Beijing

The first day in Beijing we had a lot of free time. I went to the Pearl Market and bought a gift for Cole and chapstick, which was my favorite find of the day. Later we went to dinner, and after all of the Chinese food, ended up getting Pizza Hut. It was good and actually a break from the meals where we would have no idea what we were getting. I felt kind of guilty being in China and eating American food, but being on an SAS trip, we were eating at really great restaurants the rest of the time... I also saw Jill and Justin that night, which was a surprise because they were on the SAS Beijing trip. It was fun and we just talked and journaled in Jill's room.

 

The next morning we started out going to Tiananmen Square. It was kind of surreal. I've been studying China since August now and seeing the area that was the most important during the past fifty years was really cool. It's 100 square acres, but it doesn't look like it. Especially since I know MU is 90 acres (thanks to basketball videos). It doesn't look like we could fit our whole campus in, but since the Square is completely open, I'm not surprised my view of it is off. We tried to get our guide to mention the demonstration/ massacre while we were there and he told us he would tell us in the bus. But he didn't and when we brought it up he changed the subject. We went through the Forbidden City next. It reminded me of Mulan and was really pretty, but that was about it. Everything has been destroyed or removed from the rooms so there is a lot of empty space there.

 

Our next "stop" was a trishaw ride through the Hutong Area. The area used to hold the royal families and since then has held well-off families. The houses themselves are very small and old, but the area is really expensive because of the location to the Forbidden City. We had lunch at a local home, which was really good, and learned how to make dumplings. The best part about the house was that they had a cricket. I never saw it but someone told me that it was in a cage... Mulan again!

 

ln the afternoon we went to the Bird's Nest. We were able to go inside of it (the only SASers who got to at all because of some connection our tour guide had) which was pretty incredible. It looks a lot bigger on TV when they show the inside. The outside looks a lot bigger in person because of the size of the steel beams that hold it up. The inside though has been converted into a winter park. There was sled-riding on one side, an ice skating rink in the middle and a show going on on the stage. There was a lot of other stuff happening inside but I can't remember it now. Our guide told us that the same type of thing is happening in the Water Cube- it's going to be a giant water park for kids. It seems like a really odd use of space for the Olympic stadiums but I guess there isn't much else you can do with it. A side note- I think that I climbed up more stairs in the Birds Nest than I did on the Great Wall. I will have to look in my journal, but I think the ones at the Nest were like 260 and the ones at the Great Wall ended at like 230. But the Great Wall was a lot of incline up and not steps. Just something I didn't expect.  (Most of my time on the Great Wall was spent going down towards the toboggan)

 

For dinner we had Peking Duck. It was good, I'm glad I tried it, but it wasn't my favorite meal in China.

 

The last day of my trip we went to the Great Wall! We went to one of the most touristy parts of the wall which included a cable car up and a toboggan down. Even with that it was an interesting trip up to the wall. There was first this huge hill (think Chesnut hill doubled and you get the hight and steepness) that we had to walk up lined with vendors. They were trying to sell us stuff as we were walking up, which was kind of incredible because no one was going to carry that all the way to the end. And then we got on a cable car. My trust in Chinese engineering has increased dramatically since I am still alive after this cable car and all the skywalks in Shanghai.

 

Walking around the Great Wall was incredible but my mind does not comprehend how it was built. And even with all of the explanations I was given about it, I still don't believe that they could carry those boulders up there. There's only one explanation: aliens.

 

Kidding... kind of.

 

Tobogganing down was probably one of the top three experiences of my life. Whoever thought that up is a genius. The track took about 10 minutes, I think, and was amazingly fun. It would have been a tiny bit better if I didn't have to keep on stopping for the people in front of me but overall I couldn't have asked for a better way to get down the wall. We were on these little plastic things that had wheels on the bottom and then we pushed forward on a bar that was by our feet to be able to go. I wish I had been able to get a longer video but it would have been impossible to tape and move at the same time. It reminded me of the place at the Poconos, I think it was the water park, where we took the ski lift up and then took those little sleds down where we had to pedal. But this one was much much better =)