beijing huanying ni-yah!

beijing huanying ni-a!

so i got back from beijing the other day…if you want to skip the boring details go here and look at the pictures all you want (more to come since i am still awaiting pictures)…:

so i went with nancy, who is working in the city, and had thurs/fri off for dragon boat festival…we took a train from shanghai to beijing. we planned to meet at the train station at around 8, and the train leaves at 8:21. i got there around 7:45 and waited, i get a call at 8:05 or so and we can’t seem to find each other. we’re both apparently at exit one of the subway stop at the shanghai railway station. fear flashes when she asks me if i’m at the right shanghai railway station because there’s 2 in shanghai. for like 2 minutes i’m in a panic because, hey i’m in a foreign country and shanghai railway station isn’t that far off from shanghai south railway station…and i think i’m at the wrong one?!?! but i finally find her and we make it on the train just in time. to be honest i was expecting really miserable conditions during a 10 hour train ride, like something out of slumdog millionaire, but instead it ended up being really nice and everyone got a tv! i watched taken in chinese (my fourth time watching this movie, sad but true), passed out at a decent hour, and when i woke up…i was in beijing! i had the olympic song, beijing huanying ni stuck in my head for a good amount of the trip.

i don’t want to recount everything that happened on the trip because that’s pretty boring. but i will mention a couple of things:

- beijing is absolutely beautiful. there is so much history behind this city, and so much to see and do, that it was impossible (and incredibly tiring) to take it all in in a short weekend. i managed to check off everything on my laundry list, and then some. because we ran from one place to another…i forget where i’ve been and what is where haha. but that’s what pictures are for! (~400!)

- note to self: never go to the great wall again if you didn’t have breakfast. however i did make it to the left end of Ba Da Ling, which the tour guide said even mao zedong didn’t do, haha

- another note to self – read up on wikipedia more about each site

- small world story time…i met up with lihan (you get a shoutout!) one night, and then nancy had a friend in beijing also…and her friend ended up being lihan’s coworker. coincidence? i think not

- beijing kaoya is pretty good, but don’t set your expectations too high like i did. everything i’ve had really high expectations fell short (outside of the lion king broadway show)

- after a short discussion, we realized that modern architecture could probably go so much further if there were no zoning laws, and no human rights like back in the colosseum/great wall days.

ok so my goal is to hit 10 cities in china before i have to leave…3 cities down, 7 to go…

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