chinese and foreigners live in the three-storey flats.

There's only one court, but it's nice and clean, but it's right next to giant transmission towers which is disconcerting. I don't think I'd like to live there even though the environment is green and quiet.

There's lots of trees and hedges lined around the court and as we started playing around dinner time, mosquitoes came to feast on us. Within half an hour I got several bites on my legs and had to keep moving to avoid more bites.

However after a short rest, I played on the other side of the court which had less mosquitoes as it was next to the parking lot and there was a slight breeze, which was a relief from the humid air.

For the record today was quite hazy. Although today is day 5 of the alternating license plates, there hasn't been a significant visible change in air quality yet.

As the sun started going down, I saw something flying frantically in the sky. It was a bat.

There are lots of bats in Beijing. You can see them at dusk near the Lama Temple, or Yonghegong.

For some reason the bat kept hovering near the tennis balls as they flew across the court. One of my colleagues joked the bat was asking to be whacked to death.

But luckily we didn't have an incident -- otherwise it would have been a bloody mess.