American in Beijing

Wow, where to start on this blog! It has been a couple days since my last post and it that time there's been a lot going on.

Saturday
An early morning wake up got us going on a guided tour day with Steve, our Chinese tour guide. Steve, that's his English name, was awesome! On our bus ride to Tiananmen Square he filled us in on some Chinese history. The Square really just seemed to come out of nowhere and it's extremely big. If you're a people watcher then you would be in heaven at this place. So many interesting people wandering around. We walked around the square for a while looking at the buildings, including Chairman Mao's mausoleum, which I plan to go to sometime later. For some reason, there are just randomly placed Chinese guards who didn't really look to serve a purpose aside from standing there and looking intimidating (which didn't work either). We weren't even there for 5 minutes and I got stopped by a Chinese guy wanting to take a picture with me. Obviously he recognized me from all the Braves games on TBS. So after a photo shoot and autograph session I was back on my way touring around. It was amazing how many people wanted to take pictures with us. There is a tall blond girl on the trip and needless to say she drew a lot of stares. I even watched some older man inconspiciously (lol) walk next to her without saying anything to get a picture. So slick. After a while we headed into the Forbidden City, which is vast to say the least. It reminded me of the Louvre, one of those places you can go and literally spend days there attempting to look at everything. The architecture was fascinating and the whole place seemed very overwhelming. You just continue to pass from huge courtyard to huge courtyard. I learned some interesting info about some of the buildings and their use in olden times.


After the Forbidden City, we took a short bus ride to the Hutong District. We got to go up into this Drum Tower which use to be used as a clock, with people striking the drums to signal different times. While in the tower we caught a drum show. Five Chinese people played on the huge cylinder drums lining the walls. The tower also provided a great view of the city. Luckily, the smog wasn't too bad that day so we were able to see a good distance. After a climb down the steep tower stairs we all got an awesome ride in a rickshaw. It was my first ever ride in a rickshaw which added to the high levels of excitement. We also got to go to a tea tasting session which was great. Groups of us sat around tables as the ladies explained the different teas, how to drink them and general tea culture in China. We tasted 4 teas, I thought the jasmine was the best.

Sunday
This was technically our first official off day so we were free to do whatever. The day started with a very cool experience. I went to Catholic mass at the South Cathedral with three other people in group. The South Cathedral was the first Catholic Church in Beijing. It's as tucked away off the street as someplace can be in Beijing, with a nice courtyard in front and several side courtyards. A beautiful area in downtown Beijing. The inside of the Church was very interesting, including a very busy sanctuary.

I was surprised at the large amount of Chinese people at the English mass. Overall, the mass wasn't much different than home. The entire congregation held hands for the Our Father and they did this cool clapping thing at one point. Also, for some reason they read both the readings in French as well. Not really sure why that was. Do you have any clue Uncle Charles? It was a very cool experience and we plan on going back.

Following mass, a group of us splurged a little bit and had a buffet lunch at the Shangri-La Hotel. This buffet was insane! I had lobster, shrimp, salmon, lamb chops, sushi, beef, duck, proshiutto and melon, a crepe and several other delicious desserts. Turned out to be my only meal of the day because I ate so much. It was definitely one of those kid-in-a-candy-store kind of moments.

Later that day I took a walk through a random neighborhood. It was a place where tourists wouldn't go and it was incredibly interesting to see how some people were living and the various stores and food places. For so many things here it seems as if there aren't any guidelines or codes.

Monday
After a lengthy morning lecture, we caught lunch at one of the campus cafeteria's. It was good and incredibly cheap. For a drink and food I paid maybe a little over $1. Beat that. Food on campus is insanely cheap. The only draw back is the point and eat system. As in, I don't really know what I'm getting I just point at what I think looks good. Therefore, there is a little trial and error involved, but I don't feel as bad knowing that I can try something and if I don't like it I'm only down 10 cents. Following lunch we decided to visit the Pearl Market, one of the main indoor markets. This kind of thing is an experience that everyone needs to have. Basically, it's stalls and stalls of people selling essentially the same things all trying to get you to buy theirs. It was awesome and incredibly funny. These are the kinds of places where you bargain for the price, which can become slightly tiring. I never knew I was so good looking until I heard it from every other lady selling clothes, "you are so handsome, this shirt would look great on you." We had a great time bargaining with these ladies. I ended up not buying anything on this visit, partly because I was a bit overwhelmed by it all. I need to work on my bargaining skills. One of the more interesting moments was the lady who was selling Olympic t-shirts. Apparently, they are really cracking down on illegal Olympic gear so as we passed she whispered to us that she had some t-shirts. After we stopped she moved some things aside and pulled out a non-descript black bag full of Olympic t-shirts. The crazy thing was that she actually got caught by guards walking around. We're not sure what happened but it was obvious that she wasn't too happy. She saw the guard coming and quick tried to play it off like nothing by quickly zipping up the bag, but he had already seen what was going on.

Last night we had a formal dinner hosted by Renmin University. I had no idea what I was eating the whole night. Some of it was good and some was quite interesting. I tried a few funny looking things.

I need to blog more regularly to avoid more posts of this size. I apologize for it's length. The last two times I tried to post I feel asleep on my bed with the computer next to me.

Beijing is a fascinating and intriguing place and I've only been here for 5 days. More to come!