Well I made it to China! My flight was delayed a little bit because we were flying over the North Pole and we had to be re-routed a little more west because of the ash cloud. The airport was really easy to get around in because everything had English and pictures (our teacher told us this was all redone for the Olympics to make sure visitors had a good impression). At first none of the taxis would take me to my hotel but then someone (with authority I’m assuming?) yelled at one of the drivers and they said ‘ok’ so I finally got to the hotel and checked into my room at about 7:30pm (Saturday). The hotel (Crowne Plaza) is pretty much baller status and I am getting very spoiled by the Priority Club accommodations! I got up to my room and checked my email and found out that our group was meeting to leave at 7:00pm so I had just missed them. It turned out ok because I just got to settle in my room and took a much-needed shower and went to sleep.
In the morning I got up pretty refreshed. I woke up really early because of the time change and tried to go back to sleep but just tossed and turned a little. The hotel has breakfast included and it was a pretty impressive buffet of both American and Chinese options. I only had about 15 minutes to eat breakfast and tomorrow I plan on allowing more time so I can explore and fill up for the day! We met in the lobby at 8:20am and had a tour guide and bus to take us to our first stop of the day: The Great Wall. The tour guide is really hard to understand and you have to listen very closely to figure out what he is trying to say so that was difficult. A lot of people had gone out the night before so they really just wanted to sleep on the bus anyway. There was so much traffic on the way to the Great Wall that at one point it was completely stopped and everyone just got out of their cars/buses and were just chillin’ on the highway. We had to park our bus pretty far away because of the traffic which made the walk even farther. We went up the wall really close to the midpoint but that part was really crowded so we walked in the other direction. It was pretty surreal to be on the great wall and thinking about how difficult it would be to build the wall sort of makes the pyramids look like child’s play. It was definitely a workout with the steep stairs and inclined paths. Everything is so foggy (or smoggy) that you can barely make out the Great Wall going up behind me in pictures. The tour guide gave us an hour to hike the wall and then we met back and headed to the bus for lunch.
We at lunch at some place that was a jade workshop with a restaurant in the back. Our group got three round tables to sit at with lazy susans in the middle. Then we all had little tiny plates and they brought out a bunch of different food dishes that we didn’t even know what they were but it was all really good. I know I tried tongue and some eggplant dish (both yummy!). They also had some dishes you would find in Chinese places at home like sweet and sour pork, lo mein, hot and sour soup, and rice. Overall I liked everything I tried and I think there were only a few dishes that I passed on because they looked spicy.
After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. This was just a huge compound that is the size of the city of Charlottesville with all kinds of buildings, temples, and special rocks. The group had 2 hours to walk around and do whatever we wanted so we walked around for a little while before splitting off. I went with a group of 6 and we rented a paddle boat to go around the giant lake in the middle of the palace property. It gave some really cool views of the larger palace buildings and towers. We also got to go up close to the island on the middle of the lake with some other special building on it. The paddling definitely gave out legs another workout as if the Great Wall hike wasn’t enough – I will definitely be feeling it tomorrow. After the Summer Palace it was about 4:00pm and we loaded up the bus to head back to the hotel.
We all showered and relaxed for a bit at the hotel before meeting in the lobby at 6:00pm to head out to the markets. This part was just led by our teacher and not a tour guide. We took the subway (pretty easy to get around also because it was all redone for the Olympics too) for a while to get to the Silk Market. But before we even went to the market we were all starving and were looking for someplace to eat. Everyone in the group was trying to look for a good Chinese place but the whole area was so touristy that we all ended up at McDonald’s anyway, oh well! Then we finally made it to the Silk Market – I could have spent all day in there just buying up a storm! The market was like a huge mall with 6 stories of people selling stuff similar to the Grand Bazaar in Turkey. All the floors and areas were organized by items so we went straight to the purses floor. You bargain for everything which is fun and I got three designer purses (fake, of course) for a total of $35 US. I probably could have paid even less too but I felt like I was getting a good deal at the time. It is very aggressive and people try to grab you and pull you into their shop but if you know what you are doing it was fun. I was walking around mainly with one other girl (it was too hard to navigate with a big group) and we got the hang of it after our first purchase. I only got the purses but I could have spent so much time exploring all the other floors such as clothing (so much fake Polo stuff) and lots of people got great looking designer shoes (not sure if they would actually have any to fit me though), but I’m sure there will be plenty more markets for me to spend all my money!
We all met outside the Silk Market after it closed at 9:00pm and took the subway three more stops to get to the area with a pedestrian street and nighttime food markets. Unfortunately, it was raining when we got off the subway but we toughed it out and walked through anyway. We went down one side street where they had all the weird food and some kids in our group tried the fried scorpions (they said it tasted like Pringles…?). We continued down the pedestrian street which was a nice wide walkway lined with really nice designer stores and was all lit up and reminded us of a shopping area you would see in Europe. When we finally got to the street market that supposedly had the good food (I was really looking forward to some dumplings!) it was closed because of the rain. I hope we will get a chance to go back there another night but it was kind of a hassle to get there and it was tucked away. I’m glad our teacher knows where everything is otherwise I don’t think I would ever find anything. We were all pretty tired from the long day so we just decided to take cabs back to the hotel. It was pretty difficult to find them in the rain but it is nice to finally be back in my nice bed after such a long day. Now it’s midnight and I’m headed to bed; can’t wait for my delicious breakfast and another day full of activities tomorrow!
