Beijing
Greetings! It’s Tuesday, July 15th and we are in another
week of classes. So far we have learned 20 or so Chinese
characters and enough conversation to meet someone
and find out where they are from. We were able to use
what Chinese we did know when we went to Beijing this
past weekend. We had a blast!
Friday we didn’t have classes because as a program we went to Beijing to see many historic spots. We got up around 6am and got to-go breakfast before taking two buses to Beijing. Our first stop would be the Ming Tombs. The tombs consisted of 17 different emperors from the Ming Dynasty. Because it’s so large and the tombs are planted over miles and miles of land and mountains we only saw the main entrance portion and two tombs. We walked a strip full of animal statues and emperor statues for roughly an hour before heading 10 minutes to another tomb by bus. This tomb was huge and had a large underground palace where the emperor along with his empresses was found in large red cases. They were also found with large chairs and personal items. The underground palace went down very far and was used for protection to hide in during the Ming Dynasty. After, we headed to our next adventure: Climbing the Great Wall!
The Great Wall is huge. It extends 6000 kilometers, and only two people in the world have walked the entire wall. We were able to visit a portion and climb to its highest peak. The portion we visited is the most famous and actually had a giant “One World One Dream” ad in honor of the Olympics. There were about 10 of us that started together. .. all in flip-flops! I guess you can say it was in honor of Miami tradition! As we started we realized after about 100m we were feeling a little beat but just laughed about it and kept going but we were semi-dying! The flip-flops didn’t help going up the steep wall or the really high up steps! We were taking pictures all the way up until we got up to the top and then we all relaxed in one of the many towers. We went a little further and then met up with some of the other Florida State students and took pictures.
The trip down was almost harder than going up! Being in sandals we always had to brace ourselves as we took each step. Some parts seemed to go straight down! It was fun and plus, it’s not like if we fell we would be going straight down…the entire time at least! Making it down was a rush just because you are able to finally say you “climbed the great wall”.
That evening we checked into the Tiantan Hotel in Beijing. It was really nice and it was free for us students! The objective for everyone was to go out HOWEVER, we passed out.
The next morning we got up early to go to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and Summer Palace. We went to Tiananmen and it was packed! The line to go to Mao Zedong’s mausoleum was so long, it wrapped around the entire building twice. There were also a lot of soldiers around which our tour guide told us was due to the fact so many people were here for the Olympics. We took pictures and kept walking until we hit the Forbidden City. There, we took a ton of pictures including our group shot. After making it across the street, we entered the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is huge, 9,999.5 rooms to be exact. There was so much history there and we were able to go all around. We were also able to see different Emperors’ Chairs and how they were set up. By then, it was lunch and we were exhausted! We headed to a Tai restaurant (not Thai) and ate while people performed before we headed to the Summer Palace.
The Summer Palace sits on 726 acres surrounding Kunming Lake. The palace is huge and the land that sits around it is even bigger. They had many temples along with paths around to go around. One temple we visited was the Temple of the Sea of Wisdom where Buddhas surround the entire building. Many people came to pray to the large Buddha in the building. It was quite a site. The view on the paths was breathtaking as well. As we walked the paths of Longevity Hill, you could see all of Beijing and the lake as people rode ferries across. We rode a ferry to the 17 arches across the lake, which comprise of 17 arches that make up a bridge before we departed.
Kate, Me and Peng Soon, our Chinese tutor
When it was over many of us opted to stayed in Beijing instead of go back to Tianjin that night. Two of our fellow students had lived in China previous to Tianjin stayed there in Beijing for 10 days so they were able to get us a good deal on a hotel. We stayed at the Olympic Best Western Hotel for the night to also celebrate our friend, Kent’s birthday. When we were at the hotel I met up with someone I contacted online about Olympic tickets and was able to deal and get tickets to four events. We got two evenings of soccer, tennis quarterfinals and a morning of baseball! When I was done picking what I wanted I let all the other Miami kids come get tickets they may want and pretty much all the Miami kids were able to get tickets to the games.
Going out in Beijing was pretty fun. There were a lot of Miami kids as well as Florida State kids so it was cool to go out with them, as well. We went to a place called Mix where there were a ton of people! By the time we made it back in around 2:30pm we were beat and definitely ready to sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day as we would be going shopping and the Olympic venues.
Shopping in Beijing is unlike shopping anywhere else in the world. First of all there are tons of shops, markets, street vendors etc… One market we decided to go to was Silk Street Market. This market consisted of 7 floors of different vendors. All the vendors sell things like purses, hats, watches and even tailored suits… for cheap! We were there for four hours just bargaining back and forth with the girls that work the shop…All who are fluent in English! They are pretty pushy but in order to learn the bargaining trade you have to be able to argue for your price. It was actually quite fun. After the shopping we went to the Birds Nest and the Water Cube for the Olympics. We took pictures of the stadiums and of some people that were practicing for the Opening Ceremony. We walked around the blocks of the stadium, all which were gated, before heading back to the hotel. There we grabbed our bags and took the hour train ride back to Tianjin.
Beijing was a great experience. We are planning on going to Beijing a couple more times and of course, going for the Olympic Games. We have yet to see the Temple of Heaven, The Lama Temple and the Beijing Zoo. Those will be trips for other days.
