Arrive in Beijing/Summer Palace, Beida (Beijing University), and Olympic Venues: Days 1 & 2

As I sit here typing this entry it is 6 am on the morning of August 22 in Bejing China- just about to leave for our busiest day at Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall and a special dinner of Peking Roast Duck. I apologize for not posting, but between the blocked website :) and our hectic schedule, it has been hard to find time. I will post for the first two days now and tonight (tomorrow morning) send out a post for today and yesterday. A special thank you goes out to Mrs. Kevin for helping us out with keeping the blog still running in spite of some, umm, technical problems we are having :). We are 13 hours ahead of probably most, if not all of the people reading this. So, as you go to waking up this morning, know that we are just about to go to sleep :).


Day 1: After I typed that rushed entry in New Orleans, we had a pretty noneventful flight to Chicago, where we quickly found out that our flight had been delayed until 3 pm- roughly 6 hours later. After waiting a while, we got on the flight to Beijing. The tragedy of the thing was that we had no window seats. Micah and I shared one row of the five row section in the middle and Jay, Angelle and Rebekah were directly behind us. While we had a few seats to share, it was still pretty cramped. Between wearing down our computers watching movies, filling out arrival and health forms, watching the map of us travel up to the North Pole and down again, eating probably every other hour from that very appealing selection that they offer on airplanes these days and trying to get sleep and utterly failing...it was a good little flight and we survived, although we did manage to spill a few drinks and get beads and glue everywhere. Arriving in Beijing was pretty nice for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that we wanted to use our legs extensively after 13 hours of sitting. The airport was massive with a huge, dome-like ceiling and red pillars and vast windows all around. I walked into the first line and was randomly selected by a masked Quarantine/security officer for my temperature to be taken- little nerve-wracking, but I passed, so all is good. We then met up with our CHI coordinator, Elsie, and made it to our hotel at the Radisson. Tired, we settled in and ventured out to a nearby Pizza Hut (very interesting experience :), and stopped at a nearby grocery store. We then decided to get an early night's sleep, looking at the view of Beijing, still rushing on, busy as ever, outside our hotel window and remembering not to drink the tap water :).


Day 2: We woke up on the morning of August 20, very relaxed and now adjusted to Beijing time. We stopped by the hotel's breakfast, much different from those poor excuses for continental breakfasts we have in the United States. Of course, to be fair, we probably paid for this breakfast and this is a four star hotel, but that does not take away the simple awesomeness that is this breakfast. We walked down into the lobby and met Cindy and Jessie, CHI coordinators and tour guides for Beijing. We then left with Cindy off to our own personal tour of the Summer Palace, vacation escape for the emperors and their retinue from April to October.

There is something about Beijing, an energy or a vigor, that pervades; sometimes you can almost just feel it. Everyone has this vigor, this energy, and is on a mission and everyone is in a rush to get somewhere. There are no lanes on the highways. That is to say, the inconspicuous and insignificant little lines are still painted on the roads, but they mean absolutely nothing. Bikes, minibikes, scooters, taxis, buses, vans, these vehicles that are something of a cross between a minibike/covered wagon/truck and yes, sometimes even the pedestrians, merge and intermingle together in one single push forward. It is so strange to see bikers weaving in and out of huge buses and swerving taxis, within an inch of their life, just to get a few feet ahead. And even stranger is the fact that we have not seen one wreck yet. This applies to tourist attractions as well. Victor Hugo, in Les Miserables, wrote that: "To err is human, to stroll is Parisian." If the city being examined were Beijing, it would probably be true to say something along the lines of to cram or to push is characteristic of Beijing; there is nothing like it. China has quite a few people (as you probably knew :) and over 17 million of them live in Beijing, and so, I suppose, when you live that close to that many people, you do have to be aggressive in order to get somewhere. At the summer palace and even at the Temple of Heaven where we went today, if we were not moving fast enough they were

[Friends, I am not sure what Landon intended to say here . . . it is a mystery. ~ Landon's Personal Secretary]

We started off visiting the Summer Palace. Built in the late 1800's by the famous empress Dowager Cixi (kind of a strange woman), it was built in classical Chinese architecture with ancient gardens and trees. An enormous lake and canal border it on parts and we took a boat to an island in the center. It was all very stunning and amazing to be simply be there. It was also here that I had my first bartering experience. Chinese actually set their prices very high and then expect you to barter with them, something I did not know but now I do, thanks to Cindy. We then left to go for lunch and stopped at Beijing Daxue (Beijing University) or Beida, for short. Known for being the top university in China as well as for its forward-thinking students and emphasis, it is characterized by beautiful ancient Chinese architecture as well. Like I did with almost all of my university visits, I bought a shirt; although, except for a possible study abroad program, I will probably not apply here :). We then stopped by the Olympic venues. It was neat to be in the place that, a year ago, housed the Olympic games. We got to walk around the Bird's Nest and got to walk inside the water cube and see the place where Michael Phelps won his 7 gold medals. By this time, Rebekah was demanding that we return home to the hotel where we swam in the pool a little bit and, although I am ashamed to admit it, ate some Maidanglao (McDonald's)- hey, it was close and easy.


I have to leave for our trip soon, and will post more tonight. I wanted to make this short, but I am rushing and didn't have time to cut it down, sorry! Check again soon for more!