Beijing

We had a week-long vacation from September 28th to October 7th so we spent the first five days in Beijing! This week was Moon Festival and the entire country celebrates it; everyone gets school and work off and travels. Thus, Beijing was super busy! But we wanted to see the city anyway so we didn’t care! At first this vacation was really fun—I had a blast eating new food, meeting new people, and seeing everything—but then a lot of problems arose and we were ready to go home. This is an overview of my vacation, but I will go into detail on some places in my following posts…

Friday:

We left late Friday night and took a 15 hour train ride to Beijing. We wanted to get beds on the train, but they were sold out by the time we bought our tickets so we spent the whole 15 hours on hard seats. The train was really crowded (there were people who bought night long standing tickets in the aisles!), the light stayed on, and the seats were hard—basically I couldn’t sleep the whole time. This was probably the first time I’ve stayed awake all night and the following day.

We saw my student Andrew and his dad at the station!

My friends all trying to sleep on the train. Not pictured: me sitting alone on the other side with a Chinese guy falling asleep on my shoulder. It was actually pretty funny.

The sunrise on the train.

I made friends with these two on the train and we named them Joey and Keira (doesn’t she look like the Chinese version of Keira Knightley??). One thing I really like about trains is that you get to talk and know the people around you (which can also be a bad thing). Most teenagers and young adults know English because it is now highly intergraded in schools so we always have people we can communicate with. I talked to Joey and Kiera for a while and got to hear about their lives; they are both studying medical at an University and were on their way home to visit their families.

Saturday:

We arrived Saturday afternoon at our hostel and spent the night exploring the local streets around our hostel. I love hostels! Hostels are very cheap and have kind of a vintage feel with their walls all covered with postcards, drawings, and decorations. The rooms aren’t that nice, but definitely worth it for the price. Also, most people who stay at hostels are foreigners! I’ve met people from all around the world and it’s really cool talking to them and hearing about all the things they’ve done.

Our hostel.

 

Sunday:

 

Sunday was national Moon Day. In the morning a few of the girls and I made our way over to the Beijing branch for church. We don’t have the opportunity to go to church each week and it’s such a blessing when we get to go. The spirit there is incredible and I miss being able to go each week. After church we decided to rent bikes and explore the city (see following post). Then we had Beijing’s famous duck and a little moon party of our own. 

 

Monday:

 

We spent the majority of Monday on the beautiful Great Wall (see following post for more details). It was amazing. In the night we just walked around local streets and Mandy was brave enough to try a bug sandwich.

Tuesday:

 

On Tuesday we visited the Lama Temple (see following post for details) and the silk market. We meant to do more things during the night but we lost Mandy at the silk market, there was a huge fight on one of the streets we were trying to walk by, we locked a key inside one of the rooms (and the hostel didn’t have a spare!), and endless other problems.

Some delicious pastries we bought everyday and the best fried rice I’ve ever had.

Whitney and I in a KFC, just laughing at the events of the night (this picture is mostly an inside joke between us) and Shayne breaking into her room because they locked the key inside--this is why we don’t leave valuables in our rooms.

 

Wednesday:

 

On Wednesday we went to the Forbidden City (see following post for details), the silk market again (you could seriously spend DAYS shopping in that place), and an amazing acrobats show. At night we were running of time, but I really wanted to see the Olympic Eagles Nest so we raced over there and were able to snap a few photos before it closed up.

There were 8 motorcycles in that ball!!

 

Thursday:

 

We spent Thursday morning at the Temple of Heaven (see following post for details), went shopping for a bit, and then headed out for a train to Qingdao (which is a whole another crazy story in itself…).

Riding in a little car.