Six days, two plane rides, three cities, and twelve sites. I can’t even think of anywhere else I would have liked to go. We pulled into Hong Kong on Thursday the 6th and I basically had 24 hours there before I left for Beijing. Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai are all massive cities so Emma and I decided to get away from that for a little while. We got off the boat and immediately bought a train ticket to a little island where the largest outdoor Buddha can be found. The train system in Hong Kong is much like the subway in New York except it is far cleaner, easier to use, faster, and seems more efficient. When we got to the island we had to take a cable car to the top of a mountain to view the giant Buddha statue. The cable car ride was about 20 minutes and had incredible views. Once we got to the top we had to walk through a cute little village and then up 250 steps to reach the Buddha. I can’t say that it was extremely exciting but it was a cool thing to see and I’m glad we did that instead of walking around Hong Kong all day.
The next day we caught a flight to Beijing. About 95% of the plane was SAS students but I coincidentally ended up sitting next to a guy from Georgia Tech who was studying abroad in China. I always think it’s really crazy when stuff like that happens. After the three hour flight we drove to Tsinghua University where we would be staying for the next three nights. Driving through Beijing at night was really nice, especially getting to see the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube all lit up. The next morning we woke up really early to see the Great Wall at sunrise. The weather was really yucky so my pictures don’t look that impressive. It was really amazing being there though. Despite the frigid temperature (mid 50s) and overcast sky, the Wall was extremely impressive and it was really cool to be able to climb it (which was actually a fairly strenuous hike). From there we had lunch and then headed to our next site.
***I would like to insert a special note here – I ate lots of traditional Chinese food while I was there and never ever came across Sesame Chicken or Orange Chicken. In the United States those are probably the two most popular Chinese dishes to order, yet they don’t even exist in China. I was disappointed to find out that they are just American inventions of Chinese food.***
After lunch we headed to the Beijing Zoo to see the Giant Pandas! They were adorable and I wish we had had more time at the zoo to explore. We didn’t get to see any other animals.
After the zoo, we returned to Tsinghua University to interact with some of the students. It was actually a kind of awkward experience. They dropped all 60 of us off at the basketball courts and then told us we had 2 hours to mingle. All of the University students were well into their basketball games so it was hard to jump in. To make things more awkward, there were no female students out there and the male students didn’t want to play basketball with the SAS girls. Later that night we ate dinner with the students and that was a much better interaction.
The next day our first stop was Tian’anmen Square. Probably the most interesting thing about being at the square was listening to our tour guide avoid answering questions about the riots that occurred there in 1989. In fact, she completely denied the existence of them. I was surprised that a young University student would not share that information with us, but I guess the government really does have a profound affect on the information they want released. The story that many U.S. students learn about in school is the sit-in that was staged in Tian’anmen Square in 1989. Over 10,000 pro-democracy students gathered in front of the Great Hall. Their demonstration was greeted by Chinese tanks and troops who opened fire on the people in the square. Hundreds were killed and many more injured. Several tour guides told us that did not really happen.
Our next stop was the Forbidden City which is also known as the Imperial Palace. Its construction was finished in 1420 and was the permanent residence of the emperors from the Ming and Qing Dynasty. It is currently the largest and most complete group of ancient buildings in China. It was a beautiful site and hard for me to believe that people actually lived there. From there we went to the Temple of Heaven which is where the Emperors went to worship and feel closer to the heavens.
After a long day of historical sites we hit up the Silk Street Market. That was the most ridiculous and overwhelming shopping experience I have ever had. It was a four-story indoor market, packed with booth after booth of cheap name brand items as well as a ton of good knock-off stuff. People went crazy buying purses, shoes, jeans, polos, and electronics. I have never seen such hysteria over shopping. Immediately after the Silk Market we went to a Chinese Acrobatics show. It was much like a Cirque du Soleil show, so I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The next morning we woke up early again to and went to the Summer Palace. Another side note about food – I can’t wait to have a Western breakfast again. Breakfast in China consisted of a soupy rice thing, stuff I would probably eat for dinner, and dough balls. I just want some good scrambled eggs and sausage. The ship doesn’t even have good breakfast other than croissants. Summer Palace was another incredibly beautiful site on a lake with lots of ornate buildings.
For the Grande Finale of our Beijing tip we visited the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube!!! Besides the Great Wall, I was most excited to see these Olympic Venues. It was such a cool feeling being there so close to the Olympics. We got to go inside the Water Cube and see where Michael Phelps swam! Unfortunately the pool wasn’t that exciting because it wasn’t filled with water. The building was still very impressive. As we approached the Bird’s Nest I started getting really excited. It is a stunning, massive structure. I felt so cool walking inside it and standing on the center of the floor knowing so many amazing athletes had been there too. That concluded our trip to Beijing and we flew into Shanghai that night to meet the ship at our new port.
The next day we had to be back on the ship by 6 pm to leave China, so we really only had a few hours to do something in Shanghai. Emma and I went to the Oriental Pearl – one of the tallest towers in the world. Apparently there is some kind of difference between a tower and a building. I haven’t really figured it out. I just like going up and getting the view. The Oriental Pearl had a great 360 view of Shanghai and the elevator was super fast.
On our taxi ride back to the boat we realized just how much of a language barrier we faced. So far on this voyage it has been easy to communicate with people, especially taxi drivers. At every port they are able to pick out the American students and charge them ridiculous amounts of money to get back to the boat. Not in China. Not only did no one speak English, but they couldn’t even read the name of our port because it wasn’t written in Chinese characters. After our tour of the Oriental Pearl, Emma and I could not find a single taxi driver who understood us. We finally stumbled across a tourist company who wrote down something for us and said we would be good to go. When the taxi driver dropped us off we realized that the tourist company had confused our desire to go back to our boat with finding the ferry. Now Emma and I had no clue where we were. We started walking around the city popping our heads into hotels and asking if anyone spoke English. We even resorted to showing them pictures of our boat that we had taken in the Shanghai harbor. It was quite hysterical and still nobody knew what we were talking about. After a ton of walking around we finally saw a skyscraper in the distance that we recognized. We hopped in a taxi and just kept pointing to the building. This whole process of getting lost took about 2 hours but we finally made it back to the boat.
If you are still reading, I salute you. Your eyes are probably hurting by now. Tomorrow we arrive in Kobe, Japan. My plans are kind of up in the air right now so it should be an exciting 5 days!
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