On Tuesday morning, we had a Tai Chi class which was really fun! It was extremely humid and hot, though, which made it a little more difficult and sweaty. The instructor had us play a game to warm up and then he showed us how to do the Tai Chi and also how Tai Chi can be used for defense or to fight someone. I got my left side and right side mixed up a lot when doing the movements, but once I got that figured out it was really fun!
Later in the day, we went on a rickshaw ride/hutong tour. Hutongs are basically the type of neighborhoods that Beijing used to have; they are made up of essentially of alleyways instead of streets. Many hutongs were destroyed, but now they are preserved because they have so much historical and cultural significance. We were able to see 2 houses on our hutong tour. The first house had a courtyard and buildings surrounding the courtyard. The second house was smaller and didn’t seem as nice to me, but the man who owned it (Mr. Liu) was very interesting- he is a Kung Fu master! He showed us some Kung Fu moves and a video of his son who teaches Kung Fu in the U.S.
(Mr. Liu in front of his house in the hutong)
Before dinner we had a little bit of free time, so one of the other girls (Sarita) and I decided to walk around near our restaurant. We found a little beauty shop and decided to buy face masks. It was so interesting though because we had trouble finding a mask that didn’t have whitening ingredients- the Chinese want lighter skin, which is basically the opposite of how we are in the States where everyone wants to be tan. (We decided to use them after leaving Beijing though because the air is so bad there that we didn’t want it to get gross again right away). After that, Sarita and I had our first experience crossing the street without being in a big group. Crossing the street in China is more difficult than it would sound- traffic is crazy and pedestrians don’t necessarily have the right-of-way like we do in the U.S. We watched what the other people were doing though and eventually made it across!
Day 5 (Wed. 8/31)
Our class on Wednesday morning was learning how to do traditional Chinese painting. I really enjoyed this class! We painted cabbage, fish, shrimp, crabs, and chicks. I really wanted to learn how to paint the goldfish well, but of course my shrimp turned out better than anything else (and shrimp aren’t very pretty). Now that I kind of know how they paint those things though, I think I will try again some other time.
During the afternoon, we went to see the Olympic Green- the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Both structures have amazing architecture! When we were in the Bird’s Nest, we were able to rent Segway Scooters (I would suggest googling it if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and go around the race track. I enjoyed it a lot! The Water Cube would have been better, but they were building a stage over the pool when we were there so we didn’t even get to see what it looked like during the Olympics. It was still a cool building to see though.
(Bird's Nest)
(Inside the Water Cube)
We got money to get dinner on our own that night, so two of the other girls and I ended up trying the food at a restaurant called the Avocado Tree. It was basically like the Chinese equivalent to Chipotle, but it didn’t seem like the Chinese liked the food that much because the only Chinese people that walked in looked at the menu and left. However, we enjoyed the tacos despite their lack of Chinese-ness.
Day 6 (Thurs. 9/1)
Thursday morning’s class was calligraphy, which turns out to be harder than it looks. I tried to do the strokes just like our teacher, but they never seemed to look the same. I did get fairly good at writing my Chinese name though.
We visited the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon. The Temple of Heaven was beautiful, but I didn’t like it as much as the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace. It didn’t help that I was also very out-of-it on Thursday because I started to get a cold earlier in the week and it was almost at its worst on Thursday. Getting the cold was kind of funny, though, because it started with a sore throat, which isn’t that uncommon for foreigners to get in Beijing because of the air quality. After dinner, our amazing tour guide, Andy, brought me to a Chinese pharmacy to help me buy cold medicine. I could not have done it without him, so I was very grateful! I bought some pills for the cold and some cough syrup and it only cost about 5 U.S. dollars.
(Temple of Heaven)
Day 7 (Fri. 9/2)
Friday was our free day and my cold was in full swing, so I honestly didn’t do very much for most of the day. In the morning, I met Sue, a Chinese woman who I have been in touch with to help me with my One Question Project. She met me at our dorms and then we went out to lunch. We spent a few hours talking and it was really fun! It was really nice to finally meet her in person, but I was bummed that I was sick when I met her for the first time.
The rest of the day didn’t go as smoothly, though… We had checked out of our rooms earlier in the day, but kept one room (one of Sam & Annie’s rooms) to keep our bags in and to hang out in if we were staying at the dorms (one of the other girls and I didn’t feel like going out that day). I had been planning to nap in there because I was sick and really tired. But of course something had to go wrong so when we left the room for a short period of time, we were locked out. The people at the front desk told us we weren’t allowed back in unless we paid 80 kuai (yuan) because we were supposed to check out earlier. They wouldn’t even listen when Kia (the other girl who stayed at the dorms) tried to explain the situation to them. I had reached my breaking point because I was so tired and felt so sick, so I cried for a little while after they wouldn’t let us in. But there really wasn’t anything to do, so I eventually calmed down and just waited. It was really inconvenient though because all I had was my laptop- no tissues to blow my nose or to use in the bathroom (they don’t always have toilet paper in the bathrooms) and no water to drink. When Sam & Annie came back, Annie lent me some money to buy water, but things didn’t even go right then and I accidentally bought some (more expensive) sugar water type stuff. Before leaving, the front desk also claimed that 6 of our 7 rooms hadn’t checked out (which was not even remotely true) and they tried to charge one girl for a whole heating and air conditioning unit even though she didn’t do anything to it. Also, some of the guys in our group got ripped off by a fake (not legal) taxi driver earlier in the day. All in all, it wasn’t one of our best days in China.
